BlueLancer

SNES (Super Nintendo Entertainment System) is the coolest one I experienced, and no, the graphics don't really matter. Snes games have most often than not a great gameplay. Such as the classic games like Zelda: A link to the past and Chrono Trigger are really awesome pieces of work and the way they are designed is something you don't even see in todays games. At the moment PS2 and GC have the best games (at least IMO) and I own them both. They are really fun to play, but it doesn't compare to the feeling you'd get when playing a good Snes game the first time. And I don't agree that GameCube is a "kiddy" console. Yes it has some games directed towards the younger audience, just don't play them if you don't like them. GameCube has some very good titles like Resident Evil Zero and numerous other quality games.

As the other people said: If you don't first understand how the story flows, watch it again. It isn't being told like a "normal" movie but if you're not sleepy you'll easily understand it watching it the first time. I watched it in like 1997 but I also have it on DVD and I just watched it again recently. It rocks :)

I thought it could be disturbing to some people 8) (But I wouldn't mind being awarded one)

http://www.army.mil Don't you see anything disturbing about that medal, as in the design? Edit- Apparently the site was edited but it's a medal which is a reverse pentagram with some soldier's face

Well, my address on google maps is outdated by at least 2 years because it doesn't show the 2 new houses and car garages that were built some time ago near my house. :)

112 works in the uk too. You ever noticed how you can bypass a mobile phone lock by typing 112, 999 or 911. This is so that if theres an accident you can always get to emergency services even if you dont know the pin. Also 08 works on my phone but I don't know which countries use it (and 999 doesn't work on my Nokia phone but 112 and 911 do, for bypassing the lock)

I've got no experience about homeschool, so I don't really know what it's like. But I've got to agree with some people on this thread, most people become really stupid and moronic somewhere around age 12-14. And by that, I mean really stupid. I don't really regret having normal education, it was sometimes fun. But the number of morons far outweighed the number of cool people (maybe it's just my school then, which sucked). The thing I hate the most is kids who do drugs or alcohol because "it's a part of being a teenager". BS. It's because you're a stupid spoiled brat who can't think on his/her own, else you'd know what's good for you and what's bad. Having friends is not a value of it's own, the quality is everything that matters. 5 good friends you can depend on with your life are better than 50 people from the school who are unreliable and can't keep their promises. I've never had more than maybe 15-20 real friends at most, and a lot of other 'buddies' (but they pretty much just fill my SIM card memory and I see them very seldom or they're just linked through my other good friends). It depends on your personality, if you want to accept the fact that most kids will be idiots in high school, go for it. There's still a plenty of nice people though, and you should have fun playing sports at least. If you can't concentrate with all those brats shouting all the time even during class, go for homeschooling.

If I had the technology and knowledge to create a world which is inhabited, I wouldn't see the possible pleasure or usefulness (other than an ego-boost) to have my creations worship me multiple times a day. It'd get pretty boring and unoriginal. And don't tell me "God has his own ways", because if God is wise at all having lived for an infinite amount of time, I'm sure he doesn't need an ego-boost. Just make a huge 2km white statue made of an unbreakable material in the middle of a desert which displays you as a human, that'll make them believe. It will also zap anybody who tries creating pagan religions, so everybody will worship you and there wont be needless crusades and other religious wars claiming tens of millions of lives.

That's way too idealistic, you'll give up that thought when you grow older. There are so many morons that know pretty much nothing you'd consider "useful" or "wise" that you'd get desperate if you met them all. You probably didn't take in account that those people who "flame nobody and add always something new to the conversation" are a minority, probably less than 2% of the population. You'll never get a world where everything is like you described it (except by watching a movie) Most people just want to have a job and entertainment (i.e work 8 hours, go home and drink beer while watching TV, repeat), and later on, a family. Just like Caesar said over 2000 years ago, "The people need circus and bread". Most people will be never interested in real constructive discussion about the society, advance, philosophic matters, etc.

Well, it wasn't always like that. Just about 2 years ago this was a really awesome place to go to when you wanted to spend some time on the internet. Every time I woke up I'd find at least 1 page full of interesting threads including debates, good websites with good content, discussions, etc. It's just natural that the amount of topics has decreased because every time some new user posts a "unique" argument, somebody will be quick to point out that it has been already argued through at least 200 times (not to mention the 'which is better, pepsi or coke' "discussions"). So unless major things happen in the world or the internet (like "The pope has died"), there's pretty much nothing everybody can chip their opinion into AND make it interesting, because everything has been discussed already. Board games aren't definitely an answer, ask any "serious" forum user and they'll say they're lame and full of spam because that's what they are.

So far that's the worst coverup for watching porn I've seen so far. :lol:

Then I assume you don't want to know all the stuff that happens to some children all the time, every minute in the world. If any of you witnessed it I'm sure it would break you if you couldn't do anything about it (not that I'm putting you guys down, but really, the teacher shouting at you and failing an exam are very bad examples of "trouble" in a world where real problems exist) Though, last year I broke my arm, cut my other arm, broke my new DVD player, got into a big mess with the tax officers, heard my mother is in hospital and heard a tsunami killed hundreds of thousands of people. All in 1 day. Though, that's just a bad day, not something permanent (other than the deaths of course)

But how does the government get the money to pay for those wages if there's no foreign capital flowing in at all (or investing is discouraged by heavy taxes)? A government itself never has money; the money comes solely from taxation. But if the government in the first place has no money to build factories, shops, create jobs etc., it obviously has to take a big foreign loan (how are they going to tax people who have nothing?) When the loan takes place, it might take many forms, let's say government/treasury bonds. This means the government guarantees a 3 to 4% annual profit on the investment, if the investor decides to keep the money in that country for at least 5 years. That also destroys the whole meaning of the system where everybody will be equal; since other people will be investing in a country and get profit, other people will want to invest as well. Smarter people will then pool all of their familys money together and invest into foreign government bonds, while others do nothing at all. This again creates inequality (through wealth). It's nearly impossible for a government to expand without taking any loans, even the roman empire had government bonds (and that was a long, long time ago where my 'caveman' example almost applies). This in return means that yes, the government can use that money to create jobs, but there will always be some smart people who will pool money from everybody they know and then distribute the profit every year. Unless the taxation percent is outrageous (near to 100% of salary), the government will never have enough money to create good paying jobs to every citizen. Let's assume the average tax rate was 30%. Out of a $2000 salary, that means the government gets $600. If we assumed that in a country of 50 million people everybody earned that salary, the government would get $30 billion a month. That means, in return, the government now has $600 dollars per each citizen (not to mention other expenses they will have like restoration of buildings, hospitals, health care, medicine, social security, welfare) which is nowhere near enough to pay a salary good enough for the average person to live a good life on. Though, I can't defend capitalism in this case (because in the current system, most government jobs in USA have an absolutely crap salary, sometimes even as low as $900 a month for accountants but if there was less foreign capital flowing in to be taxed, they couldn't afford paying even that wage) That's a nice idea, but let's take a look back at USSR where they tried to implent that exact system (nobody unemployed): In a bookstore, there would be 1 person to direct the customer on which book to buy, one person to confirm the reciept for it, one person taking the book out of the bookshelf and giving it to the customer, and a fourth one, the cashier, taking the payment for it. That's simply a crap system and you must admit it, it causes huge losses to the company (in the USSR case, the government). Why employ 4 different people when 1 person could do it all and you'd save a whole lot of money? Sure it created everybody a job, but it also made the government go bankrupt very fast as it was very dependant on western loans and could never pay them back (since their employment system was totally ineffective). Exactly, in a capitalist system the holders of capital have no specific responsibility on spending it, that's why it's called "freedom". They are free to decide what to do with that money without the government interrupting their privacy.

You have a good idea at the core, but you keep repeating that the money comes from a "black box". A company operates by getting money from it's customers. So how does the company get customers? It hires staff, builds stores, and so on. But how do they get the money for that if they don't have enough capital? They list it in the stock exchange, and at the IPO multiple thousands of investors will be loaning their money to the company in hopes of getting a good return on investment (such as in the case of google, I'm still regretting I was over-skeptical about it but I made $7k off their IPO nonetheless with 70 of my shares springing up over 2x in value in just a day). When an investor loans money to a company, it creates a salary for somebody, the money is binded to the bricks of the building. If this company would've never been created, it would mean 3000 more unemployed people in the world. And what's the purpose of the company? The owner obviously created it to satisfy his dreams, which may or may not be material. And he hired staff to do work he doesn't have time to do himself/doesn't bother to do. Without capital flowing in a business, starting one is nearly impossible in big-scale. So why would anybody loan money to a business? Well, the company gives them dividends up to $2 a year per stock, and the harder the staff works, the better results the company gets and the more rewards the investors gets (his shares increase in value). In a world of logicical world where laws of logic apply (i.e Earth), it's impossible to have only linear, not exponential, returns on a "loan" (investment). Think caveman logic: You have 5000 fish. You want to build a mine where people will mine ores for you, and in return, they get to stay alive by eating fish. And with that ore, you trade it with other cavemen and get even more fish. But when you run out of fish by buying pickaxes and other supplies, how are you going to convince the other cavemen into loaning you more fish? You promise them that if they give you 5 fishes today, 1 month later you will give them 7 to 10 fishes depending on how good the ore business has been running. How do you generate these fishes to pay those people that lent you fish? You take the ore your "staff" mined you, trade it at a profit with other cavemen for fish, pay the debtors, and in the end, you just profited, let's say, 3 fishes per ore. You got them for free. While other cavemen used their fish for dinners, buying fancy stuff they didn't need, you generated a plan to get theoretically unlimited fish for life, and eventually you will have more fish than anybody in the village and thus you have power over all of them. When you need an annoying person killed, just tell a group of people "you'll all get golden medalions if you go and massacre these guys", and they'll do it. And you'll have no problem supplying those medalions since you have all the fish you'll ever need to buy it. You can't stop the fact that everything should grow exponentially. Let's say you doubled $1 for 12 years. Calculate that: It amounts to about $40,000 dollars. There's no way it could just grow by 1, 2 or 4 dollars. If it doubles and you have a plan to double it, it will. That's the cold truth. Most people will always play by the rules of greed, and even if you don't agree with their rules (I don't believe in greed), you need to play in the same league to keep up with them, or else they will hold enough power to influence society and it's way of living, even the government.

I don't really agree with that, as my living pretty much relies on investing. Yes, it's true that the more you invest, the greater the return will become. But why should it not be allowed? I used to invest in pretty standard companies, I (indirectly) created a few jobs to a few people. I don't see how that's bad. If you mean the fact that it's "sinful" to live on investing, I disagree with that too. I took risks nearly nobody would take with their money. Should I be punished for that? Many of my relatives thought I was doing bad choices early in my life, now it turns out my bank interest in 3 to 4 years will make more than they'll make in a decade (after deducting taxes living expenses etc.), I think that's a good lesson for them: Don't judge people for what they do, but why they do it. The truth is: You'll never be "free" from the endless cycle of living from paycheck to another unless you get to be one of the 5000 well-earning CEO's in America or you start doing something useful with your money, like investing. My dream was that I could improve myself physically and mentally, have fun, travel, be with my friends and sometime later, provide a good environment for a child. I've almost achieved it. But I wouldn't had, if I'd chosen the "normal" way of working for a few thousand a month, just "getting by".

Modern democracy is indeed a very new phenomenon in the world, as you said it's been around for only 100 years. Now let's think back in history... There is no such period where most people in the world would be able to choose their job, have equal rights and even a say in the running of the country. By the time the masses change their opinions about things, we'll be dead already. Have you thought of the possibility that it will be possible for you to live longer to see the future happen; medicine in the last 100 years has picked up from almost non existent to some really advanced work done on transplantation an synthesis of new body part's based on the person. I don't think living to at least 200 is far fetched. Yeah but by the time that happens we could be very old already, and it wouldn't be much fun living 100 years as an old man who can barely walk and watch all the kids who got a life of 200 years run in the fields and whatnot :P I strongly believe that cell aging can be slowed down or almost stopped, but the current generation wont be the one reaping the fruits of that medicine. It'll be the generation after us. (But then again, aging doesn't necessarily mean bad health. One of my uncles is 65 and he is probably just as healthy as me and he looks like he's about 45 yrs old)

How are poor families going to support their children getting educated if they can't afford it? Scandinavia already realized this (This would include Norway, Denmark, Finland and Sweden) and they have free schooling all the way from elementary school to college and university. These countries also have the least poverty and corruption of all countries in the world, least crime and most powerful social security network, I don't agree with you that education should be paid for at all in any society. A lack of education can often lead to the children making bad choices with their lives, and if they can't afford college, they'll be in trouble (yes there will be always some very smart kids who will find a way but I'm talking about the masses who need guidance)

Modern democracy is indeed a very new phenomenon in the world, as you said it's been around for only 100 years. Now let's think back in history... There is no such period where most people in the world would be able to choose their job, have equal rights and even a say in the running of the country. By the time the masses change their opinions about things, we'll be dead already. Sorry indyfan, but I have to agree with this. I too got an inheritance 4 years ago, and it's more than most people would save up in three decades. Does that mean I deserve the rights/priviledges that capital brings me in the capitalist system? I'm not against capitalism (or for that matter, obviously, accepting an inheritance), I'm just pointing out a huge flaw in the system since you are discussing it this way. And corporations make up for the huge gap between people living below the poverty line and those spending millions every month in the casino: The bigger corporations grow, the less possible it will become for new people that are born into the world to start their own succesful business. Those people will face a serious disappointment. In this case the "hard work will be rewarded" doesn't mean anything. How are you as a new entepreneur going to try to take a market share of something, when a rival company can easily spend $400 million on advertising and branding every month? Easy answer: You wont get there. Until something dramatic happens, the majority of the world's money will always stay with those companies and the familiesand executives that run them. You might want to try it; If you want to be succesful by financial means, todays world is a pretty bad place for you. By working for a company for 20 years, most people wont even make $1 million. Then there are those who get $5 million as a birthday present, do you get what I mean? If you don't take huge risks or start investing, a capitalistic system offers nothing lucrative to the common man who wants to build a good life for himself and his family. That's why I too gave up on "normal" jobs a long time ago and started full time stock day trading.

If I'm still alive after 100 years, somebody remind me that I'll pay them the equivalent of today's $5k if in the next 100 years there isn't a war or a global disaster which will kill billions of people. Be truthful, there's not too much to be optimistic about in the future. Yes, people will achieve their personal goals, blah.. So on. But the world itself will just become more ruined all the time until the stupid humans finally notice that thanks to their millions of industrialist factories with the "produce more for cheap" philosophy that pump toxics into the atmosphere, that 1 in 6 people will be already developing skin cancer and probably dying off it. ...Not that it's anything new though, read history and you'll see. People are always in a self saturated mindset that says "nah, nothing bad will happen... They all lie..." And they only learn when a nuclear catastrophe, disease or a war kills one third of the entire population of Earth. Look at WW1, WW2, the European plague disease before that, etc... Just because you "think" nothing will happen, it doesn't mean nothing will indeed happen. This sums up my story: It's taking place already with thousands of morons around the world in top administrative positions, and some people say they're even doing a good job (I'm not specifically talking about Bush so don't flame me on that). On a general scale I'm talking about all the corrupt politicians in the world that are just pathetic leeches that keep building their palaces and grinning on the media, while their people are dying of poorness, famine and easily preventable diseases.

That's as pointless as the green army suits the american army uses in Iraq. (Hint hint Rumsfeld, there aren't many trees or grass on the Iraqi soil/battlefield for the soldiers to blend with... Smart)

God is dead. -Nietzche, 1883 Nietzche is dead. -God, 1900 I can't remember which movie that was in, but.. All I can say is that the g-man just owned him.

I usually spend all of the summer in Malaga, and I can't really say that's true. A huge majority of the spanish people are quite tanned, kind of like some models you see in a vacation ad. Their skin isn't really dark, but it's more tanned than the average person's (so you could easily distinguish a spanish person from an average american). But then again it's possible that you visited nothern Spain where the population is more light-skinned. :)

If those adults don't know what's good for them and don't "want" to change, that's their problem. Even when I'm 70 I will most likely be interested in the newest technology and learning how it works, I'm not going to change my attitude to a cocky old man who defends his lack of knowledge by "I'm old, therefore you should respect me and shut up". I'd rather prefer being an old man who can use age as an advantage of adding weight to your words, and verbally beat people who offend or question you with your extensive knowledge so that there's no way they can reply intelligently. Just because you're 25 and you worked for 10 years and experienced some things, that either doesn't mean you are necessarily mentally more mature than a 15 year old (who could have a lot of experience with children, working, stress, handling the death of a close relative, handling money and social relationships, etc., as opposed to the typical 15 year old who doesn't know pretty much anything except maybe some "written knowledge") By my earlier example I meant that you don't automatically get granted an upper level of knowledge and life experience just because you're 30, 35, 50, etc. It builds itself after you build up values in your life that don't offend anybody, you learn to respect yourself and others, and you learn to take responsibility. I know a few people 30+ years old, they act like little teenage girls even though they have a job and more life experience than a 10 year old. That doesn't necessarily mean that the kid age 10 couldn't be more mature, he/she just would be lacking the information about certain subjecst that people age 30+ would discuss. I would never respect a person solely based on his/her age, well, at least if he or she is under 90 years old (some 90+ don't even remember the events of what they did yesterday and it would be stupid arguing with them). I could respect a kid as much as I respect an adult if I see he has a healthy attitude, the essence and developed personality of a person determines how mature he is, not how much formal education, work experience etc. he has. Those are affecting the outcome of the person but they're not the most important ones. I agree with you and that quote, it's pretty true (sadly).

Gameplay screenshot or just an art drawing? If it's from a game, doesn't look bad at all. :) And yes, it would be useful if you posted the name of that game, from your post it can be only assumed that it's a game which appeals to DBZ/FF fans.

Depends on the definition of teenage: 1. Going through puberty and having hormone unbalance like all teenagers 2. The ages between 13-19 IMO, you stop being a teenager and you're an adult (even though maybe not physically, but yes there are exceptions to that too) when you grow up mentally, i.e you start thinking realistically about life, your goals, your money situation, possible job, family, and you start respecting other people and having independent opinions. By that definition it has nothing to do with age. I know that my theory could be right because I know many 13-15 year olds who are more mature mentally and have more respect than some 30+ year olds I've met. Then there are those who are 16 and act like 3 year olds, literally. Teenagers are usually very vulnerable and they absorb other people's opinions. When you grow up you can listen to other people's opinions about something but still make your own decisions. If you can do this, good job. You belong to a (probably) minority percentage. A lot of teenagers don't care about anything, act tough, get drunk every week, get into trouble with the police, and they think this all is "cool". It's only cool in their little pathetic world which has no logical structure but to act like jerks. Fortunately most people do grow up from this phase, and hey, not all teenagers act like jerks. :) There are some really nice ones too, if you talked to them online you wouldn't know if they were 12 or 20.