What I don't get...

[Mr Squiggles]

Does being cold and calculating mean you're a terrible person or is it just an unfortunate side effect of being intelligent?

[David75]

Does being cold and calculating mean you're a terrible person or is it just an unfortunate side effect of being intelligent?

Well, calculating needs some brains, being cold does not rely on that quality.
Having both makes someone terrible in our societies, yet it can be useful having someone like that in a team of people working towards the same goal.

Now being smart having those side effects?
Well I don't think so. At some point, you can really see through things and understand feelings are so important you can't just hold them in. It all comes from the idea that the spirit is separated from the body and its needs, which is totally wrong, but still pertains in some "intelligentia" puritain circles and lives on in many families.

I think that smart people who are cold and calculating are 50% responsible, and the 50other % come from awful parents that are dumb enough to place image and societal burdens before happiness and feelings when its possible to accomodate everything without mutually excluding them.

There's a power in a sexual relationship filled with feelings that is as important and thrilling as using one's brain a full capacity on a subject. Heaven is when sex is the subject of course.

[Uchiha Barles]

I think being "cold and calculating" is usually just a term used for people who base their decisions on logical deductions. Calculations can be wrong, and if they're wrong often enough, then it's probably not a side effect of being intelligent. So the "calculating" and "intelligence" are mutually exclusive. The cold part comes when a decision needs to be made based on the calculations even though emotions have to be set aside (be they your own or those of others). Most people I know who've had to make such decisions, and did, were not "cold" about it. They simply made the best choice they could. Over time, though, I can imagine that it becomes easier to make such decisions if you're often in situations where you have to make them, but that's probably not true for everyone, and if its true for most, I don't know if the emotional component is any less poignant. You probably just get better at dealing with it.. I think that in general, "cold" and "calculating" are also mutually exclusive.

Personally, I can't think of a many situations where being calculating wasn't an advantage, even when it came to dealing with the emotions of others. In fact, in those cases, the calculations made me seem warm and thoughtful...

[Buffalobiian]

"Cold" and "calculating" have no direct connections with intelligence. They're qualities of one's character, independent of abilities.

I take "cold" to be disregarding emotions. Calculating means weighing up all the pros and cons before making a decision.

"Cold and calculating" is simply the case where emotions aren't a factor in the weighing.

[Xelbair]

Which is impossible, because all our choices are influenced by emotions.

[Abdula]

Which is impossible, because all our choices are influenced by emotions.

So you're a slave to your emotions huh

[Xelbair]

Everyone is, its impossible to completely block your emotions, but still I'm trying to when I'm making serious decisions.

[Buffalobiian]

I agree that we all have emotions, more or less. It's also possible though, that if a person consciously thinks emotions should not be taken into account in decisions, then they can make a decision based on logic and rules alone. Not so much blocking, but acknowledging and disregarding.

You can argue how pure their logic is at this point though. I really can't say.

As with everything, it comes down to relativity. How much disregarding will people see as "cold and calculating"? Depends on what they've been brought up to see as "emotional".

(For example, Australia's last prime minister was in power for ages, and was so right-wing that nowadays, many people regard the tiniest concerns for civil rights, environment etc as outright left wing.)

[Xelbair]

It does not matter if you calculate it while being cool.
Lets say you got to conclusion A, now you just have to follow it. Some time later you are lets say, angry, and you change your conclusion A to conclusion B, which is similar to A but different in small aspects(In long run they will get you to same results but not through same means). Now add to this series of this emotions and changes, and you get completely different conclusion than in the beginning.
Using pure logic is possible to think, but not to act.
Also I think that pure logic takes emotion into account, calculates effects while doing something while being happy, sad, angry, etc. but well, still you will mostly act different than your calculated behavior, because its impossible to take everything into account.

[Idealistic]

What I don't get is, in the VGA awards, how come GTA4 won game of the year, but for best games on PS3 and XBOX360, GTA4 wasn't the best.

Not that I agree with GTA4 being game of the year, just wanted to lawl.

And not that I take the VGA show seriously, as it's entirely stupid(choices-wise), but I just wanted to lawl harder.

[Psyke]

Perhaps it's exclusive..... bagging the game of the year award already means it's the best, so the other games get a chance.

[Ryllharu]

Not quite. It also won Best Performance by a Human Male (Michael Hollick as GTA4 protagonist Nico Bellic) apparently. Which is bullshit, because he was awful, barely sounded Serbian at all. Liam Neeson or Malcolm McDowell from Fallout 3 (despite their fairly limited roles), any of the cast of MGS4, hell, even the dumbass cousin in GTA4 was better acted than Niko.

I didn't even try to finish GTA4, I just stopped playing it because it became too aggravating to go on mini-dates with all your friends. It simply stopped being fun. While I can't say MGS4 is a better game not having played it (I only have a 360) but Fallout 3 was also on the list, and that game was far and away more enjoyable than GTA4.

[Death BOO Z]

Not quite. It also won Best Performance by a Human Male (Michael Hollick as GTA4 protagonist Nico Bellic) apparently.

Human male? is there an award for non-human?

[Buffalobiian]

An animal perhaps?

[Animeniax]

Not quite. It also won Best Performance by a Human Male (Michael Hollick as GTA4 protagonist Nico Bellic) apparently. Which is bullshit, because he was awful, barely sounded Serbian at all. Liam Neeson or Malcolm McDowell from Fallout 3 (despite their fairly limited roles), any of the cast of MGS4, hell, even the dumbass cousin in GTA4 was better acted than Niko.

I thought the Nico in GTA4 was well done, but he was too fluent in English for someone fresh out of the old country. Also, a real Serb or anyone from that region would not pronounce it "bell-lick". All "-ic" names are pronounced "itch". Supposedly they did that back in the 1940s and 50s to distance themselves from the Germans.

[Psyke]

I'm around 75% through Ultimate Mission Mode in Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm. I understand that we will get DLC in the form of support characters each month till next March. What I don't understand is, why some people are gullible enough to believe that we should be thankful for all these additional contents, when they are obviously on the disk to begin with (heck you even fight them). Shouldn't they realise that instead of getting what they paid for immediately, they are forced to wait for a patch every 4 weeks to use them?

I'm a bit amazed at the way how some people think..... unless of course, CyberConnect decides to provide downloads with new content not on the disk. But so far, nothing has been announced and I highly doubt it. They'll just announce a new game to tide over all the commotion.

[darkshadow]

That's just Namco Bandai's strategy, to artificially prolong the length of the game with "free updates" which are just unlock keys, CC2 has no say in this.
After all the "free" content, Namco Bandai will yell: "hey look! we gave you all the free content, so you wouldn't mind paying for this newer content right!?", and present us with paid dlc.
Which might be worth it though, like actually new playable chars.

[Idealistic]

Man they do that with Soul Calibur 4 too. All the DLC they give us are already on the disc and it costs like $2 per pack and there's like 3 or 4. Heck, getting Yoda or Vader costs $5. I didn't even bother with these DLC. lol... And then supposedly an expansion will be coming out for it sometime in spring, and I'm sure it will cost like $40.

[Lyzuu]

What I don't get is how a pain reliever works. Can anyone explain this to me (backaches, stomaches, and any aches)?

[Buffalobiian]

What I don't get is how a pain reliever works. Can anyone explain this to me (backaches, stomaches, and any aches)?

Loads of stuff works differently, via different mechanisms.

1) General pain relief - paracetamol: mechanism is debatable. In the past, it's thought to inhibit the COX1/2 feedback, leading to reduced pain, yet minimal anti-inflammatory effect. It's also thought to be selective for targets in the brain, making it ideal for headaches, but rather useless for inflammatory pain. It has a very good side effect profile, making it a very safe drug when taken at therapeutic doses, but overdosing can have severe consequences

2) Inflammatory pain relief - NSAIDS: These work by directly inhibiting the COX-1/2 enzymes, in turn inhibiting inflammatory mediators and reducing inflammation. NSAIDS that block both COX-1 and COX-2 enzymes are subject to gastro-intestinal side effects, primarily due to COX-1 inhibition. COX-2 selective inhibiting NSAIDS have a much lower affinity for COX-1 receptors, and so incidence of GI side effects through use are much lower. However, highly selective COX-2 inhibitors will cause increased levels of pro-clotting factors, increasing the risk of stroke.

3) Opioid pain relievers - These pain killers work by binding to certain (and sometimes multiple) opioid receptors. According to a paper "Opioids, to varying degrees, may antagonize Nmethyl-
D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors, activating the
descending serotonin and noradrenaline pain pathways
from the brain stem. Stimulation of these same
NMDA receptors may result in neuropathic pain and
the development of tolerance"

4) Stomach aches (indigestion, heart burn, reflux): These types of pain are caused by the excess of stomach acid and/or poor closing of your sphincter, causing gastric juices to reflux into your esophagus, which has no protective lining. Antacids are simply basic chemicals designed to neutralise stomach acid. More potent drugs include Proton Pump Inhibitors and H2-Antagonists. These aim to reduce your production of stomach acid.

There's a brief outline of the differences. By no means is this all there is to know. If you want to know more, you can try wiki, the references they use, and other medical search engines like Pubmed. (in increasing order of accuracy).