metadigital

A bit like Woody Allen's character pretending to play baseball during intercourse to reduce the prematurity of his ... er ... finishing. I sure I could mount a convincing defence of hiring ladies of the night by calling on the precedents of the Masters, years before ... the poses, however, would require a more >ahem< modern interpretation. btw, Are you a fan of Calvin & Hobbes? Watterson had a bit to say about art (not to mention philosophy): The hard part for us avant-garde post-modern artists is deciding whether or not to embrace commercialism. Do we allow our work to be hyped and exploited by a market that's simply hungry for the next new thing? Do we participate in a system that turns high art into low art so it's better suited for mass consumption? Of course, when an artist goes commercial, he makes a mockery of his status as an outsider and free thinker. He buys into the crass and shallow values art should transcend. He trades the integrity of his art for riches and fame. Oh, what the heck. I'll do it. Or how about entering academia: "The dynamics of interbeing and monological imperatives in D1ck and Jane: a study in psychic transrelational gender modes". :cool:

Well, your arguing a utilitarian philosophy over a moral "the end doesn't justify the means" argument -- fi that helps. " Seriously, though, the only caveat I would stress to the aforementioned utilitarian argument is that, in extremis, you might end up with "hedonistic economics", whereby convicted criminals would have their organs harvested for more worthy members of society, for example. (I can see some people in the audience are all for this ... ) Another point that is rarely mentioned in these dicsussions is that, right now, there are more embryos in existence than can possibly live on the planet, unless we start mass exterminations right now. (This policy also might have some support out there ...) I guess we could start with all the stupid people ...

Good work, Kaftan! I like the woman in the portrait, and she does look Hindu (not sure about the actress part, though ... are you sure she's not one of those "performance artists" that need partners or implements). She looks uncomfortable to be in the room with you (understandable because she was naked and you were probably dragging your tongue on the floor ...) I do like the eyes (much better than Sigmund's -- that's in your painting of him, not in real life, of course).

This is where I get off: I cannot watch a film with the mental effort required to suspend my disbelief is larger than the creative effort used in its production. Phone Booth was a very silly concept for a film. The whole gothic look for Gotham City was an art-house triumph! That's like saying you like icecream but you wish it wasn't so cold. And casting Arnie as Mr Freeze was the culmination of a personal prediction of mine, so I have no problems there: I thought Arnie brought depth and power to the msiunderstood character ( :D dang! I nearly said that with a straight face) -- aside: he still hasn't played a bad guy before or since the original Terminator -- and Nicholson and Carey both gave stupendous performances; "over the top"? We're talking about Batman here, right? Where a man can ricochet bullets with his armour-plated arms? Holy veiled-innuendo, Batman! Some of the audience aren't getting our camp schtick! :cool:

Well, movement not in a physical sense, but the psychological imperatives and actions that follow the state of love. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Hmm, yep, I got that bit; I was more looking for some clarification on what, exactly, you felt love "and other emotions" added to the obvious biological imperative. Specifically, what value the feelings themselves, or the associated derivative experiences, give to the satients that have them? I'm not quite sure how I'm derailing a topic about Jedi love with philosophical analyses of love and the nature of the Force ... ... How did you propose to conduct the discussion: role playing rock, paper & scissors?

I'm not sure what you mean by "the state itself moves beyond that". Where does it move to? What are you adding to the biological urge? Indeed, even if we discount the recent publicity of p

I thought his performance for the first bit of American Psycho was wooden, and I didn't see the last part because the whole film was a tragic waste of time. NAY!!!! THEY ARE THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME.Adam West > Everyone else <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Subtlety of wit and wry humour may not be everyone's taste, Mr Barlast. " And may I be the first to welcome back the blessed sig!

That is actually a good exercise to practise reading body language: watch the tv with no sound. (90%-ish of communication is non-verbal for us people creatures.) Naturally, people who are signt impaired listen to an augmented broadcast with the stage directions vocalized. Or plug in their trusty braille-socket to their tv.

Wow, heavy dude, that's bleak! Hobbes was an optimist compared to you. I have a friend who is almost totally convinced that intelligence is a Darwinian dead-end: a cul de sac in the road to survival. It is not sustainable, considering the amount of life it takes to grow fully-fledged people, considering the amount of wastage (i.e. those people who never reach full potential) and considering the relative merits (costs versus benefits) of the alternatives (like the aforementioned mass spawning strategy of insects, etc). I have another friend who gave me the best definition of God I have ever heard: when multiple agents work in concert and the result is more than the sum of the parts, then the extra bit (total - sum of parts) is God. I could easily appropriate this definition for Love (as God equals Love anyway, right? " ). I would favour the second theory, without necessarily insisting on a God. (It could be The Force, for example, or some sort of group subconscious, as referred to by Freud, Jung, et alia.) Or as famously quoted by Billy Connolly, the first impulses scientists believe flash through a brain upon meeting another creature is: "Can I eat it?" "Can it eat me?" "Can I shag it?".

Wow, it's amazing to learn that all of my opinions actually have a name. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> That's Thomas Hobbes, the seventeenth century British philosopher who wrote Leviathan, not the stuffed tiger friend of Calvin (but he's pretty cool, too ). :D

"You don't know the POWER of the dark side!" Darth Vader, RotJ :angry:

I was more seeking to make Love the embodiment of life, not a pre-condition. Sort of like the Force, life can live without, but to truly reach its potential life needs love. (Also, there is a species of spider that, when the eggs hatch into hundreds of little, tiny spiders, the mother spider performs a procedure to make her their first meal. Maybe the incy wincy spider has love for her little babies ... . :D .. okay, more likely the love thing is a higher brain function (frontal cortex) interpretation of this sort of sacrifice.) I really don't know - both could be true. From what is told in some novels even the Jedi don't have a clue about the phenomena. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> That's just a cop out: what do you think the Force is? :cool:

"Was I any different, when you taught me?" a certain Obi-Wan Kenobi in ESB. She was limited, but that gave her character places to grow, which (if you reach the Brianna conclusion) she certainly does do. Just compare her to her sisters; even at first she was curious and didn't take your opinion without question. "... Only now, young Skywalker, do you understand ... " ... the true demographic that she was trying to capture ... :D

I thought the Handmaiden backstory was better done: I found the whole Visas betrayal of her former Master very similar to the numerous previous attempts, with Bastila etc. Also, Visas reminded me too much of Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction ... I didn't think they had cosmetics or even female-suitable clothing in that galaxy so far, far away. GL didn't permit Carrie Fisher to wear a brasier, and I would have to assume that is because of his artistic integrity ... "

Ah, you've been brushing up on your Hobbesian philosophy, I see. True, I was referring to the human world, and our struggle to make life fair. Is the Force emotion-neutral? That's fair game for debate ... I maintain that Kreia was right and the Force is a malevolent agent acting in its own interest (probably towards some sort of self-actualization), which neatly prophesizes the next major cataclism between the Force Sensitives and the Anti-Force forces ...

) That is a very Jungian concept, and one I happen to feel mirrors a lot of experiences in my life ... I dunno about this Force malarky in SW, but I have seen my partner's intuition working ... looks more and more like Luke's vision in ESB every day ... :cool: And I'd be lying if I said that I fully understood every nuance of my work upon release; yet somehow all the nuances are in keeping with the themes. As to the nature of this phenomenon, I would sooner believe there is some subconscious overseer working than, well, super-sensory "group supra-consciousness", but as of yet I haven't been able to decide either way ... (... or it could be delusional narcisistic hubris ...)

What's a Revolution? "

What can I say. I'm an idealist and I don't agree. This may help to explain the reasons for my point of view: http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?sh...ndpost&p=355675 <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Whether you are an idealist or not, being evil is -- from a certain point of view -- a lot of fun. You get to be totally self-indugent. Think of Bill Murray's Christopher Cross (Scrooge) character in Scrooged: he had a ball saying everything he felt like saying to people without having to be politically correct. Or Jim Carey's lawyer in Liar Liar (the Board Room scene) ) ... Even though I prefer not to be evil, there is a case to answer: the society would be Hobbesian, (i.e. according to the thought experiment propounded in Leviathan -- bellum omnium contra omnes -- life would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short"); but if you were the strongest, life would be very good -- while you remained so. (Very unfair, but then life is not that fair even though we try hard to make it so ...) Being evil is a moral choice, not (necessarily) an ignorant one. That was one of the conclusions to George Orwell's 1984. For a sociopath there is no downside: they have no empathy for the weaker members of the society and therefore don't identify with their suffering. Don't get me wrong, the Hobbesian society is one that I would not like to live in, even if I were strongest; an indifferent society is a very lonely one. And that doesn't encompass the postive (emotional/spiritual) growth engendered in a positive feedback loop in a warm, supportive environment. But, what would be worse is thinking one lives in a fair society when everyone else is working with the doctrine of "Modern Natural Right" ... <_<

Kreia makes a good point: love (more than anything in our universe, and arguably just as much as -- if not identical to -- The Force) is life. Life as in the verdant growth of Spring, the young growing f

Which means there must be some sort of precognition going on, because the signal from the brain to the limbs would have to be sent before the beam in order for the person to jump in time ...

So when Revan went to the Outer Rim ...

Nah, different marketing model: Walmart are differentiating wrt Price, Mandalorians have a more a mafia-pyramid-selling scheme (you have to join and no leaving: I don't suppose they like selling to many non-mandalorians, only those "most favoured trading persons") and marketing products that are differentiated by high quality.

I don't plan on upgrading my pc that early. The hardware development innovation cycles have co-incided neatly (roughly) with the depreciation on IT assets (i.e. over three years) for the last few years (since the GPU, by my calculations). That means I should be looking to purchase a new PC / convergence device with OHP and surround sound etc, etc in about 6-12 months. Even considering hardware is out of date when you buy it, the next wave of development should similarly last a couple of years. What would be intersting is if the had modular architecture for the consoles: not the out-and-out plug'n'play paradigm of the PC, but limited "standard" upgrades, like a new GPU and more/better (V)RAM and call it the PS3.1 ... " Well, according to Gamespot Hardware, it's the PS3 GPU that's 50 MHz faster than the Xbox 360 equivalent. Not that all this really matters anyhow. It's the games, not the hardware, that decides which console will win the war. I mean, the PS2 isn't close to the Xbox in hardware but still dominates the market. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> True, the Sony Betamax was much superior to the VHS.

Okay, I shall.

Spot on. I haven't played the Hitman series, so I was talking out of school. (I did play a demo of one of them, but I didn't really get into it: more about the controls than the ideology, though " ) So I would have to defer to your analysis of the games as I have no first hand experience. Nice to hear that I was correct in my assessment, though, in that people don't play games to murder people, but to stop injustices. (Role playing evil dudes aside, of course. :D )