Sadly, that's the same thing people said about a Firefly movie, and yet...
No hate to the fans, but Firefly is a bit of a niche story vying for space between the Treks, Wars, Battlestars and countless other sci-fi stories (I actually liked Space: Above and Beyond... I now don my fireproof asbestos lined fire suit).
Chrono Trigger is considered to be one of the greatest video games ever made. It constantly makes it into the single digits on "$WEBSITE'S Top 100 List". You can buy CT complete, or for roughly the same money go buy an Xbox360 (but who would do that?).
To a game enthusiast, Chrono Trigger is in a totally different league. There's very little you can compare it to.
Great, what does that have to do with the profitability of fan made mods?
Mother 3.
Any idea how many copies would sell if the fan mod were sold officially in cartridge format? I'd buy it at 50 bucks and not think twice. Millions would.
Wherever there is demand, there is money to be made. There are no exceptions.
And he's saying that argument does not have any logical/statistical/whatever evidence to back it up, thus making it an empty opinion.
Any idea how much an original Chrono Trigger fetches? Do you know how many people bought it originally (SNES)... the second time (PSX)... and the third time (DS)?
Then there's Chrono Cross. Care to take a shot at how many purchased that game? It made the "Best Seller" reprint list.
Square-Enix could make a king's fortune selling a third Chrono game. They know this... we've been begging (literally) for another Chrono game. But no... S-E is too busy milking the Final Fantasy cow to really care. Who wants a turn-based RPG anymore? It's all about the flashy graphics and real-time combat.
By the by, S-E, how's that mumorpurger of yours going?
Put simply, if they released another one, we'd buy it in a heartbeat (well, maybe not so much now). We don't make fangames or listen to symphony orchestras perform the music of those games because we hate 'em...
Everyone knows that scientific theory is not scientific fact. A better theory may come along and frequently does in the the sciences. Especially if this criticism examines scientific evidence as the amendment requests and not "biblical evidence" which a lot of creationism is based upon. (Lots of circular arguements that basically end with the bible said so and it's correct because it's the word of god, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.)
Hopefully it would be interpreted that way and not just be a vehicle to introduce creationism. Afterall, scientific dogma is still dogma.
Bzzzt. Sorry. Theories are built by facts. They are frameworks for facts. If a theory is discarded in favor of another, it is because new facts have arisen that the original theory does not account for.
That's not true. If there such an entity then it could easily directly validate its existence absolutely positively and universally.
Heck, that's one of the clearest and most obvious bits of proof that if such an entity existed it's never even tried to make itself known to humans. Anything worthy of the name god would have been capable of delivering a simple message. That complete and total failure isn't proof that there is no god, just that if there is one it can't possibly be any of the ones there are books about.
NO, we will all find out for ourselves when we die. Either there will be black and nothing, as our brain shuts down, or there will be some sort of a spirit moving onwards. If you want to know right away, if there is a God, shoot yourself. I just don't need that verification right now!
Have you, or anyone you know, been able to verify what you have stated? Moreso, why is death the ONLY way to verify this "God"? How do you even know that death is the proper avenue to gain access to this deity? You have no evidence, no data, no way to test this prediction. Thus your argument is not scientific.
That's actually not true either. It's not how people work. Everyone that invents some theory has a preconceived vision of how the universe works and they put out there vision bolstered by some experiment or set of experiments. It's only the notion of test that gives us a winner and validates a given model and then only for a particular domain.
Incorrect. Theories aren't "invented", nor does it start with a preconceived vision. Theories start with observations and measurements. From these, predictions are made. These predictions are then validated or invalidated via additional observations and measurements. If validated, a theory is created. If not, the predictions are altered. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Charles Darwin didn't say "Hey, I think life alters itself slightly through reproduction and variation... let me set sail on a boat and find out!". He observed various lifeforms and their environment, and through these observations, made a prediction that species arise via descent with modification. Scientists have since validated this prediction with additional observations and measurements which are used to make additional predictions, such as exactly which species are descended from which ancestor.
But the larger point is that science itself, despite its falsifiability, still requires a faith. The minimum notion of science is that if someone else does something, you can do that thing yourself. It is this and this alone that makes science fact.
Science is fact through observation, testability and falsifiability. Not only can you do this thing yourself, you can predict the results of future experiments using this data and utilize it for practical purposes.
While this may be theoretically true, its certainly not practically true for most people. If the LHC people come out tomorrow and say they found the Higgs, how could I, myself, ever test that? The Higgs could have just about any number put to it and it would not make any difference to me as I could never know the absolute truth firsthand.
Peer review.
The results are verified by people who do have the ability to reproduce and test these results. Measurements are double checked, data is poured through. Even you can participate in this... if you see an error in a result, point it out.
Let's ask this: How do you know electrons exist? You don't have the ability to directly observe them, you can't test the exact measurements used to determine their existence... they could have just about any number attached to them and you wouldn't know. How could you possibly know the absolute truth firsthand?
Oh, that "computer" thing in front of you? Really... you don't say? THAT is how you know the "absolute truth". We have learned enough about them to utilize them in a productive manner.
The only thing you need is the education to be able to interpret the data.
You have to have faith in the process and the people and the institutions and the education, all that somehow its not being made up. For a lot of inquiry, you can assume that this is not the case. But, for some things, where there is big money involved, political preference, then we cannot be so sure, and those that are, doing so out of faith.
The problem that cdesign proponentists have with evolution (and subsequently, abiogenesis) is that it doesn't need a god. Everything in science has and must have a natural explanation. Moreso, science as a whole deals with physical evidence and testable predictions, of which there are none for the existence of a god.
Sure, you can multi-class and be both scientific and still hold faith in a higher power, but that does not change the fact that science will never point to a deity. By its very nature, a supernatural being cannot be tested and no direct physical evidence can be brought forth to validate its existence.
The only reason you can mix your faith with science is because your faith is a premade conclusion... to you there is no question of this being's existence, regardless of the fact that there is absolutely no evidence for it. It is like building a house upside down: you are starting with a conclusion... science ends with one.
Well, I would imagine that the general environment above water changes much more and much more drastically than the one below. Things such as Ice Ages and volcanic eruptions aren't going to have a profound effect on a lifeform that lives hundreds of feet (or even several miles) below the surface of the water.
Evolution requires environmental pressure in order to allow changes to be selected. If there isn't much of an environmental pressure outside of being faster than what's trying to eat you or smarter than what you're trying to eat, there won't be much evolution except to these ends.
the worst constructed "bong" I have ever seen. I wouldn't smoke ANYTHING out of that. Judging from the actual bowl piece itself, he has a perfectly working bong somewhere in his house (well, not anymore). However seeing the valve on the stem of this thing, I assume the only purpose for this device was to smoke out his cat... it sure as hell isn't a carb. Give the cat some nip and save the pot for yourself. So congrats, dumbass... you've added another mark on the "pot is TEH EVILZ!!1!one!!!111!" chart.
It's people saying, "We should accept what this scientist says because other scientists say that he's right." I guess what I'm saying is that I worry that, as a process like this becomes more technical, people will be more likely to confuse a statement like, "This study has been reviewed by other scientists and seems to have merit," with something more like, "This study is correct, infallible, and indisputable."
Getting a group of scientists to fully agree on something is akin to herding cats, or for a better analogy, getting all of Slashdot to agree on the best *nix text editor.
"This study is correct, infallible, and indisputable." is best replaced by "This study has made it through one of the must grueling gauntlets that modern civilization has to offer and made it out the other side, therefore it has merit."
Carbon dating gets too inaccurate after 50,000 years.
Carbon dating doesn't just become inaccurate after 50,000 years... it becomes impossible to distinguish between measurable C14 decay and background radiation. It's completely inapplicable at that age.
Verizon is evil, no doubt, but Sprint is much more evil by far.
I pay 85 per month for 3g web access and phone-as-modem tethering. Unlimited access. The trick is you have to call them and specifically request those two... when I went into a Sprint store, I was explicitly told that they would not under any circumstances give me both unlimited 3g net access and tethering.
Until the nice guy at the call center added the info to my account. Then I got my phone how I wanted. Soma FM while cruising down I-95 is the best.
According to this page NES games average $5 and SNES games average $8. That's quite a lot of money just for a trip down memory lane.
Secret of Mana for the Wii VC will set you back 8 bucks. Buy the original SNES cartridge and you're out AT LEAST five to eight times that, depending on condition and completeness. Mega Man I (if you can find it) will cost you four times its VC price in cartridge form.
The VC is a convenient and legal way to acquire timeless gaming classics, many of which are near impossible to find (try locating an original copy of Soldier Blade, much less complete, for anything less than $40).
More intelligence isn't always useful to reproduce better, which is what matters for evolution.
A bird that is born with a better brain that allows it to realize that it can pick a sharp rock and bash it against an egg with a hard shell to break it has an advantage: it now has more food available to it. It will be healthier (or survive) and will be more likely to reproduce.
A cat born with a brain that allows it to realize that if it could perform the necessary operations it could build mousetraps to catch mice isn't any better off. In fact it's probably worse off due to being depressed after realizing that an improvement is possible but it physically can't do what would be required due to cat paws being useless for the job, and having a larger brain that takes more energy for no benefit.
Same thing for humans. A brain that makes you a supremely good programmer isn't terribly good at attracting women, especially when using that extra ability involves withdrawing from society to get things done.
Take a look at yourself. Literally, that is. We're bipedal land-based tetrapods. This (at least or us humans) provides one rather interesting disadvantage: of all the things out in the wild that would love to eat us... we can outrun maybe two percent of them. We can't even outrun a house cat or the family dog, much less a lion or wolf. With such a disadvantage, the only thing we can do is outsmart them. Tools, weapons, the ability to create plans and compensate when they go wrong.
We were forced to become intelligent. It was that or become easy prey.
The results of the chimpanzee genome project suggest that when ancestral chromosomes 2A and 2B fused to produce human chromosome 2, no genes were lost from the fused ends of 2A and 2B. At the site of fusion, there is approximately 150,000 base pairs of sequence not found in chimpanzee chromosomes 2A and 2B. Additional linked copies of the PGML/FOXD/CBWD genes exist elsewhere in the human genome, particularly near the p end of chromosome 9. This suggests that a copy of these genes may have been added to the end of the ancestral 2A or 2B prior to the fusion event. It remains to be determined if these inserted genes confer a selective advantage.
Now, your turn.
What does an increase in "information" (another creationist misused term) infer? I'm sure you're not saying that additional genetic data is the only way evolution works. Odd how things like Downs Syndrome, which are damaging, result from an increase of genetic "information", while things like CCR5delta32 (provides near immunity to HIV/AIDS) is actually a decrease in "information".
Of course a decrease in "information" can also be damaging. Fragile X is a prime example of this.
This all comes from another facet of the shining example of a creationist's lack of scientific knowledge. Evolution is not based on "information", it's based on an organism being fit to its environment. More does not always mean better.
I'd get a bit of an education on the subject before pulling questions from Youtube videos.
Slashdot Mirror
Sadly, that's the same thing people said about a Firefly movie, and yet...
No hate to the fans, but Firefly is a bit of a niche story vying for space between the Treks, Wars, Battlestars and countless other sci-fi stories (I actually liked Space: Above and Beyond... I now don my fireproof asbestos lined fire suit).
Chrono Trigger is considered to be one of the greatest video games ever made. It constantly makes it into the single digits on "$WEBSITE'S Top 100 List". You can buy CT complete, or for roughly the same money go buy an Xbox360 (but who would do that?).
To a game enthusiast, Chrono Trigger is in a totally different league. There's very little you can compare it to.
Great, what does that have to do with the profitability of fan made mods?
Mother 3.
Any idea how many copies would sell if the fan mod were sold officially in cartridge format? I'd buy it at 50 bucks and not think twice. Millions would.
Wherever there is demand, there is money to be made. There are no exceptions.
And he's saying that argument does not have any logical/statistical/whatever evidence to back it up, thus making it an empty opinion.
Any idea how much an original Chrono Trigger fetches? Do you know how many people bought it originally (SNES)... the second time (PSX)... and the third time (DS)?
Then there's Chrono Cross. Care to take a shot at how many purchased that game? It made the "Best Seller" reprint list.
Square-Enix could make a king's fortune selling a third Chrono game. They know this... we've been begging (literally) for another Chrono game. But no... S-E is too busy milking the Final Fantasy cow to really care. Who wants a turn-based RPG anymore? It's all about the flashy graphics and real-time combat.
By the by, S-E, how's that mumorpurger of yours going?
Put simply, if they released another one, we'd buy it in a heartbeat (well, maybe not so much now). We don't make fangames or listen to symphony orchestras perform the music of those games because we hate 'em...
Everyone knows that scientific theory is not scientific fact. A better theory may come along and frequently does in the the sciences. Especially if this criticism examines scientific evidence as the amendment requests and not "biblical evidence" which a lot of creationism is based upon. (Lots of circular arguements that basically end with the bible said so and it's correct because it's the word of god, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.)
Hopefully it would be interpreted that way and not just be a vehicle to introduce creationism. Afterall, scientific dogma is still dogma.
Bzzzt. Sorry. Theories are built by facts. They are frameworks for facts. If a theory is discarded in favor of another, it is because new facts have arisen that the original theory does not account for.
This is news? Oh... it's breaking in an entirely new way? Now that's news.
That's not true. If there such an entity then it could easily directly validate its existence absolutely positively and universally.
Heck, that's one of the clearest and most obvious bits of proof that if such an entity existed it's never even tried to make itself known to humans. Anything worthy of the name god would have been capable of delivering a simple message. That complete and total failure isn't proof that there is no god, just that if there is one it can't possibly be any of the ones there are books about.
Really? Test this.
NO, we will all find out for ourselves when we die. Either there will be black and nothing, as our brain shuts down, or there will be some sort of a spirit moving onwards. If you want to know right away, if there is a God, shoot yourself. I just don't need that verification right now!
Have you, or anyone you know, been able to verify what you have stated? Moreso, why is death the ONLY way to verify this "God"? How do you even know that death is the proper avenue to gain access to this deity? You have no evidence, no data, no way to test this prediction. Thus your argument is not scientific.
That's actually not true either. It's not how people work. Everyone that invents some theory has a preconceived vision of how the universe works and they put out there vision bolstered by some experiment or set of experiments. It's only the notion of test that gives us a winner and validates a given model and then only for a particular domain.
Incorrect. Theories aren't "invented", nor does it start with a preconceived vision. Theories start with observations and measurements. From these, predictions are made. These predictions are then validated or invalidated via additional observations and measurements. If validated, a theory is created. If not, the predictions are altered. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Charles Darwin didn't say "Hey, I think life alters itself slightly through reproduction and variation... let me set sail on a boat and find out!". He observed various lifeforms and their environment, and through these observations, made a prediction that species arise via descent with modification. Scientists have since validated this prediction with additional observations and measurements which are used to make additional predictions, such as exactly which species are descended from which ancestor.
But the larger point is that science itself, despite its falsifiability, still requires a faith. The minimum notion of science is that if someone else does something, you can do that thing yourself. It is this and this alone that makes science fact.
Science is fact through observation, testability and falsifiability. Not only can you do this thing yourself, you can predict the results of future experiments using this data and utilize it for practical purposes.
While this may be theoretically true, its certainly not practically true for most people. If the LHC people come out tomorrow and say they found the Higgs, how could I, myself, ever test that? The Higgs could have just about any number put to it and it would not make any difference to me as I could never know the absolute truth firsthand.
Peer review.
The results are verified by people who do have the ability to reproduce and test these results. Measurements are double checked, data is poured through. Even you can participate in this... if you see an error in a result, point it out.
Let's ask this: How do you know electrons exist? You don't have the ability to directly observe them, you can't test the exact measurements used to determine their existence... they could have just about any number attached to them and you wouldn't know. How could you possibly know the absolute truth firsthand?
Oh, that "computer" thing in front of you? Really... you don't say? THAT is how you know the "absolute truth". We have learned enough about them to utilize them in a productive manner.
The only thing you need is the education to be able to interpret the data.
You have to have faith in the process and the people and the institutions and the education, all that somehow its not being made up. For a lot of inquiry, you can assume that this is not the case. But, for some things, where there is big money involved, political preference, then we cannot be so sure, and those that are, doing so out of faith.
Again, peer review. Read up on the 80's cold fu
That's a pretty bold statement. Any proof better then that of those that say there is?
We can control it. We can manipulate it. We can make it do things it's really not supposed to.
The problem that cdesign proponentists have with evolution (and subsequently, abiogenesis) is that it doesn't need a god. Everything in science has and must have a natural explanation. Moreso, science as a whole deals with physical evidence and testable predictions, of which there are none for the existence of a god.
Sure, you can multi-class and be both scientific and still hold faith in a higher power, but that does not change the fact that science will never point to a deity. By its very nature, a supernatural being cannot be tested and no direct physical evidence can be brought forth to validate its existence.
The only reason you can mix your faith with science is because your faith is a premade conclusion... to you there is no question of this being's existence, regardless of the fact that there is absolutely no evidence for it. It is like building a house upside down: you are starting with a conclusion... science ends with one.
Well, I would imagine that the general environment above water changes much more and much more drastically than the one below. Things such as Ice Ages and volcanic eruptions aren't going to have a profound effect on a lifeform that lives hundreds of feet (or even several miles) below the surface of the water.
Evolution requires environmental pressure in order to allow changes to be selected. If there isn't much of an environmental pressure outside of being faster than what's trying to eat you or smarter than what you're trying to eat, there won't be much evolution except to these ends.
the worst constructed "bong" I have ever seen. I wouldn't smoke ANYTHING out of that. Judging from the actual bowl piece itself, he has a perfectly working bong somewhere in his house (well, not anymore). However seeing the valve on the stem of this thing, I assume the only purpose for this device was to smoke out his cat... it sure as hell isn't a carb. Give the cat some nip and save the pot for yourself. So congrats, dumbass... you've added another mark on the "pot is TEH EVILZ!!1!one!!!111!" chart.
It's people saying, "We should accept what this scientist says because other scientists say that he's right." I guess what I'm saying is that I worry that, as a process like this becomes more technical, people will be more likely to confuse a statement like, "This study has been reviewed by other scientists and seems to have merit," with something more like, "This study is correct, infallible, and indisputable."
Getting a group of scientists to fully agree on something is akin to herding cats, or for a better analogy, getting all of Slashdot to agree on the best *nix text editor.
"This study is correct, infallible, and indisputable." is best replaced by "This study has made it through one of the must grueling gauntlets that modern civilization has to offer and made it out the other side, therefore it has merit."
WWAKD (What Would A Klingon Do?)
Rob a 7-11, apparently. How else does a warrior fund a Bird of Prey in this economy?
You might think that's funny, but robbing gas stations is the exactly the kind of stuff that gangs use as initiation,
Since when do the Bloods have a trekkie clique?
Are you suggesting that the autopilot is the difficult part here? Apollo 11 ran on an insanely sucky chip
And three astronauts.
Coffee don't fax worth a damn!
Carbon dating gets too inaccurate after 50,000 years.
Carbon dating doesn't just become inaccurate after 50,000 years... it becomes impossible to distinguish between measurable C14 decay and background radiation. It's completely inapplicable at that age.
Can you run FSX and Cryis at 60FPS?
No.
Nobody ever said that real change would be easy or done for us. At least the man is pointing us in the right direction.
Verizon is evil, no doubt, but Sprint is much more evil by far.
I pay 85 per month for 3g web access and phone-as-modem tethering. Unlimited access. The trick is you have to call them and specifically request those two... when I went into a Sprint store, I was explicitly told that they would not under any circumstances give me both unlimited 3g net access and tethering.
Until the nice guy at the call center added the info to my account. Then I got my phone how I wanted. Soma FM while cruising down I-95 is the best.
According to this page NES games average $5 and SNES games average $8. That's quite a lot of money just for a trip down memory lane.
Secret of Mana for the Wii VC will set you back 8 bucks. Buy the original SNES cartridge and you're out AT LEAST five to eight times that, depending on condition and completeness. Mega Man I (if you can find it) will cost you four times its VC price in cartridge form.
The VC is a convenient and legal way to acquire timeless gaming classics, many of which are near impossible to find (try locating an original copy of Soldier Blade, much less complete, for anything less than $40).
32-bit Playstation wiped the floor with the Nintendo 64
I wouldn't ...LOADING...
quite call ...LOADING...
it wiping ...LOADING...
the floor with...
Squaresoft.
You seem to think computers operate using a combination of "processors" and "magic". You are mistaken.
NOT LISTENING TO YOU!!! The magic smoke is REAL!!! It's real magic!!! And love, the secret ingredient is love, damnit!!!
More intelligence isn't always useful to reproduce better, which is what matters for evolution.
A bird that is born with a better brain that allows it to realize that it can pick a sharp rock and bash it against an egg with a hard shell to break it has an advantage: it now has more food available to it. It will be healthier (or survive) and will be more likely to reproduce.
A cat born with a brain that allows it to realize that if it could perform the necessary operations it could build mousetraps to catch mice isn't any better off. In fact it's probably worse off due to being depressed after realizing that an improvement is possible but it physically can't do what would be required due to cat paws being useless for the job, and having a larger brain that takes more energy for no benefit.
Same thing for humans. A brain that makes you a supremely good programmer isn't terribly good at attracting women, especially when using that extra ability involves withdrawing from society to get things done.
Take a look at yourself. Literally, that is. We're bipedal land-based tetrapods. This (at least or us humans) provides one rather interesting disadvantage: of all the things out in the wild that would love to eat us... we can outrun maybe two percent of them. We can't even outrun a house cat or the family dog, much less a lion or wolf. With such a disadvantage, the only thing we can do is outsmart them. Tools, weapons, the ability to create plans and compensate when they go wrong.
We were forced to become intelligent. It was that or become easy prey.
I'm obviously no scientist, but given your references to quantum physics and subatomic particles I'll wager that you are a great deal more familiar with the cold hard facts than I am, so I'll ask you a question: Can you give an example of a genetic mutation or an evolutionary process which can be seen to increase the information in the genome?
I'll feed for the hell of it. I have karma to roll and smoke.
First off...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimpanzee_Genome_Project#Genes_of_the_Chromosome_2_fusion_site
The results of the chimpanzee genome project suggest that when ancestral chromosomes 2A and 2B fused to produce human chromosome 2, no genes were lost from the fused ends of 2A and 2B. At the site of fusion, there is approximately 150,000 base pairs of sequence not found in chimpanzee chromosomes 2A and 2B. Additional linked copies of the PGML/FOXD/CBWD genes exist elsewhere in the human genome, particularly near the p end of chromosome 9. This suggests that a copy of these genes may have been added to the end of the ancestral 2A or 2B prior to the fusion event. It remains to be determined if these inserted genes confer a selective advantage.
Now, your turn.
What does an increase in "information" (another creationist misused term) infer? I'm sure you're not saying that additional genetic data is the only way evolution works. Odd how things like Downs Syndrome, which are damaging, result from an increase of genetic "information", while things like CCR5delta32 (provides near immunity to HIV/AIDS) is actually a decrease in "information".
Of course a decrease in "information" can also be damaging. Fragile X is a prime example of this.
This all comes from another facet of the shining example of a creationist's lack of scientific knowledge. Evolution is not based on "information", it's based on an organism being fit to its environment. More does not always mean better.
I'd get a bit of an education on the subject before pulling questions from Youtube videos.