A wiki is an online medium that contains information that anyone can edit. A wall is a surface people are generally not supposed to write on regardless of the correctness of the information.
Wikipedia is an online dictionary. People aren't generally supposed to edit it to contain outright lies on purpose. They can do so, but then again, they can write on walls.
I don't have any idea how spray paint got into this, spray paint is permanent, editing text is not.
Really ? I must look into it the next time my house needs repainting. And maybe NASA should just forget heat tiles and coat the Space Shuttle with this indestructible material. Not to mention that if you spraypaint your clothes, they become bulletproof - an essential feature in Iraq and American large cities.
There are theories about what could have caused the big bang, such as a collision of two branes
How does a collision happen or have any consequences when there is no time (or space for that matter) ? Through what are these colliding branes moving ? And since movement is change of position (in space which doesn't exist) over time, how does it happen when time doesn't exist ?
or a cyclical universe that goes ends from big bang to big crunch back to big bang again
Violating the second law of thermodynamics on its merry way.
It's true that our science can't model what happens before the big bang and we also don't have any way of observing what happened back then so it is basically outside of science. But, the same is also true for the inside of a black hole. Is it meaningless to ask what happens inside of a black hole? Maybe, but we don't deny that there is something going on there.
Not only do the goings-on in a black hole have measurable consequences outside of it (the gravity field itself can be observed), but time still exist inside the hole. Not so before Big Bang.
By the way, the creator is also something that we can't observe and can't model with our science but clearly you don't think speculation about his nature is meaningless.
Actually, the only speculation about the nature of the hypothethical creator I have engaged in is pointing out that such a being couldn't be dependant on features of nature - such as time and space - which are dependant of the universe existing, by the virtue of preceding their existence. As such, it is meaningless to make statements about said creator that depend on said features, such as speculating about its origins. This I said in response to your implied statement that the creator had a beginning, which is meaningless in the absence of time (which is a feature of the Universe).
Regarding the creator, you already said that before the big bang the laws of physics as we know them didn't exist, so why should they apply there any more than they apply to a hypothetical creator?
They wouldn't, of course. Which means that if something existed, it would be by definition supernatural, existing independently of laws of physics. As for the exact nature of said thing, I'm not going to speculate; see a number of theologians and horror fiction writers for that:).
Except saying that I still think that noodles looke a little like tentacles...
I've never understood why this is gives Windows such a problem.
Heh. Linux 2.6.whatever sleep function fails (hangs indefinitely while suspending the machine) if the DVB drivers are loaded (whether the card is in use or not - just as long as the kernel has the drivers loaded). So it isn't a Windows-specific problem really.
If you get rid of the sink, nothing flows, your "paddlewheel" doesn't turn, and you get no useful energy.
Unless you could make the paddlewheel so small that it could be turned by a single individual particle (which, obviously, is only going to a single direction at the time). That way you could extract the kinetic energy of individual molecules/atoms, and not need a sink. Enough such paddlewheel, and you could turn heat into organized motion directly, without the need for a sink.
We don't know what happened before the big bang and so whatever preceded the universe, if anything, was outside our conception of time as well.
If time began in the Big Bang, then the expressions "what happened before the Big Bang" and "whatever preceded the universe" are meaningless. This also means that there is no "prior state" which could had caused the Big Bang, since there was no preceding time said state could had existed in.
There are exactly two possibilities: either the cause for the Big Bang is contained within our reality, in which case it could not preceed the effect it caused (since the effect happened at the first moment of our reality) and therefore breaks the normal causal relationship, or it is not, in which case there are states of existence outside our reality.
Time travel with the ability to change the past, or Things From Beyond: one of these must exist, or the Universe couldn't. <voice tone="creepy">Pick one...</voice> Coming to think of it, spaghetti counts as tentacles, doesn't it ?-)
There is no reason why anything that can be said about the origin of a creator or its lack thereof can't also be said of the Universe.
Sure there is; namely the simple fact that nature - universe - has to conform to the laws of physics while supernatural creatures - such as the hypothethical creator - don't, by definition of supernatural.
Of course there are exceptions -- exceptional people who continue gathering data and revising their conclusions. Those are the people worth dating.:)
I find it highly propable that all the people worth dating are already taken by the time they turn 30. Besides, merely changing your opinions easily doesn't make you worth dating; in fact it might make you a particularly difficult person, since one can never know what to expect from you.
Sigh. I'm 28 and have never dated:(. I guess I'm an evolutionary dead-end, so to say...
There's nothing natural about companies or countries, these are cultural inventions. So natural selection cannot be acting onto them, only to biological life. They do evolve, but by other mechanisms.
Human culture and all the construct arising from it is the result of natural processes (and ultimately fundamental physics) and as such natural in itself, every bit as natural as it is for bees to create hives, wolfs to run in packs, monkeys scratching each others pelts and so on. Natural selection - the fact that some entities are more likely to survive than others in a given environment - can, does, and has affected companies, countries and all other human organizations. That the selection is based on acquiring dollars (for corporations) instead of calories does not chance the basic mechanism.
BS. The entire justification for Intelligent Design is that something as complex as our universe couldn't of just happened by itself, it had to have had a creator. Obviously if our universe is to complex to have just happened, then the same must be true for our even more complex creator. If the creator could have just happened without a creator then there is no reason why the universe couldn't have just happened as well.
This is incorrect. Our universe has a beginning, it hasn't existed forever. This isn't neccessarily true - and maybe even couldn't be, since time is a feature of the universe and wouldn't had existed before it began - of the hypothetical creator, in which case the "couldn't have been born by itself" becomes meaningless, since it was never born.
Does that mean I must disbelieve in the theory of Intelligent Design?
Intelligent Design isn't a (scientific) theory or even a hypothesis, but pure speculation. In order to qualify as a hypothesis, it would need to make at least one testable prediction; in order to qualify as a theory, that prediction would need to be tested and the result be found conforming with reality.
because succubii and incubii are associated with lust and adultery and that is a bad thing in religion.
In some religions, yes, catholic christianity the most famous example amongst them. This is not true for all of them; there have been many religions which actively encouraged (temple) prostitution, and some religious sects still engage in flirty fishing (using sex to gain converts).
Most sects of christianity (which you're propably referring to with "religion") consider marriage as a God-given institution; therefore not respecting it is unlawful and in itself evil. In DnD terms these sects would be Lawful Good or Lawful Neutral.
The DnD alignment system has separate axis for Good-Evil and Laful-Chaotic. This means that law-abiding people can be extremely evil (and indeed, the Devils of DnD multiverse are Lawful Evil), while lawbreakers can be good (and yes, there are Chaotic Good celestials). In other words, sleeping around is not automatically sinful in DnD, as long as no one gets hurt. Consequently, there's no good reason why Chaotic Good beings - such as some celestials - wouldn't do just that. In fact the "Forgotten Realms" campaign setting includes a Chaotic Good goddess of hedonism and "sensual fullfillment", Sharess.
The lesson here is that fantasy worlds aren't neccessary consistent with the real world. Shocking, isn't it ?-)
Ever notice that while angels are generally associated with male names, they are actually described as eunuchs? The whole point is heavenly creatures don't have the lusts and desires of mortals (or need them).
AFAIK there's no discussion in the Bible about the possible sexuality of angels or the lack of it, apart from a single remark from Jesus which, frankly, is not sufficient basis to make any far-reaching conclusions about the matter, especially since the context was marriage rather than sexuality itself, and an unclear passage about God(s?) sons liking daughters of men (which, again, could mean pretty much anything) near the Genesis.
Not that any of this has anything to do with DnD celestials who, according to the Monster Manual, are capable of producing offspring with mortals and in fact do so in sufficient numbers that the descendants of the resulting half-celestials have a specific racial name (aasimar).
Finally, "eunuch" is a term for a man who's been castrated. I think that the term you mean is "asexual".
Demons like the succubus don't have such desires, either, they play off the mortal needs of such things and take life force, create demon children, or find adulterers to eat, depending on the story.
Apart from being utterly irrelevant to the matter at hand, since we're talking about actions and not the emotions behind them, there is no reason whatsoever to consider this to be true in the DnD universe.
Most stories of succubii have them being demons that take the form of beautiful women (suggesting shapechangers). D&D never really used that aspect, from what I recall.
DnD succubus are shapechangers. Read the Monster Manual and see for yourself.
So... you're generally playing as Lawful Evil, then?
I'd consider lawyers to be Neutral Evil. Lawful Evil would indicate that the subject keeps his word, follows the letter of the law, and generally behaves honorably but is indifferent to the suffering of others. Neutral Evil, on the other hand, indicates that the subject will do anything for his own profit, with no problems lying or twisting the law into a hideous mockery of itself if that's what it takes.
-20,000 xp since the DM didn't want you to kill it this early in the campaign, it was supposed to return for an epic battle around the time of 4.5, then a final confrontation when 5 came out. Now the DM's stuck trying to figure out a new arch-villain for the rest of the campain.
Don't be silly. This is very good: the website can now return as an undead monstrosity. Or it could simply have faked its own death. Or the Forces of Darkness (whatever they are in the particular campaign) resurrected it to continue its dark deeds. Or it was just the child process which died (and preferably became zombie), but the parent process keeps spawning new ones...
Now send me your address so I can mail *you* these memories and kill your desire for sex for the next ten years.
Speaking of sex, I always wondered why there were no Upper Plane equivalent of Succubus. I mean, flirty fishing works and would be a perfect fit for Chaotic Good outsiders, so why don't they go about seducing blackguards away from evil or something ? A wink, kiss and some bedroom gymnastics could easily stop entire evil armies in their tracks.
In fact I'd say that the Balance requires such beings, unless of course sex is inherently evil in the DnD universe. I guess WotC is just too prudish to add them...
If all you want to do is email and surf the internet, then Vista is great.
No it isn't. If that's all you want to do, get Linux - you'll be able to keep 100+ browser windows open at once accross as many virtual desktops you want, and aren't nearly as open to worms. No need to pay for any antivirus/firewall software either.
Meanwhile, none of these measures would find a glass or obsidian (sharper than a razor) knife strapped to your leg.
Um, so ? It's not like you can overcome 100+ people with a knife no matter how sharp, not when the people in question expect you to be a lunatic who'll kill them all if you're not stopped.
Why on earth this is even a story, I live in smallville midwest and this wouldn't even make it as a paragraph in the Living section. This has the feeling of a 15 year old kid scrambling to find a story for a paper before deadline in an hour. Lot of speculation and lack of actual comments in context. I feel like a piece of my life was just wasted reading the article. Similar to how I made it through Mission to Mars, I kept hoping there would be a point to the movie but alas just a section of my life I will never get back. Kind of like how you feel now for reading my post. Just had to do something to make reading this article worth my time.
SCANDAL ON SLASHDOT
An article published on a popular Internet news site Slashdot has been revealed to contain inaccuracies. This shocking revelation, centered around an article concerning a possible attempt at arson committed by Verizon, Inc's employee against the company's customer in Needham, Mass., is only the latest scandal surrounding Slashdot. While the police did not give any details at this time, an attempt to indicate the local fire department of lying is rumored to be at the heart of the matter.
A Slashdot reader, identifying himself as a veteran of the Mission to Mars, expressed his outrage of the incident, but felt confident that the mental skills honed at that mission would help him cope through these traumatic times.
"I feel like a piece of my life was just wasted reading the article.", said one reader. Others have engaged in anti-social behavior; one caught in the act said: "Just had to do something to make reading this article worth my time."
Near where I live some construction people severed an electric main while digging for the foundations of a new building and the whole city was left without power. Okay, that happens, to err is human, etc. The WTF part of this story is that these people, after severing a cable and seeing every light in the city around them wink out, didn't think to tell the power company (or anyone else for that matter) what had happened and where the fault was. It took 6 hours to get the power restored, all because these lazerbrains didn't draw the connection between the severed cable and the sudden blackout.
But the point is still the same... If you don't like the parenting abilities of your neighbors, you have the right to keep your kid at home, locked up, and scared of the Pope.
Do you ? The kid is still human and as such has human rights. At some point bringing him up the way you like will interfere with those rights and thus count as child abuse, for sufficiently extreme values of "the way you like". While using the Pope as a boogeyman propably wouldn't count (and might even be perfectly reasonable - the Pope does lead Catholic church after all, and said church has done many not-so-nice things over the years and continues doing others, such as the anti-condom campaign in Africa resulting in millions dying), social isolation propably should. After all, if you are isolated, you don't learn normal social skills, and if you don't learn those, your life is going to be very miserable.
Oh well, it just goes to show once again that there's nothing worse than being weak and at someone else's nonexistent mercy.
Slashdot Mirror
In Soviet Russia idiots abuse you !
Wikipedia is an online dictionary. People aren't generally supposed to edit it to contain outright lies on purpose. They can do so, but then again, they can write on walls.
Really ? I must look into it the next time my house needs repainting. And maybe NASA should just forget heat tiles and coat the Space Shuttle with this indestructible material. Not to mention that if you spraypaint your clothes, they become bulletproof - an essential feature in Iraq and American large cities.
How does a collision happen or have any consequences when there is no time (or space for that matter) ? Through what are these colliding branes moving ? And since movement is change of position (in space which doesn't exist) over time, how does it happen when time doesn't exist ?
Violating the second law of thermodynamics on its merry way.
Not only do the goings-on in a black hole have measurable consequences outside of it (the gravity field itself can be observed), but time still exist inside the hole. Not so before Big Bang.
Actually, the only speculation about the nature of the hypothethical creator I have engaged in is pointing out that such a being couldn't be dependant on features of nature - such as time and space - which are dependant of the universe existing, by the virtue of preceding their existence. As such, it is meaningless to make statements about said creator that depend on said features, such as speculating about its origins. This I said in response to your implied statement that the creator had a beginning, which is meaningless in the absence of time (which is a feature of the Universe).
They wouldn't, of course. Which means that if something existed, it would be by definition supernatural, existing independently of laws of physics. As for the exact nature of said thing, I'm not going to speculate; see a number of theologians and horror fiction writers for that :).
Except saying that I still think that noodles looke a little like tentacles...
Heh. Linux 2.6.whatever sleep function fails (hangs indefinitely while suspending the machine) if the DVB drivers are loaded (whether the card is in use or not - just as long as the kernel has the drivers loaded). So it isn't a Windows-specific problem really.
Unless you could make the paddlewheel so small that it could be turned by a single individual particle (which, obviously, is only going to a single direction at the time). That way you could extract the kinetic energy of individual molecules/atoms, and not need a sink. Enough such paddlewheel, and you could turn heat into organized motion directly, without the need for a sink.
Nanotechnology, I'm looking at you !
If time began in the Big Bang, then the expressions "what happened before the Big Bang" and "whatever preceded the universe" are meaningless. This also means that there is no "prior state" which could had caused the Big Bang, since there was no preceding time said state could had existed in.
There are exactly two possibilities: either the cause for the Big Bang is contained within our reality, in which case it could not preceed the effect it caused (since the effect happened at the first moment of our reality) and therefore breaks the normal causal relationship, or it is not, in which case there are states of existence outside our reality.
Time travel with the ability to change the past, or Things From Beyond: one of these must exist, or the Universe couldn't. <voice tone="creepy">Pick one...</voice> Coming to think of it, spaghetti counts as tentacles, doesn't it ?-)
Sure there is; namely the simple fact that nature - universe - has to conform to the laws of physics while supernatural creatures - such as the hypothethical creator - don't, by definition of supernatural.
A game where the object is to deposit a white object into holes using thursts from a long stick 18 times in a row ?-)
I find it highly propable that all the people worth dating are already taken by the time they turn 30. Besides, merely changing your opinions easily doesn't make you worth dating; in fact it might make you a particularly difficult person, since one can never know what to expect from you.
Sigh. I'm 28 and have never dated :(. I guess I'm an evolutionary dead-end, so to say...
Human culture and all the construct arising from it is the result of natural processes (and ultimately fundamental physics) and as such natural in itself, every bit as natural as it is for bees to create hives, wolfs to run in packs, monkeys scratching each others pelts and so on. Natural selection - the fact that some entities are more likely to survive than others in a given environment - can, does, and has affected companies, countries and all other human organizations. That the selection is based on acquiring dollars (for corporations) instead of calories does not chance the basic mechanism.
This is incorrect. Our universe has a beginning, it hasn't existed forever. This isn't neccessarily true - and maybe even couldn't be, since time is a feature of the universe and wouldn't had existed before it began - of the hypothetical creator, in which case the "couldn't have been born by itself" becomes meaningless, since it was never born.
Intelligent Design isn't a (scientific) theory or even a hypothesis, but pure speculation. In order to qualify as a hypothesis, it would need to make at least one testable prediction; in order to qualify as a theory, that prediction would need to be tested and the result be found conforming with reality.
In some religions, yes, catholic christianity the most famous example amongst them. This is not true for all of them; there have been many religions which actively encouraged (temple) prostitution, and some religious sects still engage in flirty fishing (using sex to gain converts).
Most sects of christianity (which you're propably referring to with "religion") consider marriage as a God-given institution; therefore not respecting it is unlawful and in itself evil. In DnD terms these sects would be Lawful Good or Lawful Neutral.
The DnD alignment system has separate axis for Good-Evil and Laful-Chaotic. This means that law-abiding people can be extremely evil (and indeed, the Devils of DnD multiverse are Lawful Evil), while lawbreakers can be good (and yes, there are Chaotic Good celestials). In other words, sleeping around is not automatically sinful in DnD, as long as no one gets hurt. Consequently, there's no good reason why Chaotic Good beings - such as some celestials - wouldn't do just that. In fact the "Forgotten Realms" campaign setting includes a Chaotic Good goddess of hedonism and "sensual fullfillment", Sharess.
The lesson here is that fantasy worlds aren't neccessary consistent with the real world. Shocking, isn't it ?-)
AFAIK there's no discussion in the Bible about the possible sexuality of angels or the lack of it, apart from a single remark from Jesus which, frankly, is not sufficient basis to make any far-reaching conclusions about the matter, especially since the context was marriage rather than sexuality itself, and an unclear passage about God(s?) sons liking daughters of men (which, again, could mean pretty much anything) near the Genesis.
Not that any of this has anything to do with DnD celestials who, according to the Monster Manual, are capable of producing offspring with mortals and in fact do so in sufficient numbers that the descendants of the resulting half-celestials have a specific racial name (aasimar).
Finally, "eunuch" is a term for a man who's been castrated. I think that the term you mean is "asexual".
Apart from being utterly irrelevant to the matter at hand, since we're talking about actions and not the emotions behind them, there is no reason whatsoever to consider this to be true in the DnD universe.
DnD succubus are shapechangers. Read the Monster Manual and see for yourself.
I'd consider lawyers to be Neutral Evil. Lawful Evil would indicate that the subject keeps his word, follows the letter of the law, and generally behaves honorably but is indifferent to the suffering of others. Neutral Evil, on the other hand, indicates that the subject will do anything for his own profit, with no problems lying or twisting the law into a hideous mockery of itself if that's what it takes.
Don't be silly. This is very good: the website can now return as an undead monstrosity. Or it could simply have faked its own death. Or the Forces of Darkness (whatever they are in the particular campaign) resurrected it to continue its dark deeds. Or it was just the child process which died (and preferably became zombie), but the parent process keeps spawning new ones...
Death is a poor excuse for not reusing a villain.
Your incorrect assumption that laws have anything to do with justice, as opposed to simply being tools for enforcing order ?
Speaking of sex, I always wondered why there were no Upper Plane equivalent of Succubus. I mean, flirty fishing works and would be a perfect fit for Chaotic Good outsiders, so why don't they go about seducing blackguards away from evil or something ? A wink, kiss and some bedroom gymnastics could easily stop entire evil armies in their tracks.
In fact I'd say that the Balance requires such beings, unless of course sex is inherently evil in the DnD universe. I guess WotC is just too prudish to add them...
Marvel Comics ?-)
But they do anyway, and there's nothing you can do to stop it. The question is: how to minimize the damage and maximize the benefit ?
No it isn't. If that's all you want to do, get Linux - you'll be able to keep 100+ browser windows open at once accross as many virtual desktops you want, and aren't nearly as open to worms. No need to pay for any antivirus/firewall software either.
There, fixed that for you.
Um, so ? It's not like you can overcome 100+ people with a knife no matter how sharp, not when the people in question expect you to be a lunatic who'll kill them all if you're not stopped.
SCANDAL ON SLASHDOT
An article published on a popular Internet news site Slashdot has been revealed to contain inaccuracies. This shocking revelation, centered around an article concerning a possible attempt at arson committed by Verizon, Inc's employee against the company's customer in Needham, Mass., is only the latest scandal surrounding Slashdot. While the police did not give any details at this time, an attempt to indicate the local fire department of lying is rumored to be at the heart of the matter.
A Slashdot reader, identifying himself as a veteran of the Mission to Mars, expressed his outrage of the incident, but felt confident that the mental skills honed at that mission would help him cope through these traumatic times.
"I feel like a piece of my life was just wasted reading the article.", said one reader. Others have engaged in anti-social behavior; one caught in the act said: "Just had to do something to make reading this article worth my time."
-Ultranova, reporting live from Slashdot.
Near where I live some construction people severed an electric main while digging for the foundations of a new building and the whole city was left without power. Okay, that happens, to err is human, etc. The WTF part of this story is that these people, after severing a cable and seeing every light in the city around them wink out, didn't think to tell the power company (or anyone else for that matter) what had happened and where the fault was. It took 6 hours to get the power restored, all because these lazerbrains didn't draw the connection between the severed cable and the sudden blackout.
Or maybe they thought that no one would notice.
Do you ? The kid is still human and as such has human rights. At some point bringing him up the way you like will interfere with those rights and thus count as child abuse, for sufficiently extreme values of "the way you like". While using the Pope as a boogeyman propably wouldn't count (and might even be perfectly reasonable - the Pope does lead Catholic church after all, and said church has done many not-so-nice things over the years and continues doing others, such as the anti-condom campaign in Africa resulting in millions dying), social isolation propably should. After all, if you are isolated, you don't learn normal social skills, and if you don't learn those, your life is going to be very miserable.
Oh well, it just goes to show once again that there's nothing worse than being weak and at someone else's nonexistent mercy.
Unfortunately, this won't help OpenGL support any, nor will it help the programs which don't use either.
These days, I'm more surprised when an app doesn't work well in Wine than when it does.
I have never, ever, not even once, seen a single program to work well under Wine.
That isn't saying much ;(.