For non-fiction, computer screens are fine. However, for fiction, I'm never switching from paper as long as it's available. There's something about a real book that I just like. Bright shiny computer screens are distracting to the process of immersion and imagination that helps make books worth reading.
Language is primarily a functional thing. Things like contractions evolve to make communication more efficient. Although in formal English, contractions are still discouraged today. Just because kids are using netspeak doesn't mean they're any stupider than I am for using contractions in this post. To them it's normal and speeds communication. Language is not a perfect measure of intelligence.
Every time I hear about WoW I want to play it... but at this point, everything I hear about it is bad (everyone who's enjoying it are busy playing it rather than writing about it apparently). I really enjoyed Diablo II, but I'm also well aware of how much of my life that game sucked away. Again, I think I'm not going to get it. Another disaster averted... until the next time I hear of WoW.
My mistake. You're right, the GPU was called Flipper not Gekko which was a PowerPC variant developed by IBM.
As for sources on ArtX being behind ATi's resurgence
http://www.ati.com/companyinfo/press/2002/4512.htm l
straight from the horse's mouth. Google is your friend (terms: radeon 9700 artx)
I wasn't questioning ARM's existence in 1989, but pointing out the absurdness of the idea that a portable game player featured a 32 bit CPU at a time when consoles still used 8 bit and (just barely) 16 bit CPUs.
Yeah, but considering how many glaring errors were found in the portions pertaining to the history of gaming, do you really trust this guy to tell you about the future? The author thinks the first Game Boy had a 32 bit ARM7.
What a poor article. I'm not sure why this was even posted here. Questionable portions are in quotes followed by commentary:
"With CPUs running at several gigahertz plus a high-performance video card or two, PC gaming is now just as lifelike as its console-based competition."
This might have read better if the author had declared that such a PC will give a good idea of the power of next-gen consoles (in particular running tech such as the unreleasd Unreal 3.0).
"When it first appeared in 1996, the Nintendo 64 console took a technological leap to a MIPS R4300 64-bit microprocessor running at about 93 MHz. A custom coprocessor chip that handled the graphics and audio could deliver 2 million colors, 150k polygons/s, and 64 channels of audio."
The custom (graphics) "coprocessor" delivered 64 channels of audio? That's news to me. By the way, I seem to remember a few N64 games featuring 24 bit color (although it was rare... in more ways than one).
"...Sony's PlayStation 2, Microsoft's X-Box, and Nintendo's GameCube. They use multihundred-megahertz 32- or 64-bit microprocessors..."
Followed later by: "Just four years later, the Sony PlayStation 2 (PS2) thrilled the gaming community with almost cinematic graphics based on a 128-bit custom processor called the Emotion Engine."
Oh look, the PS2's CPU went from 64 to 128 bits (as if this matters).
"The internal geometry engine performs antialiasing..."
*chuckles*
"The Sony system was one of the first consoles to include a DVD/CD optical drive..."
Nope, it was THE first. When in doubt, use "about". If you're too lazy to look up the correct information anyway.
"Nintendo countered the PS2 with the GameCube in 2001. Based on a customized PowerPC CPU dubbed "Gekko" and a graphics engine developed jointly with ATI Technologies [insert useless specs here]"
Gekko was developed by ArtX which was acquired by ATi just before GameCube was released (but long after development of the chip was completed). The acquisition eventually leveled the playing field in PC graphics when the ArtX team went on to design the lauded Radeon 9700 and ATi's subsequent GPU's.
"...initial versions included an 8-Gbyte hard drive to improve startup time. Microsoft has since removed that drive to lower system costs."
Microsoft has removed the harddrive from the original XBox to cut system costs? That's news to me.
"(ATI supplied the graphics for the PS2, while Nvidia provided the graphics for the original X-Box.)"
Wrong again. ATi did not supply the graphics for the PS2.
"But the big question is whether Microsoft will leverage IBM's technology for the Cell processor, or the CPU or CPUs will take more standard approaches."
Jesus H. Christ. Microsoft does not have access to the Cell processor. That will be a Sony exclusive for the next-gen console wars. Any idiot can see that.
"Though budget-priced, with costs ranging from $60 to $180, they pack a tremendous amount of technology."
The PSP will cost 250 in the states. This guy is clearly using the Japanese sale price of the PSP.
"The original Game Boy and Game Boy Advance are based around a single 32-bit ARM7 CPU with 128 kbytes of embedded memory and 24 kbytes of off-chip RAM."
Wow, the original Game Boy, released in 1989, uses a 32 bit ARM7? I'm not into the cell phone market, so there's no telling how much of that information was false.
See, this is why I don't get my information from "professional" journalists.
What a poor article. I'm not sure why this was even posted here. Questionable portions are in quotes followed by commentary:
"With CPUs running at several gigahertz plus a high-performance video card or two, PC gaming is now just as lifelike as its console-based competition."
This might have read better if the author had declared that such a PC will give a good idea of the power of next-gen consoles (in particular running tech such as the unreleasd Unreal 3.0).
"When it first appeared in 1996, the Nintendo 64 console took a technological leap to a MIPS R4300 64-bit microprocessor running at about 93 MHz. A custom coprocessor chip that handled the graphics and audio could deliver 2 million colors, 150k polygons/s, and 64 channels of audio."
The custom (graphics) "coprocessor" delivered 64 channels of audio? That's news to me. By the way, I seem to remember a few N64 games featuring 24 bit color (although it was rare... in more ways than one).
"...Sony's PlayStation 2, Microsoft's X-Box, and Nintendo's GameCube. They use multihundred-megahertz 32- or 64-bit microprocessors..."
Followed later by:
"Just four years later, the Sony PlayStation 2 (PS2) thrilled the gaming community with almost cinematic graphics based on a 128-bit custom processor called the Emotion Engine."
Oh look, the PS2's CPU went from 64 to 128 bits (as if this matters).
"The internal geometry engine performs antialiasing..."
*chuckles*
"The Sony system was one of the first consoles to include a DVD/CD optical drive..."
Nope, it was THE first. When in doubt, use "about". If you're too lazy to look up the correct information anyway.
"Nintendo countered the PS2 with the GameCube in 2001. Based on a customized PowerPC CPU dubbed "Gekko" and a graphics engine developed jointly with ATI Technologies [insert useless specs here]"
Gekko was developed by ArtX which was acquired by ATi just before GameCube was released (but long after development of the chip was completed). The acquisition eventually leveled the playing field in PC graphics when the ArtX team went on to design the lauded Radeon 9700 and ATi's subsequent GPU's.
"...initial versions included an 8-Gbyte hard drive to improve startup time. Microsoft has since removed that drive to lower system costs."
Microsoft has removed the harddrive from the original XBox to cut system costs? That's news to me.
"(ATI supplied the graphics for the PS2, while Nvidia provided the graphics for the original X-Box.)"
Wrong again. ATi did not supply the graphics for the PS2.
"But the big question is whether Microsoft will leverage IBM's technology for the Cell processor, or the CPU or CPUs will take more standard approaches."
Jesus H. Christ. Microsoft does not have access to the Cell processor. That will be a Sony exclusive for the next-gen console wars. Any idiot can see that.
"Though budget-priced, with costs ranging from $60 to $180, they pack a tremendous amount of technology."
The PSP will cost 250 in the states. This guy is clearly using the Japanese sale price of the PSP.
"The original Game Boy and Game Boy Advance are based around a single 32-bit ARM7 CPU with 128 kbytes of embedded memory and 24 kbytes of off-chip RAM."
Wow, the original Game Boy, released in 1989, uses a 32 bit ARM7?
I'm not into the cell phone market, so there's no telling how much of that information was false.
I'll believe it when I see it.
With a crazy new architecture like this, *everything* is on paper right now. The hardware, the software, everything. The only thing that is virtually gauranteed is that the PS3 will have a few of these things in it and that it will sell in droves. Just how useful and powerful this chip will be in practice remains to be seen.
Use it for practical jokes on dumb people and/or kids (say around halloween time)... you'd need to arrange for a person to call and pretend to be somebody dead and then someone else points out that the phone is not plugged in...
You would think that we would have learned our lesson from the PS2 hype, but then again, perhaps Sony has learned there lesson as well.
I think one thing is clear. The PS3 will easily outperform the XBox 2 and Nintendo's "revolution". As long as the programmers can cope with the new paradigm.
Not to shabby? You must have had low expectations
on
PSP Battery Journal
·
· Score: 1
I don't even take handhelds out of the house 95% of the time and a 5 hour battery life would really suck. If I planned to actually take the thing places, 5 hours would not cut it at all.
By the way, I should add that I posted this at a critical moment prior to reading a paragraph that clearly indicates that this is in jest. The article becomes less and less believable with each page. I wonder how long it's taking each person to realize that it's bullshit.
I come here to see what people's take is on this article (I find it difficult to believe first of all) and instead everybody's arguging about politics.
Congratulations to the author of the post who couldn't resist a jab at Gore. Why can't we just leave the ****ing politics where they belong (like maybe another website)?
It depends on what you mean by a "not so well known" state college. It also depends on what you teach yourself in your spare time and how activately you are in pursuing available internships and lining up a job BEFORE you graduate. If you go to a relatively unknown state college, don't use their placement program, don't learn anything in your spare time and then start looking for a job after you graduate (in particular if you limit yourself to the area you graduated in) then you may very well be looking at NO job not just a string of crappy ones.
So just how crappy is this state college? What area do you hope to become employed in?
I suggest that you check the paper every week as if you're looking for a job already and see what kind of skills employers are really looking for.
In my area they want skills and experience more than anything, not just a degree.
"Also, if you haven't noticed, the Slashdot poll shows once and for all where Slashdot readers fall on the election."
Anyone who didn't notice prior to this poll that Slashdot is a haven for liberals is blind. I'm still trying to figure out how so many ostensibly intelligent tech people went so wrong.
I suppose ostensibly is the key word there.
How can they be so stupid. The key ingredient is people. You don't hear about people being addicted to offline games. It's online games like evercrack, diablo ii and socom ii that are addicting to certain types of people. The other games run out of stuff to do eventually.
What makes books compelling is immediately removed when you try to mix them with video games. The automatic use of imagination to convert the words on a paper into an active memory in your head is what books are all about. Any attempt at mixing this with a video medium removes the majority of what makes a book a book.
First of all I just want to say that Slashdot is full of idiots. Someone asks a question about a serious mental disorder, looking for other people who have had experience with it, and most of the people on this thread are cracking distasteful jokes or telling you to look elsewhere. I apologize for their rude behavior.
Anyway... I'll just review what others have said that I think is helpful. Getting the patient to take medication can be the most difficult thing indeed. My friend was gaining weight due to the medication making him want to eat a lot. He leveled out, but his grandma (of all people!) would antagonize him about his weight! So of course, he would often stop taking the meds because he didn't want to be fat (especially with idiots telling him he was fat).
I wonder how things might have been different if this guy had never drank alcohol or smoked marajuana. If nothing else, friends and famaily probably would have gotten the disorder diagonosed more quickly. In the most extreme case, perhaps he never would have manifested the disorder. I don't know enough about it to comment further, but I think some of same neurotransmitters involved in marijuana use are involved in Schizophrenia (not to mention LSD which he also did a bit more than a few times).
I can never tell when he is or isn't taking his meds because sometimes he tells me he's not and yet he seems to be acting normal. This disorder has seemed to regress a bit, but at other times I've seen him manifest (apparently) typical behavior. Thinking that the government is watching him, that his phones are tapped, that there are listening devices in the walls, that the world is generally out to get him (I'm surprised he continued to trust me throughout all of this).
The delusions are further aggravated by religion. His mother is a Catholic (as is his Grandma who he lives with) and his father is a relatively fundamentalist protestant. He is significantly worried about burning in Hell forever at times (sometimes he's convinced that he can't avoid this fate; I've read of people going crazy from this alone). Be aware of the religious environment that your sister is in. My friends grandmother, as I said, is a Catholic, but he is a protestant (taking after his father). This has resulted in some legendary arguments (just look around the Internet using Google for Protestant vs. Catholic disputes). That's definitely not a good environment for a person with such a disorder to live in. He's not living with his parents because for reasons I'm not sure of, he attacked his father once and was kicked out (it's not like they've disowned him or anything, they just won't let him live there). Obviously I can't expect you or your sister to abandon any religion you might adhere to, but try to emphasis the how-you-live-your-life aspect over the you're-going-to-burn-in-hell-forever if you're not careful aspect. I'm personally agnostic, but there are defendable forms of Christianity that don't include an eternal Hell (universalism teaches that everyone will *eventually* go to Heaven, annihilationists teach that God will simply wipe bad people out of existance rather than pointlessly tormenting them for eternity). Unfortunately, my friend cannot be swayed from such beliefs. Afterall, it seems safest to believe that God is going to torment you forever and take the "necessary" steps to avoid it than it is to assume otherwise (regardless of how irrational the idea that a perfect loving God would eternally torment an imperfect creation for imperfection is).
In short, make sure your sister takes her meds. If she gains weight, be supportive and maybe try and subtly change her diet and monitor her eating (rather than telling her she's fat and expecting her to change her eating rather than stop taking the meds). Depending on the severity of the disorder, she may be able to live a relatively normal life. The more severe it is, the more support she will need from family. Ultimately, you can't expect this problem to take care of itself (via medication). You'll need to take an active roll in your daugther's well being unless you're blessed with a mild case and a cooperative patient.
Slashdot Mirror
For non-fiction, computer screens are fine. However, for fiction, I'm never switching from paper as long as it's available. There's something about a real book that I just like. Bright shiny computer screens are distracting to the process of immersion and imagination that helps make books worth reading.
Seriously, why doesn't Texas just cecede. That state is a disgrace to freedom on both sides of the aisle.
We deny that it is caused by people. The earth has been undergoing warm/cool cycles for millions of years. Nature's a bitch, get over it.
Language is primarily a functional thing. Things like contractions evolve to make communication more efficient. Although in formal English, contractions are still discouraged today. Just because kids are using netspeak doesn't mean they're any stupider than I am for using contractions in this post. To them it's normal and speeds communication. Language is not a perfect measure of intelligence.
Every time I hear about WoW I want to play it... but at this point, everything I hear about it is bad (everyone who's enjoying it are busy playing it rather than writing about it apparently). I really enjoyed Diablo II, but I'm also well aware of how much of my life that game sucked away. Again, I think I'm not going to get it. Another disaster averted... until the next time I hear of WoW.
Well what are we all waiting for then? Let's vote libertarian!
Some of us work in the same room as this junk you know. I already wear a coat all year long. If it gets any colder I fucking quit!
My mistake. You're right, the GPU was called Flipper not Gekko which was a PowerPC variant developed by IBM. As for sources on ArtX being behind ATi's resurgence http://www.ati.com/companyinfo/press/2002/4512.htm l
straight from the horse's mouth. Google is your friend (terms: radeon 9700 artx)
I wasn't questioning ARM's existence in 1989, but pointing out the absurdness of the idea that a portable game player featured a 32 bit CPU at a time when consoles still used 8 bit and (just barely) 16 bit CPUs.
Yeah, but considering how many glaring errors were found in the portions pertaining to the history of gaming, do you really trust this guy to tell you about the future? The author thinks the first Game Boy had a 32 bit ARM7.
"With CPUs running at several gigahertz plus a high-performance video card or two, PC gaming is now just as lifelike as its console-based competition."
This might have read better if the author had declared that such a PC will give a good idea of the power of next-gen consoles (in particular running tech such as the unreleasd Unreal 3.0).
"When it first appeared in 1996, the Nintendo 64 console took a technological leap to a MIPS R4300 64-bit microprocessor running at about 93 MHz. A custom coprocessor chip that handled the graphics and audio could deliver 2 million colors, 150k polygons/s, and 64 channels of audio."
The custom (graphics) "coprocessor" delivered 64 channels of audio? That's news to me. By the way, I seem to remember a few N64 games featuring 24 bit color (although it was rare... in more ways than one).
"...Sony's PlayStation 2, Microsoft's X-Box, and Nintendo's GameCube. They use multihundred-megahertz 32- or 64-bit microprocessors..."
Followed later by: "Just four years later, the Sony PlayStation 2 (PS2) thrilled the gaming community with almost cinematic graphics based on a 128-bit custom processor called the Emotion Engine."
Oh look, the PS2's CPU went from 64 to 128 bits (as if this matters).
"The internal geometry engine performs antialiasing..."
*chuckles*
"The Sony system was one of the first consoles to include a DVD/CD optical drive..."
Nope, it was THE first. When in doubt, use "about". If you're too lazy to look up the correct information anyway.
"Nintendo countered the PS2 with the GameCube in 2001. Based on a customized PowerPC CPU dubbed "Gekko" and a graphics engine developed jointly with ATI Technologies [insert useless specs here]"
Gekko was developed by ArtX which was acquired by ATi just before GameCube was released (but long after development of the chip was completed). The acquisition eventually leveled the playing field in PC graphics when the ArtX team went on to design the lauded Radeon 9700 and ATi's subsequent GPU's.
"...initial versions included an 8-Gbyte hard drive to improve startup time. Microsoft has since removed that drive to lower system costs."
Microsoft has removed the harddrive from the original XBox to cut system costs? That's news to me.
"(ATI supplied the graphics for the PS2, while Nvidia provided the graphics for the original X-Box.)"
Wrong again. ATi did not supply the graphics for the PS2.
"But the big question is whether Microsoft will leverage IBM's technology for the Cell processor, or the CPU or CPUs will take more standard approaches."
Jesus H. Christ. Microsoft does not have access to the Cell processor. That will be a Sony exclusive for the next-gen console wars. Any idiot can see that.
"Though budget-priced, with costs ranging from $60 to $180, they pack a tremendous amount of technology."
The PSP will cost 250 in the states. This guy is clearly using the Japanese sale price of the PSP.
"The original Game Boy and Game Boy Advance are based around a single 32-bit ARM7 CPU with 128 kbytes of embedded memory and 24 kbytes of off-chip RAM."
Wow, the original Game Boy, released in 1989, uses a 32 bit ARM7? I'm not into the cell phone market, so there's no telling how much of that information was false.
See, this is why I don't get my information from "professional" journalists.
What a poor article. I'm not sure why this was even posted here. Questionable portions are in quotes followed by commentary: "With CPUs running at several gigahertz plus a high-performance video card or two, PC gaming is now just as lifelike as its console-based competition." This might have read better if the author had declared that such a PC will give a good idea of the power of next-gen consoles (in particular running tech such as the unreleasd Unreal 3.0). "When it first appeared in 1996, the Nintendo 64 console took a technological leap to a MIPS R4300 64-bit microprocessor running at about 93 MHz. A custom coprocessor chip that handled the graphics and audio could deliver 2 million colors, 150k polygons/s, and 64 channels of audio." The custom (graphics) "coprocessor" delivered 64 channels of audio? That's news to me. By the way, I seem to remember a few N64 games featuring 24 bit color (although it was rare... in more ways than one). "...Sony's PlayStation 2, Microsoft's X-Box, and Nintendo's GameCube. They use multihundred-megahertz 32- or 64-bit microprocessors..." Followed later by: "Just four years later, the Sony PlayStation 2 (PS2) thrilled the gaming community with almost cinematic graphics based on a 128-bit custom processor called the Emotion Engine." Oh look, the PS2's CPU went from 64 to 128 bits (as if this matters). "The internal geometry engine performs antialiasing..." *chuckles* "The Sony system was one of the first consoles to include a DVD/CD optical drive..." Nope, it was THE first. When in doubt, use "about". If you're too lazy to look up the correct information anyway. "Nintendo countered the PS2 with the GameCube in 2001. Based on a customized PowerPC CPU dubbed "Gekko" and a graphics engine developed jointly with ATI Technologies [insert useless specs here]" Gekko was developed by ArtX which was acquired by ATi just before GameCube was released (but long after development of the chip was completed). The acquisition eventually leveled the playing field in PC graphics when the ArtX team went on to design the lauded Radeon 9700 and ATi's subsequent GPU's. "...initial versions included an 8-Gbyte hard drive to improve startup time. Microsoft has since removed that drive to lower system costs." Microsoft has removed the harddrive from the original XBox to cut system costs? That's news to me. "(ATI supplied the graphics for the PS2, while Nvidia provided the graphics for the original X-Box.)" Wrong again. ATi did not supply the graphics for the PS2. "But the big question is whether Microsoft will leverage IBM's technology for the Cell processor, or the CPU or CPUs will take more standard approaches." Jesus H. Christ. Microsoft does not have access to the Cell processor. That will be a Sony exclusive for the next-gen console wars. Any idiot can see that. "Though budget-priced, with costs ranging from $60 to $180, they pack a tremendous amount of technology." The PSP will cost 250 in the states. This guy is clearly using the Japanese sale price of the PSP. "The original Game Boy and Game Boy Advance are based around a single 32-bit ARM7 CPU with 128 kbytes of embedded memory and 24 kbytes of off-chip RAM." Wow, the original Game Boy, released in 1989, uses a 32 bit ARM7? I'm not into the cell phone market, so there's no telling how much of that information was false.
I'll believe it when I see it. With a crazy new architecture like this, *everything* is on paper right now. The hardware, the software, everything. The only thing that is virtually gauranteed is that the PS3 will have a few of these things in it and that it will sell in droves. Just how useful and powerful this chip will be in practice remains to be seen.
Forget that. Use it to play tricks on people. You know where someone dead calls around halloween or while you're playing with a Ouiji board.
Use it for practical jokes on dumb people and/or kids (say around halloween time)... you'd need to arrange for a person to call and pretend to be somebody dead and then someone else points out that the phone is not plugged in...
You would think that we would have learned our lesson from the PS2 hype, but then again, perhaps Sony has learned there lesson as well. I think one thing is clear. The PS3 will easily outperform the XBox 2 and Nintendo's "revolution". As long as the programmers can cope with the new paradigm.
I don't even take handhelds out of the house 95% of the time and a 5 hour battery life would really suck. If I planned to actually take the thing places, 5 hours would not cut it at all.
By the way, I should add that I posted this at a critical moment prior to reading a paragraph that clearly indicates that this is in jest. The article becomes less and less believable with each page. I wonder how long it's taking each person to realize that it's bullshit.
I come here to see what people's take is on this article (I find it difficult to believe first of all) and instead everybody's arguging about politics. Congratulations to the author of the post who couldn't resist a jab at Gore. Why can't we just leave the ****ing politics where they belong (like maybe another website)?
It depends on what you mean by a "not so well known" state college. It also depends on what you teach yourself in your spare time and how activately you are in pursuing available internships and lining up a job BEFORE you graduate. If you go to a relatively unknown state college, don't use their placement program, don't learn anything in your spare time and then start looking for a job after you graduate (in particular if you limit yourself to the area you graduated in) then you may very well be looking at NO job not just a string of crappy ones. So just how crappy is this state college? What area do you hope to become employed in? I suggest that you check the paper every week as if you're looking for a job already and see what kind of skills employers are really looking for. In my area they want skills and experience more than anything, not just a degree.
"Also, if you haven't noticed, the Slashdot poll shows once and for all where Slashdot readers fall on the election." Anyone who didn't notice prior to this poll that Slashdot is a haven for liberals is blind. I'm still trying to figure out how so many ostensibly intelligent tech people went so wrong. I suppose ostensibly is the key word there.
How can they be so stupid. The key ingredient is people. You don't hear about people being addicted to offline games. It's online games like evercrack, diablo ii and socom ii that are addicting to certain types of people. The other games run out of stuff to do eventually.
What makes books compelling is immediately removed when you try to mix them with video games. The automatic use of imagination to convert the words on a paper into an active memory in your head is what books are all about. Any attempt at mixing this with a video medium removes the majority of what makes a book a book.
First of all I just want to say that Slashdot is full of idiots. Someone asks a question about a serious mental disorder, looking for other people who have had experience with it, and most of the people on this thread are cracking distasteful jokes or telling you to look elsewhere. I apologize for their rude behavior.
Anyway... I'll just review what others have said that I think is helpful. Getting the patient to take medication can be the most difficult thing indeed. My friend was gaining weight due to the medication making him want to eat a lot. He leveled out, but his grandma (of all people!) would antagonize him about his weight! So of course, he would often stop taking the meds because he didn't want to be fat (especially with idiots telling him he was fat).
I wonder how things might have been different if this guy had never drank alcohol or smoked marajuana. If nothing else, friends and famaily probably would have gotten the disorder diagonosed more quickly. In the most extreme case, perhaps he never would have manifested the disorder. I don't know enough about it to comment further, but I think some of same neurotransmitters involved in marijuana use are involved in Schizophrenia (not to mention LSD which he also did a bit more than a few times).
I can never tell when he is or isn't taking his meds because sometimes he tells me he's not and yet he seems to be acting normal. This disorder has seemed to regress a bit, but at other times I've seen him manifest (apparently) typical behavior. Thinking that the government is watching him, that his phones are tapped, that there are listening devices in the walls, that the world is generally out to get him (I'm surprised he continued to trust me throughout all of this).
The delusions are further aggravated by religion. His mother is a Catholic (as is his Grandma who he lives with) and his father is a relatively fundamentalist protestant. He is significantly worried about burning in Hell forever at times (sometimes he's convinced that he can't avoid this fate; I've read of people going crazy from this alone). Be aware of the religious environment that your sister is in. My friends grandmother, as I said, is a Catholic, but he is a protestant (taking after his father). This has resulted in some legendary arguments (just look around the Internet using Google for Protestant vs. Catholic disputes). That's definitely not a good environment for a person with such a disorder to live in. He's not living with his parents because for reasons I'm not sure of, he attacked his father once and was kicked out (it's not like they've disowned him or anything, they just won't let him live there). Obviously I can't expect you or your sister to abandon any religion you might adhere to, but try to emphasis the how-you-live-your-life aspect over the you're-going-to-burn-in-hell-forever if you're not careful aspect. I'm personally agnostic, but there are defendable forms of Christianity that don't include an eternal Hell (universalism teaches that everyone will *eventually* go to Heaven, annihilationists teach that God will simply wipe bad people out of existance rather than pointlessly tormenting them for eternity). Unfortunately, my friend cannot be swayed from such beliefs. Afterall, it seems safest to believe that God is going to torment you forever and take the "necessary" steps to avoid it than it is to assume otherwise (regardless of how irrational the idea that a perfect loving God would eternally torment an imperfect creation for imperfection is).
In short, make sure your sister takes her meds. If she gains weight, be supportive and maybe try and subtly change her diet and monitor her eating (rather than telling her she's fat and expecting her to change her eating rather than stop taking the meds). Depending on the severity of the disorder, she may be able to live a relatively normal life. The more severe it is, the more support she will need from family. Ultimately, you can't expect this problem to take care of itself (via medication). You'll need to take an active roll in your daugther's well being unless you're blessed with a mild case and a cooperative patient.
Stupid, stupid stupid. What a stupid thing to patent. At best this will just ANNOY consumers in my opinion. The ones that know of the patent at least.