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Messages - Thought

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2776
General Discussion / Re: 'Gundam Defends Japan'
« on: October 30, 2007, 10:37:19 am »
You know, I am almost positive I have seen that picture before on a joke website, somewhere around 4 years ago. So... yeah, I'm a bit suspicious that this is a hoax. Though I'm a polyglot, Japanese isn't one of the languages I can read (or speak) so I couldn't say if the PDF it links to is even relevant (or if that is actually a Japanese government website). Can anyone actually confirm if the linked PDF addresses "mobile suits"?

But... well I guess the biggest hint that this is a hoax is the fact that Japan IS allowed a human army. The Japanese Military participated for a while in Iraq, for example, and the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force (their army) is their largest military branch. Thus, with a human army, the stated need for a gundam is bunk.

I certainly don't doubt that some governments would be interested in the technology, but that technology is also incredibly difficult to implement. Perhaps I am just not aware of it, but to my understanding no one has been able to make a bipedal robot that can walk on a flat surface at a respectable speed, much less over variable terrain. Seems like the Japanese government would start on a smaller scale if this were real.

Of course, General Electric tried to work on something like this back in 1965. The Hardiman Project was largely a failure, however.

2777
Porre's flag depicts a simple winged lion, although with a snake instead of a tail.

Wouldn't call that simple, but as I can't remember from the game, is it specifically stated somewhere that the tail is a snake?

You are correct, a Griffin has an eagle head. However, winged lions aren't without real world president. Indeed, there are quite a few present from different areas from the fact, that as you noted, the Winged Lion was a symbol for Mark (and, in turn, the Gospel of Mark). It wasn't just present in Venice, the winged lion can be found on the coat of arms for Lostallo, Switzerland and Province of Grosseto, Italy, to name two. The winged lion motif can be found throughout Europe since Christianity was rather big there for a while. I would suspect that you'd be more likely to find that symbol in every Cathedral in the continent rather than not.

As for if the flag is a Chimera, well the word Chimera can have several meanings. On one hand, any "animal" that is comprised of numerous different animals can be said to be a Chimera (indeed, there is also a human genetic disease that is named after the Chimera in which a single person is essentially their own twin). In that sense, it is used as a classification. Thus, a Griffin could be called a Chimera. In the other sense of the word, it refers to a specific combination that of a Lion, a Goat, and a Snake/Dragon. Of course, in Homer's description it might only have one head (that of a lion), with a body of a goat, and a tail of a snake (ah, but it isn't stated that the snakes head in on the tail, indeed it is just implied that the tail would be a snake's tail). Hesiod, however, does describe the creature as having three heads.

Thus, the creature on the flag could be a chimera, but from its appearance is not definitively so. The Compendium's encyclopedia claims it is definitively a chimera, but I didn't find supporting evidence of this.

If we are going from first impressions, that certainly does not look like a lion's head to me. It is lacking a mane. Indeed, it reminds me very strongly of a head from the old Bernstein Bear story books.

Regardless, unless official literature states one way or the other, it appears to just be a chimerical creature of no specific origin. Mind, it is no less dramatic to suppose the creators removed its main, goat-head, and dragon head than to suppose that the creator removed the Christian symbology.

Your description of Venice as a former world power could also be used to describe almost any area. Take England. It used to have a powerful army and navy and its possessions included several territories and islands, not just the main land mass, kind of like Porre. Britain also has the symbol of a lion. America still has a powerful army and navy (though not as powerful as it used to be), has several territories and islands, kind of like Porre. The same can be said of Spain, Italy, France, Greece, etc. The criteria you are using is that is must have or have had a powerful army and navy, that is must have had numerous territories under its possession at one time, and that one of those territories must have been an archipelago. The Virgin Islands, the Canary Islands, the Federate States of Micronesia, and numerous islands in the Mediterranean could all qualify as this.

It isn't that Porre couldn't be an allusion to Venice, but that your evidence is largely coincidental and could equally apply to many other nations with the same degree of validity.

Perhaps a better question to ask might be, would Masato Kato have known about Venice' history and would he have needed to use that as a source reference to create Porre?

2778
General Discussion / Re: The Chrono Compendium - <you fill the slogan>
« on: October 28, 2007, 11:55:26 pm »
For any H. P. Lovecraft fans out there...

Chrono Compendium: Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Lavos R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.

2779
General Discussion / Re: Southern California Fires
« on: October 27, 2007, 02:30:04 pm »
Meh, living in the Bay Area is punishment enough; adding very many natural disasters on top of it would just be sadistic of any divine being.

2780
Welcome / Birthday / Seeya! Forum / Re: Good afternoon.
« on: October 25, 2007, 06:38:46 pm »
I occasionally slip into olden manners of script, due to my undying love for classical literature - which is, of course, written in such a manner.  Please keep that in mind... ^-^;

Oh, that is simply splendid. Remember, however, thee before thou except after thine. And you can always replace a "v" with an "f," add random vowels wherever they look pretty, and use "doth" alot and you'll bespeaking olde English in no time (that's Frog's secret, really).

Anywho, Hail and Well Met good sir, please be welcomed into this humble forum (means "hi")

2781
General Discussion / Re: Quote Digest
« on: October 25, 2007, 03:20:47 pm »
I'm slightly surprised by the lack of Dr. Whoe quotes, so...

Quote
The Doctor: You were supposed to be dying.
Face of Boe: There are better things to do today. Dying can wait.

Quote
The Doctor: You want weapons? We're in a library! Books, best weapons in the world. This room is the greatest arsenal we could have. Arm yourself.

Quote
Reinette: One may tolerate a world of demons for the sake of an angel.

Quote
The Doctor: You lot. You spend all your time thinking about dying, like you're going to get killed by eggs, or beef, or global warming, or asteroids. But you never take time to imagine the impossible: that maybe you survive.

Quote
Charles Dickens: What the Shakespeare is going on here?

Quote
The Doctor: The thing is, Adam, time travel is like visiting Paris. You can't just read the guidebook, you've got to throw yourself in. Eat the food, use the wrong verbs, get charged double and end up kissing complete strangers... or is that just me?

Quote
The Doctor: Go! Now! Don't drop the banana!
Jack: Why not?!
The Doctor: Good source of potassium!

Quote
Jack: Last time I was sentenced to death, I ordered four hyper-vodkas for my breakfast. All a bit of a blur after that. Woke up in bed with both my executioners. Lovely couple. They stayed in touch. Can't say that about most executioners.

Quote
Rose: It was a better life. And I don't mean all the travelling, seeing aliens and spaceships and things, that don't matter. The Doctor showed me a better way of living your life. You know, he showed you too. You don't just give up. You don't just let things happen. You make a stand. You say no! You have the guts to do what's right when everyone else just runs away!

2782
Actually, it would probably be perfectly fine if they didn't gather all (or even most) of the original team for a Chrono remake or sequel. Consider Star Wars Episodes I, II, and IV. Consider Matrix Reload and Revolutions. The original motivating influence doesn't guarentee sucess.

Of course, there is a risk in a changing of the guard. Look at Batman Forever... but then there is Batman Begins. The Metroid series took a big risk in switching to a 3rd shooter, but it worked. There is splendid talent out there and there is no reason that a new team wouldn't be able to make a game that is as good (or better) than the originals, as long as they do their homework (as it were) and actually understand what made the games so great.

2783
General Discussion / Re: Southern California Fires
« on: October 25, 2007, 11:51:45 am »
The problem with that, V, is that this is in California. They might be able to rig toilets to explode, but these are low-flow toilets (California being almost perpetually in some sort of drought). As such, it wouldn't do much.

2784
General Discussion / Re: Southern California Fires
« on: October 24, 2007, 03:10:17 pm »
That and over a million people have been evacuated. To compare, 1.3 million people evacuated the New Orleans metropolitan area for Hurricane Katrina.

2785
General Discussion / Re: RIP Oink
« on: October 24, 2007, 02:57:05 pm »
You have very little to worry about as logistics are on your side. Just think of how many users participated in the site itself over the time it was active. The time it would take to track down even a fraction of them is immense. If the organization that is tracking them down is in a different nation, you are even more secure (you are physically outside their jurisdiction). However, if they do try to get you (and if "They" are the RIAA) then you might be able to join the class action lawsuit against them.

Of course, pirating music has seen a bit of a lull due to more legal alternatives. Services like iTunes allow people to download music at a lower price, giving the consumer the opportunity to posses more individual instances of higher quality products for less (one of the big complaints about CDs is that a good number of albums only had one or two songs, but consumers were forced to pay for the rubbish along with it). If the music industry would get on the ball, cut their overhead, and offer more music online for even less, that would drive music pirating almost out of "business." The RIAA won’t prevent pirating, but they can make it inconvenient. If the price of purchasing music from iTunes is low enough, and the inconvenience of pirating it is high enough, only the "rich" will pirate.

Note, anti-pirating software and the sort might turn a few people to pirating, but it also turns people away from the product all together. When the anti-pirating software becomes bad enough, it will actually be unprofitable for companies to use it.

Kyronea, I am quite amused that you are comparing people who illegally download software/music to Islamic extremists.

2786
Given that the dream species seemingly can teleport from the capital of Zeal to the Ocean Palace and then directly into the Red Knife (unless Masa and Mune can exist both in the knife and in corporeal bodies at once), there doesn't seem to be any reason not to assume that Doreen could have just teleported near Serge when needed. It is a little Deus Ex Machina, but the ability is established.

On the other hand, after the Ocean Palace incident the pendant is described as almost protecting the team, which does indicate that it has at least a little power of sentience (hence, Doreen).

But I doubt Doreen is also part of the Mammon Machine for the simple reason that she is Melchior's dream. Masa & Mune were imbued in the knife seemingly with the intent of stopping the machine; it is a good deal closer to this intent to suppose that Doreen was imbued in the pendant in order to control the machine, rather than to suppose that she was used in the machine with the intent of exploiting Lavos (of course, the machine might have been created before Melchior was leery of Lavos' power).

As for if the Einlanzer is sentient, I would like to say "yes" for symmetry purposes, but I don't recall a single indication that it thought for itself. As Masa and Mune were created as a result of Lavos' power, and Lavos was absent in the Dragonian world, probably there is no comparitive entities there to have been imbued.

2787
General Discussion / Re: 'Japanese anime destroying American society'
« on: October 23, 2007, 03:18:21 pm »
What about Voltron?! Sure, it was altered for American audiences much like a veterinarian alters a non-breeding dog, but it was Anime what was part of American culture LONG before Pokemon was around. This guy should have at least tried a little research first.

Besides, though one can easily find faults in Pokemon, its "moral fiber" really isn't much of an issue. Every episode was (is?) overflowing with themes of good sportsmanship. If it was a choice between having children watch Pokemon or watch Barney/Teletubbies/whatever, I'd probably choose pokemon (hopefully I just won’t have to make such a choice).

But to play devil's advocate (as to why Western cartoons/comics have merit, not as to why Japanese cartoons are supposedly trash), American Cartoons have quite a bit of merit on their own and certainly should not be ignored. Pirates of Dark Water, Batman the Animated Series, Futerama, Gargoyles, X-Men, Red Planet (a miniseries), The Tick, King of the Hill, Justice League (and Justice League Unlimited) and if I can include Canada, reBoot are all wonderful examples of western cartoons. Each had splendid animation (for their respective time periods) and compelling plots. The list only gets longer the more generous we are with what we classify as compelling plots (Dextor's Lab, Animaniacs, Tinytoons, and Pinky and the Brain could all be added) There are plenty of poor cartoons, to be sure; Chuck Norris: Karate Kammandos comes to mind, but to classify American animation as in decline is rather curious given its artistic successes.

As for comics, there seem to be two reasons for the American decline. 1) Publishers drove fans away with poor writing and marketing, leaving only the diehard fans. 2) American comic talent also has other outlets nowadays.

Consider modern comics like Ultimate Iron Man (and the Ultimate universe in general) or Truth, Justin, and the American Way. These are top-quality comics with fantastic art and intriguing stories; it is no fault of the product that their fan base is less than the fan base of manga.

As for the new outlets, we shouldn't forget web-comics! PvP, Penny-Arcade, 8-Bit Theatre, Kidd Radd, Mac Hall/Three Panel Soul, It's Walky/Shortpacked (well, there are really 4 series there), and countless more have defined a new industry that shows potential for outdoing printed comics. Penny Arcade is so famous that the video game industry courts them like investors. The creator of 8-Bit has been able to use the fan base he created with his comic to launch his own novel and printed comic series. When the guy over at Goblin Comics asks for a few hundred dollars in donations, he gets a few thousand just because people love his work.

No, American cartoons and comics (and culture in general) are doing rather well. We are proficient and more than capable of telling mature stories.

2788
Magic, Elements, and Technology / Re: "Luminair"
« on: October 22, 2007, 11:48:38 am »
His element IS HEAVEN.  I wouldn't call Life being "Lightning".

I, however, would call "Life" a "Lightning" spell. I would propose that you need to become more familiar with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Of course, that book doesn't prove that Life is the result of a lightning spell, just that the cultural precursor is present. Add to that the fact that muscles respond to electricity, as does the human brain, lightning/electricity then seems to be a rather nice explanation. Marle, a water user, would then produce a different Life effect (note, she doesn't use the exact same spell; she uses "Life 2").

But why oh why did they name Luminaire "Shining"?! Now every time Crono casts that spell I'll hear Danny Lloyd saying "Redrum, redrum."

2789
Time, Space, and Dimensions / Re: Guardia Royal Line Paradox
« on: October 22, 2007, 01:19:03 am »
Hello.

Actually, Time Error seems to be the perfect explanation as to why the Guardia Royal line doesn't vanish once Ayla leaves her own time period.

Time Error, as I understand it, is that the specific instance a gate will open up into is its original period + the time error. Or, in other words, if the gates original period is Noon, June 1st, 1000 AD and the Time Error is 3 days, (the amount of time that Crono, Lucca, and Marle were gone on their first trip), then the gate would open onto June 4th, 1000 AD, at noon.

Let us then apply that general concept to Time Travelers themselves. Any event that occurs in a time traveler’s life after they have first traveled is the period of their original departure + their own personal “time error.” Let us call the product of this equation a “Time Index.” Specifically, it is the Time Traveler’s Time Index. An event in that traveler’s life might also have its own Time Index that would match the traveler’s index when the action occurs.

Let us say that Ayla is going to have children when she is 30, as established by the timeline from Crono’s perspective in 1000 AD. When she leaves on her adventures through time, however, she is only 25 (well, her age is never given, but it doesn’t really matter). The problem posed by the Guardia Royal Line Paradox (GRL Paradox) is that the future she will travel to wouldn't have her in its past at the age of 30 in order for her to have the children that would then establish the Guardia Line. Thus those children don't exist, thus the Guardia line doesn't exist.

As a person’s actions are not predetermined, the timeline can't assume that Ayla will come back. However, neither can the timeline assume that she doesn't return. As in the original timeline Ayla wouldn’t have had a child until she was 30, that child can neither be born nor not-born until Ayla reaches 30. If her travels through time at the age of 25 made her child she bears at age 30 cease to exist, then we have a problem of fate; time is assuming that Ayla will not have children at 30, a choice that for her is still in the future!

Thus, Ayla's Time Index must be 25 + 5 before the issue of her children can even be addressed (25 being her original age when she first departed her timeline and 5 being the time that needs to pass before she would have originally had a choice in having children); as Ayla's Time Index never reaches 30 in-game, there is never a chance, in-game, for the GRL paradox to come into effect.

This, of course, leaves the question then of what time would actually look like from an outside perspective (say, for Gaspar at the End of Time). He would see the original timeline, which is all of Ayla's life played out properly, with children. Then he would see Chrono and the others arrive and leave with her, establishing a new timeline. At that point, Ayla's history up until she left would be the same but what of her history (and her effect on all of Time) after she left?

As a timeline can only change based on real actions (and not just probability), the events in her life can't change until she is old enough to be at the appropriate spot in her own personal timeline to make those "real actions" or to not make them. Her own personal Time Index (her departure point + her personal time error) must match the Time Index of the event (the specific point in the timeline when an action would have been completed) before the outcome can effect the timeline. Until such a point, the action remains unresolved and in a state of flux.

As such it would seem that the timeline proceeding from the point that an individual leaves their timeline and the point in which they would have naturally died (if they hadn't time traveled) must be in a state of flux until such a point as the specific Time Index of the time traveler matches the Time Index of the event. Only then can the event’s flux be resolved into a definite outcome. So, for every second Ayla is trekking through time, the timeline is actually being re-written with Ayla being missing from her own era for that one extra second.

One might wonder what the timeline might look like, at time index “Ayla is age 30,” when Ayla is only 29. It must, alas, remain in a state of flux. As the future must still exist, and it must be calculated based on the lives of those who lived before, I would suggest that the future would simply be based on the last valid timeline. After all, a timeline can’t be replaced until an action has occurred to change it, and no action can occur or not occur until the two Time Indexes (that of the Traveler and that of the Event) match.

As most characters aren’t gone from their timeline long enough to really miss out on any major events, the GRL Paradox doesn’t manifest. There is only one exception to this; Robo. He “travels” through time for more than 400 years. Thus, any event that the original-timeline Robo did from 2300 AD to 2700 AD would be erased. Alas, Crono and the gang never travel so far into the future in order to test this theory. As Robo is back in 2300 by the end of the game, presumably all the events in his life from 2300 to 2700 would be changed to have a new Time Index.

Nicely, this theory does get around the “The Entity Did It” argument, and really it is quite simple (which makes Ol’ Occam happy, I’m sure); the Guardia Royal Line still exists after Ayla has time traveled because time is then in flux and it defaults to the last valid timeline, which just happens to have the Guardia Royal Line existing.

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