It's not about the size of the window, but the size of the pixels. I think I once managed to get dosbox or something similar to run Elite 2: Frontier using pixels that were 2x2 times as big. Worked very well.
That's a non-sequitor. Newton has brilliantly shown that very simple answers are often closer to right than the more common, complex, conventional wisdom.
I'm not sure what's so complex about conventional wisdom. Conventional stuff is rarely terribly complex. Newton's theory of gravity, on the other hand, while elegant (which is not the same thing as simple), was also wrong. And the theory that replaced it is apparently so complex that only a handful of people in the world truly understand it.
because this effect is repeatable, it suggests that it might not be God at work here, but some natural phenomenon.
Were these studies properly controlled? That is, did those receiving prayer all know whether or not they were being prayed for? If so, it could be a simple psychological effect, something as simple as the Placebo.
I think in one study they were praying for plants or something like that. I agree that prayer could be a powerful placebo for those who believe in it, but I think there was also a study where they prayed for sick people who didn't know people prayed for them.
Alas, I don't have a citation ready, but perhaps Google can help you out. As a Christian, I found the results rather worrying. Someone who believes in psionics, New Agery or a smaller God would probably love it, though.
It matters a lot. If there's any intelligent life out there, there's likely to be a lot of it. You don't have to visit every last corner of the universe to find it.
Are you seriously unaware of how huge the universe is?
Are you seriously unaware how exponents work? Even if we need 10,000 years to colonise and develop another planet, we'll have colonised all of our galaxy before our earth is another million years older. In fact, if instanteneous travel was possible and there are other civilisations out there, one of them would have done that a billion years ago already.
I'd accept the possibility of instantaneous travel as very strong evidence that there are no other technological civilisations out there.
Ironically, it's easy to see that IF a Creator exists, none of the mainstream religions come remotely close to describing it. The simple fact that all of our discoveries regarding the mechanics of the Universe reveal that it's driven by a deeply mathematical and logical model is proof that any Creator figure loves logic and consistency.
No real Creator would make a beautiful formula like E = mc^2 and at the same time expect us to reject logic.
I'm not so sure. I often feel like Quantum Mechanics is caused by us catching God in some inconsistency in how the universe works, and he's been making it up on the fly ever since.
As God is said to be a supernatural and transcendent being, it follows that no science can ever tell us anything about either his existence or non-existence.
Yet God is also said to interact with the natural world, and as such, there should be solid evidence for his existence.
This is non-sequitur. We do not have solid evidence for all events that happened in the natural world. We don't even have solid evidence for all events that happened on earth. We do not even have solid evidence for all events that happened on earth in the last century. So why the hell would any interaction of God with the natural world necessarily produce solid evidence?
For example, if you claim that God answers prayers, there have been scientific studies done which show that prayer has no measurable effect. Now again, it's possible these studies were incomplete, and that a future study will show a very definite effect, but given the current evidence, the sane default position is that prayer has no effect.
And again: If science were to show that prayer had an effect, that wouldn't be "proof" of an omniscient, omnipotent, transcendent being. It would, however, be evidence to suggest that there is something which answers prayers, and it would be more evidence than exists to date for a god's existence.
It's completely the other way around on just about every point: scientific studies have shown that prayer does have effect. However, because this effect is repeatable, it suggests that it might not be God at work here, but some natural phenomenon. Psionics or something. I don't know.
No. There can be no scientific disproof of the existence of God because, by definition, science is constrained to natural phenomena: theories that can be falsified using evidence. As God is said to be a supernatural and transcendent being, it follows that no science can ever tell us anything about either his existence or non-existence.
This needs to be modded up.
Any creator of this universe (if any) is necessarily not from this universe, and therefore not subject to its laws (time, causality, a host of other scientifically examinable laws of nature). Science is limited to observable and repeatable phenomena within this universe. Therefore, science can never prove or disprove any outside creator.
I don't understand why people keep bringing up Occam's Razor. When you're talking about God or the nature of our universe, the simplest answers are most likely wrong.
However, it is the person who makes the claim that should prove it. So that there's a deity is up to the church to prove, and not for the science to disprove.
You've got an odd view about the jobs of science and the church. Science is about proving and disproving stuff in a scientific manner, not about defending one particular viewpoint. Churches are generally not about proving stuff in a scientific manner.
So whatever the dispute is, it's always up to science to provide the proof or refutation. I mean, there's a lot of very unscientific proofs, but they don't usually have a lot of value in science.
No doubt some do, but the bible also ascribes female characteristics to God. I think his womb is mentioned somewhere in Psalms.
It's all metaphor of course. If God really created the universe, that'd mean he's not from our universe, and he won't have a physical body in our sense at all. Unless he choose to, of course, in which case it can be anything he wants.
Where does it say you have to repent before death? I can't remember reading anywhere in there that you had to do anything at all to be included in Jesus' salvation.
The bible isn't entirely clear on that. Will good deeds help? Are they required? Is worshipping enough? Does it help at all?
According to Jesus, devout worshippers who ignore the needs of the sick and the poor, don't really know him and don't have much chance to get into "the kingdom of heaven" (whatever that may be -- again, the bible isn't terribly clear on the specifics). Similarly, rich people don't have much chance either, unless they give all their stuff away. A murderer who repents just before he dies is fine, though.
My guess is that it's not so much the good deeds or the worshipping, but the intention. Don't live just for yourself. Don't worship or do good deeds just for the PR or in order to get something out of it. And be aware of what you did wrong, and honestly try to do better next time (even if there isn't any next time).
You actually liked Minsc and Boo, the miniature giant space hamster? I couldn't stand them and thought they were about as entertaining as Jar-Jar Binks.
Are you kidding? Minsc is the most popular character from BG.
Exactly. The OP sounds like he's trying to play WOW rather than DAO.
The cool thing about real people and believable RPG characters is that they're not optimized to do one thing and one thing only. They have quirks and shortcomings, and that's what makes them cool.
You can't go two minutes in this game without being thrown into a long cut-scene. I like to play my RPGs, not watch them.
It's called "plot," and not all RPG fans are as convinced as you are that it should be given cursory treatment.
No it's not. Plot is not the same thing as cut scenes. Good games make their plot playable. Resorting to cut scenes is a sign of weakness.
Anyway, Bioware's RPG have had long scenes of linear dialog for as long as I can remember. (Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment, etc.)
Planescape Torment had tons and tons and tons of dialogue, but as far as I remember, it was 99% playable. I don't remember many cut scenes in Baldur's Gate either. Vampire Bloodlines had maybe 3 or 4 cutscenes? And all short ones. The vast majority of the plot was playable.
I'll put it simply: the cost vs benefit of consoles is far greater than anything a PC can come close to. These days the benefits are so lopsided in favor of consoles that it's kind of a joke; no one is saying PC gaming is dead or offers some advantages, but in the longview, the advantages are few and miniscule and you will always be in the minority.
You honestly mean you don't own a PC? Because if you do, why would you need to buy an additional machine just to play games? Nicer graphics? For the cost of a high-end PS3 you can get a very nice gaming PC. On a PC, you get a wider range of games and other applications to choose from, and most of them are cheaper than what you pay for a console game.
The only real advantage of consoles (although it's a big one) is that a lot of publishers are producing big blockbuster titles that Just Work, and can be bought in lots of stores. No need to figure out what's cool, no need to check for system requirements, no need to download anything. Just do what everybody else does, and it'll work. Which is great for people who just want to play the latest blockbusters but useless for people who want to play something else instead.
In order to re-release a game like Torment they would have to track down everyone with rights to the game and secure permission.
In order to make an official remake or sequel, they would. But to make a game like Torment (but differing in all the ways that matter to copyright/trademark lawyers), they wouldn't need anyone's permission. To make a game making use of D&D material, they just need WotC's permission.
Even so, DLC doesn't mean the original game lacks content. From what I understand, the game has tons and tons of it. That they try to pimp some additional DLC sucks, but doesn't have to hurt the rest of the game. You could punish them for trying to sell DLC this way, but you might also end up punishing the makers of a really good game.
Personally I'm very wary of all those expansions, DLC and other additions for games, and especially expansions that are basically a completely new story. Why try to sell that as an add-on? Why not sell it as a stand-alone game? Don't invent a new engine for each new game, but re-use the same engine as long as its good enough, and publish more games at a lower price. That sounds like a much more effective business model, if you ask me.
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It's not about the size of the window, but the size of the pixels. I think I once managed to get dosbox or something similar to run Elite 2: Frontier using pixels that were 2x2 times as big. Worked very well.
That's a non-sequitor. Newton has brilliantly shown that very simple answers are often closer to right than the more common, complex, conventional wisdom.
I'm not sure what's so complex about conventional wisdom. Conventional stuff is rarely terribly complex. Newton's theory of gravity, on the other hand, while elegant (which is not the same thing as simple), was also wrong. And the theory that replaced it is apparently so complex that only a handful of people in the world truly understand it.
because this effect is repeatable, it suggests that it might not be God at work here, but some natural phenomenon.
Were these studies properly controlled? That is, did those receiving prayer all know whether or not they were being prayed for? If so, it could be a simple psychological effect, something as simple as the Placebo.
I think in one study they were praying for plants or something like that. I agree that prayer could be a powerful placebo for those who believe in it, but I think there was also a study where they prayed for sick people who didn't know people prayed for them.
Alas, I don't have a citation ready, but perhaps Google can help you out. As a Christian, I found the results rather worrying. Someone who believes in psionics, New Agery or a smaller God would probably love it, though.
Because they're pretty complex issues. Why else would you think?
And if near instantaneous travel is discovered?
It doesn't matter.
It matters a lot. If there's any intelligent life out there, there's likely to be a lot of it. You don't have to visit every last corner of the universe to find it.
Are you seriously unaware of how huge the universe is?
Are you seriously unaware how exponents work? Even if we need 10,000 years to colonise and develop another planet, we'll have colonised all of our galaxy before our earth is another million years older. In fact, if instanteneous travel was possible and there are other civilisations out there, one of them would have done that a billion years ago already.
I'd accept the possibility of instantaneous travel as very strong evidence that there are no other technological civilisations out there.
Ironically, it's easy to see that IF a Creator exists, none of the mainstream religions come remotely close to describing it. The simple fact that all of our discoveries regarding the mechanics of the Universe reveal that it's driven by a deeply mathematical and logical model is proof that any Creator figure loves logic and consistency.
No real Creator would make a beautiful formula like E = mc^2 and at the same time expect us to reject logic.
I'm not so sure. I often feel like Quantum Mechanics is caused by us catching God in some inconsistency in how the universe works, and he's been making it up on the fly ever since.
Questioning these answers makes you unsure, and we don't like to be unsure. Doubt is scary.
Not at all. Doubt is interesting and usually a source of growth. Doubt is also vital for any belief.
You mean the Council of Trent.
I doubt it. Trent wasn't about rejecting writings, it was about canonizing controversial writings.
As God is said to be a supernatural and transcendent being, it follows that no science can ever tell us anything about either his existence or non-existence.
Yet God is also said to interact with the natural world, and as such, there should be solid evidence for his existence.
This is non-sequitur. We do not have solid evidence for all events that happened in the natural world. We don't even have solid evidence for all events that happened on earth. We do not even have solid evidence for all events that happened on earth in the last century. So why the hell would any interaction of God with the natural world necessarily produce solid evidence?
For example, if you claim that God answers prayers, there have been scientific studies done which show that prayer has no measurable effect. Now again, it's possible these studies were incomplete, and that a future study will show a very definite effect, but given the current evidence, the sane default position is that prayer has no effect.
And again: If science were to show that prayer had an effect, that wouldn't be "proof" of an omniscient, omnipotent, transcendent being. It would, however, be evidence to suggest that there is something which answers prayers, and it would be more evidence than exists to date for a god's existence.
It's completely the other way around on just about every point: scientific studies have shown that prayer does have effect. However, because this effect is repeatable, it suggests that it might not be God at work here, but some natural phenomenon. Psionics or something. I don't know.
No. There can be no scientific disproof of the existence of God because, by definition, science is constrained to natural phenomena: theories that can be falsified using evidence. As God is said to be a supernatural and transcendent being, it follows that no science can ever tell us anything about either his existence or non-existence.
This needs to be modded up.
Any creator of this universe (if any) is necessarily not from this universe, and therefore not subject to its laws (time, causality, a host of other scientifically examinable laws of nature). Science is limited to observable and repeatable phenomena within this universe. Therefore, science can never prove or disprove any outside creator.
I don't understand why people keep bringing up Occam's Razor. When you're talking about God or the nature of our universe, the simplest answers are most likely wrong.
However, it is the person who makes the claim that should prove it. So that there's a deity is up to the church to prove, and not for the science to disprove.
You've got an odd view about the jobs of science and the church. Science is about proving and disproving stuff in a scientific manner, not about defending one particular viewpoint. Churches are generally not about proving stuff in a scientific manner.
So whatever the dispute is, it's always up to science to provide the proof or refutation. I mean, there's a lot of very unscientific proofs, but they don't usually have a lot of value in science.
But they still imagine him as "man", right?
No doubt some do, but the bible also ascribes female characteristics to God. I think his womb is mentioned somewhere in Psalms.
It's all metaphor of course. If God really created the universe, that'd mean he's not from our universe, and he won't have a physical body in our sense at all. Unless he choose to, of course, in which case it can be anything he wants.
Where does it say you have to repent before death? I can't remember reading anywhere in there that you had to do anything at all to be included in Jesus' salvation.
The bible isn't entirely clear on that. Will good deeds help? Are they required? Is worshipping enough? Does it help at all?
According to Jesus, devout worshippers who ignore the needs of the sick and the poor, don't really know him and don't have much chance to get into "the kingdom of heaven" (whatever that may be -- again, the bible isn't terribly clear on the specifics). Similarly, rich people don't have much chance either, unless they give all their stuff away. A murderer who repents just before he dies is fine, though.
My guess is that it's not so much the good deeds or the worshipping, but the intention. Don't live just for yourself. Don't worship or do good deeds just for the PR or in order to get something out of it. And be aware of what you did wrong, and honestly try to do better next time (even if there isn't any next time).
You actually liked Minsc and Boo, the miniature giant space hamster? I couldn't stand them and thought they were about as entertaining as Jar-Jar Binks.
Are you kidding? Minsc is the most popular character from BG.
Exactly. The OP sounds like he's trying to play WOW rather than DAO.
The cool thing about real people and believable RPG characters is that they're not optimized to do one thing and one thing only. They have quirks and shortcomings, and that's what makes them cool.
You can't go two minutes in this game without being thrown into a long cut-scene. I like to play my RPGs, not watch them.
It's called "plot," and not all RPG fans are as convinced as you are that it should be given cursory treatment.
No it's not. Plot is not the same thing as cut scenes. Good games make their plot playable. Resorting to cut scenes is a sign of weakness.
Anyway, Bioware's RPG have had long scenes of linear dialog for as long as I can remember. (Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment, etc.)
Planescape Torment had tons and tons and tons of dialogue, but as far as I remember, it was 99% playable. I don't remember many cut scenes in Baldur's Gate either. Vampire Bloodlines had maybe 3 or 4 cutscenes? And all short ones. The vast majority of the plot was playable.
I have a lot of friends (no, really, I swear :) but I don't have many friends willing to spend 80 hours co-op with me on an RPG.
My friends and I have spent years co-op in RPGs. But those were real RPGs, and not some computer game. CRPGs are for when my friends aren't around.
Then people who *have* friends could play this game together.
If my friends had time to play, we'd get out our dice and play a real RPG.
What exactly constitutes "higher quality gaming"? That's extremely nebulous. Better textures? Higher resolution?
Better gameplay and story.
I'll put it simply: the cost vs benefit of consoles is far greater than anything a PC can come close to. These days the benefits are so lopsided in favor of consoles that it's kind of a joke; no one is saying PC gaming is dead or offers some advantages, but in the longview, the advantages are few and miniscule and you will always be in the minority.
You honestly mean you don't own a PC? Because if you do, why would you need to buy an additional machine just to play games? Nicer graphics? For the cost of a high-end PS3 you can get a very nice gaming PC. On a PC, you get a wider range of games and other applications to choose from, and most of them are cheaper than what you pay for a console game.
The only real advantage of consoles (although it's a big one) is that a lot of publishers are producing big blockbuster titles that Just Work, and can be bought in lots of stores. No need to figure out what's cool, no need to check for system requirements, no need to download anything. Just do what everybody else does, and it'll work. Which is great for people who just want to play the latest blockbusters but useless for people who want to play something else instead.
Is Crysis considered the be-all-and-end-all test of graphics cards because of super high quality graphics or super inefficient graphics programming?
I only saw a demo, but seeing the moving shadows of swaying branches on the back of a crawling turtle was very impressive indeed.
In order to re-release a game like Torment they would have to track down everyone with rights to the game and secure permission.
In order to make an official remake or sequel, they would. But to make a game like Torment (but differing in all the ways that matter to copyright/trademark lawyers), they wouldn't need anyone's permission. To make a game making use of D&D material, they just need WotC's permission.
Perhaps you should read the post I was replying to?
It starts,
I was also disappointed by the requirement of buying additional content
And that's apparently when you hit the reply button. Maybe you should read the rest of what he said.
Also an interesting link is the comic they made about it.
Even so, DLC doesn't mean the original game lacks content. From what I understand, the game has tons and tons of it. That they try to pimp some additional DLC sucks, but doesn't have to hurt the rest of the game. You could punish them for trying to sell DLC this way, but you might also end up punishing the makers of a really good game.
Personally I'm very wary of all those expansions, DLC and other additions for games, and especially expansions that are basically a completely new story. Why try to sell that as an add-on? Why not sell it as a stand-alone game? Don't invent a new engine for each new game, but re-use the same engine as long as its good enough, and publish more games at a lower price. That sounds like a much more effective business model, if you ask me.