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Swithin

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Everything posted by Swithin

  1. Well, since I and RandomGuy are the only ones really discussing this with any heat, I guess I'm the 'opposition' here. Just to make it clear, I'm not trying to say anyone's take on world affairs is "invalid" in my eyes, or unsupported: I'm just a hardass on anyone who takes the responsibility over deciding the fates of other people's lives. When you step up to a position where you can effectively decide who lives and who dies, the bar gets raised a whole lot in my eyes; if you're going to be a political leader of major global importance, saving people's lives better be high on your list, or... I don't like you. Simple as that. I don't think Arafat ever had "saving lives" on his list of things to do, and it would have been so simple... so I simply don't like or respect him. He might have been a great guy, a great car salesman, even a great journalist or author, someone to "speak up" for the Palestinians. The guy knew how to get press, that's for sure. Once he took peoples lives in his hands, and he clenched his fists for his own reasons, that's when he crossed the line in my eyes. He is knowingly the cause of the death of innocents, he was unrepentant to his deathbed, and for me that itself is all I need to know about him, beyond circumstances, ethnicity, whatever. I'm not saying his cause is invalid, I'm a *supporter* of his cause, it's just that everything he *did* led to this continual "murder for murder", when the Palestinians and Israelis could have had peace by now. If he couldn't have done the job right, he shouldn't have been a leader at all...
  2. Actually, IIRC about twice as many Palestinians die annually at the hands of the Israeli military (which has been armed mostly over the years by the US) than Israelis die at the hands of Palestinians. Both numbers are usually near 1-2 thousands per *year*. That's why it's ridiculous to argue who's *worse*. Sure, it's much easier to blame the side who seems to have an official government policy of eradicating a people than the people who produce 1-2 hundred nuts a generation... hell, even I do. The truth is, however, that the Palestinians are also responsible for tens of thousands of deaths... in fact, two Palestinian organizations are responsible for tens of thousands of deaths, Israeli and Palestinian. My point is this: 1) as a Palestinian, it might be in your interest to use your authority as their de facto leader to curb these two groups death toll, even if you have to out and out oppose them, and 2) as a human being, you *cannot* have a policy of "well, since my group killed fewer than your group this year, we'll have to encourage them to do better in 2000." I have a hard time (believe it or not) making arguments to pop someone's bubble of positive-opinion of world leaders (I had huge problems with my ex-girlfriend over this), but the truth is Arafat has only contributed to fighting between Israelis and Palestinians, and was the leader of an organization that continued to murder innocents while he was in charge. There were *tons* of things Arafat could have done that would have led to peace, if not a sovereign Palestinian nation by now. He's been causing trouble ever since the 50s, when he countered massacre with massacre. That's what he does. He could've said "hey, let's let the Israelis be the monsters, then the world will support us," he could have whored public opinion, even *just* stepping aside would have saved thousands of lives... but he had to be a hard-liner. I'm sorry, but in my mind, no amount of personal pride or glory-hogging is worth *tens of thousands of lives*. In a situation where you have a choice between preventing mass murders or playing the AK toting "freedom fighter", in this particular conflict where *thousands* die a year, failure to save lives makes you a bad man... a life led pro-actively promoting armed conflict makes you infinitely worse. It doesn't matter how sincere you look during your air-time, no-one has the right to knowingly trade so many lives for image.
  3. Awesome quote! ps - try Foobar 2000, you might like it (audio player)
  4. Metroid Prime: Hunters, AOL Disc version
  5. I'm waiting until an F-Zero title is confirmed.
  6. Well, it's not exactly something to argue over, but... Ariel Sharon wasn't a 'terrorist', because his massacres were *state sponsored*, which historically is usually much much worse. It's surprising that he's actually on the right side in the settlement-withdrawal issue... whether that's a ploy or whether he's somehow miraculously reformed remains to be seen, but since I personally can't vote his clout away, I'll at least accept that he's not herding Palestinian refugees into hired fanatic anti-Muslim militias anymore. Anyway, if he's looking for redemption he's got a few lifetimes to go... but as long as he doesn't give it up, I'm not getting in his way. Second, I don't really care whether someone's called "terrorist" or not. It's not like a person's automatically a saint if no-one hangs that particular label on them. A person can only be judged by what they do and what they fail to do, not what people call them. Arafat's been around long before anyone knew Dubya, and he's been consistently militant - I would say "self-destructively so", except the only people he's been destroying are the Palestinians and a much smaller number of no less innocent Israeli civilians. This isn't a view I've picked up in the last 4 years, or off TV. I've been following this issue closely for 15 years, and my position on Arafat is unchanged. Arafat has *greatly* contributed to the negative opinion of Palestinians globally, and has basically done *nothing* to lead to peace - in fact quite the contrary. He's turned down chance after chance to avoid retributions, refugee camp raids, etc. He's a dumb, stubborn git. He thought it was fun to play chicken with Israel to the point he got his office building surrounded by tanks and his power cut out, while people were having heart-attacks inside, and guess what? He paints himself as the Hero Who Didn't Back Down. He's led his people to slaughter to keep that title. He's kept them living in a police state by forcefully "hogging the limelight" of Palestinian politics, all too happy to be Israel's poster-child for why it's Ok to bomb and bulldoze a poor and broken people. Arafat is the worst thing that could have happened to the Palestinians, and I say this having out and out wept for them many *many* times. Screw what the Bush administration says, I'm only thinking about all the people who are dead who shouldn't be. This guy smiled through it all. I don't celebrate people's deaths, hell, I don't even feel a wry superiority for surviving past them. I feel sad when someone dies, I'm a softie - but I sure as hell feel a lot sadder for all the people whose deaths this "militant media darling" could have prevented by not intentionally sabotaging every negotiative effort that's taken place over the years.
  7. Didn't everyone jump ship after AOL bought it out? I didn't think anyone was even using WinAmp anymore.
  8. You're paranoid. You might also be right, but you're not supposed to assume the worst. I am always on the side of oppressed populations. Therefore I consider myself strongly leaning to the Palestinian side in the debate over who has more legitimate grievances in Palestine/Israel. As such, Arafat curdled my blood. He is single-handedly the cause of so much death it isn't funny. A life of "service" doesn't excuse this - he made choices, knowingly, that killed people. Bad leader. Bad man. Not worth the RIP.
  9. Yeah, one of the most heart-breaking things in this administration is that I *used* to have hope that Colin Powell would do Great Things in American politics... now he's just another whipped dog in the neocon camp, and he doesn't even look like he's been brainwashed. He looks like he disagrees with everything he does... and yet he does it anyway. Sad, really.
  10. I'm sorry, but it is against the rules of the forum. I see you joined October 5th and are only posting now, so you're probably very interested, but no-one here can help you out, sorry bro.
  11. Storm Cloud: 148 Silver Lining: 001
  12. Well, we should make the distinction between RPG-like FPS, twitch-FPS, and competitive on-line FPS games. I'm with Darkmage. I've barely got the patience for non-twitch FPSes these days. If I want a session, it's just going to be 20 minutes of chaotic shooting. *Rarely*, we get Q3 on a lan and I join in. I don't see why Citizen Kabuto isn't technically an FPS, by the way. It's first person. It's a shooter. Oh, this is a Halo 2 topic, huh? Oddly enough, I vastly preferred Microsoft's old offering (can't remember who exactly developed it, but MS definitely published it) Outwars to Halo. Had some fun times with Halo (the first time I ever played I was picking up a friend at MS headquarters on a "Halo Friday", and I got to join in for a bit, *that* was a blast), but I never really got all the fuss about it.
  13. Sure, here you go: [0] Name=Infinite Time 0=Off,0,0 1=Round,10836b,61 2=Character Select,1003c7,31 3=Round and Character Select,10836b,61,1003c7,31 Default=2 [1] Name=P1 Character Select 0=Off,0,0 1=Haohmaru,108323,00 2=Nakoruru,108323,01 3=Rimururu,108323,02 4=Hanzo Hattori,108323,03 5=Galford,108323,04 6=Kyoshiro Senryo,108323,05 7=Ukyo Tachibana,108323,06 8=Genjuro Kibagami,108323,07 9=Basara,108323,08 10=Shizumaru Hisame,108323,09 11=Gaira Kafuin,108323,0A 12=Jubei Yagyu,108323,0C 13=Charlotte,108323,0E 14=Tam Tam,108323,0F 15=Kazuki Kazama,108323,10 16=Sogetsu Kazama,108323,11 17=Rasetsumaru,108323,12 18=Rera,108323,13 19=Enja,108323,14 20=Suija,108323,15 21=Yoshitora Tokugawa,108323,16 22=Yunfei,108323,17 23=Mina Majikina,108323,18 24=Kusaregedo,108323,19 25=Random,1007c3,18 26=Mizuki,108323,1B 27=Zankuro,108323,0D 28=Amakusa,108323,0B 29=Gaoh Kyougoku,108323,1A Default=0 [2] Name=Colour Modifier P1 0=Off,0,0 1=A Colours,10832b,00 2=B Colours,10832b,01 3=C Colours,10832b,02 4=D Colours,10832b,03 Default=0 [3] Name=P2 Character Select 0=Off,0,0 1=Haohmaru,108322,00 2=Nakoruru,108322,01 3=Rimururu,108322,02 4=Hanzo Hattori,108322,03 5=Galford,108322,04 6=Kyoshiro Senryo,108322,05 7=Ukyo Tachibana,108322,06 8=Genjuro Kibagami,108322,07 9=Basara,108322,08 10=Shizumaru Hisame,108322,09 11=Gaira Kafuin,108322,0A 12=Jubei Yagyu,108322,0C 13=Charlotte,108322,0E 14=Tam Tam,108322,0F 15=Kazuki Kazama,108322,10 16=Sogetsu Kazama,108322,11 17=Rasetsumaru,108322,12 18=Rera,108322,13 19=Enja,108322,14 20=Suija,108322,15 21=Yoshitora Tokugawa,108322,16 22=Yunfei,108322,17 23=Mina Magikina,108322,18 24=Kusaregedo,108322,19 25=Random,1008c3,18 26=Mizuki,108322,1B 27=Zankuro,108322,0D 28=Amakusa,108322,0B 29=Gaoh Kyougoku,108322,1A Default=0 [4] Name=Colour Modifier P2 0=Off,0,0 1=A Colours,10832a,00 2=B Colours,10832a,01 3=C Colours,10832a,02 4=D Colours,10832a,03 Default=0 [5] Name=P1 Lifebar 0=Off,0,0 1=Full,108444,7D 2=Empty,108444,00 Default=0 [6] Name=P1 Long Sword Guage 0=Off,0,0 1=On,108555,82 Default=0 [7] Name=P1 Sword Guage 0=Off,0,0 1=Full,1085F9,78 Default=0 [8] Name=P1 POW Meter 0=Off,0,0 1=Full,10844F,40 Default=0 [9] Name=P2 Lifebar 0=Off,0,0 1=Full,108654,7D 2=Empty,108654,00 Default=0 [10] Name=P2 Long Sword Guage 0=Off,0,0 1=On,108765,82 Default=0 [11] Name=P2 Sword Guage 0=Off,0,0 1=Full,108809,78 Default=0 [12] Name=P2 POW Meter 0=Off,0,0 1=Full,10865F,40 Default=0 [13] Name=Stage Select 0=Off,0,0 1=Stage 1,10836d,00 2=Stage 2,10836d,01 3=Stage 3,10836d,02 4=Stage 4,10836d,03 5=Stage 5,10836d,04 6=Stage 6,10836d,05 7=Stage 7,10836d,06 8=Stage 8,10836d,07 9=Stage 9,10836d,08 10=Stage 10,10836d,09 Default=0 [14] Name=Violence 0=Normal,0,0 1=Level 1,10E010,00 2=Level 2,10E010,01 3=Level 3,10E010,02 Default=3 Also, notice that you can get the color modifier up to FF. Most chars come out *very* odd, but there seem to be 'runs' of four numbers which get everything right: skintone, shading, etc - for instance, Hanzo and Galford look good all the way from 01-12 (including Hanzo in Galford colors and vice versa), and Kazuki (IIRC) has some *very* cool colors between 08-12 (or 11-14, or somewhere around there) including a sky-blue outfit with blue flames that just looks too cool to describe. I've got it all annotated up through 128, but apparently one cheat can't have more than 128 entries and it was just too time-intensive to make a separate cheat for each character with the colors they look good in (although I might still get around to it.) Try: Nakoruru 11, Rera 13/16, Genjuro 23, Rera 25, Amakusa 33-34, Zankuro 35, Amakusa and Ukyo 43, Jubei 52, Haohmaru 73 (there's a small surprise here), there's just too many. And these aren't even all "perfect", they're just cool palettes. [edit: whoops, these aren't in hex. You can convert base10 into hex if you want, or you can wait for me to put up a master list.] Screw it, I need to make the gigantor cheat file, including small-size mode, palettes, song selection, etc.
  14. One more vote for Fruity Loops. It's half-way between an old-school tracker and the newer stuff, with some really smart additions to boot. Definitely a good first product to try out, and you might even want to stick with it.
  15. [01] Name=Violence 0=Normal,0,0 1=Level 1,10E010,00 2=Level 2,10E010,01 3=Level 3,10E010,02 Default=3 That enables fatalities/everything.
  16. IIRC correctly, moving at the speed of light you would be experiencing time at a ratio approaching 0:1 compared to everyone else, so hypothetically you wouldn't necessarily be "travelling forward in time", but for the duration of your trip at light-speed the universe would be moving forward while you are not. You'd blink and it would be 100 years later, but you'd still be *there* during those 100 years, not 'hopping' forward.
  17. 1) You're specifically talking about sending humans or matter in some solid form back. It would probably be much easier to send energy back in some form (although I can't imagine what you'd do this for, other than finding some interesting way to observe history through a complex "radar" system.) 2) No, the "multiple timeline" theory makes no sense whatsoever. Whoever will travel back in time in the future was already there, so obviously they haven't changed history. In fact, they were part of it. 3) Most speculation revolves around gravitic distortion, such as that of singularities. Again, this makes sending discrete information or matter back seem impossible, but you never know what we'll come up with. I mean, we went in 300 years from not understanding lightning to making weather-modelling supercomputers - not to mention the acceleration of scientific advancement over the last century, if not couple of decades.
  18. I can see the RIAA jumping on this... "Whose are these MP3s? These are NACHO MP3s!" ... sorry
  19. This is why I hate hack scifi writers: if you go back in time, you must remember that anything you do there was already done 'in the past' at the time you travelled back. In other words, if you travel back and become Julius Caesar (whatever), then you can read about everything you *will* do from a history book in the future. You cannot "change" the past, as you're already a part of it. On the other hand, sending information into the past (which is an important distinction from "sending stuff (like particles) into the past") is possible, although I can't imagine sending a full human being and having that person survive the transition. Say, for instance, that there's a cabinet in which time flows backwards, yes? If you are going to step into it in 5 minutes, the 'you' from 10 minutes into your linear perception of time is sitting in there already going backwards. Basically, if you break this down into an issue of (say) the moments you step into the damn thing, you're technically occupying the same area of space twice. Which makes you go boom. Same with "accelerating to reality-breaking speeds", you'll still occupy the same space twice between the moments you're going forwards and going backwards, which isn't very healthy. I wonder what kind of solution not involving teleportation someone will come up with someday.
  20. Actually, I believe that the Neo is somewhat unique in that there is a bios chip on every cart. Correct me if I'm wrong, however.
  21. No no, Asra is from SS64-2. [edit: originally, I mean]
  22. I *NEVER* thought I'd say this, but... Prequel 3 *might* just be worthy of being attached to SW, ESB, and RotJ, even if it still doesn't look *quite* as good. Still hating on Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, though.
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