Semjaza

If anything, working with Jay-Z was the best thing they could possibly do because Jay-Z freaking rocks. Anyone that "lost respect" for them when they did an album of that sort is really just a moron. Reasonable Doubt and The Black Album render everything by Linkin Park as strictly amateur. "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" alone is better composed and realized than any Linkin Park song I can think of. Obviously this is my opinion, but I don't know how anyone can feel less for this band by teaming up with the guy. As for this whole "they're not a combination" or they "have no aspects of REAL hip hop"... Come on. It's an obvious influence and affects things. As soon as you plop in hip hop styled sampling and turntables and any sort of rap or syncopation that's reminiscent of hip hop, it's an influence and thus an attempt at some sort of combination. Whether or not you want to just realize it and admit it is irrelevant; just because they don't sound just like Mf Doom with a guitar doesn't mean much for this. There's a hell of a lot of bands that do this stuff better and have been doing it longer, either way. In addition, why people listen to a group that obviously is influenced by hip hop and its syncopation and then complaining about when they rap is just outside my realm of thought. Why even like this band in that case? Bennington's horrid yelps are sure as hell not enough to balance things out. If that's all you really care for, there's enough groups out there that just do the rock/alternative side of their sound... and many of them do it so much better. I obviously dislike Linkin Park, so anything beyond that is not worth saying.

I think there's really only so much that can be accomplished in a general development timeframe. If developers had to add every last thing everyone could think of, no game would ever be finished. With something like Halo 2, it probably wasn't much of a consideration for the original and they just noticed players were requesting it. Stuff like that happens a lot with titles and I don't think it's a conscious effort to be like "Leave this out so people buy the next one!!" It's not smart even from a sales perspective.

A lot of that is because of how the article is written to begin with. It gives absolutely no idea when the mayor said that or what he used it as a response for. If there was some group of mixed up hispanic people in front of him and he just blurted this out, I'd not be questioning this and I'd agree with you. However, since this article doesn't really explain it or give a date or anything of reference, it's hard to even say anything like that. If he said this at any other time, I would feel as though he was just voicing a concern over illegal immigrant workers working for nothing and taking jobs that locals would need to survive, many of which probably would be from Mexico because it's the closest country by far. I don't think he'd be referring to anyone of Hispanic descent. The timing of that is insanely important and while I agree with the general idea of the article and how sad it is, I think the mayor quote, in particular, is being somewhat skewed to help the agenda it holds. New Orleans is obviously historically racist as can be (hell, look at those policemen who wouldn't allow blacks into their suburbs during the flooding) and the majority of this article certainly supports that. I feel like you would have been better off quoting most of that by comparison. So who knows. Without a proper timeframe and idea of what the mayor meant, I guess everyone kind of just has to be like "what exactly does that mean?"... and based on your own experiences, you're just going to take it one way or the other. Maybe there's some history of this guy being racist, but I have no idea and you'd think the article would mention it.

Man, too many people who are annoyed by strictly internet occurances. The internet is stupid in general, so take it in stride, I guess. I, for one, can't stand cell phones... particularly rude usage of them. Actually, I can't stand rude people in general. I might not be the nicest person on the internet, but in person I'm rather polite. I don't think it's that hard to accomplish.

This is also an issue because for awhile the federal government had undone rules to require minimum wages and other such "basic" things in that area. A lot of it geared to get outside contractors money instead of the ones that were localized in the area and needed the money the most. It pretty much right out calls in illegal immigrants. I'm pretty sure they've undone that oversight by now, but I'm not positive that they have. If there was some other country right below them they would have said that group instead. There are many issues with illegal immigrants doing labor down there for next to nothing, obviously replacing citizens here they'd have to record and pay normal wages to. It's not good for anyone except some of the companies that hire them (Walmart itself has been getting into **** over similar situations with illegal immigrants, so it goes everywhere). It's a very legitimate concern for a city that has to be rebuilt that heavily in the south. The mayor's comment doesn't hold any real racist connotations unless you make it so yourself. Just because you read it as "I don't want any dirty Mexicans touching my land!!!" doesn't mean it was voiced as such and, in his case, I really don't think it was whatsoever. I can't speak for some random person people supposedly saw on television, however, but it's not like the guy is any power over the city.

[quote name='Bombu][color=darkred']Cool. I might do that then. As for the wi-fi, I guess I'll worry about that when the time comes. Probably get the proper UK version to go online, but hey it might still work. You never know.[/color][/quote] It's really entirely possible an imported version will work on the internet there... But my main thought is that it probably won't be able to go online until the official UK release date. I guess you'll find out if you import though, lol.

PAL and NTSC are television terms. The DS doesn't use a television, it uses its own format. There's no difference between titles from US, Japan or Europe in that sense... they all output the same image type. The DS itself doesn't have any additional region coding, unlike DVDs or whatever. So yeah, it will work. I could buy a DS game in Africa and it would work in the US. It doesn't matter. Again, I have no idea about the actual internet connection and if Nintendo will have a European connection for that specific title at the time... but the game itself will work.

The DS is region-free. Basically all hand-helds are... with the PSP being the only one I know of where region coding was considered and eventually decided against. Whether or not the wi-fi networks in Europe will be enabled to run the title is another story, but considering Nintendo's goal of making this world-wide, I imagine it would work. Why anyone would really care when and what the holidays are, I have no idea. It makes more sense this way because it avoids culture, location and denominational differences.

I don't know why anyone would care. You can't something as inevitable as the end of the world to begin with. Do what you always do and hope you don't have some horrible regret when some bomb melts the skin off our bones. Religious figures such as the one you're speaking of are all about sensationalizing (note, I didn't say ALL, because there are obviously good ones as well). If this man was alive 400 years ago he'd be saying the same crap because it gets peoples' attention and instills a pointless sense of fear. It's all tactics to scare off non-believers and bring in new ones.

Making something a JPG does not give it jaggy lines... I'm not really sure how that idea started here or why it continues to persist. If he made this a GIF or a PNG it would look exactly the same (although with some diffusion or whatever, obviously). It depends on what he did in the program and, really, some curves are never going to be completely smooth if they're of a certain size where the pixels are viewable. The only thing, in this case, that compression as a JPG has done is the addition of small artifacts around color changes. You can see some around the black lines where it meets the green, but it doesn't really affect the black lines themselves. Personally, I like both of them. I think the butterfly would be a bit more successful if as much attention was given the leaves behind him, but I figure that was a conscious decision to give it more focus. The second one is just cool. I like how all the shapes come together.

I think if you can't make out Sara's you need a better monitor. Perhaps the colors don't contrast enough, but they're certainly clear lol. Either way, they probably show up differently between Macs and PCs anyway... so that may explain it. I don't expect anyone to know what this is in reference to and I don't really feel like explaining it. If you've seen it or the original, then you know what it's about. Essentially I took the original, non-animated, smily sax guy and made him sad and crying. It's the only one I ever made. [IMG]http://www.otakuboards.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=24719&stc=1[/IMG]

I don't know that I agree with them starting a "pop punk" revolution. There were more important bands before and around them to that whole movement, really. Their first few albums (Shut Your Mouth and Open Your Eyes through Answer That and Stay Fashionable) really aren't even "pop" enough to fit into that idea for most people, I would think. That's my opinion, anyway. Davey's vocals worked on the first couple of albums because the music was fast and it gave him that almost snotty, complainy voice a lot of punk singers seem to try to be going after. They sure as hell weren't amazing, but they fit the music. The band really didn't do much in really any way... they were decent, but not mindblowing or really all that influential. They were one of dozens of punk revivalists and they just happened to stick around longer than some. Nowadays the band seems to just be capitalizing on the slower, Black Sails Into the Sunset sound. This continued to really evolved to the current albums, where I don't think they're really all that reminiscent of what they once were. It's probably most obvious on Sing the Sorrow because that's basically where the transition was completed. At this point, however, I feel the band lost a lot of its drive... it's probably the most commercially accepted album (sales and reviews), but I feel like it never just breaks out at any point. Personally, I don't care for this slower (for lack of a better word) stuff from them. The band itself holds up, but Davey's insanely nasaly voice does nothing for me with songs of this type. He has range: high nasal or not-so-high-nasal lol. If anything, it just becomes obnoxious. I used to be a fan (again, like their first few albums), but I no longer really care for a variety of reasons.

[QUOTE=SunfallE][COLOR=DarkOliveGreen]I would be greatly surprised to see them actually be more thorough with the testing. I understand it just gets too expensive after a while. Though with the PS2 they did actually offer to replace the first ones released that were getting disk read errors. I remember it as I got one of the very first one?s made and a year later it started giving me a disk read error message all the time. It was kind of annoying, but Sony did replace it for free and so far the replacement has worked fine. ^_^[/COLOR][/QUOTE] They only bothered because they were sued and it was part of their agreement afterwards. Sony sure as hell didn't want to help anyone out. If anything, I think both companies should increase the warranty time to a year... like Nintendo has had for as long as I can remember. Personally, I've not had any problems with any of the three systems and I've had them for quite some time.

Really, flimsily explained genetic monsters is just as lame as monsters straight out of Hell as far as the basic premise of Doom goes. I don't see what the difference would be. The first person segment near the end sounds pretty badass, though. That's all I'd like to see. [quote name='Lafleur][COLOR=DarkRed']BTW, Hell's Fire. There is a Halo movie coming out, but don't get your hopes up, it's being directed by the same guy who directed House of the Dead. And ya, a Half-Life movie would be sweet beyond measure! Wonder who'd play Gordon... [/COLOR][/quote] No director has been announced whatsoever. I don't know where you read that. Aside from the screenplay writer and the producers (one of which is Peter Jackson), nothing has been brought up.

No problem. Take your time :) I'll let you know when I actually get them up on the site. I greatly appreciate your help.

As for this dinosaur crap: if these things lived in those days, they'd be at the top of the earth compared to where we've been finding dinosaurs. They'd be dated correctly at only like, what, a few thousand years old? So why has this never happened? If someone needs more obvious proof of how ridiculous this argument is on a basic level, man, I don't know lol.

Considering how relatively modern the theory of evolution is, I really don't understand what people are expecting here. People who challenge evolution seem to want to see a monkey plop out a human being. It doesn't work that way by simple definition. We don't have the luxury of 15,000 years of modern human thought to back up these things, which is why it's a "theory". That doesn't mean someone just pulled it out their ***. People need to understand what that definition entails before they even begin to fight this. When we have actual, physical proof of evolution in our general lifetimes right now, it's obvious it exists. In a very short amount of time certain groups of elephants have been evolving past the need for tusks to outsurvive poaching, bugs and viruses have adapted constantly to outer changes, birds have wound up with radically different beaks thanks to food source changes. Adaptation is the same as evolution in these cases, plain and simple. The scale being smaller does not disprove it. It's not something that just happens wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am, a lizard laid a bird egg; if someone is expecting there to be some revelation to that degree, they're going to continue to be disappointed (or happy, as the case of naysayers may be). Considering how radical some of the "small" changes are that have happened in our very lifetimes, I don't know what there is to deny. As I've said, the idea of evolution (Darwin's or otherwise) is insanely young. If we take this idea and the examples that have happened in just the past [I]five decades[/I] and apply it to the scientifically proven dates of worldwide existance, how in the world is this stuff unbelievable in any sense? Some of these small trait changes are big enough to bring up scientific debates. For example, with the bird and beak thing, should they be considered a new species given this change or not? Some would say yes, some would say no. However, the change is obvious and it has led to a noticable change in the birds' behavior. If this continued over the course of [i]centuries[/i], with climate and food changes, migrations, etc... you're telling me there's no way, at all, that these creatures would eventually look so insanely different and act in such an insanely different way that they'd barely even be related anymore? I can't possibly agree with that. It seems obvious to me that schools don't teach this whole concept as well as they should be. Considering how confused so many people I've come across (here and elsewhere) are about its basic foundations, I have to wonder what there is to fight against to begin with. Most people who ***** about it have no idea what they're talking about in the first place. Groups want "intelligent design" pushed are largely religious for a reason: it is not science. Whose design? Whose purpose? It directly refers to some sort of greater being and thus is simply outside the realm of science. It's religion under another coat, slightly politically corrected in order to not refer to any specific denomination. People can believe what they want to believe, but science itself is always destined to be the antithesis of religion. They mix to some degree, but at some point they have to kill eachother off to survive. That, or compromise... but considering the obvious lack of proof for religious based decisions aside from old books and faith, the only one that ever has to compromise is religion. The things religious people believe today have been shaped more by science than they want to admit. The arguments against evolution now are not the same arguments that existed 100 years ago. As soon as something disproves a Biblical story in the past, more progressive people have attempted to shape the stories around it in order to further its existance. People wouldn't even be considering the idea of adaptation within species being viable as is being brought up in here. It's either "I think evolution happens" or "I do not think evolution happens". Anything inbetween is a change of religious thought and thus a change of the doctrines. They're either right or they're not. To me it seems very odd to think that way at all and then turn around and simultaneously consider these old tomes and beliefs infallible.

If people honestly think something like a political thread that, when it comes down to the wire, can largely be backed up or disproven by indisputable facts is comparable to a religion thread that's absolutely and entirely based on faith-based approaches, I really do not understand their thought processes. Context is important here. Yes, similar arguments can be leveled at any thread, but the reason behind them is quite different. I'm not saying that I agree or disagree with these types of topics being dealt with more harshly, but I don't think that counter-argument floats whatsoever.

Looks great to me. Anything of quality such as this is worthwhile in my opinion. If you'd like to put up some more, that'd be wonderful. I don't really care if they say the name of the site on it or anything, so don't worry about stuffing that in if it doesn't work out. Thanks for the effort, I really appreciate it. :)

Yeah, the cheap one is pretty much everywhere. I've seen it at Best Buy and Circuit City for under 100 bucks with a wireless mouse. Seems worthwhile if you just want to see how those things work, but I don't know that I'd do any real work with them myself. Someday I hope to get one of the higher end models (contrary to popular belief, I do draw).

Hi to everyone who comes into this section. I don't use it very much lol. In any case, I have a small fansite going that deals with MegaTen related video games such as Shin Megami Tensei, Digital Devil Saga and Persona. I have a wallpaper section for each of them, but the SMT and DDS sections are very lacking and currently only have official wallpapers. I was wondering if anyone would be interested in helping me out. All credit would be given to the creator on the website. In terms of size, I want it to be 1280x1024 in resolution. Again, for the PS2 games Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne and Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga (1 or 2). If anyone is interested, please let me know. Ask questions or whatever. There's related art all over the internet, but if you cannot find anything let me know and I'll put some up here as well. Thanks :)

Do you mean Futurism the art movement or the general idea of futuristic things? Or does it not matter? I just want to clarify lol.

[QUOTE=Dagger]Oh! My bad; I assumed you guys were going to use the [url=http://www.otakuboards.com/showthread.php?t=49424][u]old thread[/u][/url], heh, so I figured you would post whenever you were ready (I still need to update the dates, but I think everything else should hold). Sorry about that. EDIT: So basically, feel free to start whenever, as the thread's already there. I'll edit the title and stuff once someone's replied to it. ~Dagger~[/QUOTE] Oh, I was under the impression that we'd get a new category since essentially we have had like three weeks at least to do it lol. Guess not. What is our due date then?

[QUOTE=Dagger]By "shortly afterward" I meant "before I go to bed tonight." So no worries. EDIT: I'm ending voting for the second batch of Round 1 matches tonight. So get your votes in! Additionally, I'm hoping to re-schedule AzureWolf's match against Generic NPC #3 sometime soon. An updated bracket will be created once the Round 1 results have been fully gathered. ~Dagger~[/QUOTE] I PMed you about this about a week ago, I think and I've not heard anything back. Originally this week was fine for Azure and I, but that didn't work out I guess. I suppose starting us up at any time is fine by me... but if you could possibly PM me about it, that would be wonderful.

Even when people do post in those threads a vast majority are comparing the two based on a single song they heard on the radio a few times. Not much of value ever comes out of it. I'd think a battle of the singles or something would be more appropriate considering lol.