Newgrounds.com — Everything, By Everyone.

At 7/29/08 12:45 PM, Elfer wrote: You can't destroy the entire internet. It's not just a big box somewhere that you can swing an axe into.

If companies try to do this, they'll end up with a whole lot of angry software engineers on their hands who realize that consumer technology is widely available enough at this point to create a more distributed routing system on a voluntary basis, which would provide free, unrestricted (and high-speed, for people in urban areas) internet access for anyone willing to be part of the network.

At worst, that venture would evolve into a system of ISPs similar to what we have now. There will always be a demand for unrestricted internet access, and in a capitalist system, it's impossible to remove it from the market because of this.

But as with most products (if for the first time we can actually consider the internet to be a standalone product) there will most likely be a phase out period that will probably raise the same concerns with upsides and downsides like what's going on with the phasing out of analog television. I don't know how possible it is to have two competing internets with traffic costs as expensive as they are getting.

Another interesting note about net neutrality coming as a huge issue in recent weeks is the case of how comcast is restricting it's customers from using bittorrent. This is primarily because of the huge toll its taking on comcast's bandwidth, a problem a lot of other companies are having that leads them to consider monthly plans by the gigabyte. But about what p2p restrictions entails and the FCC is relaly getting onto this case (for better or worse we'll see)

Being a guy who still likes to watch his movies on a larger than life scale, and seeing as mostly large files like movies are the ones to most benefit from such a transition, I'm not so sure I like the strides towards Internet 2.0 since that will certainly cause the deaths of the movie theater, and most likely non-internet streaming television will also get hit hard by this. And yet no one seems to stand to benefit besides netflix and few others.

my first and only bump

Isn't there a bbs rule that bans all Seinfeld jokes? Cuz that's the only reason I would agree to them.

At 7/26/08 01:35 PM, TehSlapHappy wrote: BlueHippo made it yesterday. Greatted by Hans.

so cute. :3

Is that luis looking forlornly at the happy couple?

I'm really surprised people are trying to interpret this as something that's it's not. It's a campaign move, it should not subject to interpretation other than that. It's a good move because he wants to showcase to the voters here that has received international applause.

I'm also getting frankly very tired of these so called "non-supporters" on here whose justification for their arguments is "well I don't support either of them so I can argue both sides of an issue when the other fails". That's fine if you're going to rant I suppose (in which case funnily enough these people often call supporters mindless) about how americans are voting based on what the media says and that germany is supporting Obama (the reports were actually that is was a warm but not necessarily enthusiastic reception) and that these people somehow have the same mindset that is identical to when hitler rose to power. Judging from the fact that since Hitler germany has seemingly gone through the entire marxist cycle and back, i would think they are of a slightly more cautious mindset. But back to the point, please remember that as respectable a point you might have, it is made less respectable when you conclude that whoever supports anyone is mindless. Perhaps they have merely made up their mind.

wow terrific ironic essay you've put together here. This completely convinced to vote for obama. thx for making things so clear!

At 7/25/08 10:28 AM, Mr-Contradiction wrote: You sound like a Caucasian person trying to immerse himself in African-American culture. Please stop.

Define: "Immerse" as well as "African-American Culture"

Because you say it sounds like "You're trying to act black" which is impossible since I reference Talledega Nights in my post. And it seems as though you're referring to the game of basketball as "African-American Culture" which btw is incorrect. The fact that I scrap for rebounds against them doesn't mean I'm "immersing" into them

At 7/25/08 12:35 PM, Dew wrote:

At 7/25/08 10:58 AM, joeyjoe1 wrote:

At 7/25/08 10:28 AM, Mr-Contradiction wrote: You sound like a Caucasian person trying to immerse himself in African-American culture. Please stop.

(since whiteys can't dunk).

Oh please. There are many if not the same amount as black people that can dunk. That is just a big myth that is widely untrue. Last year, there was this 5'10 WHITE guy who could dunk. Yea.

Again, they sucked big time, because their biggest player was like 6'2 aswell.

The big guys on our team are like 6'7 and 6'6. Again, nothing spectacular, but a lot better than 6'2. Hope you do well anyway ;)

Ha bull, african americans are generally known to be better dunkers because they are more likely to have superior natural lower-back strength. I still can't dunk yet tho, I'm like an inch or two from making a clean slam.

And no that isn't some lame reference to dicks that I'm trying to turn into MEME. NOT THIS TIME!!!

Anyway, yesterday I was playing the boards (I am obviously talking about basketball) playing my usual position as the 6 foot 2 center on my team (yes I am the tallest, big uh-oh for next year") and I'm guarding this small forward who all the sudden thinks he can post up on me, so i bear down on him like a giant spidermonkey and start tearin his ass up, but then throws his head back and WHAM!!! right in the mouth, my head is shot back, and the blood starts gushing. I wait til I'm subbed out and then I stop the bleeding by shoving some paper towel in my mouth. Five minutes later I'm back in the game with bloody paper in my mouth, an injured swallowing mechanism, and a fire in my eyes.

Here's a pic of the busybody after a healing sleep.
Now I'm off to visit Northwestern with a fat lip!

How u doin!?

let's see egoraptor....

Well since I fantasize about ripping off his "bad drawing, but it's okay it's supposed to be that way" style, so I guess it would be hypocritical to say that I think his flash are slightly over the gun...

I still do. :P The guy himself seems like a good guy tho. And anyone who dedicates their time to the good of ng is doing their own type of charity work in my opinion.

At 7/24/08 07:26 PM, SloppyMoe606 wrote: Anyone who says Doom 1 and 2 have horrible music is not a true gamer.

I agree, true gamers understand that what comes out of that game cannot possibly be classified as music.

I don't why people just won't give anyone the credit they deserve for pulling good campaign moves. It doesn't matter what you think of him, but it's pretty obvious that receiving an incredibly positive reception along the lines of 200 thousand members from a foreign nation should be a very persuasive device two use whenever the question is asked "but will other countries be diplomatic with you?"

People just don't seem to get. Perhaps I don't have the money to pay for all this, perhaps this is most impractical of all my deliciously impossible fantasies and could never work. But that's not the point, WHAT IF IT COULD!?!?!? That's why we need to do it. JUST DO IT!

I was just trying to figure out a way how I could get some more consistent shading since when I do major frame by frame work, my art sometimes gets that jittery thing going. It's especially important when you're attempting a 3D movement and you're not going for that artsy type of jitter, that you're shading is very consistent as are the shapes since nothing bugs a viewer more than jittery shading when it seems out of place. Here's a rundown of what I have done (and I'm sure many others have done)

What better example to use than my upcoming flash "The Bohemian" to demonstrate, seeing as I just found in the middle of once again working one frame at a time (If you want my advice, 30 fps is not all that it's cracked up to be).

1-3. As you can see, 1 and 2 look fairly decent, but there are obvious differences that could possibly ruin the movement. The fact is, simple or complicated, the viewer responds abou tthe same to fluid animation. Anyhow, the shapes are different, and the shading is definitely different (imagine 8 frames of this in a row and you can imagine that this would like there are patches of light running around on the characters head. To correct this, I did the following to get the consistency of 2 and 3.

4 and 5. I'm not that great at making tutorial images okay! so basically it shows how when you use the onion skin in combination with the outline option (see 4) that you end up with (see 5). The great thing about this (although it's incredibly hard to see in the image) is that since I'm using onion skin and not edit multiple frames the previous outlines are faded and now I can distinguish between the outlines of the current frame and that of the ones i need to trace.

So that's basically it, I'm sure many of you are thinking that is pretty longwinded for something so simple, but consider that I've had flash for 5 years now and have now only discovered using this. SO maybe it help so beginners in not waiting so long for something like this to come along. Anyway, if anyone has anything to add please do so.

You know that feeling when you're about to pop a cap in some guy's ass but you get the sense that the guy just isn't as pumped up about as you are. Well fear no more. Post your ideas here for way that can make violence a much more enriching experience for both involved parties, or at least they'll go down with a smile. Perhaps one day we shall see your idea on the market or on a second rate news blog even!

"The Cannon of Whoop Ass"

At 7/24/08 01:38 AM, smc316 wrote: Why don't you combine several countries in one post instead of making a post for every country?

Also how many countries do you plan on reviewing, exactly?

Well I'm just trying to review the most relevant and discussed countries on this bbs but Im trying as many as i can.

Japan

I'm going to talk about the Japan that was born from the aftermath of WW2, if anyone thinks that earlier times need to be considered please pipe up.

So anyway, since WW2 destroyed the tremendous military might of Japan the United States was basically given the oppurtunity to decide a country's fate (note: this worked because the Japanese for the most part were completely unified) and so they established a Japan with a constitution that is extremely similar to its own. So basically Japan had to reindustrialize but once again this was simple for the island and for the next forty years they had an amazing GDP.

Japan is a key ally of the U.S and this fact does seem to be going to change any time soon, as Japan is a huge exporter of tech to the U.S, as well that the U.S is looking out for Japan in term of possible threats from the Koreas, China, and Russia.

If we were at all concerned with the actions of Japan's military it would be towards the korea and china (pre WW2 might actually make an appearance) because as it is Japan is one of the densely populated nations in the world and so it's getting harder and harder to to keep a population growing to get the economy going. so just from a strategic standpoint they're are obvious reasons why they are still technically at war with russia despite having a dismantled armed forces (their military has recently been allowed to take on teh role of peacekeeper in Iraq however).

I do however, wish that the U.S would respect Japan more (as with other nations, U.S gives little respect even for a democracy it created) like signing onto the kyoto protocal, japan's host treaty, would be hugely symbolic not only to Japan as a sign of respect but would be a beneficial global decision. Maybe we needn't even take it that far, maybe we need to just let Japan know we see more to them than "maker of nintendo, cars, and weird comedy shows."

I am going to try to be as unbiased towards this as I can. Basically, I'm aiming to draw conclusions on foreign nations and in particular the outlook Americans should have when discussing foreign policy. Feel free to argue with these conclusions since I am obviously not a world historian nor a policy maker. But....

North Korea

From what I've read about North Korea and understand about it's past, is that the downfall of the Soviet Union triggered a reversal of industrialization (the DPRK was once of the wealthiest countries in the world in the 1960s) and after the 1990's completely destroyed any hope of regaining former glory, they intensified their campaign to hint that they are trying to reunite the koreas.

So what I've concluded here is that basically, as naive as it may sound, North Korea is playing the attention-whore of Asia, and that is basically the jist of their nuclear program, which they appear to be very helpful in dismantling at the moment. This makes it seem as though NK is a spooked horse rather than a member of the "axis of evil". Judging by how badly they want to eventually reunite with South Korea, I'm very sure they would also agree to drop the Stalinist Dictatorship and phase in the democracy of South Korea. This feels like a very similar situation to Vietnam albeit a very industrialized, radically different in terms of environment and history. But they are very similar in some ways, such as that the move to socialism was spurred by a fear of japan and china. Hmmm perhaps I should do japan next.

Despite my inability to join on this project. The concept is fantastic considering the step you have already put forth in creating a moviemaker, I would be happy to beta the flash anytime. Here are some ideas

don't have actionscript be the artist,
find some way to creat frame by frame animation.
Open source the code so if anyone has any ideas to build upon this they can.

You're still not showing me the failure here. I'm looking out for the long term, as the socialist mind often does. Yes it is for the better of humanity, because the run down of humanity in this day and age in the life of a skilled worker is to get out of the homeland and go to an industrial nation, where he will be greeted with discrimination because he is an immigrant there trying to take a native job. Not that he's qualified to work in an industrialized nation anyway, so he's better off being a cabbie. this leaves one more worker out of his area and no one at home. Redistributing the wealth in the world will not work, but redistributing the mind power will make it so it won't matter where you live 20 years because you will have reformed home. everywhere is a success

At 7/11/08 03:27 PM, Elfer wrote:

At 7/11/08 03:14 PM, EKublai wrote: The qualm I have with all substances (in particular mind-altering substances for recreation) is that I don't think it will result incompetition with alcohol and cigarettes, I think that drugs like marijuana can go hand in hand with other drugs

Correct, it can go hand in hand with other drugs. Whether it is legal or not.

and with drug education the way it is in this country (a disgrace) I don't think its a good idea for legalize anything that would support such a hazard to the health to those around you.

Since drug use is already rampant, is the solution to try to crack down harder due to the poor education, or to improve the education due to the poor education?

seeing as we already crack down hard, there should be improved education. In fact, I'd be completely fine with it being legal if we had a thorough education standard in place. For instance, when my (theoretical) son reaches an age where he starts becoming fascinated by women and starts looking at porn on the web, do I let him experiment and develop his own opinions about what things like love, feminism, and chivalry based on what the direct source teaches, or do I want to talk to him about how unrealistic that kind of world is first? It's the same with drugs, education first leads to wiser experimenting.

And yet through education and help from the medical community, the prevalence of smoking has decreased dramatically, without resorting to prohibition. This is an example of treating the cause (desire/pressure to smoke) rather than the act itself (inhaling tobacco smoke).

But then therein lies a piece of evidence that prohibition (at least regulation of its use) is effective and that's how smoking dramatically falls after smoking bans are put into place on public facilities, again because it turns smoking into an isolationist activity.

Problem: It obviously isn't sufficient to keep the use at bay.

You missed my point, illegality is a symbol to the people who are uninvolved with the crime. people don't feel they should have to shoulder the repercussions of being discovered with someone else doing something illegal. At later stages, it turns drugs into an isolationist activity I also think that a sense of responsibility is gained through this (designated drivers)

I think a lot of the arguments you guys are using/going to use are based on the faulty assumption that prohibition is actually doing something to curtail the use of drugs. Do you have any evidence at all to back that up?

Other than the very reason why I've steered clear of marijuana, no. I know I'm a different kind of person but I'm sure I'm not unique in this reason.

At 7/22/08 11:16 PM, Oranzoval wrote:

At 7/22/08 11:10 PM, CIX wrote: This is why socialism fails so hard.

You know, I don't think I could have said it better myself.

That sucks because I definitely could have, in fact I would have supplied first a foremost an argument, secondly I might've even supported that argument with FACTs, just in case someone tried to be tricky and say I was wrong.

At 7/22/08 11:02 PM, Oranzoval wrote:

At 7/22/08 10:54 PM, EKublai wrote:

At 7/22/08 10:42 PM, Oranzoval wrote:

Oh, we always need hope and change. But basing your entire campaign on those two words is something like the speeches of politicians in cartoons. Sure, it's good to HOPE, but what'll get the gears rolling is ACTION.

Because change is not action?

You're right about how it's impractical, but my original point is that Obama has contradicted himself several times with an issue as important as that. First it was "WE NEED TO INVADE IRAN. WE'RE IN THE WRONG PLACE.", then it was, "PULL OUR TROOPS OUT NOW. NOW NOW NOW.", back to, "WELL I CAN'T REALLY SAY WHEN WE CAN PULL OUT. IN FACT, WE MAY SEND TO MORE TROOPS IN BECAUSE WE'RE IN THE WRONG PLACE..."

The closest Obama has come to saying we need to invade Iran was back in 2004 when he said "Missile strikes may be a viable option" but because of the situation in Iraq we couldn't invade Iran.
Otherwise, since then he has been opposed to military action and has even said as president h ewould meet diplomatically with akmedinejad.

For Iraq he has called for a timetable since at least 2005 so I'm pretty sure that all the contradictions you've been hearing are nothing more than the masses of rants thatyou'e been reading online, which can take a toll even on the most filtering minds.

I only chose FDR as who I thought you were targeting because I didn't really expect anyone to be absent-minded enough to compare the words of Obama saying that the world is a mulligen stew of mores to Hitler's definitive explanations of aryan supremacy. What's the difference. The fundamental principle.

At 7/22/08 10:42 PM, Oranzoval wrote: Barack Hussein Obama is the biggest waste of a politician since... ... Well, ever.

And by mentioning his middle name like that, I'm assuming you don't want any respect as I read this

First of all, he's only been dealing with the federal government for five years. He's INCREDIBLY inexperienced, and one year ago, people would have either laughed you into a corner or have a blank and confused expression on their face if you suggested that Obama would be a good president.

The man has nothing but pretty words. Hope? Change? That's so stereotypically politician that I'm disappointed that some of you people have actually fallen for that shit.

Because if there's one thing in this country we don't need right now it's hope or change.

Now, I'm no supporter of McCain either, but at least he's just a little bit more realistic. The reason he doesn't have a timetable for withdrawing the troops is because there's just no way to tell at this point when pulling out of Iraq would end in minimal disaster for both regions. Obama has ALREADY revised his plan for the war and contradicted himself several times, and he's not even in OFFICE yet.

I'm really not convinced that a lack of a timetable is reminiscent of some of the best military judgments of all time. But sure let's go with what Kennedy and Johnson did and just keep putting more troops in Vietnam til we've all but made that our new home. In all honesty, Mccain saying that we might be in Iraq for a 100 years is probably the most unrealistic thing I've ever heard (I've heard he REVISED that plan). But no exit plan is the a terrible impractical way of dealing with anything.

That's not even going in to detail about Barack's joke of energy and economic "plans". The only advantage Obama has is that he's charismatic, and looking back at a certain influential leader in 1934, it's clear to see that pretty words and a roaring round of applause a good politician does not make.

Please don't tell me you're saying FDR was a bad president. He literally created the America we live in today. Not that I had much at the start to work with, but I seriously don't have any respect for someone who can't appreciate the work of FDR.

Well... I guess you could be proud to be white. But do you really think that people who attended a "White Pride" Parade wouldn't start cracking up at how the whole concept just references Black Pride? I know I would sport a grin.

Similarly, Black Pride became popular because it harkened back to not so good times yet enduring all the same, you don't hear so much anymore because newer generations are feeling less and less connected with those times.

Also since whites are interspersed so much throughout the nations, they identify with much more rigidly defined cultures unlike africans who before industrialization began trialing were best known for village communities where even languages were not so different. But back to the point, white people are much less likely to identify themselves as "white" as they are "British, Irish, Scottish, American, Canadian" just because that says way more about them.

Has anyone noticed how much more... realistic Obama's view of the world is? Seriously, consider both the way Bush and Mccain see other nations. They basically divide the world into good and evil. Mccain has even said that it's our job to figure out how to get democracy into Iraq. That's actually a way more Idealistic and far out there than Obama's vision, which I would even call conservative. He sees enemies and terrorist groups to be driven just as much by greed and corruption as any radicalist ideology of their group. The dogma of obama's policy is that we need to defeat the right people, and that's why he's willing to meet with hostile leaders, and so I find it quite ironic how people draw the conclusion that he's naive on foreign affairs.

You shouldn't be mad, you should be proud. proud that you're father will be able to utilize his American degree in the field of his choosing, just i a different location, he will be the beginning generation of doctors that will equalize the practice of medicine across the world, which has always favored developed nations and devastated underdeveloped ones.

Also, even if you redistribute people, new countries would reform based on what the majority of people in that region happen to share (religion, race, etc...). Doctors, scientists, and others who have worked hard would not be NEARLY as willing as you think to work very hard in a hell hole for rate shit pay.

Again, drawn by lottery, these people will most likely not be able to find majority populations in their vicinity. The world isn't match.com, most people are willing to conclude that groups can be formed beyond the silly limits of the things you've mentioned. How would it feel to live in an age were there was no need to relive the Civil rights movement or any movement for that matter.

At 7/22/08 10:02 PM, BrianEtrius wrote:

At 7/22/08 09:59 PM, EKublai wrote:

This is a worldly affair, money is no object.

Have we not learned the world runs on money?

Developing nations will not care because they're getting a more able workforce, and developed nations will host inexperienced aliens who are trying to start a new life, not trying start progressive movements, and governements love submissive populations to their own might.

So now you are saying gangs are the cause of violence? Yeah right. Crime will happen, and it will always happen.

violence is always more prevalent in a society as a whole, that's why it's not random that you don't wander in Rio De Janeiro on your merry way. Of course crime will happen, but it will be spaced out, and crime will once again be an individualist game, which is a much harder one to play without people backing you up.

This is very similar to a communistic view. It won't happen because it can't happen. People are forever going to be arguing with each other, creating riffs that can lead to bigger and badder things.

Besides the fact that the definition of Communism is not "Something that Can't Happen" this isn't communism, it only simulates the communist experience after taking socialism to the extreme, which means people won't have the time to argue with eachother because they're too busy arguing with their government

At 7/22/08 09:57 PM, BrianEtrius wrote: And who would be paying for all of this? I'm not being mean, it's just the world can't do it yet. It's not possible.

This is a worldly affair, money is no object.

Also, who says every criminal will disappear? There's too many flaws in it.

I'm talking about gangs unless you intend be a Latin King in Vietnam.

Now don't call this impractical because this is just a theoretical excercise. But let's just say...

1. We research what would be the optimal populations in separate (currently inhabited) areas of the world so we wouldn't have to worry about Famine, overcrowding, land competition that would result in habitat distruction, and keeping people out of the way of natural disasters more effectively.

2. A Lottery is set up in which all of mankind (excluding current world and national leaders) are participating and based on the proportions of population previously researched, they are assigned to an area of the world for them and their posterity to live and thrive. This is advantageous because not only will a new global revolution take place where people are automatically forced to accept each other for what they are, it also splits up current organized crime that pretends to lead the life of normal citizens. And because cultural indifference sets in, it's as if there are no national borders while they're still are however.

3. Three years will be spent on the education of the various people's in order to teach them about the new place they shall live, the previous culture, the law of the land, and job oppurtunities.

4. With any luck, by sending people to other places, we will also be reapportioning the best and brightest minds of the world. Places that are currently experiencing "brain drain" will then get the doctors, skilled workers, and educators that are needed to stimulate industrialization.

Discuss...