Did she really pm that to you? Or did you make that up?

How am I supposed to instigate a flame war if I don't know who to be angry at?

>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:

Sorry @bareboards2, but what was your stance on the police institution again?
"If they didn't want their estranged children to be scared shitless after SWAT storms their home and detains their father for 6 hours.. they shouldn't have borrowed money from the government & likely be too poor to pay it back." Correct?
Good thing we have para-military police to protect us from these dangerous crooks.
"HELLO!? 911? Yes, there's a madman at my door who has NOT re-paid his student loans. Hurry, quick!! AAAHH, he's asking for work now. HEEEELP!!!"
[you could pm]

Sorry @bareboards2, but what was your stance on the police institution again?

"If they didn't want their estranged children to be scared shitless after SWAT storms their home and detains their father for 6 hours.. they shouldn't have borrowed money from the government & likely be too poor to pay it back." Correct?

Good thing we have para-military police to protect us from these dangerous crooks.

"HELLO!? 911? Yes, there's a madman at my door who has NOT re-paid his student loans. Hurry, quick!! AAAHH, he's asking for work now. HEEEELP!!!"

[you could pm]

transcript:

Dear Benny, hi, how are ya? Love the hat by the way.

You may not have noticed but I've been absent for awhile,
I wanted to tell you why and how I've been finding my own style.
A new way of looking at the world beyond the errors of the past.
You see I've read all of your teachings and cant see how they'll last.
Where angels feared to tread has now become the beaten track
but for every step that we took forward, the church took two steps back.

It took you four hundred years just to pardon Galileo,
while the murderer of Hypatia still enjoys his saintly halo.
It was these hypocrisies of the church, that drove me from the flock
though I still clung to the ideas and kept some belief in stock
that Jesus really loved me and god was close at hand
and the day was fast approaching when we'd find the promised land.

When people could stand together and colour wouldn't mean a thing
but i slowly began to realise, thats not the message that god brings.
He constantly plays favourites setting nations against each other
tearing apart families, pitting brother against brother.
The jew and the gentile, the muslim and infidel,
the terrorist gaining heaven while their victims go to hell.

This god isn't worth my worship or the thanks that he demands,
and things have gotten so much better now the powers in our own hands.
Life expectancy has tripled, smallpox has been made extinct.
Our eyes pierced the veil of heaven and what was hazy is now distinct.
A cacophony of symphonies all composed in mathematics,
a ballet of matter and energy performing cosmic acrobatics.

Why didn't your book tell me I was born of a supernova.
Instead demanding belief in what an ancient madman told ya.
Houses can't catch leprosy, epilepsy's not possession
and when it comes to sex what the fucks with your obsession
with what grown men and women do in the privacy of their own home.
Why do you care where they put it? You've got problems of your own.

You let suffer the little children while the paedophiles protected,
the people wanted a shepard but its a wolf that was elected.
You spread disease and misery with every denial of tested science
so people remain upon their knees out of terror and compliance
so please excuse my harshness after breaking religions spell,
and if by chance your god is real, I'll save you a seat in hell.

i disagree with everyone, you don't have to be "crazy" to get in a fight with your producer. Sounds like his producer has split his effort across a few new shows, "crazy" charlie gets stuck with the blame for the hiatus of the show. If you get blamed, you would have to be "crazy" to disagree?

The producer went on the record mocking Charlie Sheens substance abuse and lifestyle. If Sheen was really "CRAZY" I don't think the producer would openly mock him. Would you openly mock a lunatic? A madman?

I think charlie sounds a little unhinged, but I have to draw the line. It's just too easy to pick someone apart at our leisure. If Charlie wanted to sound like he's got his feet on the ground, I bet he could. He's an actor.

I don't know it seems viable to me. Then again I watched a guy drive his motorcycle like a madman today, and somehow not die. So I would believe just about anything.

>> ^shuac:

Is the gamebryo engine still in the mix? That's the big question.


Yes. There were a few articles some weeks ago about how they were using the same engine as Oblivion/Fallout, but heavily modified. This is the first TES game they've done which isn't on a brand new engine.

It's suspect, but I trust that they can pull it off. It's just that a lot of the inadequaces of Oblivion and Fallout 3 were attributable to the engine.

disregard that, I suck clocks

Todd Howard had spoken about how Bethesda's next project would be using the same engine, but Todd Howard is a madman.

Fair enough. I've always been one to love a great experience when it comes to gaming (Interstate '76, The Longest Journey, Deux Ex), but the faults that accompanied Bioshock, I guess prevented me from really experiencing that ... experience. Perhaps I'll try it again one day to see if I can overlook those fun-stopping elements.

There have been plenty of other games that offered a similarly excellent experience to the one you describe, that all had faults of their own. Somehow I was able to overlook those. Guess I'm not sure what it is about Bioshock that I despised so much as to disallow that.
>> ^mentality:
The gameplay was nothing exceptional, but definitely better than games like Fallout 3. And I totally understand when things like technical issues or how the gameplay "feels" can ruin a game. Also I agree that there is a lot of repetitiveness. The repetitiveness, however, stems from the limited variety of enemies that you fought - and not from repetitive level design as in the first Halo game.
Like I said, I never considered the gunplay to be a strength of Bioshock, and those negative aspects that you mentioned never really bothered me. For me, the setting was always the real star of the show. From lush underwater rainforests, to the opulent decadence of the operahouse, to the run down squalor of the underwater slums, no one has ever put together such a spectacular cast of locales with such believable fidelity. And each locale has its own story to tell - told through flashbacks and journals - of how it was twisted into the macabre and fallen vision that you see before you. Throwing you in alone into this creepy and hostile world, run by a powerful and malevolent madman, created a sense of danger and desperation evoked by great survival horror games like System Shock 2.
For me, Bioshock was one of the few games that managed to transcend the limitations of gaming and provided an interactive experience.

>> ^ForgedReality:
Sorry, I can't agree. What was it that you enjoyed most about the gameplay? Or was it just the setting?
For me, I dunno. Nothing really ever jumped out at me that made me want to play it. It felt kind of "meh." I just couldn't get as into it as some people apparently could. I tried, but certain things really bothered me, like the annoyingly typical Unreal Engine graphics (AA issues, "everything is shiny" syndrome, etc), incredibly weak feeling weapons that seemed like they should have had a lot more impact on your enemies, the repetitiveness of the single player experience...
I'll admit, at first, the visuals and the atmosphere were kind of cool, but that all quickly melted away for me because it just didn't feel all that fun. I think a lot of the longevity it had was due to impractical things like collecting tapes and stuff for background information--the kind of thing that had no bearing on the actual game itself.

The gameplay was nothing exceptional, but definitely better than games like Fallout 3. And I totally understand when things like technical issues or how the gameplay "feels" can ruin a game. Also I agree that there is a lot of repetitiveness. The repetitiveness, however, stems from the limited variety of enemies that you fought - and not from repetitive level design as in the first Halo game.

Like I said, I never considered the gunplay to be a strength of Bioshock, and those negative aspects that you mentioned never really bothered me. For me, the setting was always the real star of the show. From lush underwater rainforests, to the opulent decadence of the operahouse, to the run down squalor of the underwater slums, no one has ever put together such a spectacular cast of locales with such believable fidelity. And each locale has its own story to tell - told through flashbacks and journals - of how it was twisted into the macabre and fallen vision that you see before you. Throwing you in alone into this creepy and hostile world, run by a powerful and malevolent madman, created a sense of danger and desperation evoked by great survival horror games like System Shock 2.

For me, Bioshock was one of the few games that managed to transcend the limitations of gaming and provided an interactive experience.

Alright @enoch, I'll take up your challenge.

I have many questions that I would like answered, that nothing answers yet. I am not very interested in why I exist, because I don't think there is any particular meaning in that - I can read meaning in to my existence, sure, but there's no outside meaning to my existence or anything's existence. Some may view this as cynical, I see it as reasonable.

I am very interested in how. How does my brain work, how do I have a consciousness, how does my body influence my mind, and vice versa.

Why does regular physics break down at sub-atomic levels? Does this fact ripple up throughout the scales, so a quantum fluctuation affects my mood in the end?

Are dreams just random firings of neurons? Are they something else? We often see some sort of meaning in our dreams (and sometimes none at all), why is that? Do we make up the meaning as we go along, or do we project meaning into our dreams for ourselves to interpret? After all, if dreams are in fact created by ourselves, instead of just random, there must (or might) be some underlying meaning in it.

Our psyche is interesting, because our entire view of the world depends on it. A madman may see the world different than me, everyone may see the world different than me, why is that? Is it merely a physiological difference, is it something else? I don't know at this point.

Just because I am an atheist, a militant, rabid one at that, doesn't mean there is nothing that I believe. I believe a lot of things, that I have not had demonstrated. Many things just make sense to me, so I don't question them further. It's hard to list these things without being inane; stuff like gravity, physical laws, the properties of objects so on.

I have my own theories on more advanced stuff, which is completely open to ridicule, but they are things I believe based on my own observations and what I have seen from others more learned in the respected fields. Obviously, when I journey on to guesswork like this, I keep in mind that it might not be like this at all, but so far I think so.

An example: gwiz665's theory of consciousness.

The consciousness is an emergent property of our complex brain structure. It is a very mechanistic thing, which runs like software on our brain hardware. Obviously, I don't know much about our hardware, but this is a very interesting subject. I think that given enough computer power, we can simulate it in a turing machine, but I've grown uncertain as to how this can be accomplished. Hopefully neuroscience will get some insight into this, they're certainly working on it.

I think we can physically see our consciousness, but it's just really, really hard. We can theoretically see which programs run on a computer too, by looking at the electrical currents in the computer, but without knowing how exactly the computer interprets those data, we're pretty much in the dark. It's the same with the mind vs. brain.

I believe that our perception of our consciousness is different from what it actually is. We have very little privileged knowledge about our consciousness, because our brain, basically, makes it up as it goes along. I think there's significant ret-conning going on at all times as well, because our consciousness does not pick up all senses at all times, but our brain does - when something is important enough, it is written into our conscious narrative. How this weighing of importance happens is extremely important to me, how do we value things? We obviously have a way in our consciousness, where we associate meaning, value etc. to things, but what happens at a lower level? How is memory distributed in the brain, how is consciousness, how is deduction etc.

I basically make the assumption that the brain is a computer. A massively parallel computer, which processes a nearly infinite number of threads at once (~1 per neuron). How this is organized is beyond me, I black box it - it just makes sense at this point. It may be very wrong, but it seems to work and answer some questions.

I also assume that I'm right until something tells me otherwise - I think it's the only way to live. I can't doubt everything all the time.

Trim your fucking nails, MadMan.

Honkers? Stop your stupid script-kiddy bullshit, and put a white-hat on.

If I were to attack a system, I would use IP addresses in China to make it look like they did it. Nearly all of the Trapware, Badware websites I have ever reported to safe browsing have all had IP addresses that resolved to locations and companies in China.

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

Thanks for that. Sounds good. I'm going to see it.
>> ^therealblankman:
I went to a sneak-preview of the film that they don't bother to promote in the above interview. Really enjoyed it! Below is the review I wrote for Cinemaclock...
Here's the deal with this flick- if you're a fan of 1980s style comedy cop flicks a'la Lethal Weapon and especially Beverly Hills Cop, then you'll really enjoy this lightweight action film from Kevin Smith. Hell, it's even got an 80s Axel Foley synthesizer soundtrack.
Bruce Willis is the grizzled veteran cop, Tracy Morgan (or is it Jordan? I get confused) plays his goofy partner. There's a plot of sorts- revolving around the pair trying to get back a valuable baseball card stolen from Willis' character by a gang of frightening hispanic ethnic stereotypes, the leader of which is a sports memorabilia collector.
There are a bunch of chases- both on foot and in cars- a couple of shootouts, and some minor sub-plots with a few twists. All of which serve solely as situations for Morgan to riff off of Willis' straight-man like a manic comedic madman. These guys have some great chemistry together, in the finest buddy-picture tradition.
A couple of cameos- notably Jason Lee as the slimy step-father of Willis' daughter, and Seann William Scott is hilarious as a strung-out cat burglar.
This movie's quite a change of pace for director Smith- a straight-up mainstream comedy. But it's still got a lot of his trademark clever dialogue and the characters are better fleshed-out and more believable than is usual for this genre. It drags a little bit in the second act, but moves on soon enough and pretty much succeeds in entertaining on every level.

I went to a sneak-preview of the film that they don't bother to promote in the above interview. Really enjoyed it! Below is the review I wrote for Cinemaclock...

Here's the deal with this flick- if you're a fan of 1980s style comedy cop flicks a'la Lethal Weapon and especially Beverly Hills Cop, then you'll really enjoy this lightweight action film from Kevin Smith. Hell, it's even got an 80s Axel Foley synthesizer soundtrack.

Bruce Willis is the grizzled veteran cop, Tracy Morgan (or is it Jordan? I get confused) plays his goofy partner. There's a plot of sorts- revolving around the pair trying to get back a valuable baseball card stolen from Willis' character by a gang of frightening hispanic ethnic stereotypes, the leader of which is a sports memorabilia collector.
There are a bunch of chases- both on foot and in cars- a couple of shootouts, and some minor sub-plots with a few twists. All of which serve solely as situations for Morgan to riff off of Willis' straight-man like a manic comedic madman. These guys have some great chemistry together, in the finest buddy-picture tradition.

A couple of cameos- notably Jason Lee as the slimy step-father of Willis' daughter, and Seann William Scott is hilarious as a strung-out cat burglar.

This movie's quite a change of pace for director Smith- a straight-up mainstream comedy. But it's still got a lot of his trademark clever dialogue and the characters are better fleshed-out and more believable than is usual for this genre. It drags a little bit in the second act, but moves on soon enough and pretty much succeeds in entertaining on every level.

>> ^shagen454:
I hate to get PC on this shit, you know the video is hilarious. But, it's terrible since this guy obviously has a mental disorder and it seems the majority of people are encouraging this madman's rage. All I know is that if I see this guy and I probably have, but now I'll know to stand clear of his spazz mentality.


He walked away from a guy that was threatening him, then still didn't do anything until a punch got thrown at his face, what would you do if someone was trying to beat you up?

Also, before you say that you would run away, you have to remember he was on a bus, running was not exactly an option.

I hate to get PC on this shit, you know the video is hilarious. But, it's terrible since this guy obviously has a mental disorder and it seems the majority of people are encouraging this madman's rage. All I know is that if I see this guy and I probably have, but now I'll know to stand clear of his spazz mentality.

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

I've seen all of That Mitchell and Webb Look, but haven't seen any Peepshow seasons- so I'm looking forward to this. They're a great comedy duo. Another show that I really like that has David Mitchell and did have most season on Youtube is Would I Lie to You>> ^rychan:
>> ^dag:
I'm starting to see quite a few clips of this show around the traps. This could be the new show - (until Madman comes back). Speaking of British Comedy - PeepShow, (Mitchell & Webb's show before their current one) has all its seasons on Hulu now.

Actually, it only has the first five seasons. The sixth season has aired. I know, because I had to get it, because sift forced me to watch six seasons of this show in the past week after seeing a clip.