Video games can provoke emotions, but I can just as easily remind myself that it's just a game and not feel the emotions.
Count yourself lucky. There's comes a time when you love a game too much, and have fought too hard to simply walk away. Devil May Cry; Nightmare 3 on Dante Must Die Mode. Alundra; The palace in the lake. Ecco 2; The chained globe in the dark future**.
The emotion? Despair. Complete and utter, all encompassing, fall to your knees and wail hopelessness. Hours of ordeal, days of defeat, try after try of torturous tribulation. Almost always at its worst when it follows the sense of peaceful joy and contentment the game has brought you up to that point.
Can you truly say that you can just put down your controller and walk away? That you can write off all that effort, time and memory as a trivial experience. Can you really go on with the rest of your life wondering; what if... I'd just tried a little harder?
If you can, then I don't know whether to envy you or pity you. Or myself for that matter.
**Lost forever in the tides of time! What the hell!?! I can tell you that ending really did stir some pretty powerful emotions, all of them directed at the development team.
First, I could happily take my positions on my faith and say that Darwinian evolution is how God accomplished what God accomplished.
You're a poor liar. Even in your opening statement, you couldn't resist mentioning that you ultimately hold your God to be the driving force behind the evolution of life. In other words, you never truly accepted evolution in the first place, as a natural process and not as something needing a God of the Gaps to fill in the details. Your "Darwinian" adjective was also a dead giveaway as to your true position.
But as I examined things, as best I could, it became apparent that Darwinian evolution rests not on observation and experiments. It rests on philosophy. There has to be a naturalistic cause, therefore there is a naturalistic cause.
Again you are lying. You haven't examined anything at all, except perhaps your own prejudices. Even a cursory glance at the most basic of evolutionary texts would show that the entire field is widely supported by both observational and experimental evidence. Empirical data can be had in bucketloads, experimental data can be gathered from sequences and by observing actual evolution in action in the lab. With evolution, there is no philosophy, there is only data. Great mountains of data, all pointing inexorably towards a "naturalistic" conclusion.
So when people from the ID or creationist camps, say things like X cannot be produced by a step-by-step naturalistic process the response is an appeal to structures that are lost to time or just-so stories.
Lost to time? The intermediary structures required by evolutionary theory are almost all present in creatures that exist today. Even your precious eye can be seen in forms ranging from primitive to sophisticated in creatures throughout the world. Far from being lost to us, these structure are on display for any who cares to go looking for them.
That's when I realized Darwinism is unfalsifiable. Any data can be incorporated into the paradigm. There is nothing that could be discovered in a biological organism which would make a Darwinist say "random mutation and natural selection can't explain that."
Why do you lie? You never accepted evolution in the first place. Your dressing up your objection with words like "unfalsifiable", but you really have no idea of what they mean, or why you are incorrect in applying them to evolutionary theory. You have no idea of the history of the theory and how for many years scientists had no explanation, and in many cases, still have no explanation for how certain organs and system evolved.
So before convincing me it is true, tell me how it can be falsified. And don't confuse evidence for common descent with evidence for rm+ns.,
Falsifying evolution is easy. You just have to go out there and find a lifeform that is totally unlike any other on the planet, and which has no ancestral record in fossil structure or otherwise. No DNA similarities to other lifeforms, no prior evidence for the creatures existence, and sufficiently complicated strictures or systems that could never have evolved by a secular migration process. Found any yet?
Also, I have to say the lack of any plausible Origin of Life scenario should be troubling to a Darwinist. The comeback that "evolution only deals with pre-existing life" is silly, because naturalism is what is at issue. If naturalism falls, the foundation of dogmatic Darwinism falls as well. Which brings me back to the main problem with Darwinism, it rests on philosophy and question-begging.
Darwinist, "naturalist", "philosophy". You make it sound like the guys come from a humanities department. They don't. Evolution is researched and tested by scientists, who apply the scientific method to better understand the world we live in. In the words of XKCD, It Works, Bitches. You don't have to
Legislation granting legal immunity also does not mean that you are legally immune.
Governments can pass whatever laws they like, but if those laws are later found to be unconstitutional, then they are rendered void, and so are immunities granted under them. Admittedly there is no chance of that happening in this case, but still... that's the theory. Pity about the practice.
I mean, don't these congressmen know which side their bread is buttered and honeyed on?
First Brazilians arrest CEOs, and now American congressmen no less are getting indignant over a few harmless omissions. Governments are getting too big for their boots I say. No respect for their capitalist masters. Time for a good old fashioned recession. That'll put the fear of God into 'em and get 'em back into line quick-sharp!
Failing that, a fascist coup is always an option. We can pull it off during the American Idol finale. I doubt the plebs will even notice! Then we'll be in a better position to match the Chinese economy GDP and journalist lynching growth rates!
Sounds like any standard piece of legislation to me. This is why we have courts.
Re:My rant on the downfall of Wikipedia
on
Has Wikipedia Peaked?
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I am annoyed about how they're trying to rid of trivia sections. Those are some of the most interesting parts of an article if you ask me.
It's more than this. Wikipedia seems to have shifted from a content creation phase, to a content editing phase.
I've noticed a lot over the past few weeks that more and more articles are being edited to remove things like trivia section, add citations, and trim things quite a bit. There's also been a big move to remove many images from the site that are deemed "unsafe", i.e. copyrighted, for whatever reason.
I've spoken with people who became disgruntled with Wikipedia. They had the usual concerns, which I personally deemed trivial. However, one thing that did catch my ear was their dislike of the Wikipedia admins, or super editors, or whatever they are called. The stories matched up and went something like this:
Administrators are less concerned about content than they are about the "quality" of that content. Quality usually means, spell checks, structure, copyrights, citations and general "encyclopedic worthiness" of the underlying material. One gets to be an administrator by doing things like, spell checking, minor editing, rearranging and moving articles, deleting "unworthy" articles, etc. There's also a great desire for articles to conform to the rules and polices of the site.
The complaints usually revolved around pedantic and often autocratic admins deleting entire articles or a series of articles on "unworthy" topics; say an anime series or a fairly geeky debate on memes. Often very interesting content, like trivia sections** are removed wholesale. It's usually the case that the admins have grouped together and implemented a new "policy" which justifies their actions, despite how every many editors might object.
I'm not overly familiar with the politics Wikipedia, so I can't personally attest to much of this. However, the tale has come to me in a pretty consistent fashion from a variety of sources; namely that Wikipedia is slowly but surely being taken over by a very anal retentive clique of "Wikicrats", and that the tone of the place is changing accordingly. It sounded a little hyperbolic at the time, but slowly I'm beginning to see changes in the tone of articles.
I think it's a shift that Wikipedia was probably always going to make. But it seems a pity that the place is to become burdened by rules, policies and general bureaucracy. Death by a thousand kilometers of red tape seems an ill fitting fate for a site that blossomed by a billion altruistic edits.
**Though personally, I do think a few trivia sections could do with trimming.
When a company gets big enough, it is a de facto government department. Telecoms, water companies, autombile manufacturers, etc, etc, etc. As time goes by, these companies get so big that the government takes notice. Pork and subsidies of all kinds are offered and accepted. Bribes and Lobbyists are put in place to keep the government sweet. Anyone who thinks that "free enterprise" and "free markets" mean freedom from governments is living in a dogmatic fantasy land.
Big Corporations are as much a part of our governments as our education departments, tax offices and police forces. The only real differences is that they are officially "off the books" independent entities that can do just about whatever they please. In practice, this means that the government can engage in domestic espionage, blacklisting, censorship, propaganda, religious indoctrination, or just about anything else it's officially prohibited from doing by outsourcing the operations to its far flung, but still intimate branches.
AT&T is probably the worlds best example of an off the books government department. Both in terms of the operations they conduct, and also how well everyone has managed to swallow their whole "private industry" cover story.
If someone sets fire to your house, your insurance will go up. Insurance isn't fair or reasonable in most cases. Why does every driver have to buy something that is ordinarily optional for every other item in their life? Are there no risks in life outside of driving?
If you want or think you need insurance, you should get it for yourself. If others are willing to take the risk of going without it, they should be allowed.
But this penalty is waaaaay out of proportion to the crime, IMHO.
But likely well in line with the amount spent on buying off that jury. After this latest PR stunt, I'm finding it difficult to believe they were all completely... independent peers.
Which is yet another reason why car insurance should not be mandatory.
Hoping that the "free market" will preserve your rights is ludicrous at the best of times. When an industry practically owes its entire existence to government mandates, you can bet it will tow the party line at every turn.
It's very important for students to come to an understanding that there is a difference between the incontrovertible fact that 2 + 2 = 4, and the likelihood that birds are one branch of an evolutionary path from a distinct group of dinosaurs. One is intrinsically true, whereas the other has some exceptionally convincing evidence, but too many alternative possibilities to be solidly provable without a time machine and a very dedicated research team. Students need to know the difference.
I hate to break your bubble, but 2+2=4 is not, and never has been a fact, let alone an incontrovertible one. Yes, there is some exceptionally convincing evidence, especially when experiments and comparisions with the real world are provided. But the fact of the matter is that 2+2=4 is simply a theory, stemming from axioms and some additional constructions. In fact, some people just accept it flat out as an axiom in its own right.
2+2=4 in our number system, not because that's the way the universe works, but because that's the way we have made our number system. There's a hell of a lot of different possibilities, but nothing is solidly provable without some ZFC set theory and a team of research mathematicians. Students need to know the difference.
It boggles the mind that so many here at slashdot do send such e-mails, or are at least willing to hide trivial things.
Define trivial.
Most courtrooms are show trials, where hyperbole, innuendo and character assassination is far more important than evidence, proof and the rule of law. This goes double for jury trials, and quadruple for family and secret courts.
Ever smoked weed? Had an affair? Viewed some pornography? Visited a hate site? Made politically incorrect comments? Had an embarrassing medical condition? Downloaded music? Are you Homosexual? Ever sympathize with "enemies of the state"? Ever have money problems? Ever committed a not very minor offense?
Legal, illegal, it doesn't matter. All that matters is that they are able to find out about it with impunity, so they can use it against you. Government blackmail is well documented. The police, prosecutors, spymasters, they all use it to get what they want.
There's a saying: "Never keep a diary". You computer files are a massive diary like archive of your life. Delete them regularly.
Yeah, the Spartans weren't perfect, just like the USA, but they were far better then the alternative.
The Spartans kept slaves, practiced conscription, had a caste based society, committed routine infanticide and buggered young boys. I'm having trouble finding worse alternatives.
But, yes. They are a bit like the USA, now that you mention it.
It would take the idea of using investment capital to buy industrial machines that would ultimately make that transformation complete, so, in a sense, when Andrew Carnegie sent the Pinkertons in, he was ultimately breaking the guild system once and for all.
No, that was the American Dream. He was breaking the American Dream once and for all.
Slashdot Mirror
Count yourself lucky. There's comes a time when you love a game too much, and have fought too hard to simply walk away. Devil May Cry; Nightmare 3 on Dante Must Die Mode. Alundra; The palace in the lake. Ecco 2; The chained globe in the dark future**.
The emotion? Despair. Complete and utter, all encompassing, fall to your knees and wail hopelessness. Hours of ordeal, days of defeat, try after try of torturous tribulation. Almost always at its worst when it follows the sense of peaceful joy and contentment the game has brought you up to that point.
Can you truly say that you can just put down your controller and walk away? That you can write off all that effort, time and memory as a trivial experience. Can you really go on with the rest of your life wondering; what if... I'd just tried a little harder?
If you can, then I don't know whether to envy you or pity you. Or myself for that matter.
**Lost forever in the tides of time! What the hell!?! I can tell you that ending really did stir some pretty powerful emotions, all of them directed at the development team.
Not as many people who were traumatized to hear that Slashdot is run on a Dell.
You're a poor liar. Even in your opening statement, you couldn't resist mentioning that you ultimately hold your God to be the driving force behind the evolution of life. In other words, you never truly accepted evolution in the first place, as a natural process and not as something needing a God of the Gaps to fill in the details. Your "Darwinian" adjective was also a dead giveaway as to your true position.
Again you are lying. You haven't examined anything at all, except perhaps your own prejudices. Even a cursory glance at the most basic of evolutionary texts would show that the entire field is widely supported by both observational and experimental evidence. Empirical data can be had in bucketloads, experimental data can be gathered from sequences and by observing actual evolution in action in the lab. With evolution, there is no philosophy, there is only data. Great mountains of data, all pointing inexorably towards a "naturalistic" conclusion.
Lost to time? The intermediary structures required by evolutionary theory are almost all present in creatures that exist today. Even your precious eye can be seen in forms ranging from primitive to sophisticated in creatures throughout the world. Far from being lost to us, these structure are on display for any who cares to go looking for them.
Why do you lie? You never accepted evolution in the first place. Your dressing up your objection with words like "unfalsifiable", but you really have no idea of what they mean, or why you are incorrect in applying them to evolutionary theory. You have no idea of the history of the theory and how for many years scientists had no explanation, and in many cases, still have no explanation for how certain organs and system evolved.
Falsifying evolution is easy. You just have to go out there and find a lifeform that is totally unlike any other on the planet, and which has no ancestral record in fossil structure or otherwise. No DNA similarities to other lifeforms, no prior evidence for the creatures existence, and sufficiently complicated strictures or systems that could never have evolved by a secular migration process. Found any yet?
Darwinist, "naturalist", "philosophy". You make it sound like the guys come from a humanities department. They don't. Evolution is researched and tested by scientists, who apply the scientific method to better understand the world we live in. In the words of XKCD, It Works, Bitches. You don't have to
Legislation granting legal immunity also does not mean that you are legally immune.
Governments can pass whatever laws they like, but if those laws are later found to be unconstitutional, then they are rendered void, and so are immunities granted under them. Admittedly there is no chance of that happening in this case, but still... that's the theory. Pity about the practice.
I mean, don't these congressmen know which side their bread is buttered and honeyed on?
First Brazilians arrest CEOs, and now American congressmen no less are getting indignant over a few harmless omissions. Governments are getting too big for their boots I say. No respect for their capitalist masters. Time for a good old fashioned recession. That'll put the fear of God into 'em and get 'em back into line quick-sharp!
Failing that, a fascist coup is always an option. We can pull it off during the American Idol finale. I doubt the plebs will even notice! Then we'll be in a better position to match the Chinese economy GDP and journalist lynching growth rates!
Who do these Brazilians think they are anyway? Some kind of sovereign nation?
You can't pull a corporations charter. Under corporate personhood, that would be murder!
Sounds like any standard piece of legislation to me. This is why we have courts.
It's more than this. Wikipedia seems to have shifted from a content creation phase, to a content editing phase.
I've noticed a lot over the past few weeks that more and more articles are being edited to remove things like trivia section, add citations, and trim things quite a bit. There's also been a big move to remove many images from the site that are deemed "unsafe", i.e. copyrighted, for whatever reason.
I've spoken with people who became disgruntled with Wikipedia. They had the usual concerns, which I personally deemed trivial. However, one thing that did catch my ear was their dislike of the Wikipedia admins, or super editors, or whatever they are called. The stories matched up and went something like this:
Administrators are less concerned about content than they are about the "quality" of that content. Quality usually means, spell checks, structure, copyrights, citations and general "encyclopedic worthiness" of the underlying material. One gets to be an administrator by doing things like, spell checking, minor editing, rearranging and moving articles, deleting "unworthy" articles, etc. There's also a great desire for articles to conform to the rules and polices of the site.
The complaints usually revolved around pedantic and often autocratic admins deleting entire articles or a series of articles on "unworthy" topics; say an anime series or a fairly geeky debate on memes. Often very interesting content, like trivia sections** are removed wholesale. It's usually the case that the admins have grouped together and implemented a new "policy" which justifies their actions, despite how every many editors might object.
I'm not overly familiar with the politics Wikipedia, so I can't personally attest to much of this. However, the tale has come to me in a pretty consistent fashion from a variety of sources; namely that Wikipedia is slowly but surely being taken over by a very anal retentive clique of "Wikicrats", and that the tone of the place is changing accordingly. It sounded a little hyperbolic at the time, but slowly I'm beginning to see changes in the tone of articles.
I think it's a shift that Wikipedia was probably always going to make. But it seems a pity that the place is to become burdened by rules, policies and general bureaucracy. Death by a thousand kilometers of red tape seems an ill fitting fate for a site that blossomed by a billion altruistic edits.
**Though personally, I do think a few trivia sections could do with trimming.
When a company gets big enough, it is a de facto government department. Telecoms, water companies, autombile manufacturers, etc, etc, etc. As time goes by, these companies get so big that the government takes notice. Pork and subsidies of all kinds are offered and accepted. Bribes and Lobbyists are put in place to keep the government sweet. Anyone who thinks that "free enterprise" and "free markets" mean freedom from governments is living in a dogmatic fantasy land.
Big Corporations are as much a part of our governments as our education departments, tax offices and police forces. The only real differences is that they are officially "off the books" independent entities that can do just about whatever they please. In practice, this means that the government can engage in domestic espionage, blacklisting, censorship, propaganda, religious indoctrination, or just about anything else it's officially prohibited from doing by outsourcing the operations to its far flung, but still intimate branches.
AT&T is probably the worlds best example of an off the books government department. Both in terms of the operations they conduct, and also how well everyone has managed to swallow their whole "private industry" cover story.
If someone sets fire to your house, your insurance will go up. Insurance isn't fair or reasonable in most cases. Why does every driver have to buy something that is ordinarily optional for every other item in their life? Are there no risks in life outside of driving?
You've been watching too many porn movies instead of reading more astrology magazines... or possibly vice versa.
If you want or think you need insurance, you should get it for yourself. If others are willing to take the risk of going without it, they should be allowed.
Which is yet another reason why car insurance should not be mandatory.
Hoping that the "free market" will preserve your rights is ludicrous at the best of times. When an industry practically owes its entire existence to government mandates, you can bet it will tow the party line at every turn.
Yes, but is he dead or alive, or in a quantum superposition of both?
I hate to break your bubble, but 2+2=4 is not, and never has been a fact, let alone an incontrovertible one. Yes, there is some exceptionally convincing evidence, especially when experiments and comparisions with the real world are provided. But the fact of the matter is that 2+2=4 is simply a theory, stemming from axioms and some additional constructions. In fact, some people just accept it flat out as an axiom in its own right.
2+2=4 in our number system, not because that's the way the universe works, but because that's the way we have made our number system. There's a hell of a lot of different possibilities, but nothing is solidly provable without some ZFC set theory and a team of research mathematicians. Students need to know the difference.
ssh: backupserver: Name or service not known
lost connection
You've missed the entire point of streaming media.
Most courtrooms are show trials, where hyperbole, innuendo and character assassination is far more important than evidence, proof and the rule of law. This goes double for jury trials, and quadruple for family and secret courts.
Ever smoked weed? Had an affair? Viewed some pornography? Visited a hate site? Made politically incorrect comments? Had an embarrassing medical condition? Downloaded music? Are you Homosexual? Ever sympathize with "enemies of the state"? Ever have money problems? Ever committed a not very minor offense?
Legal, illegal, it doesn't matter. All that matters is that they are able to find out about it with impunity, so they can use it against you. Government blackmail is well documented. The police, prosecutors, spymasters, they all use it to get what they want.
There's a saying: "Never keep a diary". You computer files are a massive diary like archive of your life. Delete them regularly.
The Spartans kept slaves, practiced conscription, had a caste based society, committed routine infanticide and buggered young boys. I'm having trouble finding worse alternatives.
But, yes. They are a bit like the USA, now that you mention it.