It's amazing how the prices on these things have come down. My first MP3 player was about the size and weight of a small elephant, had 128 Mb storage, and cost me £130..
Now you can get a 256 Mb MP3/WMA player/voice recorder/flash storage drive from the bargain bin in Tesco for a tenner. Granted, they're not brilliantly built, and only USB 1.1, but they store files and play music, and the sound quality's not even too bad.. for £10 you can't really complain.
There are more text adventures out there than you could probably play in a lifetime! The really nice thing is, the vast majority of them are developed on either of two system - TADS, the Text Adventure Development System or Inform, Infocom's system. Both are free for anyone to develop their own games with, and there are interpreters for these systems (especially Inform) on just about any platform you care to use.
A good central 'hub' to start from is the IF archive with some beginners guides on how to get started, and a massive collection of games to download and play. and googling for 'interactive fiction' will turn up lots more sites. Have fun:)
The problem is that every police person can tell you it is a load of bullshit. If you see a group of black people in a poor area of london in an expensive car you know it is stolen.
So if you saw a bunch of 18 year old stoned and scruffy white kids tooling around a poor area of London in a top end BMW you wouldn't bat an eyelid? Interesting.
Personally, I would say that if you see a group of poor people in a poor area of London in an expensive car, you know it is stolen.
The question is, why is it that all the poor areas are filled with blacks?
Does anyone remember one - it was an IF competition winner, I think, certainly not by Infocom or anything like that.. it was quite a short game, and quite abstract. Without giving any spoilers, I remember there was a miniature model of the world you were in, inside of the world you were in.. and the prose was really really weird. It started out with something like "The sun beams. There is rock." and all the text in it, including your input, had this really abstract kind of feel to it Anyone know the one I'm talking about? it's ages since I played it, so my recollection is kinda vague
What exactly counts as "being solicited" anyways.. there's a huge difference between say:
"So, you're 10 years old, eh? okay, here's what I want to do to you.. " and
"HI ASL? R U A GURL LETS CYBER! LOLOL! BTW HOW I MINE FOR FISH???????"
for that matter would getting porn-site spam count as soliciting? Not that I'm saying it's right that kids should recieve that, as they certainly shouldn't, but again, there's a vast difference between being individually targetted by a paedophile who specificially wants to try and arrange to meet that kid in real life... and just being one of 3 million people who get the same a bit of spam dumped in their inbox.
Oh! So THAT'S the song on that advert.... and that's the song in this article. go figure, I didn't know what either one was, and now I know both are the same:)
BEWARE: Trackmania Nations apparently include the StarForce copy protection/malware system. I haven't personally installed TM Nations, and there seems to be a bit of dispute on the web as to whether it actually does contain StarForce or not (though the major consensus seems to be that it does, even though it's free)
Oh, and if you don't know why you want to avoid having StarForce on your system, 2 minutes with google should tell you everything you need to know.
The really ironic thing is, it isn't, so it gets all the dork factor of sounding hypercorrect, as you put it (nice term btw), but it also has the idiot factor of being Just Plain Wrong.
Thanks for your reply, however, I'm not really convinced you've addressed the points I raised - perhaps my fault for not putting them as clearly as I might have.
Perhaps the most pertinent question I could ask here, is how would you define the difference between "faith" and "uncertainty"?
In your post you make the point, as I did, that faith is only required when there is not knowledge. For instance, if I cool water to zero degrees I know it will freeze. No faith required there.
If I roll a die I know that I have a 1 in 6 chance of getting any specific number. No faith there, either.
If - to borrow your example - I'm with a friend, and get into a fight, well, there are a LOT of factors involved there. Who started the fight? is it occurring for a reason my friend is likely to by sympathetic about? how well do I know this guy? how long have I known him? has he been trustworthy in the past? how does he feel about violence? how capable of fighting is he? how many opponents are we up against? what are the consequences of this event likely to be? How much does each of those factors affect his liklihood to fight?
The more those factors point in the direction of "Yes, this guy would fight", the more certain I can be that he would - which seems to correspond perfectly to your description of having faith that your friend would join you in the fight.
You can be pretty sure Andre The Giant lookalike ex-marine buddy would wade in and crack some skulls when needed, or that your lightweight pacifist haemophiliac friend wouldn't.
Of course, these are the straightforward cases, it's easy to say those guys probably (but not certainly) would, or wouldn't fight. But most people are somewhere in the middle, and are therefore even harder to estimate.
Dictionary.com defines faith as follows:
1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing. 2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. See Synonyms at belief. See Synonyms at trust. 3. Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance: keeping faith with one's supporters. 4. often Faith Christianity. The theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God's will. 5. The body of dogma of a religion: the Muslim faith. 6. A set of principles or beliefs.
The relevant definitions are #1 and #2. Let's take a look at these. #1 is "confident belief". That is to say, believing with a high degree of confidence that the light will come on when the switch is flicked, or that your friend will back you up in a tight spot. The important thing here is exactly why this belief is held. As I hope I have already shown, you hold these beliefs due to experience, reason, and logic. In these cases the word "faith" can be replaced with words such as "expectation", "probability" and so on - and indeed, I generally choose such wording so as not to confuse it with the second major definition...
#2 is where faith collides head on with reason. When you have no logical proof or material evidence, yet choose to believe something anyway you are literally believing in it for "no sound rational reason." Now, by all means you have the right to believe anything you desire. If it makes you happy to believe there is a giant diamond buried in your back yard, despite having no evidence for that claim, then knock yourself out. However, know that you don't have a leg to stand on if you start trying to repeat that claim as though it has some kind of factual basis.
Also, I'll very briefly drop in a word about #3 ("loyalty"), as it does relate to your example of the friend. However, this is really just a special case of #1. You can estimate how loyal this friend is likely to be based on previous experience and knowledge of the relevant factors. So again, that simply comes down to probabilities and uncertainties.
So, to sum up this rather long winded post, I hope I've shown here that of the relevant definitions of "faith" the only one which cann
666 was just a hebrew code for Nero Caesar. Unless someone clones Nero and he takes over the world, regulating all commerce, the "Mark of the Beast" is a false prophecy.
Oh noes! Nero's back! (With new and improved DVD writing capability! Albeit a bit overpriced and bloated...)
What if they (whoever they are, you KNOW WHO they are, don't you?) replace cash-money for RFID-card-cash? Then everyone would be obliged to use RFID in everything. Don't tell me you really think Bush (or anyone else) wouldn't do that if he could. Complete knowledge (and control) over the market, yummy.
Then I trade two of my goats for one of your cows.. and maybe some of your shiny metal things (maybe we could call them "coins", and standardise a value for them?) for some of my freshly baked bread
What if faith isn't believing in gnomes, faeries, Gods or Goddeses just because it's the dogma - what if faith is actually the rational extrapolation from insufficient evidence to guide necesary action? In other words - faith is what guides our actions when we don't have knowledge but need to make a choice.
A good post, but I'm going to have to disagree strongly with your definition of faith. I've often had those of a religious nature say to me that I use faith all the time in my life - for example, when I flick a light switch I have faith that the light is going to come on. This - like your definition - is incorrect. I expect that the light when come on when I flick the switch because that's what has happened in the past each time I've flicked the switch. I also know how the light works, and because of that, I also expect it to come on when I flick the switch. Furthermore I know about power cuts, and that sometims switches wear out, or bulbs blow, so in fact it might not come on. I also know roughly how often those things happen, so not only do I know that it might not come on, but I can very loosely guess the chances that it will, or will not come on.
Faith, on the other hand, is what you invoke in cases where you do not have the evidence to rely on. In cases where I have only a little evidence, I simply use what little I have to make the best judgement possible, and in cases where I have absolutely no evidence whatsoever I say "Well, I don't know what will happen, but let's find out." I don't need faith in the case of the light switch, because I have the facts. Faith would be expecting that when I flick the switch, the universe will end, or the sun will suddenly change colour, or anything else equally unconnected, with no good reasons to suggest that would actually be the case. That is, expecting something to happen for no good reason other than pure faith that it will happen. Faith is only ever invoked where there is a lack of logical connection and/or evidence. In effect then, it is precisely the belief in gnomes and fairies and gods and goddesses.
For the love of all that is holy, please don't assume that The Sun represents British journalism, or indeed, any kind of journalism. It exists purely to pander to the lowest common denominator (and I'm not even talking about page 3 here. That's one of it's highlights.)
On the first offense, lock up *every* drug user over the age of 12 for 5 years with no parole
It's gonna be kind of hard for the country to function when only about 0.01% of the population aren't in jail. After all, how many people do you know that don't use alcohol, caffine, or tobacco? Oh, or did you only mean to lock people up for the drugs not deemed socially acceptable?
Ah, the good old context card. Second only to the "Ah, but that was mistranslated..." card in the apologist's arsenal. I note you haven't provided any references to show exactly how/where I am abusing context here. Perhaps you would care to do that?
You can, of course, just cry "out of context!" without providing any references if you like, but it just makes you look silly.
Wrong. There are no true christians who would threaten such violence. By definition, zero. Because clearly this would distinguish these people as people who do not follow the teachings of Jesus Christ.
And yet the likes of Fred Phelps will claim, using the exact same reference material, that you cannot be a true Christian if you don't hate homosexuals and muslims.
Jesus Christ taught us to turn the other cheek - ref, to not resist an evil person - ref, , and that those who live by the sword will die by the sword - ref. Pretty simple test really.
Jesus Christ also fully endorsed the barbaric cruelty of the old testament ref
He came "not to send peace, but a sword", to set families against each other ref
He questioned the Pharisees as to why they did not uphold the law of God by their tradition, the law in question being "Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death." ref
Jesus will "take vengeance on them that know not God" ref (by burning them in everlasting fire, as it happens)
Plenty more here, and to pre-empt any cries of foul play, yes, the references I have linked here are to the Skeptic's Annotated Bible, however, it is simply a perfectly ordinary KJV. It just has extra annotations. If you feel happier using biblegateway or some other web reference for the KJV feel free.
Perhaps if the pope stood on his balcony in Saint Peter's square and said -"Muslims? You are all gonna burn!!!". It would not contradict the bible one little bit.
There certainly are some Christians like that. Though his main target is homosexuals, Fred Phelps certainly has no love of Muslims either. I won't link his vile site, as I don't want to help any search engines pick it up, but if you want to see it go to www.godhatesfags.com - and naturally, be prepared for extremely offensive content.
Additionally, Jack Chick, creator of the infamous Chick tracts, has several tracts on the theme that Islam (or any other non-Protestant-Christian religion) is false deception and all it's followers are gonna burn in hell, etc, etc, rant, rant. To see his nasty little creations (I highly recommend his tracts on the evils of Dungeons and Dragons and evolution for comedy value) go to http://www.chick.com/catalog/tractlist.asp
Slashdot Mirror
It's amazing how the prices on these things have come down.
My first MP3 player was about the size and weight of a small elephant, had 128 Mb storage, and cost me £130..
Now you can get a 256 Mb MP3/WMA player/voice recorder/flash storage drive from the bargain bin in Tesco for a tenner.
Granted, they're not brilliantly built, and only USB 1.1, but they store files and play music, and the sound quality's not even too bad.. for £10 you can't really complain.
There are more text adventures out there than you could probably play in a lifetime!
:)
The really nice thing is, the vast majority of them are developed on either of two system - TADS, the Text Adventure Development System or Inform, Infocom's system. Both are free for anyone to develop their own games with, and there are interpreters for these systems (especially Inform) on just about any platform you care to use.
A good central 'hub' to start from is the IF archive with some beginners guides on how to get started, and a massive collection of games to download and play. and googling for 'interactive fiction' will turn up lots more sites.
Have fun
>Do you work for the Department of Redundancy Department. ?
Yes. Yes I do.
I create new PIN Numbers for use in the ATM Machines.
The problem is that every police person can tell you it is a load of bullshit. If you see a group of black people in a poor area of london in an expensive car you know it is stolen.
So if you saw a bunch of 18 year old stoned and scruffy white kids tooling around a poor area of London in a top end BMW you wouldn't bat an eyelid? Interesting.
Personally, I would say that if you see a group of poor people in a poor area of London in an expensive car, you know it is stolen.
The question is, why is it that all the poor areas are filled with blacks?
Congratulations, you, sir, have just officially named the new Nintendo console.
Wii my ass!(*). I can't wait to get my hands on a NES FOKR
*No, actually, on second thoughts please don't "wii my ass.". It sounds highly unsanitary.
Ah! that's the one, thankyou... think I'll go dig up a copy of Frotz and play that again :)
Does anyone remember one - it was an IF competition winner, I think, certainly not by Infocom or anything like that..
it was quite a short game, and quite abstract. Without giving any spoilers, I remember there was a miniature model of the world you were in, inside of the world you were in.. and the prose was really really weird. It started out with something like
"The sun beams. There is rock."
and all the text in it, including your input, had this really abstract kind of feel to it
Anyone know the one I'm talking about? it's ages since I played it, so my recollection is kinda vague
What exactly counts as "being solicited" anyways.. there's a huge difference between say:
"So, you're 10 years old, eh? okay, here's what I want to do to you.. "
and
"HI ASL? R U A GURL LETS CYBER! LOLOL! BTW HOW I MINE FOR FISH???????"
for that matter would getting porn-site spam count as soliciting? Not that I'm saying it's right that kids should recieve that, as they certainly shouldn't, but again, there's a vast difference between being individually targetted by a paedophile who specificially wants to try and arrange to meet that kid in real life... and just being one of 3 million people who get the same a bit of spam dumped in their inbox.
Sodding typical. 5 mod points expired unused yesterday, and today, this.
Someone mod this guy up!
Oh! So THAT'S the song on that advert.... and that's the song in this article. :)
go figure, I didn't know what either one was, and now I know both are the same
BEWARE: Trackmania Nations apparently include the StarForce copy protection/malware system.
I haven't personally installed TM Nations, and there seems to be a bit of dispute on the web as to whether it actually does contain StarForce or not (though the major consensus seems to be that it does, even though it's free)
Oh, and if you don't know why you want to avoid having StarForce on your system, 2 minutes with google should tell you everything you need to know.
Atari ST. 11" screen. 320x200. And I liked it.
Of course back then we wore onions on our belts, because that was the fashion back then, and-...
Virii is hypercorrect.
The really ironic thing is, it isn't, so it gets all the dork factor of sounding hypercorrect, as you put it (nice term btw), but it also has the idiot factor of being Just Plain Wrong.
Thanks for your reply, however, I'm not really convinced you've addressed the points I raised - perhaps my fault for not putting them as clearly as I might have.
Perhaps the most pertinent question I could ask here, is how would you define the difference between "faith" and "uncertainty"?
In your post you make the point, as I did, that faith is only required when there is not knowledge. For instance, if I cool water to zero degrees I know it will freeze. No faith required there.
If I roll a die I know that I have a 1 in 6 chance of getting any specific number. No faith there, either.
If - to borrow your example - I'm with a friend, and get into a fight, well, there are a LOT of factors involved there. Who started the fight? is it occurring for a reason my friend is likely to by sympathetic about? how well do I know this guy? how long have I known him? has he been trustworthy in the past? how does he feel about violence? how capable of fighting is he? how many opponents are we up against? what are the consequences of this event likely to be? How much does each of those factors affect his liklihood to fight?
The more those factors point in the direction of "Yes, this guy would fight", the more certain I can be that he would - which seems to correspond perfectly to your description of having faith that your friend would join you in the fight.
You can be pretty sure Andre The Giant lookalike ex-marine buddy would wade in and crack some skulls when needed, or that your lightweight pacifist haemophiliac friend wouldn't.
Of course, these are the straightforward cases, it's easy to say those guys probably (but not certainly) would, or wouldn't fight. But most people are somewhere in the middle, and are therefore even harder to estimate.
Dictionary.com defines faith as follows:
1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.
2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. See Synonyms at belief. See Synonyms at trust.
3. Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance: keeping faith with one's supporters.
4. often Faith Christianity. The theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God's will.
5. The body of dogma of a religion: the Muslim faith.
6. A set of principles or beliefs.
The relevant definitions are #1 and #2. Let's take a look at these.
#1 is "confident belief". That is to say, believing with a high degree of confidence that the light will come on when the switch is flicked, or that your friend will back you up in a tight spot.
The important thing here is exactly why this belief is held. As I hope I have already shown, you hold these beliefs due to experience, reason, and logic. In these cases the word "faith" can be replaced with words such as "expectation", "probability" and so on - and indeed, I generally choose such wording so as not to confuse it with the second major definition...
#2 is where faith collides head on with reason. When you have no logical proof or material evidence, yet choose to believe something anyway you are literally believing in it for "no sound rational reason."
Now, by all means you have the right to believe anything you desire. If it makes you happy to believe there is a giant diamond buried in your back yard, despite having no evidence for that claim, then knock yourself out. However, know that you don't have a leg to stand on if you start trying to repeat that claim as though it has some kind of factual basis.
Also, I'll very briefly drop in a word about #3 ("loyalty"), as it does relate to your example of the friend. However, this is really just a special case of #1. You can estimate how loyal this friend is likely to be based on previous experience and knowledge of the relevant factors. So again, that simply comes down to probabilities and uncertainties.
So, to sum up this rather long winded post, I hope I've shown here that of the relevant definitions of "faith" the only one which cann
666 was just a hebrew code for Nero Caesar. Unless someone clones Nero and he takes over the world, regulating all commerce, the "Mark of the Beast" is a false prophecy.
Oh noes! Nero's back! (With new and improved DVD writing capability! Albeit a bit overpriced and bloated...)
Aww, c'mon. Someone mod this guy up, that movie is awesome!
What if they (whoever they are, you KNOW WHO they are, don't you?) replace cash-money for RFID-card-cash? Then everyone would be obliged to use RFID in everything. Don't tell me you really think Bush (or anyone else) wouldn't do that if he could. Complete knowledge (and control) over the market, yummy.
Then I trade two of my goats for one of your cows.. and maybe some of your shiny metal things (maybe we could call them "coins", and standardise a value for them?) for some of my freshly baked bread
For what it's worth, that's when Brian Flemming's new movie The Beast comes out.
http://www.thebeastmovie.com/about/index.html
He also directed the very interesting (if a little amaturish) documentary The God Who Wasn't There: http://www.thegodmovie.com/
What if faith isn't believing in gnomes, faeries, Gods or Goddeses just because it's the dogma - what if faith is actually the rational extrapolation from insufficient evidence to guide necesary action? In other words - faith is what guides our actions when we don't have knowledge but need to make a choice.
A good post, but I'm going to have to disagree strongly with your definition of faith.
I've often had those of a religious nature say to me that I use faith all the time in my life - for example, when I flick a light switch I have faith that the light is going to come on. This - like your definition - is incorrect.
I expect that the light when come on when I flick the switch because that's what has happened in the past each time I've flicked the switch. I also know how the light works, and because of that, I also expect it to come on when I flick the switch. Furthermore I know about power cuts, and that sometims switches wear out, or bulbs blow, so in fact it might not come on. I also know roughly how often those things happen, so not only do I know that it might not come on, but I can very loosely guess the chances that it will, or will not come on.
Faith, on the other hand, is what you invoke in cases where you do not have the evidence to rely on. In cases where I have only a little evidence, I simply use what little I have to make the best judgement possible, and in cases where I have absolutely no evidence whatsoever I say "Well, I don't know what will happen, but let's find out." I don't need faith in the case of the light switch, because I have the facts.
Faith would be expecting that when I flick the switch, the universe will end, or the sun will suddenly change colour, or anything else equally unconnected, with no good reasons to suggest that would actually be the case. That is, expecting something to happen for no good reason other than pure faith that it will happen. Faith is only ever invoked where there is a lack of logical connection and/or evidence. In effect then, it is precisely the belief in gnomes and fairies and gods and goddesses.
For the love of all that is holy, please don't assume that The Sun represents British journalism, or indeed, any kind of journalism. It exists purely to pander to the lowest common denominator (and I'm not even talking about page 3 here. That's one of it's highlights.)
On the first offense, lock up *every* drug user over the age of 12 for 5 years with no parole
It's gonna be kind of hard for the country to function when only about 0.01% of the population aren't in jail. After all, how many people do you know that don't use alcohol, caffine, or tobacco? Oh, or did you only mean to lock people up for the drugs not deemed socially acceptable?
Ah, the good old context card. Second only to the "Ah, but that was mistranslated..." card in the apologist's arsenal.
I note you haven't provided any references to show exactly how/where I am abusing context here. Perhaps you would care to do that?
You can, of course, just cry "out of context!" without providing any references if you like, but it just makes you look silly.
Wrong. There are no true christians who would threaten such violence. By definition, zero. Because clearly this would distinguish these people as people who do not follow the teachings of Jesus Christ.
And yet the likes of Fred Phelps will claim, using the exact same reference material, that you cannot be a true Christian if you don't hate homosexuals and muslims.
See No True Scotsman fallacy.
Jesus Christ taught us to turn the other cheek - ref, to not resist an evil person - ref, , and that those who live by the sword will die by the sword - ref. Pretty simple test really.
Jesus Christ also fully endorsed the barbaric cruelty of the old testament ref
He came "not to send peace, but a sword", to set families against each other ref
He questioned the Pharisees as to why they did not uphold the law of God by their tradition, the law in question being "Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death." ref
Jesus will "take vengeance on them that know not God" ref (by burning them in everlasting fire, as it happens)
Plenty more here, and to pre-empt any cries of foul play, yes, the references I have linked here are to the Skeptic's Annotated Bible, however, it is simply a perfectly ordinary KJV. It just has extra annotations. If you feel happier using biblegateway or some other web reference for the KJV feel free.
Perhaps if the pope stood on his balcony in Saint Peter's square and said -"Muslims? You are all gonna burn!!!". It would not contradict the bible one little bit.
There certainly are some Christians like that. Though his main target is homosexuals, Fred Phelps certainly has no love of Muslims either. I won't link his vile site, as I don't want to help any search engines pick it up, but if you want to see it go to www.godhatesfags.com - and naturally, be prepared for extremely offensive content.
Additionally, Jack Chick, creator of the infamous Chick tracts, has several tracts on the theme that Islam (or any other non-Protestant-Christian religion) is false deception and all it's followers are gonna burn in hell, etc, etc, rant, rant. To see his nasty little creations (I highly recommend his tracts on the evils of Dungeons and Dragons and evolution for comedy value) go to http://www.chick.com/catalog/tractlist.asp
It's pretty clear about when to stone your kids to death (alternatively: the much less fun plain KJV version)