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Reveilled
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Posts posted by Reveilled
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I guess what I really mean is a program that can create landmasses based on the outlines of a particular object. To give an example, say I had a picture of a cat, the program would create a landmass that looked like a cat in shape.
A bonus would be if it could create topographic features based on the object's contours, but I really dont expect that.
Hmm. The first part of your problem could probably be solves with a border detection program. That takes an image and marks the images borders by detecting sharp colour changes. Someone with graphic art experience might be able to point you in the direction of one of these.
Unfortunately, my work with maps is almost exclusively with maps of earth, and political ones more than physical ones. I'm afraid I have little experience in the field of topographical map generators. There's probably one out there, but I'm afraid I'm not directly aware of it. Sorry.
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I am in need of a program whereby to create maps, preferably based on existing images (not necessarily maps) I designate. I remember reading somewhere on here that one of us has an interest in cartography? Does anyone have some suggestions.
I'm guessing that one of us would be me, but I'm afraid I've got no idea where you'd find such a program. I'm not aware of any program that generates maps from non-map images.
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sorry for using a cliche analogy Reveilled.. but I did so to make a point not to do a comparison..
Sorry, I thought you were making a comparison. I hope you didn't take my post as hostile, I find the comparison a genuinely interesting one.
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My worst fear is that the US will collapse under it's own weight, that the (powerful) industries that follow war will keep the country in a constant race for bigger and more expensive weapons and wars to use them in ..
because then we will see a third Roman Empire (the 3rd reich if you like that analogy) rise and fall with a crash that will tear most of this world apart...*
*worst case scenario of course ..
Well, if we're going to see another Roman Empire, it should be another few hundred years in the making. Here, you might like this.
In any case, I think we're up to five Roman Empires now, so I don't think there's a danger of seeing a resurrected Holy Roman Empire (that's #3 by my count, anyway).
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Well I'm sure after the Bush admin, candidates for the next presidency will be very eager to stress how shrewdly they'll handle the money.
Pshaw. Bush didn't create the U.S.'s national debt, and I strongly doubt any president in the near future will take even a significant chunk out of it. If the people don't get back more in the way of services than they have paid into the system, they're going to want either more programs or bigger tax cuts. Since repaying the national debt would largely involve keeping taxes are roughly the same levels while cutting social programs and military spending, the plebs won't be happy about that. And when the plebs aren't happy, the politicians aren't elected.
Trust me, the candidates will talk about handling the money well (and I'll be rather surprised if Bush didn't too), but once you get into office, there's no such thing as honour. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
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I wonder how long it would take the US to pay off its debt if it channeled its foreign aid into repaying its debt. On the other hand a lot of the aid's run by non-government organisations so things could take awhile.
Probably not long, but if the US ceased its foreign aid, that money would go into ineffective programs that please the public but worsen the debt. Democracy in the Western World is in its Largesse From The Treasury stage, and there is likely little that can be done to stop it now. The next stage is complete collapse and a slide into despotism.
I hope that was suitably pessimistic for the tone of this thread.
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Personally I take care of my own and mind my own business. That is me on the personal level. I don't go door to door bothering people. That is just me. On the government level, it is up to each individual government, may it be the US government, the Canadian government, Spain's government, Iraq's government, and so forth to take care of its own people. The purpose of government is to set order and structure that benefits all people within that structure and order.
The key word here is "within."
Yes, I have a healthy disdain for the human race in general but I don't value a person in New Orleans more than a person in Bagdad. What I am saying that the US government is responsible is responsible to the person in New Orleans first and foremost than a person in Iraq. The US government has a responsibility to US people just as much as U.K's government is responsible for its own people, or Italy's government to its own people, and so on. The US government is not responsible for Italy, Iraq, israel, Japan, Mexico and so forth. let the governments of those nations take care of themselves without interference, good or ill, from the US.
Ah, I see. Well, I don't think I agree with that position entirely (I do, but only up to a point), but I understand it now. Thanks.
As a final question, just to grasp a basic but fundamental subtlety of your position, do you believe that a promise to do something confers upon the promiser a responsibility to carry out the action they have promised to take? If so, then does a broken promise confer a measure of responsibility for the consequences of breaking that promise?
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Can I ask, Hades, out of genuine curiosity, why given your statements that humanity cannot meaningfully be divided along the lines of race, and given your general despair about the crappy state of the single human race, you would bring up an argument like "They're not American"?
You've confused me somewhere along the line as to why you care more about some guy in Maine or California more than someone in Iraq. Surely, taking the position of self-interest you at least seem to be espousing, you should look after and care for only those people whom you directly care about or have an interest in (whether that is you alone, or you and your immediate family and friends), and needn't give a damn about anyone else regardless of whether they are Iraqi, Indonesian, Austrian or American? If a dictator torturing people in Baghdad is none of your business, why is one torturing people in Miami something you should care about?
I don't really see how a concept of nationality gels with a concept of uniform barbarity in humanity.
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Meh...I never really got Farscape. I hope you like it, though.
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It doesn't rhyme.
Thats not entirely true, it rhymes... in places. Anyway it has meter and that is enough.
Bah! If rhyme was good enough for Poe, Burns, Chaucer and Shakespeare, it's good enough for any upstart modern poet!
Lousy stinkin' youngters thinkin' they know so much about poetry. *mumble* *grumble*
Well, at least it's not free verse, so I suppose that makes it sort of okay.
*ghrumble*
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It doesn't rhyme.
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VTM: Bloodlines (yes, yes, I'm a year behind, I know. At least I got it cheap.)
Your parents are kinda...relaxed about certain themes, it seems.
That, or kinda unaware about certain themes.
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What with me being a teetotaler, my mother's boyfriend thought a nice gift for my 18th christmas would be some alcoholic chocolate. Mmm.
Other than that, it's just books and DVDs this christmas. Oh, and book tokens. Mountains upon mountains of book tokens from aunts and uncles. Just because I'm the only one in the family who reads books doesn't mean that getting me a book token is more creative than the same value in cash you give to everyone else in the family! Sigh.
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Can anyone link me to a pro-Intelligent Design webpage that sets the 'theory' out clearly for the uninitiated? I've heard a lot of talk about it, without really getting down to what it actually is.
I'm afraid I don't have a link, but the basic idea is that the universe is so complex that it would have to have a designer. At the most basic level, then, it actually says nothing about how the universe was created or how complex life came into being, and so is perfectly compatible with modern scientific thought on these issues.
However, it's never quite so simple as all that. What was originally a theological argument, was adapted by Creationists to form an anti-scientific argument, and the original idea which posited a non-descript creator creating through what was probably the processes the scientific community agrees on was replaced by a very specific literalist interpretation of the Christian creation story.
What I do have is a link to some of the arguments made for intelligent design. Here. Someone else might have a better link that explains it.
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Complaining about the Big Bang being inaccurate as a point in the favour of creationism seems rather ironic to me, considering that some atheist scientists rejected it on the basis that it required there to exist a creator for a universe that was at come point created.
To further add to the irony, the most prominent (atheist) cosmologist who denied the Big Bang theory, Fred Hoyle, was the one to coin the common creationist argument that the "chances that life just occurred are about as unlikely as a typhoon blowing through a junkyard and constructing a Boeing-747", yet was actually arguing that this proved that life originated in space and arrived here on comets before beginning the process of evolution!
Oh, and zero degrees Kelvin is just the average temperature on a winter's day in Glasgow, where Lord Kelvin lived. That it also equals absolute zero is purely coincidental.
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My only real objection to Psionics is that it strikes me as being pretty out of place in the D&D settings. Psychic powers are the realm of Science Fiction games, not the traditional pulp high fantasy that D&D represents.
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I think they should have allowed it and included the Flying Spaghetti Monster theory just to spite them.
Such Blasphemy! I want the science cirriculum to cover my religion's literalist crackpot creation story too!
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It seems that everytime a DnD CRPG is announced, psionics is one of the things requested, yet never gets considered.
Not being a PnPer, I have no idea what psionics is. I've looked up it, but have gotten mostly vague stuff. What exactly is psionics? Some sort of psychic magic? Can anyone learn psionic? If yes, how so? Through books, masters, or what? If not, are you born with this power?
Bop.
Yep, it's psychic powers. Who can aquire it has changed with the editions of D&D. IIRC, 1e D&D required that you have an 18 in intelligence and wisdom, rolled a 99-100 on a d%, and even then you had very limited abilities.
In third edition it's much easier. Just like with becoming a sorceror, you need to be born with the power, but aquire it through class levels. Thus, anyone can become a psionic (provided you meet the ability requirements, which is probably something like 11 WIS or INT), and you're just assumed to have been born with the power and are only now manifesting it.
You get various powers like telekinesis, ESP, and attacking abilities like "Mind blast" (can't remember exactly what that does, though).
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Meta has...a real life. He'll be back soon enough.
Has an ill wife, you mean. I hope she's okay.
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You can if you wish but I think the glory days of the Empire are long gone. I don't think your country has the resources to be taken in too many people as it is.
Oh no, as I said, I'd like it for a lawn ornament. How does $50 sound?
Hey, on second thought, you can actually go inside it, right? Might make a nice house...
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I would prefer almost total isolation. The only things we should deal with in other countries is diplomatic relations and trade. No more aid, no more getting involved in someone else's wars, no more immigrants, no more of our companies moving out of our country.
Since you won't be needing it any more, then, could I have that sign of yours out front that says "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free"? I think it would make a nice lawn ornament in my front garden.
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And that's the end of it all!
Congrats, Jags!
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I love Wikipedia. I've spent many hours on the site just jumping from one article to another by clicking through the links to other articles in the one I'm reading.
If I ever want to know something about anything, Wikipedia is the first place I look.
I wouldn't cite it as a source--partially because of the stigma many academicians attach to it, but also because if something I'm doing requires sources, I'd be better off reading Wikipedia's reference section and citing those as my sources--but I find it to be a very accurate site, in the main (though the topics I look at are mostly unscientific, like Benjamin Franklin, or Bread). Rather than going against it, the John Seigenthaler/JFK thing only proves how well Wikipedia's collective editing system works. Instead of being a drama queen over an inaccurate article, Seigenthaler could have actually fixed the error himself instead of leaving it there for four months.
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Updateified.
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What is your excuse for being online?
in Way Off-Topic
Posted
It's 6am and everyone at my small gathering has just gone home. A friend and I sat on the roof of my garage for the fireworks, having spent the evening on the computer reading Something Awful's Weekend Web's ridiculed forums and completing the Curse of Monkey island in under two hours.
In between then and now, I lost