at first i thought they had the launch date worng, then i realized that it was win98 and later that had launch dates after the naming convention would have you believe (windows 2000 in 2001, 98 in 99, etc..)
"Why don't they take all this money they've saved, not spend it on computers, and keep all the programs they're in danger of losing"
Or how about cutting out funding for sports programs (statistically, more children will benefit from the arts than athletics (being able to find jobs in the arts compared to the one or 2 star athletes who find a career)) and use that for the arts programs?
As a parent of 3 children who all play violent video games with me on our LAN, I have some first hand knowledge of this subject...
I review all games before letting my children play them, if I deem it appropriate I let them play...
I would say from my "studies" of their behavior first hand, I don't think it's the games making kids violent, if anything it is an outlet for them to develop problem solving skills within the confines of the tools the games allow them to use.
Meaning, the only thing they are learning is how to interact within the game using the game's rules for the world it represents.. they definitely understand while it might work out fine to hit someone with a bat and steal their car in GTA3, it definitely doesn't work in the real world...
The reason they can understand the difference is because if they do this in a game they get a free car, if they try and do this around my house they get a smack on their butt and a free vivist to their room for the rest of the night, it's called parenting, which is sadly seemly lacking nowadays (asi constantly see when at the mall or at a movie).
So sense in the game they are able to see there is a cause an effect at work, they are able to apply this to real life and observe the same effect, even though the outcomes might be different (games vs real life) the principal is the same.
The other day this really hit home, as my children sat at the dinner table, one of my kids took the last dinner roll, instead of immediately being stabbed in the eye (which would have had a real world consequence) the other child complained to a authority figure (me) seeking resolution.
Later that night, one of my children did not respect the 10 minute no rushing agreement in our game of starcraft, this was soon dealt with by the offended child quiting the game for breaking the agreement and a subsequent building of a fort in the bedroom with a "no brothers allowed" notice on the outside of the fort instead of a bat upside the head as these studies would have you believe (turtling and then a massive build up of protoss carriers would have also been acceptable IMO).
So in both cases the resulting method of dealing with a problem was dealt with within the rules that are defined in both worlds.
" Ritalin is chemically very little different to Speed and it has the same effect. But one is legal and the other is not? "
Another good analogy to this would be marijuana (illegal) and maranol(SP? Legal)...
You can't patent something that occurs naturally, but you can patent a process for synthesizing something that would otherwise occur naturally and then profit from it...
"You mean those Americans who interpreted and used Scripture to reinforce that slavery was ok"
This always bugs me, scripture doesn't say slavery is OK, but was actually dealing witht he issue of slavery in that modern time.. it was the first time that slaves were given the same rights as other people.
Scripture demanded that if someone had a slave, they had to be given time off, had some limited birth rights, and were to be freed and given assets after 7 years of "service".
Scripture didn't start slavery but demanded that if a Jew was to have a slave, they had to be treated with basic human rights and eventually freed.
"Life doesn't begin at conception, its already there."
It is actually hard to bare a child, lots of times eggs get fertilized but then don't properly develop/attach/etc and are flushed out during a woman's monthly cycle...
To believe that all fertilized eggs "WOULD" one day become a person is just foolish... there is a lot more that goes into it (look at the rates of miscarriages in this country alone).
"Christ was EXECUTED by the Romans! Paul recasts the account to put more blame on the Jews, specifically the Sanhedrin (priest honchos) in order to fudge the issue of Roman guilt"
Well if you read the 4 books of the gospels you will see that it was the jew's fault for Christ being executed, but that was supposed to be that way.
All along the roman leader of the time tried to free Jesus and really found he had not broken Roman law, but Judian law, but in order to prevent Jewish discontent in the area, he let the Jew's decide what to do with Christ, and they chose to kill him.
"Paul never knew Jesus"
If you look at the scriptures you can see that Jesus says that if you know the old testament, then you know jesus.. Paul was one of the most highly respected Jewish teachers/rabbis of his time, so yes he definitely knew Jesus and what he was teaching.
"Paul was the one who came up with the idea of converting Gentiles."
No that was God's command to Paul, without God's intervention then he would have continued persecuting Christ's followers.
"Incidentally, many (perhaps half?) of Jesus's sayings may have been put in his mouth by later writers."
Jesus' sayings are recorded in the gospels, not the epistles of paul.. have you even read the whole bible?
"It's not a flaw in my argument. My argument is the rich get richer without making the poor poorer."
There is a finite amount of wealth and resources so there is no way for the rich to get richer without it coming from somewhere.
If there wasn't a finite amount of wealth or resources, then there wouldn't be rich or poor or a market from which these 2 groups (and others) spring.
"So let's all chip in and help them, you (Some Llama) and me(Chosen Reject). If you can help, do so. If you don't because you can't, then we all understand. If you don't because you won't, too bad for you."
"Specifically Roman gentiles. He had to entirely recast the relgion to attract them."
HUH? uh if you are trying to say that Paul had to change the message of Christ in order to attract Romans, then I'd say you're bonkers.
"If you read the epistles very carefully a. ..psychopath, clearly emerges."
Um yah ok, you say read the scriptures very carefully, but it doesn't seem like you ever have?!?
I clearly do not see how you can equate paul traveling around teaching about Christ and explaining the connection between Christ's teachings and Judiasm with "founding a religion".
Are you trying to say that Paul was teaching his own religion and not Christ's message of salvation?
"The worker entered into an agreement and he is able to pay for the necesseties of life. He did his part and got his share. Why should he be entitled to anything more?"
How about because the poorer worker HAS NO CHOICE, by putting all of the wealth in the hands of a few, you increase the competition between the poor who need the work and thus drive down prices for that work because of competition...
You make it sound like the worker came to an agreement on the price because that is all he needs, it is because that is the highest he was able to make the Boss pay wihtout losing the contract.
The whole flaw in your argument is where the money that is earned, is spent.. people on the top of the food chain invest their money and watch it grow, they have enough money to pay all of their monthly expenses and then invest/save the rest.
People on the bottom constantly have to pay out every penny that they make just to sustain a living, forget being able to save anything.
Using your "how the money flows example", the poor are constantly pooring the money thay make back into the system and not saving, the rich take a little bit off the top every pay cycle and save that away... so eventually that money all ends up in the hands of the rich as the poor never get to save.
This is obvious if you have ever lived right above the poverty line, jobs in this class more often than not have no health insurance, make just enough money to stay housed and fed and so while someone with benefits can afford a hospital stay, the poor cannot and any money they do happen to scrimp and save by going without, often can be wiped out by a single health emergency.
art imitating life imitating art?
on
Video Tombstones
·
· Score: 1
I recently saw a movie with Robin Williams in it (the Final Cut) where people had inplants in their eyes and ears, that from birth, would record the happenings in their lives from their point of view...
then this technology was used to create a"movie" of the person's life.. now in one of the scenes on a graveyard someone who was visiting a relatives grave could press a button on the tombstone and it would replay this movie of the person's life on an LCD panel...
Seem like this will soon be a reality (to some extent). Cool or freaky?
"Secondly, I won't rent DVDs because most of them now have non-skippable commercials. "
Boy do I hate these as well as previews and the legal notices.. so lately what I have been doing is pop the DVD into the player before everyone is ready to watch the movie, or go pop my popcorn, continue watching TV etc...
While I am getting ready/doing this other stuff the DVD will play it's unskippable stuff and eventually end up on the main menu, so by the time i'm ready, i switch over to the video input that the DVD is on and hit enter to play the movie from the main menu (where ic an also setup surround sound effects if the DVD has that submenu) and voila! no crap just movie...
"It makes sense to me that he just doesn't like uninvited people hanging around his property."
Well then maybe he shouldn't have applied for the job of President which carries along with it being responsible to the people you are working for.
Just because he feels that he needs a vacation doesn't mean he no longer needs to be held accountable for the job he is doing.
The next time you screw the pooch at YOUR job, try telling your boss "I'm gonna take a few weeks off to get on with my life".
I bet your boss will agree to give you as much time as you need, without having to worry to come back, I think we should do the same with this President if his job, and the responsibilities that come with it, is getting in the way of his "personal life".
Bullfrog was the original publisher, then i think it got picked up by EA who now offers it as a bargain bin item at like fry's or best buy (if you can find it...)
Searching on ebay i was able to find a number of copies selling, often at a starting price of 1 dollar with a total price of 5 with shipping...
Just search for Dungeon Keeper 2
(the harder part will be finding the latest patches, but google should be able to help...)
"Right now games like DOOM3 typically only display a few NPC's at the same time because of the timing problem."
Um, i don't believe that is why Doom3 has so few enemies at a time... The AI isn't that spectacular and companies like Croteam have games with 100s of enemies on screen with just as good AI implemented...
"Strategy games with complicated pathfinding with hundreds of units on-screen like Warcraft 3 or Age of Mythology would profit enormously, if programmed for multithreading."
This I could believe... I often play WC3 on my lan with my kids, we play custom maps like ones where you can churn out units without regard to unit cap or resources...
When the map fills up with units you can actually see the lag in between ordering units and when the cpu gets around to actualy pathing them and moving them... if we had a seperate CPU to do this while the main CPU worked on the mathematics of hit calculations, buffs, armor, etc... then I would expect to see up to 1000 or more units moving in real time in regards to response against given commands...
"So what is the purpose of military research? Simple: to keep our killing tools up with our latest fashion in clothing."
Although I agree with your main point (military's purpose is to find better ways to kill) pretty much most of current evolutions in modern applications/devices have come from military innovations...
SO while many, many people have died because of militaries.. many, many, others have also had better lives because of it..
"because the mapper decided that the base textures just weren't good enough and loaded in a bunch've new texture data that takes a dog's age to download."
even with big a** textures, the server admin should know enough about what he is doing to make the downloads http, which is a hell of a lot faster than the in-game bandwidth cap of say 10kb/s
If it helps to frustrate advertisers and marketing minions, then i'm all for it (and do). They spend enough of my day (everyday) frustrating me with the constant onslaught of Ads and marketing tactics to get me to be the ultimate consumer, I feel it is the least I can do to show them my gratitude.
It has this exact functionality that you are describing.. although it is a rather old game (5+ years or so) it's gameplay is unduplicated since it's arrival...
You can prolly find it in a bargain bin for 5 bucks or floating around somewhere...
" I've wanted a game like that (RTS/FPS with realistic graphics) for as long as there have been computer games, really."
To have a game that is the feel of a classic RPG (epic battles, might and magic, etc..) with the control of a FPS, this is something I would jump on in a heartbeat...
To me all of the WOW and EQ games look cartoonish and out of sorts... blows away the whole immersion aspect of the game to me.. to date the only thing rhwy have done with massivley multipler FPS is army simulations (BF2, BF1942, RTCW, etc..) to play a game like lord of the rings in a FPS would be awesome...
Slashdot Mirror
at first i thought they had the launch date worng, then i realized that it was win98 and later that had launch dates after the naming convention would have you believe (windows 2000 in 2001, 98 in 99, etc..)
"Why don't they take all this money they've saved, not spend it on computers, and keep all the programs they're in danger of losing"
Or how about cutting out funding for sports programs (statistically, more children will benefit from the arts than athletics (being able to find jobs in the arts compared to the one or 2 star athletes who find a career)) and use that for the arts programs?
As a parent of 3 children who all play violent video games with me on our LAN, I have some first hand knowledge of this subject...
I review all games before letting my children play them, if I deem it appropriate I let them play...
I would say from my "studies" of their behavior first hand, I don't think it's the games making kids violent, if anything it is an outlet for them to develop problem solving skills within the confines of the tools the games allow them to use.
Meaning, the only thing they are learning is how to interact within the game using the game's rules for the world it represents.. they definitely understand while it might work out fine to hit someone with a bat and steal their car in GTA3, it definitely doesn't work in the real world...
The reason they can understand the difference is because if they do this in a game they get a free car, if they try and do this around my house they get a smack on their butt and a free vivist to their room for the rest of the night, it's called parenting, which is sadly seemly lacking nowadays (asi constantly see when at the mall or at a movie).
So sense in the game they are able to see there is a cause an effect at work, they are able to apply this to real life and observe the same effect, even though the outcomes might be different (games vs real life) the principal is the same.
The other day this really hit home, as my children sat at the dinner table, one of my kids took the last dinner roll, instead of immediately being stabbed in the eye (which would have had a real world consequence) the other child complained to a authority figure (me) seeking resolution.
Later that night, one of my children did not respect the 10 minute no rushing agreement in our game of starcraft, this was soon dealt with by the offended child quiting the game for breaking the agreement and a subsequent building of a fort in the bedroom with a "no brothers allowed" notice on the outside of the fort instead of a bat upside the head as these studies would have you believe (turtling and then a massive build up of protoss carriers would have also been acceptable IMO).
So in both cases the resulting method of dealing with a problem was dealt with within the rules that are defined in both worlds.
It's also in Starcraft and Warcraft 3, kind of a long running gag...
I even think you can do this in Diablo? I think one of the characters will say something if you keep bugging them...
""cures fullness".
This is an actual drug? I've never heard of this."
Yah it's called pot...
" Ritalin is chemically very little different to Speed and it has the same effect. But one is legal and the other is not? "
Another good analogy to this would be marijuana (illegal) and maranol(SP? Legal)...
You can't patent something that occurs naturally, but you can patent a process for synthesizing something that would otherwise occur naturally and then profit from it...
"Average maximum age was, what, 30?"
I think I'd rather work 2-3 hour days for 15-18 years of my life and live to 30, than work 8-12 hour days for 45+ years of my life and live to 65...
But maybe i'm just lazy...
"You mean those Americans who interpreted and used Scripture to reinforce that slavery was ok"
This always bugs me, scripture doesn't say slavery is OK, but was actually dealing witht he issue of slavery in that modern time.. it was the first time that slaves were given the same rights as other people.
Scripture demanded that if someone had a slave, they had to be given time off, had some limited birth rights, and were to be freed and given assets after 7 years of "service".
Scripture didn't start slavery but demanded that if a Jew was to have a slave, they had to be treated with basic human rights and eventually freed.
"Life doesn't begin at conception, its already there."
It is actually hard to bare a child, lots of times eggs get fertilized but then don't properly develop/attach/etc and are flushed out during a woman's monthly cycle...
To believe that all fertilized eggs "WOULD" one day become a person is just foolish... there is a lot more that goes into it (look at the rates of miscarriages in this country alone).
"Christ was EXECUTED by the Romans! Paul recasts the account to put more blame on the Jews, specifically the Sanhedrin (priest honchos) in order to fudge the issue of Roman guilt"
Well if you read the 4 books of the gospels you will see that it was the jew's fault for Christ being executed, but that was supposed to be that way.
All along the roman leader of the time tried to free Jesus and really found he had not broken Roman law, but Judian law, but in order to prevent Jewish discontent in the area, he let the Jew's decide what to do with Christ, and they chose to kill him.
"Paul never knew Jesus"
If you look at the scriptures you can see that Jesus says that if you know the old testament, then you know jesus.. Paul was one of the most highly respected Jewish teachers/rabbis of his time, so yes he definitely knew Jesus and what he was teaching.
"Paul was the one who came up with the idea of converting Gentiles."
No that was God's command to Paul, without God's intervention then he would have continued persecuting Christ's followers.
"Incidentally, many (perhaps half?) of Jesus's sayings may have been put in his mouth by later writers."
Jesus' sayings are recorded in the gospels, not the epistles of paul.. have you even read the whole bible?
"It's not a flaw in my argument. My argument is the rich get richer without making the poor poorer."
There is a finite amount of wealth and resources so there is no way for the rich to get richer without it coming from somewhere.
If there wasn't a finite amount of wealth or resources, then there wouldn't be rich or poor or a market from which these 2 groups (and others) spring.
"So let's all chip in and help them, you (Some Llama) and me(Chosen Reject). If you can help, do so. If you don't because you can't, then we all understand. If you don't because you won't, too bad for you."
Agreed...
"Specifically Roman gentiles. He had to entirely recast the relgion to attract them."
.psychopath, clearly emerges."
HUH? uh if you are trying to say that Paul had to change the message of Christ in order to attract Romans, then I'd say you're bonkers.
"If you read the epistles very carefully a. .
Um yah ok, you say read the scriptures very carefully, but it doesn't seem like you ever have?!?
I clearly do not see how you can equate paul traveling around teaching about Christ and explaining the connection between Christ's teachings and Judiasm with "founding a religion".
Are you trying to say that Paul was teaching his own religion and not Christ's message of salvation?
"The worker entered into an agreement and he is able to pay for the necesseties of life. He did his part and got his share. Why should he be entitled to anything more?"
How about because the poorer worker HAS NO CHOICE, by putting all of the wealth in the hands of a few, you increase the competition between the poor who need the work and thus drive down prices for that work because of competition...
You make it sound like the worker came to an agreement on the price because that is all he needs, it is because that is the highest he was able to make the Boss pay wihtout losing the contract.
The whole flaw in your argument is where the money that is earned, is spent.. people on the top of the food chain invest their money and watch it grow, they have enough money to pay all of their monthly expenses and then invest/save the rest.
People on the bottom constantly have to pay out every penny that they make just to sustain a living, forget being able to save anything.
Using your "how the money flows example", the poor are constantly pooring the money thay make back into the system and not saving, the rich take a little bit off the top every pay cycle and save that away... so eventually that money all ends up in the hands of the rich as the poor never get to save.
This is obvious if you have ever lived right above the poverty line, jobs in this class more often than not have no health insurance, make just enough money to stay housed and fed and so while someone with benefits can afford a hospital stay, the poor cannot and any money they do happen to scrimp and save by going without, often can be wiped out by a single health emergency.
I recently saw a movie with Robin Williams in it (the Final Cut) where people had inplants in their eyes and ears, that from birth, would record the happenings in their lives from their point of view...
then this technology was used to create a"movie" of the person's life.. now in one of the scenes on a graveyard someone who was visiting a relatives grave could press a button on the tombstone and it would replay this movie of the person's life on an LCD panel...
Seem like this will soon be a reality (to some extent). Cool or freaky?
"Secondly, I won't rent DVDs because most of them now have non-skippable commercials. "
Boy do I hate these as well as previews and the legal notices.. so lately what I have been doing is pop the DVD into the player before everyone is ready to watch the movie, or go pop my popcorn, continue watching TV etc...
While I am getting ready/doing this other stuff the DVD will play it's unskippable stuff and eventually end up on the main menu, so by the time i'm ready, i switch over to the video input that the DVD is on and hit enter to play the movie from the main menu (where ic an also setup surround sound effects if the DVD has that submenu) and voila! no crap just movie...
"It makes sense to me that he just doesn't like uninvited people hanging around his property."
Well then maybe he shouldn't have applied for the job of President which carries along with it being responsible to the people you are working for.
Just because he feels that he needs a vacation doesn't mean he no longer needs to be held accountable for the job he is doing.
The next time you screw the pooch at YOUR job, try telling your boss "I'm gonna take a few weeks off to get on with my life".
I bet your boss will agree to give you as much time as you need, without having to worry to come back, I think we should do the same with this President if his job, and the responsibilities that come with it, is getting in the way of his "personal life".
I can't wait until 2012 when in the summer duke nukem will go gold, looks like a good time for games!!
Uh oh, am i going to jail now?
Bullfrog was the original publisher, then i think it got picked up by EA who now offers it as a bargain bin item at like fry's or best buy (if you can find it...)
Searching on ebay i was able to find a number of copies selling, often at a starting price of 1 dollar with a total price of 5 with shipping...
Just search for Dungeon Keeper 2
(the harder part will be finding the latest patches, but google should be able to help...)
"Right now games like DOOM3 typically only display a few NPC's at the same time because of the timing problem."
Um, i don't believe that is why Doom3 has so few enemies at a time... The AI isn't that spectacular and companies like Croteam have games with 100s of enemies on screen with just as good AI implemented...
"Strategy games with complicated pathfinding with hundreds of units on-screen like Warcraft 3 or Age of Mythology would profit enormously, if programmed for multithreading."
This I could believe... I often play WC3 on my lan with my kids, we play custom maps like ones where you can churn out units without regard to unit cap or resources...
When the map fills up with units you can actually see the lag in between ordering units and when the cpu gets around to actualy pathing them and moving them... if we had a seperate CPU to do this while the main CPU worked on the mathematics of hit calculations, buffs, armor, etc... then I would expect to see up to 1000 or more units moving in real time in regards to response against given commands...
"So what is the purpose of military research? Simple: to keep our killing tools up with our latest fashion in clothing."
Although I agree with your main point (military's purpose is to find better ways to kill) pretty much most of current evolutions in modern applications/devices have come from military innovations...
SO while many, many people have died because of militaries.. many, many, others have also had better lives because of it..
"because the mapper decided that the base textures just weren't good enough and loaded in a bunch've new texture data that takes a dog's age to download."
even with big a** textures, the server admin should know enough about what he is doing to make the downloads http, which is a hell of a lot faster than the in-game bandwidth cap of say 10kb/s
If it helps to frustrate advertisers and marketing minions, then i'm all for it (and do). They spend enough of my day (everyday) frustrating me with the constant onslaught of Ads and marketing tactics to get me to be the ultimate consumer, I feel it is the least I can do to show them my gratitude.
If you can find it... try Dungeon Keeper 2
It has this exact functionality that you are describing.. although it is a rather old game (5+ years or so) it's gameplay is unduplicated since it's arrival...
You can prolly find it in a bargain bin for 5 bucks or floating around somewhere...
" I've wanted a game like that (RTS/FPS with realistic graphics) for as long as there have been computer games, really."
To have a game that is the feel of a classic RPG (epic battles, might and magic, etc..) with the control of a FPS, this is something I would jump on in a heartbeat...
To me all of the WOW and EQ games look cartoonish and out of sorts... blows away the whole immersion aspect of the game to me.. to date the only thing rhwy have done with massivley multipler FPS is army simulations (BF2, BF1942, RTCW, etc..) to play a game like lord of the rings in a FPS would be awesome...