Pineapple Express: Someone Is Wrong on the Internet?


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Good reminder that the dose makes the poison!
Sometimes. Other times, Mother Nature makes the poison for us through natural processes. Some chemicals only become toxic when oxidized or mixed with water, for example. We release something perfectly safe, and then 30 years later Mother Nature goes and adds a hydroxide ion to it and turns it into poison.

For those substances, we try to transform them into safer compounds before releasing them (like mixing chlorine with citric acid), or binding them with stuff that doesn't mobilize as easily (like soaking up spilled hydraulic fluid with kitty litter), or we find other places to put it instead of the environment (like landfills). Bonus points if you can turn a waste product into something useful (yep, even chemicals get recycled sometimes.)

It gets really complicated when you factor illegal dumping into the equation. Or accidents like train derailments. Or when two different industries don't talk to each other, and end up releasing two different waste streams that would be safe on their own, but are toxic when accidentally combined. How do you predict this stuff?

All this to say: mad respect for the environmental engineers out there. Y'all are doing a hard job, and you don't get nearly enough respect for it in the industry.
 


Game mechanics will always be abused by players looking to abuse the mechanics. Hiding the potential for abuse behind system mastery is not a virtue, it just makes playing the game that much harder for everyone else. Be open about it. Be up front about it. This bit right here is not mechanically solid and is ripe for abuse. Either fix that bit while designing the game or leave it in and just don't play with the people hell bent on abusing the mechanics.
 

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