Don't go to an expensive college. If you're anything like me, and you sound like you are, you probably managed to slack your way through high school, learning much, much more outside the classroom in the process.
Unfortunately you probably never developed much in the way of academic discipline, so you're going to succeed in every college arena except for grades.
There's a very strong possibility you won't graduate this first time around - I didn't. But I went to a private school and racked up a shitload in loans.
Don't be like me. This is going to be a great experience for you, and you'll love the college environment, but when you look back, everything you learned will probably have been outside the classroom. That's not a bad thing, but you're wasting tuition if you don't get a degree. And you probably won't, this time.
So, if this is going to be throwaway college for you, don't blow the money on private school. Get into a cheap university, and by all means, live in the dorms. The best part of college for you is going to be outside the classroom; as a result, little you do in the classroom is going to matter this time. Save your money for the school you get into after you drop out of this one.
True, but just how you propose to detect the difference on a balance when the measuring weights are subject to the same gravitational field as the suit?
The suit masses 21 kg no matter where you measure it (unless the arms of your balance are so long that the other pan extends into orbit).
well, generally you would want to have a shield against ball and chain weapons.
That doesn't strike me as true.
There's two ways to block with a shield; with the edge and with the face.
Blocking with the edge is useless if the chain is long enough because the striking surface just swings around and hits you anyway.
Blocking with the face is useless because the impact goes right through the shield and breaks your arm.
I'd rather have a pole, I guess. Something for the chain to wrap itself around and spend it's energy. I could drop the pole and render his weapon useless, or try to pull it out of his hand.
i read it to be more like "if a hold the halberd against me, it'll stop the enemy's weapon".
Maybe I wasn't clear enough. I was simply referring to the fact that, wielding the halberd, a significant portion of the weapon crosses the line of your body, and is therefore in a great position to be employed defensively.
Maybe it doesn't make sense until you try to fight with one.
In a pen and paper role playing game, my experience is that attempts to deal with those situational modifiers are generally ignored by players because it's too complicated.
DnD says that halberds and other polearms have "reach", so that you can attack an opponent 10' away, but not one adjacent to you. I don't know why they didn't implement that in NWN, except maybe laziness.
Unless they're playing a character whose motivation is to seek fighting mastery. At that point, min/maxing is in character, and it's role-playing.
If you min/max a character, I mean, you should role-play it. There's gotta be an in-game reason that he pays attention to what weapons are the best for certain circumstances (or all circumstances.) But simply because a player is working to eke every advantage out of the combat system doesn't make them an automatic munchkin.
It's a terrible defense against any thrusting weapon. It's not a particularly good defense against a weapon that would snap the haft in two (like an axe, or heavy mace). It's not a good defense against a weapon with a chain, like a flail or morning star.
Again, this is all contrary to my personal experience with fighting with them. There's a reason my fighting society only has two of them - they're too good.
A halberd is 7 to 9 feet. if you swung it in a way that would hit someone two sword lengths away from you, you better hope you hit them.
You don't swing it at that range, you thrust with the headspike. Or you trip with the axe head. Overhead, wild swings are the worst way to fight with a polearm.
There's a reason renaissance nobles learned to fight with rapiers and not halberds for their personal self defense.
Yeah. It's hard to be expected to carry a 9-foot polearm everywhere you go. That has nothing to do with it's effectiveness as a weapon. After all, it was't too long before the nobles you speak of started carrying smallswords for personal protection. If you've ever seen a smallsword you know that the design criteria was having a sword that wouldn't clash with your outfit, not combat effectiveness.
Look, unless you were born within sword range, you're going to have to approach my from afar. You're going to be outside your range but inside mine long enough for me to get about six thrusts in, if I'm quick about it. The weapon is heavy so it has considerable inertia. That's going to be hard to try to parry with a light sword like a rapier.
Read the handbook. It says that wizards actually start casting their spells in the morning for an hour, and then when they want to use them, finish the casting with the last part of the spell, the stub or whatever.
So, as GM, I'll let my wizards A) cast any 0-level spell spontaneously, like sorcerers and B) sacrifice an already-prepared spell to cast any spell on their list, provided they have the hour to sit around and cast it the long way.
Yeah, the per day mechanic is kind of forced. But I think it makes more sense than spending "power points" or something. That starts to get ridiculous - "hrm, I have enough saved up to buy two fireballs and a cure light wounds, with three point's change." What are we doing, fighting orcs or redeeming frequent flyer miles?
d20 is pitching itself as the.Net of roleplaying (so I suppose Gurps is Java?). I hear what you are saying, but I still think there are better systems for even that.
Yeah, I think you're right. I'm not trying to specifically defend D20. It's just that a lot of the settings that I like (Deadlands, Legend of the Five Rings) seem to be moving to it. And it's a pretty easy system to teach a newbie, though it still has considerable depth if you want.
But I had a pretty great time in a FUDGE dungeon crawl, playing a lion tamer-cum-adventurer armed with a bullwhip and a chair. FUDGE probably has the least rules possible, and it's simply not possible to min-max, because everything is subjective.
(I tamed the hell out of that dungeon, let me tell you!)
You don't get it, apparently. Does everybody play the role of 'a soldier'??
Obviously not. But I'm not saying that everyone should powergame, now am I? I'm just saying that it's bullshit to tell someone that they're less of a role-player because they've taken on a character who's motivation is to be good at combat.
I think you missed my point on the halberd. Its not a general purpose fighting weapon.
Says you. I guess what I didn't understand, because you haven't said, is what experience or expertise you have that leads to you make this claim.
Now I'm no expert in medieval weapons myself, but I've read stuff, been to museums, and kept my eyes open. And I fight with re-enactment weapons, so maybe I know a thing or two. And as far as I can tell, the halberd (or any variant of the polearm) is in fact a "general purpose weapon." You might want to ask the generations of samurai wives expected to defend their homes - the halberd (naginata) was their weapon of choice. You might care to ask the thousands of infantry for whom the blade or axe on a pole was their weapon of choice. You might care to ask the Swiss mercenaries who guard the Vatican who wield halberds to this day if the halberd was used as a "general purpose weapon."
You claim it has no defesive power, so I guess you've never fought with one - the pole across your body is a pretty powerful defensive advantage. You know, and there's the thing about how you can kill someone before they've come within two sword-lengths. That's another pretty strong defensive strength.
How exactly is using it on the field a good idea?
I dunno. I guess you might start by asking the generations of fighters who used it on the field, unhorsing knights, making trip attacks, etc.
You seem to think that, because not everyone agrees with your views on battlefield doctrine, that the only concievable reason they choose to use the weapons they do is because they're cheats. Furthermore, you seem to think that role-playing constitutes "what would my character do in the real world?" Pardon me but I play my character based on what they would do in the game world. If it's a world where halberdiers have mastered the art of not getting killed using their weapon on the field, and everyone sees the advantages of their methods, then it's reasonable for my fighter to follow suit.
You don't think that, in real life, a soldier might notice that those with halberds tended to win more engagements, and therefore might choose to adopt its use himself?
I'm not saying that everybody who powergames considers themselves playing a role, or thinks about their character. But it is possible to play a character motivated by a need to win battles, and for that character, optimizing combat effectiveness isn't munchkinism, it's exactly what their character would do.
But no. To you, if they're not keeping intimate detail about every little bit of tedium that occurs in their lives, and are spending more time wondering how the dragon makes them feel as opposed to how to slay it, they're some kind of subgamer. Never mind that there's a number of real-life people who approach their own lives with a certain aim of maximizing effectiveness in whatever field they choose.
If you want to act, there's a number of venues for you to do so (I have). I suggest you start by getting involved in your local community theatre. But the rest of us at your table are a little more concerned about solving the problems set out for us by the GM than dealing with your in-character histronics.
Not everybody wants to play the role of a whiny, neurotic, tortured Gothic denizen of the night. Some of us think vampires are about as sexy as ticks.
Some of us want to play the role of a master of fighting prowess. who puts evil abominations to the sword. Some of us are into kicking down doors and divying up the loot. Since we don't do that IRL but rather construct personas to do it in a game, it's still role-playing. Just because I'm not interested in exploring the many facets of a character that, in real life, would be in a padded room, don't pretend like your games are somehow more legitimate than mine, ok?
Powergamers are role-players. They're just playing a role that you apparently don't like. Well, stuff it. You play Vampire: The Wearing of Stupid Dog Collars and I'll stick with D20 and hopefully, we'll never be at the same gaming table, ok?
Why do people listen to songs from a band that can only turn out "3 or 4 good tracks", when you could buy an alblum from a good band and get an entire CDs worth of good music?
You might as well ask "why would you eat at the Chinese place that only has 3 or 4 good dishes when you could eat at the Mexican place that has a menu's worth of good dishes?"
Well, duh. Because I like Chinese better than I like Mexican (or whatever.) You listen to those 3 or 4 good songs because you like them better than that other band's entire album.
Maybe you should try looking at sources other than MTV for what you want to listen to.
Maybe that's too much fuckin' work. Not everybody has the time to make sure their taste is up to your discriminating standards, Mr. Culture Police.
Anybody have the pronunciation for this? Is it "cass-hern" or "cas-shern"? I caught the Japanese narration saying "ca-sher-no" but I was wondering if anybody had it in English.
So the liquid in question was most certainly not hot enough to be "capable of almost instantaneous destruction of skin, flesh and muscle", as you claim, though you probably could get second degree burns.
Well, smartass, what gave her third-degree burns, then? Cuz she had them.
Coffee at the temperature in question - even though it's not boiling - will destroy skin in about 2-5 seconds. Lower the temperature 20 degrees, and it takes a minute and a half to destroy skin.
You do the math. McDonalds didn't have to serve scalding coffee, especially after they knew customers were being injured by it. That negligence was the source of the settlement.
That's right guys, keep branding criminal activity as Free Speech. Pretty soon we'll lose it entirely.
I'm sorry, what criminal activity? It's illegal to sell adult material to adults? If it is, then it is a free speech issue, because comics are speech. Or do you disagree?
The reason we have free speech is to protect certain kinds of speech from becoming criminal activity. And when a type of speech becomes inappropriately criminialized, it's appropriate to use the First Amendment to recitfy the situation.
Look at it from the boss's perspective - you just had to bribe an employee to stay. Now, how far do you trust that employee?
What an unusual world you live in - one where employees are employed not for money, but from the goodness of their hearts!
Get real, dude. People work because they get paid. If you didn't get paid to do it, they'd call it "fun", not "work".
The free market only works for the labor market if it's actually free. That means, if a company wants to remain in a business relationship with you, they need to pay a competitive salary. The minute they think they can short you, they do. It's called "profit motive".
Every time one of these "Linux on Xbox" stories pop up, I ask: Why?
Well, here's an idea: because I own one, and I'd like to fuck around with it, just for fun.
Surprisingly, some people actually buy the Xbox because they like the games for it. I for one wouldn't spend the exact same money on a PS2 that doesn't come with a hard drive or space for more than two controllers. And I've been a Bungie games fan for almost forever and now the Xbox is the only way to play them.
So, since I have the thing, why not see what else it can do? Maybe be a platform to view internet fansubbed anime on?
Not violence; conflict. Conflict is the source of narrative. Conflict is what allows boring philosophy to be explored as part of an engaging story. Otherwise you're reading a textbook. Textbooks don't make good movies.
Now, as it happens, the most exciting, visual form of narrative conflict is violent, physical conflict. The stakes are higher so it's more exciting.
I just saw Matrix Reloaded, and Tank appears to be dead. According to what people say.
I just watched the Matrix on DVD, and Tank appears alive and (not so) well at the end, unless he dies off camera. When the hell does that happen?
A minor continuity thing, I guess. Anybody who's more sharp-eyed than I able to shed some light?
Re: I've used genetic algorithms
on
Digital Darwin
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· Score: 1
That's very true. Evolution does not itself demand an increase in complexity. it's just that complexity is commonly used as a criteria for the necessity of design so that's what I picked as an example.
So, yeah, I agree with you. Generally complexity is an advantage although there's plenty of situations where that won't be true. It would probably be best to say that evolution favors survival but that's almost tautological.
Re: I've used genetic algorithms
on
Digital Darwin
·
· Score: 1
Where you're wrong is that the program doesn't "assume evolution", it models random mutation and natural selection. We know that random mutation occurs. We know that populations experience selection pressures.
Because we directly observe these phenomenon in nature, we then model them on the computer. That evolution then occurs is not a result of its assumption in the program but rather because evolution is a natural result of random mutations acted on by natural selection.
No one disputes that natural selection and random mutation are at work in nature, not even young earth creationists. The question has always been "are these sufficient mechanisms for complex function to arise?" According to computer models, the answer is yes.
Are you ignorant, or just an idiot? Have you ever been to any anime societies? They're FILLED with women! Women who are dying to get some because they don't have any better idea how to be social than you seem to. Just say something like "I thought Ruroni Kenshin was the most beautiful anime ever!" and they'll be all over you like a shirt.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't go to an expensive college. If you're anything like me, and you sound like you are, you probably managed to slack your way through high school, learning much, much more outside the classroom in the process.
Unfortunately you probably never developed much in the way of academic discipline, so you're going to succeed in every college arena except for grades.
There's a very strong possibility you won't graduate this first time around - I didn't. But I went to a private school and racked up a shitload in loans.
Don't be like me. This is going to be a great experience for you, and you'll love the college environment, but when you look back, everything you learned will probably have been outside the classroom. That's not a bad thing, but you're wasting tuition if you don't get a degree. And you probably won't, this time.
So, if this is going to be throwaway college for you, don't blow the money on private school. Get into a cheap university, and by all means, live in the dorms. The best part of college for you is going to be outside the classroom; as a result, little you do in the classroom is going to matter this time. Save your money for the school you get into after you drop out of this one.
True, but just how you propose to detect the difference on a balance when the measuring weights are subject to the same gravitational field as the suit?
The suit masses 21 kg no matter where you measure it (unless the arms of your balance are so long that the other pan extends into orbit).
well, generally you would want to have a shield against ball and chain weapons.
That doesn't strike me as true.
There's two ways to block with a shield; with the edge and with the face.
Blocking with the edge is useless if the chain is long enough because the striking surface just swings around and hits you anyway.
Blocking with the face is useless because the impact goes right through the shield and breaks your arm.
I'd rather have a pole, I guess. Something for the chain to wrap itself around and spend it's energy. I could drop the pole and render his weapon useless, or try to pull it out of his hand.
i read it to be more like "if a hold the halberd against me, it'll stop the enemy's weapon".
Maybe I wasn't clear enough. I was simply referring to the fact that, wielding the halberd, a significant portion of the weapon crosses the line of your body, and is therefore in a great position to be employed defensively.
Maybe it doesn't make sense until you try to fight with one.
In a pen and paper role playing game, my experience is that attempts to deal with those situational modifiers are generally ignored by players because it's too complicated.
DnD says that halberds and other polearms have "reach", so that you can attack an opponent 10' away, but not one adjacent to you. I don't know why they didn't implement that in NWN, except maybe laziness.
So, no, power gaming is not roleplaying.
Unless they're playing a character whose motivation is to seek fighting mastery. At that point, min/maxing is in character, and it's role-playing.
If you min/max a character, I mean, you should role-play it. There's gotta be an in-game reason that he pays attention to what weapons are the best for certain circumstances (or all circumstances.) But simply because a player is working to eke every advantage out of the combat system doesn't make them an automatic munchkin.
It's a terrible defense against any thrusting weapon. It's not a particularly good defense against a weapon that would snap the haft in two (like an axe, or heavy mace). It's not a good defense against a weapon with a chain, like a flail or morning star.
Again, this is all contrary to my personal experience with fighting with them. There's a reason my fighting society only has two of them - they're too good.
A halberd is 7 to 9 feet. if you swung it in a way that would hit someone two sword lengths away from you, you better hope you hit them.
You don't swing it at that range, you thrust with the headspike. Or you trip with the axe head. Overhead, wild swings are the worst way to fight with a polearm.
There's a reason renaissance nobles learned to fight with rapiers and not halberds for their personal self defense.
Yeah. It's hard to be expected to carry a 9-foot polearm everywhere you go. That has nothing to do with it's effectiveness as a weapon. After all, it was't too long before the nobles you speak of started carrying smallswords for personal protection. If you've ever seen a smallsword you know that the design criteria was having a sword that wouldn't clash with your outfit, not combat effectiveness.
Look, unless you were born within sword range, you're going to have to approach my from afar. You're going to be outside your range but inside mine long enough for me to get about six thrusts in, if I'm quick about it. The weapon is heavy so it has considerable inertia. That's going to be hard to try to parry with a light sword like a rapier.
Read the handbook. It says that wizards actually start casting their spells in the morning for an hour, and then when they want to use them, finish the casting with the last part of the spell, the stub or whatever.
So, as GM, I'll let my wizards A) cast any 0-level spell spontaneously, like sorcerers and B) sacrifice an already-prepared spell to cast any spell on their list, provided they have the hour to sit around and cast it the long way.
Yeah, the per day mechanic is kind of forced. But I think it makes more sense than spending "power points" or something. That starts to get ridiculous - "hrm, I have enough saved up to buy two fireballs and a cure light wounds, with three point's change." What are we doing, fighting orcs or redeeming frequent flyer miles?
d20 is pitching itself as the .Net of roleplaying (so I suppose Gurps is Java?). I hear what you are saying, but I still think there are better systems for even that.
Yeah, I think you're right. I'm not trying to specifically defend D20. It's just that a lot of the settings that I like (Deadlands, Legend of the Five Rings) seem to be moving to it. And it's a pretty easy system to teach a newbie, though it still has considerable depth if you want.
But I had a pretty great time in a FUDGE dungeon crawl, playing a lion tamer-cum-adventurer armed with a bullwhip and a chair. FUDGE probably has the least rules possible, and it's simply not possible to min-max, because everything is subjective.
(I tamed the hell out of that dungeon, let me tell you!)
You don't get it, apparently. Does everybody play the role of 'a soldier'??
Obviously not. But I'm not saying that everyone should powergame, now am I? I'm just saying that it's bullshit to tell someone that they're less of a role-player because they've taken on a character who's motivation is to be good at combat.
I think you missed my point on the halberd. Its not a general purpose fighting weapon.
Says you. I guess what I didn't understand, because you haven't said, is what experience or expertise you have that leads to you make this claim.
Now I'm no expert in medieval weapons myself, but I've read stuff, been to museums, and kept my eyes open. And I fight with re-enactment weapons, so maybe I know a thing or two. And as far as I can tell, the halberd (or any variant of the polearm) is in fact a "general purpose weapon." You might want to ask the generations of samurai wives expected to defend their homes - the halberd (naginata) was their weapon of choice. You might care to ask the thousands of infantry for whom the blade or axe on a pole was their weapon of choice. You might care to ask the Swiss mercenaries who guard the Vatican who wield halberds to this day if the halberd was used as a "general purpose weapon."
You claim it has no defesive power, so I guess you've never fought with one - the pole across your body is a pretty powerful defensive advantage. You know, and there's the thing about how you can kill someone before they've come within two sword-lengths. That's another pretty strong defensive strength.
How exactly is using it on the field a good idea?
I dunno. I guess you might start by asking the generations of fighters who used it on the field, unhorsing knights, making trip attacks, etc.
You seem to think that, because not everyone agrees with your views on battlefield doctrine, that the only concievable reason they choose to use the weapons they do is because they're cheats. Furthermore, you seem to think that role-playing constitutes "what would my character do in the real world?" Pardon me but I play my character based on what they would do in the game world. If it's a world where halberdiers have mastered the art of not getting killed using their weapon on the field, and everyone sees the advantages of their methods, then it's reasonable for my fighter to follow suit.
How is this roleplaying?
You don't think that, in real life, a soldier might notice that those with halberds tended to win more engagements, and therefore might choose to adopt its use himself?
I'm not saying that everybody who powergames considers themselves playing a role, or thinks about their character. But it is possible to play a character motivated by a need to win battles, and for that character, optimizing combat effectiveness isn't munchkinism, it's exactly what their character would do.
But no. To you, if they're not keeping intimate detail about every little bit of tedium that occurs in their lives, and are spending more time wondering how the dragon makes them feel as opposed to how to slay it, they're some kind of subgamer. Never mind that there's a number of real-life people who approach their own lives with a certain aim of maximizing effectiveness in whatever field they choose.
If you want to act, there's a number of venues for you to do so (I have). I suggest you start by getting involved in your local community theatre. But the rest of us at your table are a little more concerned about solving the problems set out for us by the GM than dealing with your in-character histronics.
Powergaming is roleplaying.
Not everybody wants to play the role of a whiny, neurotic, tortured Gothic denizen of the night. Some of us think vampires are about as sexy as ticks.
Some of us want to play the role of a master of fighting prowess. who puts evil abominations to the sword. Some of us are into kicking down doors and divying up the loot. Since we don't do that IRL but rather construct personas to do it in a game, it's still role-playing. Just because I'm not interested in exploring the many facets of a character that, in real life, would be in a padded room, don't pretend like your games are somehow more legitimate than mine, ok?
Powergamers are role-players. They're just playing a role that you apparently don't like. Well, stuff it. You play Vampire: The Wearing of Stupid Dog Collars and I'll stick with D20 and hopefully, we'll never be at the same gaming table, ok?
Why do people listen to songs from a band that can only turn out "3 or 4 good tracks", when you could buy an alblum from a good band and get an entire CDs worth of good music?
You might as well ask "why would you eat at the Chinese place that only has 3 or 4 good dishes when you could eat at the Mexican place that has a menu's worth of good dishes?"
Well, duh. Because I like Chinese better than I like Mexican (or whatever.) You listen to those 3 or 4 good songs because you like them better than that other band's entire album.
Maybe you should try looking at sources other than MTV for what you want to listen to.
Maybe that's too much fuckin' work. Not everybody has the time to make sure their taste is up to your discriminating standards, Mr. Culture Police.
Along with those bimbos who walk down catwalks.
Think of them as a really great case mod for a Vagina Support System.
Anybody have the pronunciation for this? Is it "cass-hern" or "cas-shern"? I caught the Japanese narration saying "ca-sher-no" but I was wondering if anybody had it in English.
I would assume that any former employee from SCO or Enron that was looking for work couldn't possibly have been involved in the wrongdoing.
After all, everybody who did the really dirty deeds got dirty rich, and they aren't looking for work.
So the liquid in question was most certainly not hot enough to be "capable of almost instantaneous destruction of skin, flesh and muscle", as you claim, though you probably could get second degree burns.
Well, smartass, what gave her third-degree burns, then? Cuz she had them.
Coffee at the temperature in question - even though it's not boiling - will destroy skin in about 2-5 seconds. Lower the temperature 20 degrees, and it takes a minute and a half to destroy skin.
You do the math. McDonalds didn't have to serve scalding coffee, especially after they knew customers were being injured by it. That negligence was the source of the settlement.
That's right guys, keep branding criminal activity as Free Speech. Pretty soon we'll lose it entirely.
I'm sorry, what criminal activity? It's illegal to sell adult material to adults? If it is, then it is a free speech issue, because comics are speech. Or do you disagree?
The reason we have free speech is to protect certain kinds of speech from becoming criminal activity. And when a type of speech becomes inappropriately criminialized, it's appropriate to use the First Amendment to recitfy the situation.
Look at it from the boss's perspective - you just had to bribe an employee to stay. Now, how far do you trust that employee?
What an unusual world you live in - one where employees are employed not for money, but from the goodness of their hearts!
Get real, dude. People work because they get paid. If you didn't get paid to do it, they'd call it "fun", not "work".
The free market only works for the labor market if it's actually free. That means, if a company wants to remain in a business relationship with you, they need to pay a competitive salary. The minute they think they can short you, they do. It's called "profit motive".
Every time one of these "Linux on Xbox" stories pop up, I ask: Why?
Well, here's an idea: because I own one, and I'd like to fuck around with it, just for fun.
Surprisingly, some people actually buy the Xbox because they like the games for it. I for one wouldn't spend the exact same money on a PS2 that doesn't come with a hard drive or space for more than two controllers. And I've been a Bungie games fan for almost forever and now the Xbox is the only way to play them.
So, since I have the thing, why not see what else it can do? Maybe be a platform to view internet fansubbed anime on?
Not violence; conflict. Conflict is the source of narrative. Conflict is what allows boring philosophy to be explored as part of an engaging story. Otherwise you're reading a textbook. Textbooks don't make good movies.
Now, as it happens, the most exciting, visual form of narrative conflict is violent, physical conflict. The stakes are higher so it's more exciting.
Why is this a negative thing?
Answered my own question via Google. I guess there was some kind of casting dispute so the actor who played Tank didn't return for the sequel.
So I guess he's just assumed to have died when we weren't looking. Lame.
I just saw Matrix Reloaded, and Tank appears to be dead. According to what people say.
I just watched the Matrix on DVD, and Tank appears alive and (not so) well at the end, unless he dies off camera. When the hell does that happen?
A minor continuity thing, I guess. Anybody who's more sharp-eyed than I able to shed some light?
That's very true. Evolution does not itself demand an increase in complexity. it's just that complexity is commonly used as a criteria for the necessity of design so that's what I picked as an example.
So, yeah, I agree with you. Generally complexity is an advantage although there's plenty of situations where that won't be true. It would probably be best to say that evolution favors survival but that's almost tautological.
Where you're wrong is that the program doesn't "assume evolution", it models random mutation and natural selection. We know that random mutation occurs. We know that populations experience selection pressures.
Because we directly observe these phenomenon in nature, we then model them on the computer. That evolution then occurs is not a result of its assumption in the program but rather because evolution is a natural result of random mutations acted on by natural selection.
No one disputes that natural selection and random mutation are at work in nature, not even young earth creationists. The question has always been "are these sufficient mechanisms for complex function to arise?" According to computer models, the answer is yes.
Are you ignorant, or just an idiot? Have you ever been to any anime societies? They're FILLED with women! Women who are dying to get some because they don't have any better idea how to be social than you seem to. Just say something like "I thought Ruroni Kenshin was the most beautiful anime ever!" and they'll be all over you like a shirt.
Dude, anime = chicks, totally.