despite all that the news and religious right were spouting in the 80s when i was a kid, dnd actually saved my life. i was a chronically depressed, suicidal adolescent with no social contacts outside my immediate family. dnd let me open up imagination and share it with likeminded people. taught me invaluable reference skills, story telling, group management, but most importantly it insisted that i interact with others and in doing so provided me with the slow crawl back to reality.
i dont know that gary would have understood the seriousness of all that, but what that group created was an invaluable part of my life.
goodbye e. gary gygax and thank you.
i would certainly agree with you, as i believe i did in my post, that the tigerdata is better than nothing. perhaps its my area but the gis professionals i know have not had very good luck with it and as such i would only rely on it in the most rudimentary sense. by that i mean i would not build maps based solely on its contents. this means, in reference to the OP, that i would not use it to reliably build a road map, i mean there's no centerlines! =)
speaking of it was not my understanding that the tigerdata was regularly updated, thanks for that tipoff i ll be checking it out.
1. I use TigerData as a GIS professional and frankly its often crap. It was a good start for a rushed product in order to launch a project, but I would not now nor would I ever rely on its accuracy without checking it. The TigerData for my area regularly has roads going off the sides of mountains, roads where there have never been roads, etc. Also, the TigerData for my area has not been updated since it was released almost 8 years ago. 2. As for "driving around" it would depend upon how accurate the device is. The local utility company I work closely with spent 5,000$ just on the handheld to receive subcentimeter readings and about 20,000$ on the base station to accompany it. Your typical yellow DeLorme unit is great for driving around but it is not a data collection unit I would use when building maps. Depending upon satellite coverage for your area (weather, tree cover, geography, the placement of the 3 satellites needed to position accurately) your store bought unit could be as much as 100ft or more off your actual location and rarely closer than 5ft. Again depending upon coverage and the device. Then add the need for regular updates and mapping changes. 3. An open source mapping project would be great, but it is currently rather expensive to actually collect and process the data needed to build accurate maps. A terrific source of addressing and centerline information is your local E911 Board. At least in my part of the world they do much of the fire district, centerline, and, of course, addressing for mapping.
i logged in just to say thank you "apparently(756613)". youre absolutely spot on, fortunately some of us still read thomas paine and mlk...oh and those pesky history books.
recently i had a discussion with a friend concerning the nature of community in general and in particular the relationships that make up the online gaming experience. the emotions felt are real. the connections made between individuals are real. therefore imo online relationships are real just as the ones i experience in the office or at home or at the coffee shop are. however, while they may be real, because they comprise real human experience, they are qualitatively different. and i think that this is where it becomes difficult. we haven't related to each other in the ways presented through this new medium, ever. this means that in the social background the rules have yet to be established, the presupposed boundaries and entry points are not agreed upon, leaving us in a liminal stage. it appears to me that once these things are more hashed out the debates about the 'reality' of the nature of online relationships will fade.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
on
Why Myths Persist
·
· Score: 1
Perhaps Kuhn's famous study of scientific discovery might help here? Kuhn is old stuff now, but there has been plenty to follow up on these questions in the philosophy of science. A great quote in the wikipedia article on the philosophy of science coming from no less a master of logic than Quine:
"Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer . . . For my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer's gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing, the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conceptions only as cultural posits"
he said that LOTR was a "meditation" on power, which is actually different from a direct allegory. Reading Tolkien's comments on elves, magic, and art in his collected correspondence it becomes clear that this does reflect certain aspects of LOTR. not being allegorical does not remove themes, concepts, familiar aspects of human living. tolkien is more directly referring to the attempt by some to correlate his work to the WWII, as well as attempting to draw any allegorical, one to one relation with the real world.
sometimes people need a slap on the back not in the face.
back on topic re: gf's...man sometimes they do that. if you are at fault im sure you ll figure it out. just remember it cuts both ways and relationships *demand* communication that is at least honesty and hard work.
back on topic re: rocket ships...wth is this article about?? are they gonna find us a FTL drive? cuz if not im not really interested.
so glad youre an expat? like who? benjamin franklin? thomas jefferson? george washington?
the massive demonstrations will probably occur when those who do realize what's going on quit running away to become expats. lazy much? or just a coward who likes to run from a fight only to call those left behind "wussies"?
this reminds me of the drawings my friends and i did in elementary school where the planes and spaceships literally bristled like porcupine needles with lasers, missles, antilaser-lasers, antimissle laser missles, etc...
besides in 20 years time itll be 2026 and the apocalypse or time travel or flying cars or warp cores will be invented and none of it will matter anyways.
this is the success of terrorism. terrorizing.
sounds vaguely like the irish ecclesial philosopher bishop berkeley. "esse est percipi" to be is to be perceived. he believed that god held all things in existence only as they were needed, or better, perceived. aka, idealism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_Berkeley
the author of a wired magazine article on the game makes a very good point. the game is no where near as graphic as the description given in the book of Revelation and other fundamentalist sources for the endtime frenzy. when the author contacted the game makers about this they replied that while the bible was more graphic they didnt want to make the game too violent and thereby inappropriate for children
so...its okay to believe this stuff literally is going to happen to people, but its not something you want your children to watch...just what kind of god are these people worshipping?
heres the link: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,72071-0.html
Slashdot Mirror
despite all that the news and religious right were spouting in the 80s when i was a kid, dnd actually saved my life. i was a chronically depressed, suicidal adolescent with no social contacts outside my immediate family. dnd let me open up imagination and share it with likeminded people. taught me invaluable reference skills, story telling, group management, but most importantly it insisted that i interact with others and in doing so provided me with the slow crawl back to reality. i dont know that gary would have understood the seriousness of all that, but what that group created was an invaluable part of my life. goodbye e. gary gygax and thank you.
i would certainly agree with you, as i believe i did in my post, that the tigerdata is better than nothing. perhaps its my area but the gis professionals i know have not had very good luck with it and as such i would only rely on it in the most rudimentary sense. by that i mean i would not build maps based solely on its contents. this means, in reference to the OP, that i would not use it to reliably build a road map, i mean there's no centerlines! =) speaking of it was not my understanding that the tigerdata was regularly updated, thanks for that tipoff i ll be checking it out.
1. I use TigerData as a GIS professional and frankly its often crap. It was a good start for a rushed product in order to launch a project, but I would not now nor would I ever rely on its accuracy without checking it. The TigerData for my area regularly has roads going off the sides of mountains, roads where there have never been roads, etc. Also, the TigerData for my area has not been updated since it was released almost 8 years ago.
2. As for "driving around" it would depend upon how accurate the device is. The local utility company I work closely with spent 5,000$ just on the handheld to receive subcentimeter readings and about 20,000$ on the base station to accompany it. Your typical yellow DeLorme unit is great for driving around but it is not a data collection unit I would use when building maps. Depending upon satellite coverage for your area (weather, tree cover, geography, the placement of the 3 satellites needed to position accurately) your store bought unit could be as much as 100ft or more off your actual location and rarely closer than 5ft. Again depending upon coverage and the device. Then add the need for regular updates and mapping changes.
3. An open source mapping project would be great, but it is currently rather expensive to actually collect and process the data needed to build accurate maps. A terrific source of addressing and centerline information is your local E911 Board. At least in my part of the world they do much of the fire district, centerline, and, of course, addressing for mapping.
i logged in just to say thank you "apparently(756613)". youre absolutely spot on, fortunately some of us still read thomas paine and mlk...oh and those pesky history books.
i for one welcome our cataloging overlords.
when i get my positronic brain.
screw multi-classing go with a good skill based system like the WestEnd Games d6. that star wars game rocked.
recently i had a discussion with a friend concerning the nature of community in general and in particular the relationships that make up the online gaming experience. the emotions felt are real. the connections made between individuals are real. therefore imo online relationships are real just as the ones i experience in the office or at home or at the coffee shop are. however, while they may be real, because they comprise real human experience, they are qualitatively different. and i think that this is where it becomes difficult. we haven't related to each other in the ways presented through this new medium, ever. this means that in the social background the rules have yet to be established, the presupposed boundaries and entry points are not agreed upon, leaving us in a liminal stage. it appears to me that once these things are more hashed out the debates about the 'reality' of the nature of online relationships will fade.
Perhaps Kuhn's famous study of scientific discovery might help here? Kuhn is old stuff now, but there has been plenty to follow up on these questions in the philosophy of science. A great quote in the wikipedia article on the philosophy of science coming from no less a master of logic than Quine:
"Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer . . . For my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer's gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing, the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conceptions only as cultural posits"
welcome our new republican overlords oh and condoms dont work, just ask my dad.
ya, on that same note: do these people not have, you know, in-laws or drunk uncles?
"Not to mention, the sexy and strange appeal"...but, but i like sexy and strange.
he said that LOTR was a "meditation" on power, which is actually different from a direct allegory. Reading Tolkien's comments on elves, magic, and art in his collected correspondence it becomes clear that this does reflect certain aspects of LOTR. not being allegorical does not remove themes, concepts, familiar aspects of human living. tolkien is more directly referring to the attempt by some to correlate his work to the WWII, as well as attempting to draw any allegorical, one to one relation with the real world.
sometimes people need a slap on the back not in the face.
back on topic re: gf's...man sometimes they do that. if you are at fault im sure you ll figure it out. just remember it cuts both ways and relationships *demand* communication that is at least honesty and hard work.
back on topic re: rocket ships...wth is this article about?? are they gonna find us a FTL drive? cuz if not im not really interested.
i mean how can anyone be expected to download *anything* with bittorrent if those damnable lights are on in a bedroom keeping one up all night?
so glad youre an expat? like who? benjamin franklin? thomas jefferson? george washington? the massive demonstrations will probably occur when those who do realize what's going on quit running away to become expats. lazy much? or just a coward who likes to run from a fight only to call those left behind "wussies"?
are born...
this reminds me of the drawings my friends and i did in elementary school where the planes and spaceships literally bristled like porcupine needles with lasers, missles, antilaser-lasers, antimissle laser missles, etc... besides in 20 years time itll be 2026 and the apocalypse or time travel or flying cars or warp cores will be invented and none of it will matter anyways. this is the success of terrorism. terrorizing.
sounds vaguely like the irish ecclesial philosopher bishop berkeley. "esse est percipi" to be is to be perceived. he believed that god held all things in existence only as they were needed, or better, perceived. aka, idealism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_Berkeley
there are three kinds of lies in this world: lies, damn lies, and statistics.
the author of a wired magazine article on the game makes a very good point. the game is no where near as graphic as the description given in the book of Revelation and other fundamentalist sources for the endtime frenzy. when the author contacted the game makers about this they replied that while the bible was more graphic they didnt want to make the game too violent and thereby inappropriate for children so...its okay to believe this stuff literally is going to happen to people, but its not something you want your children to watch...just what kind of god are these people worshipping? heres the link: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,72071-0.html