I found this one at Microcenter with 16GB for $60. They even have one with 32GB, but it's like $150.
This is not news. Slashvertisement to say the least.
Alot of people like to rip on the U.S. for its longtime foreign oil dependence.
But let's think about this. It is a well known fact that there are huge reserves yet to be truly tapped in both Texas and Alaska, and now this new one in Montana/Dakotas. Yet the United States continues to import its oil (most oil in the U.S. is imported) instead of drilling for it ourselves. Why? The answer is simple: you have countries who are desperate to sell their oil (because without it, they'd be poorer than dirt...or sand, I guess), and the United States willingly accepts their oil and even pays out the nose for it. But we also know that oil is finite and will run out one day. When these other countries finally run dry, guess who still has massive oil reserves? Yup, the U.S. To me, it seems completely logical. Why run ourselves dry when others are willing to do it to themselves?
I honestly don't know what to make of it...I'm really rather taken aback. I mean, even most nerds don't even use the phrase "YGTBKM!". In fact, I rarely see it anywhere. At least he could have used something like "ROFLMAO" or "LOLBBQ" or something a bit more aptly stupid.
I think that could be very likely. If the Bible was truly given from God, he's not going to explain to a bunch of desert-dwelling tribes 5,000 years ago the exact science behind how he made the world because they wouldn't have understood it. Instead, I believe he chose metaphor to get this single point across: God did it. That's all that really matters. How he did it is largely irrelevant.
I don't see what's so wrong with teaching evolution. I mean, honestly, if God does exist, then he created this place for sentient beings to explore and understand. That means: science. And if science points to evolution, then my question becomes: why couldn't God have used evolution to create humans? I cannot see the God that the Bible describes planting "fake evidence" on the earth and then laughing at us as we try to figure it out. That's just plain rubbish.
I've tried two of those three you mentioned, and just found them both inadequate. D&D 3.5 is inadequate as well, but it's an easy system to strip down parts you don't like and streamline for the sake of roleplaying.
As a veteran DM, I learned very quickly about the flaws in the 3.5 system. I have been running a game for the last 3 years and the players are now level 30 (they started at 20), and during this time the shortcomings of 3.5 have really been made in-my-face apparent. It's really very interesting to note that 3.5 seems to encourage rules lawyering. Funny enough, it also encourages cheating (e.g. player rolls a 15 and then proclaims "Natural 20!"), especially if the player rolls the die and then picks it back up again as quickly as he rolled it (and yes, I did make rules against such behavior eventually).
I think the largest gaping hole in 3.5 is the combat. I remember the first time I played 3.5 back in 2000 (a friend introduced me at college) and we got into a battle. It was fun, even invigorating! I loved it! Then I started playing with my friends back at home and it was still fun. But after I got into the core of D&D campaigns, it started to lose its luster. Finally, several years later, combat became this monotonous drawl where roleplaying ceased and it was suddenly just about rules that we all knew WAY too well. After several years with the same group of friends, D&D just kind of lost it for me. One of my friends in that group who is the most hardcore gamer you might meet, said to me that he was burnt out on D&D because it was the same every time, really no matter what you played - a statement from him that I thought I'd never hear coming out of his mouth! I think the flaw really was in the mechanics of the system, despite my best attempts to make the game interesting (and, I'm not bragging here, just stating fact for reference in case you may be thinking "Well, if you were a good DM, that wouldn't happen", I have been called the best DM people have ever played with, and not just by my own core group of friends, but by lots of others who have been pulled into my games).
So what did I do in response to these shortcomings? I started a new campaign (the one I mentioned above that has been going for 3 years now) where I have shifted my entire gaming experience away from the rules and towards social encounters for the players and towards telling a story as the DM. I don't even keep track of monster stats any longer, except for AC so I can tell the players when they hit. When the players have hit the thing enough for it to die, it dies. Some might argue that I am robbing D&D of some of its core, but I'd argue that I am instead moving the focus from rules to roleplaying. Battles are no longer about squares on a board with little figures to move around and endless rules. Instead, battles are now about how they accomplish the goal of the encounter and work together as a team. All of my encounters are now structured around something happening and the players need to make a choice with little time to think it out. For instance, in the most recent encounter, the servants of the god of fire were trying to bring back a long-dead prophet by doing a ritual that gave the prophet a new body. The body they'd chosen? The young son of the local ruler. Of course, when they finally got on the scene the ritual was already taking place and they had to act quick. The fight was easy enough for 6 level 30 characters, but that's not what made it fun. What made it fun was that they had to structure their battle around making sure the child wasn't harmed and keeping the ritual from finishing. Without going into more details, it's hard to get the full picture, but the idea here is that you make combat more about accomplishing real objectives and less about stabbing the illithid, or whatever. As for non-combat, before this battle, my players spent 4 entire sessions in a court room trying to prove the local magistrate was innocent of the charges brought against her by the less-than-trustworthy local mages. Some of the players went looking for clues in various places while others duked it out with their words before the judge. It was pretty intense. The point is this: whether in combat or non-combat, give the players situations where even if they beat all the bad guys, they can still lose.
What are the current plans for campaign settings in 4.0? Will there be new ones? Will there be a new and open call for a campaign setting as there was a few years ago?
and when I see a link I like I middle-click on it. In Firefox and IE7 this opens a new tab without switching focus and loads the page in the background. Thank you for enlightening me. Now I can be even lazier and just middle-clink instead of right-click then selecting "Open Link in New Tab"! (seriously)
And, since this ability is all it takes for one form to eventually give rise to a more complex form, would it not make sense for said designer to create a couple viruses in a mineral-rich pond and then sit back, have a cigar and watch what happens? Yes, it seems logical, given my first statement.
ID is just doublespeak for Genesis-Account-6-Day-Young-Earth-Creationism. Why else would the Flying Spaghetti Monster offend so many creationists? You are correct again.
or-maybe-we're-just-getting-more-intelligently-designed I don't want to open the whole can of worms here, because it's been fruitlessly debated over and over again in the comments of many Slashdot articles. Merely I'd like to make one observation: Suppose for a moment that humans really were "designed" (whether or not you believe it). Would it not make sense for said designer to give the designed the ability to adapt, evolve, grow, and change as conditions require it?
(note: the above is neither for or against evolution or intelligent design)
The funny thing is that whether or not it's proven, it's still something to worry about. Just because we haven't wrapped our small brains around it enough to definitively prove it doesn't mean that it couldn't come true, or that it won't. That is, at least, until it's disproved altogether.:P
Let's say you are a hiring people to perform some job, fly a plane, perform neurosurgery, operate a nuclear reactor, etc.
Suppose some applicant described his belief that the earth is actually flat during the interview. Would you really say, "Who am I to shove my beliefs down your throat? Your're hired!" Actually, I wouldn't care one way or the other if they believed in a flat earth, didn't believe in gravity, or whatever else nonsense ideas you can think to throw out there. What I would be concerned with is simply: Do they understand what their job would be? Can they perform their job better than any other candidate that I have interviewed? If so, they get the job. It doesn't matter what else they believe. Not hiring someone because of something they believe (whether true or false) is wrong; it's called prejudice. Now, if that belief will cause them to not do the job better than other candidates, then they are not hired. But even people who believe in God can be a geneticist, a neurosurgeon, and other scientific jobs, and do their jobs very well.
Let me first say: I believe in evolution. Now, onto my rant.
This entire discussion is just one big excuse for the evolutionists to trumpet their horn, degrade those who don't have the same beliefs, and make themselves feel better, all in one. Frankly, I'm sick of it. Just because people don't agree with you does NOT mean they're stupid - and I don't care WHAT kind of comparisons you can come up with to justify your point. Degrading others is never alright. A favorite topic of people today is tolerance, but it's funny how it gets applied to everyone except when it's convenient to not apply it to creationists. It's also amazing how most people here seem to think that believing in some sort of higher power makes you a crazy person. Some of America's most brilliant leaders believed in a higher power (the Christian God, most of them) and they were able to make excellent, well informed, and well-regarded decisions during their presidencies. So now, just because we have had a president for the last 7 years that most no one likes, and he happens to believe in God, it suddenly means that believing in God equals stupidity? Where's the logic in that? I'm sorry to inform you of this, but believing that there is *something* after this life does not automatically make you a nut, or incompetent for that matter.
If we, as evolutionists want people to take us seriously (e.g. those people who don't understand the overwhelming facts), then we have to first treat them with respect. They won't listen to us if we don't take this simply courtesy. To me, evolution is a fact. But another and more important fact, IMO, is that if you can't bother to treat our fellow man with respect, then you're not any better than racists, bigots, terrorists, and any other group that has no respect for others. Period.
Nobody disputes that Evolution is a theory based on observable facts. Actually, quite a great many scientists dispute evolution as a theory based on observable facts. I'm not saying that I do. What I'm saying is that there ARE credible, rational, and educated people who question the theory of evolution's validity. Whether or not they're right or wrong, that's another ball game, one which I don't care to argue.
The fact that you say that is very frightening. I am growing sick and tired or science zealots who will stop at nothing to make everyone else believe what they do. I believe in evolution, but I do NOT think it's right to shove it down someone's throat, call them names, and resort to bigotry over it all. Heck, if you do that, you're no better than the religious zealots who try to shove THEIR believes down YOUR throat, are you?
And where does that get us? The answer is: nowhere.
It appears there is no way for either of us to change our minds, which is perfectly acceptable. I may not agree with your opinion, but I can respect it. Thank you for the discussion, I did enjoy it.
Phrases like "paradigm shift" are popular, but I'll wager that you don't even know what Kuhn meant.
You have wagered wrong, sir. I have taken two graduate-level courses on science and faith, where Kuhn was used extensively. The courses were taught by a doctor of religion (from Oxford) and a doctor of physics (from Harvard, who also has a doctorate of law). The courses were extremely interesting, and I was forced (through the curriculum which had quizzes and tests) to read Kuhn completely through, write papers on it, and debate others in the class (including the professors who did not mind shutting you down if your argument was baseless or false). In these courses, the professors did make mention that many people do not like Kuhn and are thus quick to call him wrong, because they fear the implications of his work. Note that I haver never called science wrong, in fact, I believe in evolution. My only point is that Kuhn's implications are correct: scientists have faith that their science is correct. They believe that the fundamental laws of the universe as described by the current scientific paradigm will not suddenly cease, or act to the contrary. Whether admitted or not, that takes faith. That, is my only point.
To all the others who say that Kuhn was wrong: try telling that to mainstream science which still views Kuhn's work as the model of scientific revolution, which is why it is still studied in universities throughout the world.
Bullshit. Don't water down science as something that people must have "faith" to believe in. That's is 100% false, and that is purely rhetoric to make science sound like something that is debatable. By and large, it is not. It's not always right, but it is right a hell of a lot more often than not. Religion and science do NOT intersect. In fact, they're polar opposites. Sadly, you are incorrect. Thomas Kuhn showed otherwise in his book. Try reading it sometime. He showed that science requires just as much faith as anything else. The fact is that there have been many scientific paradigms throughout the years, and there will surely be more. Each scientist puts faith in his chosen paradigm (most likely the current "ruling" paradigm) that it's actually right, otherwise when holes crop up, they wouldn't try to plug them, but rather seek a wholly different paradigm to explain the new problem(s).
Both ID and evolution are theories, or they wouldn't have the words "The theory of" before them. I think it's important to remember that the best either camp (scientists and theologians) can offer are just theories, both with their own supporting evidences. It's sad, though, that kids can't be taught both (that is, taught an ID where the goal is to show the probability of some greater power, not necessarily any religion's god) and then be left alone to make up their own minds about which they will choose to believe. Because, when it all boils down to it, you have to have faith in something, be it science or religion. The fact is that some of those who vehemently flame ID have just as much (or more) faith in the current scientific paradigm (see: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn) compared to their religious counterparts.
When you read LotR it's a tale full of magic and conflict and excitement. Wrong. When you read LotR, magic is a very rare thing. Only 6 wizards have it, and even then, they use it sparingly. It also only HINTS at the elves ability to use it, never outright saying it (perhaps with the exception of Elrond and the river outside of Rivendell in FotR). Anyway, my point is, this game is very true to the novels: magic in the LotR universe is very rare and not seen very often. This comes in an age of gameplay where every shmuck and his dog can have magic (see: Any MMORPG).
I, personally, love the way its made. Magic isn't special anymore when everyone is a Gandalf.
Slashdot Mirror
I found this one at Microcenter with 16GB for $60. They even have one with 32GB, but it's like $150. This is not news. Slashvertisement to say the least.
Alot of people like to rip on the U.S. for its longtime foreign oil dependence. But let's think about this. It is a well known fact that there are huge reserves yet to be truly tapped in both Texas and Alaska, and now this new one in Montana/Dakotas. Yet the United States continues to import its oil (most oil in the U.S. is imported) instead of drilling for it ourselves. Why? The answer is simple: you have countries who are desperate to sell their oil (because without it, they'd be poorer than dirt...or sand, I guess), and the United States willingly accepts their oil and even pays out the nose for it. But we also know that oil is finite and will run out one day. When these other countries finally run dry, guess who still has massive oil reserves? Yup, the U.S. To me, it seems completely logical. Why run ourselves dry when others are willing to do it to themselves?
I honestly don't know what to make of it...I'm really rather taken aback. I mean, even most nerds don't even use the phrase "YGTBKM!". In fact, I rarely see it anywhere. At least he could have used something like "ROFLMAO" or "LOLBBQ" or something a bit more aptly stupid.
I think that could be very likely. If the Bible was truly given from God, he's not going to explain to a bunch of desert-dwelling tribes 5,000 years ago the exact science behind how he made the world because they wouldn't have understood it. Instead, I believe he chose metaphor to get this single point across: God did it. That's all that really matters. How he did it is largely irrelevant.
I don't see what's so wrong with teaching evolution. I mean, honestly, if God does exist, then he created this place for sentient beings to explore and understand. That means: science. And if science points to evolution, then my question becomes: why couldn't God have used evolution to create humans? I cannot see the God that the Bible describes planting "fake evidence" on the earth and then laughing at us as we try to figure it out. That's just plain rubbish.
I've tried two of those three you mentioned, and just found them both inadequate. D&D 3.5 is inadequate as well, but it's an easy system to strip down parts you don't like and streamline for the sake of roleplaying.
As a veteran DM, I learned very quickly about the flaws in the 3.5 system. I have been running a game for the last 3 years and the players are now level 30 (they started at 20), and during this time the shortcomings of 3.5 have really been made in-my-face apparent. It's really very interesting to note that 3.5 seems to encourage rules lawyering. Funny enough, it also encourages cheating (e.g. player rolls a 15 and then proclaims "Natural 20!"), especially if the player rolls the die and then picks it back up again as quickly as he rolled it (and yes, I did make rules against such behavior eventually).
I think the largest gaping hole in 3.5 is the combat. I remember the first time I played 3.5 back in 2000 (a friend introduced me at college) and we got into a battle. It was fun, even invigorating! I loved it! Then I started playing with my friends back at home and it was still fun. But after I got into the core of D&D campaigns, it started to lose its luster. Finally, several years later, combat became this monotonous drawl where roleplaying ceased and it was suddenly just about rules that we all knew WAY too well. After several years with the same group of friends, D&D just kind of lost it for me. One of my friends in that group who is the most hardcore gamer you might meet, said to me that he was burnt out on D&D because it was the same every time, really no matter what you played - a statement from him that I thought I'd never hear coming out of his mouth! I think the flaw really was in the mechanics of the system, despite my best attempts to make the game interesting (and, I'm not bragging here, just stating fact for reference in case you may be thinking "Well, if you were a good DM, that wouldn't happen", I have been called the best DM people have ever played with, and not just by my own core group of friends, but by lots of others who have been pulled into my games).
So what did I do in response to these shortcomings? I started a new campaign (the one I mentioned above that has been going for 3 years now) where I have shifted my entire gaming experience away from the rules and towards social encounters for the players and towards telling a story as the DM. I don't even keep track of monster stats any longer, except for AC so I can tell the players when they hit. When the players have hit the thing enough for it to die, it dies. Some might argue that I am robbing D&D of some of its core, but I'd argue that I am instead moving the focus from rules to roleplaying. Battles are no longer about squares on a board with little figures to move around and endless rules. Instead, battles are now about how they accomplish the goal of the encounter and work together as a team. All of my encounters are now structured around something happening and the players need to make a choice with little time to think it out. For instance, in the most recent encounter, the servants of the god of fire were trying to bring back a long-dead prophet by doing a ritual that gave the prophet a new body. The body they'd chosen? The young son of the local ruler. Of course, when they finally got on the scene the ritual was already taking place and they had to act quick. The fight was easy enough for 6 level 30 characters, but that's not what made it fun. What made it fun was that they had to structure their battle around making sure the child wasn't harmed and keeping the ritual from finishing. Without going into more details, it's hard to get the full picture, but the idea here is that you make combat more about accomplishing real objectives and less about stabbing the illithid, or whatever. As for non-combat, before this battle, my players spent 4 entire sessions in a court room trying to prove the local magistrate was innocent of the charges brought against her by the less-than-trustworthy local mages. Some of the players went looking for clues in various places while others duked it out with their words before the judge. It was pretty intense. The point is this: whether in combat or non-combat, give the players situations where even if they beat all the bad guys, they can still lose.
Anyway...my two cents.
What are the current plans for campaign settings in 4.0? Will there be new ones? Will there be a new and open call for a campaign setting as there was a few years ago?
ID is just doublespeak for Genesis-Account-6-Day-Young-Earth-Creationism. Why else would the Flying Spaghetti Monster offend so many creationists? You are correct again.
(note: the above is neither for or against evolution or intelligent design)
Free browser-based MMORPG. The developers were going for the "old school" look and feel. http://www.sdegames.com/
In Soviet Russia, Wikipedia kills YOU!
The funny thing is that whether or not it's proven, it's still something to worry about. Just because we haven't wrapped our small brains around it enough to definitively prove it doesn't mean that it couldn't come true, or that it won't. That is, at least, until it's disproved altogether. :P
Adblock Plus FTW!
Suppose some applicant described his belief that the earth is actually flat during the interview. Would you really say, "Who am I to shove my beliefs down your throat? Your're hired!" Actually, I wouldn't care one way or the other if they believed in a flat earth, didn't believe in gravity, or whatever else nonsense ideas you can think to throw out there. What I would be concerned with is simply: Do they understand what their job would be? Can they perform their job better than any other candidate that I have interviewed? If so, they get the job. It doesn't matter what else they believe. Not hiring someone because of something they believe (whether true or false) is wrong; it's called prejudice. Now, if that belief will cause them to not do the job better than other candidates, then they are not hired. But even people who believe in God can be a geneticist, a neurosurgeon, and other scientific jobs, and do their jobs very well.
Let me first say: I believe in evolution. Now, onto my rant.
This entire discussion is just one big excuse for the evolutionists to trumpet their horn, degrade those who don't have the same beliefs, and make themselves feel better, all in one. Frankly, I'm sick of it. Just because people don't agree with you does NOT mean they're stupid - and I don't care WHAT kind of comparisons you can come up with to justify your point. Degrading others is never alright. A favorite topic of people today is tolerance, but it's funny how it gets applied to everyone except when it's convenient to not apply it to creationists. It's also amazing how most people here seem to think that believing in some sort of higher power makes you a crazy person. Some of America's most brilliant leaders believed in a higher power (the Christian God, most of them) and they were able to make excellent, well informed, and well-regarded decisions during their presidencies. So now, just because we have had a president for the last 7 years that most no one likes, and he happens to believe in God, it suddenly means that believing in God equals stupidity? Where's the logic in that? I'm sorry to inform you of this, but believing that there is *something* after this life does not automatically make you a nut, or incompetent for that matter.
If we, as evolutionists want people to take us seriously (e.g. those people who don't understand the overwhelming facts), then we have to first treat them with respect. They won't listen to us if we don't take this simply courtesy. To me, evolution is a fact. But another and more important fact, IMO, is that if you can't bother to treat our fellow man with respect, then you're not any better than racists, bigots, terrorists, and any other group that has no respect for others. Period.
The fact that you say that is very frightening. I am growing sick and tired or science zealots who will stop at nothing to make everyone else believe what they do. I believe in evolution, but I do NOT think it's right to shove it down someone's throat, call them names, and resort to bigotry over it all. Heck, if you do that, you're no better than the religious zealots who try to shove THEIR believes down YOUR throat, are you? And where does that get us? The answer is: nowhere.
It appears there is no way for either of us to change our minds, which is perfectly acceptable. I may not agree with your opinion, but I can respect it. Thank you for the discussion, I did enjoy it.
You have wagered wrong, sir. I have taken two graduate-level courses on science and faith, where Kuhn was used extensively. The courses were taught by a doctor of religion (from Oxford) and a doctor of physics (from Harvard, who also has a doctorate of law). The courses were extremely interesting, and I was forced (through the curriculum which had quizzes and tests) to read Kuhn completely through, write papers on it, and debate others in the class (including the professors who did not mind shutting you down if your argument was baseless or false). In these courses, the professors did make mention that many people do not like Kuhn and are thus quick to call him wrong, because they fear the implications of his work. Note that I haver never called science wrong, in fact, I believe in evolution. My only point is that Kuhn's implications are correct: scientists have faith that their science is correct. They believe that the fundamental laws of the universe as described by the current scientific paradigm will not suddenly cease, or act to the contrary. Whether admitted or not, that takes faith. That, is my only point.
To all the others who say that Kuhn was wrong: try telling that to mainstream science which still views Kuhn's work as the model of scientific revolution, which is why it is still studied in universities throughout the world.
Both ID and evolution are theories, or they wouldn't have the words "The theory of" before them. I think it's important to remember that the best either camp (scientists and theologians) can offer are just theories, both with their own supporting evidences. It's sad, though, that kids can't be taught both (that is, taught an ID where the goal is to show the probability of some greater power, not necessarily any religion's god) and then be left alone to make up their own minds about which they will choose to believe. Because, when it all boils down to it, you have to have faith in something, be it science or religion. The fact is that some of those who vehemently flame ID have just as much (or more) faith in the current scientific paradigm (see: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn) compared to their religious counterparts.