MMO doesn't equal MMORPG, even though the RPG sub-genre is the biggest of the MMO genres. It could be just as possible that they are planning an MMORTS, or maybe a MMOFPS.
Graphic wise, Starcraft was far superior to TA. Good 2d art is much better than simple 3d art. I can still look at Starcraft today and enjoy the graphics. It may be outdated, pixel-wise, but it is still art. TA however has aged significantly.
The custom AI was indeed a weak point of starcraft, but starcraft single player still had its charms with its better campaigns. Custom single player games was interesting also, mainly to see how many AIs you could defeat. You can't claim to have mastered starcraft single player until you have won 1vs7 games with all three races. Terran being the easiest (Bunkers+Siegetanks), protoss medium difficult (photon cannons+shield batteries and a good map) and zerg the toughest. (Quick expansion and tech to Guardians on a map with close expansion and long travel paths). There is no question however, that multiplayer was where Starcraft shined.
As for the better game. Starcraft and TA had completly different focus. TA was an army management game with the focus on strategy, and it did very well at that. Throwing large armies back and forth. Starcraft on the other hand had a few specific things that made it unique among RTS:s, then and now. This is why I consider it the best RTS of all times. These special attributes being
* 3 unique, balanced races. Most RTS games have some difference between the different sides, but Starcraft is to date the only game that I know off that pulled it off that well. The actual mindset changes when switching races. You can actually feel the swarm mentality when playing zerg, or the ability to hold ground as terrans, or the pure power of protoss units.
* Every single unit type matters from start to end. There isn't a single unit in Starcraft that becomes outdated as the game progresses. When it comes to dealing out pure damage, the basic units are the most cost efficent, while more advanced units are used to provide specific advantages. (such as attack range, area effects, health, cloak and flying abilities)
The only problem I found with Starcraft multiplayer was the insistance to play on the fastest game speed. Fastest game speed is simply to fast unless you are a pro player with incredible reflexes. I have always wished that RTS games would include something like a Max Payne style time slower where any player could slow down the game for a certain amount of time (the ability itself recharging over time). It would allow for a quick initial phase of the game, while still providing ample opportunity to use more complex tactics in the heat of battle.
Tentacle porn is a very small part of the hentai market, but somehow every anti-hentai arguer loves to bring up it as the prime example of hentai. Looking at my computer right now, there is not a single video containing tentacle porn, and I would have to search my manga collection pretty thorougly to find some. Tentacle porn isn't very arousing in my opinion, but I won't hold it against others if they like it. Whatever turns them on is fine with me, as long as I don't have to see it (and as long as it doesn't hurt someone in its production).
I also read hentai manga more than I watch videos, so your stereotype is completly wrong. Manga simply leave far more for my imagination to do its work. Regarding my comment about sex being the best. I actually would want to revise it to sex with someone you like being the best. Although I have no experience with it, I would wager a guess that sex with a whore wouldn't do much for me (Oh, I would orgasm, but as a male that isn't really a big accomplishment). The picture of males as machines without emotions that will fuck any pussy that comes before them is a horrible sexist stereotype.
Finally, the whole point of my first post was that making fetishes illegal just because they make others uncomfortable is to walk on a very slippery slope. If they can ban one fetish without proper reason (there is no science showing that watching underage hentai leads to child abuse) they can ban any other. Protecting the rights of minorities is important, because the next time you may be in the minority.
The whole point of a free society is that people are free to do whatever they want as long as their freedom doesn't impose on others. There is unfortunally a large part of the population that aren't interested in having a free society. They just want the illusion of a free society so they can claim to live in a superior society. Breaking that illusion is very important. "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance", and that is the truth.
And currently up for discussion is the UK is a new law that would ban fantasy depictions of underage (that includes imaginary 17 year olds) having sex. Here is an interesting link and some quotes from it.
We are unaware of any specific research into whether there is a link between accessing these fantasy images of child sexual abuse and the commission of offences against children, but it is felt by police and childrens welfare organisations that the possession and circulation of these images serves to legitimize and reinforce highly inappropriate views about children.
In other words, the proposal discussed is based on no scientific research. It is purely aimed to ban a specific minority fetish. Violent video games is another minority fetish that has been under attack in the news lately.
It is all pure bullshit. Banning soccer games would be more logical, since there is a clear scientific link of soccer games leading to hulligan behavior. Of course, this doesn't mean that I want to ban soccer, but I am just pointing out the obvious bias of the legislators.
It is the case that cartoons, drawings and material created entirely by manipulation of computer software do not harm real children in the same way as taking indecent photographs of children [...]
Nevertheless this material is causing increasing concern both within the UK and internationally (see below). The police [...] are concerned that the fantasy images themselves fuel abuse of real children by reinforcing potential abusers inappropriate feelings towards children.
Just to point out that this isn't the same as the US child pornography laws, that explicitly bans images/drawings based on real children/photographs (which was a loophole used to circumvent previous laws). This law explicitly targets fantasy drawings, the most common type probably being the japanese hentai artform.
collectors of material of this kind almost always also have indecent photographs of children.
I don't. And I am pretty sure most hentai viewers/readers don't. Oh, and in case you wonder, I am mostly interested of the highschool based hentai (which would also be illegal if the proposal above was passed as a law). I fully support the rights of lolicon viewers though. This is a classic case of the "First they came for the Communists, and I didnt speak up..." scenario. They target a minority fetish because they can get away with it.
Anyway, What research do they base their statement on? Unless they have asked XXXX number of people randomly about it...and I doubt that would work either, because very few people would admit they had child porn on their computer.
The relation in the other direction may be more likely though. Child porn collectors are probably likely to have hentai drawings. That relation is easy to find, by looking at the computers of people arrested for having child pornography.
Finally, Don't begin complaining that hentai sucks and I should watch real porn instead. I can't stand real porn with their payed actors and actresses having mechanical sex without feelings. Not, to mention that the redicioulus story lines in hentai movies/mangas are light years beyond the stories in the average porn movie. Oh sure, there are a few exceptions of great scenes, but they are by far the exception. If I didn't have hentai, I would probably stick with sex stories (which I still use sometimes). And I am not saying that you shouldn't watch porn. I am just explaining why I and probably some others prefer hentai. And, oh yes, having real sex is of course the best, but that has nothing to do with masturbation needs.
The ones traffic shaping are the Sending and Receiving ISPs. The backbone in between don't do much packet shaping as far as I am aware. Atleast you don't hear about it, and if they do, they can give each ISP their own prioritized packet quota, just like they give them a quota for bulk traffic. Anyway, Both the sending and receiving ISPs can tie a specific user to the packets and therefore has all the ability in the world to do quotas. Also, even if only of the ISPs in the chain does it, it will still help traffic. Just the same as other packet shaping does. The only difference being that the shaping method used is content neutral.
The only difference between the solution I am proposing and the current packet shaping variant is that the method by which to determine if a packet should be shaped or not is moved from the ISPs to the customers, and that it therefore becomes content neutral.
Content neutrality is the only real solution. As long as ISPs won't accept that, we will keep seeing protocols that pretend to be other protocols just so they won't get shaped. Or, even applications that use specific protocols just because they aren't shaped. Hmm, I just had an interesting idea. A programming library that does data transfer over any protocol, trying to make it appear as similar as an ordinary transfer of that protocl as possible.
Very common argument which has an equally simple counter argument. If you use more than than x kbps of your prioritized traffic it gets shaped as any other non-prioritized traffic. Much simpler solution and completly content neutral.
ISP shaping doesn't make sense because different customers use different protocols. The problem is quickly demonstrated in this very article. Why shouldn't a user be able to prioritize his SSH traffic? What about encrypted VOIP packets? Or online game packets? Allowing users to set which applications should be prioritized is the only good solution.
No, packet shaping is exactly the correct term. It refers to determining priority by looking at the content of packets. The other terms you mentioned are more overreaching and includes all kinds of throttling.
I am very much an opponent of any kind of packet shaping and a strong supporter of stronger net neutrality. If ISPs feel that they need to throttle customers, they should do so based on bandwidth used (and possible which time of the day the bandwidth is used), and not on the type of information transmitted.
Also, while I am a supporter of net neutrality, I see the possibility of allowing some kind of mechanism to allow for low latency communication. That mechanism should however not be allowed to be more than an on/off flag and at the full control of the customer and not the ISP.
How many deaths can you name because of lack of circumcision?
To both your question and mine, the answer is, very few. The real question is, Why do an invasive medical procedure without any real reasons for it? If the situation arises where someone needs a circumcision for medical reasons, do it then. Arguing for circumcision of infants for medical reasons is like arguing for the removal of the appendix in infants.
So you allow the sexual mutilation of male infants because of a minor increase in risk of infection, which can be prevented by good hygenic practice. Circumcision itself isn't a risk free procedure and can cause medical problems, upto and including death, so arguing for medical merits is grasping at strawmen at best. If someone wants to circumcise themselves for any reasons, they can decide to do so by themselves when they are 18. Doing an irreversible medical procedure to an infant, when there is nothing wrong with him/her, is child abuse, simple as that. Legal infant male circumcision is nothing more than hypocrisy of the western societies.
As for smegma. It looks like you havn't looked it up very well. Smegma itself is hygenic. It is the accumulation of smegma by not washing it away at regular intervals that can cause problems. If males aren't learning how to wash their penises correctly, something is seriously wrong with their eduction, and replacing it with a medical procedure is bullshit.
Finally, you claim that uncircumcised penises look goofy? If anything it is circumcised penises that have an unnatural look. Besides, arguing for a medical procedure based on the looks of an organ that is mostly hidden is laughable.
Advertising is an incredible drain on the captialistic society. The costs (to society) of advertising comes from several directions.
* The first is the obvious costs of creating and distributing the advertising including the administration surrounding that process. Note, that when I say the cost to distribute the advertisment, I am talking about the cost for the distributor to distribute the advertisment.
* The second cost is the time wasted by those looking at (or just avoiding) the advertisments. This is an incredible cost. The majority of viewers don't use ad filtering tools or machines like Tivo. Also, while it is possible to time advertising with bathroom breaks, time broken up into small chunks is worth much less than a contiguous period of time.
* The third cost is the direct effect that advertising has on people's purchasing decisions. Advertising directly aims to undermine the consumers information about products by trumphing their own product as the best, and it is very effective at doing that. As everyone should know, the key to an effective market economy is informed consumers. The problem becomes obvious...
* Information pollution is also a cost. Tired of seeing billboards whereever you go? Not to mention that excessive advertising hides real information. The best example of this is search engine optimization. Advertiser pay money to fool search engines, while useful information disappears under loads of paid ads.
The sad thing is that advertising won't decrease anytime soon. Advertising is unfortunally effective, and it is a viscious cycle where the only response is for the opposing businesses is to buy their own advertisment. I would go as far as to say that advertising in its different forms is the bureaucracy of the libertarian society.
"It's fascinating that there's a one-to-one relationship between those who don't believe in evolution and those that don't believe in global warming."
I believe in evolution. I don't believe in god. I believe that the earth climate is currently warming .
I am pretty certain that the climate warming won't have catastrophic effects on the human population. The most serious scenario would be a new iceage. Flooding and storms are minor concerns, and nothing new. People will move from the worst affected areas as always. The earth getting warmer is not very likely to cause a runaway effect, because in that case earth wouldn't have been able to establish a "stable" (relativly) climate in the first place.
I am fairly certain that humans are behind atleast some of the warming. We are 6 billion people after all. There is the possibility of the sun having more effect than most scientists think, so I can't be completly certain.
I am very uncertain about some of the assumptions made by many of the current climate scientists. I am doubtful about co2 being a root cause to global warming because of the co2 lagging behind temperature change. The realclimate response is flawed from the start because it fails to explain the lag once the temperature begins to drop. (Unless someone can show me that there is no lag when temperature begins to drop, in which case I will alter my belief.)
I am completly skeptical about the presentation of scientific research in mass media, because of the selection pressure being on sensationalism. There is also, way too much poltics involved.
That is true to some extent. However, what the grandparent referred to is the fact that the appearance of the first self replicating organism (or more probably chemical compound) isn't part of evolution. Evolution only explains what happens when you already have a self replicating organism.
An important thing to know is that Intelligent Design have the exact same limitation, so it can't be used as an argument against evolution. Very useful, because many ID debaters tend to fall back on that argument.
Faith is the one the worst things ever to befall upon mankind. It is a destructive force that destroys reason and makes otherwise intelligent people into idiots.
Do I have faith in my fellow man? The answer is no. Having faith is just ignorance. This doesn't mean that I don't trust my fellow man. I know from empirical evidence that most people are nice and friendly, and if money or power (both known to corrupt people) isn't involved I have good reason to believe them. For closer friends I have even more empirical evidence to base my decisions on, so I trust them more. It is a basic question of risk vs reward. If there is little to no risk, I don't have any good reason not to trust others. The more risk there is, the more reason I need.
Do I have faith in God? No, and even if there were evidence that god existed, I still wouldn't have faith in him. And my trust would be pretty limited, considering his track record according to the bible. I don't even have faith that what I experience is real. I just accept my experiences as real, because speculating the opposite doesn't have any advantages and a whole lot of disadvantages.
"You have to understand that a Christian CAN be a scientist."
Statistically the better a scientist you are, the less likely it is that you believe in god. Doesn't contradict your statement, but is worth considering.
"There actually is quite a bit of evidence for a young earth."
This is incorrect. No such evidence exists.
"I don't think that a true scientist can say that evolution is fact"
Actually, evolution is an observable fact. The theory of evolution is not fact, but it is based on lots and lots of observations, including observable evolution in nature, fossils, breeding, genetics, and lots more.
"Rather than accepting evolution as blind fact, scientists should be doing experimentation to support the idea of evolution... however, many of the experiments are done with faulty reasoning and make assumptions (of things that are not even good theory)."
Such as experimentation with fruitflies? Or computer simulation with genetic algorithms? Or comparing genetics from different species? Or expanding our fossile record?
"Evolution is a hypothesis at best."
The theory of evolution is better supported than the the theories concerning gravity. We have no idea of the reason why gravity works as it does. We only have models that describe how it works. For evolution however we have a very nice mathematical algorithm that that we know for a fact works, and why it works. The algorithm even has practical applications outside of biology, mainly in computer science.
The remaining text represents my personal opinion, and may seem harsh/trollish to many.... I firmly believe that anyone who can consider that the earth is 6000 years old, despite all the evidence contradicting it, must suffer from serious brain damage. That brain damage comes from repeated mental abuse during childhood where the individual is indoctrinated with faith, completly destroying that individuals ability to reason. Unfortunally the abusers are completly free to go about their business and are even protected by law.
Looks like you are forgetting to account for the UK VAT. 17.5% is a pretty big chunk of money, and nicely hidden from the consumer that thinks that the company gets all the money.
Moderate followers are the worst because they are a much larger group and give credability to the extreme fundamentalists. That comment doesn't only apply to religion, but to all parts of life. Group psychology is dependent on the support (or more accuratly lack of resistance) of the silent majority.
As for insults, I insult people who pray to mass murdererers and torturers. The biggest targets being the Christians and Muslims who pray to someone who according to their beliefs annually condemns tens of millions of people to an eternity of torture. I also insult religions and religious leaders who control and subvert people. Finally I insult people who indoctrinate children with beliefs about imaginary beings (and that includes Santa Claus as well as gods). Such indoctrination is very near child abuse.
Basically, if you happen to be someone who believes in a neutral deity that isn't used to scare people, promote warfare, scam money or enforce morals and you don't indoctrinate your children with your beliefs, I will not insult you.
I may even be able to ignore the promote warfare and scam money part, because it isn't only religions that do that. I will however never ever tolerate religions that use fear to indoctrinate young children. Such religions, and the people who follow them will always be the target of my insults.
As for the subject at hand. The reason scientists laugh and insult Intelligent Design is because it presents arguments against evolution that aren't valid. They talk about irreducable complexity while using examples that are clearly reducable. They talk about missing links when we already know that fossalization is very rare. When they are cornered, they ask how the first reproducing being was created, failing to realize that that subject is outside the scope of both evolution and ID.
"survival of the fittest" is a rather bad metaphor for evolution, which has caused many laymen to think that evolution has to do with survival. Survival is not a demand on evolution, and often the opposite is true. The only demand is the ability to breed offspring that in turn breeds more offspring.
The only demand placed on survival is that the organism has to survive until it can produce offspring. After an organism has reproduced its only evolutionary value is its ability to improve its offsprings ability to reproduce. This can include taking care of the offspring, getting eaten by the offspring (or mate carrying the offspring) or just leaving the the offspring alone and trying to reproduce again elsewhere.
Assume we have two peacocks, one beautiful and one less beautiful but more apt at surviving. If the beautiful peacock has a 10% greater chance of getting a mate, while the less beautiful peacock has a 5% greater chance to survive until it is time to get a mate, the genes of the beautiful peacock will win over time. Of course, if the environment changes so that the less beautiful peacock gets more advantage out if its survival abilities (maybe an introduction of a new predator), it may begin to gain ground instead.
I made my point perfectly fine. Encylopedia Brittanica is no more reliable than Wikipedia when it comes to the correctness of information. The articles in both are written by people who aren't experts at the specific subject they are writing about. Having a degree in one subject doesn't make you better qualified to write about a different subject. In my experience the opposite is often true. Intelligent people often overestimate their expertise in areas where they aren't experts. (I know that I am guilty of this as much as any other person)
I admit that Wikipedia does have the extra problem of purposeful vandalization, but in turn paper encyclopedias have the problem of having less up-to-date information.
Doing a plain word substitution on your response may have seemed insulting. If it was, I apologize. It was simply meant to point out that all encyclopedias, not only wikipedia, suffer from information degradation. Summarizing of information by a non expert creates information that is flawed. It is as simple as that. Encyclopedias aren't the only information source that suffers from this. Journalistic articles have the exact same problem.
A good balance of skeptisism, trust and reasoning is always needed when getting information from any source. That is the number one thing to teach students. Discarding an information source completly is just as bad as trusting another information source completly.
As for your last remarks which seemed to be a pure ad hominem attack. I would recommend that you keep those to yourself. It just makes your post seem less professional.
Of course, believing in a god that sentences 30+ million people per year to an eternity of torture just for not believing in him isn't that easy a task for any kind hearted person. Other religions aren't much better of course. They are all tools to train people to have blind faith.
To keep to the subject. Blind faith is harmful to science, because it is a direct opponent to critical thinking. While it is possible to have blind faith in one subject, while using critical thinking in another, it is quite difficult. Critical thinking requires that you ask questions, while blind faith requires that you don't ask questions.
evolution and creationism combination (usually called intelligent design) doesn't make any sense. Your post shows a complete lack of understanding of evolution. To answer your question.
"i.e. which makes more sense: random occurances leading to an almost infinitely complex system, or guided occurances?"
a) Guided occurances
Makes very little sense. It would require a creator and who in that case created the creator? It can also be discarded directly for not being a scientific theory, because it isn't testable. If you still want to discuss an invisible creator "guiding" evolution, take it up in philosophy.
b) random occurances leading to an almost infinitely complex system
Makes very much sense. While the individual mutations are random, the mutations that are propagated to offspring aren't. "Natural Selection" makes sure that good mutations survive and bad mutations die out. Even small advantages will survive and propagate while small disadvantages will die out over time. It is basic statistics on a grand scale.
There are many verifiable experiments to test this. Mostly involving quickly reproducing organisms such as fruit flies. There are also many examples in nature of animals evolving and changing. All of these could of course be argued to be "guided occurances". Fortunally there is one area where that argument can't be used. Genetic Programming uses the math supporting evolution theory to evolve programs that perform their task better than their ancestors. These programs can grow more complex and there is no "intelligent designer" guiding their effort. Only random mutations and selection pressure.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and as any other encyclopedia it has one and only one purpose when doing scholary work. That purpose is to act as a reference dictionary. Encyclopedias are never sources. When it comes to the information they contain, it is mainly useful in environments where look-up speed is a great factor than complete accuracy.
I view Encyclopedia Britannica as a fun tool and nothing more. You may or may not be getting the right info but regardless, it's still better than word of mouth. So long as people understand its place I don't have a problem with it, but when people start linking Encyclopedia Britannica articles like Christian would link the bible I have to call them out on it. It is NOT a scholary source, even if a scholar submitted something to it.
(actually, in reality, I view encyclopedias as both fun and useful tools)
Exactly. The biggest problem with the generic search engines today is that they don't separate content from page layout.
A good example of this is a product page that contains the words "add review". If the site in question has a decent page rank, it may appear high up in the google listing when someone searches for 'review "product name"' even though the page in question doesn't contain a single review. This isn't a problem for popular items that have reviews on big review sites that are assosciated with the word "review", but for rarer items it quickly becomes a waste of time.
Generic search engines are plain inferior to focused search engines that extract specific data from the sites they scan.
Focused search engines have several problems of their own though.
* They require special coding for each website they scan. -- This is what the semantic web would help with. * The focused search engine may include fewer websites than the generic engine. -- The semantic web could also help with locating websites also. * There aren't search engines for all subjects. * Finding a focused search engine may be as much trouble as finding what you search for in the first place.
Some (currently unknown) process causes Antarctica and the surrounding ocean to warm. This process also causes CO2 to start rising, about 800 years later. Then CO2 further warms the whole planet, because of its heat-trapping properties. This leads to even further CO2 release." That was a pretty weak argument. Not only does it fail the Occum's Razor principle. It also doesn't manage to explain why CO2 drops 800 years after the warmth peak. If that theory was correct, CO2 levels would begin to increase 800 years after the planet begins to warm, but it would also begin to drop at the same time as warmth peak was reached.
The problem with climate models is that you only hear about the ones that give extreme results. There is no news value (or grant value for that matter) in reporting models that don't give extreme results.
Combine this with the fact that climate models take a long long time to verify (So long that the model will most likely have been forgotten) and you have a nice recipe for bad science. I personally believe that most climate model research would be better spent on weather model research.
I hate that argument because it is constructed to play on the emotions of people. It has a flawed assumption that a local area goes from habitable to inhabitable in a day, a year or even a decade.
Locally, "random" factors affect weather too a much larger degree than even a 100 year climate change. 100+ years should be enough time for your ascendants to relocate. People have relocated through all of mankind's history. Why does everyone suddenly expect that to change.
There will of course always be people who lack common sense and decide to live below water level and don't build strong enough barriers to protect themselves. It is a disaster waiting to happen (well, actually not waiting any longer). Also without common sense are people who build houses in an area known for furious storms and get surprised when their house gets destroyed and they don't have any insurance beacuse it was too expensive (guess why it was expensive in the first place).
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MMO doesn't equal MMORPG, even though the RPG sub-genre is the biggest of the MMO genres. It could be just as possible that they are planning an MMORTS, or maybe a MMOFPS.
Personally I am of a completly different opinion.
Graphic wise, Starcraft was far superior to TA. Good 2d art is much better than simple 3d art. I can still look at Starcraft today and enjoy the graphics. It may be outdated, pixel-wise, but it is still art. TA however has aged significantly.
The custom AI was indeed a weak point of starcraft, but starcraft single player still had its charms with its better campaigns. Custom single player games was interesting also, mainly to see how many AIs you could defeat. You can't claim to have mastered starcraft single player until you have won 1vs7 games with all three races. Terran being the easiest (Bunkers+Siegetanks), protoss medium difficult (photon cannons+shield batteries and a good map) and zerg the toughest. (Quick expansion and tech to Guardians on a map with close expansion and long travel paths). There is no question however, that multiplayer was where Starcraft shined.
As for the better game. Starcraft and TA had completly different focus. TA was an army management game with the focus on strategy, and it did very well at that. Throwing large armies back and forth. Starcraft on the other hand had a few specific things that made it unique among RTS:s, then and now. This is why I consider it the best RTS of all times. These special attributes being
* 3 unique, balanced races. Most RTS games have some difference between the different sides, but Starcraft is to date the only game that I know off that pulled it off that well. The actual mindset changes when switching races. You can actually feel the swarm mentality when playing zerg, or the ability to hold ground as terrans, or the pure power of protoss units.
* Every single unit type matters from start to end. There isn't a single unit in Starcraft that becomes outdated as the game progresses. When it comes to dealing out pure damage, the basic units are the most cost efficent, while more advanced units are used to provide specific advantages. (such as attack range, area effects, health, cloak and flying abilities)
The only problem I found with Starcraft multiplayer was the insistance to play on the fastest game speed. Fastest game speed is simply to fast unless you are a pro player with incredible reflexes. I have always wished that RTS games would include something like a Max Payne style time slower where any player could slow down the game for a certain amount of time (the ability itself recharging over time). It would allow for a quick initial phase of the game, while still providing ample opportunity to use more complex tactics in the heat of battle.
Tentacle porn is a very small part of the hentai market, but somehow every anti-hentai arguer loves to bring up it as the prime example of hentai. Looking at my computer right now, there is not a single video containing tentacle porn, and I would have to search my manga collection pretty thorougly to find some. Tentacle porn isn't very arousing in my opinion, but I won't hold it against others if they like it. Whatever turns them on is fine with me, as long as I don't have to see it (and as long as it doesn't hurt someone in its production).
I also read hentai manga more than I watch videos, so your stereotype is completly wrong. Manga simply leave far more for my imagination to do its work. Regarding my comment about sex being the best. I actually would want to revise it to sex with someone you like being the best. Although I have no experience with it, I would wager a guess that sex with a whore wouldn't do much for me (Oh, I would orgasm, but as a male that isn't really a big accomplishment). The picture of males as machines without emotions that will fuck any pussy that comes before them is a horrible sexist stereotype.
Finally, the whole point of my first post was that making fetishes illegal just because they make others uncomfortable is to walk on a very slippery slope. If they can ban one fetish without proper reason (there is no science showing that watching underage hentai leads to child abuse) they can ban any other. Protecting the rights of minorities is important, because the next time you may be in the minority.
The whole point of a free society is that people are free to do whatever they want as long as their freedom doesn't impose on others. There is unfortunally a large part of the population that aren't interested in having a free society. They just want the illusion of a free society so they can claim to live in a superior society. Breaking that illusion is very important. "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance", and that is the truth.
And currently up for discussion is the UK is a new law that would ban fantasy depictions of underage (that includes imaginary 17 year olds) having sex. Here is an interesting link and some quotes from it.
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/cons-2007 -depiction-sex-abuse?view=Binary
We are unaware of any specific research into whether there is a link between accessing these fantasy images of child sexual abuse and the commission of offences against children, but it is felt by police and childrens welfare organisations that the possession and circulation of these images serves to legitimize and reinforce highly inappropriate views about children.In other words, the proposal discussed is based on no scientific research. It is purely aimed to ban a specific minority fetish. Violent video games is another minority fetish that has been under attack in the news lately.
It is all pure bullshit. Banning soccer games would be more logical, since there is a clear scientific link of soccer games leading to hulligan behavior. Of course, this doesn't mean that I want to ban soccer, but I am just pointing out the obvious bias of the legislators.
It is the case that cartoons, drawings and material created entirely by manipulation of computer software do not harm real children in the same way as taking indecent photographs of children [...] Nevertheless this material is causing increasing concern both within the UK and internationally (see below). The police [...] are concerned that the fantasy images themselves fuel abuse of real children by reinforcing potential abusers inappropriate feelings towards children.Just to point out that this isn't the same as the US child pornography laws, that explicitly bans images/drawings based on real children/photographs (which was a loophole used to circumvent previous laws). This law explicitly targets fantasy drawings, the most common type probably being the japanese hentai artform.
collectors of material of this kind almost always also have indecent photographs of children.I don't. And I am pretty sure most hentai viewers/readers don't. Oh, and in case you wonder, I am mostly interested of the highschool based hentai (which would also be illegal if the proposal above was passed as a law). I fully support the rights of lolicon viewers though. This is a classic case of the "First they came for the Communists, and I didnt speak up..." scenario. They target a minority fetish because they can get away with it.
Anyway, What research do they base their statement on? Unless they have asked XXXX number of people randomly about it...and I doubt that would work either, because very few people would admit they had child porn on their computer.
The relation in the other direction may be more likely though. Child porn collectors are probably likely to have hentai drawings. That relation is easy to find, by looking at the computers of people arrested for having child pornography.
Finally, Don't begin complaining that hentai sucks and I should watch real porn instead. I can't stand real porn with their payed actors and actresses having mechanical sex without feelings. Not, to mention that the redicioulus story lines in hentai movies/mangas are light years beyond the stories in the average porn movie. Oh sure, there are a few exceptions of great scenes, but they are by far the exception. If I didn't have hentai, I would probably stick with sex stories (which I still use sometimes). And I am not saying that you shouldn't watch porn. I am just explaining why I and probably some others prefer hentai. And, oh yes, having real sex is of course the best, but that has nothing to do with masturbation needs.
The ones traffic shaping are the Sending and Receiving ISPs. The backbone in between don't do much packet shaping as far as I am aware. Atleast you don't hear about it, and if they do, they can give each ISP their own prioritized packet quota, just like they give them a quota for bulk traffic. Anyway, Both the sending and receiving ISPs can tie a specific user to the packets and therefore has all the ability in the world to do quotas. Also, even if only of the ISPs in the chain does it, it will still help traffic. Just the same as other packet shaping does. The only difference being that the shaping method used is content neutral.
The only difference between the solution I am proposing and the current packet shaping variant is that the method by which to determine if a packet should be shaped or not is moved from the ISPs to the customers, and that it therefore becomes content neutral.
Content neutrality is the only real solution. As long as ISPs won't accept that, we will keep seeing protocols that pretend to be other protocols just so they won't get shaped. Or, even applications that use specific protocols just because they aren't shaped. Hmm, I just had an interesting idea. A programming library that does data transfer over any protocol, trying to make it appear as similar as an ordinary transfer of that protocl as possible.
Very common argument which has an equally simple counter argument. If you use more than than x kbps of your prioritized traffic it gets shaped as any other non-prioritized traffic. Much simpler solution and completly content neutral.
ISP shaping doesn't make sense because different customers use different protocols. The problem is quickly demonstrated in this very article. Why shouldn't a user be able to prioritize his SSH traffic? What about encrypted VOIP packets? Or online game packets? Allowing users to set which applications should be prioritized is the only good solution.
No, packet shaping is exactly the correct term. It refers to determining priority by looking at the content of packets. The other terms you mentioned are more overreaching and includes all kinds of throttling.
I am very much an opponent of any kind of packet shaping and a strong supporter of stronger net neutrality. If ISPs feel that they need to throttle customers, they should do so based on bandwidth used (and possible which time of the day the bandwidth is used), and not on the type of information transmitted.
Also, while I am a supporter of net neutrality, I see the possibility of allowing some kind of mechanism to allow for low latency communication. That mechanism should however not be allowed to be more than an on/off flag and at the full control of the customer and not the ISP.
Deaths? Not that many, but they happen. Apparently more than 1 per year on average in the US.
http://www.circumstitions.com/death.html
How many deaths can you name because of lack of circumcision?
To both your question and mine, the answer is, very few. The real question is, Why do an invasive medical procedure without any real reasons for it? If the situation arises where someone needs a circumcision for medical reasons, do it then. Arguing for circumcision of infants for medical reasons is like arguing for the removal of the appendix in infants.
So you allow the sexual mutilation of male infants because of a minor increase in risk of infection, which can be prevented by good hygenic practice. Circumcision itself isn't a risk free procedure and can cause medical problems, upto and including death, so arguing for medical merits is grasping at strawmen at best. If someone wants to circumcise themselves for any reasons, they can decide to do so by themselves when they are 18. Doing an irreversible medical procedure to an infant, when there is nothing wrong with him/her, is child abuse, simple as that. Legal infant male circumcision is nothing more than hypocrisy of the western societies.
As for smegma. It looks like you havn't looked it up very well. Smegma itself is hygenic. It is the accumulation of smegma by not washing it away at regular intervals that can cause problems. If males aren't learning how to wash their penises correctly, something is seriously wrong with their eduction, and replacing it with a medical procedure is bullshit.
Finally, you claim that uncircumcised penises look goofy? If anything it is circumcised penises that have an unnatural look. Besides, arguing for a medical procedure based on the looks of an organ that is mostly hidden is laughable.
Advertising is an incredible drain on the captialistic society. The costs (to society) of advertising comes from several directions.
* The first is the obvious costs of creating and distributing the advertising including the administration surrounding that process. Note, that when I say the cost to distribute the advertisment, I am talking about the cost for the distributor to distribute the advertisment.
* The second cost is the time wasted by those looking at (or just avoiding) the advertisments. This is an incredible cost. The majority of viewers don't use ad filtering tools or machines like Tivo. Also, while it is possible to time advertising with bathroom breaks, time broken up into small chunks is worth much less than a contiguous period of time.
* The third cost is the direct effect that advertising has on people's purchasing decisions. Advertising directly aims to undermine the consumers information about products by trumphing their own product as the best, and it is very effective at doing that. As everyone should know, the key to an effective market economy is informed consumers. The problem becomes obvious...
* Information pollution is also a cost. Tired of seeing billboards whereever you go? Not to mention that excessive advertising hides real information. The best example of this is search engine optimization. Advertiser pay money to fool search engines, while useful information disappears under loads of paid ads.
The sad thing is that advertising won't decrease anytime soon. Advertising is unfortunally effective, and it is a viscious cycle where the only response is for the opposing businesses is to buy their own advertisment. I would go as far as to say that advertising in its different forms is the bureaucracy of the libertarian society.
"It's fascinating that there's a one-to-one relationship between those who don't believe in evolution and those that don't believe in global warming."
I believe in evolution. I don't believe in god. I believe that the earth climate is currently warming .
I am pretty certain that the climate warming won't have catastrophic effects on the human population. The most serious scenario would be a new iceage. Flooding and storms are minor concerns, and nothing new. People will move from the worst affected areas as always. The earth getting warmer is not very likely to cause a runaway effect, because in that case earth wouldn't have been able to establish a "stable" (relativly) climate in the first place.
I am fairly certain that humans are behind atleast some of the warming. We are 6 billion people after all. There is the possibility of the sun having more effect than most scientists think, so I can't be completly certain.
I am very uncertain about some of the assumptions made by many of the current climate scientists. I am doubtful about co2 being a root cause to global warming because of the co2 lagging behind temperature change. The realclimate response is flawed from the start because it fails to explain the lag once the temperature begins to drop. (Unless someone can show me that there is no lag when temperature begins to drop, in which case I will alter my belief.)
I am completly skeptical about the presentation of scientific research in mass media, because of the selection pressure being on sensationalism. There is also, way too much poltics involved.
That is true to some extent. However, what the grandparent referred to is the fact that the appearance of the first self replicating organism (or more probably chemical compound) isn't part of evolution. Evolution only explains what happens when you already have a self replicating organism.
An important thing to know is that Intelligent Design have the exact same limitation, so it can't be used as an argument against evolution. Very useful, because many ID debaters tend to fall back on that argument.
Faith is the one the worst things ever to befall upon mankind. It is a destructive force that destroys reason and makes otherwise intelligent people into idiots.
Do I have faith in my fellow man? The answer is no. Having faith is just ignorance. This doesn't mean that I don't trust my fellow man. I know from empirical evidence that most people are nice and friendly, and if money or power (both known to corrupt people) isn't involved I have good reason to believe them. For closer friends I have even more empirical evidence to base my decisions on, so I trust them more. It is a basic question of risk vs reward. If there is little to no risk, I don't have any good reason not to trust others. The more risk there is, the more reason I need.
Do I have faith in God? No, and even if there were evidence that god existed, I still wouldn't have faith in him. And my trust would be pretty limited, considering his track record according to the bible. I don't even have faith that what I experience is real. I just accept my experiences as real, because speculating the opposite doesn't have any advantages and a whole lot of disadvantages.
"You have to understand that a Christian CAN be a scientist."
Statistically the better a scientist you are, the less likely it is that you believe in god. Doesn't contradict your statement, but is worth considering.
"There actually is quite a bit of evidence for a young earth."
This is incorrect. No such evidence exists.
"I don't think that a true scientist can say that evolution is fact"
Actually, evolution is an observable fact. The theory of evolution is not fact, but it is based on lots and lots of observations, including observable evolution in nature, fossils, breeding, genetics, and lots more.
"Rather than accepting evolution as blind fact, scientists should be doing experimentation to support the idea of evolution... however, many of the experiments are done with faulty reasoning and make assumptions (of things that are not even good theory)."
Such as experimentation with fruitflies? Or computer simulation with genetic algorithms? Or comparing genetics from different species? Or expanding our fossile record?
"Evolution is a hypothesis at best."
The theory of evolution is better supported than the the theories concerning gravity. We have no idea of the reason why gravity works as it does. We only have models that describe how it works. For evolution however we have a very nice mathematical algorithm that that we know for a fact works, and why it works. The algorithm even has practical applications outside of biology, mainly in computer science.
The remaining text represents my personal opinion, and may seem harsh/trollish to many.... I firmly believe that anyone who can consider that the earth is 6000 years old, despite all the evidence contradicting it, must suffer from serious brain damage. That brain damage comes from repeated mental abuse during childhood where the individual is indoctrinated with faith, completly destroying that individuals ability to reason. Unfortunally the abusers are completly free to go about their business and are even protected by law.
Looks like you are forgetting to account for the UK VAT. 17.5% is a pretty big chunk of money, and nicely hidden from the consumer that thinks that the company gets all the money.
Moderate followers are the worst because they are a much larger group and give credability to the extreme fundamentalists. That comment doesn't only apply to religion, but to all parts of life. Group psychology is dependent on the support (or more accuratly lack of resistance) of the silent majority.
As for insults, I insult people who pray to mass murdererers and torturers. The biggest targets being the Christians and Muslims who pray to someone who according to their beliefs annually condemns tens of millions of people to an eternity of torture. I also insult religions and religious leaders who control and subvert people. Finally I insult people who indoctrinate children with beliefs about imaginary beings (and that includes Santa Claus as well as gods). Such indoctrination is very near child abuse.
Basically, if you happen to be someone who believes in a neutral deity that isn't used to scare people, promote warfare, scam money or enforce morals and you don't indoctrinate your children with your beliefs, I will not insult you.
I may even be able to ignore the promote warfare and scam money part, because it isn't only religions that do that. I will however never ever tolerate religions that use fear to indoctrinate young children. Such religions, and the people who follow them will always be the target of my insults.
As for the subject at hand. The reason scientists laugh and insult Intelligent Design is because it presents arguments against evolution that aren't valid. They talk about irreducable complexity while using examples that are clearly reducable. They talk about missing links when we already know that fossalization is very rare. When they are cornered, they ask how the first reproducing being was created, failing to realize that that subject is outside the scope of both evolution and ID.
"survival of the fittest" is a rather bad metaphor for evolution, which has caused many laymen to think that evolution has to do with survival. Survival is not a demand on evolution, and often the opposite is true. The only demand is the ability to breed offspring that in turn breeds more offspring.
The only demand placed on survival is that the organism has to survive until it can produce offspring. After an organism has reproduced its only evolutionary value is its ability to improve its offsprings ability to reproduce. This can include taking care of the offspring, getting eaten by the offspring (or mate carrying the offspring) or just leaving the the offspring alone and trying to reproduce again elsewhere.
Assume we have two peacocks, one beautiful and one less beautiful but more apt at surviving. If the beautiful peacock has a 10% greater chance of getting a mate, while the less beautiful peacock has a 5% greater chance to survive until it is time to get a mate, the genes of the beautiful peacock will win over time. Of course, if the environment changes so that the less beautiful peacock gets more advantage out if its survival abilities (maybe an introduction of a new predator), it may begin to gain ground instead.
I made my point perfectly fine. Encylopedia Brittanica is no more reliable than Wikipedia when it comes to the correctness of information. The articles in both are written by people who aren't experts at the specific subject they are writing about. Having a degree in one subject doesn't make you better qualified to write about a different subject. In my experience the opposite is often true. Intelligent people often overestimate their expertise in areas where they aren't experts. (I know that I am guilty of this as much as any other person)
I admit that Wikipedia does have the extra problem of purposeful vandalization, but in turn paper encyclopedias have the problem of having less up-to-date information.
Doing a plain word substitution on your response may have seemed insulting. If it was, I apologize. It was simply meant to point out that all encyclopedias, not only wikipedia, suffer from information degradation. Summarizing of information by a non expert creates information that is flawed. It is as simple as that. Encyclopedias aren't the only information source that suffers from this. Journalistic articles have the exact same problem.
A good balance of skeptisism, trust and reasoning is always needed when getting information from any source. That is the number one thing to teach students. Discarding an information source completly is just as bad as trusting another information source completly.
As for your last remarks which seemed to be a pure ad hominem attack. I would recommend that you keep those to yourself. It just makes your post seem less professional.
Of course, believing in a god that sentences 30+ million people per year to an eternity of torture just for not believing in him isn't that easy a task for any kind hearted person. Other religions aren't much better of course. They are all tools to train people to have blind faith.
To keep to the subject. Blind faith is harmful to science, because it is a direct opponent to critical thinking. While it is possible to have blind faith in one subject, while using critical thinking in another, it is quite difficult. Critical thinking requires that you ask questions, while blind faith requires that you don't ask questions.
evolution and creationism combination (usually called intelligent design) doesn't make any sense. Your post shows a complete lack of understanding of evolution. To answer your question.
"i.e. which makes more sense: random occurances leading to an almost infinitely complex system, or guided occurances?"
a) Guided occurances
Makes very little sense. It would require a creator and who in that case created the creator? It can also be discarded directly for not being a scientific theory, because it isn't testable. If you still want to discuss an invisible creator "guiding" evolution, take it up in philosophy.
b) random occurances leading to an almost infinitely complex system
Makes very much sense. While the individual mutations are random, the mutations that are propagated to offspring aren't. "Natural Selection" makes sure that good mutations survive and bad mutations die out. Even small advantages will survive and propagate while small disadvantages will die out over time. It is basic statistics on a grand scale.
There are many verifiable experiments to test this. Mostly involving quickly reproducing organisms such as fruit flies. There are also many examples in nature of animals evolving and changing. All of these could of course be argued to be "guided occurances". Fortunally there is one area where that argument can't be used. Genetic Programming uses the math supporting evolution theory to evolve programs that perform their task better than their ancestors. These programs can grow more complex and there is no "intelligent designer" guiding their effort. Only random mutations and selection pressure.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and as any other encyclopedia it has one and only one purpose when doing scholary work. That purpose is to act as a reference dictionary. Encyclopedias are never sources. When it comes to the information they contain, it is mainly useful in environments where look-up speed is a great factor than complete accuracy.
I view Encyclopedia Britannica as a fun tool and nothing more. You may or may not be getting the right info but regardless, it's still better than word of mouth. So long as people understand its place I don't have a problem with it, but when people start linking Encyclopedia Britannica articles like Christian would link the bible I have to call them out on it. It is NOT a scholary source, even if a scholar submitted something to it.
(actually, in reality, I view encyclopedias as both fun and useful tools)
Exactly. The biggest problem with the generic search engines today is that they don't separate content from page layout.
A good example of this is a product page that contains the words "add review". If the site in question has a decent page rank, it may appear high up in the google listing when someone searches for 'review "product name"' even though the page in question doesn't contain a single review. This isn't a problem for popular items that have reviews on big review sites that are assosciated with the word "review", but for rarer items it quickly becomes a waste of time.
Generic search engines are plain inferior to focused search engines that extract specific data from the sites they scan.
Focused search engines have several problems of their own though.
* They require special coding for each website they scan. -- This is what the semantic web would help with.
* The focused search engine may include fewer websites than the generic engine. -- The semantic web could also help with locating websites also.
* There aren't search engines for all subjects.
* Finding a focused search engine may be as much trouble as finding what you search for in the first place.
The problem with climate models is that you only hear about the ones that give extreme results. There is no news value (or grant value for that matter) in reporting models that don't give extreme results.
Combine this with the fact that climate models take a long long time to verify (So long that the model will most likely have been forgotten) and you have a nice recipe for bad science. I personally believe that most climate model research would be better spent on weather model research.
I hate that argument because it is constructed to play on the emotions of people. It has a flawed assumption that a local area goes from habitable to inhabitable in a day, a year or even a decade.
Locally, "random" factors affect weather too a much larger degree than even a 100 year climate change. 100+ years should be enough time for your ascendants to relocate. People have relocated through all of mankind's history. Why does everyone suddenly expect that to change.
There will of course always be people who lack common sense and decide to live below water level and don't build strong enough barriers to protect themselves. It is a disaster waiting to happen (well, actually not waiting any longer). Also without common sense are people who build houses in an area known for furious storms and get surprised when their house gets destroyed and they don't have any insurance beacuse it was too expensive (guess why it was expensive in the first place).