With the direction we're going right now, artificial steak is the ONLY way. Don't like it? Neither do I. I'm a bit of a pessimist when it comes to human nature, though, so I'm assuming our population explosion is not going to slow down.
I also think that a nice, bland, mass produced artificial steak could be far more efficient to produce than a "real" steak. With sufficiently advanced technology, it might not even be bland. Unlike a Steak-O-Vat, a real cow expends a lot of energy on things other than growing muscle. The energy doesn't have to come from cereals, either. All you need is a nice big fusion plant.
Don't get the idea that I like any of this - if I had to choose an extreme I'd rather be a hunter/gatherer. I do, however, see it as inevitable. It's tough to live naturally when the environment can't provide enough food for everybody.
Here's another interesting idea - what if Revolution controllers have screens built in? Not only would this allow the co-op gaming you described (without investing in multiple DSs), but you might be able to walk away with your wireless controller and keep playing (while in wireless range of the console).
Finally, a solution for all of that time wasted during bathroom breaks.
Just for clarification, the DS is going to launch for $149.
That said, it makes it difficult to field a game that requires $149 controllers, which is too bad. There are some innovative things that you can do with a setup like this, but it just involves too much investment. Of course, if the DS is a big hit, a large percentage of gamers might already have one by the time the Revolution comes out.
Here's another baseless speculation: perhaps Revolution controllers will have screens built in and communicate wirelessley with the console, with the advantages that
a) Large numbers of controllers/DS's could talk to the console, no physical ports required.
b) You could concievably turn off your TV (leave the console on), go outside, and keep playing on your controller screen.
Not only does it take up less space, but it looks more consistent. Pre-rendered CG cutscenes may look a little nicer, but it just makes it jarring to go back to the real time stuff. Plus, engine rendered cutscenes allow for variability, as in the character can still be holding the same weapon/missing the same limb as he was before the cutscene.
Yeah, I'm sure it loses a lot of humor when edited. I heard that when Blazing Saddles was first broadcast on TV, they took out the farting sounds during the chili scene. In other words, that entire scene had no humor whatsoever.
Everybody knows that the trick is simply to hurl your body at the ground, but miss. Try it. The best way to do it is to have somebody distract you at the last moment.
Theists hold that God exists inside our universe. ("God is everywhere")
I consider that which is untestable to be outside of the physical universe. God is, by definition, untestable. If we could submit God to tests that proved his existence or predicted his actions, then I don't think we would consider him to be a God. We would just consider him to be a part of the universe.
To wit, the statement "there is no God so it doesn't matter what I do" is as much a religious statement as "God says this is right, so it is what I will do".
Yes, these are both "religious" statements (based on faith). They are both, in my opinion, flawed decisions. Since gods are by definition ineffable, they should not factor into the decision at all. A person should be able to justify his decisions in such a way that the decision is the same regardless of whether God exists. Basing a decision on the existence/nonexistence of something outside of our universe is foolish.
One of the most fundamental hypotheses is "is there a God?" A scientist's answer to that statement will deeply affect the rest of their approach to a question/problem/experiment.
Untestable hypotheses are scientifically useless. The scientist can't answer such a question, so what you're saying makes no sense. The scientist may believe that there is a God, but should be able to separate this belief from his/her scientific model of the universe. In science, an untestable hypothesis is discarded.
From a "scientific" point of view, a fetus/embryo is a human being. Period.
I think the line is a bit more fuzzy than you imply. An embryo is an embryo. Is the embryo a human simply because it has the potential of becoming a human? After fertilization, the egg is a single celled organism. It divides into a multicellular organism similar to a mold or sponge. As it continues to develop, at what point is it a human? When it loses its gills? When it loses its tail? What makes a human a human, anyway? Is a string of DNA a human? Is an unfertilized egg a human?
I'm not going to tell you, because I don't know where exactly to draw the line myself. It depends on how we define "human," I suppose.
I guess it does come down to a moral decision, as you said. Whether or not you arbitrarily assign the label of "human" to the embryo, you still have to decide whether or not it's moral to destroy it. People must make such decisions without invoking religion, though, if they expect to convince others to agree with their conclusions.
It is conceivable that God or a god exists who makes no conceivable difference to any observation we could possibly make and yet still exists. The belief that such a god exists is, I think, clearly agnostic.
Woah, way off. The belif that such a God exists is *not* agnostic, it is taking God's existence on faith! An agnostic would take the position that, since God cannot affect any observation, it is pointless to argue about whether God exists or not. It's a waste of time. The difference between this position and the position of an athiest is that the athiest would assume that God does not exist.
As for a God that does have an observable effect on the universe, I would consider such a being to simply be a part of the universe.
I disagree that an agnostic is "looking for evidence to tip the balance". An agnostic is pretty sure that there's no way to know one way or the other, so looking for evidence would be a waste of time. I consider myself an agnostic, because there is no testable theory that explains God (if there was, you couldn't really consider it God, could you? It would just be a part of the universe.). Therefore, I cannot know whether there is a God. I see the difference between athiesm and agnosticism as:
Athiest: "I am absolutely convinced that God does not exist." Agnostic: "There is no way to know whether God exists or not, so I'm not going to bother with the idea."
I suppose you could call it giving both ideas equal weight, but the weight of each is zero. It's pointless speculation. It's as if you had a box that maybe has a rock inside of it, and maybe doesn't. Now imagine that it is IMPOSSIBLE to find out whether the rock is in there. The fact that the rock is/isn't there has absolutely no observable effect on the universe. Why even speculate about whether it's there or not?
It'll happen eventually. Maybe not until the copyright expires, but it'll happen. George may immolate himself along with the original film stock, but there's enough digital information floating around that the original can be pieced together.
Ah. That explains why nobody else can make a decent pad. I assumed they were just trying to be "different."
Maybe Nintendo shouldn't have gotten a patent, or maybe they should have - I've never heard an argument either way. Regardless, once they got a patent then nobody should be able to copy it...for a few years.
What's the lifespan of a patent now? 100 years or something? Ridiculous. Outrageous and unnecessary patents have a lot of visibility, but the more serious problem is the excessive lifespan of the patent once you get it.
Good point. When the playstation originally came out, I thought it was great - with the exception of the crappy D-pad. The four disconnected buttons were just a pain in the ass to use. I probably would have bought a playstation were it not for the controller.
I don't have a PS2, but IIRC it still has the same lousy excuse for a d-pad. Why?
Yeah, well you're not likely to see many Kerry/Bush debates, anyway. If you do they'll probably have been given the questions in advance, so Bush's speechwriters can come up with answers for him. He can't speak on his feet, and his administration knows it.
Debates are pretty worthless, anyway. Both sides can stand there and lie at each other without having to back anything up with evidence. When's the last time you saw a list of cited sources presented along with a political speech? Words that politicians say have zero credibility as far as I'm concerned - but luckily I can base my vote on information from a variety of more reliable sources.
Ok, so they're political. However, they ARE respected scientists. If you are going to disagree with them, I suggest you present some sort of argument. That's how science works - it's not like politics, where you can just make up whatever you want and still be relevant.
Maybe you can point out some of this "debunking" that you refer to? I'm sure it's very credible.
I can 1-up you on that one - check out KEXP, where the DJs play what they want (no playlist) and there are zero commercials. Not only is the live broadcast streamed over the web, but you can listen to archived shows, too.
They play almost every kind of music at various points throughout the week, and it's a pretty good mix - you're not going to hear the same pop garbage repeated over and over. If you appreciate the station, you can send them a donation, too, as they're 100% listener supported (thus the lack of commercials).
The players wouldn't have to have the same hardware, they could just implement a standardized virtual machine. Look at Java, for an example. You can implement VMs for several different hardware platforms, and they'll all run the same java program.
So when you design your player, you have to either use hardware for which a VM is available, or you have to do the extra work of writing your own VM implementation. Once you do, your player will be able to run the standardized software without problems.
Sounds like you need to write a letter to your movie theater. Two things that ruin a movie theater for me are 1) commercials (other than previews) and 2) vomit inducing pop music.
A *good* theater has either no music or some barely audible classical music, and the curtains should be closed until the show starts.
I guess I'm just picky, but that's what I'm looking for if they want my business. The theater that I go to now may be the only one around here that doesn't play commercials, and if they started then I certainly wouldn't go there anymore. I've given up on two *closer* theaters already.
If the only way to make it effective is to lock down the populace under iron-fisted oppression and outlandish punishments, then you can't make it effective in the United States. When my government tells me that I can't be trusted to obey the law, and that technology needs to be used to constantly monitor my behavior, then I am no longer in a free country.
As for Microsoft - the market will decide how much oppression the people will stand. I've purchased quite a few MS operating systems, 2k, 98, 95, 3.11, and several versions of DOS. I don't plan on ever buying another one. Not merely because I don't want to support a monopoly, but because I'm not going to buy something that does things that I don't want it to do. They can go screw themselves if they think they can tell me what I can and can't do with my computer. That's my business.
What do you mean nobody can afford high quality video hardware? It gets cheaper all the time! DVD resolution is only 720x480. You can pick up a $200 computer monitor that will display 1600x1200.
HDTVs are getting pretty cheap too - a quick glance over at the Best Buy (I wouldn't suggest shopping there, but they make a decent reference) turns up an $800 HDTV that will do 1080i, which is 1920x1080. 800 bucks is expensive, but it's not outlandish - plus I bet that you could find a similar TV for 600.
At any rate, I'm looking forward to higher density media for movies. DVDs have a lot of benefits, but the compression artifacts annoy me quite a bit - especially when you're supposed to see a smoth gradient of color and instead you get a bunch of ugly blocks. That's with an ordinary 4:3 analog interlaced TV, even. I'm sure it would look that much worse on a high resolution display.
The TV that I have now is decent enough for my movie/gaming purposes, but once HD-DVD is available and affordable I'm upgrading to a nice widescreen HDTV, hopefully with as little baggage (DRM) as possible.
That may be your opinion. I personally still think that the first 3 are great movies, although the 2 prequels kind of put me off of Star Wars entirely.
I don't think the old movies look dated, either. In fact, I find them refreshingly free of not-quite-right CGI effects.
Yes, Lucas was obviously heavily influenced by other works. Yes, the Star Wars movies seem to spend a lot of time on Tatooine.
As for the ROTK think with the Oliphaunts, though, I think you're stretching a bit. As a previous poster mentioned, the idea for big 4 legged attack vehicles could have come from anywhere - probably Lucas' team of brainstorming concept artists.
The Luke/Legolas thing doesn't work either, because Legolas didn't do that ridiculous oliphaunt surfing stuff in the book - only in the movie that came out many years *after* TESB.
Notice that I didn't say "wasting" your vote - I chose the word "sacrificing" on purpose. The sacrifice is not worthless, but it does cost you something. With other election systems, like an instant runoff, you can pick who you want and also pick your second choice. Far superior, in my opinion.
As for what strategy to employ under the current system, I'm not quite sure what is optimal. For the next Presidential election, I'm going to vote for the mainstream candidate because I think the alternative is particularly dangerous. In the last Presidential election I voted for a third party candidate, and I certainly didn't regret it, even though it cost me the ability to have a say in the "real" election (between the lesser of two evils).
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I also think that a nice, bland, mass produced artificial steak could be far more efficient to produce than a "real" steak. With sufficiently advanced technology, it might not even be bland. Unlike a Steak-O-Vat, a real cow expends a lot of energy on things other than growing muscle. The energy doesn't have to come from cereals, either. All you need is a nice big fusion plant.
Don't get the idea that I like any of this - if I had to choose an extreme I'd rather be a hunter/gatherer. I do, however, see it as inevitable. It's tough to live naturally when the environment can't provide enough food for everybody.
Finally, a solution for all of that time wasted during bathroom breaks.
That said, it makes it difficult to field a game that requires $149 controllers, which is too bad. There are some innovative things that you can do with a setup like this, but it just involves too much investment. Of course, if the DS is a big hit, a large percentage of gamers might already have one by the time the Revolution comes out.
Here's another baseless speculation: perhaps Revolution controllers will have screens built in and communicate wirelessley with the console, with the advantages that
a) Large numbers of controllers/DS's could talk to the console, no physical ports required.
b) You could concievably turn off your TV (leave the console on), go outside, and keep playing on your controller screen.
c) ???
I'm not going to tell you, because I don't know where exactly to draw the line myself. It depends on how we define "human," I suppose.
I guess it does come down to a moral decision, as you said. Whether or not you arbitrarily assign the label of "human" to the embryo, you still have to decide whether or not it's moral to destroy it. People must make such decisions without invoking religion, though, if they expect to convince others to agree with their conclusions.
As for a God that does have an observable effect on the universe, I would consider such a being to simply be a part of the universe.
Athiest: "I am absolutely convinced that God does not exist."
Agnostic: "There is no way to know whether God exists or not, so I'm not going to bother with the idea."
I suppose you could call it giving both ideas equal weight, but the weight of each is zero. It's pointless speculation. It's as if you had a box that maybe has a rock inside of it, and maybe doesn't. Now imagine that it is IMPOSSIBLE to find out whether the rock is in there. The fact that the rock is/isn't there has absolutely no observable effect on the universe. Why even speculate about whether it's there or not?
I wonder if my VHS tapes will last that long.
Maybe Nintendo shouldn't have gotten a patent, or maybe they should have - I've never heard an argument either way. Regardless, once they got a patent then nobody should be able to copy it...for a few years.
What's the lifespan of a patent now? 100 years or something? Ridiculous. Outrageous and unnecessary patents have a lot of visibility, but the more serious problem is the excessive lifespan of the patent once you get it.
I don't have a PS2, but IIRC it still has the same lousy excuse for a d-pad. Why?
Debates are pretty worthless, anyway. Both sides can stand there and lie at each other without having to back anything up with evidence. When's the last time you saw a list of cited sources presented along with a political speech? Words that politicians say have zero credibility as far as I'm concerned - but luckily I can base my vote on information from a variety of more reliable sources.
Maybe you can point out some of this "debunking" that you refer to? I'm sure it's very credible.
They play almost every kind of music at various points throughout the week, and it's a pretty good mix - you're not going to hear the same pop garbage repeated over and over. If you appreciate the station, you can send them a donation, too, as they're 100% listener supported (thus the lack of commercials).
So when you design your player, you have to either use hardware for which a VM is available, or you have to do the extra work of writing your own VM implementation. Once you do, your player will be able to run the standardized software without problems.
A *good* theater has either no music or some barely audible classical music, and the curtains should be closed until the show starts.
I guess I'm just picky, but that's what I'm looking for if they want my business. The theater that I go to now may be the only one around here that doesn't play commercials, and if they started then I certainly wouldn't go there anymore. I've given up on two *closer* theaters already.
As for Microsoft - the market will decide how much oppression the people will stand. I've purchased quite a few MS operating systems, 2k, 98, 95, 3.11, and several versions of DOS. I don't plan on ever buying another one. Not merely because I don't want to support a monopoly, but because I'm not going to buy something that does things that I don't want it to do. They can go screw themselves if they think they can tell me what I can and can't do with my computer. That's my business.
HDTVs are getting pretty cheap too - a quick glance over at the Best Buy (I wouldn't suggest shopping there, but they make a decent reference) turns up an $800 HDTV that will do 1080i, which is 1920x1080. 800 bucks is expensive, but it's not outlandish - plus I bet that you could find a similar TV for 600.
At any rate, I'm looking forward to higher density media for movies. DVDs have a lot of benefits, but the compression artifacts annoy me quite a bit - especially when you're supposed to see a smoth gradient of color and instead you get a bunch of ugly blocks. That's with an ordinary 4:3 analog interlaced TV, even. I'm sure it would look that much worse on a high resolution display.
The TV that I have now is decent enough for my movie/gaming purposes, but once HD-DVD is available and affordable I'm upgrading to a nice widescreen HDTV, hopefully with as little baggage (DRM) as possible.
I don't think the old movies look dated, either. In fact, I find them refreshingly free of not-quite-right CGI effects.
As for the ROTK think with the Oliphaunts, though, I think you're stretching a bit. As a previous poster mentioned, the idea for big 4 legged attack vehicles could have come from anywhere - probably Lucas' team of brainstorming concept artists.
The Luke/Legolas thing doesn't work either, because Legolas didn't do that ridiculous oliphaunt surfing stuff in the book - only in the movie that came out many years *after* TESB.
As for what strategy to employ under the current system, I'm not quite sure what is optimal. For the next Presidential election, I'm going to vote for the mainstream candidate because I think the alternative is particularly dangerous. In the last Presidential election I voted for a third party candidate, and I certainly didn't regret it, even though it cost me the ability to have a say in the "real" election (between the lesser of two evils).