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Chops

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Everything posted by Chops

  1. The Warcraft 2 soundtrack has been my favorite video game soundtrack since it was released in '95 (Though I enjoy most of the Blizzard music: Diablo, Starcraft, Warcraft 3, WoW, WoW:BC). Recently, the Age of Conan soundtrack is quite good. Usually, when a game is released with a collector's edition that includes a soundtrack, I usually buy it for that.
  2. While his anti-capitalist position was very wrong, I always thought Carlin's Religious commentary was his absolute apex of comedy.
  3. Are you implying that that's a bad thing? You should know the quote: "Genius is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration" (I don't know who said it, some websites claim Edison, some claim Einstein, one claimed some Canadian writer).
  4. The fundamental difference is not in motor function: that we have opposable thumbs or that we walk upright. These are minor physical attributes, when the fundamental difference between man and animal is considered: our mind. The fundamental identifier for a man is rationality, the primary function of which is concept formation and application. The voice-box part is indeed helpful, but an animal that, say, evolved that same voice-box capability, would not necessarily evolve a rational faculty either. Keep in mind that the topic of this thread is also in regards to cognition, not merely an enumeration of all attributes between humans and animals.
  5. They may not be allowed to be sued for it, but customers are still free to choose their competitors, who might be more willing to resist. But, like David pointed out, for this to apply, it needs to be lawful AND have the president's signature AND have happened between the years 2001 and 2007. If you have a problem with wiretapping, then you need to fix the law that allows wiretapping, not attack a law designed to uphold another law, and protect citizens from following said law. Cure the disease, not the symptom.
  6. D'kian, holy crap. I'm speechless.
  7. To summarize the linked post, yes, it is an exact quote. Context:
  8. Here's another video of him stopping mid-swing. This one was REALLY moving when he stopped it. It doesn't even seem possible to do what he did there. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBPxTE8YSyM...feature=related I almost never watch sports, but I do play golf, and just happened to be watching the last few holes of the last game of the open sunday. It was amazing watching him. I also saw that commercial linked, and agree it is a fantastic commercial that focuses on the best of a one's character. After the open, I had to look up some info on him, and read the wikipedia article about him, as well as watch Youtube clips of some of his most amazing shots. I knew he was great, but I had no idea just how great he was. When you compare his statistics and how he's breaking records at 30 that took others lifetimes to set. He is the Michael Jordan of this generation. Like I said, I don't follow sports, but I've always been a fan of Michael Jordan, Brett Favre, and now Tiger. An interesting fact from the top of the Wikipedia article: (bold mine)
  9. Since the evidence you provided was a direct Rand quote, I'll try to elaborate the syntax of the statement with a parallel statement. Let's say I said the following: "The food at Applebee's is tasty (and fatty)." In that statement, "and fatty" is not an attribute of "tasty", but an attribute of "the food at Applebees." If I were to revise that statement, and say that "The food at Applebee's is tasty (fatty)", then "fatty" would indeed be an attribute of "tasty" (the implication in my statement would be that all tasty food must also be fatty). This is the mistake you're making in parsing the quote presented. In the Rand quote, "and objectively justified" is an attribute of "law" rather than an attribute of "objective." The conjunction is the key to the misunderstanding here, at least in regard to the provided quote.
  10. It's important to note the way that that was presented. That all laws must be objective and objectively justified. The usage of "and" means that they are actually seperate concepts. Had she stated "All laws must be objective (objectively justified)..." you would be correct. The lack of an "and" in that example would serve as an implied "by which I mean..." which would support your statement that an objective law is is also a just law. But because she uses "and", she's effectively saying that laws must be both objective AND just (something we can all agree on), and that the explicit distinction serves as a reminder that they are indeed separate concepts. I think that Toad's post pointing out the distinction that some folks are making in that typically "objective" (with it comes to Objectivism) implies "moral" while in the case of "objective law" as Rand defines it, it means more "clear, unambiguous, with well defined lines" and does not actually require morality. I think Toad is right on there. (I, too, found it a little odd that "objective law" did not also imply "just law"). The debate is primarily on the definition of "objective law" and whether or not "objective" in that context implies "just."
  11. An objective law is one that is clear in its definition. One knows the punishment and the specific crime. An example of an objective law would be "no driving faster than 55 miles per hour" under penalty of $10 per mph over the limit. The definitions are clear. (The morality of such a law isn't in question, but the limitations are clear, making them objective). The classic example of a subjective law is antitrust. As an exercise, try to define the clear line that someone crosses to violate antitrust. It can't be done, because the rules aren't objective. They are exclusively on a "case-by-case" basis, and different judges would rule differently.
  12. You've presented no argument about it. So far, it's all been emotionalism, as David pointed out. And when asked to present your arguments, you simply evaded the request. Naturally, your statement that "Rand got it wrong" is going to be ignored if you can't logically justify your statements. Here's a hint, if you want to appeal to Objectivist thought: come at it morally, not pragmatically. Objectivists are not pragmatists, and don't define what is right by what "works." Objectivists define what is morally right by reality. There are enough arguments and links in this thread discussing the privatization of the road system that this thread is itself superfluous. I recommend reading the comments in that linked thread and respond to them, rather than asking one or more of us to rehash what has already been written.
  13. That is some awesome fear-mongering. The last resort of those who are incapable of reason. If you liked "For the New Intellectual," then you would undoubtedly like the sources of those essays: Rand's fiction. Those speeches in the books are key moments in her fiction, but reading the entire stories is quite enjoyable. And, of course, welcome.
  14. But the drug companies will realize that if they put out a less than healthy product, without disclosing the details of side-effects like that they will 1) Likely be sued, and 2) More Likely lose business It wouldn't be in their own best interest to release shoddy products. Likely, what would happen, is that competing private organizations would take the place of the FDA. They could inspect the food or drugs and if they pass inspections, certify the product, providing some legal cushion as well (something to the effect of "We certify this product, and should it have undisclosed adverse effects, we will be held accountable." Then naturally, on store shelves, there would be multiple levels of products: 1) Those certified by a number of different FDA-Clones. The more certified, the better, and likely, the more expensive. 2) Those certified by a single FDA-Clone (probably a little cheaper, due to not having to get it certified by a bunch of organizations) 3) Those not certified by anything, except by the company's guarantee. In the case you buy something under (3), and it turns out to cause cancer or something, you sue the company. In any case, it'll always be in the best interest of the companies involved to produce the best product they can, and to avoid legal troubles. As for your issues with the regulated water ("You don't want chemicals in your water"), that falls under the same category as the FDA-clone stuff above.
  15. I think it's pretty safe to say that his comments implied "with an HIV positive individual."
  16. Carmina Burana's music was written by Carl Orff. Only the lyrics were recovered from past scrolls.
  17. It's unfortunate that some games are lost on things like this. Even still, unless the product has been released to the public domain, or other free license, it's not right to duplicate. Conveniently, some companies do offer their legacy games for free, ROMs and whatnot (the old "Cinemaware" does this), while others are lame about it (Amiga is lame about their old "Kick Start" disks which are required to boot an Amiga, despite the fact that those machines are 20 years old and no one uses them anymore). Software patents are much broader, and can be troublesome. In particular, they tend to mean that reverse engineering software becomes almost impossible. The most infamous software patent is, of course, Amazon's "One Click" patent, whereby they've managed to get patented the idea of having a single click perform the same actions as "Add to Cart, Enter Credit card Info, and Purchase." While many would argue that this is too obvious to be patented, but it has been, and furthermore, it has been upheld in court. This is an unfortunate example of something being patented, that really should be limited to copyright. Copyright would protect the specific implementation (that is, the code), while the patent in it's form protects the idea itself. If I were to write my own "One Click" program from scratch (having never seen the code for "One Click" myself), I would still be in patent violation. That's a problem. It's protecting the outcome, and not the implementation. To parallel with physical things. If you were to invent and patent a kind of oil drill, I could invent my own kind of oil drill with a completely separate mechanism. However, with the way "One Click" is patented, it would be illegal for me to design my own kind of oil drill from scratch, because they've patented "the process by which oil is extracted from the Earth by means of a drill." The copyright protects the form of the work, the actual creation, and the code that powers it. This is why programs like "OpenOffice" are not violating copyright despite the fact that their interface is very much like (the non-2007) Microsoft Office. The OpenOffice team has built an office clone from scratch, and are in no way violating the implementation itself. This is a good read on "The Case Against Software Patents" I wonder what the Limewire people think about that. At the same time, however, there are perfectly legitimate files available on P2P networks - music that artists are distributing free (such as video game music remixes) and independent music.
  18. Download a violating torrent file. Connect to the tracker. Record IPs of seeders. Report IPs. At least that's one way. The product was created and released under certain conditions. One of those conditions being "Not making unauthorized duplicates." That condition has been violated. Without that condition, the creator may very well have not created or released that work in the first place. You're biting the hand that feeds you. Please keep in mind that there are plenty of other Copyright threads on this forum. Here are a few of those, but there are plenty of others to be found searching for "copyright": http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.php?showtopic=3052 http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.php?showtopic=12258 http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.php?showtopic=10733 http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.php?showtopic=11237 It's protecting the author indirectly. Just as dying does not relinquish your physical goods to the public, neither does dying relinquish your intellectual goods to the public. If the author has chosen to leave the copyright to someone, the copyright remains, as the author's wishes. It depends on the condition of the released trial. Some companies will explicitly state that they retain exclusive rights for distribution of the trial program. If that is the case, then distributing it is a violation. However, the vast majority of the time, companies WANT others to distribute trial software for the purposes of getting their software out there...indeed that is the whole nature of Shareware, and medium by which the games Doom and Wolfenstein 3D became huge.
  19. Instead of thinking about suffering, why not think about how to continue to make your life better. Wooing yourself into complacency isn't exactly a positive thing.
  20. It's possible the original poster is referring only to professional sports, in which case he's correct. But as Kendall said, there's the big tennis match.
  21. It completely lacks the charm of Dr. Seuss's art. I have to agree with Kori, the art looks like the art of any random kid. Not even CLOSE to something that could be properly compared with the art of Dr. Seuss.
  22. Paul Graham has an essay about income inequality. While he doesn't really address it from a moral perspective, he does argue it more from a practical perspective.
  23. That's utterly preposterous. He needs to make a ruckus and get that law overturned, if you can be charged with DUI for having keys in your possession.
  24. I interpreted that as more of the nature of "don't rely on others, you need take care of yourself".
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