Plato isn't regarding by billions of people as being their god, creator of all things, and the source of all life and existence. It's a little different.
And? Why is the King James version, as pointed out by my link, a part of public domain, whereas other versions are not? Again, are people afraid of spreading the direct word of god illegally?
And that brings up another point which I already touched on...different versions of a religious text. That certainly cemets my belief into place knowing that there are different versions out there written by the same person who wrote the "original bible": Man. Humans. WE WROTE IT. Ever hear of the Flying Spaghetti Monster? In theory, if more than one million people accross the globe verify that they believe in it, that could be an official and recognized religion. People would legally be able to take off work for Talk Like a Pirate Day.
You consider Scientology to be a "major" religion? I just thought it gets a lot of attention.
You hear about it more than any other recent religion...Satanism (came about in the 50's if I remember...also having little to nothing to do with actual devil worship) Wicca (ditto...20th century relgion) etc.
How can you make that assumption? Tell that to the 97 some odd percent of people in the world. I'd say that "god" does have a very large place in the world. (Unless you mean that we should be trying to rid the earth of the notion of god.)
I do tell them that...at least the ones that I meet. I know I'm making a sweeping, broad generalization here, but to believe in god as the "big three" dictate that you should COMPLETELY defeats the purpose of believing in god in the first place! god is upposed to be about what works for YOU, not what works for the GROUP...hence, why I said "religiously".
Why? First: People like David Koresh, currently that latino dude (forget his name,) and many others have claimed themselves to be the returned Jesus. They weren't institutionalized. Instead, they developed a following. Second: Would a modern-day Jesus appear in modernized lands? People generally make the assumption that his 2nd coming is gonna be in either THEIR neck of the woods or around Jerusalem. Why wouldn't he appear in, say, Darfur or Bahgdad or Siberia or whereever else? Third: Perhaps a modern day Jesus would perform modern-day "miracles."
First: That's exactly my point. Any nutjob (or sane person, for that matter) could claim that they are the returned jesus... Second: I think a modern-day jesus would appear wherever he happend to appear...hell, it could be antartica for all we know. Third: you mean like prove the existance of dark matter and have it appear in his "hands"? I realize that we don't know nearly all there is to know about reality around us, but we know a hell of a lot more than we used to.
For me, the $50 a year for a Live Gold membership is well worth it...the service works very well, it's integrated with ALL of my 360 games, and it's layout is fantastic...many people take issue with paying that much a year for online play, but then they forget that people pay $180 a year just to play World of Warcraft...
If the money is worth it to someone, they will have no problem paying...millions of other people share my opinion that it is worth it, and millions of other people don't share my opinion and thus aren't on it. To each his own, I suppose...
Don't forget about the various interpretations and "versions" of the bible as well...that just makes the idea that it is god's words even more absurd. "I think what god meant to say was..." Yeah. You'll convince me using that kind of phrase, skippy.
As far as the last part of your comment goes, I'm not saying that those types of things should have been included...I'm saying that at that point in time it was commonly agreed that the world was flat, which we now know to be quite untrue.
It saddens me that the only "major" religion that has come along in the past hundreds of years was inspired by a science fiction writer. Hell, there was a time when people thought lightning was caused by a god. The idea of god in a RELIGIOUS sense (and, in some cases, in a spiritual sense) has absolutely no place in a modern soceity.
If jesus showed up now instead of 2000 years ago, he would have been commited to an asylum (and yes I am aware the world wouldn't be the same, so save your typing)
People such as yourself seem quick to forget that multiplayer gaming on the PC wasn't always free...sure, battle.net has been around a while and there were a COUPLE of other things, but you forget about services such as TEN, Dwango, MPlayer, Heat.net, etc...
I was under the impression that god DIDN'T write the bible...I mean, after all, if god was the author, why do bible's have copyright dates? Is god afraid of someone spreading the word illegally?
The bible was written by man...just like the torah, just like the que'ran, just like every religious book. Written by men who thought the world was flat.
That's exactly my point though...They see that they are failing in the handheld market as far as games are concerned...the PSP is quite a powerful little machine...they should refocus their efforts. Yes, the PSP plays games, but it's only OK at playing games and GREAT at doing other things...the redisigned PSP isn't going to do all that much to increase their buisness in the handheld market...they had their chance, and they wasted it.
In fact, the whole PSP fiasco pisses me off quite a lot. I know they are worried about piracy or whatever, but seriously...if they allowed the device to be as open as it was with firmware version 1.0, they would likely have a much stronger hold on the portable market. I'm not saying they necessarily would have outsold the DS, but they would certainly have a much larger piece of the pie.
The PSP could have been a SICK little piece of equipment. I can put e-books on there using a couple programs that format a document (pdf, doc, whatever) to fit on the screen and then another one to turn them into pictures so that I am essentially reading e-books. They should streamline that process to make things easier.
Also, there are a couple of comics designed for the PSP. Sony should support this openly and loudly! Go so far as financing some of the more popular ones...it wouldn't take much investment on their part, and the comic junkies would eat it up...hell, they could open an iTunes-like store in which you can buy digital comics which have been reformatted to work with the small screen size...I would DEFINATELY spend money in a store like that.
Also, not supporting things like DiVX/Xvid/etc was a bit foolish, methinks...their argument would likely be "those are primarily used for piracy", but think about it....they could sell software that would allow you to rip the video and reformat it to play on the PSP while using a codec that isn't quite as shitty as what we are stuck with now.
If they put their corporate bullshit aside and spent a little more money up front, they would probably have many more PSP's in the hands of the people. You know, the ones that actually keep them in buisness. They're called customers.
Wait wait wait...they are saying it is still unsuitable for an 18 rating...that implies that THEY are deeming it "unfit" for anyone, up to and including adults of consenting and legal age.
Who the fuck are YOU to tell ME what is innapropriate in terms of SIMULATED violence?
Realize that some people actually enjoy simulated violence and that you are not their mother. Fucking hell.
While at the current moment I have slight regrets of having bought a PS3 so early, I certainly don't regret the better visual quality that playing a PS2 game on a PS3 provides...God of War and Shadow of the Colossus look stunning being up-scaled, and run just as smoothly as they did on the PS2 (unlike many xbox games on the 360...then again, the 360 uses software emulation)
In light of a combination of the games that are available now for the PS3 and how long it will be until other stuff is available, I'm very glad I got one with extensive back compatibility...with it's current state of exclusives, no way would I have bought one without the ability to play PS2 games on it.
While I definately prefer Facebook over MySpace, and while I have found it to be EXTREMELY useful (located some friends I hadn't seen or heard from since middle school...a couple from as far as back as elementary school) I absolutely despise this application crap...part of the allure facebook had for me was that it was clean, simple, and not flashy. While I know that all of these applications are entirely voluntary and they don't just toss them in your face (i.e. you have to actually go browsing in the application section to see them) it still bothers me that Facebook continues to expand like this.
Don't get me wrong...from a business sense, I understand why it's being done. From a lot of my friend's point of view, I notice that a large portion of them like the idea of of the applications...but still. Slowly, Facebook is becoming more and more like MySpace....and that's definitely not good.
OK, and I said that 5 of them were released no later than 7 months after release. I then said that I now have a total of 12. Lets look at those first 5, shall we?
Kameo - November 9th, 2005 PGR 3 - November 22nd, 2005 DOA 4 - December 29th, 2005 Rockstar Table Tennis - May 23rd, 2006 Over G - June 27th, 2006
You caught me. Over G came out 7 months and a few days after launch. I feel horrible.
Regardless, none of those are even remotely close to your October 2006 date.
I wasn't comparing any other console. I was talking about the PS3 and the 360. That's it. I was very happy with the exclusives that came out in the first year for the 360...within the first year, I already got my gaming money worth from the purchase price of my 360. The same can most definately not be said for my PS3.
Will good exclusives eventually come out for it? Sure, of course they will. That doesn't change the fact that I spent 600 dollars on a gaming console that in it's first year has had more 6th generation games played on it than 7th generation games.
I expect that the 360 will be the last Microsoft console, and that they'll produce a tight spec for a quiet non expandable living room PC, possibly XBox branded.
It's funny you say that for two reasons.
1. Despite it's hardware faults, the 360 is STILL outselling the PS3.
2. Last time I checked, it was Sony that was incorporating more "non-gaming" features into it's consoles, not Microsoft. In fact, Sony has gone so far as to have entirely non-gaming related advertising for their GAMING console.
Personally, I wish they would both just shut up and stick with making gaming-only consoles. Yes, it's nice to have the features in my entertainment rack that the 360 and the PS3 provide, but come on...if I wanted that stuff to begin with, I would set up an HTPC that was much less of a hassle to fuck with and spend less money on my gaming console due to reduced R&D and cost.
The 40Gb model is coming to the US at the end of October for $399. That's really a bargain when you're getting blu-ray + plus a kickass games console with free online gaming.
Sure...if there were any games worth buying for it. I've had my PS3 since four days after launch...you know how many PS3-exclusive games I have for it?
Two.
Why only two? BECAUSE THERE AREN'T ANY GAMES FOR IT. I don't care how much a "bargain" it is when there isn't shit out there for it. I (and many other PS3 owners, I would imagine) am quite pissed that stuff that was supposed to already be released now has a release date of mid-2008 or even simply TBA.
From a consumers point of view, that is a shitty stupid thing to do...but look at it from a buisness point of view, or more specifically Microsoft's point of view...it makes perfect sense.
Microsoft already has a legal monopoly in the computing industry...they are only in their second generation in the gaming industry. They need something to help cement themselves into place...the halo series is one of their primary tools for doing so. While for CONSUMERS it would make more sense and would be better to release them simultaneously, it wouldn't make much sense for their console devision...I can assure you, Microsoft would most likely rather sell you a copy of a game for their console which they lose money on/barely make any money on (the console itself, that is) which is trying to establish itself rather than sell you a copy of a game for an operating system that has a steadfast hold on the industry.
I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying that I understand.
...that I'm not on the inside so I don't know all the little happenings that occur behind closed doors, but it's quite obvious that the Halo franchise is a boon to both Bungie and to Microsoft...I wouldn't be suprised if Halo remained a Bungie and Microsoft exclusive venture....Bungie getting more freedom to do what they wish with the franchise, and getting a healthy sum of money from Microsoft in the process.
In all honesty, both sides would be foolish to give up the current relationship they have with that franchise, even if Bungie becomes 100% independent.
While I agree that spending that kind of crazy money on speaker cables is...well...crazy...there are some times when those nicer cables make a difference.
Case in point, for my birthday this past year my girlfriend got me the monster component and optical audio connection cables for my 360. While the audio sounded mostly the same, there was a definate and noticable improvement over the stock A/V cable that came with the 360...the image overall just looked better (42" 1080i Samsung, btw) More accurate colours, better contrast, less saturation, etc.
Not sure if it looked ~$60 better, but it definately did look better. Same thing goes with speaker cable...while I'm not about to rush out and spend money on monster speaker cables, I did replace the two $10 100ft 16ga spools of the speaker cable that I got at Target with two $35 100ft 12ga spools I got from a local speaker shop...definately less "hiss" in the speakers, and there was a MARGINAL improvement in the low-end (barely perceptible, but it was indeed there...I measured this both by ear and by noting that the wall behind my setup rattles slightly more now at the same volume lol)
In all, there is actual difference between super cheap cables and not so super cheap cables, but it ain't much...you definately hit the ceiling fairly quickly in terms of when it becomes a waste of money.
Slashdot Mirror
Plato isn't regarding by billions of people as being their god, creator of all things, and the source of all life and existence. It's a little different.
And? Why is the King James version, as pointed out by my link, a part of public domain, whereas other versions are not? Again, are people afraid of spreading the direct word of god illegally?
And that brings up another point which I already touched on...different versions of a religious text. That certainly cemets my belief into place knowing that there are different versions out there written by the same person who wrote the "original bible": Man. Humans. WE WROTE IT. Ever hear of the Flying Spaghetti Monster? In theory, if more than one million people accross the globe verify that they believe in it, that could be an official and recognized religion. People would legally be able to take off work for Talk Like a Pirate Day.
Do you see the stupidity?
I do tell them that...at least the ones that I meet. I know I'm making a sweeping, broad generalization here, but to believe in god as the "big three" dictate that you should COMPLETELY defeats the purpose of believing in god in the first place! god is upposed to be about what works for YOU, not what works for the GROUP...hence, why I said "religiously".
First: That's exactly my point. Any nutjob (or sane person, for that matter) could claim that they are the returned jesus... Second: I think a modern-day jesus would appear wherever he happend to appear...hell, it could be antartica for all we know. Third: you mean like prove the existance of dark matter and have it appear in his "hands"? I realize that we don't know nearly all there is to know about reality around us, but we know a hell of a lot more than we used to.
http://ask.yahoo.com/20050202.html
Modern translations of the Bible have copyright dates. Nice christian tone you have there, by the way.
For me, the $50 a year for a Live Gold membership is well worth it...the service works very well, it's integrated with ALL of my 360 games, and it's layout is fantastic...many people take issue with paying that much a year for online play, but then they forget that people pay $180 a year just to play World of Warcraft...
If the money is worth it to someone, they will have no problem paying...millions of other people share my opinion that it is worth it, and millions of other people don't share my opinion and thus aren't on it. To each his own, I suppose...
Don't forget about the various interpretations and "versions" of the bible as well...that just makes the idea that it is god's words even more absurd. "I think what god meant to say was..." Yeah. You'll convince me using that kind of phrase, skippy.
As far as the last part of your comment goes, I'm not saying that those types of things should have been included...I'm saying that at that point in time it was commonly agreed that the world was flat, which we now know to be quite untrue.
It saddens me that the only "major" religion that has come along in the past hundreds of years was inspired by a science fiction writer. Hell, there was a time when people thought lightning was caused by a god. The idea of god in a RELIGIOUS sense (and, in some cases, in a spiritual sense) has absolutely no place in a modern soceity.
If jesus showed up now instead of 2000 years ago, he would have been commited to an asylum (and yes I am aware the world wouldn't be the same, so save your typing)
People such as yourself seem quick to forget that multiplayer gaming on the PC wasn't always free...sure, battle.net has been around a while and there were a COUPLE of other things, but you forget about services such as TEN, Dwango, MPlayer, Heat.net, etc...
The bible was written by man...just like the torah, just like the que'ran, just like every religious book. Written by men who thought the world was flat.
That's exactly my point though...They see that they are failing in the handheld market as far as games are concerned...the PSP is quite a powerful little machine...they should refocus their efforts. Yes, the PSP plays games, but it's only OK at playing games and GREAT at doing other things...the redisigned PSP isn't going to do all that much to increase their buisness in the handheld market...they had their chance, and they wasted it.
You keep shaking from that Parkinsons, buddy. I'll be feeding myself and walking. Enjoy!
I completely agree.
In fact, the whole PSP fiasco pisses me off quite a lot. I know they are worried about piracy or whatever, but seriously...if they allowed the device to be as open as it was with firmware version 1.0, they would likely have a much stronger hold on the portable market. I'm not saying they necessarily would have outsold the DS, but they would certainly have a much larger piece of the pie.
The PSP could have been a SICK little piece of equipment. I can put e-books on there using a couple programs that format a document (pdf, doc, whatever) to fit on the screen and then another one to turn them into pictures so that I am essentially reading e-books. They should streamline that process to make things easier.
Also, there are a couple of comics designed for the PSP. Sony should support this openly and loudly! Go so far as financing some of the more popular ones...it wouldn't take much investment on their part, and the comic junkies would eat it up...hell, they could open an iTunes-like store in which you can buy digital comics which have been reformatted to work with the small screen size...I would DEFINATELY spend money in a store like that.
Also, not supporting things like DiVX/Xvid/etc was a bit foolish, methinks...their argument would likely be "those are primarily used for piracy", but think about it....they could sell software that would allow you to rip the video and reformat it to play on the PSP while using a codec that isn't quite as shitty as what we are stuck with now.
If they put their corporate bullshit aside and spent a little more money up front, they would probably have many more PSP's in the hands of the people. You know, the ones that actually keep them in buisness. They're called customers.
Wait wait wait...they are saying it is still unsuitable for an 18 rating...that implies that THEY are deeming it "unfit" for anyone, up to and including adults of consenting and legal age.
Who the fuck are YOU to tell ME what is innapropriate in terms of SIMULATED violence?
Realize that some people actually enjoy simulated violence and that you are not their mother. Fucking hell.
While at the current moment I have slight regrets of having bought a PS3 so early, I certainly don't regret the better visual quality that playing a PS2 game on a PS3 provides...God of War and Shadow of the Colossus look stunning being up-scaled, and run just as smoothly as they did on the PS2 (unlike many xbox games on the 360...then again, the 360 uses software emulation)
In light of a combination of the games that are available now for the PS3 and how long it will be until other stuff is available, I'm very glad I got one with extensive back compatibility...with it's current state of exclusives, no way would I have bought one without the ability to play PS2 games on it.
While I definately prefer Facebook over MySpace, and while I have found it to be EXTREMELY useful (located some friends I hadn't seen or heard from since middle school...a couple from as far as back as elementary school) I absolutely despise this application crap...part of the allure facebook had for me was that it was clean, simple, and not flashy. While I know that all of these applications are entirely voluntary and they don't just toss them in your face (i.e. you have to actually go browsing in the application section to see them) it still bothers me that Facebook continues to expand like this.
Don't get me wrong...from a business sense, I understand why it's being done. From a lot of my friend's point of view, I notice that a large portion of them like the idea of of the applications...but still. Slowly, Facebook is becoming more and more like MySpace....and that's definitely not good.
OK, and I said that 5 of them were released no later than 7 months after release. I then said that I now have a total of 12. Lets look at those first 5, shall we?
Kameo - November 9th, 2005
PGR 3 - November 22nd, 2005
DOA 4 - December 29th, 2005
Rockstar Table Tennis - May 23rd, 2006
Over G - June 27th, 2006
You caught me. Over G came out 7 months and a few days after launch. I feel horrible.
Regardless, none of those are even remotely close to your October 2006 date.
And your point?
I wasn't comparing any other console. I was talking about the PS3 and the 360. That's it. I was very happy with the exclusives that came out in the first year for the 360...within the first year, I already got my gaming money worth from the purchase price of my 360. The same can most definately not be said for my PS3.
Will good exclusives eventually come out for it? Sure, of course they will. That doesn't change the fact that I spent 600 dollars on a gaming console that in it's first year has had more 6th generation games played on it than 7th generation games.
Now reflect on how inane THAT sounds.
And if you were curious about the other 7:
Dead Rising, Saints Row, Tenchu Z, Halo 3, PGR 4, Blue Dragon, and Crackdown.
Kameo, PGR 3, DOA 4, Over G, and Rockstar Table Tennis (which, at the time, was considered an exclusive)
It's funny you say that for two reasons.
1. Despite it's hardware faults, the 360 is STILL outselling the PS3.
2. Last time I checked, it was Sony that was incorporating more "non-gaming" features into it's consoles, not Microsoft. In fact, Sony has gone so far as to have entirely non-gaming related advertising for their GAMING console.
Personally, I wish they would both just shut up and stick with making gaming-only consoles. Yes, it's nice to have the features in my entertainment rack that the 360 and the PS3 provide, but come on...if I wanted that stuff to begin with, I would set up an HTPC that was much less of a hassle to fuck with and spend less money on my gaming console due to reduced R&D and cost.
Within 7 months of buying my 360, I had 5 exclusives for it. I now have 12.
Sure...if there were any games worth buying for it. I've had my PS3 since four days after launch...you know how many PS3-exclusive games I have for it?
Two.
Why only two? BECAUSE THERE AREN'T ANY GAMES FOR IT. I don't care how much a "bargain" it is when there isn't shit out there for it. I (and many other PS3 owners, I would imagine) am quite pissed that stuff that was supposed to already be released now has a release date of mid-2008 or even simply TBA.
What a fuckin' waste.
From a consumers point of view, that is a shitty stupid thing to do...but look at it from a buisness point of view, or more specifically Microsoft's point of view...it makes perfect sense.
Microsoft already has a legal monopoly in the computing industry...they are only in their second generation in the gaming industry. They need something to help cement themselves into place...the halo series is one of their primary tools for doing so. While for CONSUMERS it would make more sense and would be better to release them simultaneously, it wouldn't make much sense for their console devision...I can assure you, Microsoft would most likely rather sell you a copy of a game for their console which they lose money on/barely make any money on (the console itself, that is) which is trying to establish itself rather than sell you a copy of a game for an operating system that has a steadfast hold on the industry.
I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying that I understand.
...that I'm not on the inside so I don't know all the little happenings that occur behind closed doors, but it's quite obvious that the Halo franchise is a boon to both Bungie and to Microsoft...I wouldn't be suprised if Halo remained a Bungie and Microsoft exclusive venture....Bungie getting more freedom to do what they wish with the franchise, and getting a healthy sum of money from Microsoft in the process.
In all honesty, both sides would be foolish to give up the current relationship they have with that franchise, even if Bungie becomes 100% independent.
I know this is off-topic, but why is every page defaulting now to using the new discussion system?
/karma
To put it very politely, the new system sucks a massive mountain of ass.
While I agree that spending that kind of crazy money on speaker cables is...well...crazy...there are some times when those nicer cables make a difference.
Case in point, for my birthday this past year my girlfriend got me the monster component and optical audio connection cables for my 360. While the audio sounded mostly the same, there was a definate and noticable improvement over the stock A/V cable that came with the 360...the image overall just looked better (42" 1080i Samsung, btw) More accurate colours, better contrast, less saturation, etc.
Not sure if it looked ~$60 better, but it definately did look better. Same thing goes with speaker cable...while I'm not about to rush out and spend money on monster speaker cables, I did replace the two $10 100ft 16ga spools of the speaker cable that I got at Target with two $35 100ft 12ga spools I got from a local speaker shop...definately less "hiss" in the speakers, and there was a MARGINAL improvement in the low-end (barely perceptible, but it was indeed there...I measured this both by ear and by noting that the wall behind my setup rattles slightly more now at the same volume lol)
In all, there is actual difference between super cheap cables and not so super cheap cables, but it ain't much...you definately hit the ceiling fairly quickly in terms of when it becomes a waste of money.