EdgedThesis

Nice stuff Amon Tobin - El Cargo Not bad at all. Any more trip-hop to recommend?

They're there to spice things up. To force a difficult decision. Its all hypothetical, so let's just go with it. Actually, multiple embryos are produced in regular IVF procedures and those not used are just disposed of (or hopefully put to use in stem cell research). So essentially, it's not all that different from IVF in itself. Oh, right! To grant a decent chance for proper fertilization. Nice.

They're there to spice things up. To force a difficult decision. Its all hypothetical, so let's just go with it.

I would read to him or her so much. I'd buy a ton of books. I'd let the kid know that I have absolute trust in him, but that if he/she ever broke that trust then our bond would be severely wounded. I wouldn't force family dinners, but I'd suggest them, while faking sadness XD I bet someone's going to reference the Adolf Hitler guy

I have the bad habit of discussing my pissing schedules with people. To illustrate: I'm on a flexible time-table when it comes to peeing. However, the, uh, 'alternative' (Crap, I mean) is pretty rigid. Thrice a day. Four times depending on lunar positions.

1: Switch train tracks. A lone construction worker is easier to try and save than three. You never mentioned if the lone construction worker was as difficult to run to as the group of three. But if he was, then it's just the law of differences. Save three, lose one. 2: Is killing necessary? Why not just temporary muting? If it is necessary, then I would kill it quickly. 2b: [cabbage]. Difficult. And also sad that I encounter an ethical problem just because of something as small as a genetic link to a baby. I wouldn't want him/her to grow up in an atmosphere of death. Or be held responsible for other people's deaths. Sometimes oblivion is better than guilt. I'd smother the baby.

Well that's the trick, isn't it? Both outcomes land you a moral slap in the face. You need some outside supplement to help justify one over the other, right?

The more I think about it, the more I think the question previously referred to the parents blood type and was copied improperly. In the Punnet Square below, there's a 1:2:1 ratio of a child with that specific blood type. I couldn't find a picture of actual blood types or a 1:1:1:1 ratio, so bare with me. Blood-types (allele notation 'I') aren't that simple. I believe there are multiple alleles. So you'd need to take into account the dominant alleles: I^A, I^ B, and recessive allele I^o. Then again, I have no idea what you are trying to calculate, so never mind : p

we're not the gardeners of the universe, we're the gardeners of earth. and so far we've done an absolutely spectacular job of F*CKING IT ALL UP. When I first tried to tend a garden, it was an epic failure. I remember tearing up soil, exposing soft roots to the elements, and confusing weeds with budding flowers. Was terrible, and I felt quite guilty. I grew up, and realized that my ineptitude was from lack of experience. It was from ignorance. I had learned since then--I knew the exact water:soil ratios needed for any given species of plant in the field. I knew exactly how to handle them. Sure, took a few years of botany and some amateur yard-work--but it happened. I finally had myself a beastly garden. Now when I see young ones crying at the sight of their ravaging work, I comfort them. I tell them that they will get better with time. And once they had the tears out of their eyes, they were better able to see how exactly to improve.

Wait, embryos are zygotes right? If they are just regular old unfertilized eggs, destroy them. But if embryo=zygote, then it presents a problem to some pro-life people. Anyway, I say destroy them either way. Haven't developed a nervous system yet. Just cellular blobs. Also--I don't think this situation is rooted in real-life possibility. Pretty sure it's a scenario dreamed up by somebody to pose a 'challenging' question.

Ok, I agree vegetarians are rarely physically strong, but vegetarianism (or at least semi-vegetarianism with fish meat) combined with vitamins and tofu has major health benefits, a cleaner body, less toxins, etc.. And vegetarians in general live longer than other people. [1]. I love various meats and could probably never be vegetarian, at least for prolonged periods of time. Still it's very factually inaccurate to say vegetarianism has no health benefits, it has huge benefits for those who commit themselves to a vegetarian diet. The only real problems in those diets can arise from lack of protein. You mentioned "meat builds muscle" which is correct, because meats contain proteins. A vegetarian can get proteins especially from beans and tofu. If the vegan diet lacks protein the person can experience muscle catabolism, which is not fatal but reduces the all-around muscle mass, including that of the skeletal muscles. Hence some vegetarians (rather concerned with nutrition than the ethics of killing) complement their diets with fish. Just beans? Doesn't pretty much every vegetable contain protein? I mean, it's an important structural element in most living things. Is it just that beans have more protein that are usable?

I'm not so sure I'd trust you as my surgeon. It happens. Mine keep dropping my hydrospanner. Maybe I should just get them replaced. Reference? No? Aww.

To make this discussion a little more interesting, let me introduce to you the parasitic toxoplasmosa gondii . It alters behavior. Prime example of which is making host rats scurry towards predators in order to advance it's life cycle. Last I read, it's very, very common. Sweet dreams, everyone.

Our canines and digestive system's adaptability to meat might just be an emergency back-up system. In the Ice Age, it would've been a trait that ensured survival. But the human body is more efficient while running on fruits and vegetables than with a high percentage of meat in the diet. (I remember there being a vitamin deficiency if one was to go pure vegan though, is this correct?) Anyway. I eat meat because I like the taste. Also, this emote is hilarious with a santa hat: :arrow:

Some people have a gift for music. Some people can find the beat of song instantly, some can't. Ah. Understood. Yeah, I had my definition of 'intelligences' skewed. I guess that alone warrants the low 55% score.

Interesting. Guess I don't 'get' music, though. Strange. Is music a thing meant to be broken down and understood? I thought it was just 'there'. To be enjoyed. The feelings invoked should depend solely upon the listener and the mood--not an objective analysis. Anyway.

Regardless, that's not really going faster than light, you're merely beating it to the point by taking a shorter distance. When we say the speed of light, usually it refers to c, the speed of light in a vacuum. Hm. I have this idea (though it may be completely stupid): They are trying to figure out the nature of a field that makes certain objects have mass, am I right? The field of Higgs bosons? Would it be possible to create mass-free conduits through space in order to travel at light speed?

You eat your nose?

For the universe to crunch the density of the universe would have to be greater than the critical density of the universe which would then eventually cause the expansion to stop and it to a form somewhat like it 'began'. The other case is that the density of the universe is less than or equal to the critical density in which the expansion will slow down but continue forever. I feel the second is more like because our best efforts to calculate the density of the universe currently are barely 1/3 of the of the critical density and includes counting dark matter and energy I believe. Either way predicts the end of any life in the universe sometime far in the future so I guess it really doesn't matter too much to us anyway. What exactly is critical density?

Hm, how do we know the universe is expanding? Maybe Earth is being sucked into the center. I'm pretty sure theorists took into account that kind of situation. They didn't figure this out by measuring speeds of celestial objects moving far away relative to the Earth, they made it relative to some theoretical center-point. At least, that's what I think they did. I'm sure that such a simple mistake wouldn't have been made by these guys though. It's called the Doppler Effect. Imagine a train moving towards you, the whistle it blows is a high pitch. Now it's moving away from you, and the sound becomes lower along with the frequency. Now, we can use this to tell if objects that are moving away from us, except it uses light. When objects are moving closer, the light has smaller space between it's troughs, and appears red on a Doppler scale. If it's moving away, the space between troughs and peaks are farther apart and appears blue on the scale. Another example is used at hospitals, to measure blood flow. Yeah, I know that. But that doesn't answer Lenticular's question fully. Aha! Lenticular, things are moving away from us, right? Well, it's not like the speeds are universally the same for every object we see--otherwise we'd be the center of the Universe. With all the different speeds, scientists could extrapolate pathways of bodies and figure out a 'center'. Right?

Hm, how do we know the universe is expanding? Maybe Earth is being sucked into the center. I'm pretty sure theorists took into account that kind of situation. They didn't figure this out by measuring speeds of celestial objects moving far away relative to the Earth, they made it relative to some theoretical center-point. At least, that's what I think they did. I'm sure that such a simple mistake wouldn't have been made by these guys though.

Existence is an unstable form. Haha, I read that when looking up some stuff on thermodynamics, but that article you provided (thanks) said it again. Pretty funny, seeing as how the first ethical monotheism (Zoroastrianism) stated that nothingness is how the universe is supposed to be, and that it suddenly separated into a conflict of good and evil (which used to be in complete balance). From this conflict came existence. Funnier still how modern religions look down on Zoroastrianism, the forerunner to it all...

Reminds me of Hawaiian snowballs. It's some sort of nitrate (? I forgot.) precipitate soaked with ethanol. It burns blue green, and it's a fire that barely hurts. Ah, we had fun juggling those in chemistry class. My teacher was awesome, we also melted iron using thermite and a magnesium fuse.

The Big Bang theory explains why the universe is expanding as it is. It's not how scientists claim the universe was created. So far, with what we know, the only thing we can assume is that there was a dimensionless point that housed all matter, all energy, all time, and all space. And that it was always there. It did not come from nothing. It was forever there. Well, actually, our universe might be going in a bang/crunch cycle. I'm not entirely sure about the physics behind it, and I might be wrong, but I believe that gravitational forces will eventually overwhelm the outward forces gained from the initial explosion. After this, parts of the universe will actually begin to retract, and collapse once more into a singularity. Anyway. The only thing difficult to wrap our heads around is this: if all of our universe was a singularity, what laid beyond it? The answer is, of course, nothing. But we cannot even begin to fathom that concept yet. (Which is a reason why religion exists in the first place.) EDIT: By the way, isn't it impossible for our Universe to have a 'beginning'? The Universe isn't contained within Time, Time is contained within it. This effectively means that the Universe never happened, while simultaneously meaning it is always there.

'Sordid', by Amon Tobin. Well, now 'Dream Sequence'. Same artist.