Weirdly I just played Riven. The visual design is still great, and sometimes stellar; the first island is probably the most beautiful location in any video game to date. Unfortunately on pretty much all other fronts, the game is a colossal failure. The gameplay in particular is tortuously bad: when the puzzles are…

North Korea is actually a majestic, happy utopia. The Western media's portrayal of a dictatorial basket case is really just a double-bluff to make you feel contented with the drudgery of your lives.

Best.

By absolute height, you mean... height?

I always interpreted Johnson's refutation simply as a statement about common sense notions and use of language, rather than any particularly involved argument about simulations and the like. But please, explicate the link to this article, if you could.

Aside from your dodgy use of the word "Aristotelian", a term which doesn't accurately apply to logic post-1900... what you say is true. But I can't see how it's relevant to anything I personally said.

It's debated in philosophy. Quantum mechanics is a science. It's a model for making empirical predictions about the world. There isn't a debate about the science - either something does match observations or it does not, and quantum mechanics does, to a spectacular degree of accuracy and reliability. There is no…

This only works if you ignore Berkely's actual philosophy, in which the mental world was rendered orderly and comprehensible by God.

Did you not read the article or something..? You sound very confused.

Sounds like a pretty great idea, to me. I've heard a lot of very cynical comments about kids building CPUs and such in Minecraft, but I think it's fantastic that they're getting into this stuff. And I think it's a sign of things to come. I imagine in a decade, you'll be able to plug in to a beautiful virtual world and…

"quantum mechanics is a highly debated area whose theories and conclusions are often very hotly debated"

Oh god, dumb on so many levels.

Dozens of body lengths high is the same as less than one body length high..?

It's actually possible to breathe whilst peeing, you know.

Glad to see natural selection is still working well.

I can see that being fun for all of ten seconds.

Who are you???

There were about 3 good puzzles in that entire game.

The total male dominance of The Hobbit was a huge failing of Tolkein's writing.

What important stuff did they cut out of the Hobbit?