alanschu

Still, all you're doing is exactly what the author also suggested. You saw one word, came to a conclusion, and judged the author based on it. Without actually reading the article. You're getting mired in the (supposed - since you didn't read it) details of his examples, rather than the thesis provided. I didn't claim that they were always constant. I don't know that, and likely never will. What I can say, however, is that the hypothesis that they were always accurate at least has some level of support. As such, I will be more inclined to believe someone that claims that they have always been constant, as opposed to someone claiming that they have not always been constant. If we shift from science to philosophy, however, and philosophize that they may not have always been constant, then that has as much support as any philosophical claim that they have always been constant. Discussing things that cannot be empirically tested belongs in the realm of Philosophy, not Science. If you wish to believe that the natural laws were different in the past, and as such that is why things are the way they are, that's fine. I don't expect to convince you otherwise. Shifting from Science to Philosophy, however, if you do not feel that the natural laws have been historically constant, I am curious as to why you think that that is the case? The problem you're making, is that you're still expecting science to prove something to be true. Science doesn't work that way. Science simply hasn't proven evolution to be false (yet). Although I must admit I need you to elaborate on what you mean by "natural scientific level." It's a term I am not familiar with. Is your goal to shift the discussion towards semantics? Having said that, the fact that scientists do in fact calculate things within a range of error is an acknowledgement that their measurements are never perfectly precise. Also, taking a measurement is also not science. It's taking a measurement. Although I suppose it wasn't obstinately clear that my use of the term science was referring to the idea the process of the scientific method. Although in general I'd still stand by the statement even if using the term science. You don't have science without hypotheses and ultimately theories. At best you just have observations. Given that my response was to your line which specifically stated "scientific method" I find the shift of focus to semantics to come across as evasive. To be rather direct, as I'm philosophizing now about your reaction to the article: is your reaction to the article's criticism of creationism fueled by your belief in it? I'm curious if your reaction was defensive in nature. And, to be clear, I have zero problems whatsoever if someone wishes to believe that our universe exists through some sort of intelligent design.

No, Skynet wouldn't play like a human being. It'd be too limiting.

Jordan (and less so Pippen) were certainly competitors. I never did like Pippen for his pouting on the bench in that New York game either (Toni was pretty clutch too). In my mind Kukoc was more the unfortunate victim of being loved by Jerry Krause, and he was really more the target of Jordan and Pippen's ire (from what I hear Krause was a jerk too. He basically chased Horace Grant out of the organization too). To all their credit, they all seemed to get along well enough once on the same team, however. I saw a recent interview with Toni Kukoc, and he says he and Mike are still reasonably close, and the two always partner up for golf and celebrity golf tournaments and the like. I think this is a conspiracy theory that doesn't make all that much sense. The only thing suspending Jordan for his gambling (which isn't illegal. Steve Kerr has some fun stories about how Phil would ask players like him and Jud to join Dennis Rodman on excursions to Atlantic City and whatnot, and how Dennis would stay out super late because practice the next day was optional for starters haha) would do is make the league lose revenue. I know Jordan was really feeling the "walls coming in around him" with his popularity, and even snapped at the media for scrutinizing the things Jordan did in his spare time (only giving interviews with Ahmad Rashad afterwards). He did get fined for that stuff, but he just paid it. I do believe Jordan was a bit drifting after his Father's death, and it provided the final impetus that basketball was less fun for him and there was the interest in trying something new. According to not only Jordan, but also his teammates, his time in baseball reminded him of the less overtly business side of sports. It was also somewhat humbling for Jordan, because he clearly was not the best at what he did anymore - and that because someone makes a mistake doesn't mean they aren't trying their best. I remember Will Perdue commenting that, upon Jordan's return, someone made a mistake in practice and Jordan made a comment along the lines of "Don't worry about it, shake it off." and Will was just O_O Haha.

I actually picked that example because in my University's graduate level AI course, there was a competition for who could make the most successful AI using FIFA. The winning team (who got the highest mark) employed the strategy I shared above. It was done to illustrate some important things to think about: 1) Understand what your goal is. The goal was to make the AI that would win the most, not play soccer the most realistically 2) Recognize that because an AI in a game is very good, doesn't mean that it is fun. This loops back into understanding what your goal is when creating an AI. One of my bosses during my internship was Jonathan Schaeffer, the guy that eventually solved checkers. It was fun talking with him because "good AI" and "smart AI" often don't mean the same thing. It's not fun at all to play against Chinook, because you literally cannot win. At best, you can not lose, iff you play a perfect game. now, restrict Chinook's search space to some finite number of moves ahead, and suddenly the game may become a lot more fun. It was neat learning that games like Sargon (chess) used the same algorithm for its chess game for all difficulty levels. They just modified it by reducing how many moves ahead it could search (which also made it play much faster ). Most people don't really want an AI that is as smart as it can be. They want an AI that passes the turing test and accurately mimics how a human being would play. This is much, much more difficult than a really smart AI.

I find it fascinating too. The mind of the collector I guess, because for myself the cards could not possibly mean any less for me than they do. I large, LARGE chunk of the people I work with are quite rabid about their card acquisition, however.

"purge it from my memories!" Come on Alan, that's a little theatrical. Was your Oblivion experience really that bad? Oblivion was the game that taught me that I shouldn't really consider "length" the primary factor of a game's worth. Aside from a handful of things (Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood) I actually genuinely don't remember much of the game, because I just found it boring and unmemorable. I spent about 30-40 hours in it, at which point I went "I am just completing these quests because I am a gamer and feel a sense of compulsion to complete these quests." I click on the silly minigame dialogue wheel thingy simply because "I knew I'd get a reward for doing it successfully" even though, frankly, I didn't care for the reward.

Was more the "royal you" in that case (not that that was clear). I agree with Malekith that he's likely targeted because he's a very public facing character, however.

If cards can be earned while playing offline, I'd be concerned about potential abuse then, as it means that something local on your machine would impact your ability to collect the cards.

I am a big fan of the Arkham games.

I facepalmed for not remembering the pot on the head thieving trick too (from Skyrim). As a programmer I can appreciate what they tried to do, and how it fails. At the same time, as someone in QA I can also see this as a situation where the existence of a bug may or may not actually take away from the project. I think due to the open ended, exploratory nature of the game, people see bugs like that as fun as they discovered it. Kind of like X-COM where people talk it up amazing (myself included), and then cite "awesome" things like how the way to open a door was to send some schlub to open it and then shoot him in the back with a stun grenade (I'm a bit less keen on talking this up as a strength of the game, but some love it because it's a type of emergent behaviour). I never really noticed what you described in Oblivion, mostly because I have attempted to purge it from my memories!

So you read one word, assumed it was about a more generalist aspect of the term creationism, and therefore dismissed the article outright. So basically, also doing what the article suggests? I agree that the idea that the universe was created by an intelligent being doesn't run contrary to a lot of the "science community" believes. Although a lot of the ideas, evolution in particular, really comes under fire from a lot of the creationist movement. What baffles me, however, is why the idea that evolution is an act of this intelligent being is rarely considered. The Big Bang Theory, after all, initially met lots of resistance because it screamed too much divine intervention. Which is also an example of the learner's biases affecting what is put before them. Not all scientists are cynical Richard Dawkins types either. Could be a situation where I overstate the prevalence of more extreme views of creationism, given that they're the ones that tend to get the most print/screen time. You're right. At what point, however, are people just making assumptions because they wish to create a subjective interpretation of the data they have presented in order to avoid cognitive dissonance and to ensure that the reality that they believe to be true is not undermined. I do think that there is a predisposition to Occam's Razor with a lot of things (i.e. the assumption that natural laws were always valid), though by extension you can chase down the rabbit holes making up explanations for something that isn't measurable. For instance, I don't spend much time dwelling on whether or not there is an intelligent creator, because it doesn't seem to be something that I will likely ever know in my living life. It could be true, it could not be true. It's subjective that I see no *reason* for it to be true, it just means that whatever did create the universe is in the same, not really verifiable and possibly not even something I can truly comprehend space. One advantage the assumption of natural laws remaining constant does have, however, is that so far they appear to have remained that way. For at least a (exceptionally) tiny point of time, we can state that these various natural laws appear to be constant, so you can hypothesize that they may have always been that way as there's a tiny bit of data that does that doesn't contradict it. Supposing that the Law's may not be constant, however, relies exclusively on faith to support the assertion since it's not something that we can support - at least at this time. The burden of proof that the natural laws have changed to support some of the more extreme perspectives lies in the hands of those that make said claims. If they are not able to, for what reasons should I take their claims as being accurate? It's entirely valid for you to feel that the natural laws have not remained constant. My question then to you would be: why would you believe that? (emphasis on believe, rather than merely suggesting that it may be the case) The scientific method doesn't test for truth. It tests to see if things are false. The idea that something is only true until something comes along to show otherwise has been a mainstay of the scientific method since its inception. You can never claim that your test has proved something true. Only that it hasn't proven it false. Perform enough tests in a variety of ways that don't show that something is false, and you start to get a theory since, thus far, data supports it. But science never proves anything to be true. This is why the concept of falsifiability is a tenant of the scientific method.

What if they weren't?

My requirement is, of course, that they are stocked at the prime spatula retailers:

What role does he have in this game? He's a writer (and has been for a long time). He'll deal with the general plot and characters and so forth, but if you want to rage up on someone for overall design issues, Mike is probably a better person to be all ragey (although even then he's more "Creative Director" now. I actually don't know if the lead designer is even much of a public facing figure <.<) That's fine (I don't know if he did writing on BG2 either), but I wasn't saying it with any sort of "it's a good thing." I actually find your point interesting, because people slag on him (incorrectly) for general design stuff when 1) he isn't a designer and 2) a game where he was a designer was one that most here would love.

I feel somewhat compelled to point out that Gaider isn't a designer anymore

I'm not sure. So you're saying that stuff like the 6000 year old Earth, and man and dinosaur walking the Earth at the same time, are valid and merely dependent on the interpretation of the facts? Or is he referring to Creationists that state that the reason why we can see light from millions of light years away, is because when the universe was created the light was created already en route? I'll openly admit that I'm a victim to the phenomena he describes too. You saw the word creationism and immediately stopped reading. Could you be a victim of it as well?

Well, the drug dealer story sounds like it didn't exist at all in the released version.

Load up sleeping dogs. I am finding it fun in the early going.

Some quick research: http://thebritinsc.blogspot.ca/2009/06/interestingbut-wrong.html Which is true. An AI that is unpredictable is very scary as a developer. For instance, if you think about a learning algorithm for say, a sports game. Lets pick soccer. Now, imagine that the AI ends up having success by literally just kicking the ball towards the net whenever it gets the ball. WHen it doesn't have the ball, it just tries to get it. If it starts to decide "this is the most effective way for me to play," then you pretty much destroy the "soccer experience" for most people playing the game.

I believe that there are actually distinctions, and that people are referred to as "White Hispanic" or "Black Hispanic" and so forth.

Really? Are you of the impression that the author believes in creationism, and that the critics of creationism are fooling themselves?

I haven't played in a long time so I don't remember much. I made it to 1955 before Egypt finally had enough wherewithal to attack England in my current game as Venice haha. He modified Keyrock's post.

Civ 5. NEW EXPANSION IS SO GOOD!

Haha, we are definitely not target audience for that it seems.

For most of my growing up, the term "God given" has just been used without any religious connotations associated with it. I was curious if that was the usage here, or if there is on some level an assumption that the Second Amendment is a straight up reflection of a natural (or even supernatural) law.