CP3S

xhonzi said:

Why for Sans Wars*?  I really liked it and C3PX played at least 10 minutes of it before he gave up.

 

Haha, you remember.

RTS on the TV, just didn't work for me. At all. Wasn't fun and couldn't envision it becoming fun. Can't help but think that if it had a PC version I would have been really into it. Or maybe if it had implemented voice commands like Tom Clancy's End War, or done something else other than been a Halo themed game to make itself stand out. Instead, generic striped down RTS on console with Halo theme. Meh.

Some laptops from six years ago had recovery partitions, not all of them. Depends on the type he has. My crappy Dell from six years ago didn't have a recovery partition and came with discs, same for my ex-wife's Dell a few years later. My dad's Compaq from closer to ten years ago had a recovery partition, but it wasn't hidden, it was the D: drive and was right out there in the open along with a readme file warning not to delete or place anything on that partition. That was one of the few times I had seen anything like that prior to recent years where just about everything has a hidden recovery partition. 

Also I've never heard of any laptops providing you with blank discs in order to make your own system restore set. That seems really weird, I imagine it was pretty rare, and it is not surprising that it no longer happens, that system would be far too dependent on semi-tech savvy users, and if they fail to make their own backup discs prior to something going wrong they'd be screwed.

So where is your PHd in Civil War studies from, Tyrph?

I never consumed a whole lot of media as a kid, nor have I had much desire to go back and visit that media which was close to me during childhood. The three Star Wars films were my favorite throughout childhood, but I've let those go too, out of the frustration of not being able to get the real things. I guess I revisit certain video games from time to time, so I can relate as far as roms are concerned. As a kid staring at the shelves and shelves of games at my local used game store and carefully comparing the price tags with the several month's worth of allowance money burning a whole in my pocket; never would I have dreamed that one day I'd simply be able to sit down at a computer, type in a few search words, and within minutes be playing any one of those games. Crazy stuff.

The parts of my childhood I'd truly like to revisit are places. I spent a lot more time outside adventuring than I ever did in front of TV screen watching or playing games. I'd love to be able to go back to the giant old tree and pond I used to spent hours at with my buddies in my preteen years. I'd give almost anything to see that place again, compare it with my memories, look on it with adult eyes, or just have my memories jogged about all the things that took place there. But last time I visited my home town, I found it was long gone, torn down, filled in, flattened out. Now home to a Mormon church building, so it goes. So many other places I'd like to revisit that have been forever swallowed by time.

Warbler said:

Its too Ferris is awol,  I would love to his reaction to what Tyrphanax wrote.   I'd love to see the two of them debate the Civil War. 

Why are you always so fixated on Ferris and other people potentially besting him in a debate?

Ferris is a pretty big history buff himself, and the Civil War is one of his favorite subjects, he has a good deal of knowledge on that topic. I do agree though, it'd be an interesting conversation.

So, what's K.L.A.X.O.N. stand for?

Reformat. Quick and easy. Sounds like it is very probable it is just a software issue. If that doesn't do the trick, then you know it is likely hardware.

It is unfortunate you don't have the disks, that makes things more a bit more complicated but it still isn't that complicated. Window XP's generic drivers are pretty good, but you probably want to go grab the latest XP drivers for at least your graphics card, mouse, sound card, and network adapter. XP disks aren't too hard to get your hands on.

In reality, a little bit of time and without spending a penny, you have a chance of getting it running as good as new. Of course, that is as good as new for a six year old laptop.

Warbler said:

CP3S said:

Warbler said:

Bingowings said:

Secede from what?

he means secede from the Union, The United States Of America.  Its what the south tried to do during the Civil War. 

And our government killed them for it. It wasn't awesome.

I realize it is just a conspiracy theory, but maybe slavery had something to do with it?   And please remember the south did its fair share of killing those on the government side. 

You're right, it was all about slavery. That is why people in the north didn't have any slaves at that time. Makes total sense!

*sigh*

Come on Warb, it is well documented historical fact.

You can pretend America is this fantastic place with the unfortunate exception of these backward southern assholes who used to own slaves and are still crazy racists who would invoke all sorts of racist law and gunship runs of the Mexican border if they had their way all you want, but the fact remains that slavery was nation wide and the Civil War was about maintaining the union. They weren't fighting to the death and risking their lives for their right to own slaves. Plenty of those fighting and dying on the southern side in the Civil War didn't even own slaves. There were even a decent number of former slaves fighting on the southern side. They're were plenty fighting on the northern side who were slave owners. The south was fighting for their freedom to rule themselves; and the north was fighting to maintain the Union.

Warbler said:

It may be a gift from God to that guy,  but to the woman who was made pregnant via rape, it is her worst nightmare come true.

Ditto for the 22 year old college graduate whose life is just barely starting and isn't ready to have her finances and body destroyed by a baby.

darth_ender said

Besides, he's seriously hampered by Republicans maintaining control of the House.

Yay for living in a country that can never accomplish anything politically!

Warbler said:

Bingowings said:

Secede from what?

he means secede from the Union, The United States Of America.  Its what the south tried to do during the Civil War. 

And our government killed them for it. It wasn't awesome.

Tyrphanax said:

Warbler said:

Bingowings said:

Obama is Mitt, Mitt is Obama.

that's bs.  Obama and Romney are very different people. 

This is true.

I always find the "both parties are the same, man" line to be silly. Just because things don't change drastically (generally) from President to President doesn't mean that every President is the same as the last.

Well, if you're going to take it quite literally, yeah, it is kind of silly.

I relate very well to the point being made there. All the policies that really rubbed me the wrong way with Bush are carried on by Obama (stimulus, unjust military intervention, complete BS and wasteful war on drugs, etc.) and would have been carried on by Romney. Thus they are the same. Obviously they have different names, look different, and have some very different ideologies and policies. Different angles. Different base. But in the end, the differences between Romney and Obama are painfully slight. Hell, Romney has held most of Obama's stances on things at one point or another in his career (Obama's and almost every other politician's!*).

*Yes, that is a joke, meant to be funny. Least many in here try to take in seriously and argue me into the ground about how very steadfast Romney is.

AntcuFaalb said:

It's not my victory. Furthermore, I didn't vote for Barack Obama. I voted for Gary Johnson.

Woooooooooo!!! Gary frickin' Johnson!!!

The cool thing about being on our side is we knew we were going to lose going in, no disappointment that wasn't already there. Sadly. Get so sick of the "just throwing your vote away!" argument. Perhaps if the bolder among us begin now, sometime in the future the more timid will follow. Maybe another four years of this BS, followed by another eight years of whatever Republican wins next election year, will keep increasing the numbers of those sick and fed up and we'll actually be able to get some real change someday. Maybe. 

So, in light of the new Lucasfilm/Disney deal, anyone have any ideas where this might leave the future of things like Monkey Island and Grim Fandango and other LucasArts properties?

I could never imagine Disney embracing them and doing anything with then, thank goodness. But does it mean they are likely to license them out for others to use, like the Monkey Island 1 and 2 SE and Tales of Monkey Island? Or is it more likely this means we'll never see or here from them again?

EDIT: Just remembered the whole Monkey Island/Pirates of the Caribbean connection. The first pirates movie seemed to take at least a few ideas from the game series, so perhaps this means we have some pretty big MI fans on the inside at Disney. Now I am half expecting to see Guybrush Threepwood and Capt. Jack Sparrow team up for swashbuckling silliness in the next PotC film.

Stranger things have happened. Such as Disney buying the rights to make a film adaption of the pirate novel which was the actual inspiration for Ron Gilbert's Monkey Island series, then making it into a fourth PotC film with the book's title as the subtitle. That was weird.

SKot said:

buddy-x-wing said:

its very odd reading board members putting forward suggestions that are far worse than anything old George could ever imagine, is this what Star Wars has come too? I sincerely hope Disney has no plans to remake any of the movies, not even the bad ones. 

Think of it this way: could Disney possibly do any worse than the prequels?

When you look at it like that, the only way to go from there is up.

I actually really like SKots idea, and I have expressed similar thoughts in the past.

I'd much rather have the old films left the hell alone, disconnected from all the fluff. And hey, if that were the case, I'd probably be able to get behind and maybe even enjoy some of that fluff. I would have much rather had a whole new Star Wars series back in 1999, than having the new one that was made pull the old ones down with it.

Kind of like how you have all these 2003 Battlestar Galactica fans who watch the old series and feel it is boring and unwatchable. More power to them. It is cool you can have old fans and new fans and they are all happy and get what they want. The thing that suck about the prequels was rather than old fans/new fans living separately but harmoniously, you ended up with burnt old fans pissed off because they weren't allowed to have the movies they liked in any quality standards beyond that of 1993.

This is actually really exciting. I have a hard time imagining Disney not eventual releasing the originals remastered on Blu-ray. This is the best news in anything Star Wars related in a very, very long time. As much as I hate to see a company like Disney gobbling up every other little entertainment company in its sights, this is one company I am glad to see them buyout.

Thanks George, I kind of love you again.

No, I don't see what you did there, I am afraid...

TV's Frink said:

The use of the word "convenience" regarding abortion, in cases of rape or health of the mother, is very disturbing to me.

It fits. Perhaps you are misreading my context? I have a hard time seeing how it could be disturbing. The convenience has to do with moral values and justification. It is convenient to justify it in this case, but not in that case. Still disturbing?

So, I sat down to pen Bioshock 3. Remember my whole storyline about a group breaking off and making a new civilization on an island? Yeah, I totally sat down to write that in earnest. Spent a bit of time making an outline, wrote a few pages, somewhere in there logged onto OT.com and read Xhonzi post something about being too busy for the site and going away... And then I thought, wait a minute? What is the point? And I stopped writing it.

Okay, so, you were the catalyst that made me realize it was a pointless thing to write, but I didn't decide it was pointless only because you were gone, I just realized it was all around pointless in general.

Too bad though, it would have been amazing! But no, you had to go and leave the forum. Jerk.

D'oh! That wasn't suppose to happen.

Mrebo said:

Warbler doesn't care about philosophical distinctions. No offense, Warbler, I think you'd agree the philosophical side of things doesn't hold much relevance to your thinking. You care what happens in practice.

It is true, he really doesn't.

Setting aside the position's loss of principled morality, there is still a question whether there is anything wrong with drawing a different line of convenience.

I don't think there is anything wrong with it, until you try to force that unprincipled morality on the rest of the population. I rest easy knowing there are people who care for and love their unborn children. But I also rest easy knowing that someone has a right not to have to allow their body to go through the changes and trauma of pregnancy for the sake of a future child they didn't intent to conceive, especially when they lack the competency, ability, or desire to rise said child.

If everyone would just mind their own business on matters like this, life would be so much more enjoyable.

What prevents many from giving up is the continued belief that the fetus is a human life (and factually, it is). I think you give a good review of the thinking of both sides, but the compassion of the pro-choice side runs in a single direction, where certain conveniences can only be justified by ignoring that the fetus has any moral value. Otherwise it's like Biden's statement: "Life begins at conception...and I just refuse to impose that on others."

I actually really dislike pro-choice people who don't seem willing to admit that it is a human life, or would rather not admit or acknowledge it, despite the reality that medicine and science tells us it is. That whole line of thinking rubs me the wrong way. I really do think a lot of ignorance surrounds this issue, perhaps on both sides, but more pertinent to the pro-choice side. What you hold inside you is a future person, and very much its own entity with 100% unique DNA, snuffing that out should not be something taken lightly.

ender is right that it's a false dichotomy to say it's murder or nothing. And I also thought he argued his point effectively (and non-boringly).

Just to ensure the record is straight, I never said, "murder or nothing" or anything remotely close to it.

darth_ender said:

A false dichotomy is not proof enough. 

...

Why must we choose between a child having all the rights of a born child, or absolutely none of them?  Why not all the rights, or simply most of them, trumped only in a few instances?  Arguments that state you must accept all or nothing of something are usually overly-simplistic.  Only a Sith deals in absolutes ;)

EDIT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Either_or_fallacy

Making the excuse that it is a false dichotomy is an interesting attempt to try to weasel out without actually having to address the subject. Mine was more of a plea for consistency. If you are going to call it murder, why suddenly remove this label "murder" in instances when it is fitting to you?

Abortion is murder! Well, abortion would be murder... but since the poor girl was raped... it's not...

This inconsistent.

I'm not a big fan of black and white thinking, I appreciate all the millions of shades of grey this world has to offer; so I am certainly not attempting to force black and white thinking on this discussion as Ender has accused me of. I'm actually attempting to remove the black and white by showing that even those here saying abortion is murder don't really believe that to be true and in reality see it just every bit as grey as the rest of us. Come on! Don't call something "murder", then turn around and justify that very thing under certain conditions.

If it really held the value of a real human child to you (and it doesn't), then there is no way you could justify its termination under any circumstances; no more than you could justify the execution of a 2 year old for even the most horrific crimes committed by his parents.

Warbler said:

walkingdork said:

So you believe that it's murder....but murder that is suddenly okay if rape is involved? How in your mind does rape/incest trump the rights that unborn babies apparently have?

it doesn't.  I don't what to say about rape/incest.   I've never been able to decide that.   Kill an innocent unborn child(that I believe has the same rights as you or I),  or force a raped women against her will to carry the child of the rapist in for 9 months and go through labor.    and then who knows what regarding custody.     a horrible situation.   I really don't have an answer here. 

Dork totally has you on this one, I'm afraid. If you say abortion is the murder of an innocent unborn baby, and you justify abortion in the instance of rape, then essentially, what you are saying by your own standards is that it is okay to murder an innocent unborn human baby if its conception was caused by rape.

Two wrongs don't make a right. You have three entities involved, the rapist, the victim, and the unborn child who was not responsible for any of this and is completely innocent. His hands are completely clean.

If you really think that an unborn child has rights, then why should those rights be revoked in the instance of a rape this child had no blame in?

You don't have an answer to that, as you already admitted. I do though: It is a matter of convenience. Exactly the same as it is for pro-choicers. Only the line is drawn differently, but clearly, neither of us think the life of that unborn baby is really equal to that of a true person, or that he should have the same rights as the rest of us. I think the pro-choice side, at least, is more honest about it. Our sides matter of convenience is drawn at, "I really don't want to be pregnant right now because [insert one of any number of reasons here]." While yours is drawn at "Oh my god, rape is such a horrific thing! Can you imagine having to carry a reminder of that horrible crime inside you for 9 months, then having to give birth to it followed by suffering the turmoil of either raising the child of your rapist, or giving it up for adoption, then regardless of the choice made, still suffering the permanent alterations made to your body by pregnancy as well as all the psychological trauma suffered throughout?"

It is convenient to allow the murder of that child. To force a woman through all that is beyond cruel, it is almost more horrible and unjust than the rape itself was. So, we make allowances for the sake of convenience. We can make this allowance because, no matter how hard we try to convince ourselves and others, we know it isn't a real kid being mowed down. It isn't the same as picking a baby up out of a bassinet and poisoning it or snapping its neck. The vast majority of pro-life people realize this, and are compassionate enough that they are not willing to extend their desire to force morality and dictate what someone can and can't do with their own bodies to the degree of forcing a rape victim to carry her child to term. Or, to force a mother to risk her life for the sake of her unborn baby. 

Pro-choice extents that compassion further to include the teenage mother whose future and potential is going to be extremely limited by having a baby, or to the child who is going to be born into a poverty level household already filled with plenty of kids who will never contribute to society and suffer lives filled with crime and violence; and to every situation in between.

I'd love to see this sociological survey and to discover who it was conducted by.

Essentially what you, and this conductors of this survey and by extension those surveyed, are saying is that universally, all over the world, people believe that:

1. That there should be no gods worshiped other than the Judeo-Christian god.

2. That idols or images of gods are bad.

3. That we ought to be really careful how we use the name of the Judeo-Christian god, and not use his name flippantly.

4. That no work should be done on Saturdays in honor of the Judeo-Christian god.

5. That mothers and father should be honor (good practice, but I am not sure how universal it is. Take one good look at your average nursing home in the US and I call bullshit on the universality of this, but maybe it is the thought that counts.)

6. That killing is bad (this one is probably true, throughout most of the civilized world killing for no reason is typically frowned on. But that hasn't stopped thousands of years of casual human sacrifices, infanticide, war, and genocides. Even the Judo-Christian god was all about ordering his chosen people to commit genocide when he saw it fitting.)

7. That committing adultery is bad. (Not sure how this plays into polygamous cultures, and there are plenty of cultures where it was pretty common. Even in America it is a pretty normal occurrence, even among the Bible thumping population. But sure, I'll hand this one over as potentially "universal")

8. That stealing is bad. (Sure, this is another one I'll hand over to potentially "universal")

9. That lying is bad. (Again, I'll give you this one as potentially universal)

10. That you should covet. (Yeah, can't really give you that one. Everyone wants things overs have, sometimes very badly. It doesn't make it wrong. I don't even think most Christians believe this one.

I think at best here, half of the Ten Commandments might be socially desirable and believed in by the majority of the world's population, but in each case, it also fits into the "golden rule". You don't want to be murdered, so you're going to consider murder bad. Nobody likes to be lied to, so generally you aren't going to appreciate dishonestly. Nobody likes it when other people sleep with their spouses behind their backs, so generally, you're going to think it is a bad thing. The idea of you're kids being disrespectful little assholes isn't very appealing, so you are going to think it is a bad thing.

Perhaps, the valid half of the ten commandments are part of the ten commandments because they were universally valid long before the ten commandments were thought up, rather than universally valid because they were part of the ten commandments. All the parts regarding respect and worship of god are far from universal, and the very suggestion of this is more than a little humorous/pathetic.

darth_ender said:

You clearly see that there are certain inescapable morals built into us genetically, even if you don't believe in a Supreme Being who governs right and wrong.

I say this because I don't believe you'd have access to this site from prison ;)

I don't believe we have morals built into us genetically. In fact, I think the very idea is rather silly. I am a firm believer that morals are developed culturally. Nor do I think they are inescapable. You can look at other cultures and at history and see that not every person, or even every culture, or society ascribed to these inescapable, innate, supposedly God imprinted morals.

Johnny Ringo said:

Black Mesa: Source

It's not bad but I was never really into Half-Life. I only ever played snippets so I'm probably not the best person to pass judgement. It looks pretty decent with the visuals cranked but I don't think I'm very far along - I just got my first weapon - a crowbar, Now i'm wandering around a lab somewhere.

Oh man, I freaking adore Half-Life. I rarely think of it when asked to come up with my favorite game or make recommendations, but anytime I think about it or see anything Half-Life related I get a little weak in the knees and feel my girly bits grow a little moist.

It was a perfect blend of exciting and scary. I found the storyline genuinely entertaining and engaging, and can't count the times I nearly wet myself when hearing that little head crab scream come out of nowhere.

So yeah, Half-Life was great, then they went and made Half-Life 2 and made the whole thing even more freaking fantastic! Where do we go from here? How do you make a sequel to a game about a dorky scientist trying to escape an alien infested research facility? Instead of a silly cliched typical half assed sequel, they flash forward many years and show us a future entirely shaped by the events of the first game in which the entire world is now under oppressive alien rule.

Warbler said:

and if Dayv does indeed have a mental illness.   Dayv could be perfectly sane and this could all be sick joke.  

Seriously? "If"?