I've also been playing in the beta, for about a month now. The game is fun and has taken me away from TF2 for a while but I dont think it has the staying power. I've played as Soldier and Commando, lvl 10 soldier, lvl 3 commando now.
After playing in such a relatively well balanced game like TF2, there are some significant weapon balance issues. (i.e. knife versus SMG, tank vs dynomite). Team-based play mechanics isn't very strong--it is too easy to play as a lone ranger. There are some interface glitches and functional issues (okay, it is a beta) that are pretty frustrating, i.e. after you die it cycles through each other player's view with a lot of loading/kludge wait times.
Weapon variety isn't satisfactory either. You basically get 1 of 3 SMGs, 1 of 3 handguns and 1 of 3 shottys. Each is basically the same model with differences in ammo and effective range, but not enough to really matter.
Vehicles are fun to drive, including the planes. placement of AA guns on the maps doesnt make much sense. Running people down in a jeep is pretty fun.
The Battlefunds are confusing too; I fully expect that if I put down cold hard cash that I can purchase advanced weapons. Not super OP but at least distinct. That's not the case. But you should see my "I'm with Stupid" t-shirt and grenade belt. I'm not kidding.
Anyway, I agree with rotide's review in many respects, but this is definitely not like TF2. Much more casual game.
"Life couldn't operate with just random mixtures of stuff."
Oh, but it can operate with a random meteor covered with random chemicals hits a random planet after random light polarization destroyed a random amount of the random side of said random chemicals.
"The remains of eight individuals found in the northeastern Afar region of Ethiopia belonged to the species Australopithecus anamensis -- part of the Australopithecus genus thought to be a direct ancestor to humans, according to a report due to be published Thursday in Nature magazine."
So, I get that these are "hominids", but does that mean they are apes or humans?
If they are apes, it is curious to me that they are referred to as "individuals." It infers that we're willing to personify monkeys but not human fetuses.
talk about OT..sheesh. Well I guess I participated.
anyway, AC- "All that's really required to be a Christian is that Christ was the son of God and he died for our sins and was resurrected."
Like I said in my post, if you (your denom, whatever), believe that, and believe that the sacrifice of Christ was the only acceptable and required sacrifice to atone for all of mankind's sin, then you must believe that there was one original sin that separated man from God. This would be Adam's sin.
If we take a millions-of-years of evolution approach, then Adam came into the world (evolved from another species) with death/disease/corruption already present. IF this is the case, then as Christians, we must ask "Did Adam's sin really separate creation from God? Or has it always been separated? Was it created flawed?" Once you get into these questions, it really leads to "What good was Christ's sacrifice if there was no original sin to separate us from God?"
So while you can talk about "my faith" and "my interpretation", it really is just a very basic interpretation of the Bible as a whole: If there was death prior to Adam's sin, then there was never such a thing as a perfect creation, never a fall, never a separation, and never a need for an atoning sacrifice; thus Christ is false. It doesn't have much to do with interpretation or denominations-no Christ=no Christianity.
The problem with a millions-of-years evolution theory for Christians is that if you accept millions-of-years, and the existance and extinction of dinosoaurs prior to mankind, then you accept death, disease, and suffering prior to the fall of Adam. This doesn't fit into the belief structure of Christianity which states that prior to sin the world was without corruption, disease or pain.
This of course, applies most specifically to "literalist" Christians, who believe in a literal creation account in Genesis. Many Christians sway on this point, and say "okay, well yeah I believe God uses evolution as part of his system," which personally I feel is an unfortunate decision, because it erodes the basic tenants of our faith and negates the entire sin->separation->sacrifice->salvation foundation of Christ.
Anyway, as you can see in some of my previousposts on/., I try to be level-headed and not an ignorant Christian/creationist about the whole thing. I only hope, as other posters have mentioned, that these conversations don't devolve into name-colling or derogatory slug-fests. But that is sort of inevitable I suppose....
Anyway, in regards to this specific fossil, interesting stuff. I would tend to agree that the gill/breathing thing is pretty lacking--that part needs some flesh put on it (ha ha) before I think the at large community will see this as truly "transitionary" in nature. Bone structure etc... is a pretty major change, but if the primary biologic functions of the creature aren't changed (i.e. how it handles CO2/O2 exchange) then I wonder how big of a deal it is? I didn't major in bio though...(neither did I major in Christianity...but whatever).
"sneak their foot in" infers some sort of mischievous intentions. It seems to me that Lessig and others percieved the immense benefit of having an accessible public/fair use policy for the millions of creatives connected via the Internet, and wanted to help them share their works and avoid a malignant litigious whirlwind sweeping across the Web.
NineNine, pardon me if I hit a sore spot by using some hyperbole in my comments. I don't mean to infer, but probably did, that bloggers are journalists any more than Word users are programmers.
What I meant to say is that I cannot comprehend Dvorak's choice to call CC "eye-rolling dumb," to the point of questioning his real grasp on the real issues intellectual property, especially in regards to the global creative community.
Furthermore, has he actually read copyright law? He writes:
If I write something on my blog, for example, and decide not to cover it with the general copyright notice, I can simply say that it is in the public domain and be done with it.
Well, that much is correct. And if he had any idea what CC did, he'd realize that telling people if your blog, e.g., is in the public domain, is exactly what CC does. It provides a uniform, readily understandable method for identifying works as public domain, or not.
I do not need permission from Creative Commons, nor do I need to mention Creative Commons or anything else. It's in the public domain by my personally allowing it to be so. This is my right! I don't need a middleman--a Creative Commons Commissar--to approve my decision. And yet there is this perception that I do.
Um, no, I don't believe that is the perception that CC gives visitors...even upon cursory examination, it is clear to me that CC simply provides a free service to those of us who aren't adept at crafting IP legalese but want to license our work.
What a maroon. Maybe he is backing some other group and just wanted to take potshots at CC. Who knows.
Other than the blog software than allows so many to take part in the wonderful world of information sharing, Creative Commons is one of the most important developments to really help people create, share, and improve without the expense or fear of complicated and cash-mongering copyright lawyers and the like. Dvorak probably just Doesn't Get It, as usual, and as others have said, is simply trolling for attention.
What happened to the days when journalists knew a little about what they were writing about? Did they end the day bloggers started mopping the floor with has-beens at the NYTimes et. al.?
I'm happy this question got into Ask/. I recently was tapped to help find a solution for a dear grandma-in-law who has rapidly deteriorating vision, and has been using a 15" high-contrast monitor with the text set to like +30 for a while...but that solution is really not working for her. I've suggested Web..err..MSN TV 2, which a number of other low-vision people in her assisted living community use on their fairly large-screen TVs with much better success. She is hesitant to switch to it, because of having to balance a keyboard in her lap or bend over a TV tray to use it, which I guess makes sense.
Are there other PC/Windows based solutions (other than a 17 or 19" monitor set to high-contrast) for low-vision users? We've tried using some screen magnifyer software, but its too confusing for her.
That link will probably only be good today, but the Great Bend Tribune, the newspaper from Kilby's (and my) hometown gives a little more info from a more personal perspective. Great Bend has really tried to honor this guy, and the city is proud to have been part of his accomplishments.
Lewis' writings are much less propagantistic than "The Divinci Code," in that they don't attack another group's fundamental belief structure. Neither Screwtape or LW&W (or any other of Lewis' books) claim to be based on fact, as Brown's book does, which serves only to confuse the readers and bolster his attempts to convince his readers that his assumptions have factual basis.
Sheesh, you certainly did post as a troll. Maybe I'm being sensitive, but reading the responses really has me frustrated with the readership of/. I have long been frustrated with the vehement anti-Christian sentiment at/., and comments like this certainly create a pretty crappy environment to share ideas.
For all the blathering about how Christians are judgemental and narrow minded, I'm amazed at the completely offensive comments secularists make about us. It's like its not okay for us to share our opinions, but it is just dandy for athiests et. al. to tell us how evil, conniving, deceptive, stupid, and worthless we are.
Ah whats the point. If anyone reads this it'll just get modded down anyway.
Regarding the fossil record: There is not "clear evidence" of the evolutionary process. On the contrary, there has not been a single transitionary fossil or interspecies fossil found. Look at the Cambrian explosion, where all the major groups of life which we know today appear in the with no evolutionary ancestors. There are no groups which have been identified as ancestral to any of the phyla, and geologically these phyla seem to have appeared suddenly and simultaneously.
As for your creationist friends who tell you fossils are here to test our faith or whatever, I think they don't quite get it.
Here's the deal. Biblically speaking, disease, pain and death didn't exist until after Adam and Eve committed sin.
Evolution requires millions of years, with death and disease present prior to man. That simply doesn't work with a Genesis-based creation structure.
If life had been around for millions of years, full of disease and death prior to man's existence, then there really was no Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve, thus no original sin. That means that Christ's death means nothing. That means that Christianity is completely worthless.
Evolution is an attempt to eliminate God from the world, whether scientists say so or not. Science must operate completely objectively. My problem is that it doesn't. It seems most scientists simply refuse to even consider ID or a theistic creation model, which is a subjective approach to science. They model their work soley on a millions-of-years evolution approach, which I think is poor science.
I tend to ramble and get off topic with this stuff, so I'll cut short here. I just wanted to help clarify why there is such a chasm between evolution and creation models. Evolution is a direct assault on the Biblical model of creation, which is a direct assault on Christianity.
Perhaps Dell doesn't think consumers will purchase computers that don't have "the Intel Inside"®. It's not just about price/performance, but about eroding market share if they switch products and consumers don't "get it." And, as the article hints at, as long as Dell can whip Intel into price concessions by playing the "maybe we'll go with AMD" game, there's no real economic gain for Dell to switch to AMD.
Unless, that is, the consumer PC market sees a marked demand for AMD-based systems. Especially if a significant Dell competitor (is there one?) starts to meet that demand with AMD systems. I just don't see another consumer PC maker with the type of market share necessary to force Dell into that position.
It always cracks me up when I see a negative story about a company, and within the same article a targeted advertisement for that company or related product.
Creationism and evolution are not compatible if you are a "devout Christian" that adheres to a basic tenant of the faith--that the Bible is authoritative and literal--because if you believe in evolution, then you believe that millions of years of death, disease, dying and suffering took place PRIOR to the creation and thus fall of man.
Death, dying and suffering did not occur, Scriputurally speaking, until after Adam & Eve's sin.
If Christians admit (or assimilate) the belief that death and suffering were present prior to sin, then the what good is the atonement for sin present in Christ's sacrificial death?
Millions-of-years evolutionary theory attacks this foundation of Christianity, which is why "devout Christians" are up in arms about it.
and my "ask slashdot" submission about solar-powered computing get turned down? Maybe if I had asked how to hook a bunch of extension cords together...
Slashdot Mirror
I've also been playing in the beta, for about a month now. The game is fun and has taken me away from TF2 for a while but I dont think it has the staying power. I've played as Soldier and Commando, lvl 10 soldier, lvl 3 commando now.
After playing in such a relatively well balanced game like TF2, there are some significant weapon balance issues. (i.e. knife versus SMG, tank vs dynomite). Team-based play mechanics isn't very strong--it is too easy to play as a lone ranger. There are some interface glitches and functional issues (okay, it is a beta) that are pretty frustrating, i.e. after you die it cycles through each other player's view with a lot of loading/kludge wait times.
Weapon variety isn't satisfactory either. You basically get 1 of 3 SMGs, 1 of 3 handguns and 1 of 3 shottys. Each is basically the same model with differences in ammo and effective range, but not enough to really matter.
Vehicles are fun to drive, including the planes. placement of AA guns on the maps doesnt make much sense. Running people down in a jeep is pretty fun.
The Battlefunds are confusing too; I fully expect that if I put down cold hard cash that I can purchase advanced weapons. Not super OP but at least distinct. That's not the case. But you should see my "I'm with Stupid" t-shirt and grenade belt. I'm not kidding.
Anyway, I agree with rotide's review in many respects, but this is definitely not like TF2. Much more casual game.
Flawed thinking, like:
"Life couldn't operate with just random mixtures of stuff."
Oh, but it can operate with a random meteor covered with random chemicals hits a random planet after random light polarization destroyed a random amount of the random side of said random chemicals.
Gotcha.
So, I get that these are "hominids", but does that mean they are apes or humans?
If they are apes, it is curious to me that they are referred to as "individuals." It infers that we're willing to personify monkeys but not human fetuses.
(did you catch the "fundy" slant there?)
Hmm, well stated GR1NCH. I don't know that I agree, but you have presented a good thought. Thanks!
talk about OT..sheesh. Well I guess I participated.
anyway, AC-
"All that's really required to be a Christian is that Christ was the son of God and he died for our sins and was resurrected."
Like I said in my post, if you (your denom, whatever), believe that, and believe that the sacrifice of Christ was the only acceptable and required sacrifice to atone for all of mankind's sin, then you must believe that there was one original sin that separated man from God. This would be Adam's sin.
If we take a millions-of-years of evolution approach, then Adam came into the world (evolved from another species) with death/disease/corruption already present. IF this is the case, then as Christians, we must ask "Did Adam's sin really separate creation from God? Or has it always been separated? Was it created flawed?" Once you get into these questions, it really leads to "What good was Christ's sacrifice if there was no original sin to separate us from God?"
So while you can talk about "my faith" and "my interpretation", it really is just a very basic interpretation of the Bible as a whole: If there was death prior to Adam's sin, then there was never such a thing as a perfect creation, never a fall, never a separation, and never a need for an atoning sacrifice; thus Christ is false. It doesn't have much to do with interpretation or denominations-no Christ=no Christianity.
The problem with a millions-of-years evolution theory for Christians is that if you accept millions-of-years, and the existance and extinction of dinosoaurs prior to mankind, then you accept death, disease, and suffering prior to the fall of Adam. This doesn't fit into the belief structure of Christianity which states that prior to sin the world was without corruption, disease or pain.
/., I try to be level-headed and not an ignorant Christian/creationist about the whole thing. I only hope, as other posters have mentioned, that these conversations don't devolve into name-colling or derogatory slug-fests. But that is sort of inevitable I suppose....
This of course, applies most specifically to "literalist" Christians, who believe in a literal creation account in Genesis. Many Christians sway on this point, and say "okay, well yeah I believe God uses evolution as part of his system," which personally I feel is an unfortunate decision, because it erodes the basic tenants of our faith and negates the entire sin->separation->sacrifice->salvation foundation of Christ.
Anyway, as you can see in some of my previous posts on
Anyway, in regards to this specific fossil, interesting stuff. I would tend to agree that the gill/breathing thing is pretty lacking--that part needs some flesh put on it (ha ha) before I think the at large community will see this as truly "transitionary" in nature. Bone structure etc... is a pretty major change, but if the primary biologic functions of the creature aren't changed (i.e. how it handles CO2/O2 exchange) then I wonder how big of a deal it is? I didn't major in bio though...(neither did I major in Christianity...but whatever).
"sneak their foot in" infers some sort of mischievous intentions. It seems to me that Lessig and others percieved the immense benefit of having an accessible public/fair use policy for the millions of creatives connected via the Internet, and wanted to help them share their works and avoid a malignant litigious whirlwind sweeping across the Web.
NineNine, pardon me if I hit a sore spot by using some hyperbole in my comments. I don't mean to infer, but probably did, that bloggers are journalists any more than Word users are programmers.
What I meant to say is that I cannot comprehend Dvorak's choice to call CC "eye-rolling dumb," to the point of questioning his real grasp on the real issues intellectual property, especially in regards to the global creative community.
Well, that much is correct. And if he had any idea what CC did, he'd realize that telling people if your blog, e.g., is in the public domain, is exactly what CC does. It provides a uniform, readily understandable method for identifying works as public domain, or not.
Um, no, I don't believe that is the perception that CC gives visitors...even upon cursory examination, it is clear to me that CC simply provides a free service to those of us who aren't adept at crafting IP legalese but want to license our work.
What a maroon. Maybe he is backing some other group and just wanted to take potshots at CC. Who knows.
Isn't it 35 years once the original owner dies? Maybe I'm just reading this wrong...or maybe he did.
Other than the blog software than allows so many to take part in the wonderful world of information sharing, Creative Commons is one of the most important developments to really help people create, share, and improve without the expense or fear of complicated and cash-mongering copyright lawyers and the like. Dvorak probably just Doesn't Get It, as usual, and as others have said, is simply trolling for attention.
What happened to the days when journalists knew a little about what they were writing about? Did they end the day bloggers started mopping the floor with has-beens at the NYTimes et. al.?
yeah; myth helped me waste some serious time back in high school. as another post said, they are huge, and probably not going anywhere.
I'm happy this question got into Ask /. I recently was tapped to help find a solution for a dear grandma-in-law who has rapidly deteriorating vision, and has been using a 15" high-contrast monitor with the text set to like +30 for a while...but that solution is really not working for her. I've suggested Web..err..MSN TV 2, which a number of other low-vision people in her assisted living community use on their fairly large-screen TVs with much better success. She is hesitant to switch to it, because of having to balance a keyboard in her lap or bend over a TV tray to use it, which I guess makes sense.
Are there other PC/Windows based solutions (other than a 17 or 19" monitor set to high-contrast) for low-vision users? We've tried using some screen magnifyer software, but its too confusing for her.
Is that pretty much it?
holy smokes! the viola section! Good to hear from ya! shoot me an email - justin[at]ideate[dot]net.
me too. :p It's been 4 or 5 years since I've lived there, before Kilby Square and the like.
http://www.gbtribune.com/localNews.htm
That link will probably only be good today, but the Great Bend Tribune, the newspaper from Kilby's (and my) hometown gives a little more info from a more personal perspective. Great Bend has really tried to honor this guy, and the city is proud to have been part of his accomplishments.
Also, check http://www.jackkilby.com/ for more info about him and the memorial in Great Bend.
Just thought I'd throw that in there.
what the heck /., I thought I was logged in when I posted this...dangit. so much for karma.
http://graphics.stanford.edu.nyud.net:8090/papers/ dual_photography/
Come on kids, coralcache is the way to go. no more direct linking to servers that go down quicker than, well, you know.
Lewis' writings are much less propagantistic than "The Divinci Code," in that they don't attack another group's fundamental belief structure. Neither Screwtape or LW&W (or any other of Lewis' books) claim to be based on fact, as Brown's book does, which serves only to confuse the readers and bolster his attempts to convince his readers that his assumptions have factual basis.
/. /., and comments like this certainly create a pretty crappy environment to share ideas.
Sheesh, you certainly did post as a troll. Maybe I'm being sensitive, but reading the responses really has me frustrated with the readership of
I have long been frustrated with the vehement anti-Christian sentiment at
For all the blathering about how Christians are judgemental and narrow minded, I'm amazed at the completely offensive comments secularists make about us. It's like its not okay for us to share our opinions, but it is just dandy for athiests et. al. to tell us how evil, conniving, deceptive, stupid, and worthless we are.
Ah whats the point. If anyone reads this it'll just get modded down anyway.
Regarding the fossil record: There is not "clear evidence" of the evolutionary process. On the contrary, there has not been a single transitionary fossil or interspecies fossil found. Look at the Cambrian explosion, where all the major groups of life which we know today appear in the with no evolutionary ancestors. There are no groups which have been identified as ancestral to any of the phyla, and geologically these phyla seem to have appeared suddenly and simultaneously.
As for your creationist friends who tell you fossils are here to test our faith or whatever, I think they don't quite get it.
Here's the deal. Biblically speaking, disease, pain and death didn't exist until after Adam and Eve committed sin.
Evolution requires millions of years, with death and disease present prior to man. That simply doesn't work with a Genesis-based creation structure.
If life had been around for millions of years, full of disease and death prior to man's existence, then there really was no Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve, thus no original sin. That means that Christ's death means nothing. That means that Christianity is completely worthless.
Evolution is an attempt to eliminate God from the world, whether scientists say so or not. Science must operate completely objectively. My problem is that it doesn't. It seems most scientists simply refuse to even consider ID or a theistic creation model, which is a subjective approach to science. They model their work soley on a millions-of-years evolution approach, which I think is poor science.
I tend to ramble and get off topic with this stuff, so I'll cut short here. I just wanted to help clarify why there is such a chasm between evolution and creation models. Evolution is a direct assault on the Biblical model of creation, which is a direct assault on Christianity.
Perhaps Dell doesn't think consumers will purchase computers that don't have "the Intel Inside"®. It's not just about price/performance, but about eroding market share if they switch products and consumers don't "get it." And, as the article hints at, as long as Dell can whip Intel into price concessions by playing the "maybe we'll go with AMD" game, there's no real economic gain for Dell to switch to AMD.
Unless, that is, the consumer PC market sees a marked demand for AMD-based systems. Especially if a significant Dell competitor (is there one?) starts to meet that demand with AMD systems. I just don't see another consumer PC maker with the type of market share necessary to force Dell into that position.
fp. thats all.
It always cracks me up when I see a negative story about a company, and within the same article a targeted advertisement for that company or related product.
Creationism and evolution are not compatible if you are a "devout Christian" that adheres to a basic tenant of the faith--that the Bible is authoritative and literal--because if you believe in evolution, then you believe that millions of years of death, disease, dying and suffering took place PRIOR to the creation and thus fall of man.
Death, dying and suffering did not occur, Scriputurally speaking, until after Adam & Eve's sin.
If Christians admit (or assimilate) the belief that death and suffering were present prior to sin, then the what good is the atonement for sin present in Christ's sacrificial death?
Millions-of-years evolutionary theory attacks this foundation of Christianity, which is why "devout Christians" are up in arms about it.
That is why it is a religious discussion.
and my "ask slashdot" submission about solar-powered computing get turned down? Maybe if I had asked how to hook a bunch of extension cords together...