Blizzard is dead.

Diablo 3 doesn't even have a warrior class. What exactly am I playing? I know they wrote "diablo" all over it, but that's were the resemblance ends.

It looks like Dungeon Siege (and not any prettier.) And the worst of it is that the game looks cartoony. It seems that Blizzard has gone so far up its own ass that it puked out a comic book game.

The draw of Diablo as a child was that it felt like I was killing the devil. I was a warrior/mage/rogue storming the dungeons of Satan himself, and tearing them a new butt hole. It felt real because it took itself seriously. But now, all of Blizzards games have been heading further and further toward exagerated proportions and cartoon-like animations.

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How exactly would a person fit in that suit? His whole body would be in the torso, and his arms would have arms.

I don't want WoW with "Diablo" written on the box. I want Diablo 1, redone.

But you know, as much crap as I give them, at least I'll be able to play with my friends over Battle.N--oh fuck me.

Well, it is perfectly acceptable to not enjoy some of their releases. I wont be playing Diablo 3 any more than I played WoW.

I've loved past Blizzard titles, especially the original Diablo and StarCraft. I don't expect them to continue that type of originality though -- they've been rehashing the same stuff since those days, but adding more dopamine-triggering achievements, graphics, and what have you. They've just been making the same brain candy sweeter.

mhmmm....

Blizzard IS dead. It is now "Activision-Blizzard". And theres NO way you'll get any kind of originality or anything particularly interesting out of that behemoth.

It was obvious that I wasn't referring to Blizzard's financial status.

Blizzard, the company that we grew up loving because they made good games, is dead. They're nothing but corporate sods now. Which means we've lost one more of the last true PC game developers. It is the dawn of Xbox.NET.

Also, on the same coin, many of the original Blizzard employees that made the games we love have quit or been fired.

Yes! I should have paid more attention when all of BlizzardNorth essentially quit. They didn't end up making really good games (they weren't business men, I guess) but the fact that the core Diablo team was like "Fuck you, Blizzard" should have raised my brow.

I miss BlizzardNorth, ThroughTheLookingGlass Studios (Thief, System Shock), Bullfrog (Theme Hospital and Dungeon Keeper), and Black Isle Studios. I still have an Amercan McGee's Alice In Wonderland 2 to look forward to in the next 10 years though.

I just noticed this. Check out the censoring between the Beta and Release:
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Think of the children!

I always thought that that cigar was odd and misplaced myself. For some reason it looks to me like theres a face shield there, and the cigar pokes through it. Could be wrong though.

Also, the cigar in that first one just makes him look a little like some ship captain from the 20s. Not exactly flattering. To me at least he looks more bad-ass in the second version.

Their arms are robotic(humans fingers aren't in fingers of the suit, it's shown in some video, when they gear that crazy guy up), and I suppose about same with the legs..

Append: CIggaret for the win. In some video in original Starcraft a marine lifts up his "windshield", and it's all in smoke inside there cos' of a cigar. And that's damn cool!

I completely disagree

His face shield is up. You can see the rim at the top.

There is still some glass between his face and the "camera". You can easily see the glare coming from various light sources.

Smoking is still bad ass in entertainment media. In real life, it's unhealthy and stupid. Part of the appeal of heroes is that they don't follow the rules. Most of them do their own thing regardless of what's "best". The thing is, we never have to witness them breathing through a tube in their neck. Smoking is cool in entertainment media. In real life it's foolish and outdated.

Cigars

Hahaha

It even has more sources than many Wikipedia articles.

I'm not ready to make a judgement about D3 yet; but I can say that some of those graphics and sound effects reminded me of Super Smash Bros.: Brawl. (and I think brawl is the weakest of that series...)

Diablo 2 didn't have a Warrior class either.

I've so much to reply to you, that I don't even know what to start from.
First of all, it's up to the definition of what a "cool" is, there maybe various approaches. Unless they're(reasons why it's cool) bound to something specific, but psychologically general there's a good bunch of'em why it is cool.

That includes the said above regarding doing what's not supposed to be done, and ya hella shouldn't smoke in that suit, besides it looks funny cool!

Additional reason why it's cool, is cos' it really suits the situation:

While in a total war for complete annihilation versus a brutal alien race, while injecting reflex stimulating drugs in your veins to fire-n-run faster, you do not care about the health damage the pathetic ciggaret may deal, especially in such a far future, where the med science has somewhat advanced. Besides you're under mental pressure, and this cigga' may just keep you in shape mentally. I assure you, that there are antidepressants out there, which are hella worse than a cigga'.

However, did anyone notice they kept their drinks in the ice with the bomb? Gotta be somewhat against the rules, I also won't be too surprised it's all beamed with radiation, accordingly to the seals of the bomb.. Should be kinda rad-proof.. And it's also cool! Which doesn't mean one shouldn't do the same, but.. There are rules, but sometimes they get obsolete. You may not follow'em, u should just know'em. E.g: the red traffic-light with no moving car in the same square mile with u.

Overall, what I wanna say is that there are priorities.. E.g: some gangsta won't be talking like a literature lecturer, and a marine isn't gonna be keeping a "healthy lifestyle", he just won't bother(mostly). Would you ask a stinking soldier in Iraq why he hasn't taken shower for a week? I guess it's normal in certain cases, although unhealthy and uncomfortable for u and others.

Ooh, and my private additional reason for the coolness, is cos' I saw it for the first time while I was.. 10? yr old, just finished some mission vs the evil Zergs and earned me a new kewl cinematic

[edits took place]
Append:

I do not, and never have smoked.

You realize "Cool" is purely down to opinion. And my opinion is that it is not cool. Hell, my mom smokes. Are you saying she's cool?

Damn, I knew it'll be read faster than I fix it.. There were some many "not-clear" things before the edit, I also added few things in there..

I haven't seen your mom, but generally I dislike when women smoke.

sexist

yes, what happend with the darkness of the dungeons??
I was still a kid when playing D1, but I was scared s.hitless when the butcher came out Not many games have that dark and evil atmosphere anymore

I think there are two reasons for this stuff to be leaving the market:

A) It's harder to enhance that non-cartoonish stuff with fair graphics.
B) I guess majority of the consumers are kids, that have parents who are gonna shit their pants if their kid sees a marine with a cigarette..

Looks like asian MMORPG style. I want American western style in Diablo. With dungeons and ruins of course.

Bwuh

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I remember people complaining about the art-style in the concept art of StarCraft II, saying that it borrowed too many elements from WarCraft III or World of WarCraft.
Funny enough, most of the things people were complaining about were also present in the concept-art for the original StarCraft.

As for Diablo III, I say damn, yet another game I won't have time to play.

I get that this is mostly a rhetorical thread but...

How someone fits into the suit (besides the fact that it's a fantasy game, of course):
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And you know you're gonna play Diablo 3, despite its reach for mass (WoW) appeal.

You haven't read Starship Troopers, have you? The concept of powered exoskeleton was discussed there. The Mobile Infantry used such personal tanks dropped from the orbit as their primary ground weapon (and possibly the only one). It was a man enclosed inside a large man shaped suit.

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/10/11/12/1415246/Iron-Man-Is-Another-Step-Closer-To-a-Reality

Wrong. A warrior is not a barbarian class.

No. I knew I'd play Starcraft 2. It is a good game crippled by a horrible DRM-service.

Diablo 3 has nothing I want in a game. If you think I'm going to give Blizzard more money after my B.NET experience, you fail to see my ability to find other things to do with my time. I'll likely be out of college when it comes out. I do not plan on having enough time to play another Blizzard abortion of my childhood.

For perspective, a couple weeks ago we installed Diablo 1 again and played it for a couple days straight. It's still fun.

That's exactly what I'm talking about. How am I supposed to take a game seriously when the characters are running around like cartoons? If I wanted cartoon action, I can and will play TeamFortress 2 and I'll enjoy it. Valve knows how to make fun games.

Why wouldn't a marine keep a healthy lifestyle? Their performance depends on a healthy lifestyle. Body and mind need to be healthy and clear to perform their duties well. Obviously, in the midst of battle they aren't in complete control of how healthy their lifestyle is, but I'm sure most would do their best when they got back to base or returned home. You'd basically have to be in top physical conditioning to survive training, let alone keep up in battle.

In Canada and the USA, smoking has been shifting to the not-cool sector for years now. Sure, it's still overwhelmingly popular for rebelling teenagers, and criminals, but it's illegal to smoke inside businesses, even bars, now. The fact is that smoking isn't as cool today as it once was. If a young Hollywood celebrity is caught smoking now it could be grounds for bad press (which is still good press, but I digress). It's just not cool anymore. My brother is finally quitting for good now, I think.

I for one gladly welcome our nanny-state overlords! NOT

People don't seem to care that I don't want to die of lung cancer from second hand smoke, and belive it or not, I actually want to go outside now and then. Without the so called "nanny state" I would have to stay home all the time to avoid second hand smoke. Now I don't have to.

I'd bet you'd like the govt to revoke the laws on assult. Its the same thing. "The rights of your fist end where the rights of my face beings" -> "The rights of your nicotine habit end where the rights of my lungs begin".

I think it's a good law to have. Smoking is pretty silly when you think about it. Honestly, I've never enjoyed a cigarette in my life, and I've smoked enough of them to. Now a Cuban cigar tastes pretty damn good by comparison, but they're like $50 each and not exactly easy for you to get your hands on anyway, and supply would dictate that it would cost you more than $50. Anyway, even with a Cuban it isn't really a "good" taste. It's a bit "cooler", but still not really cool. I can't imagine that most women would be attracted to somebody smoking a cigar these days. In fact, when I see women smoking I'm immediately turned off.

This is one of the funniest arguments against smoking. "Second-hand smoke kills!" Here's something: Every single car that drives by you is producing a carcinogen out the exhaust pipe. Every. Single. One. You are breathing in second-hand death gas out of every car and you don't think twice at all. You don't think twice about sitting at a stop light with your windows down surrounded by idling cars. You don't think twice about standing behind a car. You have no idea how much carcinogen gases you breathe every day. But Jesus, protect us from these smokers! How will we survive their onslaught? Let's ignore welding gas, solder, flux, burning any plastics, and coal.

Why not just be honest and say "I don't like the smell." That's why I don't like it. I also hate that every damn smoker seems to use the world as his or her ashtray.

Have you ever seen someone in the military? You're being shot at every day. Who gives a shit if it's going to help you relax.

Not entirely, but I'd like to see the nanny state prosecute the criminals to a greater degree than the victims. I consider welfare leeches to be semi-criminal too. Stop clogging my lungs with the exhaust of heating your house with other peoples money.

[EDIT]

Why can't some enterprising young man open a "smoke-free" bar? If it's so desirable, he'll be swamped with business!

Second hand smoke is worse than car exhaust. Firstly, a perfect combustion would produce only water and carbon-dioxide. You can't survive by breathing either, but they won't kill you either (AFAIK, CO₂ is not poisonous to humans). Of course, no combustion engine is perfect so there are poisonous byproducts, such as carbon-monoxide (CO), but they're at a relatively small concentration. In fact, most exhaust smells good to me, which is generally not a sign of something that will kill you. Of course, combustion exhaust from billions and billions of machines can certainly do harm, but that's not really the same thing as inhaling the dissipating exhaust of a car or six.

Obviously, we know that being trapped with the exhaust of your car can kill you, but I would guess that it's because it's converting the oxygen required to breathe into carbon-dioxide, which isn't useful to breathe unless you're a plant.

Cigarette smoke is a lot worse for you due to all of the horrible chemicals they use during the tobacco growth and processing. I'm not an expert on the matter, but I know that inhaling second hand cigarette smoke (or Hell, filtered first-hand) is more than uncomfortable. If you've ever been in a room full of smoke then you'll probably recognize that your body considers it harmful. Your throat begins to seal up (unless you're a career smoker, in which case it's been convinced that it's "normal"). Honestly, I can't even visit my brother without my throat completely closing up, making it hurt for me to breath or speak. And that's within like 5 minutes. And I'm no virgin to smoking, as I've smoked plenty of cigarettes and cigars myself.

One is full of very harmful chemicals and the other produces mostly harmless chemicals.

Cigarettes don't help you to relax. They satisfy a craving, which makes your body stop saying "I NEED A CIGARETTE. I NEED A CIGARETTE. I NEED A CIGARETTE." Nobody has ever smoked a cigarette for the first time and thought, "Wow, this is so relaxing."

My dad used to yell at me and my sister for purposely sniffing the exhaust of a 1960's car that had just started up in the wintertime, choke full on, rich as hell. We thought it "smelled good". Even now, diesel fumes bring back fond memories of working down on the farm.

Then where were you when Diablo 2 was released? By all reason you should have been crying your head off back then, too, not to mention "giving up", since there is no Warrior class in that game either.

Most people still know an overwhelming number of friends that smoke. Those people are likely going to prefer going to a joint where they can smoke in the comfort and warmth of their seats instead of getting up to go stand in the subzero temperatures outside. The popular crowd invariably has influential smokers in it. If the government doesn't enforce it, a business that goes "smoke-free" will be an utter failure because so many people smoke. It would be a social stigma. It would be the uncool place to be based on the opinions of a select few. Choosing such a place would be disagreeing with your friends' decision to smoke, which they will likely take offensively. Besides, it doesn't really do you much good to go to one venue that's smoke-free if you've spent the past week in smoke-filled ones. Unless you propose that they start opening up two separate buildings for every business/event.

The fact is that the scientists, government, and most of the sensible people in the world recognize that cigarettes are overwhelmingly bad for you, but they also happen to be a "cool" thing to do, especially in high school when your body and mind are vulnerable, after which point you are likely addicted to smoking and can't stop. Since everyone can agree that smoking is bad for you and there really is no benefit at all, then it makes sense to start deterring people from smoking, and work towards a smoke-free future. You still have the right to smoke, but you have to do it where you aren't so directly harming others.

In Ontario, it's also against the law for businesses to advertise or display cigarettes in the open. They now have to keep them behind covers and not advertise at all. The aim is to not expose children to them as much. When I was a kid, most of my adult family members smoked, so it was just the cool thing to do. My brother and I used to get $1 every week from our grandfather to walk down to the nearest Mom & Pop and buy some candy. Invariably, we'd always max out on Popeye Cigarettes, and then spend whatever was left over on the next best thing (typically sour, gummy candy IIRC). The Popeye Cigarettes were essentially a white stick of sugar with a red end (simulating a lit cigarette). We typically wouldn't just eat the sticks, but we would pretend to be smoking them. Eventually, our parents caught on and stopped us from doing it (so we'd only do it when out of sight).

It really is the same thing. Cigarette/Cigar smoking in public is assault. And smoking is suicide. Both of which are, and have been illegal for quite a while. It just happens to take a bit longer than normal. Could even call it torture.

Cigarette smoke residue on clothing tends to make it harder for me to breathe, the smoke itself makes my asthma act up pretty fierce, and very little makes my asthma act up.

Yeah, I do, actually.

Anyway, I have nothing against people who smoke. They can do it as much as they please for all I care. As long as they're not bothering me that is.

Sorry to be on topic for once, but I'm not buying anything Blizzard until it stops bathing in a puddle of mediocrity.

StarCraft is still sold in all our local retail stores, despite it having little copy protection, the spawn feature (one copy = full lan party), and it being over 12 years old!

If you simply make the best games people will buy them for years to come. If you waste efforts on futile things, your game will suck. Then people like me will boycott your company over stupid things like no local lan play. No spawn is fine, but shit! Does everything have to validate through the internet?

Ditto. Or say, their own kids.

If you choose to smoke, or choose to live with someone who smokes, thats fine. Just don't force it on anyone else.

You are very wrong on this. Cigarette smoke smells good to people, but you shouldn't breathe it. Gasoline smells good to people but you shouldn't inhale it.

"Perfect combustion does not exist" to quote my Thermodynamics teacher. There are always unburnt biproducts of a combustion process. We only use perfect combustion as a baseline to calculate numbers then we go through the process again but with the assumption that the process isn't perfect.

As for the combustion biproducts, they're always present . NO2 results from having very high combustion temperatures (which are required for high Carnot efficiencies). You're literally ripping Nitrogen bonds apart in the air and recombining them with oxygen. Carbon monoxide is going to happen any time there is a region that is oxygen starved. The mixture could be oxygen rich and still not mix with every carbon atom because fuel mixtures are never completely homogeneous.

Also, car engines actually don't run with stoichiometric fuel ratios for much of their driving time. They often run rich or lean depending on load. Rich tends to reduce the chance of detonation and increase power because it ensures more fuel atoms reach oxygen atoms, but extra fuel atoms are left over. So every time you use full throttle, you are putting out significant emissions.

Well of course I wasn't directing it at you. It's more of the people who are hyper-sensitive to cigarettes but only because they've been trained that way. They don't apply the same logic to every other part of their lives.

Have you ever smoked a cigarette? Or even known someone who does?

Did I say that was the only reason, or was it implied to be apart of a bigger problem?

Care to answer my question? You make it sound like "wah no Warrior" is a new issue. I think you're just looking for things to whine about.

Why can't smokers move to a country with out these laws?

If anyone thinks you're going to buy Diablo 3 based on what's been said, then they fail at more important things than that!

How else will they know when you're playing it?

You mean... non-smokers? Those people who trained themselves to resist unhealthy, disgusting, expensive, smelly habits?

Firstly, we could say that about anything. In a perfect world, there would be no problems.

Burgers smell good to me, but the nanny state tells me the grease is bad for me. Some people think cigarette smoke smells good. This is hardly an argument at all.

You're wrong again. Car exhaust killing you has nothing to do withthe lack of oxygen...

* Nobody has ever played a video game for the first time and thought, "Wow, this is so relaxing."

• Nobody has ever written a program for the first time and thought, "Wow, this is so relaxing."

• Nobody has ever watched a movie for the first time and thought, "Wow, this is so relaxing."

• Nobody has ever drove a car for the first time and thought, "Wow, this is so relaxing."

• Nobody has ever done anything for the first time and thought, "Wow, this is so relaxing."

I was shocked to read this post of yours, even after considering that it was a post written by you.

Time for some Science! Carbon Monoxide is the killer here. It binds to your hemoglobin, preventing the transport of oxygen from your lungs to the rest of your body. Being trapped inside a garage with a running car raises the CO concentrations to toxic levels, starving your body of oxygen, while leaving the CO2 levels the same. Your body's choking response only occurs in the presence of increased CO2; you don't choke for lack of oxygen. Thus, your body runs out of oxygen and you lose consciousness without the typical involuntary choking reaction.

Carbon monoxide poisoning is more difficult with modern cars, though. A good old coal stove does a far better job.

EDIT: More science! CO is highly toxic, but your body will clear it out in time when given the chance, with no long term effects (unless you've become brain damaged for lack of oxygen). Long-term exposure to CO, on the other hand, can lead to a variety of aliments. Carbon monoxide poisoning.

You missed the most important point. Your over-reaction to smoking, and under-reaction to equally (if not more) harmful gases present in your daily life.

I never said I like smoke, or cigarettes.

This is just like people's over-reaction to germs. People freak out if you say, don't wash your hands in the bathroom. Yet, if you used a urinal, it's very likely that the faucet handle and the door handle have more germs than your genitals. People's hands and faces are more germ infested than their butts. People's kitchens are far more infested than their bathrooms. The silly fact is that people do not apply the scary reaction norm based on any logical rational at all. It's the look of being intelligent (avoiding germs!) without actually being it (you're not).

Washing your hands with plain water [and plain soup] removes a good 90% of germs. Water. Anti-bacterial soup is handed out like you need it to survive, and then you touch the door knob removing any sanitation you might have had. Meanwhile, we're actually making germs stronger because the only ones that survive are the ones immune to anti-bacterial soup. So we're breeding bacteria that we won't be able to fight in ~50 years. We're actually setting ourselves up for a massive epidemic in the future. But it's okay! We look like we know what we're doing.

People apply health concerns without any rational at all.

*Added line in square brackets.

If you can't tell that I'm dissatisfied with the entire product and it's provider, I'll just say it plainly: I'm dissatisfied with the entire product and its provider. If I end up bragging about how awesome D3 is next year, feel free to make me eat my words. But unless Blizzard has a huge change of heart, that simply won't be happening. The company that I loved (and loved me back) simply doesn't exist anymore.

Yes, people overreact to cancer. Dur. ITS FSCKING CANCER.

Correlation is not causation. Walking through a puff of smoke does not mean you will get cancer and die. Moreover, if it was, you would get cancer from the highway long before you got it from a smoker. Did you read my posts at all? Do you know how much gas is pushed through a typical engine driving for only an hour?

Urinals are disgusting. I hate using them. Half of the douchebags who use them don't flush, so you have to flush first and wait, and then you get splattered as you piss. I use them for convenience, not for hygenic reasons.

People (or, more specifically, the sheep in society) overreact to everything, especially if the media tells them to.

It's cancer! OMG OMG OMG. Everything gives you cancer these days - just look at the warnings coming out of the crackpot that is California. Plastic? Cancer. Sugar? Cancer. Tobacco? Cancer. Etc, etc, etc.

One great example that comes to mind is Swine Flu. Everyone freaking the fuck out, getting the highly controversial vaccines, etc, and very few people got sick. Then everyone freaked out because 'it was coming back' and.... nothing.

Another good example is Windows Vista. The media said it sucked, so by God, it must suck! I had my grandmother bitching about Vista on her new computer, saying how it sucked, etc. When I asked her for specifics, she came up with nothing. Then a few days later, she gave me a complaint - that it automatically updated itself. She wanted to be able to cancel out the updates (and never apply them), just like she had done on XP, and she was convinced that Microsoft was hacking into her computer to install the updates. After explaining that her computer did it on its own, and that nobody was getting in, I told her it was impossible to disable them.

You have to be consistent about these things. I can go searching now and find you causes in your house that are more likely to kill you than second hand smoking...

Wouldn't change much, you'd do everything to dismiss what I would say. Thats why I wont bother.

Walking through one repeatedly, every day for years, however does. Working, and living in a smoke filled environment does as well. I have asthma because my mom smoked.

Theres far more toxic chemicals in cigarette smoke than exhaust fumes. I think theres over 14 carcinogens in cigarette smoke, heres the short list of harmful chemicals:

• Benzene ^[1]

• Formaldehyde ^[2]

• Ammonia ^[3]

• Acetone ^[4]

• Arsenic ^[5]

• Hydrogen Cyanide ^[6]

So yeah. I get upset when people smoke around non-smokers. Its like saying "I hate myself, and you, so I'm going to kill us both".

Are you sure? It must be nice to have a 100% guarantee that lets you blame your mother's smoking, being able to rule out the possibility that you would have had asthma regardless.

So now people who smoke automatically hate themselves, and are out to kill you?

If they smoke around me, YES. If not, no.

It's not the number. It's the shear volume, and the volume you're exposed to for hours every day. When you see a smoker, you go "oh geez" and hold your breathe. You breathe readily as you sit in car exhaust every day. If you think exhaust is clean, open up an exhaust pipe and look at the inside. Then understand that that's only the stuff that stuck to the walls. The rest flew out the back, and just like dust accumulating on a desk, it went into your lungs.

Like bar-tenders have previously had to do for years on end? Or anyone else that works in a smoking environment?

And into the air, then dissipates. Cigarette smoke can't properly dissipate in an enclosed environment. Its akin to working in a mechanics shop with the doors closed, and cars running all day.

append:

No one else in my family has it. And my mom smoked up to 2 packs a day at one point iirc. In all likely hood, it was the smoking that did it. And I seem to recall hearing that she smoked a bit during pregnancy. double woo.

Are you serious with this garbage? I am disappoint. The amount of gas that you inhale sitting 10-20 feet from a directed source for thirty seconds (I don't know anyone who sits idling in traffic for "hours every day") is very obviously negligible compared to spending an evening mingling in a confined space with several dozen such sources. If you're a cab driver in New York or something, yeah, I'd say you're pretty off to keep the windows down all day every day.

Also, hot, quickly propelled vehicle exhaust dissipates very quickly in an open space (as hot, quickly propelled gasses do), especially compared to cigarette smoke which dissipates very slowly (due to the tons of particulate matter in the smoke, I assume).

I tried to find a visualization of car exhaust, to confirm the intuition that it doesn't form an enveloping cloud around the surrounding area in a few seconds, no luck. Anyone have any relevant information?

add: l0l at Blizzard sucks -> smoking debate.

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They chose to work there. I'm pretty sure they could grab another job anyplace else if they wanted.

Everyone did back then. Smoking during pregnancy doesn't lead to asthma, at least I've never heard so.

You cannot compare car exhaust of a car driving down a street to having to do night shift working in a smoky bar before the law change.

You had to spend next day being sick recuperating and your clothes stank of smoke and needed to be washed (pity if it was a suit).

[EDIT]

I'm not talking about working behind the bar. And yeah you're right they could just go unemployed. Pity about paying rent (unemployment benefit doesn't even cover it) and their children though.

Can you smell car exhaust? If so, you are unrefutably breathing carcinogens. Ever been to a gas station? If you can't smell it, that still doesn't necessarily mean you're not breathing it. Carbon Monoxide, for instance, is oderless. Shouldn't that be all the evidence I need to tell you you're breathing carcinogens? And if you're going to pull the "some carcinogens are worse than others" card, there's really nothing I can say to continue this discussion.

As for volume, if you don't believe me, start your car in your closed garage. Have your neighbor start smoking in his garage at the same time. Have him smoke as many as he can, as fast as he is willing. Be sure to tell me who lasts the longest. That won't address the carcinogenic qualities, or the dissipation, but reluctance to go forward with the example certainly demonstrations the volume we're talking about. Now multiply that by 100,000. Multiply it by 1,000,000. You've still not reached the amount of cars driving every day through your state.

If you wanted to, you could take the annual CO2 emmisions for cars in your country/state, find the average carcinogen concentrations for combustion in cars, add a correction factor (because most people don't take care of their cars so it'll be worse), and you'll have the amount of deadly, carcinogen gas pumped into your local atmosphere every day. Cigarettes are the least of your worries.

Or you could just compare the barrels of oil imported (which are all burned) with the amount of cigarettes sold. Barrels of oil may very well beat cartons sold.

Yeah, just like the poor strippers. They're forced to undress for men so that they can work their way through college.

Just because you can't smell it doesn't mean you didn't inhale it.

You inhale much less car exhaust, because it dissipates in the air.

I completely agree, and never suggested that A: we do not breathe car exhaust or B: that car exhaust does not contain carcinogens.

If you're going to pull the "breathing in some amount of carcinogens is the same as breathing an arbitrary amount of carcinogens" card, there's really nothing I can say to continue this discussion.

Come on man, you're killing me here. There is obviously no question that a vehicle produces more gas than a person. The entire point I was making is that we're exposed to exhaust for a much briefer period than cigarette smoke (assuming the bar/restaurant scenario), and that exhaust is allowed to freely disperse during that time, while the cigarette smoke is contained (as in your garage).

If you're going to pull the "doesn't everyone at a red light jump out of their car and stick the nearest tailpipe in their mouth" card, there's really nothing I can say to continue this discussion.

I've never bothered to do the math. If you have, please provide the information, also taking into account a solid definition for 'local atmosphere', which I imagine you greatly underestimate (and which I also imagine would make the carcinogen concentrations a non-issue for most people in most situations). I was arguing specifically the stop-light-exhaust-breathing scenario, but why not, it's an interesting proposition.

854 pounds (0.43 tons) of CO annually per vehicle, assuming a 'light truck', driven 14,000 miles a year (http://www.epa.gov/oms/consumer/f00013.htm) Couldn't find a reliable number of active vehicles, let's assume ten billion just to be safe (the info I'm finding suggests between 100 million and 1 billion). That's 4,300,000,000 tons of toxic CO annually, into 5,144,100,000,000,000 tons of atmosphere. That's a ratio of 0.000000836, less than 1 ppm (lower bound for toxicity is 667 ppm).

This is just simple, back-of-the-envelope type stuff, but you see the idea. And apparently around 75% of the mass of the atmosphere is in the lower layers, where things like vehicle emissions and cigarette smoke tend to dissipate.

Add: Oh, CO₂ output is around 20 times as much as CO (around 20 ppm in that lose model), but the unsafe concentration is around 45 times as high (30,000 ppm).

We'd still be pretty safe, even assuming all those toxic gases were collected in our local 1% of the atmosphere. (This is the 'people might be weenies, so let's just be careful' rating for CO₂, the similar rating for CO is 50 ppm, if memory serves.)

Add2: My reading suggests that carcinogens in exhaust (ozone and particulate) have a mostly local effect, when it comes to people. (Though with ten billion small trucks on the roads we might be in trouble, with around 76 ppb of ozone (safe levels are around 60 ppb). Although, once it leaves ground level it ceases to be harmful to people, so... )

@mabmab

Regarding marine's healthy lifestyle- the thinking is just not compatible with a battlefield, it's not matter of direct logic. Logic's just almost not there. In some Japanese army, which haven't seen a conflict for half a century, it might be relevant. In Vietnam I'd say some 95%+ were smokers(there gotta be statistic somewhere).

Regarding smoking coolness.. It's not matter of being cool. Whoever smokes to be "cool", is either some PR person or a very immature person. I don't find regular smoking cool overall, but in certain cases, especially in games or movies it is very much suiting the situation. Especially a cigar vs a cigarette.

Regarding passive smoking harm: I do believe car exhaust is worse, although it's matter of engine(and filters) quality and kind. Regarding a closing throat, it's only comes in effect if there's TOO MUCH smoke, which has nothing to do with chemicals. It's extremely dry here recently, hopefully the weather will be normal soon. I got such a thingy here, that makes the air humidity rise.. It ionizes the water and dumps in to air. I tend to breath right near it for a few breathes, very pleasant feeling. The throat closes however, although it's just water. Nothing harmful.

And about the calming effects cigarettes have on the military personnel.. And who has and has not smoked it for what reason, well I'm sure someone has very much smoked it for that reason. More than that, I'm sure many did that in the army, and many for the first time.

However, have you played SC? SC2? I've that feeling you gotta like that main alcoholic hero there, you seem to me much like him

@Chris

I just wondered, how old are you? What year in the college(CS student I assume), and how many left?
About passive smoking and cars nearby.. If you do not think about all these things mentioned with breather the car smoke.. It various from a person to person. I try to avoid breathing it, which includes standing on a distance from red traffic lights(no car yet ), and often holding down the breath for a while when some wrong bus goes away from a bus station.

>People apply health concerns without any rational at all.

Aaah.. I sooo much agree.

@Muse

>Why can't smokers move to a country with out these laws?

You're kiddin' aren't you?

Regarding asthma.. Well, you still can't be 100% sure. Although probably her smoking has raised the odds.

@fab

Well, Vista does suck. It has unjustified system resources hunger.

@Anomine

>add: l0l at Blizzard sucks -> smoking debate.

We're on A.cc.. ?

Of course. Look what I was replying to with that.

Ah, I see.. My bad.

Striking a Canadian police officer with a soap bubble is assault as well.

There's supposedly also a Deamon Hunter class (say YouTube comments), if that helps.

I think those suits look silly and wonder if he'd actually be able to hold the cigar or if he's stuck manipulating it with his lips or robotic arms. At least it's better than the protect-everything-except-the-head suit of Gears of War. Reminds me of the article: Mountains of Men: The Mythology of the Male Body in Video Games

I can definitely see why he'd be pissed that someone is blowing soap bubbles on him, and I'm not sure if he should put up with it.
I know that if someone started blowing soap bubbles on me I'll probably be annoyed and if he doesn't stop I'd get angry and assertive, not much differently than that police officer.

As for smoking, even that fact that it is a major nuisance is enough in my mind to prohibit people from smoking in confined locations and even crowded public locations (for example, smoking on me when I'm sitting in a bus stop and requiring me to leave my seat to avoid the smoke). It isn't much different from walking around in public completely naked, or carrying a megaphone and making a lot of noise (and both are likely to get the cops called on you)
I'd also prefer if parents were prohibited from smoking at home (to prevent them from setting a bad example and from potentially harming their children's health), but stopping that is not only impossible but quite ridiculous and invasive to your privacy.

Damn poor cute girl.. If she knew that cops of that rank are picked with low IQ*, on purpose, she wouldn't be as hit..

This book says it somewhere. Although it talks about U.S, probably Canada is similar story.

Append:
After looking it til the end, it looks more like some provocation perhaps.

Two Cubans, at least 50 Captain Blacks, and probably 40 filtered cigarettes. The cigarettes are virtually tasteless to me, and the smoke smells horrible. The Captain Blacks taste OK, because I always get the sweet "flavor", but even then I mostly just smoked them for the "coolness" of the thicker smoke. The Cubans actually tasted pretty good (it's so pure that you can actually taste that it's a plant!), but that's relatively speaking. A burger or fries or, Hell, a hot dog tastes better.

• Playing video games isn't relaxing.

• Writing programs isn't relaxing.

• Watching a movie isn't relaxing.

• Driving a car isn't relaxing.

Video games generally require mental effort, and some even require physical effort. Writing programs usually requires even more mental effort. Watching a movie is relatively relaxing, assuming you don't care too much about what it is you're watching (personally, my mind is pretty busy when I'm watching a movie, and I expect anybody watching one for the first time would also be busy taking it all in). Usually when I leave a movie theater I'm all "fired up", the furthest thing from relaxed. Driving a car is clearly not relaxing. It also requires physical and mental effort. These things are enjoyable (for many people), but usually not relaxing.

If those activities were relaxing then you would be able to do them to calm down when you're batshit crazy stressed out. Relaxing is laying back and breathing deeply, possibly with some music, and letting your mind slow down.

Just because unintelligent people fail to do it doesn't mean that every germ-conscious person's actions are futile. For example, I saw an episode of MythBusters where they wanted to test just how much germs spread when a sick person interacts with people. They invited the MythBuster team, as well as 3 blind participants, to a table for a social experiment. Initially, nobody except for Adam and Jamie knew about the actual test (I don't think Jamie participated). Adam hid a dripping canister of a normally invisible liquid that would drip down the side of his nose to simulate having a running nose (he would then have to keep wiping it up). He was the host of the party, so initially he handed things out to people, etc. His intention was to act normally, as most people normally do. In the end, they turned on the ultraviolet (or whatever) lights to make the liquid visible and it was EVERYWHERE. The entire table was covered with it, as were the hands and faces of most participants at the table. All except for Carrie, who admitted to being an actual "germophobe". She said that she just naturally implemented all of her natural behaviors and she ended up avoiding almost all of the fake germs without knowing about it. In the second experiment, they started fresh again and explained to everybody how the experiment worked. Then they all explicitly tried not to get the germs on them. Instead of Adam handing stuff out, he asked other people to. The germs spread much less that way, and were mostly just all over Adam.

Or you could be like every other guy and just not flush. Aim at the sides, not at the water, and you won't get splashed. You're not touching it so it's not going to hurt you (except for the smell, but generally that's the least of your worries in a washroom). It's not rocket science. If you think that's bad, women's washrooms are statically much worse.

QFT. Car exhaust is very likely worse for you than cigarette smoke, but you don't inhale as much of it because it's typically released into the atmosphere unhindered, and dissipates much quicker. Most people, when not prohibited, smoke indoors where the smoke really can't dissipate easily. Additionally, you very rarely find yourself trapped in the exhaust of an automobile. You can generally move to get away from it. When it comes to cigarette smoke, that usually requires you to walk away from people, essentially making you anti-social. A notable exception would be rush hour traffic in a major city, where there is a lot more exhaust around you and nowhere to go. That is already recognized as a health concern, however.

My dad used to smoke in the car when I was young. I would always sit behind him. He would crack the window, but I can say from experience that it didn't matter because the smoke still came right back in my face. I was also diagnosed with asthma and used to have inhalers. I haven't needed them in a long time though, perhaps because he quit. My brother, on the other hand, has been smoking for 10 years or so, and now he has been diagnosed with asthma and was prescribed inhalers.

Agreed. She was being a brat and daddy warned her to stop. If she was blowing the bubbles on me then I would have said the same thing (except I wouldn't have a badge, so she'd probably keep doing it until things escalated and I was arrested). Fuck that bitch.

That said, it does appear that the police were mistreating people, and wrongly arresting them, etc (you can see more by following a link displayed in that video). Allegedly, a criminal defense attorney that lives in the area was asked to help, so she came by and was subsequently detained as well. She said she witnessed the police arresting people without cause, for example, because they had a bandanna or a defense attorney's number written on their arm. She said the people were also told that they could leave (eventually) only if they allowed the police to search all of their belongings. The criminal defense attorney said that it was a major breech of the charter of rights. One woman said that in front of everyone the police lifted up her shirt and bra, exposing her to the crowd, claiming to have been searching her (for tits, I'm guessing).

I would really like to see this defense attorney that was in the midst of this actually take action and get a few 10s of police suspended or fired, if not criminally charged.

The problem is that 95% of communication is non-verbal. When a crowd gathers to "stick it to The Man", police begin to fear for their own safety, and begin to return the body language back. People start yelling at the police, and the police understandably begin to feel threatened. Eventually, they return the intimidation right back at the crowd, and eventually it spirals into arrests and wrongful searches and assaults. Nobody is thinking clearly.

That said, the reason for the police's presence in the first place doesn't seem clear to me. I'm not sure why they were even there. The defense attorney seemed to make it sound like they were there for "surveillance", as if they were looking for something that wasn't really there. Or perhaps their intention was to protect the G20 submit, but from what I'm not sure. Perhaps politics was afraid of terrorist actions or something. Sadly, I don't think that anybody is really around to do checks and balances... And good luck to any Canadian citizen that tries take on the police, or government, for that matter. We just don't have rights, or lawyers to defend those rights, here. As evidenced by the defense attorney who was held by the police and presumably did nothing about it afterward.

Assuming the police aren't corrupt and had good intentions, they should train to remain calm and not communicate with the crowd (that only gets people angrier). That way, they should be able to remain collected until somebody actually does push the limits and deserves to be arrested. That said, they should have called people in to make contact with the crowd (non-police spokespersons, for example, just to explain what is going on in a calm voice and kindly ask the people to remain calm).

Meh... People are fucking stupid.

The last word in the sentence is redundant.

Append:
bammcaig, the first @ relates to you..

Yeah, I know. I caught that in another thread. I just don't have much else to add to it. In any case, when I say marine, I'm thinking of the U.S. marines.

Of course, smoking is destructive and even somewhat attention-seeking behavior, so somebody whose life sucks, or who wants attention, is more likely to smoke. I don't think that too many U.S. marines would smoke these days, but I don't have any proof to back up that assumption. At least, I don't think it would be disproportionate to the rest of the population. If anything, I would think that proportionally fewer marines would smoke when compared to the rest of the population.

I pointed you out to that post, cos' there was just 1 thing actually stayed in my mind.. Did you play any Starcrafts?

Never.

All of those things are relaxing to me. I never let myself get that stressed out, but I wouldn't even bother to do most of those things if it wasn't relaxing.

You still get splashed...

I can tell when posts become two pages long that we've really lost our ability (as a whole) to keep a rational discussion.

My main points are:
1. Car exhaust contains significant carcinogens.
2. You breathe it without realizing it.
3. The average person is exposed more often to it than cigarette smoke.
4. People vilify cigarettes and don't even notice car exhaust.

Points 1 and 2 are verified enough by the following BBC article:

[correction]

Starcraft II Marines are quite a bit different. Firstly, the back story of Starcraft implies that the majority of marines are convicts who are only suited up and fighting because it beats sitting in a prison cell.

<ontopic>
I also read that Diablo 3 will not have a paladin class which I am a little saddened about. I'll probably still get the game though.

Was type568 talking about marines in the game or in real life? I thought it was the latter...

Lost it? You have to have it to lose it. All discussions end like this on Allegro.cc. There was never a rational discussion. Just back and forth, everybody jibber-jabbering.

This is why I didn't bother.

That's a critical number to know for smoking for comparison. My cursory research shows that this number can be much higher depending on what you consider to be death from smoking. I'd like you to find the number so there is a consistent bias.

My grandfather has stopped smoking 40 years ago. He died of lung cancer. Was it because of his smoking or was it just random? How do you differentiate between the two?

OK, how do you get those numbers? How do you decide the cancer was caused by smoking?

Another one, how do you decide someone has died of second hand smoking? This is even more puzzling.

Why do you have to compare death numbers? As long as both are significant amounts, both are significant things to consider for your overall health.

However, I just found evidence contrary to my thoughts:

And I'll give them that. But I am suspect about their use of a "low emission diesel engine" instead of typical gas or diesel engine with 100,000 miles of wear on it. My bias detector is ringing until I finish reading exactly how they conducted their research. (Engine wear and upkeep is very important to what we're addressing here.) This also does not consider any load applications, but merely idling.

To follow that up:

So they are comparable.

They compared 3 cigarettes to an idling 2.0 liter "ECO" turbodiesel in good condition. Most cars (in the USA) are not 2.0L turbodiesels. They're large gasoline engines in cars, and larger diesel in trucks. They're also not in good upkeep and the article even states that these contribute much more of the total volume of pollution.

So at this point, we know many people die every year from pollution caused directly by cars. And we also know that most people don't think twice about it. So doesn't my original point that people "over-react" to cigarettes (since you won't die from one) and "under-react" to car exhaust (because you don't think at all) hold water?

Except that people do die from diseases caused by smoking cigarettes... And many people also die from long-term exposure to second-hand cigarette smoke.

Again, the difference is that while people generally don't seal themselves in a garage with a running engine (indeed, any commercial garage should have exhaust hoses and fans), people do regularly seal themselves (and others) in a room with lit cigarettes.

I don't believe that I've inhaled as many poisonous gases from car exhaust as cigarette smoke (and there were times in my youth when I would intentionally stand behind a car that was warming up in the winter ). Then again, I've lived in the country nearly all of my life, where there aren't nearly as many motorists as most other members probably live among.

I'm sure I've been exposed to enough exhaust to have done some harm, but not nearly as much harm as my exposure to 20 years worth of cigarette smoke has done.

Looks like he was mostly referring to the marines in Starcraft. He did mention soldiers in Iraq, but that was more about having a potentially unhealthy lifestyle probably due to circumstances...

Getting back to the original argument, I'm really struggling to see what you are crying about. The Barbarian class is a Warrior class as far as I'm concerned. Could you explain what out-of-context definition you are applying here to get yourself so worked up? As to "cartoonish", I don't see what you're getting at here either. Maybe you don't like the above average quality of the animation? - in which case I think you'll just have to deal with the fact that Blizzard can afford the best animators, and so they may as well use them.

OP reminds me of this ...

{"name":"20080806.jpg","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/1\/c\/1c78622ba43c58d19dd47fd92b69089f.jpg","w":750,"h":376,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/1\/c\/1c78622ba43c58d19dd47fd92b69089f"}

Car accidents kill more people than guns, but you don't hear people crying to eliminate cars as a result. That's because so many people have one that it makes it OK somehow. A minority doesn't stand a chance of being left alone.

You're looking at the percentages wrong.

• 2.4% of drivers get killed in auto accidents.

• 86.7% of smokers die of lung cancer.

The Wikipedia page on "List of causes of death by rate" shows that lung cancer just barely beats out auto accidents, by less than one percent.

[EDIT]

And when passengers in a car die, aren't they victims of "second hand death-by-accident"? Think of the children!

Well there's not much point in arguing about car exhausts since we'll automatically be rid of them some time this century. At least most of them.

Unless biofuel takes over most of the fuel market ofcourse, I don't know how dangerous that is...

How do you determine if a cancerous tumor is caused by cigarettes?

IT JUST IS!

Of that 86.7%, 94.1% were directly due to smoking.

Oh, I get what you did there. I wont bite this time.

Warriors (in Diablo) cast magic. They're knights. They're not walking brutes. There's a sense of intelligently calculated death handed out by them. Barbarians are brutes who run around and smash things. They burn women and rape Churches. It's like the incredible Hulk. Boring. "Hey! What did he do?" "He smashed him." "What about the last time?" "He smashed him." "And the time before that?" "He smashed him."

I was dissapointed in Diablo 2. I'm completely uninterested in Diablo 3's comic revamb for reasons I've already stated.

Yes! But you're missing the point! The point is that you react to that danger. You do not react to the danger of car exhaust! You even said you stand in front of it in the winter!

I've already cited an article that implies that doesn't matter. Smog wouldn't exist if pollution didn't exist, and the BBC article already stated that people die all the time due to pollution caused illnesses.

How are you going to compare something you weren't trained to pay attention to, to something you've been told you're whole life to be afraid of?

If you're around 20 years of cigarette smoking, well clearly you're going to have significant problems from that over car exhaust. But most people here bump into a smoker a couple times a day maximum. They however spend a good portion of their day driving, walking near cars, and in the volume of pollution from cars. If you want an example of air pollution, take the Great Smokey Mountains.

{"name":"smokies4.jpg","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/9\/a\/9a71ddb5616b27c6a729acfe54cde6a1.jpg","w":430,"h":85,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/9\/a\/9a71ddb5616b27c6a729acfe54cde6a1"}

There are relatively zero cars in the Smokey Mountains. But that pollution came from somewhere! So we have a place with almost no locally produced pollution, and end up with pollution. How much more so will your local town or city be at the source of the pollution?

I think that it's safe to say that compared to the pollution that the local steel plant produces, cars are a relatively negligible source (in my area). Of course, everybody that lives downwind of it is fully aware of the air pollution. You can't not be. There's a noticeable drop in air quality most days as you pass through the west-side of town, at least in my experience. I would say that living in that area is probably going to have a major effect on a person's health over the course of 20 years, but I can't say whether it would be worse than smoking (or being regularly exposed to second-hand cigarette smoke) for that same duration.

Regarding the marines- I mentioned both SC2 marines & U.S, though those in SC2 have their conditions severely worse, hence they have a kind of justification to smoke. Besides they smoke cigars, not cigarettes.

Lies.

If a smoker doesn't die from lung cancer, he's not doing it right.

I smoke, you all want me statistically dead ?

I want you statistically fed!

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=statistics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistics
http://webtech.kennesaw.edu/jcheek4/statistics.html
http://42explore.com/statistics.htm

lοl

Append: Finally found a proper o.

They are recruiting people for a console team, I guess that's the final nail in the coffin.

Yeah, because Diablo, Warcraft II and Starcraft were never ported to consoles. And Blizzard always used to make PC games.

Oh wait.

Ported, yeah. What I fear is that they will steer the development of the game towards the console interface requirements (Oblivion, anyone?). I guess we will have to wait and see, but I'm leery about it to say the least.

They already tried once with Starcraft: Ghost. It was going to be N64 only and I think I recall everyone being angry at that notion. But these days with Activision steering them, I can actually see this becoming a reality. Perhaps PC gaming is dying and Blizzard wants a bigger piece of the casual gamer pie.

Imagine Starcraft: Wii! It has gamecube-era graphics, and you can swing your arm to command your army where to go. "Go over there!" you exclaim proudly, as your siege tanks begin moving. As the Zerg commander, you can also push wildly back and fourth into the air to help the creep come out of the ground!

ಠ_ಠ

This has been going on for years. Consoles have a standardized hardware setup which makes programming much easier. Think of how easy it is to program something that works on your computer, and if everybody else had a clone of your computer. Also, it's much harder to pirate games.

Well, as companies move away from PC it means business gets better for those who stay on PC. Less competition FTW.

Maybe I should take up smoking to lower the probability that I'll die from something other than lung cancer. There are a lot of other ways to die, and by the sounds of things smoker have a significantly reduced chance of dieing from any of them (other than lung cancer).

Unfortunately, 93.3% of smokers die before they turn 40.

And 97.325234% of all statistics are made up.

I'm 100% sure that Matthew is telling tales ^^

>Unfortunately, 93.3% of smokers die before they turn 40.

I can just look around at the aged smokers to find out it's bullshit..

63.1% of people on this forum still give in to Matthews taunts.

Wrinkly Old Smoker: "Hey! The doc just told me I have the body of a 35 year old!"
Fresh Faced Kid: "So how old are you?"
Wrinkly Old Smoker: "Uh... 23..."

Seems the oldest living man only stopped smoking when he was 103.

17.4% think Matthew looks like his avatar.

Yeah, well 66 percent of people aren't the other 34

If the lung cancer isn't reason enough, how about the impotence?

Also from your article:

My latest test said that I don't have any type of HIV. As I'm a smoker, I'm perhaps more subject to lung tumor, but at least I'll avoid this one:

That looks like cheese on toast with a splash of worcester sauce (posh people call it welsh rarebit)

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TFA said they had less sex without specifying a reason. Reasons could range from time constraints "Hey, ya wanna do it?", "Sure, right after this cigarette", "Humph! You're sleeping on the bed tonight!", to being too tired due to lack of cardiovascular health.

A smoker told me that as a result of smoking they require an injection in their junk to get it up (and I'm talking like late 20s or 30s)!

I'm 28 and my junk is just waiting for your review.

Cm'on BamBam, I'm French, I drink wine all time, I have a bloody blood pressure all the time.

If you don't want all these silly things to happen to you, all these things you told, then don't smoke.

That was kind of my point...

And so, are you me ?

Don't come and tell me what to do. You brat.

I'll ask if I need help about my future lung ^^

That's the rub, liberals think society should take care of everybody and conservatives (should) think people should have personal responsibility.

I didn't tell you what to do... Vous gosse.

You thought you were the first one to tell him smoking is bad?

[EDIT]

bambam edited, trying to avoid looking foolish.

People can't have personal responsibility, it's against their nature.

Then we'll perish while saying "What have you done for me lately?"

Humans have survived without a smidgen of personal responsibility for thousands of years. It's not something that will suddenly kill us.

At least they scrounged their own nuts and berries when they got hungry enough.

They still do. Though most times its for Twinkies and Ho-Hos.

...and when they ran out of people to invade/steal from.

You might find this informative.

Ewwwwwwwww...

Huh? These words seem to change meaning every time I let my mind wander... I would have said that liberals think people should have the liberty - and thus not be too constrained by society - and that conservatives just think that any changes to society - laws, conventions, and so on - should happen slowly (or not at all). Conservatives want to conserve the old ways. Those two values, liberal and conservative, aren't even in conflict in a society that is already liberal.

Now, that's my understanding of the words. Could someone explain to me why people (particularly Americans) often seem to mean something completely different and how such different meaning are justified?

In Australia, one of the two main political parties is called the Liberal party, and they are usually described as being a conservative party. They seem to be liberal about some issues and not others (and some people within the party complain that the party isn't liberal enough). So with that in mind I can see how calling someone a Liberal is different to calling them a liberal; but the US doesn't have that particular problem...

I saw that it was quoting from Ayn Rand, and immediately closed it. There is no better way of getting me to ignore something or someone than having them be associated with her nonsense.

I'm not sure the "why" is important, unless you are just curious.

Conservative vs liberal in the USA generally has to do with government spending on social programs. e.g., Somebody who is for government healthcare would be called a liberal. Being branded as "liberal" is traditionally conservative rhetoric. Most "liberals" wouldn't go about calling themselves liberal because of its negative connotations.

The same people who call themselves conservatives are generally for big spending on military, so it's really just a misnomer designed to make one sound good to the public. Conservatives are also usually people who are anti-marijuana, anti-same sex marrage, etc.

Means liberal are for slavery and racial prejudices?

The words that political parties use to describe themselves mean nothing.
Except of course when they first start out.

A totally fresh party picks words that actually describe what they're about. But as the years pass, the party changes into greedy coward bastards but they don't change how they describe themselves.

AFAIK, the original meaning of "liberal" meant "try new stuff to see if that fixes things" and "conservative" meant "don't rock the boat too hard, any changes will be small and infrequent". Of course this "Great Society" junk has been around since the days of FDR, but the masses have discovered they can vote themselves bread and circuses.

[EDIT]

Scared of looking at something lest it sway you? Cover your ears and yell "La la la! I can't hear you!"