Category Archives: Transhuman News

Boris Groys The Post-human Condition according to Alexandre Kojeve... July 1 2014
Boris Groys The Post-human Condition according to Alexandre Kojeve: Life after the End of Love July 1 2014 According to Kojeve, the post-historical reality...

By: cultural.anthropology.ncca

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Boris Groys The Post-human Condition according to Alexandre Kojeve... July 1 2014 - Video

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I wanted the Halo weapons to have depth, so I began thinking about all the guns that were in the matrix. I needed to understand what they were, and how they fit into the design.

The Human weapons were easy to understand. Im a Human, and I know what we use guns for.But the weapons used by the aliens of the Covenant were another matter. The easiest place to start would be to simply say that the alien guns were simply analogs to the Human weapons on the matrix. The pistols, assault rifles etc. could bebasically the same, only with different visual presentation. Easy, yes. But that seemed like a huge missed opportunity to add depth and richness to the game. So I started thinking why would the Covenant choose these particularweapons in the first place?

We (Humans) have guns. And once guns were developed, Humans developed systems to protect people from bullets (bullet proof vests, riot shields etc.) And then in the relentless march of progress, people invented ways to kill other people inside of their body armor (armor piercing bullets etc.)Remember that at the time there wasn't a lot of settled "lore" about the game story. I decided that in my model, Human Spartan armor was created as a desperate response to the Covenant attacks. It had similar functions, like a personal shield, but was based on different technology.

So how about the Covenant?

There were some notes about the bad guys and their guns, but the honest truth was that the aliens shot light-up bolts of energy because they looked a lot more visually impressive coming towards the player on screen. If the bad guys shot nearly invisible bullets and you couldn't see them coming at you, it would be a total drag every time you died. But just knowing that they were colored lights wasn't going to helpme balance my combat data.

Clearly they had guns. And they had an equivalent to our body armor personal energy shields. I could imagine Covenant warriors facing off against enemies across the universe with their plasma weapons blazing. Or more specifically, their PlasmaRifles. As an poor man's analog to the Human pistol, the Plasma Pistol was a pretty dull thing, only useful as a desperation choice forone of the two gun slots you were limited to. I stared at the various data fields in the Halo toolset for quite a while, trying to imagine what to do with the Plasma Pistol to make it cool. And then a question occurred to me: What if the Covenant had to fight an enemy with shields like their own? Or what if they had to fight themselves?Theyd need their own armor-piercing capability.

In the Halo tools, every projectile had a shield damage value. Most were set so that they would damage shields at a rate that matched the damage that their bullets would do to the player's health bar. None of the projectiles were really aggressively balanced against shields. And you know how I feel about data balance in a matrix! I started to experiment with making Plasma Pistol bullets designed to specifically shred shields. It was a snap to make a projectile that blew them off quickly, but then it seemed overpowered to also make those bullets do good levelsof body damage as well. Then it occurred to me: maybe the shield-shredding effect could be assigned to a different bullet. The one assigned to the secondary fire-mode for the gun the overcharge.

This proved to be very fun. In my early playtests, I'd grab the Plasma Pistol and use the overcharge specifically to blow up the shields on enemies that I ran across. But it was frustrating when I missed the overcharged shot (full disclosure: I am a much better designer than I am a player) So to compensate, I gave the shield-busting projectile aterrifyingamount of magnetism so that it would track towards whatever I shot it at. I loved it I could overcharge the Plasma Pistol and let the shot fly, and it would whip around corners and blast targets, stripping off their shields just as I came running in behind and mowed 'em down!

See the article here:
Weapon balance in Halo: Combat Evolved

United States Senators stood up for what they believed in todayand it wasnt pretty. During a debate over construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, intended to carry oil from Canada to the United States, the Senate voted on an amendmentjust for show, reallyon whether climate change is real and not a hoax. Easy questioneveryone said yes, its real. (Well, not everyone. Good job, Senator Roger Wicker, Republican from Missouri. You do not believe science.) But then Brian Schatz, Democrat from Hawaii, decided to push the issue. He introduced another amendment adding that human activity was a significant contributor to the aforementioned climate change. And the Senate voted again.

The results? Ahem. Fifty US senators affirmed that they indeed do believe that the activities of human beings contribute to climate change. OK. But 49 senatorsfully half the upper house that represents our grand republicdo not. So, hey, you go out there and burn whatever carbon you want to? Not sure what to make of that. But we thought you might want to know just which representatives have absolved you of your responsibility to the planet. So heres a listof the senators who think climate change is some other species problem, and then the senators who wish wed maybe do something about it.

Voted against the amendment (nayhuman activities dont contribute to climate change)

Barrasso, John (R WY) Blunt, Roy (R MO) Boozman, John (R AR) Burr, Richard (R NC) Capito, Shelley Moore (R WV) Cassidy, Bill (R LA) Coats, Daniel (R IN) Cochran, Thad (R MS) Corker, Bob (R TN) Cornyn, John (R TX) Cotton, Tom (R AR) Crapo, Mike (R ID) Cruz, Ted (R TX) Daines, Steve (R MT) Enzi, Michael B. (R WY) Ernst, Joni (R IA) Fischer, Deb (R NE) Flake, Jeff (R AZ) Gardner, Cory (R CO) Grassley, Chuck (R IA) Hatch, Orrin G. (R UT) Heller, Dean (R NV) Hoeven, John (R ND) Inhofe, James M. (R OK) Isakson, Johnny (R GA) Johnson, Ron (R WI) Lankford, James (R OK) Lee, Mike (R UT) McCain, John (R AZ) McConnell, Mitch (R KY) Moran, Jerry (R KS) Murkowski, Lisa (R AK) Paul, Rand (R KY) Perdue, David (R GA) Portman, Rob (R OH) Risch, James E. (R ID) Roberts, Pat (R KS) Rounds, Mike (R SD) Rubio, Marco (R FL) Sasse, Ben (R NE) Scott, Tim (R SC) Sessions, Jeff (R AL) Shelby, Richard C. (R AL) Sullivan, Daniel (R AK) Thune, John (R SD) Tillis, Thom (R NC) Toomey, Patrick J. (R PA) Vitter, David (R LA) Wicker, Roger F. (R MS)

Voted for the amendment (yea human activities contribute to climate change)

Alexander, Lamar (R TN) Ayotte, Kelly (R NH) Baldwin, Tammy (D WI) Bennet, Michael F. (D CO) Blumenthal, Richard (D CT) Booker, Cory A. (D NJ) Boxer, Barbara (D CA) Brown, Sherrod (D OH) Cantwell, Maria (D WA) Cardin, Benjamin L. (D MD) Carper, Thomas R. (D DE) Casey, Robert P., Jr. (D PA) Collins, Susan M. (R ME) Coons, Christopher A. (D DE) Donnelly, Joe (D IN) Durbin, Richard J. (D IL) Feinstein, Dianne (D CA) Franken, Al (D MN) Gillibrand, Kirsten E. (D NY) Graham, Lindsey (R SC) Heinrich, Martin (D NM) Heitkamp, Heidi (D ND) Hirono, Mazie K. (D HI) Kaine, Tim (D VA) King, Angus S., Jr. (I ME) Kirk, Mark (R IL) Klobuchar, Amy (D MN) Leahy, Patrick J. (D VT) Manchin, Joe, III (D WV) Markey, Edward J.(D MA) McCaskill, Claire (D MO) Menendez, Robert (D NJ) Merkley, Jeff (D OR) Mikulski, Barbara A. (D MD) Murphy, Christopher (D CT) Murray, Patty (D WA) Nelson, Bill (D FL) Peters, Gary (D MI) Reed, Jack (D RI) Sanders, Bernard (I VT) Schatz, Brian (D HI) Schumer, Charles E. (D NY) Shaheen, Jeanne (D NH) Stabenow, Debbie (D MI) Tester, Jon (D MT) Udall, Tom (D NM) Warner, Mark R. (D VA) Warren, Elizabeth (D MA) Whitehouse, Sheldon (D RI) Wyden, Ron (D OR)

Original post:
Here Are All the Senators Who Do and Dont Believe in Human-Caused Climate Change

Stressing that the United Nations is built around the three pillars of peace and security, development and human rights, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, today underlined the need pay attention to their interdependence, during an address to the Security Council.

"The founders of the United Nations well understood that if we ignore one pillar, we imperil the other two," said Mr. Ban during today's Security Council debate on inclusive development for the maintenance of international peace and security.

"The post-2015 sustainable development agenda is an important opportunity to reinforce the interdependence of development, peace and security, and human rights," he told the Council debate, which coincides with the opening of the General Assembly's three-day informal 'stock-taking' in the process of intergovernmental negotiations on that future agenda.

The Secretary-General said he was encouraged that during debates so far held about completing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the end of this year, launching a post-2015 sustainability agenda, and reaching an agreement on climate change, Member States had paid considerable attention to peace and security and to human rights.

The General Assembly Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals had discussed the importance of inclusive growth and decent work, called for reducing inequality and ensuring universal access to basic services, including health care and education, had explicitly linked peace with social inclusion and access to justice for all, and had called for inclusive, representative decision-making.

In the so called 'synthesis' report he presented to the General Assembly last month - The Road to Dignity by 2030: Ending Poverty, Transforming All Lives and Protecting the Planet - Mr. Ban underscored the importance of justice to building peaceful and inclusive societies, emphasising the need for strong and responsive institutions.

"With the full membership of the United Nations beginning its negotiations later this morning, we now have an important opportunity to broaden the development agenda and highlight the fundamental importance of inclusive societies in building a more peaceful world," he said.

Every country could benefit from sustainable and inclusive development, tackling persistent exclusion and inequality, ensuring that the most vulnerable have access to basic services and can participate in political dialogue, tackling the "blatant injustice" of discrimination against women and girls, and extending social security provision to the world's population still lacking a safety net for times of illness or unemployment.

Post-conflict societies in particular need to prioritize social, economic and political inclusion in order to rebuild trust between communities. Women's participation in reconciliation and reconstruction also depended on gender equality and women's empowerment, he said.

"The Peacebuilding Commission provides coordinated international support targeted at countries emerging from conflict," continued Mr. Ban. "The current review of the UN's peacebuilding architecture should help to make that support more robust and flexible."

See more here:
Africa: Post-2015 Agenda Must Boost Links Among of Development, Security, Human Rights - UN Chief