I believe selective breeding would be grouped with genetic engineering in terms of patents. Look at the hyped GloFish (not to be confused with an actual breed of tetra found in the wild). The company developed them with loftier goals than the developers of these cats... the fish originally were designed to fluoresce a certain colour in the presence of environmental toxins. They were to be the perfect sensor... but what they really ended up was making a hugely popular fish for aquarists.
Well, I can't say I've played all the games there, but my vote is for Minions of Mirth. I must say I'm a bit biased because I am a player, but I'm a player for a reason. The graphics aren't great, but its refreshing to see a game with such low minimum requirements! It has a lot of neat features like being able to host your own world, do your own mods, play as monster characters, etc... plus the community is great and the development team is awesome! They actually *listen* to *people*. When I checked the forums, and saw suggestions, bugs and etc being posted, then saw the huge list of patch notes... responsive much? I'm an old EQ player, never find a place for myself in WoW or Guild Wars, but I like that MoM has no monthly fees. I don't feel like I'm wasting money if I'm not playing.
Actually, Elodea is a huge problem where I live. We throw it on the shores to let it dry out and die. Still, the streams get clogged up and we lose water flow.
Man, I am right up there with you. I loved Baldur's Gate 2 so much. Yeah, I liked Icewind Dale, I liked Neverwinter Nights... but I was just waiting for it to be bg2
I completely agree. I loved this game. Any game that is even similar to it has just felt like nostalgia to me even though they are still enjoying...
Games that stick out in my memory...
on
What Game Do You Love?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
The games that I remember the most are the first Doom and the first Warcraft. Those were just both amazing to me at the time. I've always had a special place in my heart for Super Mario 3, but who doesn't? I went Genesis over SNES, and I had a lot of fun playing Sonic 2, but I also had tons of fun playing the first Mario Kart at my friend's house. And then, there was the hours of Goldeneye fun on the 64. Oh, and Baldur's Gate 2:, Shadows of Amn on the PC was fantastic... I was captivated by that game. All of the other rpgs in that genre are just me being nostalgic about that game. Later, there was KOTOR, which I loved... I guess those are the highlights of my gaming life. I'm currently enamoured with Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town. A farming rpg sounds stupid but I got it as a gift and it is terribly addicting. You either have to be embrace its time-consuming wonder or avoid it like the plague, there is no middle ground...
It seems to me that the real concern is that they don't want a group out there publicizing its GLBT friendliness, its whether or not they are universal on their enforcement. Do they punish people who use the term 'gay' as derogatory? (ie, "Thats so gay!") Do they discourage guilds that market themselves as Christian guilds?
I don't really see any problem with their enforcement. The problem will only arise if they don't enforce these policies across the board.
What we actually need is more pirates. We all know that a study showing the decline in pirates over the past couple centuries has been directly linked to the rise in the global average temperature. Less pirates, higher temperatures.... it seems so obvious now, doesn't it?
In other news, the decrease in the number of pirates in the past couple centuries is shown to have a direct correlation to the global average temperature. As pirates go down, the temperature goes up. Scientific evidence...
I personally hate this whole dark energy thing. Its always this and that, here and there. It seems to me to be a poor attempt at a unified theory. Its trying to bring everything together into one thing and to account for all the oddities out there, but is this really any better than the Greeks accounting for oddities in terms of gods and goddesses? It seems to me that we are only adding increased complexity into an already complex system and we are not significantly increasing our understanding. What we are increasing is more unlikely system. Often, the most simple answer is the correct answer. I can't wait for the next new scientific revolution and the next paradigm shift. I'm bored of this one.
I find this website a bit perplexing. Sure, I can appreciate the value of having an accurately sync'd computer, but I set my CPU a year to my atomic clock, and it still is within 15 seconds. That goes for my laptop, too. Maybe I'm a fluke, maybe this program could win me back that 15 seconds, but how important are they? I don't think its going to help me with my day, business, or any other daily tasks. I can only see this potentially useful in tracking movement of viruses across multiple networks, but I doubt that 500 servers provides anything very meaningful. If there were thousands, maybe. My mental picture is like the movie Twister with their stupid gadget at the end, putting the little metal sensors into the tornado. Imagine a few thousand computers all swirling around in a mess of viruses, so you could collect all the information to watch.
If you thought you were a nerd just for reading about 500 time servers, you'd really be a nerd for being interested in that kind of information.
No line whatsoever? What about legends about bathing in virgin's blood to maintain youth? If something like that even had a chance of working, if it was feasible, would that be acceptable? It seems clear to me now that a line exists somewhere. The survival instinct is not absolute.
You have to ask yourself, at what point is it time to just let it go? Is there a point to let it go? Maybe the point exists, maybe it doesn't, I expect its a relative outlook of moral perspective, but it seems that if there is a line somewhere, it can't be far away from where we are.
I find it strange how the stereotype of gaming has been given to younger people. There doesn't seem to be anything inherent in gaming itself that keeps itself from older people. Perhaps it is only the industry which gears itself towards younger people, because it has more widely available material to be used. If the industry had sufficient material (perhaps just better storylines?), I can't see any good reason why gaming wouldn't be popular among all ages aside from social stigmas.
Back in college, another guy and I went out on a road trip across the American southwest. We hit Carlsbad Caverns, White Sands, the Painted Desert, Grand Canyon, Las Vegas and... Area 51. It was a fun trip.
We left Las Vegas early in the morning (late at night?) at about 8 am. By about 10 am, we found ourselves in the middle of a very bland highway, not quite large enough to pass a car but there was no need anyways. Nothing but low lying brush, and hills seen far in the distance. It was otherwise completely flat. Then, we hit our turn signal, at the black mailbox. Thats how you know when to turn... there is a mysterious, good sized, and seemingly random black mailbox sitting out there, so we turned. After going through miles of roads (with many intersections, mind you) through the desert, we eventually hit the hills in the distance, and found ourselves approaching a small valley leading into them.
We pull up to a pair of sign groupings. One on the left, and one on the right. There were orange markers every 5 feet or so to mark a perimeter. We stopped right before the signs, staying safely on our side. As we pull up to the signs, we see about 250 feet away on top of a small hill, a large black truck pulls up and stops on the hill. True story.
Now, my friend is a bit crazier than I. Mind you, these signs read things like "Use of Deadly Force Authorized" "Military Installation Restricted Access" "Photography Prohibited" and all sorts of other things that make you wary of them. So, he opens up the car door and kneels behind it and starts taking pictures of the signs. After photographing the photography prohibited sign that was right next to the use of deadly force authorized sign, he gets a real good idea. He wants to talk to the man in the truck.
Mind you, the orange markers that mark the perimeter go about a quarter way up the hill that the truck is on. So, he hikes over there and is yelling up at this guy. Meanwhile, I'm watching the whole thing go down through the camera. I see my friend walking the line, yelling like a madman. I see the guy in the truck talking into his radio, reach into his backseat and pick up a shotgun. I'm thinking, "This is no good. I'm going to have to drive back to this guy's mother and tell her that I watched her son die." and that was the best case scenario I was thinking of, not the "Oh man, if I see them kill him, they'll kill me in the cover up, too" train of thought. Eventually, the man in the truck rolls down his window and yells something sufficiently threatening to make my friend decide its time to go. And we do. We drive away back to Las Vegas. All in all, the trip was long for such a short sight. Not that great of a trip really, but one hell of a story.
If this were a perfect world, maybe the competition would be welcome, where the most skilled would still get their high paying jobs. The problem really is in figuring out who is the most skilled. I see no reason why the most skilled shouldn't have the best jobs, and if you're the best man for the job, then more competition is no sweat, right?
Can I be very very rich? Cancer is caused because cells replicate too fast. Its a restriction system for mitosis thats been damaged. The real question is how to prevent the damage and how to cure the damage, not what the damage is.
Does having more fun make it more enjoyable? It doesn't seem to be to be a very big stretch at all to define "fun" as that which is enjoyable. So, if you are having more fun, isn't it more enjoyable? This question seems easily answered by definitions alone.
Yeah, are bees addicted to honey? Are sheep addicted to wool? Are whales addicted to plankton? Are we addicted to oxygen? Humans no longer evolve significantly genetically, we protect our weak, our sickly still breed, and genetic mutations still get passed on. That is not necessarily a problem. The human form of evolution is through technology. We don't need thick fur to survive the cold, we have clothes. We don't need four legs to move great distances quickly, we have bicycles and cars. We don't need great eyes to see far, we have glasses and telescopes. Computers and other such things enable us to use our minds differently and sometimes more efficiently (this doesn't necessarily mean productively: ie computer games). Various elements of technology are ways of enhancing the human race. This isn't a problem, its media hype.
Well, in case you haven't read the act, the goal of the act is to raise the average. The focus is on raising the people at the bottom of the average to become average, and near the end there is a brief section about the gifted students saying "oh yeah, uhm, give them... things, too, whatever." The point is that its nice seeing us push the strong to be stronger instead of dragging the weak to be average. It's really a matter of opinion, but one I happen to appreciate.
I like this. In a funny way, its a step against the No Child Left Behind Act, which I do not support. What this does is allows the best and brightest of America to excel and reach new heights. We should be pushing the best to become better instead of settling in for an easy ride being mediocre. Anyone seen the Incredibles? or read Nietzsche? I think this is a good thing: tapping into potential. The only problem lies in sifting out so many stupid people's ideas, but hey, at least we get our Ubermensch.
It just seems that more and more people are finding a new way to express themselves. This started off just as a trend but has grown like wildfire. This has replaced the use of the diary, and for many people, it also replaces idle chit-chat of catching up on, "So what did you do today?" This leaves a lot of conversation on more focused conversation. As well, it also lets people keep in touch with each other easier than before. I mean, is anyone surprised that these things continue to grow with popularity? It doesn't seem like an unnatural progression to me.
Are we really surprised? How many people use the Internet on atleast a quasi-regular basis? I'm willing to bet that currently a large percentage either writes or reads a blog (likely both), and that those numbers are going to continue to increase.
Ratings haven't been around for very long. The process isn't perfect and its not very consistent. Steven Spielberg has had a lot of influence on the system, even going so far as being credited with creating the PG13 (with the Temple of Doom) but with rating creep, PG13 films are getting more and more "graphic violence" and it takes some pretty hot material to make a film go from R to NC-17. Now, we don't know what the film has, but apparently it has "some graphic sexual content." That doesn't sound very serious. Now, there are plenty of movies with pretty graphic content that received the R rating (Scary Movie, Saving Private Ryan, etc). It definitely does sound suspicious, doesn't it? The next question is, why would the MPAA try to censor the film? The thing is that the MPAA ratings system is completely voluntary. The film doesn't have to be submitted to be rated, it can be released without it; however, the problem is that the lack of a rating hurts revenues, so while it isn't a law to rate the film, its nearly a necessity.
Slashdot Mirror
I believe selective breeding would be grouped with genetic engineering in terms of patents. Look at the hyped GloFish (not to be confused with an actual breed of tetra found in the wild). The company developed them with loftier goals than the developers of these cats... the fish originally were designed to fluoresce a certain colour in the presence of environmental toxins. They were to be the perfect sensor... but what they really ended up was making a hugely popular fish for aquarists.
Well, I can't say I've played all the games there, but my vote is for Minions of Mirth. I must say I'm a bit biased because I am a player, but I'm a player for a reason. The graphics aren't great, but its refreshing to see a game with such low minimum requirements! It has a lot of neat features like being able to host your own world, do your own mods, play as monster characters, etc... plus the community is great and the development team is awesome! They actually *listen* to *people*. When I checked the forums, and saw suggestions, bugs and etc being posted, then saw the huge list of patch notes... responsive much? I'm an old EQ player, never find a place for myself in WoW or Guild Wars, but I like that MoM has no monthly fees. I don't feel like I'm wasting money if I'm not playing.
Actually, Elodea is a huge problem where I live. We throw it on the shores to let it dry out and die. Still, the streams get clogged up and we lose water flow.
My guess is that trademark covers pluralization as well, but that is just a guess...
Careful, you wrote down the word "legos" without attributing their trademark.
Man, I am right up there with you. I loved Baldur's Gate 2 so much. Yeah, I liked Icewind Dale, I liked Neverwinter Nights... but I was just waiting for it to be bg2
I completely agree. I loved this game. Any game that is even similar to it has just felt like nostalgia to me even though they are still enjoying...
The games that I remember the most are the first Doom and the first Warcraft. Those were just both amazing to me at the time. I've always had a special place in my heart for Super Mario 3, but who doesn't? I went Genesis over SNES, and I had a lot of fun playing Sonic 2, but I also had tons of fun playing the first Mario Kart at my friend's house. And then, there was the hours of Goldeneye fun on the 64. Oh, and Baldur's Gate 2:, Shadows of Amn on the PC was fantastic... I was captivated by that game. All of the other rpgs in that genre are just me being nostalgic about that game. Later, there was KOTOR, which I loved... I guess those are the highlights of my gaming life. I'm currently enamoured with Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town. A farming rpg sounds stupid but I got it as a gift and it is terribly addicting. You either have to be embrace its time-consuming wonder or avoid it like the plague, there is no middle ground...
-Da3vid-
It seems to me that the real concern is that they don't want a group out there publicizing its GLBT friendliness, its whether or not they are universal on their enforcement. Do they punish people who use the term 'gay' as derogatory? (ie, "Thats so gay!") Do they discourage guilds that market themselves as Christian guilds?
I don't really see any problem with their enforcement. The problem will only arise if they don't enforce these policies across the board.
-Da3vid-
What we actually need is more pirates. We all know that a study showing the decline in pirates over the past couple centuries has been directly linked to the rise in the global average temperature. Less pirates, higher temperatures.... it seems so obvious now, doesn't it?
-Da3vid-
In other news, the decrease in the number of pirates in the past couple centuries is shown to have a direct correlation to the global average temperature. As pirates go down, the temperature goes up. Scientific evidence...
-Da3vid-
I personally hate this whole dark energy thing. Its always this and that, here and there. It seems to me to be a poor attempt at a unified theory. Its trying to bring everything together into one thing and to account for all the oddities out there, but is this really any better than the Greeks accounting for oddities in terms of gods and goddesses? It seems to me that we are only adding increased complexity into an already complex system and we are not significantly increasing our understanding. What we are increasing is more unlikely system. Often, the most simple answer is the correct answer. I can't wait for the next new scientific revolution and the next paradigm shift. I'm bored of this one.
-Da3vid-
I find this website a bit perplexing. Sure, I can appreciate the value of having an accurately sync'd computer, but I set my CPU a year to my atomic clock, and it still is within 15 seconds. That goes for my laptop, too. Maybe I'm a fluke, maybe this program could win me back that 15 seconds, but how important are they? I don't think its going to help me with my day, business, or any other daily tasks. I can only see this potentially useful in tracking movement of viruses across multiple networks, but I doubt that 500 servers provides anything very meaningful. If there were thousands, maybe. My mental picture is like the movie Twister with their stupid gadget at the end, putting the little metal sensors into the tornado. Imagine a few thousand computers all swirling around in a mess of viruses, so you could collect all the information to watch.
If you thought you were a nerd just for reading about 500 time servers, you'd really be a nerd for being interested in that kind of information.
-Da3vid-
No line whatsoever? What about legends about bathing in virgin's blood to maintain youth? If something like that even had a chance of working, if it was feasible, would that be acceptable? It seems clear to me now that a line exists somewhere. The survival instinct is not absolute.
-Da3vid-
You have to ask yourself, at what point is it time to just let it go? Is there a point to let it go? Maybe the point exists, maybe it doesn't, I expect its a relative outlook of moral perspective, but it seems that if there is a line somewhere, it can't be far away from where we are.
-Da3vid-
I find it strange how the stereotype of gaming has been given to younger people. There doesn't seem to be anything inherent in gaming itself that keeps itself from older people. Perhaps it is only the industry which gears itself towards younger people, because it has more widely available material to be used. If the industry had sufficient material (perhaps just better storylines?), I can't see any good reason why gaming wouldn't be popular among all ages aside from social stigmas.
-Da3vid-
Back in college, another guy and I went out on a road trip across the American southwest. We hit Carlsbad Caverns, White Sands, the Painted Desert, Grand Canyon, Las Vegas and... Area 51. It was a fun trip.
We left Las Vegas early in the morning (late at night?) at about 8 am. By about 10 am, we found ourselves in the middle of a very bland highway, not quite large enough to pass a car but there was no need anyways. Nothing but low lying brush, and hills seen far in the distance. It was otherwise completely flat. Then, we hit our turn signal, at the black mailbox. Thats how you know when to turn... there is a mysterious, good sized, and seemingly random black mailbox sitting out there, so we turned. After going through miles of roads (with many intersections, mind you) through the desert, we eventually hit the hills in the distance, and found ourselves approaching a small valley leading into them.
We pull up to a pair of sign groupings. One on the left, and one on the right. There were orange markers every 5 feet or so to mark a perimeter. We stopped right before the signs, staying safely on our side. As we pull up to the signs, we see about 250 feet away on top of a small hill, a large black truck pulls up and stops on the hill. True story.
Now, my friend is a bit crazier than I. Mind you, these signs read things like "Use of Deadly Force Authorized" "Military Installation Restricted Access" "Photography Prohibited" and all sorts of other things that make you wary of them. So, he opens up the car door and kneels behind it and starts taking pictures of the signs. After photographing the photography prohibited sign that was right next to the use of deadly force authorized sign, he gets a real good idea. He wants to talk to the man in the truck.
Mind you, the orange markers that mark the perimeter go about a quarter way up the hill that the truck is on. So, he hikes over there and is yelling up at this guy. Meanwhile, I'm watching the whole thing go down through the camera. I see my friend walking the line, yelling like a madman. I see the guy in the truck talking into his radio, reach into his backseat and pick up a shotgun. I'm thinking, "This is no good. I'm going to have to drive back to this guy's mother and tell her that I watched her son die." and that was the best case scenario I was thinking of, not the "Oh man, if I see them kill him, they'll kill me in the cover up, too" train of thought. Eventually, the man in the truck rolls down his window and yells something sufficiently threatening to make my friend decide its time to go. And we do. We drive away back to Las Vegas. All in all, the trip was long for such a short sight. Not that great of a trip really, but one hell of a story.
-Da3vid-
If this were a perfect world, maybe the competition would be welcome, where the most skilled would still get their high paying jobs. The problem really is in figuring out who is the most skilled. I see no reason why the most skilled shouldn't have the best jobs, and if you're the best man for the job, then more competition is no sweat, right?
-Da3vid-
Can I be very very rich? Cancer is caused because cells replicate too fast. Its a restriction system for mitosis thats been damaged. The real question is how to prevent the damage and how to cure the damage, not what the damage is.
Does having more fun make it more enjoyable? It doesn't seem to be to be a very big stretch at all to define "fun" as that which is enjoyable. So, if you are having more fun, isn't it more enjoyable? This question seems easily answered by definitions alone.
-Da3vid-
Yeah, are bees addicted to honey? Are sheep addicted to wool? Are whales addicted to plankton? Are we addicted to oxygen? Humans no longer evolve significantly genetically, we protect our weak, our sickly still breed, and genetic mutations still get passed on. That is not necessarily a problem. The human form of evolution is through technology. We don't need thick fur to survive the cold, we have clothes. We don't need four legs to move great distances quickly, we have bicycles and cars. We don't need great eyes to see far, we have glasses and telescopes. Computers and other such things enable us to use our minds differently and sometimes more efficiently (this doesn't necessarily mean productively: ie computer games). Various elements of technology are ways of enhancing the human race. This isn't a problem, its media hype.
-Da3vid-
Well, in case you haven't read the act, the goal of the act is to raise the average. The focus is on raising the people at the bottom of the average to become average, and near the end there is a brief section about the gifted students saying "oh yeah, uhm, give them... things, too, whatever." The point is that its nice seeing us push the strong to be stronger instead of dragging the weak to be average. It's really a matter of opinion, but one I happen to appreciate.
-Da3vid-
I like this. In a funny way, its a step against the No Child Left Behind Act, which I do not support. What this does is allows the best and brightest of America to excel and reach new heights. We should be pushing the best to become better instead of settling in for an easy ride being mediocre. Anyone seen the Incredibles? or read Nietzsche? I think this is a good thing: tapping into potential. The only problem lies in sifting out so many stupid people's ideas, but hey, at least we get our Ubermensch.
-Da3vid-
It just seems that more and more people are finding a new way to express themselves. This started off just as a trend but has grown like wildfire. This has replaced the use of the diary, and for many people, it also replaces idle chit-chat of catching up on, "So what did you do today?" This leaves a lot of conversation on more focused conversation. As well, it also lets people keep in touch with each other easier than before. I mean, is anyone surprised that these things continue to grow with popularity? It doesn't seem like an unnatural progression to me.
Are we really surprised? How many people use the Internet on atleast a quasi-regular basis? I'm willing to bet that currently a large percentage either writes or reads a blog (likely both), and that those numbers are going to continue to increase.
-Da3vid-
Ratings haven't been around for very long. The process isn't perfect and its not very consistent. Steven Spielberg has had a lot of influence on the system, even going so far as being credited with creating the PG13 (with the Temple of Doom) but with rating creep, PG13 films are getting more and more "graphic violence" and it takes some pretty hot material to make a film go from R to NC-17. Now, we don't know what the film has, but apparently it has "some graphic sexual content." That doesn't sound very serious. Now, there are plenty of movies with pretty graphic content that received the R rating (Scary Movie, Saving Private Ryan, etc). It definitely does sound suspicious, doesn't it? The next question is, why would the MPAA try to censor the film? The thing is that the MPAA ratings system is completely voluntary. The film doesn't have to be submitted to be rated, it can be released without it; however, the problem is that the lack of a rating hurts revenues, so while it isn't a law to rate the film, its nearly a necessity.
-Da3vid-