I like Diablo II a lot. It's the only game I play. It's a lot of fun because I know I can sit down for 10 or 15 minutes or whatever and make a small contribution to my next level. I guess I would call it incremental gaming. After spending 4 or 6 hour chunks of time studying ochem or material for the MCAT in August, it is nice to run around whacking monsters and finding magical stuff. And since I play a little here or a little there, it doesn't really affect my family time at all.
I am not a lawyer. However, on first pass I really don't think that a sleepy-eyed picture with a questionable caption posted by a friend can be taken as a medical record. Maybe a party record. Or a stoned record. But definitely not a medical record. Unless you were stoned and the picture taken was taken in a medical setting and the friend was some sort of medical staff member. Now that would be really bad.
In the Marine Corps I ran a simulator that sounds like what you wrote about. The simulator came with weapons modified to take compressed air, to work the bolts when the triggers were pulled. It operated based on a large laser disk player and the modified weapons would 'paint' the screen with shots, so you could adjust fire. Each of the four weapons had a different color - when one enemy showed up, it was very funny to see him suddenly plastered with 20 or 30 hits in 4 different colors. Some smart aleck would quip, "we got 'im!" The weapons were pretty accurate - not quite as accurate as the real thing (typically I could hit 10 out of 10 at the 500 yard line, with the M-16, but in the simulation accuracy fell to about 60% to 80% - I blame 1/2 on moving targets and 1/2 on uncalibrated sensors/lights). Anyway, after the sim-run, the attached computer would score each shooter. We mostly ran combat and security patrol sims - movies of USMC grunts walking through terrain just as enemy contact is made. Our favorite, of course, was the ambush scenario. Nothing like unexpected and overwhelming force. I have no experience in combat. That said, we never, ever, had any trouble pulling the trigger at video targets. Not the same thing, though, is it?
I served in the Marine Corps reserve as a squad leader in a LAR company (Charlie Co., 4th LAR, 4th MARDIV, 1994-2002). I have trained in every skill the LAR scouts are tested on. I have worked with miles gear, planned and led training in combat, security and recon patrols in the mountains, in urban and desert environments; I have called for fire for mortar, artillery and air strikes. All in training. I have also played FPS games and let me tell you, nothing about it is the same. Throw on a flak vest, kevlar and 30-60 lbs. of gear, ammo and food, then lead your fellow Marines into 90+ degree weather on a 2000 meter patrol route through mountainous terrain, culminating in a full-on assault on a motorized pop-up target range. In gas masks. And that's just training. Never been to combat, myself. Tell me, which part of that is similar to sitting on your lazy butt in your living room, waggling your fingers and thumbs? None of it? Good Answer!! There are so many elements to armed combat that lead up to the possibility of pulling the trigger that comparing the two seems ludricrous to me. If videogames were anything like the real thing then in an FPS you would only be shooting a minute or two out of every hour. When your FPS game comes with 120 lbs of gear, a couple of cases of ammo, a rifle, some uniforms and five months of military, physical and combat training, then you can start making comparisons. Or you could simply join the Marines. If you could hack it. Maybe, on 2nd thought, you are better off in your living room.
I googled for my definition and then paraphrased it. I was similarly under the same impression you have just given, prior to looking it up. I do not think that Google(define:mythology) is infallible. However, I am apt to use it as a closer approximation for a meaning than my own somewhat patchy memory. These days a mythology would be any set of stories (or myths) that center on an obviously invalided belief system, religious or otherwise. The post I was orginally responded to was written in a way that made me believe that the poster was calling any belief system (religious or otherwise: the poster did not make a distinction) a mythology - and the poster then equated teaching such with child abuse. I simply responded in the same vein. Almost needless to say, I hardly think of my own belief as a mythology. Far from it!
By what yardstick of ethics do you make your own moral decisions? What form of not-mythology guides you through the moral decisions you make in life, including the decisions you make by default because you have no belief system?
A mythology is that body of stories that center on a religiously or secularly based belief system, which a given culture or homogeneous society hold to be true. What do you hold to be true? Do you believe in the Theory of Evolution? Have you no way of determining in your life what is right and what is wrong? And if you do have such a compass, how have you justified to yourself that your decisions are Absolutely Correct? Or do you go through life as a leaf on the surface of a turbulent rapids, going hither and yon at the whims of current and fate, no more in charge of your destiny than a gnat before a wind storm?
I would say that I feel sorry for you except that you might take such as pity and it is not. How does one who can see explain color to one who has been blind from birth? Or sweetness to the one born with no tongue?
Good luck, my friend! May sweet fortune smile upon you and bring you joy and happiness! You go and follow your druthers and try to find true, lasting happiness and joy in them. I will follow what has brought me joy and lasting happiness in my life and I will teach my children how to reach for and find that joy and happiness on their own. Because I know that will they grow and learn and will be happy, competent and productive people in their lives because of the belief system that has shown me a safe way through life's dangerous, reef-ridden shoals, I am truly amazed that such as you can call it child abuse.
And yet...if at the last day I am justified in my belief and all I have hope to be true is given to me to be known and proven as true, my belief system would hardly qualify as a myth, being everlastingly true.
Thank you for the kind reply, unusual on/. Actually, our new budget reflects the fact that I am applying to medical school for the Fall 2006 freshman class and we have extra expenses associated with that grand cause, like tuition for some pre-med classes I have to take, MCAT test fees and med school application fees. Before I started down this current path I had something like $140/month of 'spending money.' Those were the days!
That said, I am completely captivated by my new direction and have been very happy to work toward it. I am 35 now, so there are significant challenges and adjustments ahead in order to make this career switch. I believe that much of the ability I have to make this successful (and desirable) has come in large part from my experiences of being a father and from my experiences of working hard to finish school and support my family at the same time.
When I finished school in 2000 (while working full time) we already had two children. And a house. No, I didn't make mega-bucks (still don't and we have 4 children and a much nicer home) but we were very careful with our money and still are. I don't have gadgets (unless you count the XBox, which doubles as our DVD player), my computer is older than my first born (and cobbled together with parts I bought from a wholesaler) and I drive an old car with a lot of miles on it. I bring my lunch from home and we don't eat out much, maybe once every 8 weeks. We rent movies instead of going to the movie theatre. I don't have a lot of spending money, about $15 every two weeks. And yet, I wouldn't trade any amount of money or so-called social freedom for my family. Oh, and by the way, no one I have ever met or heard of was ready for children before they came. They kind of grow on you and you cannot get that kind of practice any other way. Some responsibilities cannot be prepared for until after the weight of them has already settled onto your shoulders and having children is one of those responsibilities.
Poverty is not a poor financial statement. It is a state of mind. I remember an old Appalachian woman being asked what she would do if she got some money. This was in the last few years that she was interviewed. She lived in a one room shack without indoor plumbing, out in the sticks. She said, "Well, I suppose I would give it to the poor." If you must have loads of spending money and lots of cool stuff in order for you to think of yourself as not poverty stricken, well, you don't really want children, do you? It's about your priorities.
Well, I do carry on, don't I? Point is, if you want to take on the responsibilities of children, don't wait until you are ready, because you never will be until you have them in your life.
What does "biting at the chops" mean? Is it similar to "champing at the bit"? I am simply curious. Even though I consider myself reasonably well read, at least in sci-fi and fantasy, I have never heard of this "biting at the chops" metaphor. Please supply the meaning (other than the obvious one that is clear from the context). Also, if you know the history of this metaphor, I would like to hear it as well. I did google for your metaphor and found 73 hits. For "champing at the bit" I found 120,000 hits. Could "biting at the chops" be a new metaphor? Where did it come from? Who used it first? Which legitimate metaphor was mangled in order to give birth to this "biting at the chops"? Frankly, I don't care for this new metaphor, it doesn't make a great deal of sense to me. Please let me know where you first heard it and why you think it appropriate to use here on/. Thanks!
Speaking of picking at nits...the M-16A2 service rifle has a range of 500 m for individual targets and 850 m for area targets. The last part of the United States Marine Corps known distance rifle qualification course takes place at 500 m distance. Semper Fi!
...for the most part all I really need to do is be able to see the keyboard letters to get almost right up to my old QWERTY typing speed, when I must. As for the rest of the time I am quite happy with Dvorak. It took me much longer than what I have heard it normally takes to get back up to or past my old speed, probably because in QWERTY I had gotten to the point where my typing was pretty much muscle memory - and that takes a long, long time to un-train. Nowadays, I can drop into muscle memory mode in Dvorak more and more often. Practice. May I suggest writing a novel during the month of November? After all, November is National Novel Writing Month. At the end of the month you will be fully functional in Dvorak AND you will be a novelist!
If I recall my Anatomy & Physiology lectures correctly, there are cells in the body that are not replaced - among these exceptions are the neuron cells of the CNS (Central Nervous System). This includes the brain and the spinal cord. If only I had my notes with me I could confirm that and give you a reference in the text we used, but I don't. Oh well, after all, this is/.
I am studying to enter the medical field, and plan on leaving my Java programming job far, far behind. I believe it will be nigh impossible (4 kids, mortgage, aged 34) but it will ultimately be more rewarding and more valuable to me, to my family and hopefully to society. Let someone else sling code! Pass me the scalpel! Let the shortage come!
I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and I know that Jesus is my Savior and I try my best to follow His teachings. That makes me Christian, a "Follower of Christ." Furthermore, what with modern day Protestant religious faiths accepting 'alternative' lifestyle (non-heterosexual) folks as clergy and ordaining women to their so-called priesthood, what now is orthodox? The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is ultra conservative in these and in many other areas.
Moreover, I personally believe that Darl McBride is a Moron (aside from being a Mormon) and feel that since he is perpetuating a lie in order to gain in a worldly way, he should be disciplined by his local clergy leadership. But that is only my personal opinion. Doubtless, Mr. McBride feels quite justified in his life of delusions.
Anyway, my points are thusly:
1. Please do not judge a religion by one its members, especially when the member in question is insane.
2. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is a Christian church - not a Protestant church, but a Restored church.
3. According to traditional, biblical and conservative Christian beliefs, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is orthodox (holding a correct or right opinion).
I do not represent the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in any official capacity, being merely a member of that church.
My point exactly!! You say that you had nightmares when you were a kid, I know I did when I was young & I know my young children have them from time to time. But the parent poster, no nightmares! That must mean he never was a kid! That must mean he...well, enough of that.
Tom, you don't have children, right? We have 4 children and they have all had, on the rare occasion, the appearance of a person having a nightmare. Restless, aigitated turning, calling out while still asleep, waking and immediately launching into a 4-alarm wail. Are you an experienced child psychologist who specializes in pre-schooler sleep patterns and night mares? No? I wonder if you have any clue as to what you are talking about.
It would take a serious series of credentials for your generalization to have any value or weight.
Slashdot Mirror
...now even bacteria are being outsourced to India.
I like Diablo II a lot. It's the only game I play. It's a lot of fun because I know I can sit down for 10 or 15 minutes or whatever and make a small contribution to my next level. I guess I would call it incremental gaming. After spending 4 or 6 hour chunks of time studying ochem or material for the MCAT in August, it is nice to run around whacking monsters and finding magical stuff. And since I play a little here or a little there, it doesn't really affect my family time at all.
I am not a lawyer. However, on first pass I really don't think that a sleepy-eyed picture with a questionable caption posted by a friend can be taken as a medical record. Maybe a party record. Or a stoned record. But definitely not a medical record. Unless you were stoned and the picture taken was taken in a medical setting and the friend was some sort of medical staff member. Now that would be really bad.
In the Marine Corps I ran a simulator that sounds like what you wrote about. The simulator came with weapons modified to take compressed air, to work the bolts when the triggers were pulled. It operated based on a large laser disk player and the modified weapons would 'paint' the screen with shots, so you could adjust fire. Each of the four weapons had a different color - when one enemy showed up, it was very funny to see him suddenly plastered with 20 or 30 hits in 4 different colors. Some smart aleck would quip, "we got 'im!" The weapons were pretty accurate - not quite as accurate as the real thing (typically I could hit 10 out of 10 at the 500 yard line, with the M-16, but in the simulation accuracy fell to about 60% to 80% - I blame 1/2 on moving targets and 1/2 on uncalibrated sensors/lights). Anyway, after the sim-run, the attached computer would score each shooter. We mostly ran combat and security patrol sims - movies of USMC grunts walking through terrain just as enemy contact is made. Our favorite, of course, was the ambush scenario. Nothing like unexpected and overwhelming force. I have no experience in combat. That said, we never, ever, had any trouble pulling the trigger at video targets. Not the same thing, though, is it?
I served in the Marine Corps reserve as a squad leader in a LAR company (Charlie Co., 4th LAR, 4th MARDIV, 1994-2002). I have trained in every skill the LAR scouts are tested on. I have worked with miles gear, planned and led training in combat, security and recon patrols in the mountains, in urban and desert environments; I have called for fire for mortar, artillery and air strikes. All in training. I have also played FPS games and let me tell you, nothing about it is the same. Throw on a flak vest, kevlar and 30-60 lbs. of gear, ammo and food, then lead your fellow Marines into 90+ degree weather on a 2000 meter patrol route through mountainous terrain, culminating in a full-on assault on a motorized pop-up target range. In gas masks. And that's just training. Never been to combat, myself. Tell me, which part of that is similar to sitting on your lazy butt in your living room, waggling your fingers and thumbs? None of it? Good Answer!! There are so many elements to armed combat that lead up to the possibility of pulling the trigger that comparing the two seems ludricrous to me. If videogames were anything like the real thing then in an FPS you would only be shooting a minute or two out of every hour. When your FPS game comes with 120 lbs of gear, a couple of cases of ammo, a rifle, some uniforms and five months of military, physical and combat training, then you can start making comparisons. Or you could simply join the Marines. If you could hack it. Maybe, on 2nd thought, you are better off in your living room.
I googled for my definition and then paraphrased it. I was similarly under the same impression you have just given, prior to looking it up. I do not think that Google(define:mythology) is infallible. However, I am apt to use it as a closer approximation for a meaning than my own somewhat patchy memory. These days a mythology would be any set of stories (or myths) that center on an obviously invalided belief system, religious or otherwise. The post I was orginally responded to was written in a way that made me believe that the poster was calling any belief system (religious or otherwise: the poster did not make a distinction) a mythology - and the poster then equated teaching such with child abuse. I simply responded in the same vein. Almost needless to say, I hardly think of my own belief as a mythology. Far from it!
By what yardstick of ethics do you make your own moral decisions? What form of not-mythology guides you through the moral decisions you make in life, including the decisions you make by default because you have no belief system?
A mythology is that body of stories that center on a religiously or secularly based belief system, which a given culture or homogeneous society hold to be true. What do you hold to be true? Do you believe in the Theory of Evolution? Have you no way of determining in your life what is right and what is wrong? And if you do have such a compass, how have you justified to yourself that your decisions are Absolutely Correct? Or do you go through life as a leaf on the surface of a turbulent rapids, going hither and yon at the whims of current and fate, no more in charge of your destiny than a gnat before a wind storm?
I would say that I feel sorry for you except that you might take such as pity and it is not. How does one who can see explain color to one who has been blind from birth? Or sweetness to the one born with no tongue?
Good luck, my friend! May sweet fortune smile upon you and bring you joy and happiness! You go and follow your druthers and try to find true, lasting happiness and joy in them. I will follow what has brought me joy and lasting happiness in my life and I will teach my children how to reach for and find that joy and happiness on their own. Because I know that will they grow and learn and will be happy, competent and productive people in their lives because of the belief system that has shown me a safe way through life's dangerous, reef-ridden shoals, I am truly amazed that such as you can call it child abuse.
And yet...if at the last day I am justified in my belief and all I have hope to be true is given to me to be known and proven as true, my belief system would hardly qualify as a myth, being everlastingly true.
Thank you for the kind reply, unusual on /. Actually, our new budget reflects the fact that I am applying to medical school for the Fall 2006 freshman class and we have extra expenses associated with that grand cause, like tuition for some pre-med classes I have to take, MCAT test fees and med school application fees. Before I started down this current path I had something like $140/month of 'spending money.' Those were the days!
That said, I am completely captivated by my new direction and have been very happy to work toward it. I am 35 now, so there are significant challenges and adjustments ahead in order to make this career switch. I believe that much of the ability I have to make this successful (and desirable) has come in large part from my experiences of being a father and from my experiences of working hard to finish school and support my family at the same time.
When I finished school in 2000 (while working full time) we already had two children. And a house. No, I didn't make mega-bucks (still don't and we have 4 children and a much nicer home) but we were very careful with our money and still are. I don't have gadgets (unless you count the XBox, which doubles as our DVD player), my computer is older than my first born (and cobbled together with parts I bought from a wholesaler) and I drive an old car with a lot of miles on it. I bring my lunch from home and we don't eat out much, maybe once every 8 weeks. We rent movies instead of going to the movie theatre. I don't have a lot of spending money, about $15 every two weeks. And yet, I wouldn't trade any amount of money or so-called social freedom for my family. Oh, and by the way, no one I have ever met or heard of was ready for children before they came. They kind of grow on you and you cannot get that kind of practice any other way. Some responsibilities cannot be prepared for until after the weight of them has already settled onto your shoulders and having children is one of those responsibilities.
Poverty is not a poor financial statement. It is a state of mind. I remember an old Appalachian woman being asked what she would do if she got some money. This was in the last few years that she was interviewed. She lived in a one room shack without indoor plumbing, out in the sticks. She said, "Well, I suppose I would give it to the poor." If you must have loads of spending money and lots of cool stuff in order for you to think of yourself as not poverty stricken, well, you don't really want children, do you? It's about your priorities.
Well, I do carry on, don't I? Point is, if you want to take on the responsibilities of children, don't wait until you are ready, because you never will be until you have them in your life.
What does "biting at the chops" mean? Is it similar to "champing at the bit"? I am simply curious. Even though I consider myself reasonably well read, at least in sci-fi and fantasy, I have never heard of this "biting at the chops" metaphor. Please supply the meaning (other than the obvious one that is clear from the context). Also, if you know the history of this metaphor, I would like to hear it as well. I did google for your metaphor and found 73 hits. For "champing at the bit" I found 120,000 hits. Could "biting at the chops" be a new metaphor? Where did it come from? Who used it first? Which legitimate metaphor was mangled in order to give birth to this "biting at the chops"? Frankly, I don't care for this new metaphor, it doesn't make a great deal of sense to me. Please let me know where you first heard it and why you think it appropriate to use here on /. Thanks!
Hey Steinman! Yer my hero!!
Speaking of picking at nits...the M-16A2 service rifle has a range of 500 m for individual targets and 850 m for area targets. The last part of the United States Marine Corps known distance rifle qualification course takes place at 500 m distance. Semper Fi!
Vin is tryin' ta git in...
...for the most part all I really need to do is be able to see the keyboard letters to get almost right up to my old QWERTY typing speed, when I must. As for the rest of the time I am quite happy with Dvorak. It took me much longer than what I have heard it normally takes to get back up to or past my old speed, probably because in QWERTY I had gotten to the point where my typing was pretty much muscle memory - and that takes a long, long time to un-train. Nowadays, I can drop into muscle memory mode in Dvorak more and more often. Practice. May I suggest writing a novel during the month of November? After all, November is National Novel Writing Month. At the end of the month you will be fully functional in Dvorak AND you will be a novelist!
...a navigational officer on a Man-O-War. And I would still have been a rifleman, only more slowly.
Can I get a Beowulf cluster of them?
If I recall my Anatomy & Physiology lectures correctly, there are cells in the body that are not replaced - among these exceptions are the neuron cells of the CNS (Central Nervous System). This includes the brain and the spinal cord. If only I had my notes with me I could confirm that and give you a reference in the text we used, but I don't. Oh well, after all, this is /.
I am studying to enter the medical field, and plan on leaving my Java programming job far, far behind. I believe it will be nigh impossible (4 kids, mortgage, aged 34) but it will ultimately be more rewarding and more valuable to me, to my family and hopefully to society. Let someone else sling code! Pass me the scalpel! Let the shortage come!
So...I can download it (and its source) and use it for free? What's to complain about?
I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and I know that Jesus is my Savior and I try my best to follow His teachings. That makes me Christian, a "Follower of Christ." Furthermore, what with modern day Protestant religious faiths accepting 'alternative' lifestyle (non-heterosexual) folks as clergy and ordaining women to their so-called priesthood, what now is orthodox? The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is ultra conservative in these and in many other areas.
Moreover, I personally believe that Darl McBride is a Moron (aside from being a Mormon) and feel that since he is perpetuating a lie in order to gain in a worldly way, he should be disciplined by his local clergy leadership. But that is only my personal opinion. Doubtless, Mr. McBride feels quite justified in his life of delusions.
Anyway, my points are thusly:
1. Please do not judge a religion by one its members, especially when the member in question is insane.
2. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is a Christian church - not a Protestant church, but a Restored church.
3. According to traditional, biblical and conservative Christian beliefs, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is orthodox (holding a correct or right opinion).
I do not represent the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in any official capacity, being merely a member of that church.
"Reviews play a critical role in the movie ecosystem." Nice pun. - Your Eldest Brother
My point exactly!! You say that you had nightmares when you were a kid, I know I did when I was young & I know my young children have them from time to time. But the parent poster, no nightmares! That must mean he never was a kid! That must mean he...well, enough of that.
Tom, you don't have children, right? We have 4 children and they have all had, on the rare occasion, the appearance of a person having a nightmare. Restless, aigitated turning, calling out while still asleep, waking and immediately launching into a 4-alarm wail. Are you an experienced child psychologist who specializes in pre-schooler sleep patterns and night mares? No? I wonder if you have any clue as to what you are talking about. It would take a serious series of credentials for your generalization to have any value or weight.
But I like to blow stuff up!!
Donald Knuth? Is that you?