It was not my intention to dodge your question. I'll give it another shot.
I agree the Bible is a collection of works, some obviously meant to be artistic and others fact, but that does not tell us how [to] know which are history and which are poetry.
I read this sentence as self-contradicting. If you read Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" with all formatting removed, which is essentially how manuscripts of biblical books look, it is still quite obvious that it is poetry. The same goes for a historical text from, say, the 3rd century. Granted, we today are not reading the Bible in its original languages and history has changed our common forms of speech or idioms, so we depend on scholarly research to aid us in determining what's what, but it isn't nearly so difficult as you imply. I have dabbled in it myself and am acquainted with biblical scholars who are very much "in the know" - both secular and Christian. I will not claim that they are in total agreement, but in my experience that has been the case. Note that I am speaking here solely of determining the type of text - history, poetry / song, apocalyptic lit, etc.
Your specific Genesis example would require a detailed research report which I hope you will forgive me for not providing, but the reputable information is available should you choose to seek it yourself - it is my guess that the example was more to show me what you mean than to actually go about verifying.
You may claim that my Frost poetry recognition exercise above is intuition, and I would disagree and call it context. We may have to agree to disagree here and leave it at that because to delve further, from experience, will not be fruitful =)
(This has another implication in that it shows morality does not come from scripture, but I digress.)
I agree with you here.
The second reply to my original post delves into why this is silly and foolish quite well.
The post you reference makes a critical mistake in the first point:
(1) It is authoritative, and thus you must believe every word of it as it is written.
I do not agree with that logic. If you read a book on quantum physics, and the date is wrong when it references an experiment that confirms quantum theory A, the mistake does not invalidate the book's authority when it is explaining theory A itself. That would be throwing out the baby with the bathwater (and it is unfortunately a mistake that is made far too often nowadays in general). In the case of the Bible, this means that though the Bible calls a bat a type of bird, the Bible's claim of authority in spiritual matters is not invalidated. This is what the OP meant when saying "The Bible was not meant to be a science textbook." Also, (1) seems to claim that the Bible's authority warrants strict, literal reading of the texts instead of the proper contextual reading I outlined above. This is nonsensical. If you try to read this post strictly literally you are still wondering what baby I am referencing and why a mistake in a book warrants throwing it out. I am in full agreement with the author's final paragraph.
In the cases of near sacrificing your son or daughter to your god...such stories are hideous and are best rejected outright.
First, simply because a story is hideous or gruesome does not mean that it should not be told. Second, I personally do not believe that the Old Testament is relevant for much more than providing the source of quotations used by Jesus in the New Testament, so in my case the point is moot.
Then for the matter of Revelation...I suppose it is clear we are not meant to take this part literally?
Not that I care what Jesus said, there's next to no historical evidence for his existence so what he said is of no consequence.Whoa there, cowboy! Your claim of a lack of historical evidence is immaterial. Fact is, a lot of people take the teachings of Christ (or rather, their interpretations of his teachings) quite seriously, so what he said is of much consequence. You mention a consequence in your post - the pro-life movement would be significantly smaller were it not for the Biblical evidence used by Christians to support that viewpoint.
Simply because you put no stock in the teachings of Jesus does not mean that they are of no consequence to you.
-f
Your Believer sounds like a crappy GM I knew in high school...
The thing with religion is that most if not all of its believers find evidence for their belief in personal, irrepeatable experiences. These are by their nature unscientific. I am some kind of Christian, and while I find it (at times) enlightening to defend my faith, the fact remains that without an encounter with God, the atheist is never going to believe. Some of you are thinking I'm ridiculous for seriously suggesting an encounter with God. I'm okay with that 'cause I'm not rabid.
Science can't disprove God because one can't prove a negative, as the parent post wonderfully illustrated. Still, no empirical evidence (of which we have a metric assload at this point) points to God's existence. For a scientific mind, the rational conclusion is that God doesn't exist. Asking for proof is unproductive for all parties and only results in bickering. -f
Great post! You have illustrated the difference between science and scientism. One is a search for truth, the other is for all intents and purposes a religion.
>Even the soft religious beliefs like "there must be something different about humans" are being challenged. We are just animals, no soul.
No, no, no! We may be 'just animals,' but do not say that there is nothing different about humans! Humans, as far as we know, irrespective of religious belief, are the only example of the universe being able to look at itself. What of art? What of science itself? None of it has any meaning without humans around to experience it.
"Bible" simply means "book of books." Certain books in the Bible are histories, such as the four Gospels in the New Testament. Other books are poetry, such as the Psalms in the Old Testament. Sometimes the style of writing will change between the chapters in a book, as in Genesis where the first chapter contains a creation myth in poetry and later chapters present Hebrew history. A more correct statement than "the Bible was never meant to be read literally" would be "the Bible was never meant to be read from cover-to-cover as a historical account."
Far from being "a technique believers use to shield themselve from inquiry," which is an understandable belief for you to hold given the quote you were working from, the varied methods of reading different parts of the Bible are used to accurately get at the contents of those books. If the Gospels, which relate the life and ministry of Jesus, are read as allegory, then the central figure of the Christian religion disappears and carries no authority. However, these books are written as histories and are therefore read as such. If Genesis 1 is read as history, then a literal 7-day creation must be accepted as fact. This chapter is written as poetry (which is painfully obvious even in English) and should be read as such, though many Christians do not, hence the current conflict with science.
Being sure of the truth of the text is still a concern, but I believe that is outside the scope of your question. -f
>I think that comparing religions is interesting for one reason: everyone believes their religion is right, and the rest are wrong. This important point casts extreme doubt on all religion.
I'm not convinced that this is the case. Perhaps I am making an invalid comparison, but take a look at philosophy. Nearly everyone who consciously holds a philosophy belives that he is right, that his philosophy most accurately represents reality, and that the rest are wrong (this is untrue for extremely pluralistic philosophies). Or, more trivially, spelling! Most of us are confident that we are spelling a word correctly even when we are not. Of course a dictionary or spellcheck solves that one whereas we have nothing to consult to tell us if our religion of choice is correct.
>(Still AC - don't want to go on record making nasty comments about Muhammed)
All of the things you mentioned are claims of revealed truth. If such a thing as revealed truth exists, then of course only one claim will be correct (actually, that's debatable but irrelevant). If such a thing as revealed truth does not exist, then all claims are fraudulent as you say.
Think of it as you would competing theories of cosmogony: if the universe had a beginning, one theory must be correct. If the universe had no beginning, no theories of its origin are correct.
If your goal is to try to convince religious people that their religion is false, then your energy should be spent on attempting to disprove revealed truth rather than comparing your target's religion with others.
(Post onymously! Karma's not such a big deal, especially for an (I assume) atheist =)
If computer science isn't about computers, what is it about? I haate that students coming out of universities, when asked about registers and how would they write a multiply routine if they only had shifts and adds, ask "why do I need to know this?"
The term "computer science" is really a misnomer. A better term, perhaps, is Informatics, or "computing science." The reason is that as programmers, our main interest should lie in manipulating information. While writing a multiply routine using only shifts and adds is certainly a way of manipulating information, at this point it is equivalent to building a house (and cutting the lumber for it) with nothing but unpowered hand tools. Certainly, a working knowledge of assembly has its uses, but these are increasingly specialized. Is it any wonder that it's not being taught extensively in a general CS track when only 3-5% (warning: made up statistic) of coders actually need it?
The advances we have made in computing allow us to more easily and quickly map what's in our heads to executable code. This is why the core of CS is (or should be) conceptual. Face it: we have better tools now than we did in your heyday, and this is a good thing. The current crop of high-level languages is wonderful, but we're still not "there" yet, which shouldn't be surprising considering how young our line of work is. I look forward to the day when I can write a full-featured GUI word processor in <5,000 LOC because I can focus even more on what I want the machine to do rather than on how to make the machine do it.
-f
"Playing God" is one of the more ridiculous accusations fired off by fundies. If you want to discuss the ethical concerns for toying about with DNA, that's fine, but by equating DNA manipulation with humans taking over a role of God you're either giving humans too much credit or God too little.
Show me where we are forbidden to explore these areas in the scripture of your religion and perhaps you'll have a foundation for your accusation. Otherwise, please let those of us who are willing to explore God's creation to the fullest extent do so in peace. -f
Beyond racing games there aren't any situations where this controller is leaping out and attacking me with Perfection, but the truth is that it's a lot more subtle than the Wii, and so probably will result in a more diverse set of games, a few dozen of which will use the tilt to great effect. The tilt is "there if you need it", the Wii-stick is "all you can expect the gamer to have" - barring some sort of original-DualShock controller redesign.
And by "more subtle" you mean "less useful." Look, if you're going to be waving your controller around for whatever reason, it ought to be comfortable to do so. The Wii is, while a Dual Shock by its two-handed nature is not. You're also discounting two things. First, you're not giving developers enough credit. I contend that diversity is much more likely with the Wii interface than with a rehash of the Dual Shock simply because you can do more with it. Second, you're not taking the controller's expansion capabilities into account. Nintendo has already said that GameCube controllers will work with Wii, and the Wiimote has a slot for expansion built in. A DualShock shell would be quite easy to implement, similar to IGN's gamecube cradle mockup, so a redesign isn't necessary.
In the end, personally, the Wii isn't getting my money no matter how cheap it is. $300 for dogshit is still paying money for dogshit.
You are of course welcome to your opinion, but I don't understand why you're so quick to write off Nintendo.
-f
"The most common pronunciation for Uranus is a homophone for the English phrase "your anus" and therefore has become the subject of many jokes in pop culture"
Would it be in bad taste to edit and swap "subject" for "butt?" -f
Yeah, it's pretty ridiculous. I know a lot of people who don't know how to hunt, skin, clean, and butcher their own meat because they just go to the grocery store and buy it. It's sad, really.
Have you ever considered that basic math skills might not be necessary for much longer? I am not saying that this is or will be the case; I am only asking the question. What is the purpose of basic math skills? If it is merely to perform basic calculations, then they aren't necessary to learn, as we have calculators to do the grunt work. Are they required for more advanced mathematics, or is it sufficient to grasp the concepts (e.g. 24 * 15 = 24 added to itself 15 times) but let the calculator do the dirty work?
I think you're taking a very narrow view of "exact copy." Song X is still Song X no matter how it's encoded, so records, CDs, MP3s, and oggs of Song X would all be considered exact copies.
The point of making "clips" free for reuse is to allow royalty-free sample-based music, such as remixes, mash-ups (e.g. The Grey Album) and the like. You're welcome to argue that that's not a good thing either, but it's certainly more of a grey area than transcoding and selling unoriginal work.
-f
I happen to agree with you, but for the sake of enlightenment, can anyone provide me with evidence that the creation accounts (as there are two different ones in Gen. 1 and 2) are not to be taken literally? Are there clues in the text? Elsewhere in the Bible? Because if you don't have one of those, you're not going to change the minds of any fundamentalist Christians.
You're tying together two different biblical ideas. 1) The Mark of the Beast is a precursor to the End of the World 2) No one knows when the End of the World will be, it will come "as a thief in the night"
The conclusion that no one will recognize something as the Mark does not follow for a few reasons. 1) The Mark itself is not the end of the world, it is a precursor. So a recognition of the Mark does not mean that we know when the end will come; we just know we're getting close. 2) Christians must not take the Mark. How can one avoid taking the Mark if one doesn't recognize it as such? I guess this is supposed to be handled through Divine Revelation or something, but the fact is that Christians must recognize the Mark in order to avoid it.
Additionally, just because someone predicts the end of the world and happens to be correct does not mean that they Know it in the sense of Biblical foreknowledge. The correct interpretation is that God will not give said foreknowledge to anyone. Otherwise, all we need to do to keep the world from ending is to constantly predict "The world shall end tomorrow."
Game Tunnel took a look at some of the indie games that will be available when the Xbox 360 launches...
...and proceeded to tell readers virtually nothing about them.
"I have to admit I've never been able to get into the Marble Blast games and I spent the least amount of time playing this game out of the 360 titles I tried out (6 in all). With that said, I'm sure to miss a few of the improvements due to my own ignorance."
It seems you also missed the part where you tell me what this game is in the first place.
"I did like the original Marble Blast and the gold version got a pretty decent review here, but I couldn't help but wish I was playing Orbz instead."
...Great! This might ruin it for those of you who haven't RTFA, but the basic details of gameplay are never revealed! No, not even a one-sentence summary!
"The graphics in Wik are pretty much identical to what is on the PC with the only visual change being that the boards are wider."
So is this a snowboarding game? The goggles the little troll dude is wearing suggest that it may be, but his naked chest seems to declare otherwise.
"The thing I did get to try out for a bit was the new control scheme. On the PC Wik is played using the mouse and it works splendidly. On the 360 there clearly isn't a mouse, which led to some challenges for development. The new scheme uses the analog stick to move a targeter that you use to target where you will fire out your tongue.
A targeter to target. Brilliant. Clearly, there isn't a functional vocabulary.
"So there you have it, 4 titles --
-- that we still know nothing about --
-- that await the world come November 22nd."
I can't leave out this gem of a sentence:
"Getting to them to where they can download the games might be hard, and once people get there, some of them might mistake Geometry Wars by a better known developer as a better game than Mutant Storm due to the pretty graphics despite the game play being hurt severely by those same graphics."
1 joint has as much tar and cancer causing agents as a pack of cigarettes. also, the mental effects of pot are much MORE SEVERE and more damaging to OTHER PEOPLE that are exposed. pot has been PROVEN to cause mental deficiencies in children born to pot smoking parents and/or exposed to marijuana.
Please provide evidence to support these statements. Without evidence, you're simply spouting off and picking a fight that will benefit no one. With evidence, we can call it intellectual discourse, and while it probably won't change either side's view, we can all say we learned something.
Your "For The Children" point especially deserves a link to some hard data. Everybody trots out the children, but if you have unbiased study results to back up your statement it's important to make them visible. In my experience, responsible users want to know about things like that if it's proven, as you claim, or even if it's simply correlated. Believe it or not, just because we use cannabis does not mean that we are uncaring outlaws whose only purpose is to get high and slowly destroy society by turning kids into smaller versions of ourselves.
at what point is one person's freedom more important than another's? i interpret your last comment as valueing freedom more than human rights?(and no they are not one in the same) the right to live and enjoy a healthy environment overrides any level of freedom allowing drug use.
each person has a basic right to not be harmed by others but you say freedom to do drugs as one pleases overrides this?
What do you mean by 'healthy environment?' I don't see how my use of cannabis measurably affects your environment. Your car violates your right to a healthy environment much more than I do with my small amount of smoke. You're not requried to be anywhere that people will be smoking. We don't have fiberglass filters to litter. How do cannabis users negatively affect your environment?
Keep in mind that very few people are advocating drug use "as one pleases." I think most people would agree with me that standard smoking laws would affect cannabis, as well as other preventive measures for driving and working environments similar to those in effect for alcohol. [Note: Cannabis is the topic we're dealing with, so I'm taking your statement "freedom to do drugs" to mean "freedom to use cannabis" - not all drugs are equal, and blanket statements about all drugs are generally inaccurate.] Again, just because we use cannabis does not mean that we are uncaring outlaws whose only purpose is to get high and slowly destroy your quality of life by...doing whatever it is you imagine us to be doing. You're setting up a false dichotomy between cannabis use and "human rights", when in reality the two only affect each other in a small number of cases.
what happens when you have become intoxicate with some person(of opposite sex!) and produce a child? are you not responsible for that child's possible and probible mental difficencies? what right do you have to damage this persons mind in such a way? or do you prefer to abort such a child?
I'm not sure what to say about this one. I think you're confusing cannabis with alcohol. See, alcohol's the one that removes inhibitions and judgment to a far greater degree, and you're probably not going to sleep with anyone stoned that you wouldn't sober. Also, if your claims about "pot-baby" mental deficiency prove true, I'm certain the effects will only happen with chronic use while pregnant. Responsible users will either curb their usage or abort the child (note that I do not advocate abortion, but unless it's my kid I have no say in the matter). I think your issue might be that you're starting with the assumption that only evil, irresponsible people use drugs because drugs are evil. This social stigma is the hardest thing for us users to overcome.
oh, and btw, people whom commit suicide by jumping of high places would like to eliminate the cold air between t
Linux, in its current state, is absolutely _not_ the place for gaming. Mainly this is because of hardware support - it's not there yet. We can put some blame on vendors, but the fact of the matter is far too many people currently have A/V issues when attempting to run Linux. I've been one of them (I still curse emu10k1, ALSA, and the 2.6 kernel). The standard response of "ask forum members or on IRC" isn't going to cut it - if you're looking for anything even slightly off the beaten path you're out of luck, or at best you'll waste an inordinate amount of time tracking the answer down. Many gamers, myself included, are willing to spend some time to try and fix things. Many are not. I don't know what the breakdown is, but I suspect that the ones who aren't willing make up the majority.
Having said that, Linux is always improving, and maybe the next time I try a distro I'll change my tune. I would absolutely love to see more games on Linux as that would give me the initiative to drop Windows completely, buy a Mac for writing music, and use Linux on the home computer. I just don't think it'll happen anytime soon.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree the Bible is a collection of works, some obviously meant to be artistic and others fact, but that does not tell us how [to] know which are history and which are poetry.
I read this sentence as self-contradicting. If you read Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" with all formatting removed, which is essentially how manuscripts of biblical books look, it is still quite obvious that it is poetry. The same goes for a historical text from, say, the 3rd century. Granted, we today are not reading the Bible in its original languages and history has changed our common forms of speech or idioms, so we depend on scholarly research to aid us in determining what's what, but it isn't nearly so difficult as you imply. I have dabbled in it myself and am acquainted with biblical scholars who are very much "in the know" - both secular and Christian. I will not claim that they are in total agreement, but in my experience that has been the case. Note that I am speaking here solely of determining the type of text - history, poetry / song, apocalyptic lit, etc.
Your specific Genesis example would require a detailed research report which I hope you will forgive me for not providing, but the reputable information is available should you choose to seek it yourself - it is my guess that the example was more to show me what you mean than to actually go about verifying.
You may claim that my Frost poetry recognition exercise above is intuition, and I would disagree and call it context. We may have to agree to disagree here and leave it at that because to delve further, from experience, will not be fruitful =)
(This has another implication in that it shows morality does not come from scripture, but I digress.)
I agree with you here.
The second reply to my original post delves into why this is silly and foolish quite well.
The post you reference makes a critical mistake in the first point:
(1) It is authoritative, and thus you must believe every word of it as it is written.
I do not agree with that logic. If you read a book on quantum physics, and the date is wrong when it references an experiment that confirms quantum theory A, the mistake does not invalidate the book's authority when it is explaining theory A itself. That would be throwing out the baby with the bathwater (and it is unfortunately a mistake that is made far too often nowadays in general). In the case of the Bible, this means that though the Bible calls a bat a type of bird, the Bible's claim of authority in spiritual matters is not invalidated. This is what the OP meant when saying "The Bible was not meant to be a science textbook." Also, (1) seems to claim that the Bible's authority warrants strict, literal reading of the texts instead of the proper contextual reading I outlined above. This is nonsensical. If you try to read this post strictly literally you are still wondering what baby I am referencing and why a mistake in a book warrants throwing it out.
I am in full agreement with the author's final paragraph.
In the cases of near sacrificing your son or daughter to your god...such stories are hideous and are best rejected outright.
First, simply because a story is hideous or gruesome does not mean that it should not be told. Second, I personally do not believe that the Old Testament is relevant for much more than providing the source of quotations used by Jesus in the New Testament, so in my case the point is moot.
Then for the matter of Revelation...I suppose it is clear we are not meant to take this part literally?
No - the book of Revelation is mostly
Not that I care what Jesus said, there's next to no historical evidence for his existence so what he said is of no consequence.Whoa there, cowboy! Your claim of a lack of historical evidence is immaterial. Fact is, a lot of people take the teachings of Christ (or rather, their interpretations of his teachings) quite seriously, so what he said is of much consequence. You mention a consequence in your post - the pro-life movement would be significantly smaller were it not for the Biblical evidence used by Christians to support that viewpoint.
Simply because you put no stock in the teachings of Jesus does not mean that they are of no consequence to you.
-f
Your Believer sounds like a crappy GM I knew in high school...
The thing with religion is that most if not all of its believers find evidence for their belief in personal, irrepeatable experiences. These are by their nature unscientific. I am some kind of Christian, and while I find it (at times) enlightening to defend my faith, the fact remains that without an encounter with God, the atheist is never going to believe. Some of you are thinking I'm ridiculous for seriously suggesting an encounter with God. I'm okay with that 'cause I'm not rabid.
Science can't disprove God because one can't prove a negative, as the parent post wonderfully illustrated. Still, no empirical evidence (of which we have a metric assload at this point) points to God's existence. For a scientific mind, the rational conclusion is that God doesn't exist. Asking for proof is unproductive for all parties and only results in bickering.
-f
Great post! You have illustrated the difference between science and scientism. One is a search for truth, the other is for all intents and purposes a religion.
True science has no dogma.
-f
>Even the soft religious beliefs like "there must be something different about humans" are being challenged. We are just animals, no soul.
No, no, no! We may be 'just animals,' but do not say that there is nothing different about humans! Humans, as far as we know, irrespective of religious belief, are the only example of the universe being able to look at itself. What of art? What of science itself? None of it has any meaning without humans around to experience it.
Keep your dignity.
-f
"Bible" simply means "book of books." Certain books in the Bible are histories, such as the four Gospels in the New Testament. Other books are poetry, such as the Psalms in the Old Testament. Sometimes the style of writing will change between the chapters in a book, as in Genesis where the first chapter contains a creation myth in poetry and later chapters present Hebrew history. A more correct statement than "the Bible was never meant to be read literally" would be "the Bible was never meant to be read from cover-to-cover as a historical account."
Far from being "a technique believers use to shield themselve from inquiry," which is an understandable belief for you to hold given the quote you were working from, the varied methods of reading different parts of the Bible are used to accurately get at the contents of those books. If the Gospels, which relate the life and ministry of Jesus, are read as allegory, then the central figure of the Christian religion disappears and carries no authority. However, these books are written as histories and are therefore read as such. If Genesis 1 is read as history, then a literal 7-day creation must be accepted as fact. This chapter is written as poetry (which is painfully obvious even in English) and should be read as such, though many Christians do not, hence the current conflict with science.
Being sure of the truth of the text is still a concern, but I believe that is outside the scope of your question.
-f
>I think that comparing religions is interesting for one reason: everyone believes their religion is right, and the rest are wrong. This important point casts extreme doubt on all religion.
I'm not convinced that this is the case. Perhaps I am making an invalid comparison, but take a look at philosophy. Nearly everyone who consciously holds a philosophy belives that he is right, that his philosophy most accurately represents reality, and that the rest are wrong (this is untrue for extremely pluralistic philosophies). Or, more trivially, spelling! Most of us are confident that we are spelling a word correctly even when we are not. Of course a dictionary or spellcheck solves that one whereas we have nothing to consult to tell us if our religion of choice is correct.
>(Still AC - don't want to go on record making nasty comments about Muhammed)
Fair enough!
-f
This proposed solution, to my layman's eyes, reeks of ether.
-f
All of the things you mentioned are claims of revealed truth. If such a thing as revealed truth exists, then of course only one claim will be correct (actually, that's debatable but irrelevant). If such a thing as revealed truth does not exist, then all claims are fraudulent as you say.
Think of it as you would competing theories of cosmogony: if the universe had a beginning, one theory must be correct. If the universe had no beginning, no theories of its origin are correct.
If your goal is to try to convince religious people that their religion is false, then your energy should be spent on attempting to disprove revealed truth rather than comparing your target's religion with others.
(Post onymously! Karma's not such a big deal, especially for an (I assume) atheist =)
Wait, horribly cruel and needlessly sadistic to Fortuny, or to a bunch of strangers on Slashdot who saw the damn poem?
-f
This technique could be used to develop better video cameras, military target-detection systems and surveillance equipment.
Uses are listed in reverse chronological order, of course.
-f
If computer science isn't about computers, what is it about? I haate that students coming out of universities, when asked about registers and how would they write a multiply routine if they only had shifts and adds, ask "why do I need to know this?"
The term "computer science" is really a misnomer. A better term, perhaps, is Informatics, or "computing science." The reason is that as programmers, our main interest should lie in manipulating information. While writing a multiply routine using only shifts and adds is certainly a way of manipulating information, at this point it is equivalent to building a house (and cutting the lumber for it) with nothing but unpowered hand tools. Certainly, a working knowledge of assembly has its uses, but these are increasingly specialized. Is it any wonder that it's not being taught extensively in a general CS track when only 3-5% (warning: made up statistic) of coders actually need it?
The advances we have made in computing allow us to more easily and quickly map what's in our heads to executable code. This is why the core of CS is (or should be) conceptual. Face it: we have better tools now than we did in your heyday, and this is a good thing. The current crop of high-level languages is wonderful, but we're still not "there" yet, which shouldn't be surprising considering how young our line of work is. I look forward to the day when I can write a full-featured GUI word processor in <5,000 LOC because I can focus even more on what I want the machine to do rather than on how to make the machine do it.
-f
Oh come on.
"Playing God" is one of the more ridiculous accusations fired off by fundies. If you want to discuss the ethical concerns for toying about with DNA, that's fine, but by equating DNA manipulation with humans taking over a role of God you're either giving humans too much credit or God too little.
Show me where we are forbidden to explore these areas in the scripture of your religion and perhaps you'll have a foundation for your accusation. Otherwise, please let those of us who are willing to explore God's creation to the fullest extent do so in peace.
-f
Beyond racing games there aren't any situations where this controller is leaping out and attacking me with Perfection, but the truth is that it's a lot more subtle than the Wii, and so probably will result in a more diverse set of games, a few dozen of which will use the tilt to great effect. The tilt is "there if you need it", the Wii-stick is "all you can expect the gamer to have" - barring some sort of original-DualShock controller redesign.
And by "more subtle" you mean "less useful." Look, if you're going to be waving your controller around for whatever reason, it ought to be comfortable to do so. The Wii is, while a Dual Shock by its two-handed nature is not. You're also discounting two things. First, you're not giving developers enough credit. I contend that diversity is much more likely with the Wii interface than with a rehash of the Dual Shock simply because you can do more with it. Second, you're not taking the controller's expansion capabilities into account. Nintendo has already said that GameCube controllers will work with Wii, and the Wiimote has a slot for expansion built in. A DualShock shell would be quite easy to implement, similar to IGN's gamecube cradle mockup, so a redesign isn't necessary.
In the end, personally, the Wii isn't getting my money no matter how cheap it is. $300 for dogshit is still paying money for dogshit.
You are of course welcome to your opinion, but I don't understand why you're so quick to write off Nintendo.
-f
From Wikipedia:
"The most common pronunciation for Uranus is a homophone for the English phrase "your anus" and therefore has become the subject of many jokes in pop culture"
Would it be in bad taste to edit and swap "subject" for "butt?"
-f
Yeah, it's pretty ridiculous. I know a lot of people who don't know how to hunt, skin, clean, and butcher their own meat because they just go to the grocery store and buy it. It's sad, really.
Have you ever considered that basic math skills might not be necessary for much longer? I am not saying that this is or will be the case; I am only asking the question. What is the purpose of basic math skills? If it is merely to perform basic calculations, then they aren't necessary to learn, as we have calculators to do the grunt work. Are they required for more advanced mathematics, or is it sufficient to grasp the concepts (e.g. 24 * 15 = 24 added to itself 15 times) but let the calculator do the dirty work?
I think you're taking a very narrow view of "exact copy." Song X is still Song X no matter how it's encoded, so records, CDs, MP3s, and oggs of Song X would all be considered exact copies.
The point of making "clips" free for reuse is to allow royalty-free sample-based music, such as remixes, mash-ups (e.g. The Grey Album) and the like. You're welcome to argue that that's not a good thing either, but it's certainly more of a grey area than transcoding and selling unoriginal work.
-f
Why strap yourself to the pole when you can get the
shaft?
I happen to agree with you, but for the sake of enlightenment, can anyone provide me with evidence that the creation accounts (as there are two different ones in Gen. 1 and 2) are not to be taken literally? Are there clues in the text? Elsewhere in the Bible? Because if you don't have one of those, you're not going to change the minds of any fundamentalist Christians.
You're tying together two different biblical ideas.
1) The Mark of the Beast is a precursor to the End of the World
2) No one knows when the End of the World will be, it will come "as a thief in the night"
The conclusion that no one will recognize something as the Mark does not follow for a few reasons.
1) The Mark itself is not the end of the world, it is a precursor. So a recognition of the Mark does not mean that we know when the end will come; we just know we're getting close.
2) Christians must not take the Mark. How can one avoid taking the Mark if one doesn't recognize it as such? I guess this is supposed to be handled through Divine Revelation or something, but the fact is that Christians must recognize the Mark in order to avoid it.
Additionally, just because someone predicts the end of the world and happens to be correct does not mean that they Know it in the sense of Biblical foreknowledge. The correct interpretation is that God will not give said foreknowledge to anyone. Otherwise, all we need to do to keep the world from ending is to constantly predict "The world shall end tomorrow."
Game Tunnel took a look at some of the indie games that will be available when the Xbox 360 launches...
...and proceeded to tell readers virtually nothing about them.
...Great! This might ruin it for those of you who haven't RTFA, but the basic details of gameplay are never revealed! No, not even a one-sentence summary!
"I have to admit I've never been able to get into the Marble Blast games and I spent the least amount of time playing this game out of the 360 titles I tried out (6 in all). With that said, I'm sure to miss a few of the improvements due to my own ignorance."
It seems you also missed the part where you tell me what this game is in the first place.
"I did like the original Marble Blast and the gold version got a pretty decent review here, but I couldn't help but wish I was playing Orbz instead."
"The graphics in Wik are pretty much identical to what is on the PC with the only visual change being that the boards are wider."
So is this a snowboarding game? The goggles the little troll dude is wearing suggest that it may be, but his naked chest seems to declare otherwise.
"The thing I did get to try out for a bit was the new control scheme. On the PC Wik is played using the mouse and it works splendidly. On the 360 there clearly isn't a mouse, which led to some challenges for development. The new scheme uses the analog stick to move a targeter that you use to target where you will fire out your tongue.
A targeter to target. Brilliant. Clearly, there isn't a functional vocabulary.
"So there you have it, 4 titles --
-- that we still know nothing about --
-- that await the world come November 22nd."
I can't leave out this gem of a sentence: "Getting to them to where they can download the games might be hard, and once people get there, some of them might mistake Geometry Wars by a better known developer as a better game than Mutant Storm due to the pretty graphics despite the game play being hurt severely by those same graphics."
Someone's gotta give prizes for prose like that.
That may have been a pun.
1 joint has as much tar and cancer causing agents as a pack of cigarettes. also, the mental effects of pot are much MORE SEVERE and more damaging to OTHER PEOPLE that are exposed. pot has been PROVEN to cause mental deficiencies in children born to pot smoking parents and/or exposed to marijuana.
Please provide evidence to support these statements. Without evidence, you're simply spouting off and picking a fight that will benefit no one. With evidence, we can call it intellectual discourse, and while it probably won't change either side's view, we can all say we learned something.
Your "For The Children" point especially deserves a link to some hard data. Everybody trots out the children, but if you have unbiased study results to back up your statement it's important to make them visible. In my experience, responsible users want to know about things like that if it's proven, as you claim, or even if it's simply correlated. Believe it or not, just because we use cannabis does not mean that we are uncaring outlaws whose only purpose is to get high and slowly destroy society by turning kids into smaller versions of ourselves.
at what point is one person's freedom more important than another's? i interpret your last comment as valueing freedom more than human rights?(and no they are not one in the same) the right to live and enjoy a healthy environment overrides any level of freedom allowing drug use.
each person has a basic right to not be harmed by others but you say freedom to do drugs as one pleases overrides this?
What do you mean by 'healthy environment?' I don't see how my use of cannabis measurably affects your environment. Your car violates your right to a healthy environment much more than I do with my small amount of smoke. You're not requried to be anywhere that people will be smoking. We don't have fiberglass filters to litter. How do cannabis users negatively affect your environment?
Keep in mind that very few people are advocating drug use "as one pleases." I think most people would agree with me that standard smoking laws would affect cannabis, as well as other preventive measures for driving and working environments similar to those in effect for alcohol. [Note: Cannabis is the topic we're dealing with, so I'm taking your statement "freedom to do drugs" to mean "freedom to use cannabis" - not all drugs are equal, and blanket statements about all drugs are generally inaccurate.] Again, just because we use cannabis does not mean that we are uncaring outlaws whose only purpose is to get high and slowly destroy your quality of life by...doing whatever it is you imagine us to be doing. You're setting up a false dichotomy between cannabis use and "human rights", when in reality the two only affect each other in a small number of cases.
what happens when you have become intoxicate with some person(of opposite sex!) and produce a child? are you not responsible for that child's possible and probible mental difficencies? what right do you have to damage this persons mind in such a way? or do you prefer to abort such a child?
I'm not sure what to say about this one. I think you're confusing cannabis with alcohol. See, alcohol's the one that removes inhibitions and judgment to a far greater degree, and you're probably not going to sleep with anyone stoned that you wouldn't sober. Also, if your claims about "pot-baby" mental deficiency prove true, I'm certain the effects will only happen with chronic use while pregnant. Responsible users will either curb their usage or abort the child (note that I do not advocate abortion, but unless it's my kid I have no say in the matter). I think your issue might be that you're starting with the assumption that only evil, irresponsible people use drugs because drugs are evil. This social stigma is the hardest thing for us users to overcome.
oh, and btw, people whom commit suicide by jumping of high places would like to eliminate the cold air between t
Linux, in its current state, is absolutely _not_ the place for gaming. Mainly this is because of hardware support - it's not there yet. We can put some blame on vendors, but the fact of the matter is far too many people currently have A/V issues when attempting to run Linux. I've been one of them (I still curse emu10k1, ALSA, and the 2.6 kernel). The standard response of "ask forum members or on IRC" isn't going to cut it - if you're looking for anything even slightly off the beaten path you're out of luck, or at best you'll waste an inordinate amount of time tracking the answer down. Many gamers, myself included, are willing to spend some time to try and fix things. Many are not. I don't know what the breakdown is, but I suspect that the ones who aren't willing make up the majority.
Having said that, Linux is always improving, and maybe the next time I try a distro I'll change my tune. I would absolutely love to see more games on Linux as that would give me the initiative to drop Windows completely, buy a Mac for writing music, and use Linux on the home computer. I just don't think it'll happen anytime soon.
Wow.
;)
So is it my hit next, or is this thing going anticlockwise?
Yes, you're missing something! You forgot the code to deal with third party candidates:
if(optThirdParty)
if (floor(rand()*2)
kerryVote = kerryVote -1;
else
bushVote = bushVote -1;
Only then will it become truly obvious that third parties only steal votes from primary candidates.
=)