The fact is, children require sacrifice, and when given the option many people will just avoid sacrificing. This is why in Europe and Japan population is declining, and why, unless a new pro-family and pro-child secular ethos is created, religious people will be the ones keeping society going.
Now, I'm not saying that birth control is all a bad thing. My parents used birth control (but they still had 3 kids), my sister and her husband are using "natural" birth control (because she's allergic to something, I think). But it has had bad unintended consequences. A society with no children is a society with no future.
OH NOZ! I guess we have to call all FPSes MMOs now because you can have 40 people playing at once! That's HUGE!...
not.
The thing about the town though is that it's only one part of the game. Say I made a game where there was a world map in which everyone was represented by a dot. When your dot ran into another dot you two people played a game of chess by yourselves. Would you really call that an MMO just because of the world map? You might say that it has MMO elements, or that it is an MMO meeting place for chess players, but to say that "the game is an MMO" is deceptive because not all of the world is persistent for everyone.
What about instances and battlegrounds? Those constitute a much smaller fraction of the world than GW's everything-except-for-towns. You spend most of your time in WoW in a place where you can just run into other random people. Not so in GW.
Moreover, Blender has a wacky interface which the experienced users love. So ideal application Foo must somehow have an interface which both the inexperienced and experienced can love... which seems completely contradictory.
The knowledge of how to make fire will die with the human race. Seriously, if nothing we do affects The End, then how does anything in-between matter? Humankind will die out, and Prometheus' fire with it.
It's not like fire couldn't have been invented by someone else, anyways. If the inventor didn't invent it that'd just mean someone else would have. In either case fire is invented and the only difference is in the name of the inventor.
I'm just curious, where did they get that sample from? Was it merely a study in one country, or did it include multiple countries? What about countries from vastly different cultures (i.e. Iran, Russia, China, and the US)? Societies in various stages of economic development?
"To that, I'll say there are countless ways to live forever through the echoes of your life. Make an impression you want to leave."
Even echoes fade until they can no longer be heard. If there's one thing to learn from science, it's that immortality only exists at the most basic of levels, if you can consider energy or matter as in themselves "living". I suppose that some people might be happy so long as their "echoes" exist somewhere, somehow, as information, but I obviously think that's silly. What's the point of "echoes" if no one can hear them? If they don't affect anything? Isn't that just what death is?
Of course, if you look at any specific instance of injustice you can twist the issues to your side of the argument. Evil in Warcraft can be cut cleanly, but not in that way. Basically, evil comes from demons and the old gods and is passed down to those who are corrupted by them. Who the heck knows where good comes from or why anyone bothers wirh it.
Perhaps the sale of such movies to minors isn't as much of an issue anyways. Movies aren't new and the whole nasty movie fiasco already happened. Parents now have a clearer idea of what to do with movies. If a parent doesn't want their kid to see the movie, they don't let them buy or see the movie.
But video games are newer, so parents are less comfortable with them. They don't know quite as well what to do with them. At least in my house, us kids bought the video games while my parents bought the movies. So this legislation is simply parents expressing their insecurity over their own ability to regulate their children's video games.
If the legislation isn't passed, in awhile it could probably fade to the background as parents find they can control what games their children play just they control what movies their children see. If it is that just means that parents don't think they can have that control on their own.
In either case no one is saying that selling "The Passion of Christ", "300", or any other R-rated movie to minors is a good thing.
On the contrary, it does. If you really believe that life is meaningless you will feel like your life is meaningless. Then the only time you can have a "meaningful" life is when you forget that you don't believe in "meaningful" lives. To cheer up a suicidal person you wouldn't say "Don't worry, all these feelings you're having right now are just chemical reactions in your brain."
To say that these ideas shouldn't, or won't, affect human behavior is silly. If it doesn't it's because no one actually believes them.
Interesting, but the ways you interpret those verses show that you are ignorant. The Bible is not Poor Richard's Almanac, where each sentence is independent of any other and completely straightforward. Christians, in general, do not believe what you just said they do, and interpret those verses in a different way which isn't rooted in taking them out of context and applying rash literalism. When Jesus said "eat my flesh" he wasn't endorsing cannibalism.
You're also demonizing Americans. It's healthy to be able to point out some of the faults of a society, but you're making overarching generalizations about the whole populace as if Americans were all religious republicans who want to usher in a fascist state, making America exactly like Iran. Frankly, America does not "closely resemble" Iran. There is some truth in what you say; America is more religious than most European countries. But you're blowing everything out of proportion.
Could some informed person tell me why they forced people to move objects by thinking "left" and "right" rather than reading the neural impulse to move your hand or something?
Is it more difficult than reading words? Do disabled people forget the neural impulses needed to move their limbs?
"Black body radiation. The development could also advance fundamental science. A material that reflects no light is known as an ideal 'black body.' No such material has been available to scientists, until now. Researchers could use an ideal black body to shed light on quantum mechanics, the much-touted theory from physics that explains the inherent 'weirdness' of the atomic realm."
HOW CAN YOU USE AN IDEAL BLACK BODY TO SHED LIGHT?
That, my friend, is a problem caused by taking a simple analogy too far. You just revealed one of it's flaws. That doesn't mean that a Christian who warns you about Hell is not concerned about your well being.
The line is drawn, I think, with the attitude and vocal tone of the speaker. You could say "STOP STEALING OR YOU'LL GO TO HELL" or you could speak like friends (in which case the Christian probably would not mention Hell). The former wants to merely control you, the latter wants to protect you and help you make the right choice. Seriously, there are already "hells" in the material world, like sex-trafficing, drug abuse, and kids growing up in dysfunctional families. People write books all the time about how to be happy in this life. Can you blame Christians for telling you that whether or not you're happy in the next depends on decisions you make here? Isn't that what most religion is about?
Is it so heretical to say that, in the same way not all actions you take are good for you (such those that lead to drug abuse), not every religion is good for you (such as one which let's you murder my family)?
'Course, you might believe that Christianity is not one of those good religions, but I'm just saying this in case you dislike it based on the idea of pluralism.
I brought up the games I did because they were good, and LOTR was not like them. To be truthful I never knew that Will Wright was in EA. But Will Wright is an exception to the rule (because he's just that good), and so I think it still stands unless you come up with another example of a classic made by EA... Which perhaps you'll do. I'm not that much of an experianced gamer.
Disclaimer: I am not assuming that you're somehow inexperianced with losing stuff in EVE. I'm just curious and want to understand your point of view further.
How much have you lost in EVE, and why do you keep on playing?
There is competition, and there is competition. For most people I imagine that after investing a year or two into something you'd take having it all destroyed personally, whether you worked in a virtual world or not. Having people that you trusted betray you just makes it worse. At least in most competitions there are defined rules that eliminate most dirty play.
You can't perform a background check for one thing (the person can create an entirely new character). There is only two things you can do against such tactics: Double agents, and freezing hiring. But before the hiring freeze your enemy can get in anyways, or simply use war to kill you through superiour unmbers. Double agents are just more of the same subterfudge. Seems to me that it's impossible to avoid. Even if you manage to kill everyone in an enemy company they can create new chars and kill you, in revenge, no matter how powerful you are by using your power against you.
I don't care how good you think EVE is; it's terrible. Any "game" which allows any person to crush the dreams of another like that is completely stupid. Getting highs because of the lows? What kind of crap is that? Does theft in real life work like that? No. If I get my house robbed I'm much more upset than I was before. When I get past the issue will I be happier simply because my house was robbed? Is life better when we hurt each other? When we are more brutal and savage? How then can a game do better?
EVE seems to be paticularly nasty in that those who hurt others for fun can do so with no consequences whatsoever. Granted, massive corperations can't just all reroll, get together again, and then do another attack without being noticed. That can happen in RL too, but at least there is some justice.
You who think that EVE is fun should probably just stick to living life unless you derive some glee from participating in scams, destruction, and theft. Then you'd better stick to EVE.
Meh, the lord of the rings hack and slash'ems reaked of shortcuts. I mean, all the hobbits were exactly the same. Though the action was ok, they weren't games that I'd play even after the technology moves on, like Escape Velocity, Super Smash Bros: Melee, or "Zap!" (which I'd play more if there were more players).
EA may be capable of making ok games, but there's no way they're going to make a game which will stand the test of time. A series such as Maddon, perhaps. A game, no.
Don't forget that Halo 3 will not be able to counter the PS3's launch (as the author seems to think it still will). It's been delayed. Good thing too, because even if you downplay Bungie's continued work on H:2 it still wouldn't have had the slightest chance of being good otherwise. A little more than a year is simply not enough time to make a good sequel.
Well, you probably didn't complete the game fast enough to have Samus take off her helmet or dress in a bikini. The fact is that many people (not all for sure) knew she was a girl since the first game came out. When you beat the game fast enough the secret was revealed. It's been that way ever since, though the secret isn't really secret anymore.
Sorry, but just with the game's sprites you can see the truth. No need for a backstory.
"Stop trying to stick your head in the sand and pretend that people only judge based on your utopian ideals of intelligence and personality. That ain't how the world rotates."
Wait... He provides himself as a counterexample to your stereotype of everybody, and your response is to say that he's stupid and that the majority of people don't think like him? The fact that you actually acknowledged that his opinion is at all possible (and that he isn't secretly like everyone else) disproves the idea that looks are all that people take into account.
A study actually found that experianced female birds prefer "nice guys" over more "athletic" ones, while first-time females (who didn't know better) went with the "athletic" duds who were generally more dangerous. You people who think that whatever all the animals do is the best way to go have no excuse: Even the freakin' birds disagree with you.
Slashdot Mirror
Bah on port authority! Someone else made a better version of Override for Nova which is more like the original and has all the bugs fixed.
I don't think someone has done something similar to the EV for Nova one though...
The fact is, children require sacrifice, and when given the option many people will just avoid sacrificing. This is why in Europe and Japan population is declining, and why, unless a new pro-family and pro-child secular ethos is created, religious people will be the ones keeping society going.
Now, I'm not saying that birth control is all a bad thing. My parents used birth control (but they still had 3 kids), my sister and her husband are using "natural" birth control (because she's allergic to something, I think). But it has had bad unintended consequences. A society with no children is a society with no future.
OH NOZ! I guess we have to call all FPSes MMOs now because you can have 40 people playing at once! That's HUGE! ...
not.
The thing about the town though is that it's only one part of the game. Say I made a game where there was a world map in which everyone was represented by a dot. When your dot ran into another dot you two people played a game of chess by yourselves. Would you really call that an MMO just because of the world map? You might say that it has MMO elements, or that it is an MMO meeting place for chess players, but to say that "the game is an MMO" is deceptive because not all of the world is persistent for everyone.
What about instances and battlegrounds? Those constitute a much smaller fraction of the world than GW's everything-except-for-towns. You spend most of your time in WoW in a place where you can just run into other random people. Not so in GW.
Moreover, Blender has a wacky interface which the experienced users love. So ideal application Foo must somehow have an interface which both the inexperienced and experienced can love... which seems completely contradictory.
The knowledge of how to make fire will die with the human race. Seriously, if nothing we do affects The End, then how does anything in-between matter? Humankind will die out, and Prometheus' fire with it.
It's not like fire couldn't have been invented by someone else, anyways. If the inventor didn't invent it that'd just mean someone else would have. In either case fire is invented and the only difference is in the name of the inventor.
I'm just curious, where did they get that sample from? Was it merely a study in one country, or did it include multiple countries? What about countries from vastly different cultures (i.e. Iran, Russia, China, and the US)? Societies in various stages of economic development?
"To that, I'll say there are countless ways to live forever through the echoes of your life. Make an impression you want to leave."
Even echoes fade until they can no longer be heard. If there's one thing to learn from science, it's that immortality only exists at the most basic of levels, if you can consider energy or matter as in themselves "living". I suppose that some people might be happy so long as their "echoes" exist somewhere, somehow, as information, but I obviously think that's silly. What's the point of "echoes" if no one can hear them? If they don't affect anything? Isn't that just what death is?
That's weird. For all of history living has meant working, because it requires work to live. Am I failing to detect sarcasm here?
I can second what he says. Whether or not you choose to believe "Consumer Reports", the rating does exist as described.
Of course, if you look at any specific instance of injustice you can twist the issues to your side of the argument. Evil in Warcraft can be cut cleanly, but not in that way. Basically, evil comes from demons and the old gods and is passed down to those who are corrupted by them. Who the heck knows where good comes from or why anyone bothers wirh it.
Perhaps the sale of such movies to minors isn't as much of an issue anyways. Movies aren't new and the whole nasty movie fiasco already happened. Parents now have a clearer idea of what to do with movies. If a parent doesn't want their kid to see the movie, they don't let them buy or see the movie.
But video games are newer, so parents are less comfortable with them. They don't know quite as well what to do with them. At least in my house, us kids bought the video games while my parents bought the movies. So this legislation is simply parents expressing their insecurity over their own ability to regulate their children's video games.
If the legislation isn't passed, in awhile it could probably fade to the background as parents find they can control what games their children play just they control what movies their children see. If it is that just means that parents don't think they can have that control on their own.
In either case no one is saying that selling "The Passion of Christ", "300", or any other R-rated movie to minors is a good thing.
Are you saying that God needed a purpose to create the world?
As I understand it, according to the Bible, he created it because he wanted to, not because he needed to.
On the contrary, it does. If you really believe that life is meaningless you will feel like your life is meaningless. Then the only time you can have a "meaningful" life is when you forget that you don't believe in "meaningful" lives. To cheer up a suicidal person you wouldn't say "Don't worry, all these feelings you're having right now are just chemical reactions in your brain." To say that these ideas shouldn't, or won't, affect human behavior is silly. If it doesn't it's because no one actually believes them.
Interesting, but the ways you interpret those verses show that you are ignorant. The Bible is not Poor Richard's Almanac, where each sentence is independent of any other and completely straightforward. Christians, in general, do not believe what you just said they do, and interpret those verses in a different way which isn't rooted in taking them out of context and applying rash literalism. When Jesus said "eat my flesh" he wasn't endorsing cannibalism. You're also demonizing Americans. It's healthy to be able to point out some of the faults of a society, but you're making overarching generalizations about the whole populace as if Americans were all religious republicans who want to usher in a fascist state, making America exactly like Iran. Frankly, America does not "closely resemble" Iran. There is some truth in what you say; America is more religious than most European countries. But you're blowing everything out of proportion.
Could some informed person tell me why they forced people to move objects by thinking "left" and "right" rather than reading the neural impulse to move your hand or something?
Is it more difficult than reading words? Do disabled people forget the neural impulses needed to move their limbs?
Just one question.
"Black body radiation. The development could also advance fundamental science. A material that reflects no light is known as an ideal 'black body.' No such material has been available to scientists, until now. Researchers could use an ideal black body to shed light on quantum mechanics, the much-touted theory from physics that explains the inherent 'weirdness' of the atomic realm."
HOW CAN YOU USE AN IDEAL BLACK BODY TO SHED LIGHT?
That, my friend, is a problem caused by taking a simple analogy too far. You just revealed one of it's flaws. That doesn't mean that a Christian who warns you about Hell is not concerned about your well being.
The line is drawn, I think, with the attitude and vocal tone of the speaker. You could say "STOP STEALING OR YOU'LL GO TO HELL" or you could speak like friends (in which case the Christian probably would not mention Hell). The former wants to merely control you, the latter wants to protect you and help you make the right choice. Seriously, there are already "hells" in the material world, like sex-trafficing, drug abuse, and kids growing up in dysfunctional families. People write books all the time about how to be happy in this life. Can you blame Christians for telling you that whether or not you're happy in the next depends on decisions you make here? Isn't that what most religion is about?
Is it so heretical to say that, in the same way not all actions you take are good for you (such those that lead to drug abuse), not every religion is good for you (such as one which let's you murder my family)?
'Course, you might believe that Christianity is not one of those good religions, but I'm just saying this in case you dislike it based on the idea of pluralism.
I brought up the games I did because they were good, and LOTR was not like them. To be truthful I never knew that Will Wright was in EA. But Will Wright is an exception to the rule (because he's just that good), and so I think it still stands unless you come up with another example of a classic made by EA... Which perhaps you'll do. I'm not that much of an experianced gamer.
Disclaimer: I am not assuming that you're somehow inexperianced with losing stuff in EVE. I'm just curious and want to understand your point of view further. How much have you lost in EVE, and why do you keep on playing?
There is competition, and there is competition. For most people I imagine that after investing a year or two into something you'd take having it all destroyed personally, whether you worked in a virtual world or not. Having people that you trusted betray you just makes it worse. At least in most competitions there are defined rules that eliminate most dirty play.
You can't perform a background check for one thing (the person can create an entirely new character). There is only two things you can do against such tactics: Double agents, and freezing hiring. But before the hiring freeze your enemy can get in anyways, or simply use war to kill you through superiour unmbers. Double agents are just more of the same subterfudge. Seems to me that it's impossible to avoid. Even if you manage to kill everyone in an enemy company they can create new chars and kill you, in revenge, no matter how powerful you are by using your power against you.
I don't care how good you think EVE is; it's terrible. Any "game" which allows any person to crush the dreams of another like that is completely stupid. Getting highs because of the lows? What kind of crap is that? Does theft in real life work like that? No. If I get my house robbed I'm much more upset than I was before. When I get past the issue will I be happier simply because my house was robbed? Is life better when we hurt each other? When we are more brutal and savage? How then can a game do better?
EVE seems to be paticularly nasty in that those who hurt others for fun can do so with no consequences whatsoever. Granted, massive corperations can't just all reroll, get together again, and then do another attack without being noticed. That can happen in RL too, but at least there is some justice.
You who think that EVE is fun should probably just stick to living life unless you derive some glee from participating in scams, destruction, and theft. Then you'd better stick to EVE.
Meh, the lord of the rings hack and slash'ems reaked of shortcuts. I mean, all the hobbits were exactly the same. Though the action was ok, they weren't games that I'd play even after the technology moves on, like Escape Velocity, Super Smash Bros: Melee, or "Zap!" (which I'd play more if there were more players). EA may be capable of making ok games, but there's no way they're going to make a game which will stand the test of time. A series such as Maddon, perhaps. A game, no.
Don't forget that Halo 3 will not be able to counter the PS3's launch (as the author seems to think it still will). It's been delayed. Good thing too, because even if you downplay Bungie's continued work on H:2 it still wouldn't have had the slightest chance of being good otherwise. A little more than a year is simply not enough time to make a good sequel.
Well, you probably didn't complete the game fast enough to have Samus take off her helmet or dress in a bikini. The fact is that many people (not all for sure) knew she was a girl since the first game came out. When you beat the game fast enough the secret was revealed. It's been that way ever since, though the secret isn't really secret anymore. Sorry, but just with the game's sprites you can see the truth. No need for a backstory.
"Stop trying to stick your head in the sand and pretend that people only judge based on your utopian ideals of intelligence and personality. That ain't how the world rotates." Wait... He provides himself as a counterexample to your stereotype of everybody, and your response is to say that he's stupid and that the majority of people don't think like him? The fact that you actually acknowledged that his opinion is at all possible (and that he isn't secretly like everyone else) disproves the idea that looks are all that people take into account. A study actually found that experianced female birds prefer "nice guys" over more "athletic" ones, while first-time females (who didn't know better) went with the "athletic" duds who were generally more dangerous. You people who think that whatever all the animals do is the best way to go have no excuse: Even the freakin' birds disagree with you.