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Comment Collaborative Story Telling (Score 5, Insightful) 197

Role Playing Games are really just a framework of rules that you all agree to in order to tell a story. One person takes on the role of Narrator (The DM) and the others take on the roles of main characters in the story. It doesn't have to be a fantasy based story, it could be anything. But the joy is in taking an initial vision and writing the story together as you all experience it. It's just a more interactive version of reading your favorite book. Almost everyone that enjoys some kind of media has wished at one time or another that they could be part of the story they are watching. Role playing games are a way to make that desire a little more real.

Comment Overlooking something important... (Score 4, Informative) 482

The USADA doesn't actually have the authority to strip Lance Armstrong of anything. The UCI is the only organization which can strip his titles from him and according to them the USADA hasn't even come close to meeting the burden of proof they require. So this is all just a giant smoke and mirrors act by the USADA. Armstrong has stopped fighting them because their accusations are irrelevant to him.

Comment They don't work with their own software... (Score 5, Informative) 1027

How about the fact that getting a Windows phone to work with an exchange server is slightly more painful than shooting yourself in the dick?

A small business that is using a self signed certificate might as well cross all windows phones off of their purchasing options forever. And don't tell me, "Oh they should just get a real certificate." because YOU don't get to make that call and neither do I. The client does and they say no.

iPhone? No Problem. Android? No Problem. Windows Phone? Export certificate from site, email it to yahoo or gmail account FROM a yahoo or gmail account because outlook/exchange refuses to allow you to mail a cert, then import it, reboot the phone, and HOPE that it works. I just got finished dealing with one that didn't work. We renewed the cert, and now the thing is just shitboxed. Can't get it to accept the new cert at all.

How the fuck hard is it to add a "Accept this certificate anyways?" option...

Comment Obv Solution: Make better games. (Score 1) 343

I've gotten more entertainment out of Master of Orion II than any other game I've purchased. Close behind is Diablo II. Neither of those games have INSANE graphics (MOO2 for sure doesn't) but both have a lot of replayable fun. I think I paid 29$ for each of them, and I've purchased them both more than once because I lost the discs and boxes and whatnot and just bought them again.

If someone released MOO2 for my iPhone for 5$ I would buy it in a heartbeat.

If someone released the old Monkey Island games on the iPhone for 5$ apiece there would be a good chance I would buy those too. To me the best market for games on the mobile devices is old school games. You could re-release a bunch of nintendo, super nintendo, or playstation 1 game on a smartphone and make bank. Final Fantasy 3 on my iPhone? Hell yeah.

Comment Re:This is gonna be very rant like (Score 1) 622

No this is the exact opposite of what we actually need. Higher birthrates lead to population pressure, which leads to expansion, which leads to things like space exploration and colonization. Humanity evolves through conflict, we're pretty much past the point of REALLY fighting with each other in a way that threatens the existence of humanity, so the only conflict left is the conflict for resources. We need to ramp that conflict up enough to make it profitable and desirable for people to pursue resources on other planets. That will drive technology and innovation, and continue to improve the average quality of life.

We need to spread out like locusts, ravaging everything before us, and the sooner the better.

Comment Re:I couldn't help but notice that I was right... (Score 1) 674

Of course, I don't think that Deep Blue really out-played Kasparov on a level playing field either... I would be far more impressed if they could design a chess-playing computer that only considers a few hundred board combinations and still plays at a grandmaster level, since that is all that even the best human grandmasters do.

This is wrong. Human grandmasters enter the game with a pre-pruned tree. They've already discarded all of the obviously wrong board positions by applying their experience. So while they may only consciously consider a few hundred board positions it is not because they are not capable of considering more, it's because they have already discarded those board positions as very low percentage. Deep blue had to consider all of the board positions available for each move because it did not have "experience" to eliminate obviously bad board positions prior to consideration. So if you pre-pruned the computers tree to eliminate the 90% of the board positions that were obviously wrong then you could conceivably have a computer which only considered a few hundred positions for each move, but it would be considering the few hundred board percentages with the highest chance of resulting in victory. If it was locked into that pre-pruned tree you could then beat it by leading it into a nonstandard board position for which it did not have options. This is one of the ways you can currently beat most GO programs.

However if you allowed it to access the pruned options if a board position didn't match one of the higher percentage ones, much like a human player considering a novel board position by reviewing ones they have previously dismissed, then you have the same result. A chess playing robot that plays just like a human with a prodigious memory.

Comment Re:Missing Options (Score 1) 471

Because maybe it's easier to adapt humanity to an earth analogue world than to adapt that world to them? If humanity truly wants to spread to the stars then being able to make helpful adaptations for alien environments is one of the things that will help us do it.

Comment Re:*Really*? What do they expect to defend against (Score 1) 391

Anyone that buys a gun and then fails to get the proper training with it deserves to be shot with their own firearm.

You created a situation where your hypothetical average person is doomed to failure. You've already decided that they failed to get the proper training with the weapon they are carrying.

Comment Re:*Really*? What do they expect to defend against (Score -1, Flamebait) 391

Black belts in what? Fandancing and Water Aerobics?
Inquiring minds want to know, since you're using that as an appeal to your own authority.
I wouldn't mind some kind of proof that you've ever been anywhere near a combat zone, much less served in the armed forces in any capacity as well if you're going to try to use that as a platform to attack the idea of concealed carry.

Personally I would rather be carrying the firearm than not. If I'm not in a situation where I can use it, and I give up my wallet, and I just have to go by the DMV and get a new license and whatnot, then so be it. But if the situation arises where me having a firearm would make a difference, then I have one.

Oh, and I've got a blackbelt in something useless too... So, y'know.

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