Bisqwit, do you think religious debates are meaningful? :v
sudgy wrote:
What do you feel about people arguing in a topic made for you?
I would like to respond to these two questions at the same time.
As long as it remains interesting to me, I don't mind. I do like competitions towards the clarity of meaning concerning biblical phrases, for instance. Or discussions about cultural and sociological significance of holy books or characters. I can jump in at any moment if I have an insight.
I do not like prove-god-exists or prove-god-does-not-exist type debates (replace god with evolution, or many other controversial topic), because they tend to get nowhere at all. I have long ago learned to not participate in such debates.
However, discussion of alleged contradictions in a Bible go towards the middle ground of these.
I can do and like to do debunking at times, but only in moderation. What this means is that I can and do like spending an equal effort compared to the poster's effort (and the effort behind the resources they quote), and there is a limit to that.
If they post a question about a verse, that is fine. If they post a collection of 100 claims, that's out limits. Of course, they might post each of those 100 claims individually, and getting me to respond to each of them that way, but at least then they have had to expend effort in posting each question separately and in discussing my replies in between. If they don't wish to engage in discussions sparking from each of my replies that I have expended effort in thinking and writing, then it might disqualify them from posting further questions made by just quoting someone else's argumentative material.
Have you played Alice: Madness Returns? That shit was awesome =D
Nope. Never heard of it. According to Wikipedia, it was released in June 2011.
Of the games released within last 5 years, I have only played two: Portal, and Portal 2. (Aside from some very random indie titles such as Sideroller.)
Of the games released within last 5 years, I have only played two: Portal, and Portal 2.
Do you simply not find computer games interesting, or do you simply not have the time to play them, or is there some other reason why you play so extraordinarily few games (which is quite peculiar, taking into account that you created a hugely popular website related to computer gaming)?
Do you simply not find computer games interesting, or do you simply not have the time to play them, or is there some other reason why you play so extraordinarily few games (which is quite peculiar, taking into account that you created a hugely popular website related to computer gaming)?
I think it's a combination of many factors.
― Lack of hardware which to dedicate for playing games.
And being too stingy to invest in such hardware.
― Lack of time.
Which is an illusion; there is ample time but it is all the matter of how to spend it. Negative mental states (such as depression or burning out for two well known examples) can degrade the efficient use of time for prolonged periods.
― Formed habits.
Without going too much to details, I can summarize it: when I was a child, I discovered console games and computers roughly around the same time (in a window of 2 years), but in long term I had more access to computers than to consoles. On those computers, I was able to invest time into programming, but not to games. So I learned to love programming; for games, it was more about watching others play. Though later I became independent in the matter, the mindset was already formed. Creating rather than consuming.
― Lack of hardware which to dedicate for playing games.
And being too stingy to invest in such hardware.
That isn't really a huge problem nowadays. While a good gaming PC that will be able to run recent games at full details will cost you quite a moderate amount of money (1000 euros is a typical amount; assuming you don't need to buy a monitor, in which case you'll have to add 200-300 euros to that at the very least) there's a cheaper alternative: Buy a console. (For example you can get an xbox 360 for less than 200 euros. It might not fully compare to a top-of-the-line PC anymore, but games are optimized for it, so they mostly look nice and run smoothly.)
(Ok, you probably don't have a TV, so you'll either need to use one of your existing monitors, and spend about 30 euros on an adapter, or if you really want a good gaming experience, buy a new widescreen LCD monitor, which will be another 200-300 euros. Well, still cheaper than the decent gaming PC...)
Of course I'm not saying that you should do this. I'm just saying that if you wanted, you could get a decent gaming platform for relatively cheap.
Of course I'm not saying that you should do this. I'm just saying that if you wanted, you could get a decent gaming platform for relatively cheap.
The issue is twofold: Obsoletion and dedication.
Any computer nowadays gets obsolete really quick. A good gaming computer of today cannot run high-end games that are released five years from now.
And if I bought a new good computer, I just could not dedicate it for gaming use. It would really quick be used for all kinds of typical purposes, such as storage for files, workhorse for programming projects, for those applications that benefit from processing power (such as audacity and gimp), and so on.
From the combination of these two follows that before I have had time to take advantage of the applicability of the machine for gaming, I have already made it impossible to take advantage of the machine for gaming by making it too full of stuff for games to fit there, even before it's too old to run the newest games.
And in my opinion, something like 300 euros is definitely not a little money especially if invested on a regular basis. (Then again, I live in the shallow end of the income pool of my social class.)
Not to argue, but "on a regular basis" means in this case "each 5 years or so" (especially in the case of consoles; it's not like you need to buy a new console twice a year). I don't think that's a huge investment... :P
Not trying to distract you from the programming you do, but gimp/audacity and games only compete for two resources: hard drive space and your time. You don't run gimp and a game at the same time.
Hard drive space is cheap enough that buying anything less than 2TB is a waste of money. Filling 2TB is difficult even if you wish to retain HD encodes of every published TAS ever, including multiple redundant backups.
Actually, gaming would require a windows partition, so you'll have a dedicated gaming partition set aside which won't be taken over by programming stuff.
Obsoletion is merely an issue of game choice. We both know that you don't need the latest innovations in 3D rendering to enjoy a game, and if you're willing to tone down the resolution on the more intensive games, a lot of games will run even on an outdated machine.
There's also plenty of fun to be had with older games; I'm currently playing a game that's almost 7 years old and another that has virtually no system requirements. The only thing actually taxing my computer is skyrim.
And most of the games currently released will have to run on XBox360/PS3, as long as your computer is a bit faster, those games will run fine until next-gen consoles arrive. Or if you buy a console, it'll also run fine until next-gen consoles arrive.
And in my opinion, something like 300 euros is definitely not a little money especially if invested on a regular basis.
Once every 3 to 5 years is "regular"? That amounts to 20¢ a day, which is probably less than the power bill for your current computer. (In fact, upgrading may save money in the long run, if you switch to a more efficient machine)
For several years I haven't bought games or consoles either, due to lack of interest and money, but lately I've started to become more interested. I made a list of about 20 games I'm going to play when I get a new PC. I bought Half-life 2 and GTA IV a few months ago, but haven't finished them yet.
Hard drive space is cheap, even though the prices have skyrocketed since the floods in Asia, so a 2TB drive costs twice as much now. Lucky I bought one before that happened, cheap as hell (700 SEK). I'm surprised how they can fit so much storage into such a small space.
These techniques will continue to exist for newer consoles and for new platforms that we do not yet imagine, so I don't think TAS as an art form will ever die as long as the technology and tools are available for it. I take it as something as fundamental as the film is to threatre.
I may be pulling a chicken-little, but I assume that eventually, consoles will be far too complex to properly emulate. The emulation scene is having pretty severe issues emulating the original Xbox. Additionally, while not relevant directly to TASing, the amount of computation power to emulate a current-gen console in real-time may prevent people from actually building the emulators. We are a subset of the emulation community, and a majority desires real-time emulators, and do care about the speed.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
I may be pulling a chicken-little, but I assume that eventually, consoles will be far too complex to properly emulate. The emulation scene is having pretty severe issues emulating the original Xbox. Additionally, while not relevant directly to TASing, the amount of computation power to emulate a current-gen console in real-time may prevent people from actually building the emulators. We are a subset of the emulation community, and a majority desires real-time emulators, and do care about the speed.
I don't want to change the topic of this topic on the forum again (this idea should probably on another forum), but I've always wondered why we don't make some machine that could somehow just take over the console instead of emulate it? Something like what hourglass does.
Bisqwit: What do you think is a reasonable approach to copyright law? You've made posts about examples that you think are excessive, but not what you think is appropriate?
What are your opinions on Etz haChayim, the Kabbalah Tree of Life?
Oops. Sorry for the delayed reply.
You asked a difficult question, and I wanted to reply with a well-researched answer.
Turns out I never had the time to do proper research to answer your question.
As I understand it, the Kabbalah is part of Jewish Mysticism. How I view it, is that it is a form of New Age'ism (though it may be really old). In a way, it is no different from any other human philosophy which seeks to elevate the human into a high position, to seek higher knowledge, to seek something supernatural, by human's own devices without a relationship with God.
Considering these traits, I would rather readily group Kabbalah into the things that the God of Israel labels as witchcraft.
As for Etz haChayim in particular, I do not know what is the Kabbalah concept thereof, but I know about the Tree of Life mentioned in the book of Genesis in the Bible. (Tree of the Life is an English translation of the Hebrew words etz ha-chayim.) It is also mentioned in the Proverbs and in the Revelation. By "know", I mean it's a passing mention. I have heard people who teach that the Tree of Life is actually Yeshua, the essence of God (also known as Jesus), and I know a few scriptures (at least in the so called New Testament) that can be quoted to support that interpretation, but I personally have not studied the topic enough to make an educated opinion either way. Sorry about that.
Bisqwit: What do you think is a reasonable approach to copyright law? You've made posts about examples that you think are excessive, but not what you think is appropriate?
This was also a difficult question.
Defining absolute boundaries and rules is not really my forte, and neither is obeying those boundaries and rules, really.
The purpose of the patent law is to protect an inventor for a period of time so that they can prototype, market and sell their invention for a suitable period of time, without having their potential income destroyed by someone else who just copies the idea and already has all the other framework ready.
Similarly, the purpose of the copyright law is to protect an author for a period of time, so that they can decide themselves where the information that they produced will appear, and how it is distributed and how they can profit from it.
The purpose of both schemes is to encourage innovation and the development of culture, by guaranteeing an author that they get a chance to get a reasonable compensation of their work.
However, today both schemes have pretty much been turned into weapons, mostly due to greed -- i.e. society driven by stock market and investors who care about nothing but profits. Profit has become the absolute virtue. As such, innovation and development are hindered, because for anything that you invent and create, there's a chance that you are infringing some megacompany's patent arsenal, and that they will sue you for infringement the moment you become successful; and for anything that you author and create, there is a likelihood that the company whom you entrusted with making it known worldwide, will sue your fans who actually love your creation and who wish to help it becoming more known by sharing it.
So how to fix it? This gets me back to the question of absolute boundaries and rules: I don't see how any particular set of rules could possibly work before a more fundamental change happens: A change in the values for a society as a whole. As long as the values wrong, people find way to subvert and pervert the rules, and to poke holes in the rules, finding the corner cases that justify changing the rules in a manner that is bad in the long term. I could say, "copyright monopoly lasting 70 years after author's death is ridiculous and should be changed to e.g. 10 years after the creation", or anything to that effect, but people would still find perfectly reasonable rationale why such opinion is wrong.
How should the values of the society change then? In my eye the best solution to that would be the fulfillment of Ezekiel 11:19-20: "And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh: That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God." :-)
Now that may sound like I'm just contradicting what I just wrote: about statutes and ordinances. The key is in the part about stony heart versus flesh heart: When Yeshua taught about his yoke being easy, he referred to following the commandments, ordinances and statutes according to how His spirit directs (which fulfills the entire Torah without conflicts, with Matthew 22:36-40 being the foundation to it), not according to the letter of the law.
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
How should the values of the society change then? In my eye the best solution to that would be the fulfillment of Ezekiel 11:19-20: "And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh
It would be too easy to achieve happiness by changing the definition of happiness (by switching values of society). Sounds like direct RAM editing instead of just making keypresses and finding the best output from whatever stones we have inside.
I'll pretend that I only saw this good line: "copyright monopoly lasting 70 years after author's death is ridiculous and should be changed to e.g. 10 years after the creation".
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
YoungJ1997lol wrote:
Bisqwit: DO you have a favourite sport? and if so, what is your favorite sports moment?
Shouldn't TASing be his favorite sport? If I had to venture a guess based on his reactions, something in the latest Mega Man 1 run would be his favorite moment.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Bisqwit: DO you have a favourite sport? and if so, what is your favorite sports moment?
Hi YoungJ1997lol. Long nickname.
On the question: Not really. When I was a child, my parents pretty much kept a very tight and small budget on my television watching, so I did not grow a particular infatuation to it. Additionally, they only watched boring sports such as biathlon or skijumping, never any ice hockey matches or things like that. I'm not sure if they watched Formula 1 championships. I kind of grew to be an outsider to all of that stuff (a theme not limited to sports).
Even to this day I don't really follow any sports. Maybe it would be different, if I had good friends who did so enthusiastically, and I hung around with them. But that is and has not been the case.
True, you did not ask about following sports. But I'm not really that much of a sports practitioner either. Of course, if I take a larger meaning for the word sports, any intellectual activity could be called sports... I don't think I want to go there.
As such, innovation and development are hindered, because for anything that you invent and create, there's a chance that you are infringing some megacompany's patent arsenal
Today's DailyWTF has an example of this. The economist William Vickrey proposed a variable fare to deal with traffic congestion problems in 1952, it was implemented for the first time for public roadways in 1995, and patented by IBM in 2008.
Bisqwit, what's your top 10 of NES/Famicom soundtracks (per game)?
Warning: When making decisions, I try to collect as much data as possible before actually deciding. I try to abstract away and see the principles behind real world events and people's opinions. I try to generalize them and turn into something clear and reusable. I hate depending on unpredictable and having to make lottery guesses. Any problem can be solved by systems thinking and acting.
Bisqwit, what's your top 10 of NES/Famicom soundtracks (per game)?
Per game? It is difficult to condense the list to just 10. I'll try anyway. In alphabetic order:
Akumajou Densetsu (many tracks)
Guardian Legend (many tracks)
Jinguji 3 (mostly title)
Kirby's Adventure (most tracks)
Mega Man 2 (many tracks. Particularly Bubbleman and Wily1 themes)
Mega Man 4 (many tracks. Particularly Dustman theme.)
Star Tropics (many tracks)
Star Tropics 2 (many tracks)
Solstice (most tracks)
Simon's Quest (most tracks. Particularly the town theme)
Runners up include Tecmo Wrestling, Alien 3 (title), Duck Tales (moon theme), Destiny of Emperor (a few tracks), others of the Jinguji series, others of the Mega Man series, selected picks from the Final Fantasy series, and many others.
What was the greatest challenge you ever faced with making Bisqbot ?
Hi Cooljay!
It depends on which "BisqBot" you are talking about. Is it the IRC bot you see? Is it the FCEU hack I created? Or some other thing that I may have called BisqBot at some time?
I will presume you meant the IRC bot.
The greatest challenges were social. Convincing people why it would be a good idea to use BisqBot's non-standard means for channel administration (autovoice/-op management), or why to join its agent network with my non-standard ircII scripts requiring the use of that arcane IRC client. That kind of things I struggled in the late 90s or early 00s.
People are difficult. I know my way around program logic, but not so much with people. And honestly not all of my ideas were great. Monumental, perhaps, but not practical, and not better than other solutions.
But I can label the two technically most challenging portions of BisqBot.
Firstly, the Finnish parsing and reformatting system, which used an online demo by a leading translation/analyzation developer company that day. My program parsed everything that was said on select IRC channels, and when sentences that adequately matched a certain grammatical structure were encountered, the topic was restructured in a way that appeared like the bot had a passionate opinion about the topic. For example, someone might say, "if you like reading, I suggest you go to library and loan some of those books that we were talking about" and the bot might comment "to like reading is really great" or something to that effect.
Occassional misinterpreted sentences were also funny. Once someone explained that he saw the neighbor's dog chasing a squirrel to a tree, and the bot emphatically approved chasing the neighbor to a tree.
In any case, it was something I was really proud of, because in Finnish, changing the structure of a sentence is not simply a matter of choosing select words and putting them in another order: One also needs to change the inflection of most of the words (conjugate them properly). Not too easy, knowing that there are more than 1500 ways a verb can be conjugated in Finnish. :-) One Finnish word may encode information that would be expressed in two or four words in English.
A classic example is "juoksentelisinkohan", which could be translated as "I wonder if I should run around aimlessly". Removing a few select syllables can produce e.g. "juoksinkohan" = "I wonder if I ran", or "juoksinko" = "did I run?", or "juoksinhan" = "I did run, you know", or "juoksisin" = "I would run", or "juoksentelin" = "I ran around aimlessly", or "juoksin" = "I ran". Getting other forms may require more radical changes, such as "juosta" = "to run", "juostessaan" = "while he/she/it was running", "juostuaan" = "having ran", or "juoksu" = "a run".
It also took some compound words, split them to their constituents, replaced one of the components with "kupo", reconjugated the word in its original format and passed the word forward for one of its agents, Mog (the Moogle), to say on the channel. For example, someone might say "I can't remember my password", and Mog would reply (secretly prompted by BisqBot), "your kupoword" (of course, in Finnish). Finnish has a lot of compound words, so this feature also triggered frequently and often in ways that were humorous at least to me.
Unfortunately, eventually the company took their demo offline, and I no longer could use their tools that did the actual grammatical parsing of a sentence and the conjugation. Turns out they don't even sell those programs as standalone versions anymore. What a pity.
At some point I considered implementing similar feature to deal with English, using the CMU Link parser, but from what I have tried, chances of it successfully parsing something said in IRC were quite slim, due to typos, grammatical errors, and the generally ambiguous nature of English grammar. And because English is not particularly conjugated, the entertainment value of the bot's comments would still be not as great as it was for Finnish.
The other complex thing would be the Pokémon battle simulator and database. It has quite an extensive set of recognized commands, and its backed by data that I dumped from the Pokémon Red/Blue/Gold/Silver ROMs back when very little of that data was available in the Internet.
