mistywerty

Thanks for that. Still doesn't explain why I woke up in Varrock though?

Does time exist?

If that's your mentality, go to a magic show. You'll easyly get converted :P Science is wonderful, and if you do see something that appears to be a miracle, you must take a scientific aproach towards it (e.g Not thinking that just becuase a Stone Statue waved at you, it's the work of god.) 99% of the time, there will be an explaination that you don't know yet (e.g all the electrons moved in the same direction at the same time again to create the effect of a 'waving statue'.) Also, there is no proof that your mother loves you. She might secretly hate you, you don't know...

Lol? I think PvP worlds are the second biggest update we've had this year (barring the graphical update, which was the biggest update since RS2) It's almost tradition for JaGeX to release a halloween event, and we got a bounus quest too. We've not done too badly in October if you ask me.

This isn't an issue with the login screen. I think there's some serious problems saving your sessions in the servers. For instance, I was in castle wars 2 days ago. I was logged out due to a poor internet connection, then when I logged in again, I was at the other end of the room. I logged during the 'Evil Bob Balloon' random event, when I logged in again, I my stats were set to 1, and I was in varrock palace. I've not been hack. No hacker could log in, and out at the same time as me, and I've changed my pass. Is anyone else experiencing this?

*Sigh* You'll (The Runescape population) always compain about every change. Before this regime began, people often critcised Jagex of opting for quanitity rather than quality. Now the Rota has changed, they say it was better how it used to be. I see this alot in people, Online and Offline. How many oldies have spoken to you about the good 'ol days? People are more intelligent, have better health and technology than they were nowadays, but old people still moan. We have a selective memory; mostly remembering the good things. Anyway, I could bet that if this was a reverse update, and Jagex used to make 2 updates/month, then changed to 4, people would certainly complain. It's human nature.

Read 1984 by George Orwell. Aside from being a great book, it's about how the govenment could control us, and turn us into robots :anxious: The British govenment already record the private data (such as Phone Calls, Text Messages and Websites visited by each and every citizen). They don't employ millions of people to search through everyone's mail though, it's only used as evidence in court. I'm not sure where I stand on this issue. I've always agreed with the ol' "If you don't have anything to hide, don't hide it." But I do think everyone should have privacy to a certain degree...

There's a French man call Michel Lotito he once ate an aeroplane, a bicycle and a TV. He was known for eating glass and metal. He's 50-odd now, and has turned out fine. Glass isn't poisonous or harmussin small abount. It'll hurt like hell when you go to the restroom though...

I'm Athiest. Here are some vague answers to questions directed at a Christian that people like to bringup, I can only reply to one of them. 1. How do you know YOUR god is the real god, and YOUR religion is the true pathway to heaven Can you give directions to Central Park? I doubt that any two people woud give the same answer, but they'd all be right (with the aid of a map) There are many pathways to god. Christianity is just one of them. 2.Prove god exists Prove that your mother loves you. 3. It's cruel to teach children what to beleive If I thouroughly believe that my child will be eternally tortured if she does not believe in my god, is it cruel to teach what to believe? I believe I'm saving her. That's the best I can do as a parent. Proper Response: If you were to believe that pouring boiling oil on your child gave them eternal life, what that be cruel? Seems like a crude example, but the result'd be the same, no matter what you do - She'd be scarred for life, and she'd never mastubate again.

I'm not expect on the matter, but aren't ghosts 'Spirits' of the dead? Athiest don't really believe in spirits, thus they don't believe in ghosts.

Thanks. I've PMed Trapical about this, and hopefully we could get these permenantly restored somewhere :D

I have all of them :) Thank god I put them all on my iPod, then backed it up before it broke :D Ten Threads, Ten Days [hide=]June 7th, 2007 Ten Days, Ten Threads. Day 1 Ten threads in ten days. An interesting concept. Most people browse a forum, reply to an interesting thread or two, and on occasion start a thread of their own. My plan? For 10 days in a row I will make a thread at exactly midnight Central Standard Time, ending at the dawn of the day of June 16th. I hesitated to do this at first. I hardly want a bunch of people trying to do the same thing, but doing so by posting random, hastily made threads with no real context just so they could post every day. Let it be noted that the threads I am posting for the next 9 days are not made on the whim. Over Christmas break six months ago I got this idea, and ever since then I have been on the lookout for creative thread ideas. In April I started to write these posts, and I saved them all in a Word file. At the time of this posting all of my 10 threads will have already been written except for some minor last minute adjustments. Why am I doing this? Perhaps the easiest way to explain is this is my one thousandths post on tip.it, and I figure I might as well celebrate a little . But in truth it more complicated than that. I am spending less and less time on the internet and when I do feel like posting on a forums I find myself posting more often on sites that are composed of my peers, such as the student doctor forums which is comprised of fellow Pre-Med majors of my age. Nothing against tip.it but I feel alone among high schoolers and computer science majors here Its not a bad thing, but the fact is there are many debates and discussions that I simply cant bring up here. However tip.it is my home and I dont ever plan on leaving forever. Perhaps the other reason I will be spending less time here is due to the MCAT that I am taking in August. Many of you know the name MCAT, and to those who dont, imagine the ACT/SAT on steroids. This is the one test that prevents 90% of Pre-Med majors from getting into Med Schools (the average Med School is more selective than trying to get into undergrad at MIT or Harvard) The MCAT is a brutal test that tests all the basic sciences (Biology, Chemistry, Calc-based Physics, and Organic Chemistry) and no one has gotten a perfect score for more than a decade. The test is graded out a possible 45, but the average is a mere 26. A 31 is essentially required for admission to any Med School, thus for many the path to becoming a doctor ends with the MCAT. I have been studying for it since the third week in April and now that summer vacation is upon me I have been putting in 8 hours a day for it, and plan to do so for the next 75 days (the test is August 20th). So yea, fun test. You will see this series unfold before you each day, and I hope this will be something some of you will enjoy, and dare I say, something that some of you will consciously think about checking when you first arrive on the forums each day? Lol, regardless, these next 9 days will contain a total myriad of thread subjects; some will deal with interesting technological breakthroughs while others might deal with more thought provoking subjects. Whatever the case, I beseech you all, if you get the chance, try and catch the final post of this series. The thread posted on June 16th, Day 10, will be a colossal read with personal insight and implications that I want to share with others. But I digress, and we need not dwell on that subject now. I thank you for you time in reading this long post, and I hope you all enjoy the next 9 days[/hide] Seven Companies [hide=]June 11th, 2007 A Toast to Seven Great Companies. Day 5 Well, were halfway in our countdown to the 16th of June. Todays thread is probably the least eye-opening of them all, but I still think you will enjoy it. The premise is to take a look at what seven seemingly random companies are doing, and how they are influencing humanity. Before I even begin, I already know a lot of you are going to be complaining like Fanboy! How could you prefer that company!! or I cant believe you mentioned them, they are a bunch of corrupt, profit hungry crooks!. Well, while I respect your opinion, I am sticking to my guns, and focusing on the positive side of these companies. Also, I might want to mention that this is a long post, probably longer than anything I have previously written. You may want to read the first half and then post on it, then come back in a few hours and do the second half. Otherwise by the time you get to the end Im afraid you may have forgotten what you wanted to say about the beginning ^_^. Well, anyway its your choice, now with no further ado, I present the List: 7. Canon (Japan) Canon. Seems like a weird company to mention huh? Well I like Canon for several reasons. Primarily because it simply excels in its field. I mean name some camera companies: Canon, Nikon, Kodak, Casio, Sony, Olympus, FugiFilm, and HP. Thats a lot of companies fighting in one field. The cool thing about this field, unlike other fields like cars or chocolates, is that there is an agreed upon winner. Canon simply sets the bar that all others are measured up to. Read reviews about cell phones and they refer to Canons as the industry standard: the camera on the phone isnt exactly Canon quality, but it works. Or go to a professional photographer and look at the brand he is using. I work as a banquet server at a Hilton, so I see plenty of professionals that come to take pictures at the weddings we serve every weekend. In two years I have seen about 50 different professionals, and they all used Canons except for two people. One guy has a Sony which he told me he was testing out when I asked him about it; and the second guy was using a old but expensive looking film camera that was a Nikon. That I respected, as not only was it oldschool but it was a great camera. Nikon used to hold the top camera crown when people used film cameras. But when film cameras transferred over to digital cameras, Nikon dragged its feet and the then #2 company (Canon) claimed the top stop in digital cameras. Ever since that day there has been a battle between Canon, Nikon, and Sony as to who can rightfully own that top spot, but so far Canon is holding on; and for that, I applaud them. I mean, how many other companies can say that even when they are up against a dozen different competitors, they can still win in their field? Not only that but this competition is leading companies like Sony and Canon to make more and more amazing cameras that record everyday life in a way that can not be described in words. For those of you who dont believe me that a camera can make a difference, or for those who have never used an SLR camera look at these two pictures. The top on I took with my new 11 mega pixel Sony, the other one is from a Canon. A New Sony: http://img149.imageshack.us/im.....iumxu9.jpg Canon SLR: http://gallery.photo.net/photo/6065405-md.jpg 6. Boeing (USA) Boeing is a simple company, they make things that fly. In an age where everything has a made in China sticker on it, American manufacturers are still holding on to this jewel. True, true, Airbus is currently the global leader in sales, but thats besides the point right now. For those of you who dont know, Airbus is Boeings rival, a relatively new company, founded in 1970. Airbus is a weird concept for a company, rather than belong to one country it essentially belongs to all of Europe. One country makes the wings for the plane, another makes the landing gear, and yet another makes the electronics. With Boeing, its pretty impressive. Everything is done in one factory, the largest building in the world. There is one exception to this and that is Boeings newest plane, the 787, in which the American designed wings are manufactured in Japan. When this was announced American manufactures were in an uproar, everyone yelling that Boeing gave Japan the plans on how to build plans and now Japan will enter and dominate the airplane market like when it first entered the automobile market in the 70s. To this Boeing and the Japanese laughed, Japans manufactures released a statement You think we will be able to build full planes now? We dont even know where to start! People dont realize just how complex a modern jetliner is. Think about it, you have these metal tubes moving at 700 miles per hour, flying in the air , these things take off and land countless times per day, can get struck by lighting and still fly unhindered, and can even fly into the eye of a hurricane. Not only that they really never fail. 150 planes take off and land every minute of every day in the United States alone. And how many of them crash? One every 2 to 3 years, and thats due to a bomb/fire/human error. Try finding a car manufacturer that makes car that good. If they were, it would be like the state of New York only having one or two cars break down per decade. Airbus is just as safe, but I got to hand this one to Boeing. One company if one country making products that are insanely complex, yet more reliable than anything else I know, and doing so for almost a hundred years? Thats impressive. 5. Sony (Japan) People hate the PS3. I have heard people countless times I hope the PS3 drags Sony into bankruptcy. This bewilders me. Why would you want a global leader in technology to fall? What do people have to gain from a company in another country collapsing? While I admit I am a Nintendo fan, I am respectful as to how Sony revolutionized gaming with the PSX & PS2 and how it forced its competitors, like Nintendo, to innovate to survive in the market. Without the PS2 the Wii would be another Gamecube, and without the PSP the DS would just be another Gameboy advance, and it would not be setting sales records across the globe. Granted Sony is an aggressive company that sort of overexerts itself and tries to own every market it can, but maybe thats a good thing, as it forces other companies to work harder. Sony and one of its rival, Phillips, are fighting to get the first OLED screen out on the market. If Sony didnt exist, Phillips would not be spending tons of resources on OLEDs, and would instead be sitting back, milking the profits from the LCD sales until deciding to release OLEDS in a decade or so when they feel like LCD sales are decreasing. Sony also invented the Lithium battery, without it cell phones would probably be running on those huge AA sized flashlight batteries ^_^ 4. Pfizer/BristolMyers/Merck (US & UK) Pharmaceutical corporations are one of the most criticized businesses in the world, and this is one of the reasons I am defending them. But what other type of company can say that all of their products are made to save saves and ease suffering? Unfortunately, none of us as working Biochemists so we dont know what the job entails, but in the time I have spent doing research at my university, I can tell you this: its not easy. Making a drug that, say cures Malaria, is a decade long process. You need to research it, discover the pathways of the chemicals, theorize on how to stop an enzyme that encodes for the malaria, find out if humans can survive the treatment that kills the parasite/bacteria/virus, find the chemical structure of the enzyme, find out what molecule will block that enzyme, and then find a way to artificially create that exact chemical compound. Yea, have fun with that last step, your boss comes up to you one day We found a chemical that can cure AIDS. Find a way to artificially create the molecule for us. Im not talking about high school chemistry here, Im talking about making something like this. From scratch. Good luck with that one. Well, the fruit of a decades work is a little white pill, that when swallowed makes you immune to malaria. Pretty cool huh? Medicine is pretty crazy, it could even pass for magic such as take this pill and your pain will vanish!. While medicine often seems way too expensive, why dont you try and make it yourself 3. Intel (USA) The interesting thing about Intel is that they are still around after all these years. Admittedly, 6 years ago Intel wasnt exactly a noble company. It had no real competition and it dragged its feet, releasing a new processor every 12 months or so. It really wasnt trying. Enter AMD and suddenly there was a change. AMD, a tiny little company with 1/20th of the resources and even less experience, started competing in the lower end market, and soon was releasing processors that competed with top of the line Intel products. It came to a point in one quarter than AMD actually reported a larger revenue than Intel, a company with 10 times as many engineers working for it. Intel was the definition of ashamedand while I dont claim to be an expert in this field (perhaps some of you guys can fill in the gaps)Intel came back with a vengeance, putting out new chips of every level (server, laptop, basic desktop, and high performance) and attacking AMD on all essentially fronts. AMD, with its limited resources, is doing an honorable job fighting back, but has lost considerable ground to Intel in the past year. I might have listed both companies on the title instead of just saying Intel, since Intel would still be dragging its feet if AMD never showed up. But on the other hand, without Intel we would not have had to computer revolution in the time that we did, Intels contribution to the computer cannot be underestimated. It is Intel that literally defined Moores Law (see Day 4) and Intel is what continues to follow it, with all of society following in its wake. Without Intel, internet servers would be slower, games would have worse graphics, and computers would be less complex. Sure another company would have stepped in to fill the void if Intel never existed, but we cant ignore the huge effect that this one company has had on todays world. 2. General Electric (USA) Ah yes, GE, or General Electric. Heres a thought, name the biggest companies you can think of. Sony? Microsoft? Wal-Mart? Toyota? Coca-Cola? Ha, General Electric laughs at Wal-Mart or Toyotas measly profit of 10 billion a year. It shrugs off how world wide the name Coca Cola is, knowing it is even more so. And Sony? The brand people complain is taking over everything, since Sony own Columbia motion pictures, several music labels, and makes top of the line TVs/radios/games/anything electronic? Well GE owns more companies that most counties. GE has actually been involved, multiple times, in cases where it sues/get sued by another company only to realize that it actually owns that other company. But my point here is not to show off how powerful this company is (its revenue is almost triple that of Sonys) but I am here to say the accomplishments of this humble little company. What does GE make? Well the average guy might say lightbulbs, dishwashers, and refrigerators. A more savvy person might add that they make the airplane engines, trains, and that they own NBC and Universal Studios. However GE also make nearly all of the worlds powerplants, water purification centers, electrical transformers, factory equipment, and medical devices such as X-Ray machines or MRIs. Its mind boggling. This one company has made essentially five times more inventions than any other company, and if it was a country, it would be ranked #39 out of 192 on GDP. Thats higher than Singapore, Chile, Egypt, the Czech Republic, and Pakistan (a country of 160 million people). Thats pretty impressive. Oh and they have cool commercials But why do I put GE this high on the list? Well, they invest in impoverished counties more than anyone else does. They go to countries like Thailand and built hydroelectric dams. They put up power lines. They build the basics of an infostructure. For decades now GE has been ranked Worlds most admirable company and every company in the world regardless of size strives to be more like GE. It is a single company that brings thousands of jobs to developing regions and has a greater profit than any other company besides the oil giant ExxonMobil. As described by the American ambassador to Central Asia Through its inventions, innovations, and strive to increase efficiency GE has done more to influence the world in a positive light than any other company, or indeed, more than practically any country. 1) The CDC (USA) Wow, how can I possible beat GE? Well by cheating and not picking a company, but rather a governmental agency I included the CDC is this list because lately it has been getting some bad press due to that TB scare in Greece. The CDC (stands for The Center for Disease Control) is a governmental agency, like the FDC or the CIA. The CDC is a pretty well respected and noble agency though, they deal with stopping disease. Their staff has a higher percentage of people with PhDs, (somewhere like 94%) than any other company or agency in the world. Equally remarkable is the fact that these people are all the best in their field and they accept the low pay of a government job. The people that work here could easily be earning 5 of 10 times as much in the private sector but they choose to use their skills here. The former president of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, once described the CDC as a shinning jewel among the bureaucratic crap in American government. While this was quite an insult to many other agencies, the CDC modestly accepted the compliment. It was well deserved, as it came in the wake of the 1995 Ebola outbreak in the African country of Zaire. Ebola is a devastating virus what kills 95% of anyone who gets it and there is no cure or vaccine for it. Anyway, the virus pops up in Africa every 5 years or so and usually kills an entire village before dying out. Not this time, this time it popped up in a city of several million people, and it had an airport which could have spread the disease across the globe. As hospitals there began admitting patients with red blotches under the skin, doctors began to get worried it was Ebola and soon the rumor spread of Ebola. Nearly the entire hospital staff of the city fled the area, trying to get the heck out of there before they got infected. Unfortunately this left a city with a growing outbreak void of medical care I cant see this ending well. Due to dumb luck, there was a Japanese college student who happened to be a Biology major taking a vacation in the city, he noticed something was wrong. As he too left the city he took a hastily drawn blood sample from a patient in the hospital and once he got to the next city he sent it, along with a note, with Express Mail to the CDC in Atlanta, Georgia. It was the only notification of the outbreak that left the region, and it received the next day by the CDC. After a quick, accurate test it was immediately red flagged as Bio Level 4 Ebola Zaire. Im sure this was followed by the director whispering a Sweet mother of god before the entire department flashed into action with such speed as to make the US military jealous. In less than an hour more than half of the staff were on planes to the region, where they met up with the Red Cross, which they contacted. They completely and utterly quarantined the virus, protected the ones that were still safe, and swept through the entire region finding and testing the people that had fled to city, to make sure they didnt have the virus either. This essentially untold episode of American history has done more for Western credibility abroad than nearly anything else. Counties that hate the US, like Iran or even Egypt, have admitted while they hate the U.S. with a passion, they refer to the CDC with the utmost respect and praise. For without the CDC not only would this case of Ebola probably have infected their country, but the CDC is the world leader in fighting AIDS, Malaria, and TB in Africa and Asia. Many assume the World Health Organization is the one that does this, but that is false. The WHO is the UN department that deals with health issues on a political scale. It is the CDC that does the research, spends the money, and creates the vaccines. Malaria for example has 6 vaccines that can stop the disease, 1 was invented by Pfizer and sold for profit to American tourists who were going abroad; 5 were invented by the CDC and donated to the WHO and directly to the 3rd world countries to help stop the disease. The CDC/WHO are working everyday to stop disease, probably the noblest effort I can imagine. They have already eradicated (removed entirely, it no longer exists on earth) the disease Smallpox, which used to kill millions of children every year. If we are to see an end to AIDS, the CDC will be the one to lead the way. - - - - - - As I have tried to show you, its amazing what capitalist corporations can brew. Rival companies like Sony and Toshiba are not enemies, but in fact allies in the goal to improve technology for all mankind. How someone can come out and say I hate Microsoft with a passion! is actually pretty ridiculous. While sometimes the leaders of such companies can be corrupt, the company itself, its 200,000 employees, are all working hard to bring you better products. Can you really hate Microsoft but love Apple? If Microsoft didnt exist Apple would have the monopoly and be dragging their feet and making products as bad as Microsoft is right now So on that note I raise a glass, I make a toast to these companies. Here is to the biochemist at Bristol-Myers-Squid or the CDC, using his 30 years of schooling to devise and test vaccines against HIV and cancer. Here is to the engineering team at GE, calculating just the right shape for a windmill blade to be so it creates even more renewable power. Here is to the workers at Intel, testing and creating the chips that will soon run the games that are indistinguishable from real life. Here is to that physicist working for Canon, spending countless hours away from his family trying to make a better lens for us all. Here is to that aviation engineer at Boeing, going over the blueprints for the thousandths time, making damn sure their plane doesnt crash. And here is to all the workers, in fields from cooking, to farming, to engineering, to healthcare. *raises glass* Together they work as one to improve mankind and to make life better or us all. Enjoy the next 5 days[/hide] Asian Slaves [hide=]June 9th, 2007 Asias Slaves. Day 3 Disclaimer I regret to tell you that todays thread does have a much greater negative tone. It meant for a more mature audience, those of the faint of heart should probably leave now. Where to begin Well for starters todays thread is a last minute change. I had something else in mind but after coming across some facts about this subject I decided to change the mood for today. To begin, let me state that these people are getting on my nerves. Well I guess I have to give them some credit, they are standing up for their beliefs, and they do so using their own time and expecting no real reward. Regardless, in the global scheme of things, their protest is of near insignificance. Lets pretend to lock ourselves up in cages to protest the way our food is being killed! (You will see the irony of this in a second.) Every year I hear complaining about things like that, complaining how dogs only have so and cubic feet of space in homeless shelters. I mean, people protest that animals need to be kept if larger cages and meanwhile everyday thousands of human girls, aged between 7 and 14, are kidnapped from their homes at night to become sex slaves. This last sentence may have seemed to have made this thread really political, really quickly. But think of it. Youre an 11-year-old girl growing up in China, you havent even hit puberty yet. You wake up in darkness in the back of a truck, bound and gagged. You terrified and have no idea where you are going, what country you're in, and what's going to happen to you. If you haven't been raped along the way (or sometimes even if you have) you're immediately brought to the Room of the Unveiling of the Virgin. In this room you are raped continuously for several days - they do this to desensitize you to sex and make until you can no longer pass for a virgin, nay, until you can no longer pass for an actual human. You are a cheaper than a piece of property and barely worth the food you need to eat before they sell you. You have long been stripped of your clothing and of anything else. You are thrown into the back of train with hundreds of other naked, soul-less, destitutes. Often, you share the train with cattle, and indeed you are essentially one of them as you both ride along covered in excrement and fear. You arrive in yet another country and are sold to buyers for less than $200. You life was sold for $200 The cattle in the region are sold for about $650 You cost about as much as three PS3 games. You are sold to one of two types of people. If you are lucky you are sold to a rich Middle Eastern man and made into his personal sex slave. If you're not so lucky you are sold to a brothel and put to work. Your brothel owner puts you on display like a price of meat a deli and you sell for about the same price. $3 is the common selling price for a girls services in Asia. You usually servicing more than a dozen men a day, and you see none of the income you generate, as it all goes to the brothel owner. As you spend the next twenty years of your life doing this, seven days a week, 365 days a year, you become essentially an empty shell of a body. The UN has went to several brothels and bought women to take back to do psychological testing on. The results were horrific, the women had almost no conscious thought and acted in much the same way as a stray dog in heat would. They have had a near complete shut down of mental function as if their brain had tried the commit suicide by deteriorating the mental functions. These women, if you can still call them that, have had AIDS for quite some time and will not live much longer, their purpose in life fulfilled. But your right, we totally should do everything we can to get those pets better cages. Because you know, puppies are cute and stuff. The entire concept of this scenario is difficult to grasp. Who is to blame and what can be done Both are good questions with no good answers. I will discuss this theme a bit more in my final thread, but next time you go shopping think about that for a minute Three dollars for a night... I spend more buying a Red Bull from a gas station. 200 dollars, a persons life. Its insanity. Once again, I apologize for the negativity in this post, but it had to be done. Tomorrow I will resume the standard feel-good type of thread, but I thank you for your ears and I hope I got the message across to a few of you. Enjoy the next 7 days[/hide] About Love [hide=]June 13th, 2007 About Love. Day 7 The Lion Kings Can You Feel the Love Tonight is a masterpiece. Most of us are too old to realize the political impact this film had when it came out (you would have to be like 30 right now). In one of my globalization classes we watched a news report from 1994, a month after the movie came out. While most of us were like 7 and simply enjoyed the lions, this film was translated to nearly 50 languages and distributed around the world. It had a profound social-cultural impact on many parts of the world, especially in Asia. The most interesting part I recall was a clip of several weddings around the world, ranging from France, to Korea, to Pakistan. The couples that had just been married were dancing to this song. Indeed there is something powerful about the song, and the theme of love itself. At a wedding I was working at last weekend, this song was played. In the middle of the song I looked over and saw the couple kissing, and then I could think of nothing else but the girl I mentioned in Day 2. I felt more than sadness and couldnt focus on my job until the song had ended. What is it about love that can make a man weak at the knees? What else has the power to compel a man to say Kill me instead in a hostage situation where his significant other is in danger? Even historically, love has been a driving force, as wars have been started over this emotion. Do we need love to be happy or can you be happy and live alone? Psychologists say no, you cant. They even put it in the pyramid of human needs: Food>shelter>love>friendship>happiness. So love is an essential part of life if you want happiness. But how does one obtain love? Through the labyrinth that is dating. Dating is something that society says everyone should do, but chances are most teenagers dont really understand how its supposed to work. There is something else I think every guy should be told regarding friendships: Friendships dont mature into relationships. They are in fact opposites. You see, females and males seem to look at the friendship-relationship paradigm differently. Let me show you. Most males seem this think this, become friends with a girl, build the friendship, enter dating. Click for pictorial version Its simple, and makes sense. But does this apply to real life? Rarely. The women decide the fate of the relationship as their view is a bit different Click for female version You see? It isnt linear, its branched. Whereas in males, in their mind when they meet a new person they either can become friends with him/her, or they can become enemies. In females now, if they meet a new guy, he can advance down the route to becoming an enemy, he can advance down the friend route, or the two can start dating. The interesting thing about this, relatively accurate model of dating is that a complete stranger will have a better chance of landing a date with a girl that you know. Too many times have I observed a guy fall in love with a girl, and than make the mistake of befriending her in hopes that it will advance to a relationship. Admittedly this has happened to me in the past, even after I knew about this phenomena. This also explains the nice guys finish last paradigm that plagues high schools. Its actually quite strange, while all girls say they want to date nice guys it seems you avoid us like the plaque. Lets see if we can see why this is the case. Lets start with a girl, Sara, which a nice guy, Tom, has a crush on. Tom will have his eyes on Sara for quite some time before he does anything. After a while he gets up the courage and follows the aforementioned male idea of relationships, and he tries to befriend her. This usually happen slowly, as he lets her borrow a pencil, smiles at her in the hallway, and might even do homework with her in class. This can go on for months and Tom thinks that since him and Sara are now pretty good friends, he is pretty close to being able to date her. He finds her at the school football game and sits next to her. Tom thinks this is a casual date, while Sara doesnt mind the company of the nice Tom but assures her friends that her and Tom are just friends. Interestingly, even this far into friendship, perhaps Sara could date Tom, if he really asked her, but to her since Tom is acting like a friend and thus will remain as one. Enter Jim, a football player from the other team who sees Sara after the game. Jim goes up to Sara sitting next to Tom and asks Hey there, I saw your face when I was in the game and I just had to come by and say hello. Call me sometime *wink*. Now at this point Sara blushes and is pretty excited about this guy, he seemed pretty cute and no one else at the school knows him so he seems kind of exotic She decides to call him later that night, casually at first but by the end of the week they are kissing at the movie theatre. Tom is bewildered, this Jim guy is just some stupid jock, and he is from a rival school! Not only that but Tom is pretty sure he has been with Sara for a month now, how could this random guy just walk in and take her? Well Saras birthday is next week so Tom plans to redeem himself. Saras birthday rolls around and Tom goes out, buys flowers, buys a nice present, dresses up, and walks over to Saras. Jim was a pretty aggressive guy, who had slept with many women and knew all the moves. Sara, a sophomore who believes in love at first sight, and is the only one of her friends who is still a virgin, gaves in to Jim. Tom gets to Saras house as it starts to downpour. He stands outside the house of the girl he has had a crush on for almost a year now, he carries a present in one hand, and fresh flowers in the other. He rings the door but Sara doesnt answer, she and Jim are a little preoccupied at the moment in her bedroom. Tom, the nice guy, rings again and again as he stands outside in the rain. After still no answer from Sara he sheds a tear and slowly and sadly walks back home, tossing the present and flowers in the gutter, along with his hopes. You see the sad thing for both Tom and Sara. Tom suffers when he goes home alone that night, but it is Sara that will continue to date Jim, thinking that they are in love, and that this Jim guy is the one. Personally, I have seen true love, and once you see it, it is easily to see who else has it. As I have mentioned in the past I work as a banquet server at the local Hilton. Every Friday and Saturday there is a wedding there, and I serve the receptions they eat at in the hours immediately following their union. As I walk past and refill coffee for the bride I often notice the way she leans on the arm of her new husband, or notice the way they smile when they look at each others face. As I watch the wedding party do the chicken dance after the meal, I look at all the couples on the dance floor; you can see couples aged from 13 to 95 dancing with their girlfriends/spouses. As you watch them dance you can see which ones are really in love, which ones hold their significant other with more than just passion. The wedding ends and as I sit in the break room with my co-workers, eating the leftover wedding cake, and I think about how these newly weds acted in comparison to how my friends act with their girlfriends; there is really no comparison. The couples I see in high school, and now college, are rarely in love. Sure there are a few, and Im sure you know them at your schools. The couples really in love seem more together than the other couples. Whereas the average couple is together mostly for just sex, social prestige, or the thought of being in love. But perhaps I am just jealous. I am not a bad looking guy, I am fairly intelligent, and Im a gold medallist in Track; but I never dated in High School. I can blame this on my retentive parents, always having me home by 9pm, and not really allowing me the time away from home required for a relationship. But in reality the blame is solely on me, I could have found a way to do it, I just never had to balls to do so. This leads up to the last day of senior year at high school. After just finishing a stellar track season, and being the chief architect of our soon-to-be unleashed senior prank, I was actually quite popular. On that last day I sat at the lunch table of all the preppy kids which included the class president, the elite jocks, and the cheerleaders. For laughs the girls (about 15 of them) started a game where they would pick a guy at the table, and then all the girls had to say when they dated him. They went down the table. Okay how about Josh? *11 girls raise their hands* Kim dated him in 7th grade, Julie and Katie in 8th, Christy in 10th.. After all the other guys had gone, I was the only one left, and I was called on. Okay so how about [Trapical], who all dated him?. *awkward silence* I spoke None of you none of you have dated me To which the captain of the girls basketball team (arguable the hottest girl in the school) responded with a sly smile You never asked Out of this rambling post I hope you guys can take two things. First off, try to get a girlfriend if at all possible. Not for sex, but for companionship that only she can supply. I was saddened to hear an old friend of mine tells me (in all seriousness) Im sworn off women, cant stand their nagging. From now on if Im just going to go use a lady-of-the-night to satisfy me once every other month or whatever I feel like. The poor guy didnt understand love at all, and I hope for his own sake he changes. Second off, dont loose the girl of your dreams because you were to scared to ask her, or you mistakenly made her into a friend instead of a partner . As for the girls reading this post, realize that men arent as knowledgeable about the rules females set for dating. Take a look at your just friends group, chances are one of them wanted to date you, but you misinterpreted him. Enjoy the next 3 days[/hide] Feeling of the unexplained [hide=]June 8th, 2007 Feelings Are Unexplainable. Day 2 This has always intrigued me. How does one ever explain what a feeling actually feels like? Dont believe me? Explain to me what excitement feels like. You cant do it. The Merriam-Webster dictionary even fails at this task, they define it as to arouse (as a strong emotional response) by appropriate stimuli. To arouse by an appropriate stimuli? Im confused, I thought that emotion was called sexual arousal. I could even define fear with that same sentence. If I see a man running at me with a knife (a stimulus) the adrenaline significantly awakes (arouses) me and I get up and try to run away. The entire concept of feelings is weird, I mean lets look at how we first put words to these feelings. Three kids, Susan, Bob and Zack, are getting ready to go to a party. They are all four years olds. A few minutes before they leave their house, since this is their first birthday party, all three kids are getting a weird feeling in their body (some new emotion they have never felt before). They start acting a little different, constantly talking to their mom and asking when they are going to leave. Each mom responds differently. 1) Susans Mom Oh honey, youre just so excited about this! Itll be fun, well be there soon! 2) Bobs Mom Bob, youre just nervous, theres going to be a lot of kids there, I know, but try and relax. 3) Zacks Mom Zack, jeez! Calm down!! Youre so impatient! You need to wait until I say were ready to leave, gawd! All the kids felt the exact same thing. But they will go through the lives with a different label forever attached to these emotions. The three kids meet up when they are 17 and are all competing in a Track and Field meet: Zack, grown up to become a pessimist like his mother, announced annoyingly that he wishes the stupid event would just start already, he feels he is getting sick of waiting. Bob kind of agrees with Zack, he tells the others that hes nervous and wishes the event was over with already Susan is just excited and is looking forward to the race. All the kids felt the exact same thing. Has this every happened in real life? I am confidant that yes, it has. Its interesting to think about, emotions are such powerful driving forces, yet we dont even know if we feel the same ones as the people around us. - - - I choose to post this thread as one of my 10 for a few reasons. I originally decided to just write this since I find the whole label the emotions thing quite funny. I mean, as I have tried to show above, I truly doubt we all have the same labels for all of our emotions. But a few days ago something strange happened. I have known this girl in my class for about two years now, and I have made reference to her several times in previous threads. Unlike the rest of the Biology majors (face it science majors are all nerds) she was unbelievably attractive. Petite, skinny, long silky hair, adorable face, and smile that can any man weak at the knees. In complete honesty, she could have passed for Kiera Knightley, and everyweek I hear people talking about her making reference to the same thing. Amazingly, and unfair to the rest of the population, she is by also far the smartest girl in my class, with a perfect 36 ACT, a 4.0 in high school, and a 4.0 so far 2 years into college (and being a Biology/Pre-Med major this classes are ridiculously hard). Her personality is equally unmatched, and irresistible, and people often joke around that she is the chosen race, indeed nearly flawless. Regardless, the two of us have been friends/a-little-more-than-just-friends for two years now. We met on the first day of college and chance drew us close together. Due to a computer typo, and the fact that we were both in the same co-ed dorm, we were sent an email in the summer before freshmen year saying that we were assigned each other as room-mates. Unfortunately, heh, this computer error was nearly immediately found out and that same day we received a correction email and an apology. This humorous incident made us friends, and by chance we were both in the same major. We were both furtherly creeped out but found it cool that we had 5 out of 6 of our classes together just by chance. This was quite odd since, excluding her, I wasnt in more than 2 classes with anyone else. Since day one I had always hoped that we would be more then just close friends, and honestly it primarily wasn't for reasons of sexual pleasure, but the fact that I simply seemed happier when I was with her. She was also unnaturally fond of me from the get-go, and I dont doubt that we would have dated if she had not had a boyfriend 3 years her younger, still in High School. They finally broke up last Christmas and for a while I had hoped we could expand our friendship. However, we were just-friends for far too long though and both knew it would never work due that stupid phenomenon. After being pestered by more than half the campus for request to go out, she grew sick of it and got back together with her old bf two weeks ago so people would stop trying to ask her out. I came across them in the mall a few days ago; they didnt see me as they walked out of the store and about 10 feet in front of me they stopped and kissed for about 10 seconds. As I stood there I felt a full wave of emotions, half of them completely undefinable. As the couple turned in place they got to a point where he had his back to me and she was facing me. At that point for some reason she opened her eyes and I was standing right there. Our eyes locked for about 5 seconds and this wave of undefinable emotions I felt grew to insane levels and began to blend together. I felt Shock, Anger, Fear, Love, Comfort, Neglect, Nervousness, Happiness, Sadness, Love, Acceptance. After a full 5 seconds she slowly, almost sadly, lowered her gaze until she was staring at the ground between us. She then abruptly ended the kiss and, with the bf in tow, took off in the opposite direction, still staring downward. As I watched them walk away, the changing wave of emotions I was feeling climaxed at one I have honestly never felt before. My entire body felt very warm, then tingly as if I hit my funny bone in my entire body, and then starting at my back to my front a wave of coldness came over me with such intensity that I literally fell to my knees and made an audible sound. I have no idea what this last emotion is called, or if it even meant anything, but it both intrigued me and left me physically drained. I have since named it the lament of love lost. As I have said, emotions are strange, and often unexplainable, yet their intangibility intrigues me. While I admit, I went on a long personal tangent in this post, I do wish to discuss what you guys think about my conclusion with trying to put words on emotions. Does anyone else find this subject interesting? And how do we know what to feel when we come across a new emotion we have never felt before, as I have above? I apologize to those who arent fond of this rather different style of posting. But if you are intrigued at all by this subject, I welcome you to read my next thread, as it follows a very similar theme. The day afterwhich will have a more traditional posting for a forum such as this. Enjoy the next 8 days[/hide] Standback and Look at it [hide=]June 15th, 2007 Stand Back and Look at it All. Day 9 As a race we strive to improve the standard of living we all share. Think about it, what do we accomplish as a society? Build roads, improve technology, prevent diseases, and try to live with doing as little hard labor as possible. Why do we do this? To advance society. Okay, whats the point of advancing society? When I asked my Philosophy professor this I got the answer as a society, we strive towards building a utopia. We advance society so we as a race can live happier, easier lives; thus, allowing more of us to obtain happiness As I sat there, contemplating his answer, I began to question it in my mind. Wait a minute we live in the United States, the richest country in the world and we are currently the worlds sole superpower. We do not have to worry about getting invaded or threatened, and the freedom and economy we have is valued so high that hundreds of thousands of people try to immigrate here every year. Therefore, if were so great, shouldnt we be living happier than like, 75% of the world? Wait a minute, actually all of my friends are upper-middle to upper class, the top 3% of the country. We were all intelligent, all have promising careers ahead of us, all in good health, and none of us are having any family problems. Soshouldnt we be happier than like, 99% of the world? Actually, wait another minute, we all live in a modern time with clean sanitation, paved roads, electricity, and record-breaking life expectancies. We also live in a time of peace between nation-states, in an age of exponential technological growth. We live in the age were society looks after the unfortunate and we live in a time that promotes learning, freedom, and happiness. Billions upon billions of humans died before I was born, none of them had any of these things So how come Im not really happy? In fact, I often think life is harder now than it used to be. Lets take a look at eight different time periods and lets examine their way of life, 1) Present Day (Picture) You go to school for 12-20 years of your 70 year life, you work 40 hours a week for the majority of your life, constantly saving money for retirement. Once you retire you have a lot of money but your body is falling apart and you soon die, loosing all your possessions and savings that you spent the majority of your life trying to get. 2) 1700s (Picture) An interesting time. If you were a colonialist you lived a hard life of manual labor on the farm trying to get by; however, once you were 40 or so you could quit working and let your kids take over. You could also be a pirate, which would actually kind of suck; you spend most of your time on a boat the size of a semi-truck, and you will probably die before the age of 25. On the plus side to either of these professions, you really dont need to go to school 3) Roman (Picture) Romans lived pretty nice lives. Assuming you were a Roman citizen, you were living in luxury. Caesar supplied every citizen of Rome with free grain, and nearly every family had slaves to do any manual work that was needed to be done. The upper class spent their time going to the Forum or Coliseum, or simply debating politics. Life near 50AD was peaceful too. The Pax Romana was a record breaking 250 year span of peace over the entire European continent, this record has yet to be broken. 4) Ancient Egyptian (Picture) Unlike Romans, being an Egyptian was hard work. You lived in a hot, harsh climate, and you do manual labor for most of your life. You didnt mind the work though, since the only point of life was to achieve Maat for the afterlife (aka, do good in life and you get into heaven). Maat was achieved by doing hard work and obeying laws. In this aspect the Egyptians lived nicely, there was little crime in the region and things ran relatively smoothly. Besides for the total lack of medicine though, you also had to worry about war. Egypt got into many wars, and chances are as a peasant you would get recruited and send into confusing battle, like those shown in The Scorpion King. You probably wont live past 45, but some Pharaohs lived past 100. 5) Aztec (Picture) The average Aztecs lived a pretty peaceful life. The empire was strong, their only real rivals were the Mayans and the Incas, but they lived far enough away from each other that no large scale wars took place. Unlike the somewhat socialist Egyptians and Romans, most of the empire lived on their own, just simply hunters or fishermen. They living off the land around their house and bringing the food back to the village. The downside to this life was the total lack of medicine and the fact that one snake or jaguar could kill you with little to no warning. 6) Hunter Gatherer Society (Picture) These people are easy to describe. A Hunter-gather society is essentially the term for how humans lived right after they had evolved. They wandered around across the plains eating berries and hunting small game like rabbits. Social structure was simple, if a man met a women and they liked each other they would form a family. Families stuck together and the man cared for his wife through thick and thin. The man taught his son how to hunt, fish, and start a fire. The mom taught the daughters how to build a shelter, how to cook the animals, and taught her which berries were safe to eat. Once the children were 15 or so they went their own way, and the parents lived together until they turned about 40 or so and died of old age. There was no medicine, no education, and no war. This is the way it was for millions of years. Humans living like civilized animals, totally in nature. Its actually funny if you think about it, the vast, vast majority of humans that have lived on this earth, lived like that. So which society was the happiest? Were any of them better? I really dont think so, they all have parts that make me wish I could have lived back then, but they all also have parts that make me glad that I wasnt. Which brings up my point, whats the point of advancing society? Some might say to ensure that we can spread our seed and survive as a race. However, China and India seem to be managing that just fine, yet they arent exactly state of the art countries. Whats the point of being a superpower if you people are just as happy as those in Guatemala? On that case, what is point to looking forward to the future? Sure the future holds promise but will it really bring us happiness? Tasks like farming and mining will be done by robotics, and we will be able to travel to other planets and have fully immersive gaming... but like I said, will that bring anyone happiness? History seems to show, that as long as you are not at war, you will be just as happy as any other civilization. (By War i mean a real war, Iraq doesn't count, I mean one with people invading your country and foreign soldiers pillaging your town, raping women, and killing people at random) As long as there is no war, and you're not starving to death, you are just as happy as an Roman, or an Indian, or a caveman for that matter. Enjoy the rest of the day[/hide] Revelation [hide=]June 16th, 2007 Revelation Day 10 The tenth day. If you are reading this, I am officially 20 years old, born on June 16th, 1987. It is strange to think that I am no longer a teenager That was a crucial point of this series, to bring up some thought provoking arguments in my last days before I leave the infamous teenager social class. Twenty is an interesting age, it actually makes me feel old. I am halfway to 40, heck 40 year olds are like senior citizens where I come from. Not to mention that when I was 5 years old, heck even when I was 12, I thought of a 20-year-olds as mature adults, you know, grown-ups. A 20-year-old does not kid around, he acts and thinks differently, and he does not play, he works. But thats not true, I feel and think the exact same way I used to. I still kid around, I still think the word poop is funny, and I still play make-believe. I mean, who doesnt fanaticize about what it would be like to drive a cool car, who doesnt day dream about sleeping with Kiera Knightly or Jessica Alba, and who doesnt leave a James Bond movie without subconsciously wishing they were a secret agent with cool gadgets and a license to kill? Is this any more mature than a kid who fanaticizes about dragons or Harry Potter? It is strange to think about life that way, to realize that we are all the same on the inside. And thus was the first revelation, age is meaningless. I can honestly say that after I had thought about this, I do not look at adults the same. Senior citizens are not old people that are mad at the youth, they are just like me. The only difference is they know their time is limited and they want to share their stories from their youth. And who can blame them? Imagine their life once, they grew up in the 30s, and their parents were from the 1800s! When they were teenagers WWII broke out and millions were taken from the arms of their girls and drafted. They get back home and now need to form an economy that will prevail over the mighty USSR. They do so and excel beyond that. As they turn 70 they move into retirement homes and await death as a nurse cleans their bed pans. Imagine yourself as one of these guys, you fought in WW2, you watched your friends die and you fought hard for the freedom of the world. Now you lie, paralyzed in a bed. Your grand kids come by once a month, (they are sick of your stories of how you fought the Germans, or how you single handedly ran across a battlefield to secure a machine gun post to save the lives of your wounded friends) and instead of talking to you they want to play video game. You see them playing games like Call of Duty in front of you. They play it on a 50-inch HD plasma while your 5-year-old great grandson is texting on his new cell phone that has a bigger screen than your familys living room TV from the 1930. How would you feel? Well, thats how they feel, and thats how we are going to feel in 50 years. First revelation: Age is meaningless; we are all the same on the inside. Leading off that was my second revelation. In high school I maintained a fairly high GPA. There were many kids nerdier than I was, but I was defiantly labeled as one of the smart kids which I still dont know if thats an insult or a compliment . Anyway, as I studied and did well in my classes, I was surrounded by people who didnt really care about school. You know the type, the 25% of your class that smoked pot in the bathroom, the girls that only cared about dating, the people that graduate with a 1.8 GPA, and the guys that took like 5 study halls while you took 6 AP classes. Basically, the people that were having the time of their lives while you studied or did homework. But what do parents and teachers tell us? Those people will end up working at a McDonalds, they have no good future. But wait a minute, how many smart kids are in your class. Certainly not more than 10% of the student body. So what happens to the other 90% of the class? Maybe 5% will be unemployed, another 5% will end up working fast food or some other minimum wage job, and another 20% will get a low paying job like a mechanic or a truck driver. That still leaves 50% of your class though. What do these dumb jocks, hicks, druggies, Goth kids, and promiscuous girls end up doing? Well, just look around you. See your neighbors, your friends parents, your local newscasters, your guidance counselors, and even your teachers. These are not smart kids, half of these people probably didnt even make the honor roll. Like I mentioned in the 1st revelation, when we were little kids we were taught that these people are smart, we were told that these grown ups are mature and have worked hard to get where they are. That really isnt the case for many of them though. When many of you go onto college you will see this. There will be the people who are in the library for hours on end, and then there will be people that spend more time drunk and passed out than they spend in class. Yet both of these people turn out to be college grads. Most jobs dont even ask what was your college GPA, they just want you to have a degree. Second revelation: While the people with professional jobs (i.e. doctors, lawyers, engineers, software technicians, etc) are quite intelligent, most other adults really are not. The vast majority of them, the people like your high school teachers, probably did things like drinking/drugs/sex in high school. The same is true for dating. As a Pre-med student I always hear from my business major friends Dude, youre going to get all the women when you become a doctor!. Also, likewise, my parents discouraged dating in High School saying you can do plenty of that once you have a job. You see, the problem is, Med School is 8 more years after college. Im going to be 32 before I actually get the job . Anyway, as I toll over books or study for the MCAT, my business major friends are out partying and sleeping with dozens of hot college girls. My only consolation is that everyone always tells me that in ten years I will be the one that all my friends envy. I believed this until a little while ago. I live on the lake and it was a beautiful day outside with temps in the 80s. It was the 2nd day of summer vacation and as I sat on my patio in the early afternoon, I was studying for the MCAT in August. I finished a tough chapter and I looked around me. Flying across the water in a nice boat was a guy I knew from high school. He wasnt a very smart guy, all though high school he skipped classes to smoke pot, and he dated a different girl each week. He ended up graduating a pathetic 130th out of 150, but he got into a college (the worst university in the state). He was a communications major at college and from what I gather wants to be a salesman for Nabisco like his dad is. His dad earns a respectable $55,000 a year and his wifes job brings the net total to over $100,000. Now I watch him fly past me, one arm holds a beer, the other is wrapped around the waist of a perky blonde in a bikini. For a moment I grew jealous, than I felt anger. Everyone has always told me work hard and in the end you will get your reward. And so I toiled, studying my butt off each day so I go into a profession that requires that you memorize thinks like the name and function of each of the 206 bones and each of the 650 muscles in the human body. Studying the subject is bad enough, but the job itself is one of the most stressful imaginable. Not only are their downsides such as long hours away from your family, but doctors often get emergency calls in the middle of the night and then they simply have to get up and go to work at 3am, leaving their family behind. When you do work, you do so knowing that the slightest of mistakes will kill your patient. Toss in the fact that you have to perform physical and rectal exams on people that often weigh 400 pounds yea, not so much fun. So why go into medicine. I sat there, MCAT review book in hand, wondering this very question for what ended up being several hours. Was it the money? No, the money is nice, but I could have earned just as much as a lawyer or with an MBA. Was it the prestige? No, while doctors are respected, so are firemen, teachers, and army veterans; I dont think anyone would go through 24 years of school just to be respected in a community anyway. Will it bring happiness? Perhaps, but I would think happiness would come easier to the guy I mentioned with the 1.9 GPA in high school, the guy that will soon be making $100,000 a year with his wife while working a stress free job and spending more time with family than I ever could Was it the women? No, by the time I am a doctor the people I will be dating will be in their 30s. Everyone knows the best looking women are in the late teens and twenties, and these girls have all slept with the business majors or frat boys in college. If I wanted a career that promised attractive women I would anything that didnt requite a lot of studying and then spent a lot of time in college sleeping with girls until I found one I liked. I know people that have done this actually, a friend of mine slept with 23 girls in one semester, the 23rd girl he liked and they are now engaged, she is gorgeous and he is an art major. Thats a promising career, art. One would like to believe that the best women will hold off from looking for a relationship until they are 30. However this makes no sense, the most attractive girls are the ones that date early, and thus, by the time girls are 30, all the most attractive ones are already married. Im not trying to say that looks are all the matters when choosing a wife, but it is a factor that honestly cannot be ignored. But I digress, the question still remains, why am I spending 1/3 of my life training for a profession that has no clear advantage over other ones? And thus was my third revelation, and the one that is the namesake of this thread. Third revelation: Money has no real value in the end My father is a physician, a psychiatrist to be specific. My mother was a nurse but has long been retired since our family didnt really need her income. Despite the fact that my parents may have been the richest out of my entire high school class, you would never be able to tell. My dad is the stringiest man I have ever seen, I mean for example despite his 250k+ salary, he drives a 1999 Honda Civic. He convinced my mom to only shop at ALDI, the local discount grocer that is cheaper than Wal-Mart; Im pretty sure we are the only people with a car to actually go to that store, and we are among the only customers that pay with something besides food stamps. However, I dont really mind it, and I get used to seeing generic names everywhere in our house. What really bugs me though is when we travel abroad (this only happens after spending about 4 months of constantly checking online prices for the cheapest airfare remotely possible). Anyway, when we go abroad to these third world counties, not only do we stay in these hotels that were made for the locals, but also we seem to be always playing the game lets see just how little we can spend! The worst is when actually do to buy something, because my dad will barter with anybody about anything. Picture this, a family of five Americans is in the middle of a local village in Costa Rica. The people here live on about 5 dollars a week and many of the kids are manumitted, we are there to buy some wooden carving like this one. It is hand carved and took about 20 hours of skilled labor to do. Its price is one dollar. But no, this is too much for my family, and so the bartering begins. Ill take three for two dollars my dad proclaims, this sparks a furious argument where the store owner is near tears saying how his son in hungry and how he spent 3 days to make those. Eventually (after my dad threatens to walk away) we do manage to buy the three carvings for two dollars. I have one of those carvings in my room, but looking at is disgusts me. It represents the fact that a man, my father, would refuse to give one more dollar to an impoverished hard working man. This would be sad enough if my father was a middle class worker, but he isnt, he is an upper class doctor working in the United States of America. Refusing that one extra dollar is pathetic, really it is. But what does this have to do with my post? Well, it deals with money. Once you have over $20,000 a year you can buy enough food to live just fine. Anything over that is used to buy objects. A mans life is a quest to get more and more objects. I never really understood this for two reasons. First, you only want what you dont have. You think a plasma TV will make it easier to be happy, but once you have it you really dont appreciate it and are already thinking of what else to buy. Secondly, you leave your possessions at your grave. People spend their entire life, saving money and buying things, yet as soon as they die they loose it all. This is actually why I quite RuneScape. Why spend countless hours gaining levels when I will loose all this work when I quit the game? Similarly, whats the point of accumulating vast sums of wealth when you might die any day? We are all mortal, many of us will live and die without really doing anything special with their life, they will grow up, work in retail, have a kid or two, and than die. Living a life that contained nothing that helped that greater society is a waste of a life. And then it hit me thats why Im going into medicine. Sure the guy in his boat may life a happier life than me in high school and college. He might even live a happier life as an adult. But he works to sell cookies for Nabisco. Not to sound mean, but upon his death the world will not have really lost anyone that was irreplaceable. But other professions, engineers, doctors, diplomats, soldiers they can accomplish things. This revelation of mine, combined with the fact that I swore I wont be a scrooge like my father, has re-inspired me in my field. Therefore, once I get my medical license I plan to spend time in Africa, doing hands on life saving work. I wont make much money in the time I spend there, but I will be doing something that will always be remembered. The lives I save will still be lives I saved after I die, and the children of the people I save will live on, enjoying life and changing the world in their own ways. As I contemplate these thoughts I look outside, I notice twilight is fast approaching. I live on the lake, but I rarely find the time to enjoy something as simple as a sunset. I step outside and walk down to the water, stopping to stand on our dock and look out at the lake. As I look onto the mirror that is the lakes tranquil surface, the sun begins to set. I turn to see a little dragonfly has landed on me. I dont mind dragonflies, and he seemed at peace resting on me. The sky turns scarlet as the sun dips even lower, and I sit down on a step leading to the water. The little dragonfly jumps off and does a circle before landing right next to me, almost as a person would come and sit down next to their friend. I look at him, and he turns his head to me, then we both look back out the lake. The two of us sit in silence as we relax and take in the scenery, time passes meaninglessly as the lake continues to shed its layers of crimson and fades to the black of night. I marvel at this, I have lived at this house for nine years now but I have never sat and watched this scene before. I ponder if the dragonfly has this thought as well, why dont we do more often? Why dont we just sit back and enjoy life for a few minuets inbetween the hectic, pointless, schedule we go through everyday? Why is everything always in a rush, and why dont people actually enjoy the small things in life? We should do this more often. On that note, I leave you. I sincerely hope that you guys enjoyed my little ten day escapade. When I started this series I had 9 threads ready to be used, but as the days progressed I looked at my saved threads and realized they lacked meaning. I threw them all out and instead spent 4-8 hours each day researching and typing the thread for that evening. It was a grueling task that was physically and mentally demanding for reasons beyond my comprehension. As tired as I got though, I kept going, for you guys. As corny as that sounds its true. Over the years I have come to know so many of you, and I didnt want to disappoint anyone. So, as your expectations for me grew, I tried my best to meet and surpass the bar that was set for me. Did I achieve anything with these measly posts on this relatively small forum? Well, in ten days I have tried to open some eyes, share some excitement, and raise some hope. But in truth, people will respond to this thread with gusto for a few days, but like all other threads it will eventually sink to the second and third page, and then disappear forever. I think in the end though, all the hours I spent tolling away at my keyboard will have paid off if I had influenced just one person to forever look at a part of their life differently. I will not be on these forums very much from now on, but if in anytime in the future any of you would like advise on something, be it social, medical, or philosophical, my email is in my signature. Dont hesitate to drop me a line, although I admit, for the next few days I may not reply Me and a little dragonfly have prior arrangements. Enjoy the rest of your life.[/hide] Future Computers [hide=]June 10th, 2007 The Future of Computing. Day 4 Well, after the last two threads, I think we need one a little more laid back and optimistic. Moore's Law: The number of transistors that can be built into a microchip will double every eighteen months. Thus, the speed of computers will double about every 2 years. Therefore, we live in an age of exponential technological growth. Every two years our encyclopedias double in size, and computers get twice as advanced as they were before. This makes sense if you think about it, it took 40,000 years for humans to settle down into cities. 10,000 years later we had Rome. 1,500 years later we had electricity (1770). 150 years later and were in the nineteen twenties. Think about that, people often live a hundred years, and in essentially once person's lifetime we went from this the primitive colonial style of life to the pretty modern life of 1930, people then had automobiles, planes, and modern ships. Now just 50 years later we are in the 1980s. Nuclear subs, atomic power, F-16s, satellite TV, VHS, lasers, and men on the moon all in 50 years. Okay now just jump just 20 years. The Internet, fiber optics, plasma displays, digital cameras, and the iPod have all been invented. Now just jump 7 years to today. Dont think much has changed since then? Computers from the year 2000 came with Pentium II processors (300mHz) had a 900MB hard drive, DVD drives were insanely expensive, CRT screens were the only real option, and people used floppies everywhere. Think about, look at pictures from around 1999 and be amazed at how old everything looks. Pretty crazy knowing that by 2011 we will have made a technological jump just as far as 1999-2007. After that, following Moores law it will only take about 2 years to made another technological jump of that scale, then 1 year, then just a few months. Moores law is eventually supposed to break down but that wont happen until the mid-2020s, and even after that technology will still increase at a rate of speed faster than you can imagine. For proof, I show you 5 things that everyone will own in less than ten years. - An OLED computer monitor and TV - An electric newspaper - A cell phone with more power than the PS3 - Some form of Surface Computing - Video games that are difficult to differ from reality 1.) OLED computer monitors There are three things you need to know about OLED screens. -To say they are thin is an understatement, it is hard to tell from this picture but the screens themselves can be 0.004 inches thick (0.1 mm) - They are extremely efficient, and their resolution and quality of image is jaw dropping. Let it be noted that this is not a picture, it is a screen shot of a video that was shown. These things will be the new standard for any type of video display once the technology gets perfected (so far the max screen size is 20 inches). Two companies, Sony and Phillips are in the process of perfecting these screens, and they are set to release them in 2008. In 2017 these screens will be everywhere from iPods to watches to clothing to newspapers 2) Electronic Newspaper Wait, did he just said TVs on clothing and newspaper? Lol, what a joke or is it? Another property of these screens is that they are flexible. Very flexible actually, they are as light and flexible as a piece of paper. Seen here is a OLED screen being bent past 90 degrees with no loss in imagine quality or damage to the screen. Remember that these screens are tremendously efficient and can thus run for days on a single flashlight battery. A newspaper of 2017 might look just like this, the product you see actually already excises. Its a laptop . The screen just rolls out and can be made rigid if you prefer, the processor and battery is in the tube on the left. The entire computer can be rolled up and put in your back pocket like a magazine. Expect electronic newspapers to become popular in about 8 years. They are actually coming out a lot earlier but I expect 5 to 6 years for them to catch on. 3) A cell phone with more power than the PS3 Ah yes, the symbol of technological growth, the cell phone. How far we have come in less than a decade. Ten years from now the cell phone will only really be limited by its battery. Unfortunately, while technology and physics prowess increases exponentially, chemists really cant do anything to make a better battery. Lithium gives off the most charge per density out of all the earths elements, so its not like we can just invent a new way to store power. Regardless of that, cell phones will vastly improve. Experts predict that phones will soon replace credit cards and IDs, and become one central, electronic identification that can be read by stores and have payments automatically deducted from your account. Theft wont really be a problem since every phone will have integral GPS and be easily traced. (To ensure full theft protection, I predict people will have the option to have a GPS transmitter placed under their skin; the phone wont work if its not with the person who has the matching transmitter as the phone). Anyway GPS has limitless possibilities. Imagine walking into a cinema and sitting down. You then flip open your phone I wonder if I know anyone in here All of your contacts locations will be shown on a map of the town, or even a map of the cinema/mall/your house if you two are close together. This is a lifesaving technology and one that would infinitely useful when meeting a friend in a mall or airport setting. Cell phones in 10 years will be more than twice as fast as todays computers and hold terabytes of storage of their own. They will also seem easily will nearly every other electronic device you own. Surface computers will lead the way in that field 4) Surface Computing Hmm, how to describe surface computing in words? You know what? Watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....mp;search= Reminds me of that sweet interface in Minority Report Personally, Im pretty pumped about this thing. I mean, going over to a wall, opening Google Earth and flying through the globe would be phenomenal. Can you imagine what a multi user game of a StarCraft game would be like in 10 years? Get 5 friends together at someones house, go over the map and strategize, then play the game (with photorealistic graphics) against another team as you each sit around the table flying through menus and selecting different units, essentially five Generals working as one. This leads into my final point. Gaming. 5) Video games that are difficult to differ from reality I take it many of you have heard of Crysis, the PC game that uses Direct X10 and is so advanced people wont be able to play it in full graphics until about a year after its released. Look at these screen shots, the upper one is a picture taken in real life, and the lower one is the in-game graphics. Thats insane. Lets compare that with a game from 10 years ago, Madden 97. Ha, nice. Okay, so the graphics will be essentially 1:1 with real life pretty soon. What else can get better? The controls. The controller as we know it is on its way out. The move towards full VR games, where you act in 1:1 movements with the character will take probably 30-50 years, but it will happen in out lifetime. We will get there in steps, such with the Wii being a great example. In ten years we can expect games with fully realistic graphics and controllers that mimic nearly every movement imaginable. While true VR in itself is pretty crazy to imagine, and it in itself will take about 40 years to perfect, there is more step gaming can accomplish. The final step is fully immersive games, where you can actually feel things like the warmth of the sun, the pain of a bug bite, or the feelings of sex, all while being able to act unhindered in this virtual world totally up to your design. This will take probably an additional 50 years after VR is established, but it will come, and unless nuclear war erupts before then, we should all still be alive to see it The above is just a small collection of what the future holds. It should be exciting to watch unfold, amazing to use, and the fact is things can only get better from here. I once again thank you for you time, my intent was that instead of just hearing about doomsday news about the future, you now have something to look forward to. Enjoy the next 6 days[/hide] Maleria [hide=]June 12th, 2007 Malaria, Killer of Men Day 6 Disclaimer: This is a touchy subject for me, I may spill some of my aggression onto this post. Every year, malaria kills over two million people and infects another 450 million. The disease is present in over 100 countries, threatening 40 percent of the world's population. It is the global leading cause of death for children under five, killing one child every thirty seconds. It is the leading cause of death for humans in a dozen African nations. Like AIDS, Malaria can be prevented, but prevention is tricky and is often not followed by the uneducated. This is true for both diseases, however, their similarities between HIV and Malaria end there. Unlike AIDS there is a cure for Malaria. There are drugs on the market can cure 99% of active malarial infections in less than 48 hours. These drugs cost from between $0.08 to $0.95. Less than a dollar. Lets think about that one for a minute. People were appalled when I told them humans are being sold for $200, less than cattle. But that honestly pails in comparison to saying the lives of 2 millions human are given up each year because someone doesnt want to spend a 75 cents on them. Who doesnt want to spend the money? Good question, the answer is everyone. People are obsessed with AIDS, really they are. Yes AIDS kills just as many people, but it is an incurable disease at the moment. The drugs that do exist for AIDS simply treat the symptoms and just prolong death by a few years, unlike Malaria drugs that cure the person for life. The cost is also insane: -The price of the newest AIDS medication (which doesnt even cure AIDS) is called Atripla. Thirty tablets cost $1,297.61 -The price of the newest malarial medication (which saves the persons life) is called ACT . Thirty tablets cost $29.90 Okay, now lets see what people are spending their donations buying. $700 million are spent on Malaria each year. $15 billion is spent towards AIDS relief. Yes 700 million is a fairly large sum, but more is spent in Iraq in one day. And 15 billion for AIDS? Thats fantastic that people are donating that much, but why people are spending that much on overpriced drugs that just prolong death a few years, when a tenth of that would be enough to essentially stop malaria dead in its tracks? You want a reason why? Well, the fact is most people dont care. They dont care about Malaria because it isnt in Europe, the U.S, or Japan. Its only in far away places like Africa and India. AIDS on the other hand in their country, they might know someone who knows someone with AIDS, and they feel threatened by it so they feel the need to act. So time goes on, and every 30 seconds a child dies from a disease, curable with the that that costs as much as a can of soda, and during this time people continue to donate thousand dollar drugs to people who die in 6 months anyway. But AIDS is not the one to blame, the blame lies on the dual societies of our world. We should easily be able to help both AIDS victims and end Malaria, there is no excuse. Malaria is a disgrace to the human race. How can we just sit back and let this curable disease continue to kill a child every 30 seconds. It disgusts me, and I have sworn an oath that once I become a doctor I will join this battle. As for now I have decided that I am selfish to continue to hold on to my Blue Party Hat, currently worth 400 mil, or $450 real life dollars. After August when I am done with the MCAT, I plan an ambitious plan to trade my long prized blue hat for 400 million gold; then I will proceed to give 1 million gold to 400 people on tip.it, asking in return from the recipients only the promise to one day donate money to a charity of their choice. Naturally, I would prefer if they donated to a malarial non-for-profit site, but I leave that choice up to them. I dont know what is wrong in this world, were people complain to pay $3 for a gallon of gas, yet they are blind to the people who die every minute from the lack of a drug that is 1/5 of that price. In the time it took you to read this post, 75 people were killed from this disease. They could have been saved for about twelve dollars, but hey, thats not your problem right?[/hide] Trapical Does Tarrot! [hide=]June 14th, 2007 Trapical does Tarot! Day 8 The Tarot accepts no more questions! Original post is below, see post on page four for details Hey everyone, today is sort of like the bonus day of the series ^_^ Today we take a break from intellectual discussions or humanitarian problems and instead have a little fun. For your amusement, I will be administering free Tarot card readings to anyone who has a question they want answered . For those of you that don't know, Tarot cards are the cards psychics and gypsies use to predict your future. A deck of Tarot cards is different from regular cards. It only has 12 cards in a suit: the numbers 1-9, a jack, a queen, and a king. There are still 2 jokers and the 4 suits, but the suits have also changed: Cups, which replaces hearts, represents happiness and love. Coins/Disks, which replaces diamonds, means wealth--either monetary or interpersonal. Clubs/Wands represents conflict or a rivalry. And Swords, replacing spades, means aggression, sickness, sorrow, and overall bad things Note that those are my interpretations of the suits and the interpretation my deck knows. To some people the suits mean different things, and good for them but my deck works like mentioned above. So with all that aside let's start the readings shall we? I have done this before on tip.it, and it was a pretty entertaining time. Just post here with a question and I will try and to post the Tarots answer within 12 hours. You can either ask a specific question (Such as "next week is prom, how will it go?", or "What does my future job outlook look like?" .) Or, if you don't have a question on hand, simply ask for a broad reading for your future in general. Also, yes or no questions can be asked. Oh and be sure to mention the time frame: Do you want the future predicted for next week, for this year, for the next 5 years, for your lifetime, etc. ---Questions must be asked before June 16th, 2007. Enjoy the next 2 days[/hide] Sorry for the bad ordering, but I'm kinda in a rush. I hope this is of use to you, and wish you the very best :)

[/img]