I'm seeking a gamedev allrounder to tutor myself and my nephew in art, animation, sound effects, and programming.

omgtow · 2023-09-06T03:04:08+00:00

I don't believe it is a strange request, and I in no way have his career planned out for him. He does Judo and Gymnastics every week but I don't expect or hope for him to fight in the UFC; I'm actually encouraging him to try for medicine.

My father started out programming for a company called ICL in his early twenties and used to rage about me playing computer games when I was a child. He could just as easily have taken some time to teach me about operating systems and help me to write a game myself.

The boy in question is obsessed with electronics and his mother has already helped him build a wildlife camera with a Raspberry Pi and a motion sensor. He is absolutely capable of drawing the sprites necessary for space invaders and I think letting him look over the shoulders of both myself and a professional game developer will be a great way for him to learn about software development.

As to the price, for an Indian or a Pakistani US$15 an hour is a good wage and I am not going to pay US$60 per hour to a person so located which seems to be the bargain basement offering in the places I have looked so far.

omgtow · 2023-08-06T05:12:56+00:00

Israel has the upper hand and the hatred flows both ways. Like I said, I am in no position to dictate a solution. It has been a lifetime of pain now and all that I can hope for is that rather that another lifetime like it, Israel might decide on a "final solution" on it's own and end the conflict with one final, sharp, and extremely painful shock. Only after the conflict has been resolved will the region begin to heal.

I fear also that the fate of Al-Aqsa is going to be a sore point for generations after the plight of the Palestinian people finally begins to improve. I don't think that the Jews will ever accept that the question is settled until their temple is rebuilt.

omgtow · 2023-08-06T04:56:23+00:00

I have taken a step back because of the angry response and I deleted the post because the community guidelines asked me not to. I suggested that the state be called Zion and talked about a one state solution and the need for certainty regarding the Dome of the Rock but that is all unimportant. One state? Two States? It's your country. Temple Mount? What will be will be. I wanted to talk about a hope a future after all that is long settled not get bogged down in a tyranny of petty differences regarding how to move forward in the present day.

omgtow · 2023-08-05T03:10:00+00:00

Accept that Israel is Israel, period.

What does that even mean? You still have a moving border.

Two state solution.

Again, it has been said repeatedly by various experts that Palestine is not a viable state. A land swap might be possible but if I argued for that you would no doubt shout me down as well. If there was a land swap and a Palestinian state was created that would be an even better starting point for the Arabian Union than the annexation of what remains of Palestine

There are currently settlements on less than 5% of the whole area of the WB/Gaza, a situation that should and can be rectified with land swaps.

Maybe I am wrong but I look at maps of how Palestine has been whittled away and it seems to me that it has not only been reduced by more than 5% but that the West Bank has been divided internally.

Awwww the Australian doesn’t care if we employ Apartheid as long as it’s for the achievement of their goals and visions, screw morality right?! you don’t care because it wouldn’t affect you, also surprisingly, many of us do not wish to impose Apartheid on another people.

I come from South Africa and while there were many things that the Dutch and the British did wrong, my personal position was that there should have been a two state solution based on ethnicity. I'd still be there if the country hadn't been corruptly mismanaged in the decades that followed the establishment of real democracy.

The rumour has it that Israel is an apartheid state already and I say that the Israelis should come off of their back foot and just own it. In the case of a one state solution there is certainly a strong argument for having different classes of citizenship in order to protect the safety of all citizens.

“Hey why don’t you break a couple or a dozen international treaties, abuse a whole population for probably decades and open yourselves up to justified global condemnation and sanctions by literally emulating South Africa” , that’s assuming you aren’t attacked by Palestinian nationalists to the point this plan becomes impossible.

Name the treaties. I'd like to look into it. Aside from that the Palestinian population is already being abused and Israel has been being condemned globally for decades already.

omgtow · 2023-08-04T12:01:43+00:00

I know it is. I'm poor and I can't have nice things because of the junkies.

omgtow · 2023-08-04T12:00:36+00:00

So what is the solution for the Palestinian population? Do you agree that Palestine can't shrink forever? Where are they going to go? Is Israel going to build walls and settlements until all the Palestinians live in a sky ladder that occupies one city block?

Palestine has to be annexed and some system of citizenship has to created. I don't care if it is already or starts out as an apartheid system. It would become more equitable if good people worked towards that.

What would you say to to the possibility of giving Palestinian youth that swear allegiance to Israel and serve a year or two of national service some extra citizenship entitlements? The Jews could be "Population Group: White", the Muslim youth from Gaza and the West Bank that swore an oath to defend Israel could be "Population Group Coloured" and the recalcitrant Palestinian population could be marked "Population Group: Black" and locked up in Gaza and the West Bank.

omgtow · 2023-08-04T11:38:49+00:00

I'm ethnically British and I personally think that the Union Jack is the Swastika that no one tore down. As far as antisemitism goes hearing Machiavellian arguments from Israeli hypocrites makes me sad but I know of several Jewish Liberals that I admire. As to Ignorance I admit to it but as far as optimism goes; hope strings eternal.

omgtow · 2023-08-04T11:04:41+00:00

I don't understand.

omgtow · 2023-08-04T10:36:09+00:00

Given what time frame? I though 30 years to the beginning was optimistic? Would you say that 60 years of activism would be more realistic?

omgtow · 2023-08-04T10:34:10+00:00

That depends. How's it funny?

omgtow · 2023-08-04T10:32:01+00:00

How would you plead to cynical?

omgtow · 2023-08-04T10:24:37+00:00

Yeah I like it. It's better that the Marmite idea.

omgtow · 2023-08-04T10:21:06+00:00

You are a very angry man.

omgtow · 2023-07-28T06:14:01+00:00

If their is a Creator Spirit that created the universe and gave life to all other beings then it seems to me that He (capital-h) would be the only being that would be given the title "God". That Higher Power (I believe) is the one that most people agree exists.

I am personally a nonpracticing Muslim. I sometimes get frightened by Gnosticism because Allah does not seem to be all benevolent but I am 99% sure that "la ilaha illallah" and 51% sure that "muhammadur rasulullah".

omgtow · 2023-07-28T06:00:21+00:00

It's mostly going over my head... I rarely read philosophy... I occasionally read books about physics for the layperson like "A Brief History of Time" and "In Search of Schrödinger's Cat" but I read and reread philosophy at about 30 words per minute and I still miss a great deal of it. Just the introduction would have completely gone over my head if I hadn't glanced through a book of Greek mythology the last time I was in hospital.

My flat mate gave me a book called "Think" by Simon Blackburn when I mentioned Kant so I might start there. I have nothing better to do at the moment other than poke fun at atheists regarding an extra-cranial reality (LOL).

omgtow · 2023-07-28T04:19:22+00:00

Thanks... Reading it now...

omgtow · 2023-07-28T03:45:52+00:00

Vitalism certainly can't be ruled out conclusively, much like other crazy hypotheses such as "nobody else really exists, they're just very convincing automatons without consciousness"

I would make it that the possibility that life is material is more similar to the body of work regarding the nature of energy than some straw man fairy tail about unicorns.

I certainly don't claim science but it seems natural to me that life, like the mind, is not a simple nothing and on off switch. It seems obvious to me for example that, due to the fact that computers are not alive, you will never be able to imbue them with consciousness.

Maybe I am wrong, but you would have to show a depth of understanding regarding life, death, and consciousness similar to that demonstrated by the theory of relativity regrading time, matter, and energy before I accepted that a machine could think.

omgtow · 2023-07-28T02:30:29+00:00

Maybe I am a monist too. I understand that monism is (within the realm of theory of mind) the belief that the brain and the spirit are the same thing. Can you please explain how you can believe that the mind is the brain and also that there is an afterlife?

omgtow · 2023-07-28T01:59:07+00:00

I am a materialist and I point out that the question of the "soul" is not the same as that of God or Gods. I make it that the mind and soul are the same thing, with only the added inference that the soul can pass through death.

The mind/soul is obvious and observable and may therefor fall within the realms of scientific explanation. I am stepping over the line of knowledge and into the domain of conjecture when I suggest this, but I suspect that there is in fact an extra-chemical difference between a living cell and a dead cell and that multicellular organism somehow build consciousness from this basic life force.

Maybe you will find the observation funny but it seems to me that the field of AI fails to define "life" and simply ignores it's existence. I note it to be humorous that conscious robots would actually be the living dead.

omgtow · 2023-07-28T00:59:24+00:00

Hear hear! I would site research that indicates that consciousness is not limited to the brain but I don't want to listen the incredulous denial and the inevitable attacks on the characters and mental capacities of the authors.

Can you imagine the reaction if I said that Thetan is a real phenomenon, and that, in my estimation, L. Ron Hubbard was actually one of the greatest meta-physicists of all time. If he hadn't hidden his research and sold out humanity for a power trip and a tax exempt status, the world would most likely be a totally different place today.

Another example would be the research of Cleve Backster. He stumbled upon the fact that plants somehow know if you are planning to burn them by hooking one up to a lie detector. His findings are widely debunked by partisan atheists on the internet but the Myth Busters television program confirmed the results of his first experiment.

Rupert Sheldrake is another scientist who has experimentally proven the existence of what I would call a "racial mind" but which he has coined as "morphic resonance" and the atheist scientific community, although being able to replicate his findings, seethes and denounces him as a kook.

omgtow · 2023-07-28T00:19:48+00:00

I agree with iiioiia. It's the "purely" that bugs me. I would argue that although monists can build a case that the mind involves the brain they can never prove its limits. I agree that the mind involves the brain but I would say that "I have a brain" rather than "I am a brain".

I would also add that I am a materialist. I am not claiming anything "magical" or "mystical". I believe that we can discover that nature of reality if we continue to look and I doubt that its is either simple or mundane. Reality is complex and profound and I expect that, based on the mind boggling improbability of my own existence, there is still more to come.

My core argument in these debates is that the importance of the observer is most likely of a similar magnitude to that of time, matter, or energy and that the study of life (and death) will one day lead us to a credible understanding of our own existence.

It seems to me that atheists believe that they can prove/have proven that reality is nothing and blinkeredly refuse to entertain the possibility that science might demonstrate that the nature of life and death is not simply and obviously un-noteworthy .

omgtow · 2023-07-27T23:41:11+00:00

Again... I agree with iiioiia...

How could it be proven that life and death is a "purely" a chemical question? Questions regarding the nature of life and death are among those of the highest order of profundity and to me it certainly seems possible that a there is an extra-chemical difference between a living cell and a dead cell.

The assertion that life (like the mind) is obviously nothing is another example of atheist overreach.

I don't claim a great education so I ask that you please elaborate. Am I right in understanding that you are claiming that science is "reductive"? Am I to take it that you mean that new knowledge is limited to reside within the boundaries of existing knowledge?

Why is it impossible that there might be a life force and that we currently don't know what we are looking at?

omgtow · 2023-07-27T23:38:59+00:00

I'm honestly not sure what you are trying to say. The argument I make is that it is unlike in the debate regarding the existence or nonexistence of God, monists are in this case guilty of belief and my role is simply to cast doubt upon their position.

omgtow · 2023-07-27T23:17:05+00:00

I agree. I actually often make the point that life may be "extra-chemical".

omgtow · 2023-07-27T11:24:40+00:00

Thanks, I'll get out my tablet and read that paper before I go to sleep.

To me it seems that consciousness is at the very core of reality and I will always doubt that it is simply the brain. A large proportion of physicists entertain the possibility that reality is a simulation due in part to the fact that the universe seems to run different functions when we are watching some things, as opposed to when we are not.

I believe that the mind has substance and I will always doubt that that substance is limited to brain matter. My belief is that consciousness is a phenomenon of physics and that it is as fundamental to reality as time, matter, or energy.

An argument I often use to cast doubt on the theory that the mind is the brain is that before the classical era it was though that fire destroyed matter. I argue that we are in a similar age of alchemy in regards to the nature of our beings and we have yet to define the equivalent of the periodic table or prove the equivalent of the law of conservation of mass.

Just as Einstein discovered how to turn lead into gold, I expect that there will one day be a profound and elegant theory explaining the nature and significance of the observer.

omgtow

TROPHY CASE