The other issue older gamers will face is the ever increasing difficulty of games. Games have come a long way since the simplicity of the A and B buttons. Today's controllers are becoming more and more complicated and require greater dexterity to master.
Sorry, I agree with the rest of your post, it's just that that comment always narks me because it's not nearly as true as some people seem to think it is. Two or three early mythologies, perhaps, feature a flat earth. But all educated people since at least the 3rd century BCE, at least in Europe, have known that the world is round. (That includes the Middle Ages, and it includes 15th century Spain.)
But don't think for one second that the majority opinion of slashdot is in any way indicative of the general public. (I refer you to the original iPod posting.)
Actually, FWIW, if you read the comments posted on the iPod article, it's pretty clear that almost everyone except CmdrTaco was in fact pretty gobsmacked (in a good way) by the iPod.
What I meant was that the law would be interpreted pretty quickly to mean that it did indeed require you to retain the key. (My guesstimate of the probability of that happening: ca. 80%.)
in the late 1980s, around the time the astronomical community was actually trying to get us to pronounce it 'ooranus' as opposed you 'your-anus'.
Huh, I've wondered for a long time where that pronunciation came from. FWIW it's not unjustified: the name of the titan in Greek myth (Ouranos) is indeed pronounced more like "OOranus" than "yourANus".
I don't know anything about UK law, but in my country, "sexual contact with a minor" and "rape" are very different crimes. Even under Blair, I'd be surprised if that distinction doesn't exist in the UK too.
I suspect I would very rapidly forgot the password,...
If you try that on, I suspect you will very quickly find that not only ignorantia legis nemini excusat, but also ignorantia lege nemini excusat (by law, ignorance is not an excuse for anyone).
I get the strange feeling that I won't be a Mac user for much longer. Despite the delays, Vista looks to be pretty solid and cool, and Linux appears to be advancing rapidly.
Has never come home from a long day at work and settled down to a nice game of Shakespeare vs. Dante: An Interactive Post-Modernist Reconstruction of Hendecasyllabic Meter as Practiced Circa 1315
Sir, you have made my day; I laughed enough to make me run for the toilet. I doff my tweed cap to you.
Heck, it'd probably be enough just to show that you got halfway through by showing that you know the correct answer to the question, "What can change the nature of a man?"... <smirk>
Easily the most intelligent and relevant post in this discussion. How did TFA's author get the daft idea that complex organisms are more "advanced" and simpler organisms more "primitive"? Isn't the premise of the article -- that it's the simpler organisms that are more successful -- enough to put paid to that kind of nonsense?
And yet, when I nostalgically opened up Ultima IV last year, I found it even more addictive than I did back in the 1980s. (I'll agree it looks and sounds better in xu4, though.)
There are a few old games that I still find addictive -- not many. Some personal highlights: Rainbow Walker (Atari); Bank Panic; Elite; Rogue and its descendants. Even Alternate Reality lasted two evenings when I tried it out again not long ago. Most arcade games that I used to play I just find annoying, though (under MAME or otherwise), so I guess I'll agree with you in a general way.
I'd largely agree with what you've said, except for the initial assumptions -- existence of God, divine inspiration -- so I guess we're on the same wavelength now.:-) Kudos for engaging in dialogue with an obviously hostile interlocutor. (Which I remain, intellectually at least, even if we are now on the same wavelength.)
The only relevant comments I think I can add to what I've already said are:
I agree with your first and second ground rules, but not this one: "Since the whole Bible is (allegedly) inspired by God, then all passages point at the same truth,..." I don't buy this syllogism even slightly. It depends on a very subjective notion of "truth": I will say that truth is too nebulous to be pointed at other than in the vaguest way. But I think we'll have to agree to disagree on that; your claims about rigour, and the possibility of determining what is crucial, are still too strong for me to accept.
"... but you can always winnow out a lot of obvious things it DOESN'T mean..." I wholly agree with this; "... and almost always narrow it down to no more than two or so plausible meanings" -- not agreed. You don't have to be a nihilist or a deconstructionist to realise that even just present-day literary critics' interpretive methods reveal a far vaster range of possible interpretations of what is "crucial" in a text. But even that's too limiting: I alluded in my last post to the mediaeval methodology of discerning four discrete "layers" of exegetical meaning to any biblical text; I suggested another reading of Genesis 1-2, which I don't think is invalid, but is just not on the radar of most modern readers; etc., ad infinitum. Interpretations are created by personal choices for which the reader is at least partly responsible. Sure, they're delimited by readings that you can rule out, but the range of possible interpretations -- and possible disagreements -- is simply too boundless to exclude the element of personal, non-inspired, choice.
Finally:
Which, of course, is one of the big factors behind different Christian denominations. Because lots of well-meaning, learned, smart people just simply disagree on the 3% of passages that can't really be nailed down. You will find, however, that even among a half dozen Christian denominations, those who've really studied their Bibles and take their faith seriously will agree on 95% of everything. They just tend to make a big deal out of the few differences, in my experience.
I think you're right that most people will tend to agree on a certain percentage of everything (though I'd wager it's a lot lower than 95%, though that will be affected by all sorts of factors). It's one of the reasons why, of all denominations, I have a certain sneaking intellectual respect for the Catholics, since they're quite open about the fact that what's important isn't so much the Bible itself, even though it is "inspired", but how the Christian community (the "church") agrees to interpret it.
I'm glad this discussion has continued, even if I'm as adamantly opposed to your position as ever, simply because I did genuinely find your first post self-contradictory -- basically, out of context, it sounded dumb (sorry). I think I understand better now where you're coming from, but it's quite a sophisticated -- and in some ways non-intuitive -- position. I really want to suggest having a careful think about the exegetical principles you propose, though. For example, try testing whether they work with other kinds of texts: does a literary work bear up under the same rules?
I hold that they won't, or not very well: because it's not just a matter of trying to narrow down the range of possible literal meanings, it's also a matter of thinking about what the text is trying to achieve, which is generally going to be amazingly nebulous. For example, I suggested a reading of Genesis 1-2 that was more about
FUD, FUD, FUD. I'm not a Mac user and even I found it trivially easy to find info on this.
http://forum.onmac.net/archive/index.php/t-875.htm l: "Just bought the game today, runs great! I've got it running in the higher range for graphics ect. also. MacBook Pro 2.16GHz 100GB 7200rpm 1GB RAM ATI x1600 Overclocked to 430/470"; "With the exception of any shadowing effects, all effects maxed, resolution set to 1280 720, x1600 OC'd to 470/470, Bloom Lighting I am able to acheive 40 FPS out in the world and 60 SOLID FPS when inside a dungeon or building."
... we are definately better off than other countries. John Howard knows what he's doing...
I have a sneaking feeling that many Australians would argue that the fact that John Howard is canny makes you worse off. An intelligent enemy is more dangerous than a stupid one. Compare Tony Blair -- he's intelligent, but a bit of a wimp; so you're even worse off than the Brits... Of course this is all assuming I'm hostile to John Howard (which I am).
Slashdot Mirror
From TFA:
I guess he never played Defender.
... but not very AC.
Really? When? By whom?
Sorry, I agree with the rest of your post, it's just that that comment always narks me because it's not nearly as true as some people seem to think it is. Two or three early mythologies, perhaps, feature a flat earth. But all educated people since at least the 3rd century BCE, at least in Europe, have known that the world is round. (That includes the Middle Ages, and it includes 15th century Spain.)
Actually, FWIW, if you read the comments posted on the iPod article, it's pretty clear that almost everyone except CmdrTaco was in fact pretty gobsmacked (in a good way) by the iPod.
What I meant was that the law would be interpreted pretty quickly to mean that it did indeed require you to retain the key. (My guesstimate of the probability of that happening: ca. 80%.)
Huh, I've wondered for a long time where that pronunciation came from. FWIW it's not unjustified: the name of the titan in Greek myth (Ouranos) is indeed pronounced more like "OOranus" than "yourANus".
I don't know anything about UK law, but in my country, "sexual contact with a minor" and "rape" are very different crimes. Even under Blair, I'd be surprised if that distinction doesn't exist in the UK too.
If you try that on, I suspect you will very quickly find that not only ignorantia legis nemini excusat, but also ignorantia lege nemini excusat (by law, ignorance is not an excuse for anyone).
Hear, hear. I'd rather have an upper house that on any given issue had a decent proportion of people without vested interests.
And Usenet. Be fair.
So I make that 267 DPI. Is it possible yet to get a 200 DPI monitor for a desktop computer? Say, 17 inch?
That's one of the many differences between criminal and civil.
"Let them hate me, so long as they fear me" (oderint, dum metuant). -- Roman emperor Gaius "Caligula" (12-41 CE).
The RIAA won't care either.
Mod parent +i, "Weird".
Sir, you have made my day; I laughed enough to make me run for the toilet. I doff my tweed cap to you.
Heck, it'd probably be enough just to show that you got halfway through by showing that you know the correct answer to the question, "What can change the nature of a man?" ... <smirk>
Someone mod the parent up. The gpp is precisely wrong.
Easily the most intelligent and relevant post in this discussion. How did TFA's author get the daft idea that complex organisms are more "advanced" and simpler organisms more "primitive"? Isn't the premise of the article -- that it's the simpler organisms that are more successful -- enough to put paid to that kind of nonsense?
And yet, when I nostalgically opened up Ultima IV last year, I found it even more addictive than I did back in the 1980s. (I'll agree it looks and sounds better in xu4, though.)
There are a few old games that I still find addictive -- not many. Some personal highlights: Rainbow Walker (Atari); Bank Panic; Elite; Rogue and its descendants. Even Alternate Reality lasted two evenings when I tried it out again not long ago. Most arcade games that I used to play I just find annoying, though (under MAME or otherwise), so I guess I'll agree with you in a general way.
They can keep their Real Time Strategy ... so long as I can have my Real Time Weapon Change.
Hmm, good point.
I'd largely agree with what you've said, except for the initial assumptions -- existence of God, divine inspiration -- so I guess we're on the same wavelength now. :-) Kudos for engaging in dialogue with an obviously hostile interlocutor. (Which I remain, intellectually at least, even if we are now on the same wavelength.)
The only relevant comments I think I can add to what I've already said are:
I think you're right that most people will tend to agree on a certain percentage of everything (though I'd wager it's a lot lower than 95%, though that will be affected by all sorts of factors). It's one of the reasons why, of all denominations, I have a certain sneaking intellectual respect for the Catholics, since they're quite open about the fact that what's important isn't so much the Bible itself, even though it is "inspired", but how the Christian community (the "church") agrees to interpret it.
I'm glad this discussion has continued, even if I'm as adamantly opposed to your position as ever, simply because I did genuinely find your first post self-contradictory -- basically, out of context, it sounded dumb (sorry). I think I understand better now where you're coming from, but it's quite a sophisticated -- and in some ways non-intuitive -- position. I really want to suggest having a careful think about the exegetical principles you propose, though. For example, try testing whether they work with other kinds of texts: does a literary work bear up under the same rules?
I hold that they won't, or not very well: because it's not just a matter of trying to narrow down the range of possible literal meanings, it's also a matter of thinking about what the text is trying to achieve, which is generally going to be amazingly nebulous. For example, I suggested a reading of Genesis 1-2 that was more about
FUD, FUD, FUD. I'm not a Mac user and even I found it trivially easy to find info on this.
I have a sneaking feeling that many Australians would argue that the fact that John Howard is canny makes you worse off. An intelligent enemy is more dangerous than a stupid one. Compare Tony Blair -- he's intelligent, but a bit of a wimp; so you're even worse off than the Brits ... Of course this is all assuming I'm hostile to John Howard (which I am).
Indeed. Just remember what its competition was at the time -- Lost in Space.