fastortoise

I have recently gone insane, which led me to create this poster project. The plan is to spell the word MUSIC using tiny band names from my music library and from my friends' libraries as well. I started this thing in September, gave up, and started again just last week. Tell me what you think of it - try being a bit positive or else i'm dumping this thing the recycling bin so it can stop consuming so much of my time. I've only managed to spell M, but over time it will eventually spell MUSIC, which will then be printed as posters for my friends and I. The strange image size is just a precaution - if I saw somebody steal this thing from me I would trip balls so hard I'd explode. ^^ Pretty much all these bands are my personal favourites. Notice how I tried to match each band name with an appropriate font (that's the time-consuming part). The band names that will make up USIC will mostly be random.

People have a very stupid obsession with children that share their bloodline. That's a tad unhealthy. If someone can't have kids, then they can adopt. We actually need more infertile people who can fulfil this role, not less. If you're going to point fingers, why not frown at those who are giving up kids for adoption in the first place? If people would stop being irresponsible and giving up their children, honest couples who want a child (just like all our parents) can have a baby without being scowled at for picking up some of societies' slack. There's a lot the human body can do that still baffles scientists even today. Saying "NATURE DID IT FIRST!" is pretty crazy. For example, our 'heart cells' are important in research because we know they duplicate and replace old heart cells just like any other cell in our body, except it does so very slowly (about half are renewed in our lifetime). So if researchers found a way to speed up this process without creating some form of cardiovascular cancer, we could cure all cardiovascular known diseases. I'd call that a breakthrough even though we already know it happens.

The idea of no longer needing men is flawed. Sure, we wouldn't need to be around to impregnate women and continue producing humans.. science can do that now. However, if you base the entire future generation of humans on a single male parent, there will be serious consenquences. Even if we select the most perfect male human to supply his stem cells, the next generation would all have the same DNA, nobody would survive even the simplest environmental change which would wipe out the entire human species. Scientists obviously will never do this, since they have foresight. What bothers me is that we don't really need this technology. We have developed methods of injecting sperm cells directly into a female egg - men can be incompetantly infertile and they can still safely have children. This new study will help men that don't produce sperm (which I'm not even sure exists) have babies. I don't want to sound pessimistic, but it probably doesn't even work, and if it does, the rate of success will be less than 5%. So even though this technology will probably never be used with us humans, I suspect we still gained some knowledge about stem cells, which is always a good thing.

Us atheists will just carry out the plan Richard Dawkins forwarded us.

They're pretty sweet for spring/fall [hide=][/hide]

Scare videos fixed me straight. Looking at pictures with people that have all sorts of STDs convinced me that condoms were a Godsend. I don't recall ever having a real sex-talk with a teacher or my parents, the closest thing I came to talking about sex with my father was him asking me if I knew how to do things properly, and that Trojan Ultra-Thins feel like you're wearing nothing at all. Best advice ever.

Are you talking about an interplanetary "indians vs. Americans" war? Improbable hypothetical situations are always possible, but that's kind of ridiculous. And unless they planned on inhabiting our planet, which their physiology would probably not allow, our planet is no more exploitable than Venus. People don't necessarily want extraterrestrial life to exist, but it is the job of science to figure out whether or not it does or would. You were supposed to make a deeper allusion to Columbus' discovery. Let me elaborate: back in the 15th century, the Old World believed they were the unique inhabitants of Earth. After years of exploring uncharted waters, he discovers a new society on another continent. He brings in Western Europeans and pretty much steamrolls his culture over the new-found continent. But what if the Americans, who were less technologically advanced than the Europeans, were infact those with superior weapons? Perhaps they simply accepted that they were alone on the planet and gave up looking for other humans, even though they had the means to discover Europe. In that case, Columbus' visit would have completely reversed consequences, where the Americans take over Europe. So, according to history, sending out signals every which way into space is suicidal. Even if they didn't need our planet for resources or enlightening conversations, history also taught us that xenophobia is a common irrational excuse to wipe out cultures, or in our case the planet.

Since the Universe is so big, even if there were more lifeforms on other planets out there, these 'islands of life' in the Universe would be SO far apart that they will never be able to know each other exist and share the same Universe. Also, as you said, the time frame for radio emitters and receivers are so infinitesimal that even if they did establish contact by chance, that intelligent race would be wiped out soon after. Furthermore, I don't understand why people hope or want extraterrestrial life to exist/co-exist with us. Take the decimations of American Indian and Australian Aboriginal cultures when a technologically superior 'species' decided they were unfit, for example. Aliens would see our planet as exploitable, and we'd be goners in no-time. Also, I'm pretty sure the Fermi story is as follows: Him and three of his co-workers go out for lunch, and when they are all seated, Fermi asks: "Where is everybody?" when clearly everyone invited were sitting right there with him. What makes the anecdote interesting is that all his physicist friends knew exactly what he meant, and the theory went on to become well renowned.

21 is too old, and the government hardly punishes people who drink and drive.. I don't see the logic in cracking down on underage drinking (which is harmless) and cutting slack for those who drink and drive, which is really the only important menace caused by drinking. There is no point in causing an uproar because I said underage drinking is harmless. Unless you've done it yourself, you probably wouldn't understand my point of view in the first place and secondly, most of you actually believe everything adults say.

Picture #2 is just brown bread.. not the crust of the end of a white loaf. I save my ends to make (toasted) garlic bread with spaghetti :thumbup:

The horseflies on my grandmother's farm bite chunks out of me, it's really disgusting. Ever since I learned the potential threat behind sun burns and skin cancer, I made sure I wore sunscreen when I knew I'd be outside all day. 2/4 of my uncles have skin cancer, so I'm definitely prone to it. The only downside to healthy skin is that I cannot peel off layers of it and toss them at my friends anymore :cry:

Since my commute involves public busses, I can't drag my bike around town. That's why I skate : To add to the conversation: why do so many city kids have bikes with around 2-3 shock absorbers? There's no point to having them unless you're going on a mud trail or something, and I know they never leave the city with their bikes.

Same here! Woohoo for shedding another layer of ignorance \ Who cares, it's canada. \ Eh, I think America's Hat wants to have a word with you :lol: Yes. There's a reason why the US is on the bottom

And before you thought that they were not awesome, because ? There's a pretty lush history on why English and French Canadians despise each other, but it's too boring. The point is, our lives are so awesome compared to any other country's lifestyle that we needed to worsen it up in order for people in other countries not to get jealous - so we started this prejudice. Of course we are all exactly the same, which I came to realize very early in my life since I live in Montreal, where you have both English and French people. On Canada day we set aside our pretend prejudices and band together in amazing hockey teams, which is what I'm going off to do right now. HAPPY CANADA DAY!!

Quit it with the Canada-bashing, we are a large and powerful nation and everybody loves our hockey :lol: Living in the French province of Canada, Quebec, our celebrations are pretty low-key compared to our parties for "Quebec Day" (La St-Jean). We're still planning on playing street hockey all morning and drinking Labatt Blue or Moosehead all day, because that's what everyone else in the world expects us to do. And I won't let you guys down.

I was going to make a long post on the differences between humans and the other primates, since I'm currently reading a thick book about it, but then I realized it had absolutely nothing to do with the topic. As for the idea of consciousness being preserved even after death - meh. I stand behind the view that we are just machines built by our genes in order to replicate, and that everything we are hardwired to do is coded in our genes. Obviously as humans, our actions are more influenced on our culture, but you can still imagine the most basic lifeform as a capsule of protected genes deep inside your body attached to miles of webs in order to communicate (through our bodies) with other genes. The brain and consciousness are just other ways for genes to efficiently interact with their environment and survive/replicate. Whenever our body is useless (cannot replicate and is draining resources from brothers/sisters, who share 50% of the genes in our body), we die and everything shuts down forever, no more consciousness.

You're an abomination to our species. I take off my socks whenever possible, and I'm known to walk around in flip-flops all summer long. :arrow: i LOVE flip-flops

Beds, conversations, contentment.

I keep my Internet and 'real' lives apart, so I don't mind shifting my morals around when downloading movies or doing other bad things on the internet. However, I never troll since I believe it's always painfully obvious to spot out a troll and ignore him, while the troll himself thinks he's fooling everyone and lols all over the place like a moron.

I've been landscaping all morning and afternoon... now i'm just taking a break, having some icecream to cool me off. Physical exercise feels so good, but when it's this hot, I just feel like killing myself.

Next time they call, answer in a panic. Pretend you're either being held hostage inside your house or that it's on fire, and that you can't call 911 from where you are. Scream & hang up. If you're lucky the police will come knocking at your door. Act outraged and blame it on the veterans who do not stop harselling you and ask them if you can press charges against them for wasting the cops time.

I am currently reading The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond, which I recommend to anyone who is interested in why us humans are so different than all other animals, mammals and even primates.

So, your mindset (which you share with those of Creationists) includes completely ignoring strong scientific theories? Sounds about right.

Saruman, have you heard of 'emergent properties'?

Let me tell you, no matter how much it hurt and how long I had them in, braces were the best decision of my life. They're worth the pain, stick with it! It is SO nice out this morning in Montreal, I spent all morning reading/tanning until I started burning.. now here I am. This afternoon I will continue cleaning out the garage by filling up my new shed, then celebrate the St-Jean by going to a friend's bbq and getting hammered :thumbsup: