vershner

Fabulous interchanges mitsos. Are they from the new NAM? It's just a shame those street-lights have concrete bases. They'd look better blended into the grass. I like the pond in the middle. That's a nice touch. 8/10

How about this one then:

The Arrowz: Nice realistic pic. Quite simple but does the job. 8/10 Shadow_prophet: Nice enough but doesn't really appeal to me, too repetitive and gridded. Seems unlikely that you'd have three massive stadiums to close to each other. 6/10 danielcote: I like it. Realistic looking and some interesting angled buildings. What's going on with that building just right-of-centre though? It looks like an old Victorian frontage stuck on an art-deco office block. 7/10

Finally fixed it! After a whole evening of messing around found that the visual settings in-game don't take effect without a restart, even if the game doesn't pop up the 'restart needed' warning. Setting shadows to medium, and building draw speed to low, then restarting, sorted the problem.

I just updated to the latest driver version (8.561.0.0) but that's made no difference.

The driver date is 2nd June 2008 (version 8.501.0.0), so it would seem so. Is there a known good version of the ATI drivers?

Many of you have missed an obvious problem with alternative oil supplies. Things like oil shale, deep sea reserves, and synthetic oil take a lot of energy. More energy than can be made from burning the oil. This means that these forms of oil cannot be used for energy generation. All the energy made from burning the oil is consumed by the oil production process. This means oil may still be available for transport, and production of plastics, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, etc, but only if an alternative energy generation source is found. The Abiotic Oil theory is largely irrelevant. Even if oil is produced in the Earth's mantle there is no way that it's keeping up with our usage. The end of oil will happen if current usage continues. Although you never see politicians talking about oil, if you look at many of the recent world events, it's obvious that they recognise the coming oil shortage. Iraq is the clearest example.

If any city were to become the world capital, then it would have to be agreed upon by the majority of the worlds nations. If we assume that the current balance of power and relationships continue, then we can rule out about half of the cites listed. The US would not agree to any city in Russia or China, and likewise Russia and China would not agree to any US city. China would dispute cities in India and Japan, and it is unlikely that the UK, France and Germany would agree to any of each others cities. Next I think we can rule out any country that is not entirely politically, economically, and socially stable. That rules out:- Johannesburg Cape Town Lagos Bangkok Buenos Aires Also, the capital should be somewhere democratic. That rules out Cairo, Dubai, and makes Singapore borderline. Ideally the capital would be somewhere central, with close connections to large numbers of nations. That rules out Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland, and is a minus-point for Toronto, Rio, Sao-Paulo, and Mexico City. From your original list that leaves: Madrid Rome The Hague Brussels I think Geneva should also be included, and possibly Athens as well - the birthplace of democracy.

Francis Collins is not a creationist, he says so in the very article you linked to!! I quote: "Yes, evolution by descent from a common ancestor is clearly true. If there was any lingering doubt about the evidence from the fossil record, the study of DNA provides the strongest possible proof of our relatedness to all other living things. But why couldn't this be God's plan for creation? True, this is incompatible with an ultra-literal interpretation of Genesis, but long before Darwin, there were many thoughtful interpreters like St. Augustine, who found it impossible to be exactly sure what the meaning of that amazing creation story was supposed to be. So attaching oneself to such literal interpretations in the face of compelling scientific evidence pointing to the ancient age of Earth and the relatedness of living things by evolution seems neither wise nor necessary for the believer." If you managed to read that article and somehow come to the conclusion that Francis Collins was a creationist then I'm not surprised that you have difficulty understanding evolution. I'm quite shocked really. Did you even read the article?

El Burro - Great image! I particularly like the smoke from the chimneys, it's much better than the default smoke. Is that a mod or did you photoshop it in afterwards? I have to agree with smstevenms about the blurring though, it doesn't seem to be very consistent. Blurring the tops of the towers in the bottom right looks good, because they would be much closer, but blurring the low-rise stuff in the lower middle doesn't look right. Overall - 8/10. smstevenms - Interesting layout, nice start. The only pointer I'd give is that from a realism point of view the extra bits of canal over the highway tunnel should not be there. In real life you'd want the tunnel going under the thinnest section of canal. Also, the avenue going under the highway looks a bit awkward and too steep. Why not go over the highway?

manticorefan: This is not a Science v Religion debate, it's perfectly reasonable to be a scientist and still be religious. As you point out, many scientists are deeply religious, but you fail to mention - none of them are creationists! No scientist would subscribe to a theory that is so fundamentally flawed and has been repeatedly shown to contradict factual evidence. Creationism is simply a minor cult who refuse to accept the real world, like the flat-earthers and the scientologists. The issue that no creationist seems to have an answer to is that there is no definitive perfect copy of the Bible, so the idea that it must be taken completely literally is nonsense.

Originally posted by: manticorefan Vershner: There are many other sites available on this subject, such as:http://www.equip.org/site/c.muI1LaMNJrE/b.2684641/k.AE95/DB130.htm I am trying to stay more narrowly focused to keep this discussion to a manageable size. If one approaches the Bible from a standpoint that it can't possibly be true or accurate, the rest of this discussion is pretty much a moot point.quote> No, what you're trying to do is pick and chose the arguments you think you can win. You are trying to keep the discussion on attacking evolution, but I am attacking creationism. What I have done is point out the fact that the entire basis of creationism is completely and utterly flawed and you have no answer to that. The link you refer to is again irrelevant. Just a review of yet another version of the Bible, and one that doesn't even claim to be an exact translation. The Bible can be true and accurate to an extent, but it cannot be treated as an absolute truth, there are too many contradictions and errors. The Bible even contradicts itself. When the Bible clearly contradicts observable evidence, as is the case with Genesis, then either the Bible is wrong, or parts of it were never intended to be taken literally.

Originally posted by: manticorefan Vershner: This site deals with this way-off-topic thread far more in depth than I'm inclined to here:http://www.christianity.co.nz/bible-3.htm quote> It is not off-topic in the slightest!! The creationist movement is based on the idea that the Bible is a literal and absolute truth. As I have shown in my previous post, this is not the case. Without a perfect copy of the original Bible, the creationist argument falls apart. Attempting to dismiss my comments as off-topic simply shows that your argument has fallen apart and you have no available response. The website to link to barely says anything about the old testament. Nothing about the Bible before the Dead Sea Scrolls at all.

Originally posted by: manticorefanVershner: The accuracy of The King James has been checked and rechecked, and has been shown to be 99.5% accurate to the original Greek and Hebrew manuscripts. The Dead Sea Scrolls bear this out, containing some texts far older than any previously known. The only differences were small and did not affect the meaning in any way. The supposition that it has lost anything in translation has been shown to be false every time it's tested. quote> There are so many problems with this statement I hardly know where to start! Firstly, and most importantly, 99.5% that you claim is not 100%, and it can only be considered absolute truth if it is absolutely accurate. Also, where do you get 99.5% from anyway? Ancient Hebrew is not perfectly understood. There are words and symbols in the Masoretic Text that are unknown, so any precise estimation of accurate translation is pointless. Secondly, the Greek documents show evidence of editing, and they don't perfectly match the Hebrew documents. The King James Bible was not translated from them anyway. Thirdly, the Masoretic Text that the King James was translated from dates from the 9th century. The original texts are far older than that and you have no way of establishing the accuracy of the Masoretic Text. Even the Dead Sea Scrolls only date from around Jesus's time so they are not original either. To be original the document would have to date from at least 722BC. There are no original documents that have been discovered. So, at the very best case, the King James Bible is a translated copy, of a copy, and given the time frames involved and the materials available it is likely that there were many more copies further back. It is very probable that the original stories were an oral tradition rather than a textual one, and given that Genesis is probably the oldest, it's the most likely to have been an oral tradition originally. How accurate do you think the passing on of an unwritten story would be?

I originally asked the question about universe size. The reason being is that if you accept the current measured value of the speed of light, and you accept estimations as to the distances of other galaxies, then clearly you must accept that the universe is much older than 6000 years. As for the discussion about the Ark. I don't think that anyone is denying that there was a flood. There is good scientific evidence to suggest there have been several very large floods in human history, and of course, these events were recorded by the people of the time and included in their traditions. It's also perfectly possible that a guy named Noah built a big ship and saved his family and numerous animals. What is not possible though is that he included every animal in existence. Even if a ship were found on Ararat, it would not have any bearing on the theory of evolution. Why do you creationists hold the Bible to be a literal truth? I don't understand that at all. The Bible was written by men. Whether or not it was the word of God originally is irrelevant, it was still written down by men. Since then it has been copied and recopied, translated, retranslated, interpreted, and language itself has changed. Nowadays there are hundreds of different versions of the Bible, which one is right? Are you seriously suggesting that these men fully understood the word of God enough to write it down perfectly? And since then the Bible has remained completely unchanged?

That's a lovely image. How is it put together though? Is it a single bat, or several pieced together?

Very nice region you have there. I take it you built in the terraformer rather than in god mode? Here's another of my images:

One advantage of monorail is that wealthy people seem to like it, whereas they don't seem to like buses and trains. If you're trying to build a city with low road usage then monorail comes in very handy.

LP - This image is almost great, but a few problems detract from it. Firstly the weird dark square of railway on the right. Secondly, you have a turning lane for going left on that loop in front of the station, but in reality no one would ever turn left there. Thirdly, your traffic is driving on the right but a truck on the far left of the picture is clearly driving on the left. I can only assume that this is a one way road with no exit, which isn't very realistic. Finally, I think the image would be better if the view were shifted slightly up and left. This would focus better on the station, rather than cutting off the top corner. On the plus side I like the construction site, it's much better than others I've seen. The road layout is interesting too. Overall 7/10

Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike it, I just don't think it's amazing. Yes, the fireworks are nice and add to the image, but fireworks have been used many times before so they don't turn it from a good picture into an amazing one. If you look at it from a realism point of view it's a lot less convincing than other recent images like LP's or Deever's. From an artistic point of view I don't see it being particularly creative compared to his previous image of the building site. I liked that one a lot more. I forgot to rate a few before:- haljackey - Nice layout and composition but, as others have mentioned, it really needs some more lighting. - 6/10 The_sanderson - As an image it's very nice, but as a work of Sim City building it's not really anything special. Just a park lot with some roads around it. - 6/10 Deever - Brilliant. Very realistic. Some people dislike the Maxis buildings but personally I like most of them, the only thing I'm less keen on is the building under construction in the bottom left. I don't think the default construction sites look very realistic. - 9/10 Shingure - It's got potential but you really need to sort out those houses 40 foot up in the air. Also, that monument is far too big compared to the houses. - 5/10

Glenni - Nice layout on your pic, but a few problems. The overlapping diagonals have already been pointed out, but also the car-park in the top right seems to be completely untextured. 6/10 *****atoo - No specific problems, but personally I'm not keen on mostly-skyscraper images, the road layout is mostly hidden. Nice enough though. 7/10

Manticorefan, before continuing this discussion, could we get an exact statement of what it is you believe in regards the origins of life? Do you take the book of Genesis completely literally and believe that the Earth was created in six days, approximately 6000 years ago, and all species that have ever existed were created within those six days? What about the universe as a whole? When do you believe that was created, and do you accept current approximations of its size?

Just updated my image to get rid of those nasty jagged edges down the left hand side. Thanks for your comments LP, what did you think was wrong with my city? Was it those jagged edges? As for your pics: - I really like the first one, quite repetitive buildings, but realistic nevertheless, and good composition with the two junctions in the middle. The second one I'm less keen on, all the roads seem to be undulating for no apparent reason, and this is affecting the edges of your parks too. I think it would look much better if you flattened out the roads a bit. Also, on both you images, and the one from earlier, I think you're slightly overdoing it with the grey/green tint. I assume you're trying to achieve a more realistic look than the slightly plasticy style of the default game, but I think you've gone too far and pretty much eliminated all the red and blue from the images, which make the overall effect a bit flat and dull.

In large cities I tend to use both subway and monorail. El-rail is just for show really, it makes no sense from financial point of view because subway is cheaper to run and takes up less space. Now that the NAM can elevate ordinary rail I use that quite a bit too. I don't use GLR because I always end up crashing the game with that.

Atlantis