I know he has his own show. I just didn't know if he also did the Daily Show while doing his own show.
I hated his bits on the Daily Show, and I don't like most of his own show either. John Stewart is the man, but I don't find Colbert that funny. And I hated watching his interviews; especially the ones where you could tell the person he was interviewing didn't realize they were being made fun of, not interviewed. Taunting some poor honest soul who actually thinks they're doing an interview is not my idea of a good laugh.
Well if Jesus to Yeshua makes sense to you, then it's no wonder that Istvan to Stephen makes sense. Neither one makes sense to me.
As far as I can tell we do three different things with foreign names. With some names, we just don't bother to translate at all. This makes sense to me. Atilla is just Atilla (which is actually still a relatively common name in Hungary). Same thing with Igor. Don't know how common Igor is, but I ran into at least one Igor while there.
Then for other we have really close equivalents. Like Gyorgy and George. They sound similar. I don't know if it's a coincidence, or if they share a common orgin, or if one is just sort of morphed into an aproximate translation in the other language. Any of those make sense to me.
Then for names that actually have a meaning, we can translate the meaning. The Hungarian verb "gyoz" means "to win" or "to defeat"" (intransitive/transitive, also usually has prefix "le-"). So "gyozo" means "winner" or "defeater". At first I thought this was a silly name, and then I realized it's exactly the same as Victor in English. So that makes sense too.
But when you have two names like Istvan and Stephen I just don't get it. Or Jesus and Yeshua. Why do we bother to connect them? I don't know. I'd just let Istvan be Istvan. It's not like it's really hard for American (or any English speakers) to pronounce Istvan. Eesht-von. Simply enough.
Arguably you could just point to the fact the Hungary is in the EU. It's kind of dodging the question, but there's no doubt Hungarians consider themselves Europeans (even though the magyars who founded Hungary were certainly Asian).
I'm glad to see I translated "Zenebutik-Zenehíd" correctly. I totally missed the cultural reference, however, so it made no sense to me. I was only there from 2002-2004 and had a hard enough time picking up the language (which I don't speak as well now as I did then), let alone trying to figure out what shows from 20 years ago everybody there had seen.
It's amazing how much meaning you can still not get even after you know a language pretty well because you just don't have the cultural context to put it in.
and congratulations to the hungarians for not letting themselves get pushed around by socially-maladjusted north americans who think a legitimate attempt at citizen participation is nothing more than an opportunity for a practical joke.
If that's what was going on, then kudos to them, but you never know with Hungarians. They have an extremely self-deprecating sense of humor. Of course I'm generalizing, some of them are still strong nationalists, but here's an example of a joke I was told by Hungarians more than once while I was there:
God's on his day off, so he takes a tour of the world. He sees Putin on the steps of the Kremlin, head in hands despondent. God asks "why so sad?" Putin responds, "the rebels in Chechnya blow stuff up, our currency is falling, democracy is broken, my country is in shambles!" God thinks for a second, gives Putin some great advice to fix the problems and moves on. Next stop, Isreal. There Prime Minister Sharone (heard this joke a while ago) is sitting outside, equally despondent. God asks "what's wrong?" Sharone responds "we've got rockets raining down from Palesting, we're surrounded by Arabs that want our blood, and we're in a recession". So God gives him some good advice, cheers him up, and moves on. Next stop: Budapest. Hear God finds the Hungarian PM utterly despondent. God stands for a moment, speechless, and then sits down next to the Hungarian PM and begins to cry with him.
They're definitely an odd bunch, but I loved living there. I'm glad to see Chuck Norris off the #1 spot - whether they put it there or stupid Americans. In any case, it would be even better if it wasn't even on the list.
And yes, Colbert is an ass. But at least now he's not on the Daily Show (he did leave, right? Haven't seen it in a while.).
As far as I can tell (my Hungarian is not that great, I'm a native English speaker) this is what we've got:
Zenebutik-Zenehid -> Music boutique - Music bridge (I've never heard zenebutik stuck together like that, so it may mean something other than the literal translation)
Chuck Norris Hid -> Chuck Norris Bridge. Hid means bridge, I'm not going to keep translating that word.
Zrinyi Hid -> Zrinyi is a famous historical Hungarian family (http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/Z/Zrinyi.asp)
Vásárhelyi Boldizsár -> Not sure on this one. Vásárhelyi is an adjective that means "shopping place", so that's weird, and I don't know what Boldizsár means.
Bethlen Gábor -> Another hero of another failed rebellion. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Bethlen) Hungarian history is very sad for the last couple of hundred years, if you haven't gathered that.
Batthyány Lajos -> Hero of the failed uprising of the Hungarians against the Austro-Hungarian empire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lajos_Batthy%C3%A1ny for more in English)
Hunyadi Mátyás -> Popular Hungarian king (http://www.iearn.hu/balkans/bpeople/matyas.htm)
Szent István -> Saint Steven (don't ask me how Istvan translates into Steven, let alone how the nickname for Istvan is Pisti, kind of richard and dick, but even more off). He was the first Christian king of Hungary, also known as "Istvan a Kiraly" (Stephen the King)
No, he didn't. He meant wreak. This is what you get if you google search for "define:wreak"
bring: cause to happen or to occur as a consequence; "I cannot work a miracle"; "wreak havoc"; "bring comments"; "play a joke"; "The rain brought relief to the drought-stricken area" wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
I'll be honest, I haven't read the other comments. But I'm shocked that you think there aren't jobs for math majors. I'd say of any major you can get a math major probably provides one of the best combinations of marketability with flexibility.
First of all, I was a dual comp sci / philosophy major until my junior year. I ditched philosophy altogether, switched comp sci to a minor, and declared a math major. I graduated in 2005 and had three serious job offers in my area before I graduated. I'm now working at one of those places while they pay for my continuing education (working on an M.E. in systems engineering - I think I'll go for a PhD eventually). My wife was also a math major, although she did a dual math/comp sci program (she's a lot smarter than me). She also had numerous job offers before she graduated, but it's hard to tell which offers were for the comp sci major, which for the math, and which for both.
So there are plenty of straight-up math jobs. Look for a job that includes the word "analyst". Or think about becoming an actuary. Teaching can be a good idea if you enjoy it since you can frequently find schools that will help pay for higher education.
My main advice would be this, however, get work experience as soon as you can. This lets you get your foot into the door of other types of careers that aren't based strictly on math. Any genuine work experience you can get (outside of student jobs like working in the library or whatever) when combined with a math major will help you get a better shot at jobs that aren't specifically for math-majors.
I say go for the math if that's what you like. You can enter more careers from a math major than almost any other major you could choose.
I've already covered this. The most important marketing is word of mouth. Nothing matters as much for the success of a movie/game/album as what the opinion is of the people that see it first. This means that when you are releasing a genre-game the first thing you need to do is appeal to the people that are fans of the genre. If you don't win them over right away and completely, there is little chance that anyone else will ever play the game. The second task, once you've appeald to the fans of the genre (the hardcore nerd), is to have a game that also has appeal to the mass market.
That is why WoW was so successful. Do you think a game about elves and dwarves was "cool" right off the bat for mainstream? No. It was a combination of Blizzard fans and the broader fantasy fans that adopted the game first. They tried it out, they loved it, and they became the "fan base". The magic of WoW is that a game so well-loved by fantasy geeks turned out to have great gameplay and was therefore equally enjoyed by non-fantasy geeks who might easily have passed the game by if it hadn't been for the vocal fans who'd given it a try.
So the idea that you can just make a genre-game and ignore the genre-fans is ludicrous. If WoW had been a great game by, say, Madden 2006 standards but had sucked on fantasy it woudl have either tanked or, at the very best, limped along until some handful of Madden 2006 fans randomly played it. You simply have to appeal to the core market first, and then have something that translates to the masses. This is the story of WoW, of LoTR (especially the movies) and of almost all genre mega-hits. They have to score big in the genre FIRST, and then the public adopts them and they transend the genre.
I think one reason that sci-fi flicks from Hollywood suck is they have the same ignorant atitude that you do. They think only hardcore nerds care about things like the fact that there's no sound in space. So they put "passive sonar" in Wing Commander and you get the worst movie ever made (other factors contributed). They think that you can exploit the sci-fi motif without actually paying even passing regard to the rules of the game. The result: a long history of sci-fi failures or sci-fi successes that are, in fact, not sci-fi (e.g. Star Wars).
The idea that you can just "throw a few techy-sounding words around" and make the average user happy is stupid. The fact is, if you make a sci-fi game with "a few techy words" the only people that are going to play it are going to be "hardcore nerds". They're going to hate it and that's where it will die.
You're wrong. All the cliche's you referenced would never show up in a genuine sci-fi flick. Or, if they did, it would get talked about. These issues (especially sound in space) have been discussed at length regarding both Firefly and Battlestar Galactica, just to name two examples.
These "establish conventions" apply more to Star Wars (which is fantasy with lasers) and its ilk not sci-fi.
Every story that has ever been told has been told over and over again in various genres.
If by "story" you mean "boy meets girl" or something similarly abstract, then sure. Do regular fiction if you like. Turning that into sci-fi is purely for the fun of people that like the feel of sci-fi. But arguably the feel (you said "trappings") is as important as the abstract story itself. That's why you have Romeo and Juliet and also West Side Story. We retell old stories in new contexts all the time. By your logic West Side Story shouldn't have been made.
There are other reasons for writing stories. Look at aristotle's story about the cave-dwellers (synopsis: people lived underground and could only look at a wall on which shadows were cast, so they had really weird ideas of what objects were. then one day they are unchcained and can actually see the objects that cast the shadows. Bascially the Matrix 4,000 years ago). For another example, look at Camus' The Plague. Both of these philosophers weren't interested just in stories, but also in ideas. Sci-fi is uniquely suited to exploring concepts like this. Just check out "The Mote in Gods Eye". You simply CAN NOT tell that story without science.
So you assertion that "every story has been told" is true (by your definition of 'story') but also remarably uninteresting.
Almost all science fiction is just as silly as any fantasy novel.
You've not read much sci-fi. Starting with the earliest writers (Wells, Verne) and continuing through the grandmasters (Asimov, Heinlein, Clark) the backbone of sci-fi has been "hard" sci-fi (frequently written by scientists).
Even Star Trek takes great pains to come up with at least some plausible explanation of their science. Any trekkie can explain the basic theory between warp-based FTL and "beaming". The fact that you've never bother to ask the questions is the very reason you're not really a fan of sci-fi. If you care about those types of questions, you'll end up interested in sci-fi (and realize that sci-fi usually provides at least some answers). If you don't care about kind of thing, then you'll never ask and you'll never realize the answers that are readily availble.
Yeah, I disagree on this one. I really think the sci-fi audience is a different crowd. I don't know about your example in particular, but in genearal I really do believe the sci-fi audience will question those types of things far, far more often. That's what makes them the sci-fi crowd. They don't just care about what could happen (e.g. magic could be real, star ships could be real) they also care about why things could happen. This is a fundamental difference between the genres, and a fundamental difference between the genre-fans.
This kind of proves my point. Melee combat (which is better for MMOGs) is possible in a sci-fi context, but you have to do work to get there. That sounds like a good example. Dune also had a good reason.
But the whole point is that in fantasy you don't have to explain sword-wielding, in sci-fi you DO. This is a creative burden sci-fi has that fantasy does not.
I'd say the fighter issue is just as plausible as a sword hardly leaving a scratch on a higher level player even when it penetrates the armor
You're right, but you're also completely missing the point. The whole point is that in fantasy the tendency is not to ask those types of questions in the first place. Giants, for example, could never live on earth based purely on physiology. But that's OK in fantasy, we have them anyway. And dragons (as conceived in most fantasy, with large bodies and relatively small wings) couldn't fly. But in fantasy: you don't question the rules of the universe. The rules are out-of-bounds. In sci-fi, the science that changes the rule of the game is explicitly part of the narrative.
The different genres ask different types of questions. So even though something is equally unlikely in both genres (e.g. the sword vs. space fighter physics) the whole point is that fantasy won't question it, sci-fi will.
We can try to make sci-fi realistic, but eventually we just have to take it on faith that "yes, this works, we figured it out, and no I can't really explain it in great detail."
My point has nothing to do with how realistic sci-fi has to be. It's simply that sci-fi requires plausability. Fantasy explicitly rejects that requirement. That makes the two fundamentally different, not just different degrees of the same thing.
That's just retarded. It's also called science fiction. If we're going to judge it stricly based on the name of the genre, the ONLY identifying characteristic of the genre would be science.
The battle over defining sci-fi is long running and never ending, but the consensus is growing that the type of fiction you like (science fiction minus the science) is better termed as "speculative fiction". If the story you are telling can be told without any of the sci-fi trappings (e.g. if you're writing a mystery story with lasers) then it's arguably not really sci-fi.
most people will accept any explanation given at face value
Most people are not the people that like sci-fi though. A much higher proportion of sci-fi aficionados are also going to have at least passing familiarity with these issues AND be more demanding of the realism. That sci-fi crowd is the early-adopting crowd.
I'd argue that WoW was adopted first by people who like Warcraft already, and who are into fantasy. You need that kernel of fantasy lovers to get the ball rolling and tell their non-fantasy buddies to try it out. You need the same phenomena with sci-fi people. The difference is the sci-fi people are going to be much more demanding. If you don't impress them (and I mean get them really excited) then the word-of-mouth machine never gets started.
or if you don't bother to even try) than sci-fi itself becomes fantasy (that's why Star Wars is considered fantasy by most people that care about fantasy
should be
or if you don't bother to even try) than sci-fi itself becomes fantasy (that's why Star Wars is considered fantasy by most people that care about sci-fi
That's exactly why sci-fi isn't doing very well as an RPG. Most efforts to make sci-fi based on hand-to-hand combat come across as very contrived. It works sometimes for movies and books (see Dune for a classic) but in takes a great deal of originality to explain how people can travel from star-to-star but still have to wack eachother with sticks in combat.
And in any case, by the time you've reduced it to hand-to-hand combat you practically have fantasy anyway.
I think one reason that fantasy does better is that it's easier. The constraints on believability are much, much more lax for fantasy. Magic isn't supposed to really make sense. You don't really tend to say "fireball? in this humidity? yeah right!" On the other hand with sci-fi you allways have crowds of people asking "how does artifiial gravity really work?" and "You're saying I have a fighter ship than can travel hundreds or thousands of miles an hour, spin on a time, and I'm not reduced to mush inside the cockpit, how?"
Sci-fi involves some level of scientific rigor. If you don't have to explain anything (or if you don't bother to even try) than sci-fi itself becomes fantasy (that's why Star Wars is considered fantasy by most people that care about fantasy). Sci-fi demands some exercise in explanation. Fantasy does not. This means fantasy is easier.
I'm assuming this referred to my refusal to acquiesce to your interpretation of the Articles of Faith. If there's something else Joseph Smith said that you think I'm not standing behind, let me know. But before you accuse me of not standing behind Joseph Smith maybe you should study the things he actually said. (Again: it's all about context.)
Richard Bushman is a foremost expert on that topic. Two of his books are Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400042704/sr=1- 1/qid=1154004630/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-6105923-4548025? ie=UTF8&s=books ) and Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0252060121/sr=1- 2/qid=1154004630/ref=sr_1_2/002-6105923-4548025?ie =UTF8&s=books ). Yes, Bushman is an active Mormon. But the first book is published by Knopf and the second by the University of Illinois. This means the second book, in particular, rises to the highest standards of academic scholarship. While I'm suggesting books, By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture that Launched a New World Religion ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195168887/sr=1-1 /qid=1154004833/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-6105923-4548025?i e=UTF8&s=books )is the first (and so far only) scholarly overview of the Book of Mormon as a religious text. It contains a pretty good overview of some Mormon theology as well as the historicity of the Book of Mormon. I'd be happy to send you a copy at no charge. Seeing as how the author is my father, I can get copies for free. I've already sent 2 out to people I've debated with on Slashdot.
The problem isn't that there isn't a complete statement of Mormon theology, the problem is that you are unwilling to commit to even individual statements about Mormon theology, even those made by Joseph Smith.
That's a trap, and you should know it. The problem is that you keep trying to prooftext Mormon scriptures. This means you are taking exact quotes out of context and then trying to hold me accountable for what without context they seem to mean to you. There is no lack of commitment on my part. I have not once shied away from the truth of the Articles of Faith. I have no backed down a single iota. The only thing I have refused to commit to here is your interpretation of the Articles of Faith.
I'm not accusing you of being deliberately underhanded in your prooftexting. But unless you've actually read the entire Pearl of Great Price (which contains the Articles of Faith) how can you really expect to avoid prooftexting it? Any attempt I make at this point to say "this is what Muslims believe" based on quotes from the Koran would be inevitably prooftexting because I haven't read the entire Koran. I'd be finding quotes and taking them out of context. The only way to avoid this is to actually read the entire Koran. If you're going to criticize Mormon theology (which, in itself, is OK) you should realize that until you've read the entire basic Canon (Old and New Testament, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price) any attempt you make to quote from these books will likely result in you getting the meaning wrong because you don't have the context.
There's nothing wrong with me going to my Muslim buddy and saying "I think this is what Muslims believe, and I think it's wrong". Sometimes I'm right (about what they believe) because I've come across parts of the Koran that you can use without context. The parts that say Christ is not God's Only Begotten Son because God does not beget, he creates, is right. So we agree to disagree on that one. But there have been other verses I've come across that I quoted at him only to have him respond "you don't understand what that means because it is part of this context". And if he says that, I would never respond by telling him "no, really, it means what it says" because he would be right: some elements of scripture (of any text!) need to be taken in context. Whether my prooftext will actually be right or be wrong is a crapshoot.
If you have spent a lot of time arguing with other Christians then this misunderstanding is understandable. You don't have to worry about prooftexting very much when a Baptist and a Lutheran talk scripture: they use the same text. And so when you and I discuss the Bible prooftexting is not such an issue. But the second you start using scripture you haven't actually read you should be aware of the danger of getting what you read wrong because of what you haven't read.
As far as Mormons v. Mormonism goes, here is the disambiguation. I will defend Mormonism or go down in flames with it. I will defend the Mormon Church and Mormon people only to the extent that I have to based on the theology. This means I'm liable to take issue with statements like "the Mormon church is evil" but let statements like "Mormons are evil" pass. The Church is Christ's Church - that's part of our theology. But Christ calls the sinners, and not the righteous to repentance. So why should I have to argue that the people in the church are all great, wonderful, good and kind? We're all sinners - just like everyone else.
So that's my direct response to your post. But here's the one thing I'd like take issue with. I have either responded directly to each of your initial points or requested clarification of them. You have, so far, largely neglected to provide the clarification requested (e.g. how is Mormonism coercive, what is it that Mormons have done regarding the 3rd world that you find evil) and - more disturbingly - you've completed and totally dodged my main
Slashdot Mirror
I know he has his own show. I just didn't know if he also did the Daily Show while doing his own show.
I hated his bits on the Daily Show, and I don't like most of his own show either. John Stewart is the man, but I don't find Colbert that funny. And I hated watching his interviews; especially the ones where you could tell the person he was interviewing didn't realize they were being made fun of, not interviewed. Taunting some poor honest soul who actually thinks they're doing an interview is not my idea of a good laugh.
-stormin
Well if Jesus to Yeshua makes sense to you, then it's no wonder that Istvan to Stephen makes sense. Neither one makes sense to me.
As far as I can tell we do three different things with foreign names. With some names, we just don't bother to translate at all. This makes sense to me. Atilla is just Atilla (which is actually still a relatively common name in Hungary). Same thing with Igor. Don't know how common Igor is, but I ran into at least one Igor while there.
Then for other we have really close equivalents. Like Gyorgy and George. They sound similar. I don't know if it's a coincidence, or if they share a common orgin, or if one is just sort of morphed into an aproximate translation in the other language. Any of those make sense to me.
Then for names that actually have a meaning, we can translate the meaning. The Hungarian verb "gyoz" means "to win" or "to defeat"" (intransitive/transitive, also usually has prefix "le-"). So "gyozo" means "winner" or "defeater". At first I thought this was a silly name, and then I realized it's exactly the same as Victor in English. So that makes sense too.
But when you have two names like Istvan and Stephen I just don't get it. Or Jesus and Yeshua. Why do we bother to connect them? I don't know. I'd just let Istvan be Istvan. It's not like it's really hard for American (or any English speakers) to pronounce Istvan. Eesht-von. Simply enough.
-stormin
I gathered that from the post below mine.
Still don't see why he got the +5 though! I had links! LINKS I TELL YOU!!! Didn't anybody see my beautiful links!
-stormin
Arguably you could just point to the fact the Hungary is in the EU. It's kind of dodging the question, but there's no doubt Hungarians consider themselves Europeans (even though the magyars who founded Hungary were certainly Asian).
-stormin
I'm glad to see I translated "Zenebutik-Zenehíd" correctly. I totally missed the cultural reference, however, so it made no sense to me. I was only there from 2002-2004 and had a hard enough time picking up the language (which I don't speak as well now as I did then), let alone trying to figure out what shows from 20 years ago everybody there had seen.
It's amazing how much meaning you can still not get even after you know a language pretty well because you just don't have the cultural context to put it in.
-stormin
and congratulations to the hungarians for not letting themselves get pushed around by socially-maladjusted north americans who think a legitimate attempt at citizen participation is nothing more than an opportunity for a practical joke.
If that's what was going on, then kudos to them, but you never know with Hungarians. They have an extremely self-deprecating sense of humor. Of course I'm generalizing, some of them are still strong nationalists, but here's an example of a joke I was told by Hungarians more than once while I was there:
God's on his day off, so he takes a tour of the world. He sees Putin on the steps of the Kremlin, head in hands despondent. God asks "why so sad?" Putin responds, "the rebels in Chechnya blow stuff up, our currency is falling, democracy is broken, my country is in shambles!" God thinks for a second, gives Putin some great advice to fix the problems and moves on. Next stop, Isreal. There Prime Minister Sharone (heard this joke a while ago) is sitting outside, equally despondent. God asks "what's wrong?" Sharone responds "we've got rockets raining down from Palesting, we're surrounded by Arabs that want our blood, and we're in a recession". So God gives him some good advice, cheers him up, and moves on. Next stop: Budapest. Hear God finds the Hungarian PM utterly despondent. God stands for a moment, speechless, and then sits down next to the Hungarian PM and begins to cry with him.
They're definitely an odd bunch, but I loved living there. I'm glad to see Chuck Norris off the #1 spot - whether they put it there or stupid Americans. In any case, it would be even better if it wasn't even on the list.
And yes, Colbert is an ass. But at least now he's not on the Daily Show (he did leave, right? Haven't seen it in a while.).
-stormin
As far as I can tell (my Hungarian is not that great, I'm a native English speaker) this is what we've got:
y for more in English)
Zenebutik-Zenehid -> Music boutique - Music bridge (I've never heard zenebutik stuck together like that, so it may mean something other than the literal translation)
Chuck Norris Hid -> Chuck Norris Bridge. Hid means bridge, I'm not going to keep translating that word.
Zrinyi Hid -> Zrinyi is a famous historical Hungarian family (http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/Z/Zrinyi.asp)
Vásárhelyi Boldizsár -> Not sure on this one. Vásárhelyi is an adjective that means "shopping place", so that's weird, and I don't know what Boldizsár means.
Bethlen Gábor -> Another hero of another failed rebellion. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Bethlen) Hungarian history is very sad for the last couple of hundred years, if you haven't gathered that.
Batthyány Lajos -> Hero of the failed uprising of the Hungarians against the Austro-Hungarian empire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lajos_Batthy%C3%A1n
Szent Korona -> Holy Crown
Bocskai István -> Transylvanian Prince (that was part of Hungary) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Bocskay
Hunyadi Mátyás -> Popular Hungarian king (http://www.iearn.hu/balkans/bpeople/matyas.htm)
Szent István -> Saint Steven (don't ask me how Istvan translates into Steven, let alone how the nickname for Istvan is Pisti, kind of richard and dick, but even more off). He was the first Christian king of Hungary, also known as "Istvan a Kiraly" (Stephen the King)
No, he didn't. He meant wreak. This is what you get if you google search for "define:wreak"
bring: cause to happen or to occur as a consequence; "I cannot work a miracle"; "wreak havoc"; "bring comments"; "play a joke"; "The rain brought relief to the drought-stricken area"
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
-stormin
I'll be honest, I haven't read the other comments. But I'm shocked that you think there aren't jobs for math majors. I'd say of any major you can get a math major probably provides one of the best combinations of marketability with flexibility.
= /20060726/BUSINESS02/607260395/-1/ZONES01 and here's another about how hard it is to fill math/science jobs: http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID =/20060725/INSCHOOL/607250328. I can't find the article that I was really looking for (something my boss handed me a while ago) but it had to do with the way that math was becoming increasingly important in areas not traditionally thought of as math-related (like marketing, management, etc.)
First of all, I was a dual comp sci / philosophy major until my junior year. I ditched philosophy altogether, switched comp sci to a minor, and declared a math major. I graduated in 2005 and had three serious job offers in my area before I graduated. I'm now working at one of those places while they pay for my continuing education (working on an M.E. in systems engineering - I think I'll go for a PhD eventually). My wife was also a math major, although she did a dual math/comp sci program (she's a lot smarter than me). She also had numerous job offers before she graduated, but it's hard to tell which offers were for the comp sci major, which for the math, and which for both.
There have even been several articles in the last couple of months about the rising importance of math skills in a variety of different job markets. Here's one: http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID
So there are plenty of straight-up math jobs. Look for a job that includes the word "analyst". Or think about becoming an actuary. Teaching can be a good idea if you enjoy it since you can frequently find schools that will help pay for higher education.
My main advice would be this, however, get work experience as soon as you can. This lets you get your foot into the door of other types of careers that aren't based strictly on math. Any genuine work experience you can get (outside of student jobs like working in the library or whatever) when combined with a math major will help you get a better shot at jobs that aren't specifically for math-majors.
I say go for the math if that's what you like. You can enter more careers from a math major than almost any other major you could choose.
-stormin
I've already covered this. The most important marketing is word of mouth. Nothing matters as much for the success of a movie/game/album as what the opinion is of the people that see it first. This means that when you are releasing a genre-game the first thing you need to do is appeal to the people that are fans of the genre. If you don't win them over right away and completely, there is little chance that anyone else will ever play the game. The second task, once you've appeald to the fans of the genre (the hardcore nerd), is to have a game that also has appeal to the mass market.
That is why WoW was so successful. Do you think a game about elves and dwarves was "cool" right off the bat for mainstream? No. It was a combination of Blizzard fans and the broader fantasy fans that adopted the game first. They tried it out, they loved it, and they became the "fan base". The magic of WoW is that a game so well-loved by fantasy geeks turned out to have great gameplay and was therefore equally enjoyed by non-fantasy geeks who might easily have passed the game by if it hadn't been for the vocal fans who'd given it a try.
So the idea that you can just make a genre-game and ignore the genre-fans is ludicrous. If WoW had been a great game by, say, Madden 2006 standards but had sucked on fantasy it woudl have either tanked or, at the very best, limped along until some handful of Madden 2006 fans randomly played it. You simply have to appeal to the core market first, and then have something that translates to the masses. This is the story of WoW, of LoTR (especially the movies) and of almost all genre mega-hits. They have to score big in the genre FIRST, and then the public adopts them and they transend the genre.
I think one reason that sci-fi flicks from Hollywood suck is they have the same ignorant atitude that you do. They think only hardcore nerds care about things like the fact that there's no sound in space. So they put "passive sonar" in Wing Commander and you get the worst movie ever made (other factors contributed). They think that you can exploit the sci-fi motif without actually paying even passing regard to the rules of the game. The result: a long history of sci-fi failures or sci-fi successes that are, in fact, not sci-fi (e.g. Star Wars).
The idea that you can just "throw a few techy-sounding words around" and make the average user happy is stupid. The fact is, if you make a sci-fi game with "a few techy words" the only people that are going to play it are going to be "hardcore nerds". They're going to hate it and that's where it will die.
-stormin
You're wrong. All the cliche's you referenced would never show up in a genuine sci-fi flick. Or, if they did, it would get talked about. These issues (especially sound in space) have been discussed at length regarding both Firefly and Battlestar Galactica, just to name two examples.
These "establish conventions" apply more to Star Wars (which is fantasy with lasers) and its ilk not sci-fi.
-stormin
90% of everything is crap.
Sturgeon's Revelation (Ironically, Sturgeon is a science fiction author).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_Law
Every story that has ever been told has been told over and over again in various genres.
If by "story" you mean "boy meets girl" or something similarly abstract, then sure. Do regular fiction if you like. Turning that into sci-fi is purely for the fun of people that like the feel of sci-fi. But arguably the feel (you said "trappings") is as important as the abstract story itself. That's why you have Romeo and Juliet and also West Side Story. We retell old stories in new contexts all the time. By your logic West Side Story shouldn't have been made.
There are other reasons for writing stories. Look at aristotle's story about the cave-dwellers (synopsis: people lived underground and could only look at a wall on which shadows were cast, so they had really weird ideas of what objects were. then one day they are unchcained and can actually see the objects that cast the shadows. Bascially the Matrix 4,000 years ago). For another example, look at Camus' The Plague. Both of these philosophers weren't interested just in stories, but also in ideas. Sci-fi is uniquely suited to exploring concepts like this. Just check out "The Mote in Gods Eye". You simply CAN NOT tell that story without science.
So you assertion that "every story has been told" is true (by your definition of 'story') but also remarably uninteresting.
-stormin
Almost all science fiction is just as silly as any fantasy novel.
You've not read much sci-fi. Starting with the earliest writers (Wells, Verne) and continuing through the grandmasters (Asimov, Heinlein, Clark) the backbone of sci-fi has been "hard" sci-fi (frequently written by scientists).
Even Star Trek takes great pains to come up with at least some plausible explanation of their science. Any trekkie can explain the basic theory between warp-based FTL and "beaming". The fact that you've never bother to ask the questions is the very reason you're not really a fan of sci-fi. If you care about those types of questions, you'll end up interested in sci-fi (and realize that sci-fi usually provides at least some answers). If you don't care about kind of thing, then you'll never ask and you'll never realize the answers that are readily availble.
-stormin
Yeah, I disagree on this one. I really think the sci-fi audience is a different crowd. I don't know about your example in particular, but in genearal I really do believe the sci-fi audience will question those types of things far, far more often. That's what makes them the sci-fi crowd. They don't just care about what could happen (e.g. magic could be real, star ships could be real) they also care about why things could happen. This is a fundamental difference between the genres, and a fundamental difference between the genre-fans.
-stormin
This kind of proves my point. Melee combat (which is better for MMOGs) is possible in a sci-fi context, but you have to do work to get there. That sounds like a good example. Dune also had a good reason.
But the whole point is that in fantasy you don't have to explain sword-wielding, in sci-fi you DO. This is a creative burden sci-fi has that fantasy does not.
-stormin
I'd say the fighter issue is just as plausible as a sword hardly leaving a scratch on a higher level player even when it penetrates the armor
You're right, but you're also completely missing the point. The whole point is that in fantasy the tendency is not to ask those types of questions in the first place. Giants, for example, could never live on earth based purely on physiology. But that's OK in fantasy, we have them anyway. And dragons (as conceived in most fantasy, with large bodies and relatively small wings) couldn't fly. But in fantasy: you don't question the rules of the universe. The rules are out-of-bounds. In sci-fi, the science that changes the rule of the game is explicitly part of the narrative.
The different genres ask different types of questions. So even though something is equally unlikely in both genres (e.g. the sword vs. space fighter physics) the whole point is that fantasy won't question it, sci-fi will.
-stormin
We can try to make sci-fi realistic, but eventually we just have to take it on faith that "yes, this works, we figured it out, and no I can't really explain it in great detail."
My point has nothing to do with how realistic sci-fi has to be. It's simply that sci-fi requires plausability. Fantasy explicitly rejects that requirement. That makes the two fundamentally different, not just different degrees of the same thing.
-stormin
That's just retarded. It's also called science fiction. If we're going to judge it stricly based on the name of the genre, the ONLY identifying characteristic of the genre would be science.
The battle over defining sci-fi is long running and never ending, but the consensus is growing that the type of fiction you like (science fiction minus the science) is better termed as "speculative fiction". If the story you are telling can be told without any of the sci-fi trappings (e.g. if you're writing a mystery story with lasers) then it's arguably not really sci-fi.
-stormin
most people will accept any explanation given at face value
Most people are not the people that like sci-fi though. A much higher proportion of sci-fi aficionados are also going to have at least passing familiarity with these issues AND be more demanding of the realism. That sci-fi crowd is the early-adopting crowd.
I'd argue that WoW was adopted first by people who like Warcraft already, and who are into fantasy. You need that kernel of fantasy lovers to get the ball rolling and tell their non-fantasy buddies to try it out. You need the same phenomena with sci-fi people. The difference is the sci-fi people are going to be much more demanding. If you don't impress them (and I mean get them really excited) then the word-of-mouth machine never gets started.
-stormin
or if you don't bother to even try) than sci-fi itself becomes fantasy (that's why Star Wars is considered fantasy by most people that care about fantasy
should be
or if you don't bother to even try) than sci-fi itself becomes fantasy (that's why Star Wars is considered fantasy by most people that care about sci-fi
That's exactly why sci-fi isn't doing very well as an RPG. Most efforts to make sci-fi based on hand-to-hand combat come across as very contrived. It works sometimes for movies and books (see Dune for a classic) but in takes a great deal of originality to explain how people can travel from star-to-star but still have to wack eachother with sticks in combat.
And in any case, by the time you've reduced it to hand-to-hand combat you practically have fantasy anyway.
I think one reason that fantasy does better is that it's easier. The constraints on believability are much, much more lax for fantasy. Magic isn't supposed to really make sense. You don't really tend to say "fireball? in this humidity? yeah right!" On the other hand with sci-fi you allways have crowds of people asking "how does artifiial gravity really work?" and "You're saying I have a fighter ship than can travel hundreds or thousands of miles an hour, spin on a time, and I'm not reduced to mush inside the cockpit, how?"
Sci-fi involves some level of scientific rigor. If you don't have to explain anything (or if you don't bother to even try) than sci-fi itself becomes fantasy (that's why Star Wars is considered fantasy by most people that care about fantasy). Sci-fi demands some exercise in explanation. Fantasy does not. This means fantasy is easier.
-stormin
Don't know how to deal with a specific problem? study, learn about it, but don't ask to someone else to solve the problem for you.
So if your kid has the flu, you're going to go to med school? And brew the drugs yourself?
Where do you draw the line between "medical" and "parenting"?
-stormin
One other thing.
- 1/qid=1154004630/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-6105923-4548025? ie=UTF8&s=books ) and Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0252060121/sr=1- 2/qid=1154004630/ref=sr_1_2/002-6105923-4548025?ie =UTF8&s=books ). Yes, Bushman is an active Mormon. But the first book is published by Knopf and the second by the University of Illinois. This means the second book, in particular, rises to the highest standards of academic scholarship. While I'm suggesting books, By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture that Launched a New World Religion ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195168887/sr=1-1 /qid=1154004833/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-6105923-4548025?i e=UTF8&s=books )is the first (and so far only) scholarly overview of the Book of Mormon as a religious text. It contains a pretty good overview of some Mormon theology as well as the historicity of the Book of Mormon. I'd be happy to send you a copy at no charge. Seeing as how the author is my father, I can get copies for free. I've already sent 2 out to people I've debated with on Slashdot.
even those made by Joseph Smith
I'm assuming this referred to my refusal to acquiesce to your interpretation of the Articles of Faith. If there's something else Joseph Smith said that you think I'm not standing behind, let me know. But before you accuse me of not standing behind Joseph Smith maybe you should study the things he actually said. (Again: it's all about context.)
Richard Bushman is a foremost expert on that topic. Two of his books are Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400042704/sr=1
The problem isn't that there isn't a complete statement of Mormon theology, the problem is that you are unwilling to commit to even individual statements about Mormon theology, even those made by Joseph Smith.
That's a trap, and you should know it. The problem is that you keep trying to prooftext Mormon scriptures. This means you are taking exact quotes out of context and then trying to hold me accountable for what without context they seem to mean to you. There is no lack of commitment on my part. I have not once shied away from the truth of the Articles of Faith. I have no backed down a single iota. The only thing I have refused to commit to here is your interpretation of the Articles of Faith.
I'm not accusing you of being deliberately underhanded in your prooftexting. But unless you've actually read the entire Pearl of Great Price (which contains the Articles of Faith) how can you really expect to avoid prooftexting it? Any attempt I make at this point to say "this is what Muslims believe" based on quotes from the Koran would be inevitably prooftexting because I haven't read the entire Koran. I'd be finding quotes and taking them out of context. The only way to avoid this is to actually read the entire Koran. If you're going to criticize Mormon theology (which, in itself, is OK) you should realize that until you've read the entire basic Canon (Old and New Testament, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price) any attempt you make to quote from these books will likely result in you getting the meaning wrong because you don't have the context.
There's nothing wrong with me going to my Muslim buddy and saying "I think this is what Muslims believe, and I think it's wrong". Sometimes I'm right (about what they believe) because I've come across parts of the Koran that you can use without context. The parts that say Christ is not God's Only Begotten Son because God does not beget, he creates, is right. So we agree to disagree on that one. But there have been other verses I've come across that I quoted at him only to have him respond "you don't understand what that means because it is part of this context". And if he says that, I would never respond by telling him "no, really, it means what it says" because he would be right: some elements of scripture (of any text!) need to be taken in context. Whether my prooftext will actually be right or be wrong is a crapshoot.
If you have spent a lot of time arguing with other Christians then this misunderstanding is understandable. You don't have to worry about prooftexting very much when a Baptist and a Lutheran talk scripture: they use the same text. And so when you and I discuss the Bible prooftexting is not such an issue. But the second you start using scripture you haven't actually read you should be aware of the danger of getting what you read wrong because of what you haven't read.
As far as Mormons v. Mormonism goes, here is the disambiguation. I will defend Mormonism or go down in flames with it. I will defend the Mormon Church and Mormon people only to the extent that I have to based on the theology. This means I'm liable to take issue with statements like "the Mormon church is evil" but let statements like "Mormons are evil" pass. The Church is Christ's Church - that's part of our theology. But Christ calls the sinners, and not the righteous to repentance. So why should I have to argue that the people in the church are all great, wonderful, good and kind? We're all sinners - just like everyone else.
So that's my direct response to your post. But here's the one thing I'd like take issue with. I have either responded directly to each of your initial points or requested clarification of them. You have, so far, largely neglected to provide the clarification requested (e.g. how is Mormonism coercive, what is it that Mormons have done regarding the 3rd world that you find evil) and - more disturbingly - you've completed and totally dodged my main