Posts for Baxter

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Warp wrote:
nfq wrote:
Warp wrote:
Why are so many atheists so obsessed in insulting and making fun of other people's beliefs?
Because religious beliefs insult people.
Right. If someone hits me, then it becomes ok for me to hit others. If someone steals my car, then it becomes ok for me to steal other people's cars. If someone insults me, then it becomes ok for me to insult others. It's not even a "payback" to the person who insulted you. You got "insulted" by some religious people, and as payback you feel entitled to insult religious people in general, including those who have done nothing to you. Thus the justification you presented is completely flawed.
You once mentioned atheists only reading and responding to things they wanted to read in the bible... but for some reason, it seems to me you are doing the same with completely ignoring nitsujrehtona's post.
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Dacicus wrote:
It seems like you're assuming that "complete happiness" in Heaven would be whatever people living now on earth would consider "complete happiness," which I do not necessarily think is the case. I think the most important thing to keep in mind is that the defining characteristic of Heaven is being in the presence of God
Well... I'm not talking about someone being very fond of his collection of stamps, or his HD tv. I'm talking about things that define how a person lives... something a person would give his/her life for, such as their child. A mother will not have forgotten about her child in afterlife... otherwise you can hardly say it's the same 'person'/soul. Suppose for whatever reason (maybe the child was an atheist) the mother wouldn't be able to meet her child again in afterlife... she would still be thinking about the child, and it could hardly be called complete happiness. Note that I said if heaven means complete happiness in the question I asked in the earlier post. I know you already wrote somewhat of a response to this:
Dacicus wrote:
As those verses indicate, being in the presence of God will more than offset any possible sorrow due to family members, friends, or pets who will not be there.
But knowing your child isn't experiencing the happiness you are experiencing can't possibly be solved by you experiencing happiness. You also made me wonder... aren't we already in God's presence when we are alive?
Dacicus wrote:
God defined marriage as between one man and one woman in Genesis 2:18-24
If they gay people were to have some kind of other official commitment, which was called something different than "marriage", wouldn't that just be the same with another name for it? It would seem strange to me if the only problem people were having with it was the word "marriage", it would only be a semantic thing. If however a kind of commitment similar to marriage is not approved, then wouldn't that mean telling other people to act according to your personal belief, while they might be believing something completely different themselves? I think that would be disliked by any person.
Dacicus wrote:
Furthermore, God made it clear that homosexuality is a sin through passages such as Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13, and Romans 1:26-27
Any idea why it is a sin?
Dacicus wrote:
Since people won't be married in the afterlife, I don't think an "equality of souls" argument is appropriate.
Replace "married" with "in love". People can still be in love in the afterlife right? Actually, these questions were also for Boco, for instance:
Boco wrote:
Marriage is a this-world institution that will NOT be carried forward
Is love carried forward? If your feelings aren't carried forward, wouldn't that mean you are someone different? etc Also:
Boco wrote:
The ressurection will occur on this Earth, and the dead don't "go to heaven" immediately or at all.
I assume you don't mean this Earth, like Dacicus said, but some other place were souls would hang around. If you did mean this Earth, you could ask questions like "Do souls have a mass?", "Are souls able to see?" and other stupid questions.
Boco wrote:
No. Animals do not possess the correct kind of soul.
This directly leads me to the question: What is your stance on evolution?
Boco wrote:
Lesbianism has never been restricted and this is intentional.
Oh, didn't know this. You sound like there is a good reason why this is also; I'd like to hear it. (To me, it somehow sounds like something men made up.)
Dromiceius wrote:
The only interesting idea (interesting as in, no one has ever had the balls to reply to it) I've had is that there's really no way for a theist to know that their particular holy book was not, in truth, written by their particular anti-deity.
You think their deity would allow this?
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RT-55J wrote:
nfq wrote:
RT-55J wrote:
nfq, I find your beliefs to be insulting.
What beliefs do you mean particularly?
Your belief that religious beliefs insult people.
This is not a belief. It is a fact that religious beliefs insult (certain) people. (Note that I'm not saying that there aren't people insulted by atheism.)
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erokky wrote:
"Do you believe in god?" is a loaded question, because it asserts the existence of a god regardless of the answer.
As I have already said, I don't think it asserts the existence of (a) God/god(s). At most it could make it seem like the person that asks the question has a certain belief/disbelief... but both a theist and an atheist could ask "Do you believe in god?"... so you can't really conclude anything from that. Note (and some people might disagree, so I've heard), "Do you believe in god?" is the same as "Do you believe god exists?". If you disagree, I'd be interested to hear what exactly is the difference. I think the question is the same in two aspects. Either you literally read it as the same, or you do think that there is something different to "believing in god" and "believing that god exists". If you think there is something different about it consider that there is no possible logic for someone to believe god exists and not believe in him, or for someone to believe in god without thinking that god exists.
erokky wrote:
Having said that though, I do believe in magic.
I don't really know if you were joking or not... but I'll ask anyway. What do you call magic?
Boco wrote:
I'd like it if people at least made whatever assumptions they need to get past that and asked actual theological questions (not "do you believe in god?" but "what do you believe about god / the bible / etc?" and "how do you resolve [problem x]?" and "what do you think about [problem y]?" etc).
Alright then... I won't make any assumptions, but I'm asking these questions to people who consider themselves theists. It has to do with this thing I asked in the "ask Bisqwit"-thread :
Bisqwit wrote:
Baxter wrote:
Is there a difference between the soul of a male and a female?
No. I couldn't find the location in Bible that tells this, but I seem to remember something mentioning that in Heaven, there is no difference between a man and a woman.
Are you able to meet the people again you knew when you were alive in afterlife? How about if you were married, will you still be married in afterlife, or be together? If heaven means complete happyness, then wouldn't that for some people also mean being able to meet their pets again? Would this mean that animals also go to heaven? (If you answer yes to this last question, then do you eat meat, and can you justify that for yourself?) Also, in most religions, being gay is considered a sin. But if the souls of men and women are the same, then wouldn't it be the same for two men or two women to fall in love, just like a man and a women? In afterlife you wouldn't be able to tell the difference anyway, if the quote from Bisqwit is true. p.s. Fabian: please don't ignore me ;)
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nfq wrote:
God(1) didn't create his(2) free will, so his(3) free will is not his, so he(4) has no free will.
ElectroSpecter wrote:
Since this includes your own thoughts and actions, I find that this is a type of paradox anyway, since "knowing" your own thoughts creates more thoughts, which you would have to have thoughts of, and these thoughts need thoughts, etc. forever. I just don't see how this is possible.
If God(5) is omniscient, it seems that he(6) would have no free will because he(7) would know his(8) future actions, but he(9) can't know his(10) future actions, because if he(11) did, he(12) could choose not to do them. Like always, it boils down to Nothing. Only if God(13) is Nothing, can he(14) know everything and create something.
Just something I noticed... in both of ElectroSpecter's post, he doesn't mention God once. In your short reply to him, you manage to refer to him a whopping 14 times. Did you consider ElectroSpecter was making a general statement, and not talking about God?
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ElectroSpecter wrote:
I have to agree with those saying that knowledge doesn't imply predetermination.
To me, it seems more that you are saying that knowing (in the way I defined in my previous post) is not possible. I could agree to that. This however doesn't mean that: 1) If someone in fact did KNOW something is going to happen, that this doesn't imply predetermination. 2) That things aren't predetermined.
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Warp wrote:
Baxter wrote:
Warp wrote:
Knowing what will happen (eg. by deduction or by math) doesn't make that thing predetermined.
It doesn't make it predetermined?
That's what I said. Good work repeating it.
You are either stupid, or acting stupid. If you cannot tell I asked for you to elaborate, then something is wrong with you.
Bisqwit wrote:
Knowledge does not imply predetermination.
Well, it's indeed not knowledge that makes things predetermined. Things would be predetermined even if no one ever knew anything that was going to happen. However if you were to know something is going what was going to happen (with 'know' I mean it WILL happen), that would kinda confirm things are predetermined. If you know what someone is going to choose, it will still appear to the person as a free choice, even though it was bound to happen no matter what (this is how I defined 'know'). In what way was this not predetermined then? Knowing it didn't make it predetermined... it already was, knowing it confirmed that it indeed was predetermined.
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Warp wrote:
Knowing what will happen (eg. by deduction or by math) doesn't make that thing predetermined.
It doesn't make it predetermined?
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Well, I think we agree then... I thought you were against the concept of giving any movie a little special attention for showing something new/cool/different.
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Xkeeper wrote:
But I challenge you to find it linked anywhere, especially with the text "Top rated movies", on the front page. Oh wait, it's not there. Oops.
Indeed, it's not on the front page. If you are on the front page however, you can find it by pressing "search", then "Search movies by category / platform" and then "other...". It's named All movies, sorted by rating.
Xkeeper wrote:
Baxter wrote:
Btw, "recommended movies" are something different than "highest rated movies".
Why is this?
Do you mean "What is the difference?"? The difference is that a recommended movie is recommended for some reason (obviously). Particular movies can be recommended for a number of reasons (for whatever makes that particular movie good, or different)... the movies are probably all prime examples of what is possible with using tools vs not using them. You might ask if this same thing isn't accomplished by just replacing the link by the highest rated movies... I think not, because the starred movies try to provide some kind of variety in types of games, and it also possibly might interest people in games they haven't heard about, to still watch them, because they are recommended. Having a little lower rating might not do justice to a particular movie since it isn't as well known.
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Xkeeper wrote:
I never said they should be starred. I said I'd completely remove it and have a section for "top rated".
There already is such a section. Btw, "recommended movies" are something different than "highest rated movies".
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Warp wrote:
Personally I see somewhat of a circular deduction [...] It just feels like the phenomenon is explained by the phenomenon itself: It must be possible for life to spawn by natural causes because life exists on Earth, and life exists on earth because life can spawn by natural causes.
No, this is incorrect. It's never been said that "because there is life on Earth, it must be possible to spawn life by natural causes". People looked at the evidence available, and searched for a theory which explained the spawning of life, and corresponded with the available evidence. A theory was found that seemed to work perfect in many aspects, and as more information became available, the theory was confirmed more and more. So with this, you can come to the conclusion that since they had a theory which explained life by natural causes so well, there exists life on Earth because life can spawn by natural causes... but the other way around is not how it worked, research had to be done first.
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Why create a new topic when there already is a topic about this exact same subject? For those who cared about this, it will be old news (it's known for over a day)... and for those who don't want to know, it's a major spoiler... I also want to point out this thread: http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5930
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Xkeeper: what about group g) % that have never watched a TAS
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Bisqwit wrote:
At least those ranks aren't awarded manually then.
Indeed, this will avoid many discussions.
Bisqwit wrote:
Also, should it really just be sum(rating^X + nauthors^Y)?
it's sum(rating^X/nauthors^Y) You must divide it by [the number of authors^Y].
Bisqwit wrote:
Not average? Not weighed?
No, it is important that it's NOT based on average rating. A movie with a low rating will get your average down, while it might just have a low rating since the game isn't popular. The movies quality might be perfectly good, and the fact that you made it should ADD to your score, not lower it. Of course, higher rated movies are appreciated more, and that's why X should probably be bigger than 1. But all the movies you made should add to your score, positively of course (since the movies are published, they are considered as good for the site, so it also should be good for your score). The number Z might be a number that doesn't say anything on its own, but if you compute the number Z for all TASers, you will get a list that tells you more. The numbers like A and B can be decided by looking at that list.
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When I asked a little while ago in this thread if there was any news on the Rank system overhaul, since the last post 4 month ago was made, there wasn't any response, so I'll just bump this thread. Is there any progress in this topic, or plans for changes? Are more ideas needed? Are the current forum ranks only temporary, waiting for something better, or is it already the way invisioned when this thread was created? Are there still plans with implementing the players movie statistics into the ranks? Either way, I thought of a small change in the formula I posted a little while back as a suggestion for the forum ranks. This time, it also accounts for movies made by more than one author: Take the rating of one of your movies to the power of X. Divide it by the number of authors of that movie to the power if Y. Then add all those numbers for all your movies. The value you get it Z. - N is your total amount of published movies. - X should be determined on how important high ratings are considered. For instance, if X=0, then ratings don't matter at all, and only the amount of movies is considered. If X=1, you will just be adding the ratings of your movies. If X>1, movies with higher ratings will count heavier. It is probably good if X>1, since generally, one movie with a rating of 9.0 is liked better than two movies with a rating of 4.5 - Y should be determined by how much team movies count. If Y=0, the authors will both get the full amount of points for the movie, the same amount an author would get if he had made the movie alone. If Y=1, you divide the amount of points a movie would get equally of the authors. The most logical value for Y is probably somewhere between 0 and 1. - Z is the outcome. This is just an example how the outcome can be used: If Z = 0 --> member (what kind of member depends on number of posts) If 0 < Z < A --> player If A < Z < B --> experienced player If Z > B --> expert player
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Chamale wrote:
How about games that take freakishly high amounts of precision, like Lunar Pool, Mario Golf 64, or Arkanoid? For these, everyone would work on level 1, then the fastest is taken, then level 2, etc.
Lunar pool is possible to do with Bisqbot. Bisqwit has already done quite a few levels with it. He stopped Bisqbot working on the run... but Bisqbot could finish it (so I wouldn't suggest this). Mario Golf 64 is possible... but I don't think helping with TASing it is as easy, especially because it's an N64 run. I also haven't found settings for this game that emulated the game well (there were always colors messed up or something). (I must note that I would like to see a TAS for this game.) Arkanoid is what I suggested, but I think the Snes version, "Arkanoid: Doh it Again!" would be a better option than the Nes version. I'm sure that if lots of people work on the nes version, small improvements will probably be found, but I don't think a really significant improvement is possible. The Snes version however doesn't have a TAS yet, and has quite a few things that make it cool, such as an 8 ball powerup, and a ball moving through all blocks. Since (I think) powerups can't be manipulated as good in the Snes version, a version which uses all available powerups is probably good, so this movie will actually show quite some new things. There are 100 levels in this game, which I think make it especially good for many people working on it.
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1) If a piece of paper was handed to you that disproved the existence of God (like this), and you reread it, and you are absolutely convinced by the piece of paper, what would you do? Would you change certain things in your life? or keep living exactly like you are now? Would you try to share your new found knowledge with others/the world or keep it to yourself? 2) Do you think that clip is offensive?
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If I had to select game suitable for an 'open source' or 'community TAS', I would suggest "Arkanoid: Doh it Again" (for SNES). If a game has a long learning curve to get to know it, it won't be suited for anyone who just want to give something a try TASing. This game can easily be TASed by anyone. Getting the fastest results possible takes many tries though, and there are an enormous amount of levels, which could easily demotivate a single TASer.
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I think the rejection due to not being perfect has several factors that have to be taken into account. Important is that nearly all TASes that are submitted aren't frame perfect... even though we might not know it at the time. There is a big difference between not using a trick or a strategy at one spot, or general sloppyness and missed tricks throughout the entire run. The amount of time needed to redo is also an important factor. It might be more fruitful for the authors to spend their time making another good TAS, than spending their time improving a few frames in this run. The idea that someone might improve the movie might not be a pleasant feeling though (as, everytime you (or at least I) submit a TAS, you hope it to be the final version ever).
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Nice improvement, voting yes.
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The goal of getting the bonusses makes somehow sense, and the stuff with player 2 was pretty cool (besides the shooting, which was boring). Voting yes.
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Twelvepack wrote:
The electro-magnetic force can propagate at that speed however.
You were talking about the speed of "the electric current"... and like Warp mentioned... then you are either talking about the actual speed of the electrons, or the drift velocity. Since you were talking about the speed of light, I assumed you were talking about the actual speed of the electrons, which is close to the speed of light, but will never reach it.
Warp wrote:
The speed of electrons in the wire has nothing to do with the speed of electric current in the wire. IIRC in copper electric current travels at something like 0.7c, while the electrons travel at something like 1 cm per minute or something similar.
Yes, that's true... I knew this, but like I said, I was thinking he was talking about the electrons (all I ever mentioned were electrons). You mixed up the drift velocity with the actual speed of the electrons though... it are the electrons that travel very fast (~0.7c) while the drift velocity is relatively slow.
Swedishmartin wrote:
Or another: How fast does electricity travel? Near-light speed or infinitely fast? Above phrased in a different way: We have a space ship a light year away from Earth, connected to Earth with a cable. If we transmit information through it to the ship, will the crew get it immediately or have to wait a year or more?
You are having the wrong idea with electricity. If you have a long cable, the electrons that will be used are already in the cable. It's the average movement of the electrons which causes/is the current. This average movement is caused by a potential difference (which is created by for instance a battery). Without the battery, the electrons are already moving very fast in the cable, but since they move in random directions, the average movement is zero, and there is no current. The battery causes a potential difference, and even though the electrons still move pretty randomly, there is an average movement (about 1 millimeter/second). If you want to send data with an electric current, you do it by reversing the poles of the battery, which creates an alternating current. I have no idea at what speed the information is sent... but it will not be faster than the speed of light.
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Swedishmartin wrote:
When you lead electricity through a wire, will the electrons have a constant distance from each other at all times or will they bounce off each other? That is: Will there be a current at ground instantly, or will it take a few milliseconds to arrive?
They don't have a constant distance to each other... if you mean with "bounce off each other", repel each other, then yes. They won't actually touch one another. I don't know what you mean by "a current at ground instantly".
twelvepack wrote:
electric current propagates at the fastest at the speed of light, but in any real situation, slightly slower then that
Electrons can't travel at the speed of light.
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Just managed to get another game with 2 red tetrisses. I believe it's the third time I got it now, so it might not be as special... but I still thought I'd mention it... since it's still not very common and might be enjoyable.