For a while after playing Duke3d, every time saw a vent cover I wanted to kick it open and crawl inside. Never actually went through with it, which means I must have tons of willpower.
On the other hand when I went to a shooting range, I was slightly worried that I'd feel like capping people around me. And yet I didn't get even the slightest urge in that direction. Weird, huh?
I loved the Zuma Deluxe (another PopCap title) trial, and when months later I noticed it for $9.99 at Best Buy, I bought it without a second thought. I'm not sure how many hours I spent playing and enjoying the game, but it was more than enough to justify that particular price. I don't think I would've bought it for $20, but in hindsight it still would have been a good deal. $30 would've been too expensive though.
I still come back to it once in a while to try to finish the last level, but I don't think I'll ever be able to do so.
There is life out there somewhere. We'll never find it because of the distances involved, but I am convinced it's there. I think we beat huge odds to get here, but there are still huge numbers of other civilizations that beat similar odds.
And with a huge enough number of civilizations, at least a few of them will beat the odds and discover ways to make the distances between us meaningless.
Not sure if its the fact that its past 2am and I've been browsing slashdot for hours, but that post made me laugh harder than anything in the Borat movie...
Surely small arms have been stolen from the IDF, but nothing else AFAIK (i.e.: planes, tanks, armored vehicles, etc)
Exactly. The small stuff gets stolen. The article is about Israel focusing on developing much smaller weapons. See the picture?
Fool, all those dead innocent children (the ones that die in the initial blast, and the ones that die by previously unexploded cluster bombs) will never grow up to become terrorists. How much more efficient could you get than that?
So if I suffer brain damage - for example, get a bullet through my brains and manage to survive - and as a result my personality is altered, am I now dead ? I seem to recall some guy working on a railroad construction having just that happen to him...
Yes, I'd say that the "old" you is dead. As far as I'm concerned, getting a lobotomy is no different from death either.
Do you have any proof of that, from studying identical twins for example ?
I hope you're not suggesting that identical twins are the same person and that if you kill one and the other one survives, then no one died because the genetic material is still alive. Of course genetic code plays a huge role in determining a person's personality, but it's not the only thing that does by far. Both nature and nurture are involved. By the way, if you haven't yet, check out the movie Prestige:)
You are equating "reincarnation" with "reincarnation with permanent total memory loss". While I doubt that we have a season ticket to this world, your arguments won't hold for all models of reincarnation.
All right, I haven't made a study of various reincarnation models. Still, merely accessing a few memories from a "past life" would not be enough. At best, a part of the previous incarnation would live on with you. If you could recover the totality of your personality from your past life, that would be a different story. Even so, the "ego" would become a merging of two different personalities. I wouldn't call it a complete death of the two as long as the resulting entity could recall what it was like to be both individuals, but still....
Even if you forget an experience, it is still a part of you. It has shaped your personality, who you really are. New experiences constantly modify the current whole, it's true, but it's a continuous matter. Changing a fundamental experience in the past would result in a remaking of the entire personality from that point on. A complete replacement of the "self". It makes no difference that the genetic code is the same.
Off topic, I similarly hold the opinion that if reincarnation existed it would be completely irrelevant. If I can't remember anything from my previous life and I won't remember this life from my next one, then as far as I'm concerned this is the only life I have. The previous and next incarnations would be complete strangers, and I should care about their circumstances exactly as much as I would about a complete stranger's.
Let's go for an obvious analogy. Someone gets irreversable amnesia and forgets everything about their life. Would you consider the original person dead? I would. And at how much memory loss do you draw the line between "this is a new person and the old one is dead" and "this is the same person"?
And we're not even talking about original memories replaced with different ones!
Unless of course time is static and cannot be changed, in which case the only way sending back the numbers will succeed is if you remember receiving the numbers in the past.
People's past experiences are a huge part of the people themselves. If you change the past, it is equivalent to murdering every single person in the present who is affected by the change and replacing them with someone similar. And if you extend it into the future, you could be responsible for an ever increasing number of murders, into the trillions if the human race survives long enough to breed that many. And don't forget the aliens. It would be immoral to do this to stop a major world war, much less "save" a few people's lives.
I'm not sure what this "Lockdown" is, but if it completely cuts off all internet/network access, then it could be pretty damn safe. Unless the virus was downloaded before the lockdown was activated.
Slashdot Mirror
For a while after playing Duke3d, every time saw a vent cover I wanted to kick it open and crawl inside. Never actually went through with it, which means I must have tons of willpower.
On the other hand when I went to a shooting range, I was slightly worried that I'd feel like capping people around me. And yet I didn't get even the slightest urge in that direction. Weird, huh?
I loved the Zuma Deluxe (another PopCap title) trial, and when months later I noticed it for $9.99 at Best Buy, I bought it without a second thought. I'm not sure how many hours I spent playing and enjoying the game, but it was more than enough to justify that particular price. I don't think I would've bought it for $20, but in hindsight it still would have been a good deal. $30 would've been too expensive though.
I still come back to it once in a while to try to finish the last level, but I don't think I'll ever be able to do so.
Freedom good, Terror better. Freedom good, Terror better. Freedom good, Terror better.
I can't wait to use this service to read the 3 $20 bills my grandma will send me for Christmas!
If you're making real life money, you should be paying real life taxes. It's as simple as that.
There is life out there somewhere. We'll never find it because of the distances involved, but I am convinced it's there. I think we beat huge odds to get here, but there are still huge numbers of other civilizations that beat similar odds.
And with a huge enough number of civilizations, at least a few of them will beat the odds and discover ways to make the distances between us meaningless.
I don't see how Humans would cease to be special on a individual or collective level when we discover life outside of our own solar system.
Why, the same way that the sanctity of marriage will be destroyed once gays can tie the knot. Don't you watch FOXNews?
And this is why Daikatana is the classic that it deserves to be.
Not sure if its the fact that its past 2am and I've been browsing slashdot for hours, but that post made me laugh harder than anything in the Borat movie...
Been around the world and seen that only stupid people are breeding,
The cretins cloning and feeding,
and I don't even own a T.V.
-Harvey Danger, Flagpole Sitta
(come get me, RIAA)
Surely small arms have been stolen from the IDF, but nothing else AFAIK (i.e.: planes, tanks, armored vehicles, etc) Exactly. The small stuff gets stolen. The article is about Israel focusing on developing much smaller weapons. See the picture?
Fool, all those dead innocent children (the ones that die in the initial blast, and the ones that die by previously unexploded cluster bombs) will never grow up to become terrorists. How much more efficient could you get than that?
Nuke?
So if I suffer brain damage - for example, get a bullet through my brains and manage to survive - and as a result my personality is altered, am I now dead ? I seem to recall some guy working on a railroad construction having just that happen to him...
:)
Yes, I'd say that the "old" you is dead. As far as I'm concerned, getting a lobotomy is no different from death either.
Do you have any proof of that, from studying identical twins for example ?
I hope you're not suggesting that identical twins are the same person and that if you kill one and the other one survives, then no one died because the genetic material is still alive. Of course genetic code plays a huge role in determining a person's personality, but it's not the only thing that does by far. Both nature and nurture are involved. By the way, if you haven't yet, check out the movie Prestige
You are equating "reincarnation" with "reincarnation with permanent total memory loss". While I doubt that we have a season ticket to this world, your arguments won't hold for all models of reincarnation.
All right, I haven't made a study of various reincarnation models. Still, merely accessing a few memories from a "past life" would not be enough. At best, a part of the previous incarnation would live on with you. If you could recover the totality of your personality from your past life, that would be a different story. Even so, the "ego" would become a merging of two different personalities. I wouldn't call it a complete death of the two as long as the resulting entity could recall what it was like to be both individuals, but still....
Even if you forget an experience, it is still a part of you. It has shaped your personality, who you really are. New experiences constantly modify the current whole, it's true, but it's a continuous matter. Changing a fundamental experience in the past would result in a remaking of the entire personality from that point on. A complete replacement of the "self". It makes no difference that the genetic code is the same. Off topic, I similarly hold the opinion that if reincarnation existed it would be completely irrelevant. If I can't remember anything from my previous life and I won't remember this life from my next one, then as far as I'm concerned this is the only life I have. The previous and next incarnations would be complete strangers, and I should care about their circumstances exactly as much as I would about a complete stranger's.
Let's go for an obvious analogy. Someone gets irreversable amnesia and forgets everything about their life. Would you consider the original person dead? I would. And at how much memory loss do you draw the line between "this is a new person and the old one is dead" and "this is the same person"?
And we're not even talking about original memories replaced with different ones!
Unless of course time is static and cannot be changed, in which case the only way sending back the numbers will succeed is if you remember receiving the numbers in the past.
And know that when you send back the numbers, you commit suicide because the current you will never have existed.
Speed is in the eye of the beholder. I remember being happy running Duke3D at 15fps.
Out of curiosity, how much better does scaling up look compared to scaling down?
People's past experiences are a huge part of the people themselves. If you change the past, it is equivalent to murdering every single person in the present who is affected by the change and replacing them with someone similar. And if you extend it into the future, you could be responsible for an ever increasing number of murders, into the trillions if the human race survives long enough to breed that many. And don't forget the aliens. It would be immoral to do this to stop a major world war, much less "save" a few people's lives.
Google translated Tiananmen Square article"
Click on the June 4 incident. It's in "protected from vandalism" mode.
Seriously, the obvious and convenient solution are secure keyboards and mice that encrypt the input signals before they even get to the computer!
Or what most people's computers will be able to do once they plop down $600 for a graphics card.
I'm not sure what this "Lockdown" is, but if it completely cuts off all internet/network access, then it could be pretty damn safe. Unless the virus was downloaded before the lockdown was activated.
Volume.