Hi there,

I've been having issues trying to get games to load. I think I've narrowed down that the problem is with Mednafen. I can't get any game to work with mednafen on any browser (I've tried Firefox, Chrome, and Edge). Every time I try to load something up, the opening music starts playing, but there's no video component. I have tried the hardware acceleration from the common questions sticky.

I'm specifically trying to play Final Fantasy Tactics 1.3, but no game seems to work. NeptunJS does work, but the game stutters every few seconds, making a slow game even slower.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions. I've been dying to play this game for the last couple days, even trying other emulator platforms, but they all have one problem or another.

Traduweise : You're putting words in my mouth. I did say that the training plays a role, but there is something in their nature that makes them aggressive and deadly that other dogs do not have. Otherwise, they would not fill the role they do. I was trying to stay neutral on the subject (I don't really have that philosophy on guns, e.g.) to encourage more debate but I ended up taking a side (whoops). That's why my last post does not really agree with itself.

Perhaps the fight to save lives won't end after pit bulls are banned, and another breed will take its place. The next one will be safer than pit bulls by a significant amount considering the proportions of fatalities attributed to these dogs. There are lives to be saved here no matter the cause of the dogs' behaviors. I don't understand why I am meeting such opposition. 

If there are no guns, then there is no gun violence. Regardless of your opinions on gun control, that is an undeniable fact. Maybe some crazy people will start using knives instead, but there will still be less violence on the whole.

Now replace "gun" with "pit bull" and "knives" with another dog breed,

   I want to know your opinions on pit bulls. Pit bulls are a group of dog breeds characterized by broad facial structure and exceptionally strong jaws and aggressive behaviour. Pit bulls were bred to be fighting dogs -- that is, to kill. When blood sports became illegal in the United States, they were used mainly for hunting -- again, for killing. Today, they are still popular to have as pets, despite case after case of these dogs killing or greatly injuring humans, usually small children. Some people have been lobbying to have pit bulls banned to have as pets and have met fierce opposition from people saying that while pit bulls are capable of harming humans, most of them are just as friendly as any other dog and the blame should instead be going to the owners who have not trained their dogs properly. Which side are you on?

Here are some points:
-Several studies on dog-related fatalities have attributed between 40-60% to pit bull type dogs.
-Another study found that 94% of attacks on children were unprovoked (the average for all breeds being around 40%)
-The term "pit bull" is very broad and can refer to multiple breeds based on largely physiological traits which may behave differently.

Of course, there is way more information to be found. Let me know what you think!

   We cannot completely separate marriage from the government because there are certain rights that are afforded to married couples that unmarried people do not get. Because of this, we need to regulate who can marry who so that these rights cannot be abused. Unfortunately, governments can be very slow to accept social changes. We can, however, separate marriage from religion. The religious are welcome to have traditional weddings, while those who aren't into that sort of thing can simply sign a piece of paper and leave religious beliefs out of it entirely because not everyone follows the same beliefs and no one should be forced into the melting pot.

   Further, I do not see the problem with making exceptions in order to make the world a more inclusive place. Making life easier for a wheelchair-bound (or otherwise handicapped) person who already has life more difficult than more mobile people is worth the extra money for elevators/ramps. And these "barbaric customs" are part of people's culture and these blocks that have been taken over are small communities for people trying to make their way to a better life. I don't understand how this is part of the downfall of the United Kingdom at all.

I'll bid 5,000

I've been writing since I was young and I've gotten inspiration from many sources. Early on I would read a book or play a game and come up with my own plot for it as I went along, then forgot the book and wrote my own story. When I got into my teens I started having really funky dreams for multiple reasons and based some stories off of those. Later I got the itch to write but didn't know what to write, so I turned to online generators for ideas. Lately I've been hearing ideas from other people's works and that often spawns an idea in my head that I use, but I spin it in a way that it is more or less original. For example, I read a short story about bad animals to turn into on a full moon (weregoldfish? weresnail?) and turned it into a romance/satire about a weresalmon and a werebear.

What about you guys? Where do your ideas come from?

I've done it twice. Once in second grade I was playing in the sandbox and I just up and vomited in the sand. No one was looking so I quickly buried it and ran away xD

The second time was in grade nine after running 2k. I was so dehydrated and exhausted after (although I had done it several times before just fine) that I vomited all over the shed where we keep all the sports supplies for outside. It was bright orange because I had pizza for breakfast (never again) and it JUST so happened to be on a day when the janitors weren't there so it solidified on the shed and had to be scraped off. I also can't think of another person who has vomited at school, unfortunately for me.

I skipped a grade of math, and it was really cool because A) I got to meet a bunch of people others my age didn't and B) there's an extra grade of math in my school (it goes pre-calculus grades 8-12, then calculus 12) that I wanted to take, and this means that I didn't have to go to summer school or take pre-calc 12 in first semester then calculus in the second semester. This way, I can take an extra class or a spare without losing time or Summer. I would never skip a whole grade though. Not just because I'm not quite smart enough, but because that's fewer classes I can take.

I tried to balance the difficult classes and easy ones and this is how they organised it:
Semester 1:
Comparative Civilizations (Easy)
Chemistry 12 (Easy for me)
Spare block (I think in the US you call it homeroom? Just time to do homework)
French 12 (If I did my homework, easy)

Semester 2:
Calculus 12 (Hard)
Biology 12 (Apparently really hard)
Economics 12 (Massive textbook = probably hard)
English 12 (Easy for me, but lots of work)

I have to talk to my counsellor about the distribution of my classes so I may take Physics (Super hard for me) or Entrepreneurship (not sure) if I have to.

I really, REALLY want to go back to school. I have a hard year ahead of me because it's my last year of high school and I took all the hard classes I could, plus I'm going on a trip in the middle of the year for two weeks, which will compress an already compressed year. However, I miss seeing my friends, making new ones, learning things, and I miss having things to do. Unfortunately for me, my area is going through a teacher's strike so there is no school until it's all resolved, and the end is NOT in sight. I just want to be able to see all the people I haven't seen in almost three months and work towards my future.

   It sounds really difficult, but try going vegetarian. It's surprisingly easy if you can convince someone to do it with you. Not only is meat not very good for you, but many unhealthy processed foods contain meat. If you're staunch enough about it, you will read labels to check if there are meat products and you may find something that will turn you off of a product. Secondly, many replacement foods (tofu if you like it, this stuff called tvp, and fake meats) are often low in fat and/or calories. My mom went vegan (better effect on health, but more difficult and expensive) and lost 30 lbs in four months with no other changes. It doesn't seem like much but in terms of a lifestyle it puts your baseline weight much lower. I didn't need to lose any weight by any means, but I lost 10 lbs in the same amount of time.

   You should also try to get into cooking your own foods. I don't know your exact situation on it, but many people gain weight because they are eating pre made foods with ridiculous amounts of fat, sodium, calories, etc. If you make your own food, you have much more control over what is in your food, plus it's fun to come up with your own spin on meals and I often cook with friends. Even something like pizza can be SO much better for you (and better tasting, and cheaper) if you make it yourself. Plus, you can have a different thing every day if you want if you get good at spices. This week I made pasta with a white sauce four separate times (horrible cravings) and it was completely different each time as I messed with the recipe. On top of that, the Internet is full of recipes for healthy things that are also really awesome. Honestly, if you make your own food, you will end up eating much healthier food without even trying. Plus anyone who can cook is instantly ten times more attractive. Just saying.

I'm not some kind of hippie or professional chef, but I can still strongly recommend these things. Personally, I would leave any big deal exercise (like working out or jogging) until you feel good enough about yourself. I know how difficult it can be to gather the courage to do that kind of thing. Good luck in your weight loss, I know how hard it can be and I sincerely hope you can overcome this.

The way I see it, a low minimum wage is a really bad thing. It's been brought up several times that high minimum wages mean that businesses, especially small ones cannot afford employees, making the business smaller and cutting down on available jobs. While that works for places where the cost of living is low, it does not work for urban environments where the cost of living is high. A low minimum wage, combined with sneaky business hours (Keeping employees under a certain amount of hours per pay period so they can avoid paying for benefits) means that a person living in an urban place may need to work two or more jobs to be able to stay on their feet, meaning that there are even LESS jobs for others, not to mention the severe health risks of working that much.

I live in British Columbia, Canada. Here, we have a minimum wage of $10.25 ($9.43 USD, 7.14 Euro) or $8 + tips, and that's low considering the rest of the country. It amazes me that people in other countries can get by with such low minimum wages when I see hard working individuals struggling to pay rent on their minimum wage job. It's not because they're lazy, it's not because they don't spend their money well, it's because the cost of living and the minimum wage do not scale together.

I have personally never been in a protest, however there is a teacher's strike in British Columbia preventing students (including myself) from going to school since mid June and into the new school year. Because of this, some of my friends and other high school students have started picketing in front of government offices, and I'm honestly considering joining them. I don't tend to care so strongly for a cause, which is why I have stayed out of other protests.

   From a scientist's perspective, I can totally see why we would want to bring these animals back for studying purposes and possible other purposes too. For example, bringing back an early human or ancestors could shine light on things such as evolution, human history, etc. 
Maybe these past organisms (don't forget plants or bacteria!) have the key curing a disease or solving world hunger (more on that in a sec). I fully support bringing back extinct organisms, but there is something big that other people have touched on: They went extinct for a reason. Surely they wouldn't be able to thrive -- we have a different atmosphere and different diseases and food sources!

   That's why I don't think we should/would try to introduce them into the wild. There are several problems with that. We've all (hopefully) heard of invasive species, such as the cane toad in Australia, or the Kudzu vines that are rapidly covering Oregon. They don't have any natural predators, so they breed and reproduce until the whole place is overrun. This is a big problem in modern times, and it wouldn't help to bring back something from another time.

   But maybe it would be a good thing for a plant or animal to proliferate like that. Maybe there's a fruit from the stone ages that is really healthy for us, or maybe a tree that had strong wood and grew quickly, or a type of grass which can grow in deserts. Keep in mind that these organisms may not have died because they had something wrong with them. It could be that Earth went into an ice age or there was an extinction event after a big meteorite hit Earth. This could possible be the solution to some of the problems facing us!

   Another thing some people mentioned was disease. These organisms wouldn't be able to handle our viruses and bacteria... except that modern plagues and things wouldn't affect them because they are not evolved to. If your cat is sick, you probably won't get sick off of them because that specific disease is just a cat disease, and it's the same for these old organisms. Sure there are cross-overs, such as avian flu, or the plague, but they won't be bringing anything to affect us because we are cloning them and just their DNA, not going back in time to kidnap them and whatever ancient ticks, bacteria or what have you animals are covered in. But then again, that raises another point: gut bacteria.

If these organisms, particularly animals, were to be cloned into existence, they probably would not be able to digest their own food. You may have heard that humans have fewer human cells in them than cells of gut bacteria and other nasty-sounding things. This is completely true for all large animals - it's called a microbiome, and it pretty much digests all your food for you. The gases they produce while breaking down our food are the reason we fart and our *ahem* stinks. If we were to clone these animals, they would not have gut bacteria, and their digestive systems would be horribly inefficient, and they probably would not last long. We would pretty much have to pre-digest food for them, or give them a focal transplant (Google it, I dare you), which is exactly what it sounds like except worse.

   This is getting a bit wordy, so I'm going to wrap up. I support cloning extinct organisms on the off chance that they could be really cool/delicious and help us out, but I do not think it would be a good idea to release these cloned organisms into the wild because a plethora of things could go wrong. A side of the argument I forgot to bring up was animal rights. Even if we manually created a woolly mammoth in a lab, PETA or some other organisation would probably get up in arms about animal testing and exploitation and all that, which is understandable. 

I hope this raises a couple of points for you guys.

Also, a few ideas for possible future species-resurrectors (I'm coining the phrase now):
Homo floresiensis
The Boskop men
Silphim (For mature readers
Australopithecus 
Argentavis magnificens
Edestus (the fighting over where the jaw goes needs to stop!)

Aren't they two mostly different things? Neurology being more about what is happening chemically versus Psychology which is more about how your brain processes thoughts and stuff? 

If that's the case, I like Neurology better. It's harder to get things wrong and to debunk things. Psychology has so many variables going into it that what people think about Psychology can change from year to year. Freud, for example is like the poster child of Psychology, but most of the things he said have been proven wrong or are disagreed with, whereas in Neurology, you can prove that chemical x does this and that's that unless your studies are unfounded. 

If I'm getting it wrong, someone correct me, but either way I like the idea of literally probing someone's brain, rather than figuratively.

First, thanks to everyone who posted. While it was my choice to make, I like to hear other people's opinions and perspectives-- fresh minds and all that.

Second, I decided to go to this new school. I've been going there for like, three weeks now and I really like it. Not talking to my old friends isn't a huge deal because we text all the time, plus I have new friends to talk to, and different events and different schools makes for great conversation. While I do miss seeing my friends face to face every day, I'm pretty much a smash hit with other kids at the school, and I always have something to do at lunch and someone to talk to in class. It turns out that sometimes a guy who can tell the group about random trivia can fit in almost anywhere.

For future people with similar dilemmas, I definitely recommend switching if you are a social person who doesn't mind meeting new people (such as myself), but if you have social anxiety or you have a lot of super close friends at your current school, consider staying. I know that some of my old friends who are more reclusive than I are taking my move harder than I am, so I can't imagine how they would feel if they moved away.

Thanks again to everyone who replied and good luck to anyone else facing the same problem I had.

There was a book called Tunnels by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams, which I read the first half of, loved everything about it, then returned it to the library because I was moving, then picked it up again without realizing it was the same book and read it all the way through. Then I tried reading the second book, loved everything about it, then Summer came and I had to return it to my school library, halfway completed. I think the issue is how astoundingly massive the books are (I believe the first book is nearly 500 pages long). I'm a really slow reader and I don't read often so it takes me a month to go through a section (each book is divided into three sections). If they were just split into three separate books each or something, I wouldn't be so daunted to pick it up again.

   Actually, now that I'm reminiscing, I really want to pick up the series again. I think a film is being made as well...

    It's been said, but good or evil is relative. Something that we do all the time today without anyone batting an eye, for example wearing shorts, would be considered crass and rude to someone from the 17th century, but now people wear them all the time (although sometimes it's frowned upon, like in a meeting). Similarly, try giving a hi-five to someone in Greece and see how offended they get (It's like giving the middle finger to them). Think of some of the seven deathly sins. Sloth? Envy? Pride? Most of us do that every single day.
There is a tribe in South Africa where killing is a rite of passage to manhood and those who do not comply can be put to death, but pretty much anywhere else in the world, it's the opposite.

   Otherwise, I think that people are instinctively benevolent. Evolutionarily speaking, we would never thrive as a species if we were just raping and murdering each other left right and center. How could we make buildings and cities and countries without working together? Some "evil" things are acted out because of necessity, for stealing or acts of defense. Others are because of illness or lack of control.
  
   I don't think people are inherently evil, but I don't think that most people would risk their lives for another. People can be quite selfish, but I think that the selfishness can be accounted to self preservation and environmental effects. Man is good!

   This Summer, I moved to a neighbouring city. It's close enough to my school that I could take a fifteen minute bus, plus a five minute walk (previously I just walked) or on occasion get my parents to drive me. I also live down the street, literally about five minutes of walking from another school. This other school has pretty much the same programs and stats (e.g. Math test scores) as my current school.
   Basically, I have to choose if I want to rely (and pay for) on a bus most days to go to school with my friends (Of which I have few and still talk to all the time despite living even farther away) or I can go to a new school that I live practically next door to.

   I made a bit of a pros and cons list to switching schools.

Pros:
-Get to meet new people
-Maintain near perfect no-lates record (this is important to me)
-Live near possible new friends
-I'm not exactly the most popular kid, although I will be missed by teachers and students alike
-I can make new friends easily
-I can still be in contact with my current friends because texting, Internet, and public transit are all things
-Don't have to rely on or pay for a bus

Cons:
-Separation from friends
-I got connections yo
-I don't really take part in clubs (although I say every year that I'll join one)
-I'll probably get lost a lot
-I don't like modern music, or sports, and I'm really nerdy: a.k.a. I don't really relate
-I'll be going into grade 11, so most people will have formed their groups, and I will only have two years before things like prom and graduation.

Honestly, I have a bit of a dilemma. I'm leaning toward switching schools, but my friends and some of my family who have switched schools before tell me about how difficult it can be.

So in reply, do two things:
1. Give some advice, should I switch schools or not, and why.
2. Give more advice, not just for me, but for other people who have to/ have a choice to switch schools, and how to cope with that.