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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?
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Boco wrote:
He breaks the calendar into two parts, the "days" and the "generations". Midrash says we are to interpret "days" as the six days of creation and "generations" as years from Adam, two separate calendars.
How does this show that "day" in Genesis 1 doesn't mean a 24-hour day, though? That's what I was trying to ask.
Boco wrote:
Use in contemporary works (including other scripture)
So, where in the Bible does it say that the days of creation weren't normal days? Based on the contexts of Exodus 20:11 and Exodus 31:17, for example, they are definitely normal days.
Boco wrote:
It just means we can't expect current definitions to hold. After all, how can one have a literal 24-hour day, four days before the sun?
You don't need the sun to have days; you just need a source of light and the rotation of the earth. God is the Creator of light, and He doesn't require any other source for it.
Boco wrote:
Also there's the whole thing about there being two creation narratives which disagree on details as a reason not to take it literally rather than as a multilayered poem describing how God went about his work.
If you mean the "apparent contradiction" in the order of creation between Genesis 1 and 2, it's dealt with on this page, which I've probably linked before.
DeFender1031 wrote:
If i recall correctly, i believe it was Maimonidies who said "woe is the fool who takes all midrash literally"
You seem to keep on quoting more recent sources to deny many things from earlier sources. By the argument that time dilutes knowledge about the actual events in question, with which I partially agree, you're therefore getting more and more inaccurate. If you only believe the things that modern "scientists" say, tell us already.
Truncated wrote:
Wikipedia links (neutral, all of them interesting reads)
The fact that there's no "Evidence of Creation" article makes me doubt Wikipedia's neutrality. That's not the only reason, of course, but it's a significant one related to our current discussion.
Bob A wrote:
How so? What of that evidence shows that the earth isn't 4.5 milliard years old and that life didn't evolve from a common ancestor?
I'll explain all of those "comparative <whatever>" ones quickly. You can find the rest on Answers in Genesis. The comparative <whatever> argument is that various organisms, organs, cellular components, cellular processes, etc. from different sources studied in the field of <whatever> are similar or the same, so they must have come from a common ancestor at some point. However, this can also be interpreted as a manifestation of God's omniscience. He created the characteristic in question in different creatures based on a common design. It's like theme and variations in music or standard libraries in programming or using the same materials to make different kinds of buildings, automobiles, books, <insert item of choice here> or... well, you get the idea.
OmnipotentEntity wrote:
Oh, I'd really like to hear this. Let's see which flawed argument you use. Maybe it'll be one so laughably absurd I haven't heard it before.
You've probably heard all this before. For me, at least, all of these arguments against the Bible are well-known.
Blublu wrote:
Of course, nothing will ever disprove creation. After all, it isn't a scientific theory, so it cannot even theoretically be disproven.
I disagree. The way you disprove Creation, evolution, or any other theory is by testing its predictions. If the predictions don't match up with our observations, you can throw the theory away. At least, this is how it works in principle. Practically, those assumptions/axioms that everyone holds about the universe generally interfere with the process, in that they will cause the interpretations of those observations to be favorable toward the person's beliefs. So, unless the person is willing to change those axioms, opposing arguments will be to no avail.
Blublu wrote:
But the whole point of evolution is that there is no creator... You'd have to radically re-interpret the bible right from the beginning until the end, until the interpretation is so different from what is actually written there, you might as well do away the whole thing.
I totally agree with this, although I suppose evolution could be the thing that is re-interpreted. I'll say more on this later.
Ramzi wrote:
If he told me he was a theist philosopher, and believes in God for good reason, I would ask him what those reasons are and dismiss them one by one.
Ramzi wrote:
This conversation would merely be to understand him and his faith better, but not to discover truths about the real world.
I'd say this puts you in the "people who aren't willing to change their axioms" category.
Blublu wrote:
According to the theory of evolution by natural selection, there is no intelligent guide. If you postulate an intelligent guide, it is not the theory of evolution by natural selection anymore. But like I said, you can ignore this. Or you could call it a "variation", or whatever.
I agree with Blublu. Whatever "variation" you're using isn't going to get you any support from the real evolutionists, since they don't believe in any guide whatsoever.
DeFender1031 wrote:
fine, G-d created the process of evolution from the beginning and it takes its natural course (except of course where G-d chooses to alter it, same as with any physical constant)
You seem to be misunderstanding Blublu's very clear point: Evolution, as believed by all those "U.S. earth and life scientists" that Truncated mentioned, does not allow for any alteration at all. It is driven by completely random mutations, not mutations that are susceptible to God's choosing. Anything that says otherwise is not the theory of evolution by natural selection.
Bob A wrote:
Seriously, what did yahweh need to do to make it clear that that was literally the way the world began?
I second this question. Even if the Bible said that light was created on the "first 24-hour period of time," you would argue that those "hours" were not the same kind of hours that we have today. So, how do you think the Bible could have been written better? (Note: I don't believe that the Bible is improvable in any way, but that's what people who want to reconcile it with evolution seem to believe.)
One other thing that you may not have considered is that we would have no choice but to believe if the Bible gave us "too much" information. That would nullify the free will which I believe God has given us. If you don't believe in free will, then you can just ignore this argument.
DeFender1031 wrote:
The pope can only decide for one religion. There are other religons besides christianity, you know.
The pope can actually only decide for himself. As he is human, he is as fallible as anyone else. Anyway, no one is forced to believe what the pope decides. Furthermore, it is not only Catholics who are Christian.
Truncated wrote:
3) There is no such discrepancy, the universe is calculated to be a lot older (13.7 billion years) than the earth (4.567 billion years).
He said the galaxy, not the universe.
Zurreco wrote:
Carbon dating is a proven system.
No, it's not. The most serious issue with it is that you have to assume what amounts of the isotopes in question were originally there. You also have to assume that the amounts were left unchanged from the moment the thing died to the moment it was tested; for non-living things, this means that you assume that the amounts were not increased or decreased since the thing was formed until the testing. If these assumptions do not hold, radioisotope dating is useless.
Zurreco wrote:
I should also point out that a lot of the theories that you are raging against were supported by the church.
The church, although it is headed by God, is composed of fallible people, and they can be wrong.
Blublu wrote:
There is absolutely, totally, NO argument within the scientific community about this.
I could question pretty much every sentence in that post, but I'll just stick with this for now. The numbers that Truncated posted earlier show that there is by no means 100% agreement among scientists about the truthfulness of evolution. Furthermore, the numbers are affected by the phrasing of the question(s) in the poll/survey/whatever and how they are being interpreted by the analysts to decide who believes what.
DeFender1031 wrote:
that doesn't disprove creation, as i've explaned before, evolution fits in to the story of creation just fine.
[and similar comments]
I was going to give a lengthy explanation of how evolution does not fit into the Creation story, but I saw several flaws in your "stage <#>" interpretation that I thought I would question you about. Assuming this thread doesn't get locked, I'll give my lengthy explanation later.
Stage 1: You seem to indicate that the planet earth was created at this point, but then you say that it wasn't in the universe. So, where was this physical object that we call earth located?
Stage 2: Genesis 1:6-7 says that the firmament, which God called Heaven in verse 8, was used to "divide the waters from the waters." Verse 7 says that there were waters above and below Heaven. If this division is a separation of realms, as you say, what are these waters that are apparently both in the metaphysical and physical realms?
Stage 3: Genesis 1:11-12 mentions trees that produce fruit. How does this work without photosynthesis, which isn't around according to your interpretation?
Stage 4: You reference the big bang as a theory that explains the beginning of the universe, but you said that God created the universe in stage 1.
Stage 5: Genesis 1:20-23 doesn't mention "crawling creatures of the land" on day 5. Genesis 1:24-25 does say that things that creep on the earth were created on day 6, however.
Stage 6: According to Genesis 2, your theory maintains that God created a garden with plants, rivers, and animals in the "metaphysical eden" separate from the things that were evolving on earth. What was the point of this?
Another problem is your explanation of the meaning of "image of God." If Adam and Eve were not originally physical, why does the Bible use physical terms to describe the events? For example, God made Adam from "the dust of the ground" and "breathed into his nostrils" (Genesis 2:7); the trees in the garden were "pleasant to the sight, and good for food" (2:9); the river leaving Eden split up into four heads, one of which encompassed a land containing gold, bdellium, and onyx (2:11-12); God gave Adam permission to eat from all the trees in the garden except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (2:16-17); God took one of Adam's ribs to make Eve, and He "closed up the flesh" (2:21); Adam said that Eve was "bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh" (2:23); Adam and Eve were naked (2:25); Eve misquotes God saying that they weren't even allowed to touch the forbidden fruit (3:3); the snake said that their eyes would be opened if they ate the fruit (3:5); they made and wore aprons out of fig leaves (3:7); they were able to talk and hear (3:8-19); they tried to hide (3:8); the head of the serpent and the heel of the woman's seed is mentioned (3:15); Cherubims and a flaming sword were placed to keep people away from the tree of life (3:24). These descriptions don't make sense if Adam and Eve were not physical. The last one is especially troublesome: Why would people need to be kept away from the tree of life if they had now been reduced to a physical state that had been separated from the metaphysical Garden of Eden and the tree back in stage 2?