I was specifically referring to groups that use the Bible (English/Old English/Greek/Hebrew translations, Word of God, Holy Scripture, the Logos, Old/New Testament, etc) as either the sole basis for thier moral ruleset or as part of that basis (i.e. throw in Book of Mormon, Apocrypha, Dead Sea Scrolls or something else for additional rules and good times).
The Principia Discordia and teachings of Bob are in a class by themselves;-)
I agree! Just ask the Catholic Church, the multitudes of Protestant denominations, Branch Dividians, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Rastafarians, KKK, gay Christians, Charismatics, etc.
I only slightly know what I'm talking about here but.... the "Philosopher's Stone" is indeed something from alchemical lore. On the surface the Stone was the element the alchemists were looking for that would turn metals into gold. Underlying this is the basic philosophy that there is one 'thing' to discover which would unlock the secret to 'everything'. I'm not sure if alchemists were searching for that One True Thing, but modern-day occultists have used it to express some mystical self-discovering journey or something.
This would definitely rile any fundamentalists that understood, even just a little bit, what this might imply. Anything that might hint that humanity doesn't need their old god and is used as the basis for a movie targeted at children would see protests, boycotts, etc. It's not surprising that movie execs opted to change it. That's assuming they changed it for that reason - could just be that Sorcerer sounds much cooler than Philosopher.
Prove that you have prior art. I haven't seen anything to indicate that you did this before the patentee.
Re:Notes from a Sims Online Beta Tester
on
Sim-Dud?
·
· Score: 1
I spent over 60% of my time downloading updates.
Welcome to the world of external beta tesing. The game you agreed to *test* was being developed during the period that you signed-on to test. This has nothing to do with the quality of the final game.
The Sims world seems to be too homoginized, too politically correct. If you want to add some fun, let players choose if they want to be crime lords.
That wouldn't be the The Sims Online it would be Mafia Online. What's your point?
The UI isn't too intuitive. People who don't play the Sims have a huge learning curve.
Welcome to computing in the 21st century. Seriously, that's a criticism? The interface is designed rather well and is very close to how the highly successful The Sims game is. Why is that bad?
Their monthly prices are not worth the minimal gameplay you get in return
What is adequate gameplay to get for your money? How is The Sims Online not meeting that expectation?
The game can consume too much of your time
That's what MMOG players seem to like. That's not to say that typical MMOG players and potential The Sims Online players are the same....
What am I working towards?
Having a good time. Was there something else we are supposed to be WORKing towards in a GAME?
What does "mainstream" vs "alt" have to do with the quality of an operating system? I thought Linux advocates wanted it to be "mainstream". I'm confused....
Your points are not helped by name-calling and misleading comments.
It never ceases to amaze me how few liberals respect the Bill of Rights, or basic human rights.
That statement is so utterly false. It's sort of like me saying that conservatives have no respect for the dollar bill.
"sweatshop" is probably a meannigless term to you because you have never been poor. And liberals hating the poor? Okay, let me come back at you and say that conservatives hate the rich. Laughable isn't it?
Oh, and you might be modded down, not because of your views (notice that there *are* civil-acting conservatives on Slashdot quite regularly) but because you are screaming on and on incessantly. Like your neighbors dog that barks all night long while you're attempting to get some much-needed sleep.
Cogent? Apparently conservatives (apologies to the intelligent conservatives out there, I don't mean this directed at you) never took English 101.
Question. If a corporation is responsible for the deaths of others can it be put it to death (and I don't mean being put out of business - there's no correlation between that and human loss of life)? Can a corporation be charged with treason? Can a corporation vote? Does it have feelings? Is it born with inalienable rights? Can a corporation be drafted?
I've learned the hard way - alternate glasses of water with caffiene and have occasionaly snacks (of actual food not crap). Helps me to avoid burnout and side-effects of caffiene binges/dehydration. Although I do think an empty growling stomach helps sharpen the mind, it can be a bit distracting.
I can deal with unprofessionalism on Slashdot (dupes, unverified sources), since it's really not a professional journalistic news source and has never claimed to be. I can deal with bias against Microsoft, the U.S. government, corporations, Red Hat, Church of Scientology, etc. because no one ever said the editors were being objective. I can deal with regurgitated Register posts and the constant WSJ (free registration required!) posts.
What I can't deal with are article submissions being approved when the submitter doesn't read the article they are submitting *and* making unfounded biased FUDish comments about it. The editors not reading the article and commenting on it in the blurb is bad enough.
It's embarassing to ever point anyone else to Slashdot and it's very hard to take it even the slightest bit seriously.
I know some people that would've gladly taken that off of your hands. Although, I guess any shipping of the monitor may have disturbed the fine balance that produced the effects.
For a time, I lived in a so-called Texas oil town during the late 80's and early 90's. A family member worked on oil rigs there. The town itself was a ghost-town (and is much worse within the last few years) because the government paid the oil producers to shut down the wells. Texas oil is more expensive to drill, retrieve and refine than just buying tanker-full shipments of imported oil. If anything, the "Texas oil economy" probably revolves more around importing and off-shore drilling. Just a detail there for ya, "partner".
Do you have a URL for Bush's guidelines on electric vehicles?
Why does everyone always talk about this "Mule" crap when this subject is brought up? I've been into RPGs off and on since '81, and I can't remember a long running campaign EVER where I just used a single character. Why? I would periodically feel like PLAYING a different ROLE. That is, after all, the entire purpose of a ROLE PLAYING game....
People talk about mules because in many games these alternate characters, whose sole purpose is for a specialized method of getting around imposed gameplay rules, run rampant. The use of mules deteriorates the economy, the community and the role-play aspect of the game. This is due to anonymity, less player investment in the mule character, benefits from specialization that a "real" character can't hope to compete with and more.
Role-Play? While I understand where you're coming from, the sad truth is that in MMORPGs the majority of the player base does not role-play. Multiply the number of players that don't role-play by how many alternate and mule characters you have and the true role-players are swamped by a population that just doesn't give a frell about anyone else.
If anything, the lack of insta-anonymity, muling and increased character investment should only help to increase the level of role-play.
I hope. Not that I'm going to play it, simply because I don't really want to play a mega-blockbuster movie franchise game. Although the single-character-per-server idea tempts me to.
Probably something that will keep this from happening is simply: cost. Unlike a one-off game that may not require more than one post-release patch, a game in the MMO genre requires upkeep for years with frequent patching and constant testing.
Granted not all of the patching is done for client-side aspects of the games but it is something to take into account and could, effectively double the cost of 'maintenance'. It's probably the reason we don't already see Mac versions of EQ, DAoC and the like even though I would imagine they would be more lucrative markets relative to Linux.
And at one time there was an actual Ultima Online client for Linux. It was unofficial and maintained by programmers that left Origin fairly soon in UO's history. Worked good too.
Yes, I totally agree with you. How was I even remotely suggesting otherwise? Oh, and you forgot the Unreal engine.
The point of my post was that I find the notion of "the best mods" only being based off of other copywritten works (ala Total Conversions based on other games, comics, movies, cartoons, etc) pretty narrow-minded. I also think that mod creators using such copywritten material are wasting their time and should expect to be unsupported by the game's company, who are themselves in the business of selling copywritten material.
If someone is going to bother creating a mod, perhaps they should spend some time coming up with their own storyline, characters and setting. This is not to say that no good mods were based on stolen material. I've played quite a few good ones that were.
To a degree, you have a point. Over time, people see that nothing has changed and forget "the boycott". This is bound to happen - always - but should not be an excuse for those that take up such a thing to begin with.
Personally, I've never claimed to be boycotting Amazon. However, I no longer shop there. I take my business elsewhere FatBrain/BN for books and DVDs, CDNOW (of course, they are now Amazon so... I will be moving on) and various independant shops for my music. In general, though, I only use them for the reviews (with a grain of salt at that.)
My point... taking on a cause via a boycott turns out in the long run to seem inaffectual and pointless. Maybe we should just all take our dollars elsewhere. It's the same thing without the Cause attached.
Or better yet, let's give Gail Cooke an interview on Slashdot. Top moderated questions, etc etc. Should make for some interesting reading and prove whether or not she's a real individual vs a marketing group or if she's paid for positive reviews, etc.
But there's a flaw in your logic. In your situation, you still owned and were capable of using the car. Imagine you sold the car and bought a bike. You don't still have to pay car insurance, and insurers are generally required to give you a refund -- prorated for the time that the car was in your possession.
This is a little offtopic and I'm not trying to add anything to the debate here... but if you ever do this and plan on having a car again EVER keep your insurance. If you, say, buy a bike and cancel your insurance then a few years later decide you really need a car your insurance premiums will be much higher. In some cases insurance companies won't even give you insurance if you've had a lapse in auto insurance (Farmer's).
Just a word to the wise. And yes, I think it's wrong and insurance policy makers should be tarred-and-feathered, but what can you do?
Slashdot Mirror
I was specifically referring to groups that use the Bible (English/Old English/Greek/Hebrew translations, Word of God, Holy Scripture, the Logos, Old/New Testament, etc) as either the sole basis for thier moral ruleset or as part of that basis (i.e. throw in Book of Mormon, Apocrypha, Dead Sea Scrolls or something else for additional rules and good times).
;-)
The Principia Discordia and teachings of Bob are in a class by themselves
I agree! Just ask the Catholic Church, the multitudes of Protestant denominations, Branch Dividians, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Rastafarians, KKK, gay Christians, Charismatics, etc.
:)
What a standard
Way off-topic....
I only slightly know what I'm talking about here but.... the "Philosopher's Stone" is indeed something from alchemical lore. On the surface the Stone was the element the alchemists were looking for that would turn metals into gold. Underlying this is the basic philosophy that there is one 'thing' to discover which would unlock the secret to 'everything'. I'm not sure if alchemists were searching for that One True Thing, but modern-day occultists have used it to express some mystical self-discovering journey or something.
This would definitely rile any fundamentalists that understood, even just a little bit, what this might imply. Anything that might hint that humanity doesn't need their old god and is used as the basis for a movie targeted at children would see protests, boycotts, etc. It's not surprising that movie execs opted to change it. That's assuming they changed it for that reason - could just be that Sorcerer sounds much cooler than Philosopher.
What's this cool new site, "dotslash" that I've been hearing about? I heard it was stuff that matters, news for nerds.
Prove that you have prior art. I haven't seen anything to indicate that you did this before the patentee.
I spent over 60% of my time downloading updates.
Welcome to the world of external beta tesing. The game you agreed to *test* was being developed during the period that you signed-on to test. This has nothing to do with the quality of the final game.
The Sims world seems to be too homoginized, too politically correct. If you want to add some fun, let players choose if they want to be crime lords.
That wouldn't be the The Sims Online it would be Mafia Online. What's your point?
The UI isn't too intuitive. People who don't play the Sims have a huge learning curve.
Welcome to computing in the 21st century. Seriously, that's a criticism? The interface is designed rather well and is very close to how the highly successful The Sims game is. Why is that bad?
Their monthly prices are not worth the minimal gameplay you get in return
What is adequate gameplay to get for your money? How is The Sims Online not meeting that expectation?
The game can consume too much of your time
That's what MMOG players seem to like. That's not to say that typical MMOG players and potential The Sims Online players are the same....
What am I working towards?
Having a good time. Was there something else we are supposed to be WORKing towards in a GAME?
What does "mainstream" vs "alt" have to do with the quality of an operating system? I thought Linux advocates wanted it to be "mainstream". I'm confused....
Your endless braying has got to stop. Please?
Your points are not helped by name-calling and misleading comments.
It never ceases to amaze me how few liberals respect the Bill of Rights, or basic human rights.
That statement is so utterly false. It's sort of like me saying that conservatives have no respect for the dollar bill.
"sweatshop" is probably a meannigless term to you because you have never been poor. And liberals hating the poor? Okay, let me come back at you and say that conservatives hate the rich. Laughable isn't it?
Oh, and you might be modded down, not because of your views (notice that there *are* civil-acting conservatives on Slashdot quite regularly) but because you are screaming on and on incessantly. Like your neighbors dog that barks all night long while you're attempting to get some much-needed sleep.
Cogent? Apparently conservatives (apologies to the intelligent conservatives out there, I don't mean this directed at you) never took English 101.
Question. If a corporation is responsible for the deaths of others can it be put it to death (and I don't mean being put out of business - there's no correlation between that and human loss of life)? Can a corporation be charged with treason? Can a corporation vote? Does it have feelings? Is it born with inalienable rights? Can a corporation be drafted?
Stop anthropomorphizing businesses.
I've learned the hard way - alternate glasses of water with caffiene and have occasionaly snacks (of actual food not crap). Helps me to avoid burnout and side-effects of caffiene binges/dehydration. Although I do think an empty growling stomach helps sharpen the mind, it can be a bit distracting.
Here here.
Oh wait, I'm supposed to be coding right now at 4:37 in the morning. Woops.
Up until now, because I liked it... faults and all. Now, I'm not sure I am going to keep reading it.
More importantly, do they expect content producers and consumers alike to really adopt this?
Yes. Why else would they release it?
This is getting pretty old.
I can deal with unprofessionalism on Slashdot (dupes, unverified sources), since it's really not a professional journalistic news source and has never claimed to be. I can deal with bias against Microsoft, the U.S. government, corporations, Red Hat, Church of Scientology, etc. because no one ever said the editors were being objective. I can deal with regurgitated Register posts and the constant WSJ (free registration required!) posts.
What I can't deal with are article submissions being approved when the submitter doesn't read the article they are submitting *and* making unfounded biased FUDish comments about it. The editors not reading the article and commenting on it in the blurb is bad enough.
It's embarassing to ever point anyone else to Slashdot and it's very hard to take it even the slightest bit seriously.
I know some people that would've gladly taken that off of your hands. Although, I guess any shipping of the monitor may have disturbed the fine balance that produced the effects.
For a time, I lived in a so-called Texas oil town during the late 80's and early 90's. A family member worked on oil rigs there. The town itself was a ghost-town (and is much worse within the last few years) because the government paid the oil producers to shut down the wells. Texas oil is more expensive to drill, retrieve and refine than just buying tanker-full shipments of imported oil. If anything, the "Texas oil economy" probably revolves more around importing and off-shore drilling. Just a detail there for ya, "partner".
Do you have a URL for Bush's guidelines on electric vehicles?
Why does everyone always talk about this "Mule" crap when this subject is brought up? I've been into RPGs off and on since '81, and I can't remember a long running campaign EVER where I just used a single character. Why? I would periodically feel like PLAYING a different ROLE. That is, after all, the entire purpose of a ROLE PLAYING game....
People talk about mules because in many games these alternate characters, whose sole purpose is for a specialized method of getting around imposed gameplay rules, run rampant. The use of mules deteriorates the economy, the community and the role-play aspect of the game. This is due to anonymity, less player investment in the mule character, benefits from specialization that a "real" character can't hope to compete with and more.
Role-Play? While I understand where you're coming from, the sad truth is that in MMORPGs the majority of the player base does not role-play. Multiply the number of players that don't role-play by how many alternate and mule characters you have and the true role-players are swamped by a population that just doesn't give a frell about anyone else.
If anything, the lack of insta-anonymity, muling and increased character investment should only help to increase the level of role-play.
I hope. Not that I'm going to play it, simply because I don't really want to play a mega-blockbuster movie franchise game. Although the single-character-per-server idea tempts me to.
I just use my 56k modem after dropping my DSL. No funky software to install.
*locks himself in the bathroom and cries like a baby*
Probably something that will keep this from happening is simply: cost. Unlike a one-off game that may not require more than one post-release patch, a game in the MMO genre requires upkeep for years with frequent patching and constant testing.
Granted not all of the patching is done for client-side aspects of the games but it is something to take into account and could, effectively double the cost of 'maintenance'. It's probably the reason we don't already see Mac versions of EQ, DAoC and the like even though I would imagine they would be more lucrative markets relative to Linux.
And at one time there was an actual Ultima Online client for Linux. It was unofficial and maintained by programmers that left Origin fairly soon in UO's history. Worked good too.
True. I guess "copyrighted" just sounds stupid when said out-loud.
Yes, I totally agree with you. How was I even remotely suggesting otherwise? Oh, and you forgot the Unreal engine.
The point of my post was that I find the notion of "the best mods" only being based off of other copywritten works (ala Total Conversions based on other games, comics, movies, cartoons, etc) pretty narrow-minded. I also think that mod creators using such copywritten material are wasting their time and should expect to be unsupported by the game's company, who are themselves in the business of selling copywritten material.
If someone is going to bother creating a mod, perhaps they should spend some time coming up with their own storyline, characters and setting. This is not to say that no good mods were based on stolen material. I've played quite a few good ones that were.
Which is why the modding communities should maybe make something based on original content instead of other's copywritten works?
To a degree, you have a point. Over time, people see that nothing has changed and forget "the boycott". This is bound to happen - always - but should not be an excuse for those that take up such a thing to begin with.
Personally, I've never claimed to be boycotting Amazon. However, I no longer shop there. I take my business elsewhere FatBrain/BN for books and DVDs, CDNOW (of course, they are now Amazon so... I will be moving on) and various independant shops for my music. In general, though, I only use them for the reviews (with a grain of salt at that.)
My point... taking on a cause via a boycott turns out in the long run to seem inaffectual and pointless. Maybe we should just all take our dollars elsewhere. It's the same thing without the Cause attached.
Or better yet, let's give Gail Cooke an interview on Slashdot. Top moderated questions, etc etc. Should make for some interesting reading and prove whether or not she's a real individual vs a marketing group or if she's paid for positive reviews, etc.
But there's a flaw in your logic. In your situation, you still owned and were capable of using the car. Imagine you sold the car and bought a bike. You don't still have to pay car insurance, and insurers are generally required to give you a refund -- prorated for the time that the car was in your possession.
This is a little offtopic and I'm not trying to add anything to the debate here... but if you ever do this and plan on having a car again EVER keep your insurance. If you, say, buy a bike and cancel your insurance then a few years later decide you really need a car your insurance premiums will be much higher. In some cases insurance companies won't even give you insurance if you've had a lapse in auto insurance (Farmer's).
Just a word to the wise. And yes, I think it's wrong and insurance policy makers should be tarred-and-feathered, but what can you do?