The problem with religion vs. science discussions on slashdot is that science-bots use the laymans religion to stage their attacks. If you're attacking religion at least get your facts strait. Religion = St. Augustine, Auquinas, Bacon (hmm, precursor to science...), Descartes, etc. Religion does not = televangelists, salem witch trials, crusades, etc. That would be like a pro-religious nut saying science is social darwinism, science-supported slavery, Athiest Stalinist Russia, etc.
The pro-religious posters on/. don't bring up these "scientific" errors, why do stubborn pro-science folks bring up layman religion that has nothing to do with real religion?
Agreed, and I would like to add that in good journalism the journalist cleans up the speach of the interviewee. Everyone speaks sloppily, saying, "like", "you know", "um", etc. It's even considered appropriate for the journalist to correct misused words in the interviewee's language. It's considered polite and respectful, because it's common knowledge that everyone would like to appear their best (this is what gives the interviewer this right). I knew some jackass was gonna comment on this when I was reading the article, but I'd say it's more Roblimo's fault than the interviewee's fault.
BZZZT! The surface of the earth cannot be damaged. Changed, yes, but not damaged. Unless you're suggesting that we need to get back to Pangaea somehow.
Look, there are natural tectonic processes that have been going on for as long as the earth existed. Volcanoes and earthquakes are CONSTANTLY reshaping the surface of the earth. THIS IS NOT DAMAGE. This is normal behavior for the ecosystem.
Come on now, you're not even attempting to understand what they are talking about. I don't know how this was modded insightful, but it is damage my friend. Animals died, habitats were destroyed, plant life uprooted/moved/destroyed, rare/endangered species killed (not that I know for a fact, can't see the webpage). This is damage. It doesn't matter that these animals would die eventually anyway, it doesn't matter that in 200,000 years that piece of ocean floor won't exist anymore.
Your cocky presumptiousness does not bely intelligence, it belies a refusal to understand something. Damaged, changed, modified, whatever it all means the same thing. And gee, the two "ridiculous" examples you list probably already happen somewhere in the world! People hunt to keep animal populations down (those bastard deer come to mind); I'm sure somewhere in the world predators are being kept away from herbavors to "protect" the herbavors from being "damaged". Hmm, maybe we should just ban the word "damaged", because obviously every thing that happens in the universe is due to nature. Therefore everything that happens would have happened eventually anyway, and it can not possibly be considered damage because it is "all in the natural order of things."
Why don't you use your self-proclaimed knowledge for something useful, like understanding that words can mean multiple things and not everything people write about is a semantic argument?
And there is nothing abitrary about gold (unlike paper money). The following properties make gold uniquely suitable as money:
- durability (it doesn't spoil, rust, break or tear, unlike paper )
- low weight (in relation to the other goods on the market, there is relativly few gold to go around, unlike paper)
- divisibility (gold does not have to be treated as a unit (unlike cars ie.), many small pieces are almost exaclty as useful as one larger piece, unlike paper)
- impossible to counterfeit ( as you noted, but I disagree that any paper money is)
- stable supply (very unlike paper)
- gold is a commodity serving real life purposes.
None of those things really matter; it's still an arbitrary decision made by a society to value something that has no intrinsic value.
Durability: yeah, and paper is the only thing anyone makes currency out of...coins, shells, etc are all durable; you don't have to worry about them breaking. Low Weight: clearly paper wins here, but coins and other forms of currency are also low weight. Divisibility: while it is true that coins, paper and other currencies cannot be split to make smaller amounts, they can be created in small enough values that you do not need to divide them (get rid of pennies, please!). Impossible to counterfit: yes, it is more likely that paper currency could be counterfited before gold, but is it that implausible to think that gold could be created through scientific processes someday soon? We already create diamonds. And how do you know that someone hasn't melted that gold down and mixed in 5-15% of a similar metal? Are you going to pull out your gold tester everytime you make a transaction? You could, but then someone could put a tasty lead center in each of their gold bars; with a little bit of math and weighing of things, you could figure out the right amount to put in the middle without throwing off the weight of the actual bar. Stable supply: no, I don't think so. It has a limited supply, but that does not make it stable. What if a corporation found thousands of tons of gold on a deep earth expedition? Or what about other planets? Diamonds have an artificial economy--we can make them, but the diamond companies won't allow those to be sold because it would destroy their profits. They limit the amount of diamonds that can be sold each year. I'm sure that a similar situation does/will occur the more gold is introduced to the world. gold is a commodity serving real life purposes. This one's really funny. I'll be laughing my ass off after the apocalypse when you're trying to plow your field with a gold plow, or trying to trade for food with useless gold jewelry; while I'm growing food with my steel/stone plow, trading food for commodities, etc. Please show me the "real life purpose" of gold. It's nothing more than an extravagence and status symbol, with no real worth outside of what a society places on it (hmm, sounds like currency...). If aliens come to earth, they're not gonna give a wit about chunks of heavy, dense metal; gold has no objective value.
Rare shells, rare metals other than gold, uniquely crafted items (be they paper, metal, or some other material), generally any item that can be forced to have a limited availability (human created or otherwise) fits these criteria.
PS: Wasn't the Depression in part caused by the gold standard, and the inability of the Federal reserve to pay out on all the people wanting to cash their currency in for the gold that it was "worth"? Unless you proposing using actual gold coins (which have other problems such as shaving and counterfiting) you are going to face many problems (population growth and economic growth necessitates more currency, but if it is so limited where's it gonna come from?).
Is that 2.5 GHz AMD Athlon 64 going to really perform as well as a 2.5 GHz Intel P4?
No, that 2.5 GHz AMD chip is going to perform as well as a 3.5-3.8 GHz Intel chip (or higher).
I've never had a problem with my AMD64 machine, and I run it for long periods of time under a decent amount of stress (and heat); I wasn't in the PC market when the earlier chips were around though so I didn't have a chance to become bitter towards AMD.
Your kowtowing to the police is quite frankly, rather amusing. I'm guessing you're either a.) related to a cop or b.) a cop yourself. I know cops, I've seen cops, I've been ticketed by cops, I have friends who are related to cops.
They all work unbelievably hard hours, get paid squat, and are universally disliked by people until it's their house that's broken into, or their neighbor that's trashing their yard, or their business that just got ripped off, or their kid that just got killed by a drunk driver.
mmkay then, I call bull. Those "hard hours"? sitting in a car, driving around in a car, writing tickets, not doin' much of anything. Cops are like this everywhere. Chicago (where I live now), the country (where I used to live). When it's time to write you a ticket? lickity-split, there's your ticket! When you call the police for some illegal activity? 1 hour, 2 hours...on and on.
So, is there anything in your professional life that you can size up at a glance? Do you know, when you see a certain type of server activity, that it's heavy load from a DoS attack? Or, that a certain sluggishness on a web browser is a bloated cache or some malware eating up performance? Are you at least in the neighborhood, making quick observations about things like that? Any chance that someone younger than you could, doing the same things all day, every day, for a few years, also arrive at that sort of observational skill?
Aye, 'cause reading a person is exactly the same as reading a computer. The cops sure seem to think so: racial profiling, age discrimination, "the cop's always right". No, it's not that the cop in question here knew what he was doing, it's that he refused to admit he was wrong; just like all cops-their ego is so huge, and they have such a fascist mentality, that they cannot possibly admit they were wrong.
Now, combine that with the fact that some of them are shot dead during traffic stops by people that have something serious to hide, or that one out of a couple dozen stops involves people who aren't licensed correctly, don't have current registrations, are impaired in some way, or actually have warrants out... it's no wonder that bad taillights, obnoxiously loud exhaust, or just crappy driving are what get people pulled over. A traffic stop is what caught Timothy McVeigh after he just killed 300 people. But the same cops that have to look for situations like that are the ones that are called into domestic violence fist-fights in lousy neighborhoods, or that are there to give even cop-hating ingrates CPR at the scene of an accident.
And where were the cops when Timothy and co. were putting together and executing their little plan? Obviously they weren't doing what they were supposed to; but hey, as long as we can catch them and punish them after the fact, it's all okay right? Frankly, whenever I see that a cop has been killed, I laugh my ass off; then I say out load: "he/she deserved it." I've never been protected from anything by a cop, but they certainly enjoy harrassing people. I'm not going to have sympathy for a moron who joins the police knowing full well that he could get killed. He decided to join, he can suffer the consequences.
I will admit that Chicago police have given me slightly more reason to respect cops, but the police that actually do their job properly will never make up for all the inadequate, self-serving dictators found in the suburbs and rural areas.
Are you kidding me? If you are not going to use and iPod as an mp3 player you are and idiot to spend that much money on it. You can easily by a pocket hdd that is much smaller than an iPod and does not require recharging and holds just as much as an iPod does. Plus your transfer rates are going to be better. Firewire??? Have you actually seen people in the non Mac world using firewire for anything other than video editing?
Uh, Yes? I don't know what world you live in, but in the world I live in anyone who's serious about computers (builds their own or at least pays close attention to hardware) has firewire on their computer. Theoretically USB 2.0 is as fast as ieee 1394 (400Mb/s), but in practice firewire always achieves higher speeds. Quiet a boon when you're transfering 20GB of mp3s to a 'pod. Also, see external HDDs, and peripherals that require a lot of bandwidth.
Seriously, episodes 4, 5, and 6 were about the rebels (clearly good guys fighting for their freedom) overcoming the "evil empire". It was clear where the good/bad distinction was. In episodes 1, 2, and 3, it's the story about how they got to that point. There were no clear sides, just decay throughout the entire old republic. Some people were good and some people were bad, but the good guys weren't organized to see what was going on....
A good interpretation, and seemingly valid. One thing I would like to point out, however: you're saying that Lucas draws a parallel between the "good" forces and the US, the "bad" forces and whatever our current enemy is. In the cold war era, the US was the blatant good side, whereas the USSR was the "obvious" evil empire. You then go on to say that in the new movies Lucas is portraying the shades of grey in current conflicts. Possible.
You left one part out though, ignoring it. You said that the Old Empire (the US, ie the good) is rife with decay/decadence: "There were no clear sides, just decay throughout the entire old republic." There is a clear side; whatever side is opposite the Emporor/Palpatine is good. Do you really think that Lucas is criticizing the US (Old Empire...) as suffering decay and decadence? While I believe this (that the US is going the way of Rome), I'm not so sure about Lucas. If Lucas doesn't believe this/desire to portray it, then I think that your earlier readings of epI-III are slightly...generous to Lucas.
On another topic: episodes I through III all suck/will suck; they are crippled by immature writing, excessive and careless use of CG, bad acting, unrealistic interactions/connections, and they completely miss the point of the original 3 star wars. Also, I believe that the three "prequels" are Georgie's mid-life crisis; he's desperatly attempting to prove that he can still make good movies, but all he manages to do is make his audience question whether he ever had that ability and wasn't just lucky.
Personally, I'd rather not have my soul trapped on the mortal plane through these (often permenent) ties to the material world. However, if you're walking around in public it's your fault for getting caught in a picture. Be more careful with your soul!
The way things are trending we'll have games where you only get to visit one room because it costs millions of dollars to texture the pillows, insects, cracks in the wall, navel fluff, etc
Hey now! That game sounds pretty cool. What can I do in the room? Can I invite girls? Friends? Can I relax on the luxurious cushions and smoke opium with said girls and friends? Ooh, we could play video games in the game! Can I change lightbulbs (and lighting), furniture arrangement, room shape, can I peep out the keyhole to see what a portion of the rest of the world looks like, how 'bout being able to look at any item in the room in as close of detail as humanly possible and it still looks realistic, etc? To be honest, this game sounds better than Tony Hawk, Halo, Star Wars game #23423, FF XXXVIII, etc...
No kidding, it reads like it's written by a high school LCD fanboy for his english essay.
The article barely touches on the response time inadequecies of LCDs. It even goes so far as saying that LCDs have a better picture than CRTs, when anyone who uses their computer for visual design knows the color problems with LCDs.
Come on here, just because you get a nice radiation bath with CRTs is no reason to hate on them and deny the areas that they excel over LCDs: color, darks/lights, any moving picture, etc...And this will be borne out by the legions of gamers, graphic designers and cg programmers who use CRTs because they are superior in these areas. I estimate I'll be able to buy a LCD in about 10 years that won't have these problems. Till then, it's always CRT for visually intensive work, maybe LCD for web surfing and office apps.
And the sad thing is there is no escape except educating the masses...which I'm rather pesimistic about. Running? Yeah, right you commie terrorist scum, US will hunt you down and kill you. Hiding? You have WMDs, US invade you.
Social Security and Welfare are two forms of social saftey nets to try and make sure that people that fall below a certain line can be helped back up (or at least that's the idea). But someone on welfare does not keep receiving welfare if they manage to pick themselves back up and start earning money again.
Why then does a program like Social Security make any sense? Why just because you get old are you garunteed to have the government pay you as long as you live?
Score -1, Missed the Point.
SS is not a "safety net" for people who for some unimaginable reason stop making money to support themselves. SS is basically a retirement fund that you pay into your whole life; if you've ever gotten a paycheck in your life, you would see that line where it says "social security tax". This is money you pay into the system in order to be guaranteed money when you can't make it. SS has nothing to do with welfare, other than the fact that republicans want to get rid of it. If you don't expect to get old, you're in for a rude awakening. You can't, however, expect the conditions that lead you into poverty (and hence welfare) at a young age.
While I don't have a problem with closing the gap between laptops and desktops, I don't think it's ever going to happen. I recognize the need for laptop computers in daily life for some people, but I think that in many cases they are merely an extravagence. Many of my non-computer owning friends say they want to buy a laptop; these same people live in the same place for at least one year (length of lease) and hardly ever travel. They work at regular jobs that don't involve travel, but still I hear "I am gonna buy a laptop."
The truth is laptops will not be as powerful/feature rich as a desktop any time in the forseeable future. Add to this that they cost twice as much (for less power and fewer features no less), they use a crappy LCD screen (they're not as good as CRTs, really, it's true - more eye strain, horrible refresh rate, bad color, etc), and the ergonomic issues.
Yet, somehow, laptops have become a fetishized product for young adults (18-30) who have little to no need for them. There are always going to be "hardcore" computer users who want to push their machine to the limit, and these people are going to continually highlight the inadequecies of the laptop. There's just not enough room (physical and virtual). 40 gigs? hah, gimme a break; I'd fill that up in two weeks. I wanna make direct copies of cds/dvds, not load it onto my hd. I wanna have audio options-5.1,7.1, digital/optica/analog output, input, etc, I want to be able to upgrade my computer with whatever new technology comes out.
Yet somehow, for some reason (hmm), these extremely expensive word processors that become obsolete twice as fast as desktops are a must have for people...then again, it probably relates to young people thinking they are gonna be great, or do great things, and that they're going to have to travel to do them. BANG! reality check.
Really? Do they really "dominate" in the way of performance? I haven't looked at the latest benchmarks. How much faster is AMD's best compared to Intel's? 20%? 30%? This is really not that significant when processors double in speed every 18 months.
Maybe if processors actually doubled speed every 18 months, but there is no law that claims that; it is a common misconception though, and given your previous comment I see you deserve some slack. Also, a top of the line AMD will outperform a top of the line Intel on most applications (barring perhaps multi-tasking...but then who multi-tasks when they're using avid or running farcry with max settings?)...especially if you're running a 64 bit operating system.
brkello: I agree with you that excessive video game usage doesn't lead to anything useful (for the most part), and I know I'm wasting my life when I play video games for a majority of my free time. brkello said:
but those are all imperfect, there is always some cheap technique that everyone uses...once you learn them, it all just becomes a race to how fast you can implement X strategy...rather than being able to adapt depending on your opponent
I disagree with this statement for sure. What you just described is not a video game master, you described a wanna-be video game master. An actual excellent player always sidesteps the "cheap" tactics. For example, I played Goldeneye 007 (n64) a lot, and I was good at it. I knew other people who considered themselves good. These people, however, were always the ones to immediatly go for the rocket launcher, or hover around the body armor. I still beat them everytime; no "cheap tactic" is as effective as an instinctive headshot. Furthermore, most of those cheap tactics come with severe disadvantages...rocket launchers are only good if you have shitty accuracy, if you can hit someone in the head just as easily with a pistol as you can blow 'em up with a rocket/grenade, then the pistol is the better weapon.
This does, however, tie in with the broader argument. While I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, there is the possibility of success through videogames. My evidence: Fatal1ty. Here is someone who makes enough money to live on (I'm assuming...he's probably got plenty with all his new endorsements) solely through videogames. For Cripes sake, he's even got "uber 1337" hardware out (at least a radeon graphics card and a mobo, that I know of). Now, I'm not gonna rush out and buy this stuff (too big an ego), but you gotta admit that simply reaks of success!
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The pro-religious posters on /. don't bring up these "scientific" errors, why do stubborn pro-science folks bring up layman religion that has nothing to do with real religion?
Agreed, and I would like to add that in good journalism the journalist cleans up the speach of the interviewee. Everyone speaks sloppily, saying, "like", "you know", "um", etc. It's even considered appropriate for the journalist to correct misused words in the interviewee's language. It's considered polite and respectful, because it's common knowledge that everyone would like to appear their best (this is what gives the interviewer this right). I knew some jackass was gonna comment on this when I was reading the article, but I'd say it's more Roblimo's fault than the interviewee's fault.
Come on now, you're not even attempting to understand what they are talking about. I don't know how this was modded insightful, but it is damage my friend. Animals died, habitats were destroyed, plant life uprooted/moved/destroyed, rare/endangered species killed (not that I know for a fact, can't see the webpage). This is damage. It doesn't matter that these animals would die eventually anyway, it doesn't matter that in 200,000 years that piece of ocean floor won't exist anymore.
Your cocky presumptiousness does not bely intelligence, it belies a refusal to understand something. Damaged, changed, modified, whatever it all means the same thing. And gee, the two "ridiculous" examples you list probably already happen somewhere in the world! People hunt to keep animal populations down (those bastard deer come to mind); I'm sure somewhere in the world predators are being kept away from herbavors to "protect" the herbavors from being "damaged". Hmm, maybe we should just ban the word "damaged", because obviously every thing that happens in the universe is due to nature. Therefore everything that happens would have happened eventually anyway, and it can not possibly be considered damage because it is "all in the natural order of things."
Why don't you use your self-proclaimed knowledge for something useful, like understanding that words can mean multiple things and not everything people write about is a semantic argument?
- durability (it doesn't spoil, rust, break or tear, unlike paper )
- low weight (in relation to the other goods on the market, there is relativly few gold to go around, unlike paper)
- divisibility (gold does not have to be treated as a unit (unlike cars ie.), many small pieces are almost exaclty as useful as one larger piece, unlike paper)
- impossible to counterfeit ( as you noted, but I disagree that any paper money is)
- stable supply (very unlike paper)
- gold is a commodity serving real life purposes.
None of those things really matter; it's still an arbitrary decision made by a society to value something that has no intrinsic value.
Durability: yeah, and paper is the only thing anyone makes currency out of...coins, shells, etc are all durable; you don't have to worry about them breaking.
Low Weight: clearly paper wins here, but coins and other forms of currency are also low weight.
Divisibility: while it is true that coins, paper and other currencies cannot be split to make smaller amounts, they can be created in small enough values that you do not need to divide them (get rid of pennies, please!).
Impossible to counterfit: yes, it is more likely that paper currency could be counterfited before gold, but is it that implausible to think that gold could be created through scientific processes someday soon? We already create diamonds. And how do you know that someone hasn't melted that gold down and mixed in 5-15% of a similar metal? Are you going to pull out your gold tester everytime you make a transaction? You could, but then someone could put a tasty lead center in each of their gold bars; with a little bit of math and weighing of things, you could figure out the right amount to put in the middle without throwing off the weight of the actual bar.
Stable supply: no, I don't think so. It has a limited supply, but that does not make it stable. What if a corporation found thousands of tons of gold on a deep earth expedition? Or what about other planets? Diamonds have an artificial economy--we can make them, but the diamond companies won't allow those to be sold because it would destroy their profits. They limit the amount of diamonds that can be sold each year. I'm sure that a similar situation does/will occur the more gold is introduced to the world.
gold is a commodity serving real life purposes. This one's really funny. I'll be laughing my ass off after the apocalypse when you're trying to plow your field with a gold plow, or trying to trade for food with useless gold jewelry; while I'm growing food with my steel/stone plow, trading food for commodities, etc. Please show me the "real life purpose" of gold. It's nothing more than an extravagence and status symbol, with no real worth outside of what a society places on it (hmm, sounds like currency...). If aliens come to earth, they're not gonna give a wit about chunks of heavy, dense metal; gold has no objective value.
Rare shells, rare metals other than gold, uniquely crafted items (be they paper, metal, or some other material), generally any item that can be forced to have a limited availability (human created or otherwise) fits these criteria.
PS: Wasn't the Depression in part caused by the gold standard, and the inability of the Federal reserve to pay out on all the people wanting to cash their currency in for the gold that it was "worth"? Unless you proposing using actual gold coins (which have other problems such as shaving and counterfiting) you are going to face many problems (population growth and economic growth necessitates more currency, but if it is so limited where's it gonna come from?).
This has obvious implications.
Well, that would make you uneducated on the issue, and someone who believes a little too much in propaganda.
Stem cells are harvested from embryos used in Invetro fertilization, or they are cloned:
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,66533,00. html?tw=wn_tophead_3
Aborted fetuses? Okay...
No, that 2.5 GHz AMD chip is going to perform as well as a 3.5-3.8 GHz Intel chip (or higher).
I've never had a problem with my AMD64 machine, and I run it for long periods of time under a decent amount of stress (and heat); I wasn't in the PC market when the earlier chips were around though so I didn't have a chance to become bitter towards AMD.
They all work unbelievably hard hours, get paid squat, and are universally disliked by people until it's their house that's broken into, or their neighbor that's trashing their yard, or their business that just got ripped off, or their kid that just got killed by a drunk driver.
mmkay then, I call bull. Those "hard hours"? sitting in a car, driving around in a car, writing tickets, not doin' much of anything. Cops are like this everywhere. Chicago (where I live now), the country (where I used to live). When it's time to write you a ticket? lickity-split, there's your ticket! When you call the police for some illegal activity? 1 hour, 2 hours...on and on.
So, is there anything in your professional life that you can size up at a glance? Do you know, when you see a certain type of server activity, that it's heavy load from a DoS attack? Or, that a certain sluggishness on a web browser is a bloated cache or some malware eating up performance? Are you at least in the neighborhood, making quick observations about things like that? Any chance that someone younger than you could, doing the same things all day, every day, for a few years, also arrive at that sort of observational skill?
Aye, 'cause reading a person is exactly the same as reading a computer. The cops sure seem to think so: racial profiling, age discrimination, "the cop's always right". No, it's not that the cop in question here knew what he was doing, it's that he refused to admit he was wrong; just like all cops-their ego is so huge, and they have such a fascist mentality, that they cannot possibly admit they were wrong.
Now, combine that with the fact that some of them are shot dead during traffic stops by people that have something serious to hide, or that one out of a couple dozen stops involves people who aren't licensed correctly, don't have current registrations, are impaired in some way, or actually have warrants out... it's no wonder that bad taillights, obnoxiously loud exhaust, or just crappy driving are what get people pulled over. A traffic stop is what caught Timothy McVeigh after he just killed 300 people. But the same cops that have to look for situations like that are the ones that are called into domestic violence fist-fights in lousy neighborhoods, or that are there to give even cop-hating ingrates CPR at the scene of an accident.
And where were the cops when Timothy and co. were putting together and executing their little plan? Obviously they weren't doing what they were supposed to; but hey, as long as we can catch them and punish them after the fact, it's all okay right? Frankly, whenever I see that a cop has been killed, I laugh my ass off; then I say out load: "he/she deserved it." I've never been protected from anything by a cop, but they certainly enjoy harrassing people. I'm not going to have sympathy for a moron who joins the police knowing full well that he could get killed. He decided to join, he can suffer the consequences.
I will admit that Chicago police have given me slightly more reason to respect cops, but the police that actually do their job properly will never make up for all the inadequate, self-serving dictators found in the suburbs and rural areas.
Uh, Yes? I don't know what world you live in, but in the world I live in anyone who's serious about computers (builds their own or at least pays close attention to hardware) has firewire on their computer. Theoretically USB 2.0 is as fast as ieee 1394 (400Mb/s), but in practice firewire always achieves higher speeds. Quiet a boon when you're transfering 20GB of mp3s to a 'pod. Also, see external HDDs, and peripherals that require a lot of bandwidth.
A good interpretation, and seemingly valid. One thing I would like to point out, however: you're saying that Lucas draws a parallel between the "good" forces and the US, the "bad" forces and whatever our current enemy is. In the cold war era, the US was the blatant good side, whereas the USSR was the "obvious" evil empire. You then go on to say that in the new movies Lucas is portraying the shades of grey in current conflicts. Possible.
You left one part out though, ignoring it. You said that the Old Empire (the US, ie the good) is rife with decay/decadence: "There were no clear sides, just decay throughout the entire old republic." There is a clear side; whatever side is opposite the Emporor/Palpatine is good. Do you really think that Lucas is criticizing the US (Old Empire...) as suffering decay and decadence? While I believe this (that the US is going the way of Rome), I'm not so sure about Lucas. If Lucas doesn't believe this/desire to portray it, then I think that your earlier readings of epI-III are slightly...generous to Lucas.
On another topic: episodes I through III all suck/will suck; they are crippled by immature writing, excessive and careless use of CG, bad acting, unrealistic interactions/connections, and they completely miss the point of the original 3 star wars. Also, I believe that the three "prequels" are Georgie's mid-life crisis; he's desperatly attempting to prove that he can still make good movies, but all he manages to do is make his audience question whether he ever had that ability and wasn't just lucky.
They used Noober as a test of your "goodness". If you killed him you failed.
The fact that he was named Noober is just icing on the cake.
Personally, I'd rather not have my soul trapped on the mortal plane through these (often permenent) ties to the material world. However, if you're walking around in public it's your fault for getting caught in a picture. Be more careful with your soul!
Hey now! That game sounds pretty cool. What can I do in the room? Can I invite girls? Friends? Can I relax on the luxurious cushions and smoke opium with said girls and friends? Ooh, we could play video games in the game! Can I change lightbulbs (and lighting), furniture arrangement, room shape, can I peep out the keyhole to see what a portion of the rest of the world looks like, how 'bout being able to look at any item in the room in as close of detail as humanly possible and it still looks realistic, etc? To be honest, this game sounds better than Tony Hawk, Halo, Star Wars game #23423, FF XXXVIII, etc...
Quote from the PS4 press release: "PS4 will provide graphics indistinguishable from reality."
What about the PS9? Come on, you saw those commercials that aired when the PS2 was release. Best. Commercial. Evar.
No, the development kits sent out to game developers were essentially modded G5s. Pretty much any gaming mag will have the scoop, like Game Informer.
Eh, we can just call him Jesus and be done with it.
The article barely touches on the response time inadequecies of LCDs. It even goes so far as saying that LCDs have a better picture than CRTs, when anyone who uses their computer for visual design knows the color problems with LCDs.
Come on here, just because you get a nice radiation bath with CRTs is no reason to hate on them and deny the areas that they excel over LCDs: color, darks/lights, any moving picture, etc...And this will be borne out by the legions of gamers, graphic designers and cg programmers who use CRTs because they are superior in these areas. I estimate I'll be able to buy a LCD in about 10 years that won't have these problems. Till then, it's always CRT for visually intensive work, maybe LCD for web surfing and office apps.
If I wanted all of my moving images to have Gaussian Blur, I'd photoshop them!
Soylent Green wouldn't work if people didn't die.
And the sad thing is there is no escape except educating the masses...which I'm rather pesimistic about. Running? Yeah, right you commie terrorist scum, US will hunt you down and kill you. Hiding? You have WMDs, US invade you.
Score -1, Missed the Point.
SS is not a "safety net" for people who for some unimaginable reason stop making money to support themselves. SS is basically a retirement fund that you pay into your whole life; if you've ever gotten a paycheck in your life, you would see that line where it says "social security tax". This is money you pay into the system in order to be guaranteed money when you can't make it. SS has nothing to do with welfare, other than the fact that republicans want to get rid of it. If you don't expect to get old, you're in for a rude awakening. You can't, however, expect the conditions that lead you into poverty (and hence welfare) at a young age.
While I don't have a problem with closing the gap between laptops and desktops, I don't think it's ever going to happen. I recognize the need for laptop computers in daily life for some people, but I think that in many cases they are merely an extravagence. Many of my non-computer owning friends say they want to buy a laptop; these same people live in the same place for at least one year (length of lease) and hardly ever travel. They work at regular jobs that don't involve travel, but still I hear "I am gonna buy a laptop."
The truth is laptops will not be as powerful/feature rich as a desktop any time in the forseeable future. Add to this that they cost twice as much (for less power and fewer features no less), they use a crappy LCD screen (they're not as good as CRTs, really, it's true - more eye strain, horrible refresh rate, bad color, etc), and the ergonomic issues.
Yet, somehow, laptops have become a fetishized product for young adults (18-30) who have little to no need for them. There are always going to be "hardcore" computer users who want to push their machine to the limit, and these people are going to continually highlight the inadequecies of the laptop. There's just not enough room (physical and virtual). 40 gigs? hah, gimme a break; I'd fill that up in two weeks. I wanna make direct copies of cds/dvds, not load it onto my hd. I wanna have audio options-5.1,7.1, digital/optica/analog output, input, etc, I want to be able to upgrade my computer with whatever new technology comes out.
Yet somehow, for some reason (hmm), these extremely expensive word processors that become obsolete twice as fast as desktops are a must have for people...then again, it probably relates to young people thinking they are gonna be great, or do great things, and that they're going to have to travel to do them. BANG! reality check.
I always think that when I see the armored trucks, and it doesn't have anything to do with GTA.
Maybe if processors actually doubled speed every 18 months, but there is no law that claims that; it is a common misconception though, and given your previous comment I see you deserve some slack. Also, a top of the line AMD will outperform a top of the line Intel on most applications (barring perhaps multi-tasking...but then who multi-tasks when they're using avid or running farcry with max settings?)...especially if you're running a 64 bit operating system.
Space Elevator and Carbon Nanotubes!
brkello: I agree with you that excessive video game usage doesn't lead to anything useful (for the most part), and I know I'm wasting my life when I play video games for a majority of my free time. brkello said:
but those are all imperfect, there is always some cheap technique that everyone uses...once you learn them, it all just becomes a race to how fast you can implement X strategy...rather than being able to adapt depending on your opponent
I disagree with this statement for sure. What you just described is not a video game master, you described a wanna-be video game master. An actual excellent player always sidesteps the "cheap" tactics. For example, I played Goldeneye 007 (n64) a lot, and I was good at it. I knew other people who considered themselves good. These people, however, were always the ones to immediatly go for the rocket launcher, or hover around the body armor. I still beat them everytime; no "cheap tactic" is as effective as an instinctive headshot. Furthermore, most of those cheap tactics come with severe disadvantages...rocket launchers are only good if you have shitty accuracy, if you can hit someone in the head just as easily with a pistol as you can blow 'em up with a rocket/grenade, then the pistol is the better weapon.
This does, however, tie in with the broader argument. While I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, there is the possibility of success through videogames. My evidence: Fatal1ty. Here is someone who makes enough money to live on (I'm assuming...he's probably got plenty with all his new endorsements) solely through videogames. For Cripes sake, he's even got "uber 1337" hardware out (at least a radeon graphics card and a mobo, that I know of). Now, I'm not gonna rush out and buy this stuff (too big an ego), but you gotta admit that simply reaks of success!