The last time I was excited about an Elder Scrolls game was before I played Oblivion. Bethesda's way too full of themselves to actually improve in this iteration, especially if they're using the same engine.

>> ^MrFisk:

One loses head.


The narrator presumably. So much iteration and rhyming he sounded like a shit poet.

>> ^bobknight33:

Joe Reagen So he is the authority on this subject matter?

However the other dude actually goes out and investigates and actually sees a large vessel way up a mountain which happens to have the proper dimensions as listed in the BIBLE and to be in the relative area with respect to biblical reading. He does not actually claim it to be the ARC but indicates striking coincidence.

Shameful


If they've in fact proven that there is a "boat" there, good on them. So they found the vessel from which all of these inter-religious stories stem from. This does not make the stories true.

Do you actually believe it was physically possible to fit two of every animal (including insects and other tiny organisms) in the world on a single boat?

If you can say yes to that question I'd like to see the schematics of the boat you have in mind and the explanation of how only a single family was able to build this vessel.

What this is, is exactly what Joe Rogan says and what others in this thread have re-iterated. It's probably a story about some major cataclysm that happened in the past, before the written word, and was passed down by word-of-mouth, like one giant game of telephone that spans centuries and maybe even millenia before it was even written down.

@NetRunner

While I don't have time to get into the debate on the pros/cons of getting rid of an ad supported media(because I feel like I would need to encompass a lot of different viewpoints into the subject and I am not well-versed enough to iterate those kinds of ideas off-hand).

What bothers me is modern US news networks fill their non-news segments with "news-like" segments that are presented as news with a "___ News" logo in the corner of the channel. In my mind this is equivalent to false advertising and an attempt to trick the viewer into presenting opinion as fact. (You can see O'Reilly defend this when Maher questions him about it in another video).

Eliminating non-news segments from 24-hour news channels would be a huge step in the right direction.

While I can appreciate negative opinions of the game (we all have different tastes) I have a difficult time understanding people who don't like the game because it's "over hyped".

It's a difficult charge to justify.

The core commuity of Halo fans will play each iteration of the game non-stop for years. Look at the top online game statistics for XBox live and Halo will always be in the #1 or #2 spot. Hype can convince you to buy a game but it can't convince you to keep playing a game for years if it's no good. Those people must truely enjoy something about the game.

Being massively popular doesn't instantly mean a game is good or that it's going to appeal to your personal tastes...but it certainly doesn't equate to being over-hyped.

@AnimalsForCrackers

Just wanted to say thanks for the link... I'll give that a read later. I don't possibly have the time to address every single comment you made. I might have been more willing to talk with you if you didn't start out your post with a thinly veiled ad hominem opening about me not being able to think clearly. If I am not thinking clearly, then what I have to say can't possibly be worth taking the time to write and then have you read and respond to. I only came to this video to state my opinion, which I will re-iterate:

I don't find the arguments of Dawkins, Hitchens, or the rest logical or rational when they veer to absolutes. I find their arguments divisive and, while they certainly are entertaining and their ideas appeal to certain atheists, they probably don't do much to get the already religious to re-examine their values--which is what their end-game is supposed to be right? It makes no difference to me whether they state explicitly somewhere that all religious people are stupid or whether they just constantly insinuate it, the elitist attitude pisses me off--and I happen to be an atheist, so I can't even imagine how it is coming across to the religious.

If you are interested in my views on religion, you can do an advanced search for my posts--in the years I've been on the Sift I've posted lots about my thoughts and experiences. For starters, on my profile page you can look through a long dialogue BicycleRepairMan and I had on the subject. There's more out there dispersed through several videos and SiftTalks as well.

EDIT:

Actually, I will respond to this comment because I feel it is important:

It seems as if you want moderate religious people to be coddled and not treated as the adults. Kid's gloves are for kids.

I want all people to be treated with respect.

I absolutely believe Dawkins and the rest (including you) believe they are treating people with respect. But let me ask you this... in this post if I had (as you did in your response to me), insinuated that you couldn't think clearly and later on asked exasperatedly why you were even bothering to respond (implying that you couldn't possibly understand my arguments), would you have felt respected? It's exactly these kinds of insinuations that I see Dawkins and the rest making all the time. That's one of the problems I have with their arguments. There are others, but I only wanted to address that particular one (because I think it comes to the heart of the matter of why I posted in the first place--the absolutist language that is most likely keeping the people who need to hear what they have to say most from listening).

@Esoog, @spoco2

The phone does work as advertised. Here is an actual sophisticated review of the antenna, from actual tech savvy reviewers. http://www.anandtech.com/show/3794/the-iphone-4-review/2

Result, the new phone, while yes the antenna power attenuates, has a better signal to noise ratio than the previous iterations. Further, all phones, not least of which the nexus one, have similar antenna power attenuations. What you all apparently want is a phone that turns you into something other than a big bag of salt water. Sorry, it ain't gonna happen.

Do any of you actually know someone complaining about real actual problems with their phones, or do you just read the Internet a lot?

Nice example... definitely proving iterative design at least.

1) Legacy systems always suck. Once they need change it's usally too late.
2) It's hard to change/replace a legacy system and keep the system alive.
3) New development replacing old working systems are immature and buggy.

So in theory, you would have to grow a second parallel nerve, Load balance, fix any issues, then swap over. But there's no evolutionary benefit to having a second nerve so mammals have never had the opportunity.

[i may have thought about this WAY too much. Moving along now... ]

btw: I'm currently Art Director for a very small video game company, and we're working on a new video game for... iPad! (and iPhone/iPod Touch)

The company is owned/run by a few ex EA guys, and we're estimating a pretty hefty return on sales. This has provided me a revenue stream that's well beyond what I've normally made the past few years, and we're already phasing in some R&D for the 2nd iteration.

This is all due to the overwhelming success of Apple's App store, and the millions of people who use these devices. I think Apple has some seriously shitty policies with their App store, but then again I've never worked for a company that I didn't hate, so what's the difference?

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I think that's a key point. When the US has eschewed "socialist" welfare state programs as it has generally done over the last 30 years - in favour of free enterprise and privatisation - the result has been to concentrate wealth at the top of the spectrum with the country club set. I don't see any free enterprise solution to this.

Victorian England had a lot of concentrated wealth at the top, and a huge pool of poor workers and very little regulation. That led to work houses and rampant pollution. It also (thankfully) led to a strong labour uprising that redistributed that wealth with a progressive tax system, creating a large middle-class. Bad for the rich? Absolutely. Vastly better for the whole country? Definitely, yes.

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^blankfist:
@NetRunner, you offered the following as your utopian idea for new government:
1. regulated market.
2. welfare state
That's exactly what we have now. Exactly. Government regulates every single industry. Every one. We have a massive welfare state. Our economy is also going to shit and entrepreneurs cannot stay afloat with all the regulations in order to create more jobs. It's a recipe for failure.
Why not give free market Capitalism a chance? Your regulated markets and welfare state spending simply is not sustainable.

I'm starting to get curious, do you ever read my comments all the way to the end?
Maybe I need to be less whimsical. My point was that today's flawed reality is a utopia compared to your utopian proposals.
As for "why not give free market capitalism a chance", I may as well say "why not give Marxist Communism a chance"? I mean, obviously real communism has never been tried -- just ask the modern communists.
There's been no radical boost to growth during America's 30-year march to the right, and shrinking the welfare state and dismantling unions hasn't boosted the median income, so why would we ever keep marching on until we get to the ultimate extreme?
The modern progressive movement isn't on a march towards communism, it's trying to optimize society through an iterative scientific process. We look at things that have failed, or things that have worked elsewhere, and try to learn from them, and build a better mousetrap.
I don't really know what the end-state of modern liberalism looks like. I think it will always be looking to change and evolve over time as new problems and new solutions present themselves.

>> ^blankfist:

@NetRunner, you offered the following as your utopian idea for new government:
1. regulated market.
2. welfare state
That's exactly what we have now. Exactly. Government regulates every single industry. Every one. We have a massive welfare state. Our economy is also going to shit and entrepreneurs cannot stay afloat with all the regulations in order to create more jobs. It's a recipe for failure.
Why not give free market Capitalism a chance? Your regulated markets and welfare state spending simply is not sustainable.


I'm starting to get curious, do you ever read my comments all the way to the end?

Maybe I need to be less whimsical. My point was that today's flawed reality is a utopia compared to your utopian proposals.

As for "why not give free market capitalism a chance", I may as well say "why not give Marxist Communism a chance"? I mean, obviously real communism has never been tried -- just ask the modern communists.

There's been no radical boost to growth during America's 30-year march to the right, and shrinking the welfare state and dismantling unions hasn't boosted the median income, so why would we ever keep marching on until we get to the ultimate extreme?

The modern progressive movement isn't on a march towards communism, it's trying to optimize society through an iterative scientific process. We look at things that have failed, or things that have worked elsewhere, and try to learn from them, and build a better mousetrap.

I don't really know what the end-state of modern liberalism looks like. I think it will always be looking to change and evolve over time as new problems and new solutions present themselves.

>> ^NordlichReiter:

>> ^Shepppard:
>> ^xxovercastxx:
>> ^Shepppard:
Somebody needs to just beat some goddamn sense into these morons. Preferably with something pointy.

Maybe a wooden stake?

That's vampires, but I like your moxie.

Use fire.


Silver bullet, actually.

As for these kids, every generation thinks the one after it is ridiculous. Mods, punks, goths, ravers, grunge kids, nu-metallers, this is just the latest iteration of teens seeking attention.

Fortunately there's an easy cure: they'll grow up and realise how stupid they looked.

BOOB QUAKE FAILED.

SCIENTIFIC DEMONSTRATION REQUIRES MULTIPLE ITERATIONS.

We say dot all the time when talking about revisions. When the revision could have several iterations of "dots", it is important to make them very clear in speech.

So let me make this crystal clear (I hope). You are more than welcome to dislike the game, obviously. You're more than welcome to complain about the game, and if your complaints are legitimate, I'll happily debate them. What annoys me is when a new FF game comes out and people are actually surprised by the formula as if they hadn't seen it twelve times before (more or less). It's clear they've seen it at least once or twice before, because they nearly always say that FFx is better, where x is usually the first FF game they've played. So surprise? Really?

Also, I don't think calling my argument a straw man helps. Let's take a look at a few examples:

"I quit the final fantasy series as soon as moved to the playstation. Just like Peter Griffin's critique on the Godfather, the Playstation series insists on itself. ... Most of all, I really liked the Jrpg's battles. There was an element of thought that was needed in order to be successful. It has since mutated into a very bland, almost mortal combat style of predictability."

In other words, FF sucks now and FF6 was better. The characters, plot, and development have been more or less the same for several games. Saying it insists on itself implies to me that you're expecting it to reach for something more, which I don't think was ever the case. Also, the battles in Final Fantasy games have never needed that much thought. You have more likely simply gotten better at these games.

"I don't have a problem with reviewing a game based on the first 5 hours. If the first 5 hours are that bad, shame on the developers; they get what they deserve. Seriously, 5 hours is generous... a game is lucky if I give it 5 minutes to pull me in before I decide to never play it again (*cough* Metro 2033 *cough*)."

What? A JRPG that takes longer than five minutes to get going? This should not be a surprise. You have pretty much dismissed the genre completely.

"I liked Final Fantasy 10. I hated the new combat in 12. It sounds like the combat in 13 is worse."

A variation on FF sucks now, FF10 was better. The combat in every Final Fantasy game has been different in one fashion or another, and FF13's system has to be played to be appreciated since it largely emphasizes quick reactions and decision making. In my opinion the system plays much better than it sounds or looks.

"Personally, I find myself angry and depressed upon each FF release because it's such a sad and pathetic commentary on the world we live in. Here we have a series built on bad storytelling, bad characters, bad plots, bad gameplay, and bad interface design and it's one of the most celebrated game franchises of all time."

Mischaracterizing the series does may be the problem here. Final Fantasy is primarily built on epic-ish plotlines and really pretty graphics. It's not stellar writing, but people seem to like it, so Square-Enix doesn't really improve it -- Yes, that's lazy of them. Gameplay and interface have changed with each iteration so these aren't really central to the series. The graphics get consistently better at every turn -- I don't see why this is a problem.

"If you're going to bash on the bashers you need something better than 'Stop complaining, the game is MEANT to be like this!' because that, believe it or not, is not a valid counter argument. The game depends on whether people find it fun. I can't make my own shit game and defend it by saying 'It's meant to be shit!' and expect people to stop bashing it/not liking it."

Okay, how about "why are you commenting on a game you clearly haven't played" or "why are you expecting something other than a JRPG when playing it"? I may not be able to level this one at you directly, but comments such as "The battle system *sounds* awful" and "The interface *looks* horrible" and "Why don't I know everything about a game after five hours" are missing the point in my opinion. At the end of the day, you have to play a game to get an accurate opinion on it, and if you're somehow expecting it to be different than other JRPGs then I don't know why you're wasting your time.

My goodness... That was WAY too long and COMPLETELY useless. I need some chocolate or something.