james3

"Nor did he go to North Vietnam and praise its leaders (as Snowden did in Russia)" This is misleading and ignores the differences between Snowden's situation and Ellsberg's situation, the biggest difference being that we are not at war with China.

One might say being an informed consumer is a moral imperative, because investing time and energy into being informed sure doesn't provide a competitive advantage.

Thats a huge 'what if'. And it's also assuming that there is money to be made with 3D printed clothing in the fashion industry.

What are their defensive requirements then? As far as I know Australia does not have any island territories not close the it's mainland. Would range really be a problem for Australia's defensive needs?

would be a serious stretch goal

I have never read Hobbes but it sounds like his notion 'Common Power' could be more than a governing entity. Although trade is done peacefully without bloodshed I think that smaller societies realize that refusal to go along with larger societies' best interest would mean war, obviously this would not be good for the smaller society. So smaller societies co-operate and trade because they know they are better off doing so.

Equivocating isn't a bad thing, and I don't see how OP can be described as equivocating. He made his position quite clear...

my feeble mind does not understand "See who votes like who in congress". there is no explanation of the site other than those few words.

thanks for the neg reps, really shows your attitude towards newcomers

there is no downvoting

I think personal characterizations have no place in the discussion of public characters, as these can only ever be opinions that are unable to be proven true or false. They only serve to derail a discussion when the argument turns away from one's favor, and is a very dishonest thing to do. Shame on you snowwrestler.

Thank you, really. I don't think i have ever seen someone provide citations outside of power-point presentations at school lol, definitely appreciate the response and thanks again.

     Then i guess i should have a much more vague yet precise question. 

     Going off your last sentence, it seems that you may have misunderstood me. I know that there is no such thing as the 'best' tool, best strategy or best language or what have you. 
     My dad owns a workshop filled with hundreds of tools and machines. There is simply no best tool, each tool or machine is designed for a very specific use in a very specific situation and from what I have read on HN that seems to be the case with programming as well. 
     I remember reading an article linked on HN discussing different programming languages and one quote in particular shocked me, "what can be done in one language may take two lines of code, but done in another the same task can take a thousand lines of code." This is what led me to ask the question 'what language should i learn.'
     I'll do my best to further describe what i want to accomplish, but first watch this video of a program called gource    http://bit.ly/UHcc9w

     From what i have read about gource it seems that two rules define the interaction between the dots and the lines to create very complex and sometimes mesmerizing behavior. 
     A) All dots project a repelling force which only affects other dots
     B) Lines, which represent file directories, provide a sort of skeleton between dots. They are modeled with an attracting force affecting each dot on either end of a line.

     What I want to do is create (or find) software which allows users to quickly and easily create simulations of objects in an environment which can also be defined by the user. (think mine-craft, but you can now play god with the laws of physics, create new sets of rules, forces ect.)

http://bit.ly/UHentV But i would want this program to operate on two levels of complexity. I would want to have fun and experiment with familiar concepts, like gravity, wind, light, ect. but in an easy and accessible way. However i would also want the ability to create abstract system with odd rules defined by modifiers, object archetypes, environmental effects and object states. I want to replicate the behavior of a light wave with all the glorious physics equations which would come along with that. I would want the software to be flexible. For a very rough idea of what i have in mind look at the scribblenauts unlimited object attribute editor here http://bit.ly/11ts1n7

sorry for the wall of text, i did my best to explain.

or ill do something stupid and try to learn 2 languages at once :) thanks

i have a very specific idea in mind, but im not going to divulge it to the world. i described what i thought was relevant to one of my questions: which programming language would be best/easiest to write my concept in.