First, in all of human history only 161,000 tons of gold were ever extracted. According to Wikipedia, which used the figure of 158,000 tons of gold mined till 2006, that amount of gold is really just a cube with dimensions 20.2m X 20.2m X 20.2m. That's bloody little!
Second, one picture in the magazine shows a tiny pill gold coated with mercury. It is about half the area of a Singaporean 5 cent coin. Apparently, it can bring the Indonesian miner who was holding it US$25. Imagine how much it'd cost by the time it reaches us as part of some jewellery.
In fact, gold is so valuable it can be profitably mined even at microscopic scale. One miner in the article admitted that she had never seen a trace of gold even though she has been operating an ore-hauling vehicle in a gold mine for years!
Third, over half of that 161,000 tons of gold was mined in the last fifty years. Enough said.
Fourth, according to a source in Wikipedia, the current estimate is that gold will run out in 45 years. That is, no more new gold and we'll have to reuse our old stuff. But that's not a problem since over 2/3 of all our gold mined every year is used to make jewellery. All those gold bars you see in banks are about the same as a tenth of that 2/3.
Fifth, to mine the amount of gold required to make a typical gold ring, over 160 tonnes of waste has to be extracted and removed. So the next time you buy gold jewellery, think about the blood and sweat it takes to bring that to you. Yes I mentioned blood, because about 25% of all our gold comes from small-scale miners, eg illegal miners. Also, in the poorer regions like Indonesia, gold miners use mercury to extract gold. Mercury, as you know, is dangerous in both liquid and gaseous forms. However, it is very useful for gold extraction because gold dissolves in it but doesn't react with it.
It is strange that one of the least useful metals to ever exist is also so rare and precious. All it's good for is electrical conduction and its resistance to rust and corrosion. And to look at, of course. People love shiny stuff.
It is pretty screwed up that the environment and everything that lives near gold deposits die because of this useless element and people are willing to ruin their health for tiny bits of it. Humans are quite willing to kill for pretty stuff, it would seem. Oh right, that's actually true. Just remembered the Trojan War.
Does the following picture quicken your heartbeat?
The final episode of Heroes Volume One was a complete letdown. All those tension they built using the preceding 22 episodes was totally wasted in a really unexpected epic fail.
Sylar killed so many "special people" to absorb all their abilities, including the ability to melt anything, ultra-sensitive hearing and etc. Peter has also met many "special people" and absorbed all their abilities like invisibility and Sylar's original telekinesis.
Yet the storyline, so filled with potential, culminated in a lousy fistfight. A fistfight, of all things!
What. The. Heck.
Screw you and your budget constraints!!! I wanted to see an incredible battle filled with explosions, fireballs and absolute mayhem. And you gave me just two freakin punches between two Supermen? FFS, it would have been the absolute best TV show ever if something more had happened, something more related to all the members of the cast using their special powers!
RRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!
So now in Fallout 3 I accidentally found Underworld, the city of Ghouls. It turns that I didn't find it because I skipped the quest from Three Dogs the DJ. Now that I'm helping him restore his radio signal, I happened to pass by the Museum of History and found Underworld at the back of this place.
Now I want to find Paradise Falls. But it's so hard! The last time I went too far North, I was attacked by two Deathclaws! I can hardly handle one, let alone two. One slash from it takes out a third of my HP. I have to keep spamming Tab to use Stimpaks from my Pipboy in all my fights with Deathclaws.
I refuse to check online forums for it. Where's the fun in exploring new places if they're already found? The feeling of finding a place that no one knows about is quite exhilarating and that was what drove me to find all the unopened areas during my days in WoW. It was illegal to enter areas that are close, but there are always bugs that we could use to enter them. Now this feeling is what drives me to explore the world of Fallout 3. I don't care about the plot - I already finished it a few months ago.
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