Sam

There is a tutorial I wrote here: https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=211.0 It is quite long and detailed but if you don't have SC4PIM-X then that is how you need to do it. If you have PIM-X there is a shortcut way that is probably described in the manual for it.

Originally posted by: saltandsauce what makes me wonder about the big bang is that, the big bang violates a law of thermodynamics, energy can neither be created nor destroyed. quote> Any law is a human creation that is a human attempt to construct a model of reality for the purposes of humans approximating an understanding reality. A scientific law is not the same as a law in the religious or legal sense, but creationists often seem to get them mixed up. However in the scientific sense, if a law doesn't match reality then reality is probably right and the law is probably wrong so it's probably the law that needs chucking out rather than reality. It would be nice if whatever model is constructed allowed the existing law to remain unaltered but it is not required. Progress though tends to be refinement rather than a replacement. Any new model or law must explain everything the old one does and the new observations as well. I think I've mentioned before that science doesn't dump a reasonably working explanation for one that doesn't work as well. I'm not too hung up on a few laws going missing though if that's how it has to happen. That's when the fun starts. So I for one don't see it as a problem even if it does turn out to be a violation of any current scientific law (in fact we already know the laws we have do not apply under conditions of the Big Bang, so we are going to need new ones anyway). However, for the moment it is not a violation of any thermodynamics laws, more frequently it turns out that the creationist arguments have misunderstood the application and meaning of those laws. Not that it has anything to do with evolution. Big Bang cosmology is nice and all, but evolution is more interesting to me, and what happens in Big Bang cosmology doesn't really affect anything about evolution except to supply raw materials. .

Sorry, the above messages got a little messed up in the move from the LE&PIM forum.

The Neanderthal genome has been sequenced and the draft genome is presented in the 7 May 2010 issue of Science. The researchers sequenced over 3 billion nucleotides from three individuals. They've also compared them to five individual humans and have identified a number of genomic regions that may have been subject to positive selection in modern humans. The results are interesting. Two of the papers are freely available to site visitors and there is also a special online presentation: http://sciencemag.org/special/neandertal/ A Draft Sequence of the Neandertal Genome. R. E. Green, J. Krause, A. W. Briggs, T. Maricic, U. Stenzel, M. Kircher, N. Patterson, H. Li, W. Zhai, M. H. Y. Fritz, et al. (2010) Science 328, 710-722

Originally posted by: CWLGAMER01 Taken from Amazon: In The 5000 Year Leap: A Miracle That Changed the World, Discover the 28 Principles of Freedom our Founding Fathers said must be understood and perpetuated by every people who desire peace, prosperity, and freedom. quote> This part I disagree with. There are nations and peoples outside of the United States who base their societies on different principles to those the US adopts. Many of those nations are peaceful, prosperous and free, not in any way less than that of the US. I think time and recent history have shown the above statement to be false. It may have appeared to be true in the days of your Founding Fathers, and I have great respect for many of their ideas, probably more so than many recent counterparts, but consider the time and political conditions they lived in and compare it to now. Originally posted by: morriswalters Rather than give credit to the founding fathers for advancing civilzation you might want to thank Gutenberg for developing the printing press thereby creating a mechanism for storing information. Most advances through today happen because there is continuity provide by the written and now electronic word. Until that invention data could only be carried forth by folklore or by handwritten texts. The age of discovery was a product of this, as the thinkers of those times were able to interact and share ideas with their peers all around the world. quote> This I would agree has had far more impact on human progress, including social, moral, political and technological.

Well this is more of a help desk thread for people trying to make things and having a specific problem with the Lot Editor. What is it you are having a problem with? If you ask we can at least point you to the right place.

I just saw the new Doctor Who tonight and wasn't real impressed even though I usually like Stephen Moffat's stories. Out of the new series I think I've really only liked David Tennant's incarnation of the Doctor. The new TARDIS looked kind of cool though in the brief shots at the end.

Lucky you came out of it all ok. Car smashes can really ruin your day as well as your car.

Originally posted by: frndofyaweh Originally posted by: Crackdtoothgrin Originally posted by: frndofyaweh Can anyone direct me to similar stories, with written evidence, that are clearly dated as older than 2600 years? quote> Yes, I can. The Epic of Gilgamesh contains several of the same stories. Also, the funerary writings on the temple walls of Sakkara are both older. Oh, and the Greek Eleusinian myths which were written in 1,400-1,800 B.C.E. depicting the same 'hero cycle' with Dionysus... There are a lot of these. The Bible isn't anything original, at all.quote> All I can find is this date: The story of King Gilgamesh, thought to be a ruler in the 3rd millennium B.C, was gathered into an Akkadian poem long afterward, with the most complete version extant today preserved on twelve clay tablets in the library collection of the 7th century B.C.E Assyrian king Ashurbanipal. That equals 2700 years. It's a new discovery: The 2600 year old clay tablet, I was referring to, containing exact duplicate of a portion of Isaiah, was just recently dug up, in an archeological dig site in Isreal, near Jerusalem. The article was posted to MSN and Yahoo News, just last month, but I will need to see if it is archived.quote> No, that's the date of the library and the reign of the king who collected the tablets (rather like a modern museum would collect artifacts), not the date of the piece of literature. Early Sumerian versions of the Gilgamesh poems date to 2150 BCE and Akkadian versions date to early second millenium BCE. If you look at the first reference below it discusses in depth the relationships between the versions from the various artefacts. The 12 tablet version apparently contains the name of the editor, Sin-liqe-unninni who apparently dates to between 1300 and 1000 BCE according to the scholars I've read. Poems in both the Babylonian and Akkadian forms were used as school copy texts for the Mesopotamian scribes, so there are many copies of some of the poems. For a recent scholarly treatment of the numerous artifacts try this (you can access some of the interesting bits via Google Books if necessary): George, AR (2003) The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts Volume I, Oxford University Press Also some interesting bits here: Dalley, S (1998) Myths from Mesopotamia: creation, the flood, Gilgamesh, and others, Oxford University Press If Wikipedia is more to your your liking thing try these: Wapedia - The Epic of Gilgamesh http://wapedia.mobi/en/Epic_of_Gilgamesh Wikipedia - The Gilgamesh Flood Myth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilgamesh_flood_myth Also I found this quote interesting from De Villiers, G 2006, 'The Epic of Gilgamesh and the Old Testament : parallels beyond the Deluge', Old Testament Essays, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 26-34. Ecclesiastes 9:7-9 displays striking similarities to the speech of Siduri, the barmaid (which is recorded in the Old Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, but omitted in the Standard one - Abusch 1993:1 provides an OB transliteration as well as an English translation). Haggard and worn, a grief-stricken Gilgamesh, desperately in search of life everlasting arrives at the seashore of the Waters of Death where Siduri lives. She tells him that only the gods live for ever, human beings all die, sooner or later. And she advises him to fill his belly, to be merry day and night, to feast, to play, to wear clean garments, to wash his hair, bathe himself, to take notice of the little one who holds his hand, and to enjoy his wife. This almost literal resemblance between the two texts is remarkable, given the fact that the Old Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic probably dates back to the time of the reign of Hammurapi (Schrott 2001:14), or at least somewhere between 1700 – 1600 BCE (George 1999: Ix) quote> for comparison: Ecclesiastes 9:7-9 7 Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for it is now that God favors what you do. 8 Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil. 9 Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun— all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun. Gilgamesh The ale-wife said to him, to Gilgamesh: 'Gilgamesh, whither rovest thou? The life thou pursuest thou shalt not find. When the gods created mankind, Death for mankind they set aside, Life in their own hands retaining. Thou, Gilgamesh, let full be thy belly, Make thou merry by day and by night. Of each day make thou a feast of rejoicing, Day and night dance thou and play! Let thy garments be sparkling fresh, Thy head be washed; bathe thou in water. Pay heed to the little one that holds on to thy hand, Let thy spouse delight in thy bosom! For this is the task of mankind! quote> Originally posted by: frndofyaweh It's a new discovery: The 2600 year old clay tablet, I was referring to, containing exact duplicate of a portion of Isaiah, was just recently dug up, in an archeological dig site in Isreal, near Jerusalem. The article was posted to MSN and Yahoo News, just last month, but I will need to see if it is archived.quote> Originally posted by: Crackdtoothgrin This I'm interested in. quote> quote>

Originally posted by: frndofyaweh Yet, we should take into account, stone tablets with words from Isaiah have been discovered and dated to 2600 years old - 600 years before Jesus' earthly life began. Copper tablets of many other books are dated to 2300 years old. quote> Which stone tablets are these you are referring to? The only artefacts dating to about 2600 I've heard of are the silver scrolls which contain a portion of the priestly benediction. Its not the whole of Isaiah, they were just two small amulets. The only whole Isaiah manuscript I know of dates to 100 BC only. The copper scrolls I know of date to 20-100 AD. There are Mesopotamian clay tablets found in the city of Nineveh which tell how the gods decidede to wipe out mankind with a flood, and how Utnapishtim,his family and animals were saved. One of these versions dates between 1300 and 1000 BC although there are older versions. However there are many original and distinct sources There's also the Sumerian creation and flood stories knonw from a tablet dated to the 18th Century BCE. You can find a translation of part of the flood legend here: http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.1.7.4#. Sumerian is the oldest language for which there is written evidence and literature and it dates from the late 3rd and early second millenium BCE. The previous link will get you to a database of translations.

Originally posted by: blakesterville I apologise if I am being offensive. I understand that my view here can be extremely offensive to many. quote> I don't think you are being offensive. For most people it is not that other people have different views that is offensive, it is more often in the way the views are expressed, and you are not expressing yours in an offensive manner, at least not to me. I'm finding your explanations interesting. Originally posted by: blakesterville If nobody told you that a tornado was coming, but instead didn't want to tell anyone because they "didn't want anyone to ruin anyone's mood", then it seems that soon enough, many people could get killed. quote> There is a difference here though. Many people have seen tornadoes and their effects many times. We can also explain how a tornado works and understand it through observation and experimentation. The evidence is so abundant and clear that people like me who have never seen a tornado, can nevertheless see the evidence that tornadoes exist, make empirical observations and from that understand how they work. If a tornado comes we don't have to take someone's word without evidence. Even if there is a tornado siren or a weather warning we are not just accepting someone's word that one is coming without any other evidence. We have a track record for example of warnings being sounded only for good and evident reason, we have the testable explanation of the mechanism by which they work and we have multiple independent and corroborating lines of evidence that tornadoes do occur in the way we understand them.

Originally posted by: SimHoTToDDy Stop thread necromancy! It's bad for the environment!quote> But lucky in this case. One of my BATs above survived the whole process and is now available on SC4 Devotion here: https://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2362 (It was also apparently on the LEX CD released a while ago, so if you have that one you don't need to re-download as it is the same file) If the thread hadn't been bumped and someone seen it and pm'd me the BAT wouldn't be on the LEX The other BATs (in my third picture) didn't make it, as they had some issues with LOD interference between the foundation and building models that I couldn't resolve. I'm more of a Lot Maker than a BATter. This is the one that is now available:

Try making the lot bigger. You also need to use a Maxis power plant as the base lot. Don't try to use something else like a residential or a park, it won't work properly.

Originally posted by: blakesterville Has creationism really destroyed the Gospel? I think not. After all, there are many millions of creationist Christians out threre today. quote> I think attempts to use science as justification of creationism do harm the Gospel and Christianity in general, not only in the eyes of those who believe but also those who don't believe. When the science is used poorly (and it often is) then it turns people away. It harms faith as well as good people of both faith and science. When the people listening or reading can see obvious errors of science then at the very least they think well why should I believe the rest of it when this part is obviously not correct. Any good idea should be able to stand on its own merits, without relying on having to tear down something else to do it. Originally posted by: blakesterville NOt all analogy is really wrong or invalid. quote> Analogy is something to be treated with caution. It is very difficult to do it well. Coincidentally I've been reading Unweaving the Rainbow (Richard Dawkins), or trying to over the last few months. It is about good and bad analogy in science writing.

Originally posted by: blakesterville Originally posted by: Sam Also there's a huge ball of gases in the sky undergoing a massive fusion reaction and radiating a lot of energy down on the earth. More than enough to drive all the chemical reactions required for life on this planet. quote> DOes this happen by chance, maybe? There is a higher likelyhood that a tornado going through texas would drive up a bunch of minerals and suddenly put together a boing 747 on its way than for something like that to create life here. LOL. quote> Did you know that engineers for companies like Mercedes Benz use evolution inspired processes to create new and more efficient "design" solutions because such methods arrive at solutions faster, more efficiently and more imaginatively than can be designed traditionally by intelligent engineers? I don't know if Boeing also uses the same methods but I would think they would be fairly standard processes that most industries would use by now. So it may well be true that evolution can design at least parts of a Boeing 747 more efficiently than an intelligent engineer can. You can see an explanation of this and some practical examples from a very old tv clip (1987) in the video below starting at about 3:19. So these processes have been in use for decades, as you can tell from the design of the cars: If the embed doesn't work, try this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BQhW4txyQI Originally posted by: blakesterville Originally posted by: Sam Also there's a huge ball of gases in the sky undergoing a massive fusion reaction and radiating a lot of energy down on the earth. More than enough to drive all the chemical reactions required for life on this planet. quote> DOes this happen by chance, maybe? There is a higher likelyhood that a tornado going through texas would drive up a bunch of minerals and suddenly put together a boing 747 on its way than for something like that to create life here. LOL. quote> Not by chance, at least not entirely or even mostly, but by well known physical processes which don't require an intelligence in their explanations. A star is formed from a cloud of gases. Bigger particles in the cloud attract smaller particles to themselves by way of gravity, ie particles attract each other with a force in proportion to their masses and in inverse proportion to the square of the distance between them. Are you calling that "chance"?. I don't. As the masses increase the process accelerates. Once a critical mass is attained the forces involved create conditions where hydrogen undergoes fusion (again not a random process but following well known non-random chemical and physical processes, none of which require any mention of an intelligent designer in their explanations). Likewise, planets form by predictable (non-random) physical and chemical processes, and the chemical and physical events on those planets proceed by non-random processes. That water vaporises and condenses under particular conditions is not random. That one element bonds to some elements but not others or to other elements only under certain conditions is definitely not random, so assuming random chance in your probability estimates is not a reasonable assumption that can be supported by the evidence. Originally posted by: blakesterville DO you have a scientific explanation for how the big bang occurred? Of course, we don't know, but what evidence is there for the big bang having ocurred? The universe is expanding? Scientifically, yes, it is possible, but not likely. Virtually impossible, by my views. quote> Are you a research physicist specialising in cosmology and early universe physics? If not you might want to check out the work of scientists like Stephen Hawking, Neil Turok and Paul Steinhardt among others.

Originally posted by: Crackdtoothgrin Originally posted by: blakesterville Why is the Second Law of Thermodynamics in place? quote> I already covered this on the prior page. However, I'll rehash myself. The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that in an isolated system that isn't at equilbirium, there will be an increase in entropy, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium. You keep trying to make a case for this law as it applies on the Earth. However, looking at the Earth as an isolated system is not what you're supposed to be doing. ... quote> Also there's a huge ball of gases in the sky undergoing a massive fusion reaction and radiating a lot of energy down on the earth. More than enough to drive all the chemical reactions required for life on this planet.

Originally posted by: blakesterville How did you manage to get to that conclusion studying biology? I don't mean to be offensive or attack any beliefs, but seriously. Looking at the complexity of the entire universe, do you think that it is possible for this to happen by chance? -blakesterville.quote> For me studying biology did influence me well away from creationism towards atheism. The evidence fell in favour of historical contingency rather than any kind of intelligent design. When looking at biological process in depth, and starting to see and figure out how they really work, then the idea of "it's so complicated, I don't see how..." is replaced with "wow! that's really cool, now I understand how...". The clincher for me is that it works. I was a christian creationist (by default) when I started studying biology. I found that didn't work. It couldn't make any useful predictions. It couldn't give me the correct and reliable solutions that my classmates could get (they'd had a couple more years experience than I'd had at that point) . When I started to learn more about the processes involved all the evidence pointed against an intelligent creator of life. Once something doesn't need a supernatural explanation, and then another thing doesn't and then another, pretty soon you are surrounded by things that don't need a supernatural explanation when you thought they did. Then you start to wonder if anything does. And the more that has a naturalistic explanation the less likely you are to feel the need for a supernaturalistic one. And so I found that there wasn't a need to use a deity or the supernatural to explain things and that "I don't know" wasn't a good enough reason for me. I'm not going to go in to biological details in this thread but if you want to talk about biology, evolution and creation, there's a few of us who discuss it in the Creation and Evolution thread.

Originally posted by: astronelson [ Speciation/Animal-naming/Etc.: So far, we know little of evolution. It is, after all, still a theory.quote>quote> Ahem. This is the scientific definition of theory at work, not the common one. Scientific theory: A theory is a formal idea or set of ideas that is intended to explain something. Usual use: If you have a theory about something, you have your own opinion about it which you cannot prove but which you think is true. "Still a theory" is very much like saying "just a fact" in science. Not exactly the same, as a theory works to describe a set of facts and extrapolate to predict what future measurements should be. There are a few famous named exceptions: Newton's Laws do not work at high speeds or high gravity, and Avagadro's Hypothesis should really be a theory by now (although it is sometimes called a law. Occasionally science can be confusing like that.) But such exceptions are few. We could call evolution a law, but it hasn't been shown to be universal. quote> Yes I find apologeticists often don't understand the meaning of "law" in the scientific sense when constructing their arguments. They tend to treat a "law" as a property of the universe, presumably put there and enforced by their deity. Scientific "laws" were created by humans. They are statements of the human understanding of a particular phenomenon (eg Kepler's Laws, Newtons Laws etc). If reality conflicts with a law (as a verified occurance, not a mistake) then the law is probably wrong. Laws can be chucked in the bin just as easily as any other scientific idea if they don't work. They are not superior to theories. Unfortunately apologeticists often like to latch on to "law" in a sense much like the commendments or in the way that a society may deem murder or speeding to be against the law, ie you will be punished if you break it. But I don't think you will get a ticket from a cosmic traffic cop for exceeding the speed of light. "Law" is not used in the same sense, just like "theory" is not used in the same sense. Theories don't become laws. They are different things. A law is a generalised statement, usually of a mathematical relationship. A theory is an explanationatory mechanism or a set of interrelated explanations. For example we have the law and the theory of gravity. The law states the mathematical relationship but does not explain how or why. That is for the theory to do. Atomic theory is "just a theory" too. So is germ theory. Evolution is both a fact and a theory. The fact is that it happened (in a particular way) out of the many possible turns it could have taken. The theory explains the mechanisms and allows the predictions to be made and knowledge to be applied to practical purposes. Speciation/Animal-naming/Etc.: So far, we know little of evolution. It is, after all, still a theory.quote>quote> Naming species and groups ie taxonomy tends to be done on an evolutionary or cladistic basis these days. We know plenty about evolution. It happens. maybe some of this stuff should be in the other thread? Originally posted by: blakesterville Crackedtoothgrin: Please show me these places. I'm currently working on adding citations of scientific information to my document. quote> That's not the way it usually works, at least in science. The idea is that if you quote someone else's idea, even indirectly, you provide the citation of the original work you got it from, and if you have researched previous work in the topic well then you should have a quite substantial outline of this. But the idea is not to propose an idea or statement then collect citations in favour after the fact, like counting votes. I've found in my discussions that some apologeticists apparently try this but when they do it often looks like they haven't read the original article they are citing, because when you check it out it says something other than what they seem to think it says. Doing so won't sway anyone knowledgeable of the science in your favour because it is usually fairly obvious to them if what has been said said is scientifically incorrect. They are also people who are far less likely to respect appeals to authority as evidence in favour of a point.

Originally posted by: Meg So, if you don't like one of our major Founding Fathers, just erase him from the history books. What a load of garbage. Texas Removes Thomas Jefferson From Teaching Standard (March 12) -- Widely regarded as one of the most important of all the founding fathers of the United States, Thomas Jefferson received a demotion of sorts Friday thanks to the Texas Board of Education. The board voted to enact new teaching standards for history and social studies that will alter which material gets included in school textbooks. It decided to drop Jefferson from a world history section devoted to great political thinkers. quote> quote> Several of the news reports I've read mention there is a public consultation ahead of a final vote in May. Maybe there's still time for concerned Texans to address the problems.

Yes, the lot Editor was originally released in about June 2003, about six months after the game. With this one you could only rearrange existing maxis props. When the BAT was released in December 2003 there was a new version of the Lot Editor released.

They got something like 22% of the primary vote in the Queensland 1998 election and won more seats than the Liberals. For a newly formed party that is a huge percentage of the vote. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queensland_state_election,_1998#Results http://www.aph.gov.au/Library/Pubs/cib/1998-99/99cib02.htm#1 They didn't do so well in the Federal election later that year. Although they came third in number of primary votes (936,621) for the House of Representatives, they failed to win a single seat (the other major parties all directed preferences against One Nation). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_federal_election,_1998#Results http://www.aec.gov.au/Elections/federal_elections/1998/hor/fp_state.htm However that same election Labor failed to win government even though they had over 50% of the two party preferred vote, they fell 8 seats short and the coalition retained power on 49.02% of the two party preferred vote. The one million votes might have been for the Senate. http://www.aec.gov.au/Elections/federal_elections/1998/senate/fp_state.htm

Originally posted by: mrdazza_460 Waite….. I thought you live in a democracy, ummmm maybe there need to be a disclaimer “ we have the greatest democracy in the world”, but only every 4 years, in between that we are powerless. Please do you think laws would stop a president from getting the sack or a government? What is stoping your people from doing that. His is not your supreme lender, he is your president, voted by the people, and he is replacerble, expandable, like any other person that runs a large organization if he is completely incompetent he gets the sack no matter what his contract says, but what your saying is instead of just sacking the president or the government at the time, you will need your gun to over power him and his government, seems rather silly to go to all that effort, quote> The United States is a Republic, not a democracy. There is a difference. In a republic there are certain "rights" that cannot be taken away from a person or group, no matter how small that group is in relation to the larger population. In a democracy the majority can remove the "rights" of a minority.