I don't think that's realistic at all. The level of tech savvy among even pretty advanced users of windows seems pretty limited. And they tend to be very narrowly focused on not only the technologies that microsoft pushes, but on the specific ways that these technologies are interacted with in windows. More like they understand what buttons to push in windows than actually having an understanding of what is going on.
They also seem to have a hugely inflated evaluation of their own "computer savvy", though not quite as laughably as the mac users who brag about running "unix" at home, even though they don't know what that means.
It's possible that I just haven't met enough windows users (I've met tons) or I live in the wrong town to meet ones who have a clue (Seattle), but that's sure how it seems.
Which would be a valid point if there were enough mac users to justify porting in the first place. I don't think there is any evidence that there are. The companies that are going to put out a mac version are already doing it and the others aren't impressed by the sales because the numbers aren't that impressive. We've got a similar problem on Linux.
Granted. But it's not something individual Americans can choose not to be a part of.
Exactly! What we need is some real leaders in this country who will rein in urban sprawl and initiate a widespread re-invention of modern cities into walkable communities. This of course wouldn't work everywhere, but where I'm from it's about the only way we'll ever break the end-to-end gridlock on the narrow highways.
Have you checked the permissions on your sound device (probably/dev/dsp or something similar)? I've never run Ubuntu, but on Slackware the permissions are set to 700 by default and I believe Flash requires both read and write access. I just set mine 777 and haven't had any problems since.
c) What will be left of Apple? As a pure hardware company, they wouldn't survive.
What are you talking about? Apple IS a hardware company, and not much else. Without iPod they wouldn't survive. They could easily drop the computer business (hardware and software) without a problem.
I certainly can. It's really too bad that you can't also. The excited squeals of mac users as they rush to flipflop again and proclaim microsoft the greatest company ever and the only one with elegant, usable interfaces. Oh, you should see the joy on their faces too. They look so happy as they wait in line for the midnight release of Microsoft WindowsOS. Really warms my heart to see such genuine happiness. Oh look, one of the little maclets has gotten away from his mother and is snuggling up against an xbox 360. SHE'S BUYING IT FOR HIM! He's so happy he's doing a little dance. It's so beautiful, I wish you could see it, nuggetman.
without even reading the rest of your comment, it's obvious you have no clue what you're talking about. According to the bible, we're made in the image of God, and were given life by him. It's not within our authority to say who should have life and who shouldn't.
That isn't a reason. I have every clue what I'm talking about. You unfortunately are at best a complete and utter coward. If you don't understand why it is because you don't have a fucking clue about anything. Feel free to give it another go, you won't be the first person on slashdot or otherwise to fail at explaining your supposedly deeply held "morality".
ust because someone isn't a Christian doesnt mean I wont find their ideas interesting. But as for the rest of your point, how is it any more "far out" that a being could be what we regard as omnipotent, than that we could have evolved out of single cell organisms?
I've never claimed anything is "far out". I'm not a hippie and this isn't the 70s.
Now contemplate how incredibly vast the universe is, you might be able to imagine it by thinking of yourself in the middle of nothing and no matter which way you were to travel you would continue on forever without ever reaching the edge of it. You're probably not even capable of beginning such an exercise, which is really impossible for any person to complete, but maybe you'll get an idea. Then think about what part of your body you are conscious of at any moment. Try to imagine your body spreading out forever in all directions and encompassing everything within that space all at once (even the empty space which your current body does not occupy). Then being absolutely conscious of every bit of that all at once, this includes all time as well since you'll need that for omnipotence. If you can even get close to imagining such a thing take a few steps away from the computer, maybe go find a comfy chair, and think for a bit on how completely improbable this is. You might then add in the ability to control every bit of all of that in any way that you choose, though of course you'd have already known you were going to do it and have already done it before you even knew. This is the impossibility of total and infinite power. I won't claim that it can't happen, but realistically there's no way.
In contrast, you're entire body is made up of cells. Divide by several billion and you have one. Figure it out.
I've also not made the claim that there weren't reasons that religion developed. I just said there was no reason for anyone to have believed in god. A subtle distinction that you will assuredly try to play off as symantics. The first people to create the idea of god could just as well have chosen anything else at all to explain the things they did not understand, and most likely first came up with a solution that was very far from any modern beliefs but later evolved as their understanding of things required a more and more powerful being to explain.
Evolution isn't that amazing of a concept. What's amazing about it is how long it took someone to come up with and how completely it explains so many things about the diversity of life on earth. I'm going to assume the thing that evolution ignores is your bible, since you didn't feel the need to mention what those things are.
You should also probably drop the dogs and wolves bit out of your rants as dogs are a domesticated creation of man. Which by itself proves evolution pretty conclusively.
If you re-read my post, you'll see that I never claimed that evolution proved that there was no god. I merely stated that the fanatic's position is to argue that there is one. Even more fanatical is to claim that evolution does not happen so as to preserve the fairy tale of god.
You also failed completely to understand what atheism is. Atheism does not start by "presuming" that there is no god. Knowledge that there is no god is pretty much the end of atheism, though I guess if you weren't ever told about this "god" concept it would also be the beginning. At that point it wouldn't be anything, not even atheism, as the whole idea of god existing or not would not exist for you making it nothing.
I'm not even sure who you think you're trying (and failing) to argue with here, since I make no claims about "scientifically concluding" anything. There is simply no reason now or at any time to believe that there is any such thing as "god".
I'm also a bit confused as to who "we atheists" are supposed to be. I make no claims to affiliate with any group of atheists except myself, which I didn't actually claim but you're welcome to infer if you like. I don't care about making people believe what I believe, but I would appreciate them shutting the fuck up if all they've got is nonsense and make believe.
You also fail at understanding even the basics of science. Belief in a god is about the most unscientific thing a person can do. It starts with a belief in a concept with absolutely no evidence whatsoever, and at best tries to explain it by distorting and lying about the causes and fact of observable phenomenon, at worst claims that it doesn't need to be explained at all. The fact that a belief in god can never be more proven than just believing in it for no reason is a strong indicator that such belief is a conceptual disease, most likely due to primitive features of the human brain that were never selectively pressured out of existence.
I'll reiterate again that I make no claim that science can prove there is no god. It just happens to be self evident that there is no reason to believe in such a thing until there is at least some proof at all to the contrary.
I also take extreme offense at your attempt to label me an "anti-Jesus freak". Don't try to give yourself any special place in the world, even if it is only in my personal perception. You christians are no more or less deluded than any other religious group. You just happen to be louder and more obnoxious at the moment.
"Morality"? Give me a fucking break. Why don't you kill people? Christian "morality" fails even to answer this.
While it might make a good story that something could evolve to be omnipotent it is so far out of the realm of possibility so as to be impossible. Even if such a thing could occur, it would still fail to be a "god" in the christian sense. It's also funny that you'd use Asimov (which you managed to misspell) as an example, given that he was in fact an atheist.
As for evolution disproving god, you're right it doesn't but you still managed to miss the point. There is absolutely no reason to believe that any such thing exists. It's possible to make up any number of fantasies that can not be proven not to exist, but that's no reason to believe in any of them either. Evolution is merely a concept that explains away a huge number of things that earlier peoples with more primitive understandings of the world could not explain.
And you should definitely not believe genesis to be literal. I'm going to assume you've only read it in English (I've read at least a dozen such versions myself), and in every version I've ever read it manages to disprove itself on the first page. The only way I can see that anyone would not know that is if they had never read it or they have severely retarded reading comprehension skills.
Wait a second there, buddy. How is it "fanatics" who are the ones trying to use evolution as proof that there is no god. What proof has there EVER been that there is one? Seems to me that "no god" is the moderate, sensible position and only a fanatic would claim otherwise without extensive proof.
Oh yeah, just what we need! Some kid (or worse, an adult!) walking down the street playing Zelda on Gameboy Revolution and getting a little too excited with the controller!
Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing. Though my number was 99$. Unless they pack in a game and/or give us two controllers, either of which would be a really good move on Nintendo's part.
Grandia actually uses a system very similar to Square's Active Time Battle and is pretty different than "classic" RPG combat systems (NES Final Fantasys, Dragon Quest, etc). Though maybe I'm just getting old and "classic" has moved up 10 years or so.
And if you liked Grandia and haven't played it yet you should give Shadow Hearts a try.
Final Fantasy Adventures were actually part of the Seiken Densetsu series. They just called them Final Fantasy when they came Stateside because no one had ever heard of Seiken Densetsu, which later came over as Secret of Mana. Similarly Final Fantasy Legend and Legend II for Gameboy were actually part of the Saga Frontier series. Which makes them about as much a part of the FF series as Final Fantasy Mystic Quest.
At least from the demo that shipped with Dragon Quest 8 the combat system in FFXII is just boring. The real-time version (is that gambits?) was a little more interesting than the other one. But it still couldn't hold my attention long enough to finish that portion of the demo. The one where it pauses for menus held my attention for a much shorter time, but it was also like 4 minutes long so I actually finished.
As far as I'm concerned Final Fantasy is just about finished. Dragon Quest 8 did a great job leveraging an old school system in a way that was still pretty fun. And series like Shadow Hearts and Grandia have been so far past anything they've been doing with FF for a long time that it's actually pretty sad.
Despite what many people seem to believe, the combat system is the heart of a console-style RPG. I have yet to see one where the story was so great that it could carry a game with hour upon hour of boring combat. I have played ones where the combat was so good it could haul along a pretty weak narrative till the end of the game though. I think Shadow Hearts (not the first one, but the other two) and Grandia could carry a game even if the story was as deep as Mortal Kombat's.
Perhaps if they skewed the story-to-exploration ratio to something more like one of the Metal Gear Solids they could get away with it. It's hard to say since I've never seen a game like that. I doubt it would work though since the stories in Final Fantasy games aren't really good enough to be movies, which is what it would become.
Personally I'd like to see Final Fantasy turn into, since Square|Enix seems set on over-simplifying the combat system to the point of boredom, is maybe 12-15 hour games with far, far fewer fights but with more weight put on each one. Maybe along the lines of Shadow of the Colossus, only with turn-based battles.
I think that your comment refers more to the previous poster than to myself.
previous poster:That word - I do not think it means what you think it means.
myself:Where does this troll come from? It happens all the time on slashdot. Is there a reference I've completely missed or are there really that many idiots who can't read a fucking dictionary?
I accept your apology for misunderstanding my comment due to your poor reading ability. Just make sure it doesn't happen again.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think that's realistic at all. The level of tech savvy among even pretty advanced users of windows seems pretty limited. And they tend to be very narrowly focused on not only the technologies that microsoft pushes, but on the specific ways that these technologies are interacted with in windows. More like they understand what buttons to push in windows than actually having an understanding of what is going on.
They also seem to have a hugely inflated evaluation of their own "computer savvy", though not quite as laughably as the mac users who brag about running "unix" at home, even though they don't know what that means.
It's possible that I just haven't met enough windows users (I've met tons) or I live in the wrong town to meet ones who have a clue (Seattle), but that's sure how it seems.
I always like a good malware removal suite.
Which would be a valid point if there were enough mac users to justify porting in the first place. I don't think there is any evidence that there are. The companies that are going to put out a mac version are already doing it and the others aren't impressed by the sales because the numbers aren't that impressive. We've got a similar problem on Linux.
When I think Dreamcast I think Grandia 2 and Skies of Arcadia.
Exactly! What we need is some real leaders in this country who will rein in urban sprawl and initiate a widespread re-invention of modern cities into walkable communities. This of course wouldn't work everywhere, but where I'm from it's about the only way we'll ever break the end-to-end gridlock on the narrow highways.
Have you checked the permissions on your sound device (probably /dev/dsp or something similar)? I've never run Ubuntu, but on Slackware the permissions are set to 700 by default and I believe Flash requires both read and write access. I just set mine 777 and haven't had any problems since.
What are you talking about? Apple IS a hardware company, and not much else. Without iPod they wouldn't survive. They could easily drop the computer business (hardware and software) without a problem.
I certainly can. It's really too bad that you can't also. The excited squeals of mac users as they rush to flipflop again and proclaim microsoft the greatest company ever and the only one with elegant, usable interfaces. Oh, you should see the joy on their faces too. They look so happy as they wait in line for the midnight release of Microsoft WindowsOS. Really warms my heart to see such genuine happiness. Oh look, one of the little maclets has gotten away from his mother and is snuggling up against an xbox 360. SHE'S BUYING IT FOR HIM! He's so happy he's doing a little dance. It's so beautiful, I wish you could see it, nuggetman.
Your god sounds like a fucking pervert. I bet he "shows" himself to children too, huh?
without even reading the rest of your comment, it's obvious you have no clue what you're talking about. According to the bible, we're made in the image of God, and were given life by him. It's not within our authority to say who should have life and who shouldn't.
That isn't a reason. I have every clue what I'm talking about. You unfortunately are at best a complete and utter coward. If you don't understand why it is because you don't have a fucking clue about anything. Feel free to give it another go, you won't be the first person on slashdot or otherwise to fail at explaining your supposedly deeply held "morality".
ust because someone isn't a Christian doesnt mean I wont find their ideas interesting. But as for the rest of your point, how is it any more "far out" that a being could be what we regard as omnipotent, than that we could have evolved out of single cell organisms?
I've never claimed anything is "far out". I'm not a hippie and this isn't the 70s.
Now contemplate how incredibly vast the universe is, you might be able to imagine it by thinking of yourself in the middle of nothing and no matter which way you were to travel you would continue on forever without ever reaching the edge of it. You're probably not even capable of beginning such an exercise, which is really impossible for any person to complete, but maybe you'll get an idea. Then think about what part of your body you are conscious of at any moment. Try to imagine your body spreading out forever in all directions and encompassing everything within that space all at once (even the empty space which your current body does not occupy). Then being absolutely conscious of every bit of that all at once, this includes all time as well since you'll need that for omnipotence. If you can even get close to imagining such a thing take a few steps away from the computer, maybe go find a comfy chair, and think for a bit on how completely improbable this is. You might then add in the ability to control every bit of all of that in any way that you choose, though of course you'd have already known you were going to do it and have already done it before you even knew. This is the impossibility of total and infinite power. I won't claim that it can't happen, but realistically there's no way.
In contrast, you're entire body is made up of cells. Divide by several billion and you have one. Figure it out.
I've also not made the claim that there weren't reasons that religion developed. I just said there was no reason for anyone to have believed in god. A subtle distinction that you will assuredly try to play off as symantics. The first people to create the idea of god could just as well have chosen anything else at all to explain the things they did not understand, and most likely first came up with a solution that was very far from any modern beliefs but later evolved as their understanding of things required a more and more powerful being to explain.
Evolution isn't that amazing of a concept. What's amazing about it is how long it took someone to come up with and how completely it explains so many things about the diversity of life on earth. I'm going to assume the thing that evolution ignores is your bible, since you didn't feel the need to mention what those things are.
You should also probably drop the dogs and wolves bit out of your rants as dogs are a domesticated creation of man. Which by itself proves evolution pretty conclusively.
If you re-read my post, you'll see that I never claimed that evolution proved that there was no god. I merely stated that the fanatic's position is to argue that there is one. Even more fanatical is to claim that evolution does not happen so as to preserve the fairy tale of god.
You also failed completely to understand what atheism is. Atheism does not start by "presuming" that there is no god. Knowledge that there is no god is pretty much the end of atheism, though I guess if you weren't ever told about this "god" concept it would also be the beginning. At that point it wouldn't be anything, not even atheism, as the whole idea of god existing or not would not exist for you making it nothing.
I'm not even sure who you think you're trying (and failing) to argue with here, since I make no claims about "scientifically concluding" anything. There is simply no reason now or at any time to believe that there is any such thing as "god".
I'm also a bit confused as to who "we atheists" are supposed to be. I make no claims to affiliate with any group of atheists except myself, which I didn't actually claim but you're welcome to infer if you like. I don't care about making people believe what I believe, but I would appreciate them shutting the fuck up if all they've got is nonsense and make believe.
You also fail at understanding even the basics of science. Belief in a god is about the most unscientific thing a person can do. It starts with a belief in a concept with absolutely no evidence whatsoever, and at best tries to explain it by distorting and lying about the causes and fact of observable phenomenon, at worst claims that it doesn't need to be explained at all. The fact that a belief in god can never be more proven than just believing in it for no reason is a strong indicator that such belief is a conceptual disease, most likely due to primitive features of the human brain that were never selectively pressured out of existence.
I'll reiterate again that I make no claim that science can prove there is no god. It just happens to be self evident that there is no reason to believe in such a thing until there is at least some proof at all to the contrary.
I also take extreme offense at your attempt to label me an "anti-Jesus freak". Don't try to give yourself any special place in the world, even if it is only in my personal perception. You christians are no more or less deluded than any other religious group. You just happen to be louder and more obnoxious at the moment.
"Morality"? Give me a fucking break. Why don't you kill people? Christian "morality" fails even to answer this.
While it might make a good story that something could evolve to be omnipotent it is so far out of the realm of possibility so as to be impossible. Even if such a thing could occur, it would still fail to be a "god" in the christian sense. It's also funny that you'd use Asimov (which you managed to misspell) as an example, given that he was in fact an atheist.
As for evolution disproving god, you're right it doesn't but you still managed to miss the point. There is absolutely no reason to believe that any such thing exists. It's possible to make up any number of fantasies that can not be proven not to exist, but that's no reason to believe in any of them either. Evolution is merely a concept that explains away a huge number of things that earlier peoples with more primitive understandings of the world could not explain.
And you should definitely not believe genesis to be literal. I'm going to assume you've only read it in English (I've read at least a dozen such versions myself), and in every version I've ever read it manages to disprove itself on the first page. The only way I can see that anyone would not know that is if they had never read it or they have severely retarded reading comprehension skills.
Wait a second there, buddy. How is it "fanatics" who are the ones trying to use evolution as proof that there is no god. What proof has there EVER been that there is one? Seems to me that "no god" is the moderate, sensible position and only a fanatic would claim otherwise without extensive proof.
Maybe he got a biology degree from Bob Jones.
Wait, they make Gods that create animals? Mine only keeps hot things hot and cold things cold.
At least both sides of this one are real.
Yeah, but if they don't start early how are they going to dupe the April Fools posts?
Oh yeah, just what we need! Some kid (or worse, an adult!) walking down the street playing Zelda on Gameboy Revolution and getting a little too excited with the controller!
Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing. Though my number was 99$. Unless they pack in a game and/or give us two controllers, either of which would be a really good move on Nintendo's part.
I don't know, but the debates would be legendary. He'd probably turn all red in the face and start shouting, "cut his mic!"
Grandia actually uses a system very similar to Square's Active Time Battle and is pretty different than "classic" RPG combat systems (NES Final Fantasys, Dragon Quest, etc). Though maybe I'm just getting old and "classic" has moved up 10 years or so.
And if you liked Grandia and haven't played it yet you should give Shadow Hearts a try.
Final Fantasy Adventures were actually part of the Seiken Densetsu series. They just called them Final Fantasy when they came Stateside because no one had ever heard of Seiken Densetsu, which later came over as Secret of Mana. Similarly Final Fantasy Legend and Legend II for Gameboy were actually part of the Saga Frontier series. Which makes them about as much a part of the FF series as Final Fantasy Mystic Quest.
At least from the demo that shipped with Dragon Quest 8 the combat system in FFXII is just boring. The real-time version (is that gambits?) was a little more interesting than the other one. But it still couldn't hold my attention long enough to finish that portion of the demo. The one where it pauses for menus held my attention for a much shorter time, but it was also like 4 minutes long so I actually finished.
As far as I'm concerned Final Fantasy is just about finished. Dragon Quest 8 did a great job leveraging an old school system in a way that was still pretty fun. And series like Shadow Hearts and Grandia have been so far past anything they've been doing with FF for a long time that it's actually pretty sad.
Despite what many people seem to believe, the combat system is the heart of a console-style RPG. I have yet to see one where the story was so great that it could carry a game with hour upon hour of boring combat. I have played ones where the combat was so good it could haul along a pretty weak narrative till the end of the game though. I think Shadow Hearts (not the first one, but the other two) and Grandia could carry a game even if the story was as deep as Mortal Kombat's.
Perhaps if they skewed the story-to-exploration ratio to something more like one of the Metal Gear Solids they could get away with it. It's hard to say since I've never seen a game like that. I doubt it would work though since the stories in Final Fantasy games aren't really good enough to be movies, which is what it would become.
Personally I'd like to see Final Fantasy turn into, since Square|Enix seems set on over-simplifying the combat system to the point of boredom, is maybe 12-15 hour games with far, far fewer fights but with more weight put on each one. Maybe along the lines of Shadow of the Colossus, only with turn-based battles.
previous poster: That word - I do not think it means what you think it means.
myself: Where does this troll come from? It happens all the time on slashdot. Is there a reference I've completely missed or are there really that many idiots who can't read a fucking dictionary?
I accept your apology for misunderstanding my comment due to your poor reading ability. Just make sure it doesn't happen again.
I think they were primarily being produced for sale in countries other than the United States.