EnderAndrew

From a purely pragmatic view, it certainly doesn't hurt to believe in God. If God doesn't exist, what have you really wasted? Conversely, let's say God does exist and you refuse to believe in him. What is the opportunity cost there?

When Ultima VI had a new engine and looked vastly different to Ultima IV and V, I learned to appreciate it. Then Ultima VII looked completely different. The Ultima games were as highly regarded as Baldur's Gate is today, and people accepted the changes.

I was shocked that it didn't touch upon the illusions we accept as reality. For instance, you could reach out and touch your computer. You firmly believe that you are touching your computer. But from a semantic arguement, the matter in your hand is not directly touching the matter of the computer. You never really touch anything. There are so many things we take for granted that when viewed from another perspective prove to be false. We assumed for how knows how long that the sun revolved around the earth. Standing on earth, it sure looks that way. What if gravity didn't operate the way we think ti does? (By the way, we have scientific proof that gravity doesn't exist on a larger scale, that is whay we made up the theory of dark matter to explain the broken physics). What if every molecule in the universe doubled in size at exactly the same rate? If you jumped in the air, the earth (a larger object) would expand up to you, making it seem like you fell down to it.

But Honey, I got that cleared up!

I think the game could retain an overhead view. People forget that games like Bard's Tale or X-Men Legends have an isometric view and are sold today. With strategic combat games becomming popular again, I think a developer could push for turn-based combat again. Japanese and European developers can push for it. Fallout Tactics, imperfect game that it was, featured a decent blend of both turn based and realtime combat. The player got their choice.

Some people suggested the magnent brought the plane down, but if the magnent was that strong, it would take down the hatch as well. I've heard we will know why the plane crashed by the season 2 finale. I agree that the magnent is for the nanites. The light may just be so that Desmond can keep the element of surprise.

Probably sad but true.

The Rogue Nation of West Denmark is a huge, economically powerful nation, remarkable for its complete lack of prisons. Its hard-nosed, hard-working, cynical population of 326 million enjoy extensive civil freedoms, particularly in social issues, while business tends to be more regulated. It is difficult to tell where the omnipresent, liberal government stops and the rest of society begins, but it juggles the competing demands of Social Welfare, Education, and the Environment. The average income tax rate is 98%. The private sector is almost wholly made up of enterprising fourteen-year-old boys selling lemonade on the sidewalk, although the government is looking at stamping this out. The only places to see snuzzlemuffs now are at local zoos, smoking is banned in public areas, torture is commonly used to extract information from suspected criminals, and city sidewalks are crowded with overweight people. Crime -- especially youth-related -- is relatively low. West Denmark's national animal is the snuzzlemuff, which is also the nation's favorite main course, and its currency is the cold one.

The article isn't incorrect because it makes no absolute statements. It never says "this is the true state of the universe". It poses questions. The theories mentioned are in fact theories the scientific community is currently bouncing around, so there are honest-to-goodness scientists who believe these things. Look up string theory, fuzzy math, dark matter, dark energy, etc. etc. I also love that the current prevalant theory concerning our universe is that it is both finite, and possibly one of many. It exists in a bubble. Objects go from high pressure to low pressure, right? Except at the edge of space where existance suddenly stops, and things stay contained in a bubble for no apparent reason.

Nerf Herder - Van Halen I bought Van Halen I It was the best damn record I ever owned TG&Y 1978 Two hand tapping guitar technique really got me off Eruption yeah, ain't talkin' 'bout love, I'm on fire Tomorrow may come Tomorrow may never come again Can't you hear Jamie cryin? She's runnin' with the devil I bought Women and Children First Fair Warning and Van Halen II Dance the night away 1984 my favorite record yeah I wore it down Might as well jump Tomorrow may come Tomorrow may never come again Can't you hear Jamie cryin? She's runnin' with the devil Is this what you wanted, Sammy Hagar? Sammy Hagar, is this what you wanted, man? Dave lost his hairline but you lost your cool buddy Can't drive 55 I'll never buy your lousy records again Again, again, again, never again... Tomorrow may come Tomorrow may never come again Can't you hear Jamie cryin? She's runnin' with the devil Jump jump jump jump jump jump jump, might as well jump

Fixed! Glad to have you back!

Yep. The script really sucks, and I have little faith in the director. The movie could surprise me, but I am quite sad that they didn't let Singer finish what he started. Fox screwed him since day 1 on the X-Men thing. They cut his budget on the first one, and them bumped the release date up six months while he was in the middle of filming it. I've read reports that one of the bigwigs at Fox hates Singer and was setting him up for failure since day 1. They resigned the cast for X:2 right away, but waited forever to sign Singer again. They did the same with with X:3 and never bothered to sign Singer, so he left to do Superman.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1485828/posts Some guy in August was studying the effects of global warming, and felt due to global warming we'd see an increase in the number and strength of tropical storms. This year looks to be a record year. Yet plenty of people insist that global warming doesn't even exist.

I worked on a simple "AI" chat program like this back in the day. It just parses text, compares it to various logic statments, and then finds the correct response.

We don't know about the woman Jack was going to marry. In the hatch we saw the number 108. The numbers add up to 108. I rather liked the episode. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. Here is some speculation. These aren't spoilers, but rather just my guesses. This Aussie, Desmond is responsible for both Jack's wife/fiance miraculously walking, and Locke walking. The driver that died in the ER is Shannon's father I do believe. His name was Rutherford. Walt wasn't actually there. He communicated with Shannon through telepathy, or something like it. The whispers of the others is also a psychic phenomenon if you ask me. That's why even Danielle never saw the Others. Desmond hasn't been in the hatch very long. He has a modern gun, and a modern drug delivery system, yet the computers in the hatch are about 30 years old. Random note, but quarantine is French for 40 days I do believe. The survivors have been on the island exactly 40 days at this point according to the writers. I think Desmond is a miracle worker of sorts. But he works his miracles through technology, since Abrams said everything on the show can be explained. The explanation is nanites. The black cloud is a bunch of nanites. It explains how Locke was healed, the quarantine, the vaccine, the "sickness", etc. There is more than one monster. The first monster Locke thought was beautiful. It also didn't attack him. The black cloud did. Desmond is only holding a gun to Locke's head to disarm Jack. I think Desmond has no qualms with Locke and Locke knows where Kate is. The writers said we wouldn't understand the hatch until Episode 3, which will be a Locke flashback episode. We know that Katey Segal has been hired to act in that episode. She will be Helen, presumably the girl that Locke was talking to on the phone in "Walkabout". So episode 2 will probably deal with the raft. We'll find out what happened to Jin, Michael and Sawyer.

The House episode was the very first one. The girl had a parasite from ham that went up to her brain. Parasites can enter your blood stream and travel all over your body. You can also get parasites through the skin. I've heard of cases in rural areas where people step on cow droppings with bare feet for instance, and the parasite enters your body that way.

Sadly not going to happen. LucasArts said no. The only new patch we are supposed to get is the Movies/Music patch, and that has supposedly been finished and handed to LucasArts months ago. I don't think you'll ever seen an "official" patch for the game again, but the Restoration Project is pretty neat.

http://www.exitmundi.nl/Dreamsend.htm

There are communities that still mod the various TIE fighter games, so those players still exist. They just don't make games for us anymore. If anyone still has contact info for Mike Gallo, tell that guy know the prequel trilogy is finished we need a new "X-Wing vs TIE" game with ships from all six movies and cutting edge graphics. Can you imagine?

They've gone from 90 issues to around 190 which helps. You can go into settings and select how often you want to deal with new issues.

You mean like Civilization? You must resist the tempation to play Civ. http://www.civanon.org/

Let's play a game of sorts. http://www.nationstates.net/ You signup for free. You don't even have to give them an email address. You create a nation and answer a few quick questions about what type of government you want. You can create a flag for your nation. Each day issues pop up in your nation. How you respond to these issues changes the economy, morale, rights and standing of your nation. Your nation can belong to a region, where an regional delegate can be elected to the UN. Every person who endorses the regional delegate effectively gives that delegate their vote in the UN. In the UN, thousands of votes are cast to enact laws that affect all members of the UN. I just created a nation called West-Denmark. They wouldn't let me reuse my former name of West Denmark, hence the dash. Then join the Obsidian region. Let the politics, roleplaying and nation simulating begin.

People obviously don't understand what censorship is, so let me clarify. If somone decides to rate something, they are expressing their opinion of that. And if a chain of stores decides they don't care to carry a certain product, they have that right. That is not censorship. Censorship would be the government keeping that product out of your hands, which they don't do. If Wal-Mart won't carry the next GTA, then so be it. It will still sell like hotcakes. And you still are able to purchase it elsewhere.

Fixed Yeah, i know its bad <{POST_SNAPBACK}> "Nietzsche is dead." - Spellmar Fixed!

My Republic would be similiar to the US as a blend of socialism and capitalism save that it would be a proper Democracy. The following changes would come into play: All members of Congress would be well paid, however they would be forbidden to accept one penny from lobbyists. There would be no private campaign funds either. All parties running for office with enough signatures receive equal government funding for campaigns. Welfare would be more accessible, however at the same time it would be contigent on entering an appropriate program to help the end-user get off of welfare. Need childcare? It's provided. Need transportation? Here's a bus pass. Have a drug problem? Here's rehab. Need training in a job skill? Here's vocational grants. Our entire concept of prison would be completely reworked. Our "criminal justice" system creates more criminals than we rehabilitate. People serving life sentences would be in completely different prisons than those serving shorter sentences. Good behavior is rewarded with lower security prisons, more freedoms, etc. Drug rehab, job training, and counseling would be a major part of the prison system. Futhermore, the weight rooms would be taken out, and gourmet food would be brought in. Fat, placated prisoners are less violent than testerone-producing ones. A new simplified tax code would step in with a flat tax, abolishing all previous tax laws. Cutting through the red tape of the IRS actually frees up a bunch of money overnight. With fewer laws, there are fewer loopholes. Forcing the wealthy to actually pay taxes would also fix most budget problems. Next, we would institute new tariffs and refuse economic aid and partnership to countries that refuse to combat piracy of our intellectual property. The US for example produces the intellectual property for the world, but no one outside of the US actually pays for it. Imagine what this could do for our trade deficit? Next there would be a "tariff" on labor. Companies that outsource labor to other countries will be taxed. Lastly, the minimum wage would be raised to $7.50/hr for all adults and $6.00 for students, or people pulling social security. You can't live making $5.15 an hour. You just can't. To curb potential inflation, at the same time we temporarily cut the federal interest rates, allowing companies to borrow the initial extra money they'd need to pay in payroll. In the end, as employees have more money in their pocket, they will spend it, thus encouraging economic growth. I should run for President.