I understand the water into wine thing was about using water to make wine last throughout an entire wedding.
You used to not eat cloven beasts because of how sick they could make you.
Maybe this discussion is better for the science vs. supernatural thread.
@tangent said in Retail "Horror" Stories:
@Thenomain said in Retail "Horror" Stories:
It seems unusual that to be Christian in America seems to mean to be Conservative so strongly that if someone wanted to identify as a Liberal Christian, I'm not sure what they would say. Nothing, perhaps.
We basically stick up for gay people and point out the hypocrisy of conservative economic policy with Biblical principles. I'm sure you can guess how well that goes.
I'm guessing it looks something like:
@silentsophia said in Retail "Horror" Stories:
"You're not a real christian/are the wrong kind of christian."
It seems unusual that to be Christian in America seems to mean to be Conservative so strongly that if someone wanted to identify as a Liberal Christian, I'm not sure what they would say. Nothing, perhaps.
@Ganymede said in Do you believe in paranormal things?:
Despite being a lawyerbot, I hedge on the side of: wait and see.
As a fairly hard-core atheist, I strongly agree with this.
What I see in the current discussion is two positions on the same side of the coin: "This is what we know" and "But things can change about what we know." Both are healthy, but I find that we need both. Sometimes I find the science-minded too focused on the science and not on the discovery. Sometimes I find the layman too focused on the discovery and not the science. My earlier blah blah about Einstein and Oppenheimer was meant to be a parable about how there's room for both.
@Seamus
Cause for Thenomain to go 'meh', but he can only speak for Thenomain. Important note: Thenomain hasn't really played on a game for about four years. Dabbling, yes, but he has some pretty solid thoughts on the subjects of grids.
@Vorpal said in Do you believe in paranormal things?:
If you want to play devil's advocate for them, that can be fun, but there is a definite difference, and there is a definite difference in the claims made and the nature of the universe reflected in those claims. One of them fits what we have come to know of our universe, the other one seems to be a vestigial remnant of the age of fables.
I'm not intending to do so, but the reason that Special Relativity is more credible than Atlanteans is because science is built upon science. (Shoulders of giants and all that.) The difference is that we have scientific evidence that points us in certain directions, therefore we're expecting a certain model to form.
We have zero scientific evidence for psychic phenomenon, therefore we would need to build up the evidence from scratch. I don't consider this "extraordinary claims". That is, I'm not looking at the claims as to why it'll require so much evidence, but the lack of any pre-existing science. Einstein hated the idea of quantum mechanics, while Oppenheimer was pretty dead set on it. Thus the famous phrase, "God does not play dice." Yet not only do we accept these views as just as truthful as Einstein's theories of relativity, but we embrace them in our day to day lives.
I know this is nit-picky, but I'm very much the kind of person where if we trip over the existence of ghosts as a credible discovery, I'm going to shrug and say "okay, sure, why not". I don't think humanity is so great at being smart that they haven't looked at something from history and mis-understood it for hundreds of years. How many Egyptian ruins have we destroyed because of this? Quite a few. Or gotten the history of pre-colonial America or Africa wrong because of our assumptions? A lot.
Myths exist for a reason, even if it's not for the reasons given. Dismissing them just because they're myths is a good way to ignore possible data.
@Sunny said in Do you believe in paranormal things?:
I do apologize.
Nothing really to apologize for. It's all good.
It seemed (to me) like @Arkandel was being taken to task for being condescending while the person he was talking to's wish of death upon children was ignored.
Except they weren't ignored. Not then and not now. I see things working as expected.
And I've been taken to task for being repeatedly condescending. At what point does history of somewhat crummy behavior equal one really shitty outburst?
Okay, wishing cancer on anyone, especially children, outstrips all of them. I think we are aggressively agreeing now.
And I don't see where credibility is lost if someone does want to slog through someone's bad attitude to get to the salient points. Clearly I have to surround myself with people who know how to do that. 
You can (should, I think) call them on the bullshit parts of their bullshit. It's how you can engage without encouraging it.
I hate you with every fibre of my internet give-a-damn. Which typically doesn't exist. So here's an upvote.
Let me posit this statement, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence," is loaded. The existence of, say, telekinetic powers is extraordinary because of its lack of evidence despite repeated tests. "Claims require evidence." The important part is, I feel, later on with, "conclusive evidence that can stand up to scrutiny and, ideally, reproduced". This is just as true for Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity as Theno's Theory of Ghosts Really Do Exist Dammit.
Even these days, there has been vocal arguments and pulling of beards as to how we should be going around Doing Science.
@Sunny said in Do you believe in paranormal things?:
How you make your argument is important. When one person is flinging runny shit and the other is holding up a shield and trying to talk them down, taking the shield bearer to task about how they're holding the shield is absurd, and it calls your own credibility and judgement into question.
As @Kanye-Qwest said, the cancer thing didn't come in until later. If someone wants to address that like you're doing here, then more power to you. In fact, that's kind of the point of these boards; to give power to those who disagree.
However.
If you think my seeing the other points separate as that idiot statement as something that discredits me, then more power to you. I think you're wrong, but since when does that give me, or anyone, the right to shut you down? This disagreement is pretty minor, in the grand scheme of things.
I'm going to get back to how this might tie in to my objection with Ark's posts. He said nothing about the more idiot response to Qwest. He made some vague responses that being emotional in science is Badness Incarnate (which was ridiculous), trying to shame being emotional on a level I thought was far, far too all-encompassing, like nobody in science is allowed to be a human being. I didn't see any shield, I saw a high horse. I saw more shit-flinging but from the position of righteousness, and that hits a button in me the size of ... did I mention Ohio already? Hm. Well, it's a pretty big button. I saw nothing noble in his response, like you seem to imply. Maybe Ark didn't fling as much poo, but since when must that be forgivable? I don't buy it.
I doubt we're going to agree on this, but there's where I am.
@Seamus
Yeah, I feel a little bad because my responses were more clipped because it's hard to be thoughtful while taking a hot bath for relaxing muscles and therefore all on a tablet.
Firstly: Fire Bad, Tree Pretty. Here it means that I'm not thinking clearly, but I know what I like and what I don't like.
And so I want to be clear, first, that the kind of grid that kicks my immersion is the one that is hubs of hubs which is what I thought you were describing. If not, ignore my objections.
I tried to give examples of grids I liked. The Reach, Haunted Memories, all traditional grids that were spacious but not really huge. I agree with the idea that you should focus on areas with different feelings, but Haunted Memories' grid did that by degrees; each grid space had a feeling, each room practically a neighborhood, because that's pretty much how Europe rolls.
The Reach's grid was smaller, because it represented both city and countryside. And when things needed to split or hub from those locations, they would. It was more organic than a design.
On Darkmetal, we were trying to represent a Cyberpunk-style sprawl, so we invented a high-speed network to connect otherwise extremely different parts of the city together. This was back when code like +taxi was considered almost too immersion-breaking. Nowadays we have +travel, so I question to myself why it matters if a grid is big or not.
Then I think about games like Changeling: New York. (Pardon: I can't remember its original name.) That grid was far larger than it needed to be, and it represented really only Manhattan, with a very minor nod to the other boroughs. Every intersection had a grid room. Even with a map, it never caught on. Most of us played in the same ten rooms.
But even a smaller grid doesn't solve this. Again with apologies I note that I personally think that the Dark Water (Forks, Washington) grid wasn't right, even though it was fairly small (15 rooms? 10?) and each space was iconic. Maybe the players liked it, but from a staff view I saw more discomfort with it than not.
This absolutely doesn't answer your question, partially because I don't have an answer. This is my involved explanation that grids that are not small nor hubs are not by nature bad. There's something else going on there. I've liked the grids that seem hub-like because you typically enter the neighborhood from one or two angles.
North Beach seems like it'd have 2, maybe 3 entry points. If you need to later break up North Beach, then do so. That's my advice. Start with broad strokes but not too broad, like the kind of painting you get from a Space Opera sci-fi book cover. You know, it's good and evocative but it looks like a good speed-painter did it.
Like this one: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/83/86/13/838613e31c5591b63b1fdbde4e94516d.jpg
(I enjoy this kind of painting, by the way. No insults.)
Isn't it ironic. Don't you think? When someone accuses someone else for not being able to accept they're wrong when they themselves show no evidence of being willing to do the same?
@Sunny said in Do you believe in paranormal things?:
@Thenomain said in Do you believe in paranormal things?:
I saw two people who in normal circumstances agree go at each other's throats for little more than a slight disagreement.
How is 'I hope your children get cancer' a slight disagreement, @Thenomain?
I didn't see that as part of what Ark was arguing towards or against. @wanderer should have been and was disgraced into the dirt for this statement (that is, it was disgusting of Wanderer to say anything like this, I absolutely cannot and will not deny this), but it's not part of the argument. It's part of my offense to Ark's method: He doesn't separate the two, but takes them as one discussion. I saw them otherwise agreeing on many points.
The "slight disagreement" I saw was the one about what is or isn't belief. You're right that I probably should have focused more on Wanderer's shitty behavior toward people, but I had a mix of having moved on and wanting to approach the logical end of the disagreements.
Okay, here's what I came up with. I'm not going to back-and-forth respond just yet, because I do have other things to do with my day. Later, perhaps? Perhaps.
@Arkandel said in Do you believe in paranormal things?:
@wanderer said in Do you believe in paranormal things?:
It's not about what I believe in, it's about what I know to be true. I had to know for sure, so I got off my ass and found out.
I don't intend to insult or mock your beliefs
You then mock @Wanderer for taking offense that you're calling the Scientific Method as "beliefs".
Or y'know, don't, and just throw fits at anyone who doesn't immediately agree with you.
I don't think you know what the scientific method is for:
The scientific method is simply the best yardstick we happen to have until a better one comes along.
Already answered. Position speaks against what you propose to follow. It appears to me that you are disagreeing because you don't like his tone, disagreeing to disagree. Devil's Advocate.
By which I mean to say; there is no room, zero room in any of this for defensiveness and emotional indignation. If Newton had posted his papers followed by "... and fuck you guys if you don't believe me!" things would be different these days.
You do know that a lot of scientists take much their work very personally and defend it emotionally, yes? No? They are human beings. As this quoted statement is emotionally charged from your end, maybe you didn't intend on any Devil's Etcetera, but it is certainly ironic in a face-palming sense.
You beat it into the ground:
Or y'know, don't, and just throw fits at anyone who doesn't immediately agree with you.
What does throwing a fit have to do with the science? Nothing. It has everything to do with communication. If you want to be listened to with a wider audience, you speak to them. Sure, I've digressed a little bit, but I want my wider audience to know that I sincerely think that science is not about being a passionless robot beep boop. Science doesn't care how emotional you are. It's the scientists, because we need to treat other people like people, and when one person says:
@wanderer said in Do you believe in paranormal things?:
When you call it "beliefs" you're directly insulting me.
If you want to have a discussion, maybe don't reply how they're being emotional about something they feel strongly about.
It's possible—likely, even—that I'm giving the wrong term to what I'm seeing. But I saw two people who in normal circumstances agree go at each other's throats for little more than a slight disagreement. I felt that it hardly deserved the response that you gave it, and thus to me it looks like the same hammer-to-nail response that I see as arguing just to be right, when in truth it might just be how you disagree.
This included the phrase "everything is a belief until it's proven", which is such a gross (as in huge) oversimplification that I was assuming that you believed it as a truism. It's the truism that has caused so many arguments over what 'proof' is that I sincerely worry about the future of education in America. And no, I don't particularly know how I can help stop it other than occasionally be a right dick about it.
Let me turn around what you're doing:
Prove to me that my statement is wrong. Clearly you think it is. While I come up with my evidence, you come up with yours. This is what debate is for, not just one person saying, "That's interesting, but I think you're wrong, so convince me," without the other side doing the same.
And yeah, accusing your devil's advocacy as mentally unstable is mostly my frustration, because you do it preeeetttty much any time you disagree with something. Now you're trying to get me to come up with the evidence that you can openly dispute. If you want to be fair on this (i.e., not a devil's advocate), then do the same thing.
@Arkandel said in Do you believe in paranormal things?:
Everything is a 'belief' until proven otherwise
I...
@Arkandel said in Do you believe in paranormal things?:
What were the results of your decades of research? What were your methods? Show me.
I...
You know, Ark, I know you really like playing Devil's Advocate (to a point where I suspect that you need some psychological help), but this takes the cake. You're all over the place, similar to the people who want to "disprove" global warming. I'd believe this was beneath you, but here you are.
We have methods for this determining what is true and what is not. Scientific Method is not a stick we measure things by. It's a way we discover those measurements. The basis of Scientific Method relies on disproving its discoveries. Without it, it would be a belief system. But it's not. Scientific Method does not have an enemy in the Bible, against Flat Earthers, against ghosts, against magic, against even Intelligent fucking Design.
And that's where I go from reading this thread with a modicum of interest to enough salt to attract all the deer in Ohio. (hint: there are a lot of deer in Ohio.) "Well, you don't really know-know, therefore what you're doing is belief" is the attack that the Discovery Institute has been doing to sell their snake oil as "science" to indoctrinate school children for the last decade or so.
Science is self-correcting. This isn't a belief. At best it's a philosophy.
We accept that it reveals truth because it's based in self-doubt. It works. If we can't accept this, then we might as well flip the table over the last three thousand years of trying to understand the world and just herp-derp our way into extinction.
Regarding Terry Pratchett and others:
“This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt
Oo, wait, I just found this one which is more appropriate to my above rant:
A man didn’t understand how televisions work, and was convinced that there must be lots of little men inside the box, manipulating images at high speed. An engineer explained to him about high frequency modulations of the electromagnetic spectrum, about transmitters and receivers, about amplifiers and cathode ray tubes, about scan lines moving across and down a phosphorescent screen. The man listened to the engineer with careful attention, nodding his head at every step of the argument. At the end he pronounced himself satisfied. He really did now understand how televisions work. "But I expect there are just a few little men in there, aren’t there?"
— Douglas Adams, paraphrase of a parable spoofing modern creationism that Adams often told, as retold by Richard Dawkins in "Lament for Douglas" (14 May 2001)
Crap, one more. I forgot how much I enjoyed Douglas' writing:
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
— Douglas Adams, from Last Chance To See
Unusable Card is safer than Yet Another Hack. Once the bugs get fixed, we will wonder why we were ever on such an antiquated system as swipe-only. Hey, it only took millions of people to be defrauded for us to scramble to catch up with the rest of the fucking world. If you want to blame someone, blame the CEOs of these banks for refusing to budge until their bottom line was affected, and now they're spending more for a shittier system because it's being implemented in such a knee-jerk manner.
@Seamus
Let me clarify my position: Literal hubs bad. Trees pretty.
Hub-like systems can be fine, but the moment the game tells me "you are floating above this neighborhood ", I tune out. I find it to be antithetical to what an immersive game should have.
If you're not going for that, then fine. Else, hubs bad trees pretty.
@Seamus
I'm envisioning "You are in Arlington. Do you want to go to 5th Street or Farrinton Ave?"
Anyone thinking of doing this, don't.
@Seamus said in Grid Construction and Planning:
Yeah, my Ex, Traveling Man ran Victorian Reverie.
I ran Twilight Moons, back in the day.
I still believe that the hub-based room system is not the way to go. Something of a hybrid, like what Eldritch and BitN have done, is a better idea, but I'll be honest: When it was built, Haunted Memories' grid was fantastic to me. It was huge, but it didn't feel huge. It felt like communities, and each community had a few rooms, and it absolutely was built very tightly from a map of Vienna (also huge).
It didn't feel huge because it felt spacious. It felt that I was being invited to use it. And because every grid space had a wiki page, with the meta information at a glance (neighborhood, population, security, key features), I knew where I was, and where that was had personality. I could easily imagine the kinds of stories that could be told there.
I don't get that feeling on a small grid. I can't get into it. I'm not "immersed". Even the moderately small grid from Dark Water felt too cramped to me. (Sorry, @Cobaltasaurus.) The Reach's grid was only a little larger and it felt very roomy.
VR's grid was about as bad as I imagine they could get, just shy of "here's a room, now just make whatever temproom you want from it, now stop bugging me".
@Seamus said in Grid Construction and Planning:
@Thenomain You played on Twilight Moons, Theno?
Did I? No, I meant Victorian Reverie. Did I get you confused with someone else, again? I was worried that I might've.
I didn't know you knew what dank was, but that was dank.
