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Maybe it's easier to focus on science if you let Christianity fill an information void for you.

This may surprise some of you, but I know 3 Christian scientists. I asked one of them how he reconciles the two, and he told me he doesn't consider religion and science to be related at all. He sees his scientific studies as a way to understand the wonderful creation of God. I disagree, but that's just me. He's the scientist and the Christian .

This shows a fundamental lack of understanding of how science works. Sure, the big bang theory could very well be wrong (and probably is at least somewhat inaccurate, even if the core of it is correct), but it's not just "made up", it's a conclusion that was arrived at based on theories that work very well to explain the nature of the universe as we are capable of observing it today. Those theories predict a big bang. Since the theories are correct to the extent we're capable of measuring, we conclude that the other predictions are correct as well, until such time as we find evidence to disprove the theory. As someone who is dating a scientist, and worked in a lab, I think you shouldn't jump to conclusions so fast. A "theory" is exactly what it is: a theory. Not a fact. Meaning we made it up.

Cult by Slayer Basic facts: Religions, for the most part, are derived from shamanic practices, which are basically the same worldwide. This suggests that there is a "default" religion built into us, and these common practices are part of that. Fasting, meditation, drumming, and use of hallucinogens can be found at the base of pretty much every mainstream religion (yes, that includes Christianity... read the book of Ezekiel and tell me that isn't a mushroom trip!). Some of these practices remain alive in the modern religions today. They induce altered states of consciousness, which is where we get this "divine" information from. The prophets were tripping. We have no fucking clue where we came from. We are lacking the knowledge, so we fill in the gaps with bullshit. This goes for the science crowd and the Jesus crowd. The science crowd at least is willing to dig (literally!) for real answers, however. There is no historical proof outside the bible that Jesus existed. Does it matter? Not really. Even if the story is completely false it keeps some people able to deal with the fact that they're going to die one day. It's a good story either way. There is no real proof of the "big bang" either. We made it up because we don't know shit. To me, this is just as much bullshit as any other creation story. WE DON'T KNOW. GET OVER IT. There is a significant difference between Eastern religions and Western religions. Eastern philosophy is less about creation stories and rules, and more about philosophy and lifestyle. Why don't Buddhists care where we came from? They don't know, and they realize attachment to this question will lead to suffering, and distraction from the real goal: happiness. /Basic facts Knowing all of the above it's hard to convince me to follow someone else's lifestyle. I live how I want to live. I don't need a god, or a rulebook. I'm not a pedophile or a rapist (like many priests are). I don't rob the blind and the sick. I'm a decent person despite being an atheist with Buddhist and shamanic leanings. I forgot to add something important: Muhammad. This is the most recent religious prophet, and therefore we have the most factual information about him. Muhammad confirms my belief that the prophets were tripping. This was an illiterate man who spontaneously entered a state where he would sing the most perfect and beautiful Arabic ever heard. Anyone who has done hallucinogens knows that entering a powerful enhanced state like that can lead to such things. Not that I'm saying Muhammad specifically was using hallucinogens, but that he entered a similar state. Hallucinogens, after all, can only bring out what the brain is already capable of. Schizophrenia, hallucinogens, and religion all go hand in hand. On that note, the Quran is beautiful. I'm not a muslim, but I can accept the fact that it sounds beautiful, and it's very well written, even when translated to English. I've been to an Islamic prayer session, and I love the way the Quran sounds. They sing instead of just quote from a book like Christians.

It depends on if you have a job or not. If you're unemployed, games are not long enough. If you are employed, they are way too long.

The web is a very dangerous place. When you view a webpage, essentially what you are doing is asking a remote server to run code on your local machine(!). If that doesn't scare you, IT SHOULD. Here is why: Cookies are not safe. Any website can pull all the cookies out of your browser. If you use online banking, you should be concerned, because porn sites tend to be the "legitimate" side of illegitimate organizations (to spell it out: criminals run porn sites). Porn sites are not even the biggest fear... I'm personally more afraid of Facebook than anything. Cookies can sometimes also contain session IDs, which would allow an evil person to rip cookies out of your browser, and log into a target website as you without actually logging in (this is less common, however). Flash cookies: even more scary than normal cookies. Flash is the most insecure piece of your browsing experience. Adobe has a monopoly, and therefore no incentive to improve their product. Don't think they care about improving security; any security updates are to prevent PR nightmares. Flash cookies are impossible to clear from your browser directly; you must use Adobe's flash control panel: http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager07.html Cross-Site Scripting/XSS: This is my personal favourite. I have lots of evil PHP scripts on my webserver that show examples of this. Javascript can do a lot of amazing things, and a lot of evil things. Evil things like passing your session ID to a PHP script on my webserver that allows me to become you. Another really evil thing that can be done with this, is to have an evil script post messages to forums, or even Facebook, as you. Imagine your facebook status being changed to "I love child porn" for your boss to see. It's all doable through XSS. Porn sites are the worst for running these attacks on you. Of course, I personally never go to any of those, and I'm sure nobody here does either, but be aware. This is where spam comes from: you surf some shady websites, and they rip out your cookies. Now they know all your email addresses, some of your online banking info, and your general online identity. I'm sure Facebook does it too. Do your online banking with a LiveCD/LiveUSB operating system, in a secure browser. If that's too much for you, keep an install of Firefox around with the NoScript plugin installed. Don't do online banking with IE, unless you're a retard. In fact, don't use IE at all unless you're a retard. It's the least secure browser out there. Always has been, always will be (there are plenty of exploits in the wild that can easily be run on webservers that cause your wonderful IE browser to add you to a botnet and/or install all other kinds of malware). Stay away from porn!

Here's my piece of advice: Avoid ATI like the plague. Nothing else matters. Your computer will run every game just fine, even if you only want to spend $1000 on it. JUST AVOID ATI. You will never get proper driver support. You can count on driver-related glitches, and even if the benchmarks look good, there will be problems that never show up in reviews (ESPECIALLY dealing with multiple displays!!). The moment your card falls a generation behind, driver updates that fix bugs specific to your card will stop being released. Did I mention you will never be able to use multiple displays? Fuck ATI. Stay away from ATI at all cost. Source: years of work in the IT field

Of course it did. Everything does. In fact, you are less likely to deal with driver installations and shitty 3rd party tools on Linux than Windows. I use Saitek P2900's. They're wireless, and have 6 face buttons. I must admit the D-pads are starting to go after 2 years of hardcore usage. I use them on a computer specifically dedicated to emulators. They were cheap, and get the job done.

Lego Indiana Jones. Why? It's the cheapest way to crack your Wii.

Anything before PS2 in my view. To me it's more about the types of games that were released on the consoles that make them retro. I consider Dreamcast retro because it had a lot of retro-style games. Dreamcast was the transition console... it had a lot of the old stuff, and some of the new stuff. PS2 is what I consider to be the first "new generation" console, but it's mostly because of the style of games that came out for it. With PS2, classic games were no longer profitable, and we started to get a lot of easy games with long tutorial levels and 30 minute movie intros before you were allowed to start playing the game. You started being rewarded for time investment rather than skill. I guess to me, if you can pop the games in and start playing within a few seconds it's "retro". And that is what I still prefer to this day... I don't have time to play a lot of these new games; I want to just sit down for a few minutes, play the game, and then turn it off when I get bored (and with games on mobile devices we're returning to this paradigm, but in a very castrated way).

My take on piracy: If I'm unemployed it's a great option. If I'm making a lot of money I don't mind paying for something. If I want to try something out without blowing money, piracy is a great option. If it's overpriced, piracy is a great option. To eliminate piracy, you only need 2 things: A customer base that is employed, and a price point that makes sense.

Honestly, I could show you a screenshot but it's nothing special. I use FreeBSD with Xfce and a few terminals open. I have a picture of a beach to remind me that winter will be over one day. Not too exciting. It's what's going on underneath that's exciting...

Everyone uses Windows

I love the Saturn. I had a lot of fun with Panzer Dragoon Saga, Panzer Dragoon 1 and 2, and of course Shining Force 3. I haven't gotten around to playing through Scenario 2 and 3 since they were fan-translated, but maybe one day. Problem is, my Saturn's battery died and I lost my savegame for Scenario 1, and I want to keep all the bonuses and shit that I got from that one in the other 2 scenarios. Radiant Silvergun was also pretty good. I read somewhere that one of Sega's US executives frowned upon 2D games and RPGs, because he believed they wouldn't sell. Maybe if that asshole hadn't interfered, the Saturn would have been a bigger success. If Final Fantasy 7 had come to Saturn instead of PSX, who knows what would have happened. Maybe Sega would still be alive and Sony never would have gotten started in the gaming industry. I still say FF7 was the tipping point in that generation.

I keep telling myself that as well. Though deep down I know it's probably never going to happen That new overhaul for Morrowind that was posted on Kotaku a few days ago looked pretty good, though. I might look into that. Got a link for that? I can't seem to find it.

Most people put security on the backburner, because it tends to get in the way of productivity... whenever I hear stuff like this I just shake my head. I didn't read the technical details of this, but my personal recommendation (for anyone who is setting up any type of user db) is to use OpenLDAP with salted SHA512 hashes. LDAP traffic should encrypted with SSL/TLS, even if the authentication is being done locally. People overlook OpenLDAP because it's a beast, but anyone who can handle Active Directory at a sysadmin level should be able to handle OpenLDAP (on that note you DO NOT want to have any type of web-facing interface to active directory due to the level of integration it has with Windows domains). OpenLDAP plays nice with other software, and you can adapt it to so many uses... the protocols are open and if you want to interface with it, you can read an RFC. Imagine that, following open standards that are time-proven. Why LDAP over traditional SQL databases? Directories and databases are for different purposes. Directories are more suited to user databases, because they don't include the unneeded complexities that go along with a full relational database. They also aren't vulnerable to SQL injections. Crypt sucks, and I can bruteforce it in about 4 seconds. Of course, nobody will ever listen to what I have to say, because people like me cost too much. Instead, the strategy is to hire run of the mill MCSEs, set up a shitty Windows-based infrastructure, and then throw your arms up when everything fails. Remember, the IT budget has some funds set aside for consultant fees, so when your IT department is too stupid to solve a problem you just call in the consultant to fix it. And that is why if you're in IT you should become a consultant .

I'm a huge Elder Scrolls fan. I tend to make a custom class (usually magic and stealth focussed), and I like Dark Elves and Nords. The single most powerful skill in TES games is Alchemy, so that is always at the top of my list. Alchemy gives you real ultimate power. In Morrowind it was just insane how powerful of potions you could create. Going into battle? Mix up some dreugh wax and ash yam, and if your skill is at 100 with the best alchemy supplies, you'll kill anything in one hit. If you fortify Intelligence when mixing up a potion it's even better... it's basically cheating. I've made potions that restore over 100 health for over 2000 seconds (and restore magicka, and everything else you can name). Another one of my favourite tricks is enchanting a cephalopod helm to fortify intelligence (or if you really want to be cheap, enchant a daedric shield (which you can steal from a summoned golden saint before it hits the ground)). In Oblivion the alchemy skill isn't quite as good, but I still find it powerful, especially with the ability to mix up poisons. Nothing like a poison that paralyzes and drains health. Minotaurs fall beneath your blade. I feel like Morrowind is the better game (we won't go into Daggerfall and Arena), but Oblivion is more pleasant to look at and less glitchy. I liked that in Morrowind there were more skills, and more quests in general. I'm really hoping Skyrim turns out well, and maybe makes the game a bit more hardcore than Oblivion was.

Who else loves the NES? I just recently got a new one to replace the one I abused horribly as a child, and started recollecting my old games. I love the NES because games were simpler back then, and you didn't have to invest 30 minutes in an intro sequence, and 2 hours in a tutorial level before you could actually play the game for real. What are your favourite NES games? Mine are: Super Mario Bros. 2j (the really fuckin' hard one that came out on FDS and called Lost Levels here) Both Zelda games Mega Man, Castlevania, Double Dragon series Dragon Quest(Warrior) Final Fantasy 3j (the other 2 just don't measure up to that one) ....and many others.

Hi, I am a n00b. What do you do to n00bs around here?