Okara KAmi

I like both genres, but only when they're mixed properly with everything else that makes a good movie. I don't like movies that are solely action, because that ends up feeling like the director just bragging about all the different pyrotechnics he can afford, and that just isn't appealing. A good example was Transformers. During the second movie, I remember falling asleep in the middle. Mind you, I never fall asleep during movies, and have always thought the expression an exaggeration of how boring a movie is. Yet, somehow, the second movie managed to lull me to sleep half way in the middle. I woke up and was just as uninterested as before.The sad part is, I wasn't even on a date. I was with my other (male) friends, and all of us found the movie boring, which is sad considering it is a movie geared specifically towards the male audience. While that fact can be refuted, the rather unimportant role of actors like Megan Fox in the movie, contrast to how much sex appeal they protrude, was easy to see. I get bored with an endless onslaught of fighting or graphics unless there's some meaning behind it, something deeper that is easier to relate to.The same stands for horror. I hate horror movies that are just about scares and shocking scenes. If I wanted to hear quick bursts of loud and scary sounds, I'd get married. One example of a boring horror movie was the latest Nightmare on Elm Street. It's predictable and formulaic, and relies on its sudden bursts of scary noise and scenery to 'scare' its audience, while it does not invest any brain power in actually frightening us beyond the screen.One action movie I really liked was Police Story, by Jackie Chan. It's an old one, but it's a classic example of a story that is, at its core, an action movie. There are fight scenes left and right, and the scenes are so stunt-oriented that Jackie Chan has burned off his palm while doing the movie. Yet, somehow, no point in the movie made me feel as if I was being thrown a superfluous stream of action scenes that I did not need. The story progressed and the action scenes -helped- that progression. That's what I liked the most about the movie, that the genius action scenes 'helped' the movie, and did not make it. Similarly, a recent horror movie that i liked was Paranormal Activity. I know that there have been various opinions about this movie but I feel that it was very well made. It did not rely on sudden loud noises to scare us, but planted a fear in the viewer that came from the unknown. It let us use our imagination to give form to the formless ghost that wandered the house, and soon the fear of the actors in the movie became something that we have all been able to relate to. That kind of scary, where the loud scenes and the dramatic camera work is not the entirety of the spook, is the kind of scary that I want.I guess what it all comes down to is how the action and the horror is used.But unfortunately, I also don't think that the scales are balanced. That is to say, even with the same amount of mastery in horror and action, and given the same degree of decency for the rest of the film, I think that the reception of both types of films will differ. Why? Because the reception of horror movies is vastly more negative than that of action movies. When it comes to action movies, we all know that what happens in the screen is fake and that certain parts are meant for dramatic fights while the other parts are meant for comedic showdowns. Thus, when two viewers go to the movies to watch these fight scenes, no one comes out of the movie with any embedded emotion. That is what a movie should be like.Unfortunately, with horror movies, the scary aspect of them challenges something intrinsic to all men (and some women). The majority of us do not like to admit that we were scared by scenes in the movie, or are still haunted by the feelings that they gave us. So, after watching a movie that scared the wits out of a viewer, they might be urged to rebel against the insecurity that their own fright brings about, by negatively remarking on the film. This general sentiment of rebellion against scary movies, where people immediately claim that it was not scary and that it did not even spook them, serves to drape the entire horror movie industry in a sense of ridicule. After-all, what faster way to play off your fear than by laughing at what you're really afraid of?As such, I think as a SOCIETY, we like action movies better.But I, personally, like horror movies better, because in the battle field of horror movie ratings, finding a good scary movie is an accomplishment all on its own.

Heck yes I'd like to know when I die.The reason is that I assume I won't go into some depressed state if I do find out. Say I am going to die next week -- I'm going to presume that I have enough sense to spend that time wisely, instead of brooding over it. Now if finding out my deadline does not throw me off of my path, then knowing when I die will always be a good thing. Now I know how I should alter my plans to adhere to the fact that I will be in the ground soon. I would cancel my trip to Japan, spend much more time with those that I love, and invest more resources into what I leave behind, rather than what I use currently. If a father found out that he was about to die, the first thing he would think about was how his family was going to sustain itself after his passing.With that mentality, knowing when you die means that you don't get caught off guard, and you're able to leave behind more to those that you care about.I guess that's a super optimistic and benevolent way of looking at it. It is not in my personality to think about something that I can not help, and brood over it. If I am going to die, by definition, I can not change that. As such, if people function under my first assumption, and the finding out of their deadline does not ruin their lives, then we could be looking at much more intelligently planned lives.On the other hand, this could bring about a negative effect also. When someone knows that they are going to die tomorrow no matter what, then they might do stupid things today. The basis of law is prevention -- you impose heavy punishments for crimes so that people who commit these crimes won't do it again, and people who look on the punishment will not do the crime. But this breaks down when the punishment becomes invalid, because the criminal dies the next day. In that sense, people might take advantage of the lack of punishment and harm other people.Of course, this is an extreme example, but it should be considered.---At the same time, let us look at the definition of the future.At T + some X, such and such happens, where T is the current moment in time.To predict that such and such happened is not a "would be" future, it is THE future.If it is THE future, that means it already accounts for the fact that you looked INTO the future.What does that mean?Well for one, it means that one can not 'change' the future ever. Why? Because the future they saw already took into account the fact that they looked into the future. Thus, them changing their actions does not really 'change' anything, because that future that they saw is still THE future. Now with that in mind, it's entirely possible that if I know I'm going to die tomorrow, I might do something stupid now, and my stupidity NOW causes my death tomorrow.

--- Regarding the effect of violent games/movies on ChildrenI think the effect that violent video games have on children is an organic one, and not something that we hold the responsibility to control. By that logic, we should limit over exposure of anything and everything, because it will make the child numb to it. It's up to the parents to adapt their parenting to the morphing world. I played a lot of violent games, but never lost track of the fact that it was just a game. The line between what is allowed in a game and what is allowed in real life was never blurred either. This came down, I believe, to my own internally embedded moral code.If i have a weak sense of morality, then it becomes harder for me to know where the rules of a game ends and where the rules of real life starts. And while this is a dangerously generic categorization of the reason why kids become affected by video games, I do believe the responsibility lies in their up bringing.Limiting how violent video games are is intrinsically an anti-American view. We should have the right to produce whatever we want. If the consumer wants it, he can buy it. If the parent thinks that their child is not ready for such a violent game, then they should not buy it. The choice should rest, always, at the grass-roots, and should not be regulated by the government. Why? Because no matter how you view this topic, it is bound to be an opinion, and opinions should never be made into laws.--- Regarding Sentient LifeAs a Computer Science, I would like to state that self-awareness isn't completely out of the question. The big stone wall between AI now and sentient behavior is active learning and opinion generation. That is to say, we haven't fully been able to make an AI understand new concepts and generate a "view" on it. It's easy to parse through a lot of data, say on the internet, and regurgitate relevant information about key word(s). But it's difficult to 'talk' about the subject.Once we are able to overcome this barrier, it becomes easier to create self-aware AI that 'feels' about new information. This feeling about new information can be translated to having "senses", immediately making it a sentient AI.This is a long way from now, as currently I can't even 'think' of a way to dynamically generate emotion about new subjects in code. But when that becomes possible, I don't think killing AI's inside of a game will be our biggest problem. Imagine a race of robots with infinitely more computing power than our brains, that begin to understand that they're the superior race. xD

It should also be noted that we have not found any life of our caliber anywhere else in the Universe. We've probed distances light-years away for any sign of intelligence, but nothing. So I can't see the point of view that our lives should be cut short due to our effect on the environment. But you're right in the sense that our expansionist mentality, soon, will become too large for the Earth to be able to handle. When this time comes, the resources available for us on the planet will not be enough to provide for our race. This, to me, is an imminent obstacle in our future, albeit beyond our life spans. Why? Because our rate of consumption increases with the population and the rising wealth of nations. Given that, we don't have any proportionately powerful ways of increasing our "output" of natural resources.At some point, we will run out of oil, be depleted of fertile fields, and have a desert where forests should have been. Much before we push that threshold, naturally, we would have invested a large amount of our resources into finding alternative sources of energy in the universe. While this sounds a little bit like Star Trek, I really don't see how we can avoid it. Costs rise, resources aren't infinite, so at some point, Costs > resources.Of course it can also be argued that a genocidal policy towards self preservation, perhaps by eliminating other races to cut down on consumption, is a very real answer. But then we move full circle back to our nuclear holocaust idea, where we eat eachother alive.Like the above poster said, we're too awesome to put other forms of life at higher priority than ourselves. =D

Guys. All these other posters seem to talk about rapping, but they don't spit their game. But have no fear. My rap name is Immortal Technique. You might have heard of me.@ Scorpion120, @ Guest_Joe_*, here is your rap song.Yo yo yo you're a real fine lassWith cherry red hair like a real wine glassI wanna chase you like a duck in the grassAnd maybe tonight you'll get ____ed in the ____West side ride or die.

This seems like a remarkably morbid wager...I'm assuming you're talking about Amanda Clayton. I'd heard about her a while ago. I think she will get much smarter with her money, given that she does not get any DHS aid anymore. If she's willing to keep her lottery money in tact while she uses food stamps to feed herself, then she has the right type of menality (and perhaps even the right type of morality?) to stay rich longer than the average lottery winner.So for the sake of sport (I'm going to hell for this), I say she doesn't need food stamps for 3-5 years. With what cut a lawyer will take out of her wallet (assuming she's crazy enough to get one and not use a state commissioned one), I think this whole ordeal will scare her straight. I hope she doesn't bail herself out... Jail food/housing is free

Hey Velma,It's doen manually? That makes more sense. I thought perhaps some php script ran every time I posted, so I assumed I had missed some "No Post Count!" sign somewhere along the line. Thank you for your quick reply, and yes, my Credit has gone up.

You're defining the requirement for religion to be organized in the same way that Christianity/Islam/Judaism are. Why does there need to be a single prophet or a single religious book? Does the Bible not have an old and new testament through which the character of "god" undergoes some heavy mood shifts? Are these not, by their self definition, written in hugely different times? It is in the same way that Hinduism has the Ramayana and the Mahabhagvatha.As is the case with any polytheistic religion, the term "organization" gets thrown out of the window. Think Greek Myth. The Hindu religion integrates a rich text of mythology, wars between gods, demons, and humans fill the pages of the text. I don't see this as disorganization in the same way that Harry Potter isn't disorganized merely because there are so many Wizard battles. A story is told, and a pathos is extended from that story unto those who believe in it.---Now since we are attributing our opinions to the strength or validity of a religion, then would an evolving religion not be a more suitable one? Surely you know that the Bible has been interpreted in various and temporally convenient ways, along the ages. Think the crusades, hell-fire and brimstone, and modern day. The purpose of a religion is not disjoint from the intention of its people. A religion would not exist if it starkly contrasts the moral code of its followers. That is why Christians don't take their naughty children to the edge of town and stone them, even if it says to do so in the Bible. This is because the internal definition of the religion changed with its people, not different from how Hinduism does.In that aspect, i believe that a religion that has the ability to morph organically, is a much more powerful religion than one that preaches beliefs that are centuries outdated. So while that river may have twisted and turned through its path, and changed its color from when it once started, its ability to encompass change fluidly is what drives it forward. This is, of course, assuming your river analogy is apt at all. By your view, most religions are rivers, as I can point out adaptations and changes that each religion undergoes to adhere to the progress of the times.---I hope I've cleared up some of your mystification about the subjet, by providing the other side of the story.PS: "Religion is the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, esp. a personal God or gods." -- GoogleThe definition you used for Religion isn't a definition of it at all, it's what a certain subset of religions are. Subsets do not define the superset.

darko100 is right, the Social Network market is pretty well hashed out and flagged down. Unless you have a game-changing idea, or even an older idea that never hit it big before, you won't get anywhere with it. The first question you want to ask yourself is, "Why would anyone want to cut down their FB/Twitter time to join my site?" There are a ton of resources, friends, and data on FB/Twitter that makes every minute you spend there more fruitful than 1 minute you spend somewhere else.Once you've found what you want to bring to the table, your site name should come easy.But if we're going with random recommendations:alakaz.am, cap.com xD

I think Facebook's monopoly over the Social Networking game is too absolute for Google+ to stand a chance. Google made some important tactical errors when it came to its product, the first of which, I believe, is the UI. It should have known that, by definition, Facebook is practically the standard for all social networks, and thus, when creating your own site, it should adhere to some important paradigms Facebook set forth. But Google+, while similar to FB in many ways, differs starkly with its use of colors and how large everything is.It's hard to deny that most Google+ users would be FB users too, and thus, it would have been beneficial to stay sensitive to this fact and make the transition between Google+ and Facebook as simple as possible. One way to go about this, something that Android phones already do, is integrating with Facebook. If I have 600 friends on FB, why would I want to start a whole new network on Google+? It should have inflated accounts out of people on Google's contact list AND friends on Facebook, so that when an FB user comes to Google, they don't lose 95% of their friends.Beyond that, the App market for Google+ is practically nonexistant, whereas people are coming out with new FB Apps every day. Making an FB compatible sandbox so that FB Apps can be translated to Google+ apps without too much of a problem, would have also been an important step.It all comes down to transition.Google+ asked too much of its users. We don't want to ditch FB and go to a whole new playground, when there's nothing wrong with our old one.

Hi!Three posts ago (of good length? Around 100-300 Word Count) I had the same myCents as I do now, and I was wondering how often the script iterates through the users to update the count. My balance has not changed, over at my Xisto account either, so i wanted to make sure that I wasn't beating a dead horse.Thanks,Kami

Do you guys not believe that there is what seems like a market bubble in Indian real estate? I think a large portion of India's imported cash comes from foreign investments into the land. What happens when you have foreign investors is that they are willing to function in a higher price bracket than what is normal in the Indian economy. With enough "rich" people investing in Indian land, the price of the land steadily grows higher to accomodate the willingness of the buyer to pay more.What this has done, especially in my home town (Ahmedabad), is it's made the property prices sky-rocket. The average Indian struggles to buy land, because single floor condos (known as "Flats" in India) can sell in the 100's of thousands (lakhs) or Rupees. Do you guys think that this market can last? When does the investment interest in India begin declining due to the rate of increase in Indian prices? When does India stop being an out source capital and other rising countries become more viable options?What I'm saying is, the more foreign interest in India, the richer India gets.The richer India gets, the higher the prices go.The higher the prices go, the lesser the foreign interest gets.I know that might be an oversimplification of the matter, but I think it's a real obstacle.

Well the largest reason anyone should invest in a website is the fact that it can reach a ridiculously larger group of people than any physical form of advertising, for much less cost. For example, I can pay 10 bucks a year and reach millions of users if I advertise properly. I have worked as a Web Developer for startup companies, small businesses, and mom n' pop shops around my city. The first thing I tell them is that word of mouth just isn't the strongest tool any more.Like the previous poster said, a website can add credibility. A well established website with positive feed-back, as well as a lot of legitimate material (portfolio), can help credit your business much faster than word of mouth can.But I think the most important aspect of a website is the instant functionality. Imagine how easy it is now to add an "affiliate" or to keep track of a "customer" without the need of a paper of pencil. Use a mySQL database, store their information and retrieve it programmatically, instead of hiring an accountant or a clerk to do all of that for you. The older generation isn't too used to the paradigm of the user and the interface, so in my experience, they are always pleasantly surprised when they find out that they can keep accounts online, using Cloud resources that run behind their website to cut down their work by 80% for free.I think social networks need a mention here, because it lets your customers know what you're up to and what you're interested in. That personal connection which many might have initially thought is lost without word of mouth, can be re-established if you have your users follow you on Twitter, or add you on Facebook. The end goal here is to create your commercial website, but tie it with your online persona, so that your customers become your friends, and your friends in turn become long time customers.

I think coding in C forces you to up your game in programming. The function orientation of the language means you, as the programmer, have to know which function belongs where, instead of object orientation doing it for you. It promotes powerful practices, like memory management, which is done 'for you' with other programming languages. But when we have garbage collectors doing the job for us, we know right off the bat that there will be an overhead. That is to say -- it takes longer for Java to clear our un-linked objects from data than it does for a C program to do it inside of the program itself.I'm not sure how deep you've gone into C program, but you'll run into commands like malloc() and free(). The former sets aside memory to hold an object such that a pointer to it can be passed in and out of functions, while the latter frees it from memory. In Java, you can pass entire objects back and forth and never worry about it, but that's why i think C gives you a better grasp of what's going on underneath the hood.Having programmed in C, you will come across powerful tools like valgrind and gdb that really put your code out into the open regarding your algorithmic errors and other such shortcomings. Not to mention, even without the garbage collecting over-head, C is very much faster than programming languages that run on top of VM's. I remember coding in a combination of C and Assembly for a huge Fibonacci Heap problem, and the speed with which is finishd it over its Java counterpart was impressive.But. If you've ever stared at your terminal wondering why your "Heap" was aborted during a C program, you know that all isn't well in the realm of C xD

Considering you are human, the idea that humanity should be destroyed coming to your mind is evidence that we're so highly developed. We not only recognize ourselves as organisms taking part in the existence of a larger host, but are able to judge our effects on the host. But the ability to make such an analysis does not suggest that we would be able to do much of anything in its regard. A Mass suicide is out of the question, and unless we somehow wipe ourselves out in a nuclear holocaust, I don't see our kind dropping to dust any time soon.Besides that, I think it's a bit crazy to think that we aren't just playing our role. What makes you think we are any any less natural than a fly or a tree? We were created from the soil that we build on, and like a bird building a nest, we build our concrete jungles and playgrounds. It's our right, as part of the ecosystem, to work for our benefit and to ensure our survival. Ensuring our survival comes in many ways. We need fuel and resources to continue providing ourselves in our high-demand way of life. But we also need to keep greenery in tact, because it provides us with clean oxygen, and bolsters our atmosphere. To keep the greenery in tact and balanced, we need wildlife to push the circle of life along.As such, our survival is just as crucial as the survival of anything else on the planet. Sure, lions can survive just fine without human beings, but the inverse holds true too, so the argument that we are a plague doesn't seem to hold much substance. Our rapid expansionist mentality is something that naturally comes to us, and it can't be helped given our rising population and increasing technological requirement.All in all, I'd have to disagree, wiping out all humanity because "we are a plague" is a bit of a stretch.