I am just a hobbyist; I cannot guarantee interruptionless uptime.
In fact, the next downtime has already been decided to happen within a week; I'll replace the NIC with a 3Com card (currently RTL-8139b).
Also, it is socially impolite to ignore response directly written just for you, so you are inclined to read it. But when something is written for the masses, there's nothing that binds you to it; you can ignore it without consequences.
I once saw a guide being linked and ignored. Then someone else copy/pasted the guide and it was read and understood. You just might have nailed the reason.
Also, no hurry. I don't mean to rush you, just being curious. :)
Could you explain in any way you prefer what a soul is?
A soul is the unique realization that I am me. It is the feeling of actual existence.
It is not an omnipresent sensation. Most times of day, I am driven by my biological instincts as a normal thinking human being; I do not know what my soul is doing then, but it is not much awake probably. :)
moozooh wrote:
Also, why Christianity and not, say, Buddhism?
This is a question I have not evaluated for several years. The last time I did, my argument resembled a waterfall: if A, then B, and if B, then probably C, and so on.
It is a choice I made, to believe that if the spiritual world exists, then probably God also exists, and if God exists, then why couldn't the Bible actually, truly be his message.
So far, I have not had to regret this choice.
Dear Bisqwit:
Do you think believing in a heaven or afterlife can mentally soothe a person and make him happy, even if he's a well-educated person who also believes that scientifically, it is completely impossible and when he dies, he'll just rot in the earth forever?
Do you think that SMB or Go will ever be solved in your lifetime?
I don't know how long I will live*, but suppose I live 100 years.
I think there's a 20%** chance for SMB being solved and 10%** chance for Go being solved.
*) In the materialist sense.
**) These are Harrison-Stetson constants. I did not bother to do any actual math; it's just how I intuitively feel about it.
Do you think believing in a heaven or afterlife can mentally soothe a person and make him happy, even if he's a well-educated person who also believes that scientifically, it is completely impossible and when he dies, he'll just rot in the earth forever?
I don't think that a person who does not believe in "afterlife" will experience a soothing afterlife at all.
Sorry, I did not read your question carefully. Let's try again:
One cannot believe two completely contradictory things at the same time. If one believes that afterlife cannot happen, one cannot also believe that afterlife will happen.
Therefore to ponder whether for such person the believing that way soothes them, is rather moot.
However, if one really thinks that scientically, afterlife is an impossibility, but yet still believes in an afterlife, they must have a theory in mind that makes afterlife a possibility. In such case, it is possible that the belief will soothe them.
But what makes them believe?
Have you ever tried code golfing or entered the ioccc or the like?
I have seriously considered crafting an IOCCC submission several years back.
In fact I have done some share of obfuscated C coding for fun.
However, I have not actually entered any contests.
How did you become so smart? I'm always surprised when people talk about how video encoding works, or things like emulators and stuff like that. In fact, the task of taking an NES and a cartridge and turning that into an emulator and a ROM seems impossible to me. So yeah, I've not learned any of this in CS college. How do you pick it up?
Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA
I asked this following question earlier, and I figure it would essentially be most pertinent to ask it of the administrator for this site. That being said:
Zurreco wrote:
So Fabian, are you aiming to have a large public discourse here, or simply a method of altering Off-Topic back to a dialectic in and of itself? That is to say, are you looking for unending debates on the intangible, or are you simply trying to stimulate conversation?
Depending on your answer above:
Do you believe that religion, both in the theological sense and moral applicability sense, lead to factioning throughout a society, no matter how ideal or unideal that society would be? Would you determine that we have factioning here? Do you think that this is a good or a bad thing, and should we actively attempt to abolish "technical" factions (as in, official bonds, rather than simple friendships)? Would you conclude that this makes us an ideal or unideal community?
OR
Where do you see our site heading towards, assuming that we either take an active stance to "better" it with new ideas or stick to our guns and work towards our original ideals? Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Could you possible compare the teleological image of tasvideos to that of another site (as in, a progression towards a site vs the degradation to a state such as gameFAQs)?
Also, what are the odds that you'll give me ops in #nesvideos?
Dear Bisqwit,
Which tool-assisted runs are your favorites? What If you could pick only one to keep on the site, which one would it be?
Approximately how many runs on this site cannot be improved?
Super Mario Bros. console speedrunner
- Andrew Gardikis
Are girls from Finland as hot as girls from Switzerland?
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.
Dear Bisqwit:
1. When super/quatum computers become available and are used for TASing, would that be the end of TASVideos? Would most forum topics, WIPs, and players instantly become worthless? Assuming that the computers would handle all types of TASes, would there even be a point in having a poll or deciding whether it would be worth it to publish? Would TASes become far less entertaining, knowing that they simply cannot be beaten? Would you consider limiting or even banning TASes not played by humans to keep the essence of the site? Would you still consider not accepting submissions because the TAS isn't particularly fun to watch, even though it is literally the fastest possible video?
2. You got NesVideoAgent to detect "beauty" for screenshots. Do you think it would be possible to get a supercomputer to make a TAS as entertaining as possible by using the same basic rules (eg, more jumps, as many screen changes as possible, etc)?
When super/quatum computers become available and are used for TASing, would that be the end of TASVideos? Would most forum topics, WIPs, and players instantly become worthless? Assuming that the computers would handle all types of TASes, would there even be a point in having a poll or deciding whether it would be worth it to publish?
One cannot believe two completely contradictory things at the same time.
I think Richard Dawkins would accuse you of doing just that. Also, the vast majority psychologists and psychological researchers would disagree with you, especially as concerns the tendency of humans to selectively fail to apply their own beliefs when it would have a negative impact on their self-image. It is also hard to say categorically that humans cannot believe contradictory things in cases where it is inobvious (but true nonetheless) that a contradiction exists.
Dear Bisqwit,
What is the history of your interest in Go? How did you come to it and what are your opinions on it? Are you interested in any other traditonal (ie, tabletop) games?
someone is out there who will like you. take off your mask so they can find you faster.
I support the new Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun.
How did you become so smart? I'm always surprised when people talk about how video encoding works, or things like emulators and stuff like that. In fact, the task of taking an NES and a cartridge and turning that into an emulator and a ROM seems impossible to me. So yeah, I've not learned any of this in CS college. How do you pick it up?
According to Mensa, intelligence is a trait that does not significantly vary during life, so perhaps I haven't "become" so smart ;)
Re: The concept of emulators, it was simply the interest and will to learn. Back in the Windows 95 era, I was searching for information on NES games for some reason, and I stumbles across Pasofami. I found Pasofami really difficult, but then I found iNES, and I was fascinated when I realized that it can actually run Mega Man II, the actual game, on Windows.
So I read Marat's (iNES author's) website, which had an abundance (by thenday's measures) of technical documentation, and got interested in trying out writing an emulator of my own. I eventually did, more than once, though never produced anything good quality enough to be published and used by others.
I asked this following question earlier, and I figure it would essentially be most pertinent to ask it of the administrator for this site. That being said:
<...>, are you aiming to have a large public discourse here, or simply a method of altering Off-Topic back to a dialectic in and of itself? That is to say, are you looking for unending debates on the intangible, or are you simply trying to stimulate conversation?
I started this thread for the purpose of giving people the chance and motivation to ask things they would like to ask me. I didn't have an increasing the signal-to-noise rattio idea behind it like Fabian did.
Zurreco wrote:
Do you believe that religion, both in the theological sense and moral applicability sense, lead to factioning throughout a society, no matter how ideal or unideal that society would be? Would you determine that we have factioning here? Do you think that this is a good or a bad thing, and should we actively attempt to abolish "technical" factions (as in, official bonds, rather than simple friendships)? Would you conclude that this makes us an ideal or unideal community?
Depends on religion, and whether that society is homogeneous with respect to that religion. In Christianity, all Christians are brothers and sisters and equal in front of God, so there are no factions or different categories of people withim them. Obviously, this contradicts with the reality: there are a plentitude of different Christian factions. It arises mostly from the level of dedication different people want. People who think the similar way group together. This is not unique to Christianity, and even not pertinent to religions in particular. Within any area of life, there are people who think slightly differently and smaller groups form within larger groups. Even within TASers...
I don't see such "factions" as a bad thing, as long as they recognize what their common ground is.
Zurreco wrote:
Where do you see our site heading towards, assuming that we either take an active stance to "better" it with new ideas or stick to our guns and work towards our original ideals? Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Could you possible compare the teleological image of tasvideos to that of another site (as in, a progression towards a site vs the degradation to a state such as gameFAQs)?
and
Raiscan wrote:
Where do you see yourself in 10 years? And, if different, where do you want to be in 10 years?
Sorry to disappoint you both, but I'm really bad in making long term plans especially when it concerns myself. I'll avoid answering these two questions. My boss asks me Raiscan's question rather often, once a year anyway, and I never can think of any answer that would be really what I think.
I usually change things only when the opportunity or need presents itself.
Zurreco: Also, I'm not planning to give you ops: Mostly, because you don't seem to me as a calm and swift decisions -type of guy.
Which tool-assisted runs are your favorites? What If you could pick only one to keep on the site, which one would it be?
Approximately how many runs on this site cannot be improved?
I don't have a named favourite, but if I count which movie I have watched again the largest number of times, it would probably be my own Rockman movie. Followed by TMNT.
Re: How many movies are not improvable, probably at most three.
Are girls from Finland as hot as girls from Switzerland?
I haven't seen many Switzerland girls. But some Finnish girls are indeed very pleasing to look at. :)
However, I have often considered that Sweden has even better girls.
mr_robert_z wrote:
1. When super/quatum computers become available and are used for TASing, would that be the end of TASVideos? Would most forum topics, WIPs, and players instantly become worthless? Assuming that the computers would handle all types of TASes, would there even be a point in having a poll or deciding whether it would be worth it to publish? Would TASes become far less entertaining, knowing that they simply cannot be beaten? Would you consider limiting or even banning TASes not played by humans to keep the essence of the site? Would you still consider not accepting submissions because the TAS isn't particularly fun to watch, even though it is literally the fastest possible video?
Quantum computing is not a magic wand that instantly gives any computation its result. It only adds a certain degree of parallelism, to my understanding reducing the computational complexity of a typical algorithm to its squareroot of the traditional version. For TASes, such reduction is still too small to have a profound impact.
mr_robert_z wrote:
2. You got NesVideoAgent to detect "beauty" for screenshots. Do you think it would be possible to get a supercomputer to make a TAS as entertaining as possible by using the same basic rules (eg, more jumps, as many screen changes as possible, etc)?
I think beauty in acting cannot be quantified as easily. For me, the TAS is an acting performance, and the characters are actors. Antropomorphism happens: we associate human characteristics on something that is not, and we think that the characters think in a certain way and have similar motivations to our own. Only a human can understand what those motivations are, and what kind of reactions may amuse the human.
Of course, if the supercomputer intelligence gets on a comparable level with human intelligence and it is taught and it adopts the primitive motivations of our minds, then it may judge actions the same way we do. But there may be a long way to that.
One cannot believe two completely contradictory things at the same time.
I think Richard Dawkins would accuse you of doing just that. Also, the vast majority psychologists and psychological researchers would disagree with you, especially as concerns the tendency of humans to selectively fail to apply their own beliefs when it would have a negative impact on their self-image. It is also hard to say categorically that humans cannot believe contradictory things in cases where it is inobvious (but true nonetheless) that a contradiction exists.
Maybe I was thinking too logically then -- but so was the question set, as it emphasizes how the person is "educated" and believes strongly in a certain way.
