In the gp's defense, there *is* fixed gearing in vehicles, just look at the gear ratios present in the differential. Granted, that comes *after* the transmission, but it's still fixed gearing in the drivetrain.
And of course there's no gearing *inside* an engine. But generally when someone thinks of a geared motor, they think of a situation where the gearbox is mounted directly to the motor output shaft as if it were one unit.
No need to mince his words though... oh right. This is slashdot.
RealmForge is a really good-sounding option for what you're talking about. It's an LGPL project. It's basically a game development kit built on top of Axiom (the C# version of OGRE). It's cross-platform, and one of its main advantages is the ease of content creation. It's still in development, but I must say that the framework is incredibly well-thought out, and I can't wait to see where this thing goes.
Okay, cool. That makes a lot of sense. Again, thanks for the clarification.
Now there was also the place of burning -- Gehenna? But I think that's a Greek word, so while I'm sure it was familiar to Jews around Jesus' time (especially with the translation of the scriptures to the Masoretic Text), I guess you're saying that it might not have been mainline theology?
Sorry for the double-reply, but I just remembered the concept of Sheol.
So what is Sheol all about then? Is it just a sort of "place of the dead" then? King David spoke often of his soul descending to Sheol as being a bad thing.
aaah. Okay. That makes sense. Sorry for my confusion, and thanks for the clarification. I was unaware that the concept of hell wasn't in traditional Judaic thought.
I don't really think Job is as much about Satan's struggle for mens souls as it is about divine punishment in this life, something fairly Jewish in concept.
Okay, I didn't mean to imply that that's what I thought the whole book of Job was about. You said that you didn't see the fight between Heaven and Hell a focused topic until 1000 AD or so, and that there wasn't a whole lot of basis for it in Judaic theology. I replied that most of the basis for these storylines is in the Old Testament, and was giving you one fairly clear example. I don't have time atm to dig through the books of prophecy.:)
Yes, I agree with you that the book of Job is a difficult book, and that the point of it is not the battle for Job's soul, but rather deals with much larger issues such as the sovereignty of a Creator God.
Sin and punishment obviously are all over the place in the bible, but in the jewish tradition these are things that are punished during ones lifetime, or during the lifetimes of ones descendants.. i.e. in the material world.
Interesting. I hadn't thought of this before, but I suppose that makes sense. The Davidic psalms would be a good example of this (regarding punishment of his enemies). Then again, the concept of being "carried to Abraham's bosom" and there being a heaven/hell afterlife doesn't seem totally unfamiliar in Old Testament teachings.
yeah I've heard it said that pretty much Jesus was preaching for the reformation of jewish law, and that pretty much the only people that should logically be christian are the descendants of messianic jews.
But even the dogs may eat the crumbs that fall from the children's table.:)
And the New Testament isn't the first place where we find God commanding people to be focused on the circumcision of the heart, this is also in the old testament prophets. Not so much a reformation of Jewish law, but rather a truer understanding of the law.
What the hell were we talking about again? heehee.
hah -- quite true.:) Well it's been fun talking with you.:) Thanks for the good brain-working discussion.
Then what religion is that? I recognized that "While I doubt Jews would want to play the games, many things are spun off of warped Judaic theology."
I'm not talking about just dualism -- that's present in many religions. I'm talking about the war between Heaven and Hell using Judeo/Christian vocabulary. I believe I also answered your question here.
In Spawn, there is certainly a Hell. In Diablo and also in Doom. Though I see your point in games like Quake -- that seems to have the Satan-type character without the location of Hell.
the Jewish tradition doesn't so much focus on the war between heaven and hell. That dualistic idea came into Christianity via various other sycretisms around the turn of the millenium.
Hrm. Well I'd agree with you regarding the "[ongoing] war between heaven and hell", but the dialogue of Satan's struggle for the souls of men is as old as the book of Job (read the first part of this if you haven't already -- though I'm guessing you have).
And since Christianity has its roots in Judaism (I.E. Jesus was a practicing Jew), I was counting Judeo/Christian history to be synonymous (at least as far as pre-Jesus times go).
Mindgames (From the website: Our focus on demonstration is designed to challenge organisations to not only think of how they might use our ideas in their products but also to imagine how their products can reach out and change the lives of everyone in a positive way. We believe that technology should be designed to facilitate us building a more constructive humanity.) They seem like a cool group, and like they're doing some really neat research. I'm not saying they are bad, I'm just saying that these things could easily be combined with new age philosophy.
Tranquility This is pretty close to the game that I was thinking of, but I'm not sure if it's it. Similar note to the above item.
Please note that I'm not saying that "meditation is bad" or things like that -- I'm definately not saying that. Relaxation is a very good thing, however I've just seen a lot of this stuff combined with pantheistic theology as a way to "transcend to higher consciousness". I'm just calling it as I see it, and I'm just saying that there are video games with a lot of new-age theology underneath them out there.
Oh yeah, almost forgot about Rag Doll Kung Fu. *VERY* cool looking game, definately "religious", definately *not* "Christian".:) Not all games need to be Christian -- the grandparent was asking for non-Christian religious games, and I'm pointing him in that direction.
Manicheanism seems to be a dualistic religion that recognizes Judaistic vocabulary? From the article: "The most striking principle of Manichee theology is its dualism. The universe is considered a battlefield for control between an evil material god, and a good spiritual god. Christians recognized the evil god in Satan but could not accept the idea that Satan had as much power as God. Christians held that Satan, unlike God, is a created being. The term Manichaeistic is often used to describe any religion with a similar concept of struggle between good and evil."
*shrug*. I suppose I was thinking of the storyline in Diablo, where there are angels and demons whose names are mentioned in the books of the Old Testament, and the "fall of Lucifer" holds different roles in various storylines. Perhaps one might call it Manicheanism, but others might call it based off of Judeo-Christian thought.
I recognize none of these games that I mentioned exactly have a whole lot of Jewish tradition in them -- all I was saying is that these games use the vocabulary and the characters found in Judaism's history. Unless you can tell me another religion where Michael is an archangel and Lucifer is a demon?
Romans 1 and 2 possibly? It's not directly linked to Sodom, but it talks about the general fall and degeneration of man (of which Sodom is an example).
I thought that many of the FF games had a buddhist/new age theology behind them? I didn't think that there was any shortage of Buddhist games. There are several puzzle games that are made specifically for main-line Buddhism as a relaxation aide -- 3 minutes of Googling should bring up 2 or 3 of these.
There certainly are a fair number of mixed-bag "pagan" games, combining ideals from wicca, witchcraft, buddhism, and other new age "roll your own" religion. Ultima and other medieval RPG's seem to do this. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't there a benefit to chanting "om om om" in UO at certain shrines?
As far as polytheism -- perhaps Black and White?
There's a fair number of Atheist games, GTA comes to mind for one embodying hedonistic ideals. (not criticizing, just noting. I happen to have really enjoyed playing GTA)
For Judaism, there are several games that love to play off of the classic "heaven vs. hell" war (without dealing with the person of Jesus as Christ). While I doubt Jews would want to play the games, many things are spun off of warped Judaic theology. Things that come to mind for this are Spawn (comic book and movie, not really a game), the Diablo series, and many other books/movies such as the "His Dark Materials" series and that one recent movie with Keanu Reeves in it -- the name eludes me atm.
As far as blatantly satanic games, you don't have to look too far for those.:)
That's sweet about the 3d printer.:) I recently saw a ball bearing (that even rolled smoothly) that was printed on a 3d printer. Those things are amazing -- that's a really good use for that. Hah.:) Props from me.:)
I'm also curious about this. I'm thinking about the Diablo series (both 1 and 2 have *great* coop modes). FreedroidRPG also has a coop mode, but I haven't played it yet (only single player). It's very Diablo-ish, and can be a relaxing hack-and-slash RPG (even though it's not finished, it's got a fair bit of fun content).
I remember spending hours and hours on this old multiplayer telnet game called Paintball-Net that had horrendous graphics, but great teamplay and community (which is what kept me playing it). I remember -- after years of playing -- finally being promoted to being an admin for the game. It was such a rush, and then I walked across campus to go to lunch that day (yes, I was a freshman in college and still playing the game), and as I looked around and saw all of the other college students I realized that none of them could identify or appreciate my status in that game.
It was humbling, and left me feeling a little hollow.
I've been wanting to code an open-source Sims variant for a while not. Even started on it a little bit, thinking it should be called something like "Persona" or whatever.
You say it will be no use without sim models and furniture and wallpaper and stuff -- that's very true. However, check out some fan sites with such freely available content at places like "7 Deadly Sims" ( http://www.7deadlysims.com ) and dozens of other sites with player-created content.
What would be the issue with creating a Sims clone that could import Sims graphics/textures/whatever.
One advantage that a game like FreeSims would have over other clone projects (like FreeCraft/Stratagus) is that there is already SO MUCH fan-made content, so that in theory, one could have a complete Sims clone without using ANY of the original game CD's (yet could still take advantage of them).
If anyone's interested in this, e-mail my gmail account (my username on/. is the same as on gmail).
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Google doesn't do anything to the image references -- so that if you want to anonymously browse a website through Google, wouldn't you also have to turn image loading off on your browser? I mean, sure it'll work for text, but I didn't think this was exactly uncommon knowledge?
Also, I don't think Google translates the hyperlinks to work within the translation-page does it? So you would have to copy out any URL's that you wanted to go to and re-enter them into your translation query.
Can someone please tell me what's so special about this l33t "specially formed English-to-English translation" method? I mean, how much better can it be than just typing in the URL you want and choosing "Korean to English" in the drop-down?
I think that's part of the funny-ness of the sig.:)
Seriously though, language like that can work. For a Being who isn't bounded by time, all of eternity is an ever-present "now". So from His perspective, He can talk about Rome any way He pleases.:)
I think it's also funny in the context that the whole universe was created in 6 days -- overall, it struck me as funny, and not too sacreligious.
Ever since his younger sister demanded her own room four years ago, Cristian Arcega had been living in a 30-square-foot plywood shed attached to the side of his parents' trailer. He liked it there. It was his own space. He was free to contemplate the acceleration of a raindrop as it leaves the clouds above him. He could hear it hit the roof and slide toward the puddles on the street outside. He imagined that the puddles were oceans and that the underwater robot he was building at school can explore them.
Cameron and Ledge, as the students called Lajvardi, formed the robotics group for kids like Cristian. He was probably the smartest 16-year-old in West Phoenix - without even trying, he had one of the highest GPAs in the school district. His brains and diminutive stature (5'4", 135 pounds) kept him apart at Carl Hayden. That and the fact that students socialized based on Mexican geography: In the cafeteria, there were Guanajuato tables and Sonora tables. Cristian was from Mexicali, but he'd left Mexico in the back of a station wagon when he was 6. He thought of himself as part American, part Mexican, and he didn't know where to sit.
I think that defines "nerd". Perhaps the robotics club is one of the "magnet" programs that he was talking about?
From the website:
It comes with truly Java-like object orientation and backward support for VB6 and QBasic, as it is 100% syntax compatible. KBasic combines the expressive power of object-oriented languages like C++ with the familiarity and ease of use of VB6. It allows developers with an installed base of VB6 applications to start developing for a mixed Windows and Linux environment without having to face a steep learning curve: KBasic uses the familiar visual design paradigm and has a full implementation of the Basic language.
It's not FOSS, but it's only 25 euros -- not a bad deal when it means you get cross-platform capabilities to boot (with even planned support for Mac)
FreeCiv is a very addictive game that can be controlled soley through the mouse.
Depending on what version you get, you may need to control the server manually (a bit of typing), but if you get Andreas Kemnade's version of 1.14.0, all of the server control is done with the mouse. I hope you enjoy that game as much as we have!
Slashdot Mirror
And of course there's no gearing *inside* an engine. But generally when someone thinks of a geared motor, they think of a situation where the gearbox is mounted directly to the motor output shaft as if it were one unit.
No need to mince his words though... oh right. This is slashdot.
Ah, so the perpetually unstable release
Really? Loaded fine just now for me -- saved the PDF to disk.
RealmForge is a really good-sounding option for what you're talking about. It's an LGPL project. It's basically a game development kit built on top of Axiom (the C# version of OGRE). It's cross-platform, and one of its main advantages is the ease of content creation. It's still in development, but I must say that the framework is incredibly well-thought out, and I can't wait to see where this thing goes.
Sorry. Translation *from* the Masoretic Text *to* the Septuagint. I always get those two mixed up.
Now there was also the place of burning -- Gehenna? But I think that's a Greek word, so while I'm sure it was familiar to Jews around Jesus' time (especially with the translation of the scriptures to the Masoretic Text), I guess you're saying that it might not have been mainline theology?
Thanks again! Cheers. :)
So what is Sheol all about then? Is it just a sort of "place of the dead" then? King David spoke often of his soul descending to Sheol as being a bad thing.
Thanks.
Okay, I didn't mean to imply that that's what I thought the whole book of Job was about. You said that you didn't see the fight between Heaven and Hell a focused topic until 1000 AD or so, and that there wasn't a whole lot of basis for it in Judaic theology. I replied that most of the basis for these storylines is in the Old Testament, and was giving you one fairly clear example. I don't have time atm to dig through the books of prophecy.
Yes, I agree with you that the book of Job is a difficult book, and that the point of it is not the battle for Job's soul, but rather deals with much larger issues such as the sovereignty of a Creator God.
Sin and punishment obviously are all over the place in the bible, but in the jewish tradition these are things that are punished during ones lifetime, or during the lifetimes of ones descendants.. i.e. in the material world.
Interesting. I hadn't thought of this before, but I suppose that makes sense. The Davidic psalms would be a good example of this (regarding punishment of his enemies). Then again, the concept of being "carried to Abraham's bosom" and there being a heaven/hell afterlife doesn't seem totally unfamiliar in Old Testament teachings.
yeah I've heard it said that pretty much Jesus was preaching for the reformation of jewish law, and that pretty much the only people that should logically be christian are the descendants of messianic jews. :)
But even the dogs may eat the crumbs that fall from the children's table.
And the New Testament isn't the first place where we find God commanding people to be focused on the circumcision of the heart, this is also in the old testament prophets. Not so much a reformation of Jewish law, but rather a truer understanding of the law.
What the hell were we talking about again? heehee. hah -- quite true. :) Well it's been fun talking with you. :) Thanks for the good brain-working discussion.
I'm not talking about just dualism -- that's present in many religions. I'm talking about the war between Heaven and Hell using Judeo/Christian vocabulary. I believe I also answered your question here.
In Spawn, there is certainly a Hell. In Diablo and also in Doom. Though I see your point in games like Quake -- that seems to have the Satan-type character without the location of Hell.
Hrm. Well I'd agree with you regarding the "[ongoing] war between heaven and hell", but the dialogue of Satan's struggle for the souls of men is as old as the book of Job (read the first part of this if you haven't already -- though I'm guessing you have).
And since Christianity has its roots in Judaism (I.E. Jesus was a practicing Jew), I was counting Judeo/Christian history to be synonymous (at least as far as pre-Jesus times go).
I spent a few minutes Googling, and here are some links showing the kinds of things I am thinking about:
Please note that I'm not saying that "meditation is bad" or things like that -- I'm definately not saying that. Relaxation is a very good thing, however I've just seen a lot of this stuff combined with pantheistic theology as a way to "transcend to higher consciousness". I'm just calling it as I see it, and I'm just saying that there are video games with a lot of new-age theology underneath them out there.
Oh yeah, almost forgot about Rag Doll Kung Fu. *VERY* cool looking game, definately "religious", definately *not* "Christian". :) Not all games need to be Christian -- the grandparent was asking for non-Christian religious games, and I'm pointing him in that direction.
Manicheanism seems to be a dualistic religion that recognizes Judaistic vocabulary? From the article:
"The most striking principle of Manichee theology is its dualism. The universe is considered a battlefield for control between an evil material god, and a good spiritual god. Christians recognized the evil god in Satan but could not accept the idea that Satan had as much power as God. Christians held that Satan, unlike God, is a created being. The term Manichaeistic is often used to describe any religion with a similar concept of struggle between good and evil."
*shrug*. I suppose I was thinking of the storyline in Diablo, where there are angels and demons whose names are mentioned in the books of the Old Testament, and the "fall of Lucifer" holds different roles in various storylines. Perhaps one might call it Manicheanism, but others might call it based off of Judeo-Christian thought.
I recognize none of these games that I mentioned exactly have a whole lot of Jewish tradition in them -- all I was saying is that these games use the vocabulary and the characters found in Judaism's history. Unless you can tell me another religion where Michael is an archangel and Lucifer is a demon?
Romans 1 and 2 possibly? It's not directly linked to Sodom, but it talks about the general fall and degeneration of man (of which Sodom is an example).
I thought that many of the FF games had a buddhist/new age theology behind them? I didn't think that there was any shortage of Buddhist games. There are several puzzle games that are made specifically for main-line Buddhism as a relaxation aide -- 3 minutes of Googling should bring up 2 or 3 of these.
There certainly are a fair number of mixed-bag "pagan" games, combining ideals from wicca, witchcraft, buddhism, and other new age "roll your own" religion. Ultima and other medieval RPG's seem to do this. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't there a benefit to chanting "om om om" in UO at certain shrines?
As far as polytheism -- perhaps Black and White?
There's a fair number of Atheist games, GTA comes to mind for one embodying hedonistic ideals. (not criticizing, just noting. I happen to have really enjoyed playing GTA)
For Judaism, there are several games that love to play off of the classic "heaven vs. hell" war (without dealing with the person of Jesus as Christ). While I doubt Jews would want to play the games, many things are spun off of warped Judaic theology. Things that come to mind for this are Spawn (comic book and movie, not really a game), the Diablo series, and many other books/movies such as the "His Dark Materials" series and that one recent movie with Keanu Reeves in it -- the name eludes me atm.
As far as blatantly satanic games, you don't have to look too far for those. :)
Respectfully,
clint
For a good Christian video game, check out Graceworks Interactive -- I'm really impressed with their game "Interactive Parables".
That's sweet about the 3d printer. :) I recently saw a ball bearing (that even rolled smoothly) that was printed on a 3d printer. Those things are amazing -- that's a really good use for that. Hah. :) Props from me. :)
I'm also curious about this. I'm thinking about the Diablo series (both 1 and 2 have *great* coop modes). FreedroidRPG also has a coop mode, but I haven't played it yet (only single player). It's very Diablo-ish, and can be a relaxing hack-and-slash RPG (even though it's not finished, it's got a fair bit of fun content).
I remember spending hours and hours on this old multiplayer telnet game called Paintball-Net that had horrendous graphics, but great teamplay and community (which is what kept me playing it). I remember -- after years of playing -- finally being promoted to being an admin for the game. It was such a rush, and then I walked across campus to go to lunch that day (yes, I was a freshman in college and still playing the game), and as I looked around and saw all of the other college students I realized that none of them could identify or appreciate my status in that game.
It was humbling, and left me feeling a little hollow.
Howdy!
/. is the same as on gmail).
I've been wanting to code an open-source Sims variant for a while not. Even started on it a little bit, thinking it should be called something like "Persona" or whatever.
You say it will be no use without sim models and furniture and wallpaper and stuff -- that's very true. However, check out some fan sites with such freely available content at places like "7 Deadly Sims" ( http://www.7deadlysims.com ) and dozens of other sites with player-created content.
What would be the issue with creating a Sims clone that could import Sims graphics/textures/whatever.
One advantage that a game like FreeSims would have over other clone projects (like FreeCraft/Stratagus) is that there is already SO MUCH fan-made content, so that in theory, one could have a complete Sims clone without using ANY of the original game CD's (yet could still take advantage of them).
If anyone's interested in this, e-mail my gmail account (my username on
Cheers!
--clint
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Google doesn't do anything to the image references -- so that if you want to anonymously browse a website through Google, wouldn't you also have to turn image loading off on your browser? I mean, sure it'll work for text, but I didn't think this was exactly uncommon knowledge?
Also, I don't think Google translates the hyperlinks to work within the translation-page does it? So you would have to copy out any URL's that you wanted to go to and re-enter them into your translation query.
Can someone please tell me what's so special about this l33t "specially formed English-to-English translation" method? I mean, how much better can it be than just typing in the URL you want and choosing "Korean to English" in the drop-down?
Seriously though, language like that can work. For a Being who isn't bounded by time, all of eternity is an ever-present "now". So from His perspective, He can talk about Rome any way He pleases. :)
I think it's also funny in the context that the whole universe was created in 6 days -- overall, it struck me as funny, and not too sacreligious.
Thankyou for making me overanalyze a good sig. :-P
I think that defines "nerd". Perhaps the robotics club is one of the "magnet" programs that he was talking about?
--clint
From the website:
It comes with truly Java-like object orientation and backward support for VB6 and QBasic, as it is 100% syntax compatible. KBasic combines the expressive power of object-oriented languages like C++ with the familiarity and ease of use of VB6. It allows developers with an installed base of VB6 applications to start developing for a mixed Windows and Linux environment without having to face a steep learning curve: KBasic uses the familiar visual design paradigm and has a full implementation of the Basic language.
It's not FOSS, but it's only 25 euros -- not a bad deal when it means you get cross-platform capabilities to boot (with even planned support for Mac)
FreeCiv is a very addictive game that can be controlled soley through the mouse.
Depending on what version you get, you may need to control the server manually (a bit of typing), but if you get Andreas Kemnade's version of 1.14.0, all of the server control is done with the mouse.
I hope you enjoy that game as much as we have!