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Can someone be nice and post some Twiiiiiiilight Princess spoilers? I'm mostly interested in the story, so you don't need to bother with how cool/sucky the controller is, etc.
Thank you very much.
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I remember one time last year when someone pulled a fire alarm at like 3:00 AM. It was a Saturday morning, which normally wouldn't have been so bad, but I had a practice MCAT that day. On top of that, the security/fire people decided to let us stay out for a bit longer than normal because we had had some other instances of that happening. At least, I think that's why it took so long. Or maybe that was the time someone on the second or third floor managed to turn on the sprinkler in his/her (I think it was a girl) room.
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Okay, I guess I'll try 0.98.15. Just like Maza reported earlier, the AVI that I got from 0.98.16 was all black, but the audio was fine.
EDIT:
The AVI from 0.98.15 turned out fine.
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I ran into an interesting situation today. I tried to capture an AVI of a Nintendo World Cup movie that I recorded a while ago. Since I would be away from the computer for a while, I set the playback speed at 12%. When I played back the AVI, the video looked fine, but the audio seemed to be going really slowly. I'm assuming it was that 12% speed that I had the emulator set at. Does anyone know what could have caused this? I was using the 0.98.13 version with x264 encoding. I'll run the latest version overnight and see if the same thing happens.
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I also find myself abusing save states/playing games just to beat them. Often, this is because I play games just for the story (i.e., the later Zelda games). Since I'll get all the "essential" parts of the story from beating the required level/dungeons/whatever, I don't bother with [most of] the side quests. Another part of the reason I use save states on older games is that they don't have any other way to save the game, and I don't have the time or want to devote the time to beat them in one sitting.
The only NES game I can remember beating on an emulator without using save states was LoZ. After finally finding out the locations of all the dungeons in the second quest online--I was looking for the third one since 3rd or 4th grade, and I beat the game in college--I decided to beat it using an emulator because my cartridge's battery was anything but trustworthy. I was going for a no-death completion of both quests, so I ended up using the Up+A trick a lot, but I considered that acceptable since it works on the real system.
Recently, I've been playing matches against Argentina in Nintendo World Cup to see how badly I could beat them without using save states. It's been pretty fun, but I sometimes think about how boring the goals look compared to some of the ones in that playaround I recorded some time ago. So, save states have somewhat ruined my fun in that game.
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Here's my current WIP (expired link removed). I haven't worked on it in quite a while, possibly a few months. It completes the first 11 levels. I have an idea that might possibly improve level 11, but I think it'll take a ton of work to test if it's even possible (frame-by-frame testing, pretty much), so I've been slacking.
You can find probably find more recent versions here. Just check out the "Art of Assembly" link.
pirate_sephiroth wrote:
Actually, it's like you (the programmer) are a professor and you have to teach something to an extremely idiot student (the CPU). The main problem is that you must do that in his own idiot language...
I find assembly quite logical, actually. You have to do everything one step at a time, like a proof or something.
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upthorn wrote:
The death of the outraged will only leave us with noone to protest.
Well, if they kill themselves, no one will be able to accuse the government of genocide.
ON A SERIOUS NOTE:
Serj, you really should give more thought to your actions. Surely your life doesn't just rely on online gambling or whatever for meaning. BTW, what are you scared about?
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The original Link (LoZ/AoL) would beat everyone else. He can upthrust, downthrust, and jump at will, among his other swordfighting skills. If that's not enough, he's got all those cool items and spells from his adventures. Finally, let's remember that he completed his quests with minimal guidance. How can you even think of comparing people who need talking hats or annoying fairies to constantly help them with a true hero like the original Link?
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Tub wrote:
On a completely unrelated note, for those that didn't see it yet, Scott has suggested an alternative Deku Tree route.
Now we just need to figure out how to manipulate the fire into spreading throughout the tree. Hopefully there'll still be a way to get the Kokiri Emerald...
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Ramzi wrote:
Chaos butterflies, and the like.
As this is primarily a board about video games, I must ask if you're referring to chaos theory or to some sort of monster from a game I haven't played.
Ramzi wrote:
Two gay dudes having sex somewhere does not affect me. Saying they cannot have sex with each other because it's immoral does affect them.
If you only care about things that affect you, and this action does not affect you, why do you care about people saying it's immoral?
Ramzi wrote:
What do you mean "the philosophical background upon which the scientific method is built"?
I mean the other assumptions added to the fundamental assumptions of the scientific method. I've listed some of the fundamental assumptions of the scientific method before, but I'll do it again:
1. The universe exists, as do we.
2. The universe is organized, i.e., it consistently follows rules/laws in its natural state.
3. Our senses can be trusted to give us accurate information about the universe.
4. There is a correct way to analyze/interpret the information.
5. We have reason that we can use to correctly analyze/interpret the information and learn about the universe.
These seem trivial, but science would be much different if any of them were changed. If you think that any of them are not essential, I guess we can argue about them, or about their wording.
Now, some additional assumptions that one could add to those, which affect how one uses the scientific method, are:
1. There are(/are not) beings(/forces/whatever) that are not confined to the universe and/or by its rules/laws.
2. The universe was(/was not) created by an omnipotent, omniscient God*.
3. The processes that we observe today have(/have not) been the same throughout the history of the universe(/earth).
4. It is(/is not) possible to learn everything about the universe using our senses and our reason.
5. The universe has(/has not) always existed.
These assumptions are not exhaustive by any means, nor are they all--to my knowledge--from one specific belief system.
*The lists of the attributes/characteristics of God could go on.
moozooh wrote:
Everything (well, almost) written by modern people can be proven using the same (or better) methods as described by those people, for everyone willing to do that, which probably is the main part of my point.
I hope you don't take this (too) offensively, but the idea that modern methods, technology, reasoning abilities, etc. are always better than older ones is primarily derived from evolution-related thought. I cannot say that I completely agree with that.
moozooh wrote:
That's why I have much more confidence in that, than in the events that could be described ONLY (!) by someone who actually was there when they happened, and as far as I know, there wasn't anyone to see and write all that down. Thus, I don't see how can such a thing be trusted.
Evolution is in the same position, though: How can we trust anyone if they weren't actually there to see and write it all down? Any argument you use will most likely involve one of those additional assumptions that I listed, or possibly one that I didn't list. Actually, the Bible says that God was there when He created the universe, so that's better than what evolution says about witnesses.
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Ramzi wrote:
I don't really care what anyone believes in, so long as it's not affecting me.
How do you know when it affects you or not?
Ramzi wrote:
I think teaching evolution and the scientific method will lead people to atheism, even if it's never mentioned explicitly.
I agree with that. However, I think it will be a result of the evolutionary part of the teaching, not the scientific method part. In other words, the students will only be able to use the scientific method to look at the world from an evolutionary viewpoint because they haven't learned any other viewpoint. Should they be taught Biblical Creation and the scientific method, I think you'll see them turn to Christianity. Should they be taught the scientific method without any theory of origins, they'll probably use it to justify whatever theory they already believe or favor. In other words, I don't believe the scientific method by itself can generally convince people that one theory about origins is better than another, but that the philosophical background upon which the scientific method is built does that.
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Would the floor and ceiling functions be what you call bounded operators? If not, you could just set one of them to a fractional value, and it would be false by definition.
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This sounds similar to something I just learned in number theory yesterday. For the case in which the numbers are integers, you can write a linear equation ai + bj = x, i.e., x is a linear combination of a and b. This only has solutions if x is divisible by GCD(a, b). I'm not sure if I know enough yet to be able to answer the other questions, so I'll let someone else have a go.
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Ramzi wrote:
That's rich. I'd say there is a fair division between atheists who were born into believing families and atheists who were born into atheistic families. I'm of the prior. This means I had to counter my family, education, and society. I doubt you were born atheist and reasoned your way to such irrational beliefs. Don't tell me about open-mindedness.
Your statements indicate that you are no longer as open-minded as you may have been previously.
Fabian wrote:
I think Ramzi's point about atheists being raised in believing vs non-believing families is a good one.
There are atheists who were raised in Christian families, and there are Christians who were raised in atheist families. I don't understand what that is supposed to prove, other than that people are capable of changing their beliefs.
Bob A wrote:
Anyway, the reason there's no such article is because there is no evidence.
I've already said that the so-called "evidence for evolution" can be reinterpreted to support Creation. Facts do not, by themselves, nullify or validate any given theory. It is only in the interpretation of those facts that you can judge a theory. Your lack of belief in the existence of evidence does not mean there actually isn't any such evidence.
Bob A wrote:
Except that there's no reason to expect that. Why do species a, b, c, d, e, etc., etc., all have homologous organs when they probably could have been designed much more efficiently if those organs were redesigned for each species? In effect you're saying that god happened to create the species (genera, whatever) to appear exactly as they would if they were descended from a common ancestor.
So, you think it would be evidence against evolution if different organisms had dissimilar structures, instead of homologous ones? Don't you see that evolutionists would just change the theory to accomodate that, if it were the case? Instead of saying that there was one original thing from which everything is descended, they would just say that there were a bunch of them from which different types of organisms were descended, and they would say that evidence against evolution would be homologous structures. Actually, some of them are already saying that there was some sort of community of original things that exchanged genetic information because they've realized that the current diversity of genetic information could not have come from just one ancestor. My point is that this redefinition game prevents the falsifiability of the theory of evolution. Now, if the theory isn't falsifiable, it's not scientific.
Now, to deal with your "inefficient design" argument. You are assuming several things when you say that. One of them is that God designed* the creatures to be most efficient in the world as it is today. That is certainly wrong. The original creation was perfect, and the modern world is not. After the Fall, mutations in creatures' genetic information caused them to lose efficiency, if they didn't cause death before the creatures were even born. This genetic decay has continued until today, so the inefficiency has increased. The Flood is also an important factor. It destroyed the original creation, so that our modern world looks nothing like it in terms of geography, climate, etc. As the creatures were designed for the pre-Flood world, it is no surprise that they are less efficient in the current one. Therefore, you cannot use modern ideas of efficiency to judge the design of creatures that were created for a different world than the one we now know.
*Note: God did not "happen" to create creatures in some way, He purposefully designed them that way.
Bob A wrote:
Also, that doesn't solve the problem of vestigial organs.
Our lack of knowledge about an organ's function does not mean that it no longer has a function.
Bob A wrote:
I don't see how you can refute the evidence from fossils.
In a way, you could say that that's part of the purpose of the site, to show you how. They have a fossil section that you can read, so you don't have to look through everything. There's also a search feature. You can even contact them if you have specific questions.
Bob A wrote:
The article talks about those issues I presented, so they are relevant. The equation they give only works if you know the original ratio of parent to daughter isotope, and if you can show that no environmental factors changed it during the passage of time since the object was formed.
Bob A wrote:
Also, if you do screw up a particular sample, that only means that that sample is useless, and not all the others.
How do you know if you've messed up? If the numbers agree or disagree with what you already believe about the age of the object? That's circular reasoning.
moozooh wrote:
And how does it affect this claim: "the geological age of the eath (by carbon dating) is far older than the age of the galaxy (based upon its rate of expansion)"?
I was merely pointing out a word error. I don't believe his explanation.
moozooh wrote:
It's because no-one can provide the evidence (provided you understand what evidence means).
A book written by people (fallible people, as you would say) who were born long after the events mentioned in it occured, can't be counted as one per se.
Using your argument, anything written by modern people is even more removed from the events that you believe happened, so why should we count it as evidence?