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Stuck in Exodus in Blades of Avernum
Shock Trooper
Member # 4445
Profile #45
Another bug: In the dark room with the golems under the temple of Sothana, the trap tiles act funky. Nothing happens to the PC that triggers the trap and other PC's occasionally die, regardless of their locations.
Posts: 293 | Registered: Saturday, May 29 2004 07:00
School in General
Shock Trooper
Member # 4445
Profile #19
It is law in the great state of Michigan that school cannot begin until after labor day. Thus, I move in at UM Ann Arbor on September 1st.
Posts: 293 | Registered: Saturday, May 29 2004 07:00
Quick thought about boss battles in Geneforge 4: Rebellion
Shock Trooper
Member # 4445
Profile #2
I disagree.

Your character would be able to see an enemy starting to weaken, and there's something about that last desperate burst to kill it before it kills you (rather than just reload because you're almost dead and you don't want to watch a death screen) that makes me incensed whenever there isn't a health bar.
Posts: 293 | Registered: Saturday, May 29 2004 07:00
Introducing Leopard in General
Shock Trooper
Member # 4445
Profile #17
Time Machine sounds like System Restore, which has been being useless to us Windows users for years now.

[ Wednesday, August 09, 2006 22:22: Message edited by: PoD person ]
Posts: 293 | Registered: Saturday, May 29 2004 07:00
Web browsers in General
Shock Trooper
Member # 4445
Profile #11
Comes with it, I think. The "google search" box in the upper right corner of firefox houses a pulldown menu which will also search dictionary.com, I believe.
Posts: 293 | Registered: Saturday, May 29 2004 07:00
Wow (G4) in Geneforge 4: Rebellion
Shock Trooper
Member # 4445
Profile #60
Jeff, I don't know how coding this would work, but would it be possible to make the game letterbox on widescreen monitors? G3 gets all strectched out on my 1920x1200.
Posts: 293 | Registered: Saturday, May 29 2004 07:00
Civil Unions disallowed in ACT in General
Shock Trooper
Member # 4445
Profile #106
quote:
Originally written by Right Angle Bracket:

—Alorael, who is unaware of any research done into polygamy genes. Surely it would be reasonable for a gene or several genes to control desire to have a single partner or many partners?
The Y chromosome?
Posts: 293 | Registered: Saturday, May 29 2004 07:00
Civil Unions disallowed in ACT in General
Shock Trooper
Member # 4445
Profile #72
Drew, I'll say first of all that your solution to the marriage dilemma is the one that I've espoused for a few years now, I am heartily in agreement with you on that point.

Fear and hate, however, is rhetoric gone over the top. The fact is that many religions have a ceremony which is seen as basically synonymous with the legal entity of marriage, which excludes gays. Gays and the other backers of gay marriage would like to use the government to pass a law in contradiction to that precept. In my opinion, this amounts to a symbolic statement of "#$%^ you, your institution is backwards and immoral." Of course, the religious counterpart of prohibiting gay marriage also amounts to "#$%^ you, your way of life is disgusting and immoral." In my opinion, government should not be used to say "#$%^ you" to anyone, no matter how much those damn fundies or those damn gays need a(n) "#$%^ you," so the only reasonable action would be to leave the debate altogether and focus merely on economic issues raised by the common social behaviors of cohabitation, reproduction, and the sharing of property.
Posts: 293 | Registered: Saturday, May 29 2004 07:00
Ghosts of Stalin in General
Shock Trooper
Member # 4445
Profile #45
quote:
Originally written by Keto-san:

[b]
quote:
However, the assertion that human nature must be changed implicitly supports the vanguard theory (changed by whom?).
It should be changed by the people at large. A great deal of the problem with lenin was that he failed quite dramatically at changing the mindset of the people (and stalin/kruschev didn't help any either), and what resulted was a government that was supported intellectually exclusively by the upper-class, whereas the lower-class was as mystified as a destitute petit-bourgeois in any first-world country could ever hope to be.

quote:
After all, marxism is the darling of the overprivileged elite nowadays, not "the people."
Make no mistake- I was born rich enough to get a decent education. Not that I am ashamed for that, because I consider an education something that all human beings should be afforded.

Although it's not as if the exploited (in this country alone, nevermind the ever-present third world!) have actually been exposed to many positive ideas. If the poor honestly don't want to change the world, it's going to be because they're so intensely jaded from being perpetually prostrate (and prostate as well), or because meritocracy's main lesson tells them to hate themselves for not succeeding, and if they hate themselves, then they certainly won't fight for their rights, now will they?

[/b]
Ah hah! So you are a vanguardist! You blame the failure of communism to date on a lower class without knowledge of it. I may be starting to understand your position. The function of any sort intellectual "vanguard" should be educative and self-sacrificing, not governmental, right? Their primary responsibility should be to expose the lower classes to "positive ideas?" Just teach the people what to do and get the hell out of the way?

Of course, if I understand correctly, the command economy would have no place in your ideal communism; in the absence of dictatorial control and with a fully indoctrinated citizenry, the people would find, on their own, the most efficient ways to help one another and the correct solutions to the minute and ever-varying subsets of the big social problems. Like the free market without Darwinism, because anything else would just create a new elite and a less efficient economy.

So, do you believe in the command economy as an essential feature of communism, or just as a transition between capitalism and communism, a time to break habits?
quote:
[b]
quote:
It would seem that the masses prefer their opiates, religion and a miniscule chance of becoming fantabulously rich, to an optimal distribution of resources or the promise thereof. If the lower classes prefer those things to a Marxist society, I see no pressing need to change the status quo in that regard.
Right. The slaves prefered living under their masters-- I say we get the national guard back home and have them work on a final solution to the negroe problem.

[/b]
You know, as far as you may believe the philosophical implications of what I said reach, you're not scoring any points by acting as though I advocated repression, reactionism, or genocide. At least give some steps for that logical leap.

Anyhow, the slaves escaped when they got the chance. Their own intellectuals and those of the North were vehemently opposed to that condition. Preference obviously had no role in their condition.

quote:

EDIT: And as for what I mean by "the issue of solvency," I mean "questions as to whether or not communism will have solvency."

And by "solvency," do you mean the ability to both issue mandates and provide the economic means for their execution? I'm still unclear. If that's the case, you certainly didn't "knock it down as an impediment to communism" or do anything other than say that "Kel's postmodern utopia" will have problems with it.

[ Monday, May 29, 2006 09:20: Message edited by: PoD person ]
Posts: 293 | Registered: Saturday, May 29 2004 07:00
Ghosts of Stalin in General
Shock Trooper
Member # 4445
Profile #41
quote:
Originally written by Ash Lael:

quote:
Originally written by Keto-san:

If human nature is an impedement for the greatest good for all individuals, we must get rid of it.
Isn't it only possible to eliminate human nature by eliminating humans? :confused:

I think his whole argument was that human nature is inherently separable from the existence of humanity as a species.

However, the assertion that human nature must be changed implicitly supports the vanguard theory (changed by whom?). After all, marxism is the darling of the overprivileged elite nowadays, not "the people." It would seem that the masses prefer their opiates, religion and a miniscule chance of becoming fantabulously rich, to an optimal distribution of resources or the promise thereof. If the lower classes prefer those things to a Marxist society, I see no pressing need to change the status quo in that regard.

(Genocide has very little to do with the concept of Marxism, and I do see an obvious pressing need to revise human nature, by hook, vanguard, or crook, to erase that tendency)

[ Sunday, May 28, 2006 13:21: Message edited by: PoD person ]
Posts: 293 | Registered: Saturday, May 29 2004 07:00
Graduation in General
Shock Trooper
Member # 4445
Profile #14
quote:
Originally written by Dikiyoba:

My state has the CIM, but that's about to go through another huge readjustment. I passed it during my sophomore year. Only a part of it is writing, though.

Dikiyoba is not graduating until the eleventh. Then it's one very short summer until Dikiyoba heads off to college.

Short summer? Are you going to a service academy?
Posts: 293 | Registered: Saturday, May 29 2004 07:00
Dan Brown Book... in General
Shock Trooper
Member # 4445
Profile #21
quote:
Originally written by Drew:

I haven't read it, but I can't imagine that it's any better than those Left Behind books, and no non-believers I'm aware of ever made a stink about those. People just need to cool out about this crap - it's fiction, fiction, fiction. That they feel threatened says a lot about the state of their own belief.

Reminds me a lot of what happened when The Satanic Verses came out. We're about two steps shy of our very own Christian fatwah here, folks! How sad it is.

The reason underthings are in bunches over the DVC isn't so much the content of the book as the way people have responded. People actually read this thing, proceed to nod sagely, say that "it really makes you think," and swear up and down that it is based on well-researched history. The furor seems more over the DVC qua rallying-cry for ignorant catholicism-bashers (who take it as more than fiction) than the DVC qua work of fiction.

Michael Crichton and Dan Brown make a living off of writing books that people holding irrational, ignorant opinions can cite as vindication of their idiocy. (State of Fear, anyone?)
Posts: 293 | Registered: Saturday, May 29 2004 07:00
Graduation in General
Shock Trooper
Member # 4445
Profile #6
No shock for me. Just relief and a feeling that my time has been wasted. As for next year, I'm heading to the University of Michigan. I know I'll major in civil engineering, and I'm tossing around the idea of a dual-degree in either architecture or urban planning, which I plan to do in graduate school regardless.

I had to take some sort of child's-play test freshman year, which apparently had something to do with my (private) school's accreditation, but it wasn't a graduation requirement or anything of that nature.
Posts: 293 | Registered: Saturday, May 29 2004 07:00
Viva Italia !!!!!!! in General
Shock Trooper
Member # 4445
Profile #3
Well, ESPN will constantly air assurances of the US's ascendancy, with the insistence that this year will end the futility and be America's coming-out party. The good ole Yanks will then proceed to dissapoint, and I will cease to care.

(After all, I don't know how to appreciate soccer, nor am I familiar with any players or anything like that.)
Posts: 293 | Registered: Saturday, May 29 2004 07:00
Show me the muscle in General
Shock Trooper
Member # 4445
Profile #40
quote:
Originally written by Kingy:

I used to do Judo but gave it up when I realised that it wasn't doing me that much good. Then again in one year I put on 15kgs of muscle mass doing it. I really want to get into street fighting but unfortunitly it isn't all that easy to get into and the training is intense. And me being really lazy and intense training doesn't really seem that fun.
If the word "intense" ever fails to appeal to you, I doubt that street fighting is really for you. I'd also guess that Spiderweb and street fighting are mutually exclusive.
Posts: 293 | Registered: Saturday, May 29 2004 07:00
Show me the muscle in General
Shock Trooper
Member # 4445
Profile #27
I used to play American Football, during which time I lifted weights, ran, and otherwise performed strenuous physical activities. Of course, that was almost a year ago, and I've now gotten to the point where I'm struggling to eke out a mile and a half a day to get my physique under control. C'est la vie, how the mighty have fallen, and so on, and so forth.
Posts: 293 | Registered: Saturday, May 29 2004 07:00
internet connection in General
Shock Trooper
Member # 4445
Profile #40
quote:
Originally written by Kingy:

quote:
Originally written by When Kangaroos Snorkel:

The network is called linksys, and it has no encryption or password protection. You just click on it, and it connects.
Uhh...Where are you from exactly? Because that is the exact name of the one I used while I was staying in California.

Linksys is a company that makes wireless routers. The default name for a wireless network on a linksys router is probably linksys, and most people probably don't bother to change it.

I've got a wireless network and cable internet at home.
Posts: 293 | Registered: Saturday, May 29 2004 07:00
The Big Club Theory in General
Shock Trooper
Member # 4445
Profile #58
Yes, you hold the correct belief. Now, the challenge is to get over yourself. Memorizing evidence ain't that much more impressive than memorizing bible verses.

How complete is your understanding of that evidence? I'd like to know. It's probably somewhere on a level with mine, namely, a level that doesn't justify talking down to anyone. Furthermore, accepting someone's say-so that evidence exists is pretty much the definition of blind faith. Creationists were raised to believe the wrong source. You were raised to believe the right one. That's the difference.

[ Saturday, May 20, 2006 08:10: Message edited by: PoD person ]
Posts: 293 | Registered: Saturday, May 29 2004 07:00
The Big Club Theory in General
Shock Trooper
Member # 4445
Profile #56
quote:
Originally written by Thuryl:

quote:
Originally written by Kelandon:

For the record, archeological dating goes well beyond C-14 dating. If it were just C-14 dating, I wouldn't believe the dates either, because C-14 dating, by itself, is crappy on small time scales. It's good for millions of years, but it sucks for just a couple thousand years.
Actually, it's the other way around; carbon dating is only useful for objects going back from a few thousand years to a few tens of thousands of years, because if something's been dead longer than that, the carbon-14 has decayed to the point that accurately measurable quantities are no longer present. Different radioisotope dating methods, like potassium-argon dating, are used for geological time scales.

pwn3d

To give this post some actual content:

Where the world came from is an ultimately insignificant question compared to the question of what to do with it now that it's here, so perhaps its best to let the creationists continue getting worked up over that. In any case, I'm inclined to cut them a little slack, since most people's belief (mine included) in the correct age of the universe is as blind-faith as theirs in the incorrect one, and believing the correct thing because that's what one has been told is only slightly more admirable than believing the incorrect thing because that's what one has been told, and certainly doesn't entitle one to throw around condescending vitriol.

(I'm not talking about anyone here, just the culture war in general)
Posts: 293 | Registered: Saturday, May 29 2004 07:00
The Big Club Theory in General
Shock Trooper
Member # 4445
Profile #35
quote:
Originally written by URL=hotmail.com:
Hot Male[/URL]
Since everyone else has jumped in, I'll just argue about the one part which concerns me.
quote:
Originally written by Major:

quote:
What if I were to rephrase the offending statement as, "Come on you people should be able to distort a distorted theory wherein the stronger force the weaker to use their language."? There's absolutely no religion in there
Oh, yes there is it's called "Chance".

You only typed one sentence and I've already found the meaning hard to understand.

Pot, kettle, and so forth.

[ Thursday, May 18, 2006 16:52: Message edited by: PoD person ]
Posts: 293 | Registered: Saturday, May 29 2004 07:00
The Big Club Theory in General
Shock Trooper
Member # 4445
Profile #31
Barf. Jesus hates ID.

Of course, enough common idiots with an axe to grind against religion have suddenly decided to wave the banner of science that I only kind of blame the people that came up with it. Both sides of the culture wars are idiotic.

(Especially since a disproof of evolution doesn't even logically follow from ID. Evolution by natural selection is just a very intelligently designed mechanism of creation.) :P
Posts: 293 | Registered: Saturday, May 29 2004 07:00
Native Americans in General
Shock Trooper
Member # 4445
Profile #114
For what it's worth, I know a lot of kids graduating high school and looking to study engineering, precisely becuase the shortage of American engineers is common knowledge and they figure they can milk it all the way to the bank.

While I basically agree with SoT (I don't think he was trying to make his point to me, though), one of the biggest obstacles, and it's analogous to what Zeviz said about credit cards, is that people will mortgage their long-term earning potential for four years of partying, carefree as possible. That's why the shortage of plumbers, no "college experience" at all if that's your career, and of engineers and other technical specialties, which generally give less free time on the undergraduate level (as opposed to law and medicine, which both save the hard work for later, allowing people to find themselves and/or party like it's 1999 while undergraduates). The question then becomes whether earning potential need to rise beyond what it's feasible to pay plumbers to counter that tendency.

EDIT: Zeviz, SoT isn't assuming that starving people will become plumbers, just people. There are plenty of lower middle-class people who could ride a shortage to the next level up. Plenty of people train in computers with various fly-by-night organizations. The same will presumably happen with plumbing.

EDIT 2: Yes, I'm done with my earlier devil's-advocate position. participating seriously now.

[ Wednesday, May 17, 2006 19:11: Message edited by: PoD person ]
Posts: 293 | Registered: Saturday, May 29 2004 07:00
Native Americans in General
Shock Trooper
Member # 4445
Profile #96
quote:
Originally written by Kelandon:

The government is supposed to provide certain services that benefit everyone (roads, schools, etc.). These services cost money. That money has to come from somewhere, and there literally is not enough money among the lower-income earners to pay for all of it. Therefore, progressive taxation.

You have neither refuted that wealth is being forcibly redistributed nor addressed the most obvious holes in your argument, welfare and public housing.
Posts: 293 | Registered: Saturday, May 29 2004 07:00
Native Americans in General
Shock Trooper
Member # 4445
Profile #94
quote:
Originally written by The Worst Man Ever:


quote:
Originally written by PoD person:

quote:
Originally written by Khoth:

quote:
Originally written by PoD person:

I do think, though, that Western Europeans were not committing some horrible crime against humanity in taking the Native Americans' land.
So if you want something someone else has, and you don't like the way they're using it, it's okay to take it for yourself by force?

Well, yeah. Isn't that the moral principle behind the graduated income tax? Heh, I was waiting to be called on that; however, if it's ethically acceptable to redistribute conspicuously consumed wealth, it's the same to redistribute conspicuously unconsumed wealth.

It sure is, if you're paying income tax directly to your neighbor and he gets to spend it as he pleases. If you're paying it to a government which is obligated to provide you certain services - not so much.

It's not an equivalent trade and you know it. Certainly the way members of this board talk about it, the graduated income tax is the best way to use the wealthy to provide services for someone other than the wealthy, a textbook example of "if you want something someone else has, and you don't like the way they're using it, it's okay to take it for yourself by force." It's the right thing to do, but you should cop to what you're actually saying, ethically.

SoT - Good point about the interests of the species versus the interests of the genus. You pretty much crushed my devil's-advocate position.

[ Tuesday, May 16, 2006 06:45: Message edited by: PoD person ]
Posts: 293 | Registered: Saturday, May 29 2004 07:00
Native Americans in General
Shock Trooper
Member # 4445
Profile #86
quote:
Originally written by Khoth:

quote:
Originally written by PoD person:

I do think, though, that Western Europeans were not committing some horrible crime against humanity in taking the Native Americans' land.
So if you want something someone else has, and you don't like the way they're using it, it's okay to take it for yourself by force?

Well, yeah. Isn't that the moral principle behind the graduated income tax? Heh, I was waiting to be called on that; however, if it's ethically acceptable to redistribute conspicuously consumed wealth, it's the same to redistribute conspicuously unconsumed wealth.

quote:

quote:
No one would raise an uproar today if developers displaced a hippie commune to build housing, particularly if it were low-income housing or some worthy project of that nature
Since it's the same thing, I take it then that you also wouldn't have a problem with a group of hippies knocking down your neighbourhood so they could have a commune there (so long as they give you the option of joining the commune, of course).

I'm not that attached to my neighborhood. I hope I'd adapt.

quote:
[b]
quote:
If a culture can be destroyed, it shouldn't be around anyways
Do you mind if I come into your house and smash up your stuff? If you have anything that can be destroyed, it shouldn't be around anyways.

[/b]
Yeah, well, this strawman would be great if my stuff could possibly be said to be in a selection paradigm, but it's not like it's competing against anything.

quote:
quote:
TNR, though, cited several studies, and the only ones which spring to mind were weight-guessing contests, but there were others, which showed the aggregate guesses of crowds with some interest in getting the right answer often yielded estimates very close to the truth. I feel like the collective wisdom of a populace with more or less identical interests will always trump bureacracy.
Except that weight-guessing is nothing like predicting terrorist attacks. Guessing someone's weight, everyone can judge roughly how heavy someone is relative to others, and people's systematic errors in converting that to an absolute scale can cancel out somewhat when you take an average.

Terrorism is different. Nobody has a clue where terrorists are going to strike next, and taking the average of several million "no ideas" (if you can even meaningfully extract such an average) doesn't help you at all.

I only explained Bush's policy as background; my point was about the free market, not terrorism. Basically, common-sense things such as the problem with a lack of tradesmen are as likely to be interpreted and corrected as the weight is to be correctly guessed, so long as people have an interest in that happening.

EDIT: For clarity, Western Europe was thoroughly despicable in its treatment of the American natives; I'm not disputing that. Furthermore, my position is maybe a little exaggerated for the purpose of provoking debate.

[ Monday, May 15, 2006 18:48: Message edited by: PoD person ]
Posts: 293 | Registered: Saturday, May 29 2004 07:00

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