fastortoise

World of Warcraft, interior decoration, "funny" shirts and, surprisingly, Metroid

As Lenin already pointed out, you're just raising the nature vs nurture debate... which is pretty annoying since you're doing it on purpose. It has been shown again and again that we are not slaves to our genes - a dog can be taught to sit at the sound of a bell. That doesn't mean there is a gene saying "sit when you hear the sound of a bell". However, there are genes that make sure mothers respond to the cries of baby birds when they are hungry, that is also fairly obvious. What this scientist is doing is exploiting the reactions to certain stimuli which have been coded by our genes... a woman is not taught to lactate when her child cries.

Why's that? Do you know something about how different sound frequencies affect things like this? Sure I do. We, are after all, a product of our genes... they control what we do, not us. Just like any other animal, we are programmed to respond to certain external signals. If scientists can recreate a known signal that causes a known mental or physical change, they can exploit certain evolutionary strategies. If that is true, there must be a certain limit in breast size enlargement during post-pregnancy. Looking at it from an evolutionary point of view, there must have been some limit imposed to this enlargement so women wouldn't over reproduce making distributed resources scarce, where all their children would die. A woman simply cannot lactate for dozens of children. So breast sizes will only increase to the size they would if women were pregnant, and I would assume they would return to their original state (although saggier) if she stops listening to the tune.

The scientist could have easily given 100 cell phones to 100 women for that segment of TV. The fact that the study only involved one woman is quite concerning, but I'd stand behind the theory of this study any day.

Science isn't the opposite of god. Science would be the opposite of religion. Saying that evolution starts with science doesn't really make much sense, since science is just our understanding of what is already out there in the universe. Whatever did start evolution would already be out there, if we understood it or not. But we do understand it. It's called the carbon atom. The carbon atom has nothing to do with evolution - the process could work just as well if we were all silicone-based life forms. The first 'life-form' was probably an RNA molecule, since it can both perform metabolic functions and replicate, two crucial parts of living (even though it is made primarily of carbon atoms). Saying the carbon atom is responsible for the origin of life is a bit.. not well thought through to put it nicely.

disregard this post :thumbdown:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA- WRONG. There are several factors and saying that is just stupid, you cannot generalise why over 1billion people believe in something. The fact is that they may be driven by several things- money, greed, power or hey even maybe the ocassional person wants to live a better life. So I've just unrolled your entire arguement at the root. Then there're the other 5billion people on the planet, maybe about another 4.5billion of them also follow religion? So by believing in a god, I would gain money and power? Perhaps you've read my post wrong, since this quoted part of your argument seems to be about the reasons why leaders found religions, not why people believe in a god, which does not apply to my post in any way. And no, my argument that eternal life after death being the main reason why people believe in god is not stupid. There may indeed be other factors to believing in an god, but it is the comfort and ease the belief of an afterlife that is at the core of all blind faith.

I also avoid roller-coasters, but only because i'm paranoid. My family has a history of being around during roller coaster accidents (my mother was pregnant with my brother, and was near the roller coaster at West Ed mall when it killed 3 people and just recently, my brother was on a rollercoaster at LaRonde when it simply did not make it up a bump and slid back down, no crashes thankfully). However, this is just my paranoid mind talking. I love adrenaline rush rides, especially those vertical-drop towers. There's really nothing to be afraid of, and roller coasters aren't scary in the least bit. Again, i'm just paranoid, probably because my mom raised me with her fear of roller-coasters. #-o

Here is my new view on why Christians do not accept evolution in their reality: The promise of having an eternal life in Heaven is what drives Christians to keep their belief. By believing in God, who gave them souls, they will reunite with their lost ones in heaven and party indefinitely. Humans are the sole species to go to heaven, according to them. They think humans are better than any other animal or species and that only they can live eternally in the kingdom of heaven, because that's how god 'made them'. Evolution does not disprove the existence of God. It simply provides a mechanism that explains why there is so much species diversity. Since we still do not know how life originated, God is still a possibility. Evolution just shows that instead of God crafting each individual species, he could have simply created a simple cell and let the natural process of evolution do the rest. So, why would Christians be so adamant on rejecting evolution if it does not disprove the existence of their God? It is because evolution proves that humans are not unique, that they are animals just like pigs, dogs, monkeys, ect. Christians are disturbed by the fact that humans are so closely related to monkeys/apes and that is reason enough to reject evolution. If they believe that God gave them souls that carry on living in heaven, he must have crafted each species individually or else all species would have souls and join everyone else in heaven, which goes against evolution. To tie everything back to the topic, I think that this 'debunk' in God's 'power' was huge in disproving the existence of a god. The idea that evolution and heaven cannot co-exist really upset a lot of religious people, as scientists slowly unravel the god-illusion.

...it's 10/9, what more do you want? Nevermind, there's no point continuing.

Slowly but surely.

I said it jokingly. They had just bought pizza for dinner as celebration, I didn't need/want anything more :lol:

That's the first thing that I thought too. I dunno though, from coding experiences, that single code isn't universal over all browsers.. I could be wrong though. Nice and clean backbone code, even though it doesn't really code for anything yet :P

Those guys with their skinny arms and crazy six packs at the beaches are so weird.. I think it's the prominent rib cage that makes them look off. On topic, I think improving yourself (which, according to recent posts, should be the topic title) is always a good idea. It doesn't necessarily mean you're drastically changing who you are - just making you better. This improvement after birth really fascinates me. Instead of country leaders deciding to 'make' the perfect 'race' by eugenics, they could implement programs for self-improvement instead, which would be much more successful.

I don't brag IRL so i'll share here. I finished my finals two weeks ago, goodluck to all those who are still stuck in school : So I just recently got my final grades back.. I brought up my bio2 avg from 70 to 86 in just one final exam... I got between 95-100% on it :D Hard work pays off kids. All my other marks (4 courses) are all above 90!! On average I'm 20 marks above average in all my courses. I asked my parents what they're going to get for me as a present for these amazing marks, my dad said he had already given me the greatest gift I could ask for... 'smart' genes. I said "hey, you're a biologist, you must know about the nature vs nurture debate. I worked hard for those grades." He told me to shove off, my mom just hugged me :oops:

That would mean that the problem is not getting the important message to the people, it would be the people ignoring the information. By observation it seems to be so, but a little part of me wants to make me believe that, under other conditions, people can be more aware of their surroundings. I think(hope) that people will listen to what country leaders/University heads have to say if they simply tried being more interesting.

Because Hollywood has a great understanding on how to play with your subconscious. Some of the most brilliant people of our times are Hollywood executives/produces/directors, sadly they are all money driven. Say what you want about corporations and huge studios, they're still smarter than any of us. If people that had important things to say simply knew how to convey their news to the population with as much efficiency as Hollywood, maybe we would be living in a society that craved constructive knowledge.

It's finally sunny outside!! Time to go sand & paint my deck 8-) Then gym and some outdoor swimming

I believe in parental censorship, at the family level. Any other form of censorship is a terrible idea. By parental censorship I mean controlling what you're kid is exposed to. I'm definitely feeding my kids specific books, as well as limiting their exposure to certain other things. It's an entirely different thing if governments or the media do this to the population, as I am one of those free access to all information types. As long as they don't start muddling with the Internet I'm not too concerned.

Noooo Detroit can't keep winning Cups!! They're getting closer (almost half) to the Hab's record :pray: But the team is so stacked, I don't see the Pens taking it. They're gonna be screwed when the salary cap goes down even more next year though :thumbsup:

I'm not very good at giving advice, but.. -I personally prefer brighter colours, I would have done a light grey background, white "content box" and dark grey text. Since you're doing it in flash I STRONGLY recommend you play around with the layout colours, it's easy to change and it lets you optimize your design -Go ROUND -bigger text. When I applied for web design jobs I used a font similar to yours in my port, they called me up and asked be to make it bigger :lol: They still hired me based on the content, which proves that your art is really what matters.. don't stress too much on the portfolio design itself. Good portfolio =/= good impression. -Lose the scanlines. Maybe a thick striped background, but scanlines are always an eyesore. And the main reason why I posted: I wanted to tell you that I LOVE the firehydrant photo. Simply amazing

I've never tried because there's no reason for me to stop. I know my mum tried cutting back on coffee, but picked up smoking instead. It's all about stress levels or something I guess. Nice site, bookmark'D! thanks His name sounds familiar. I've bookmarked the page since I do not want to venture into his lectures with a hangover. That GM bacteria would essentially have to outdo 2.8 billion years of syanobacteria evolution. Also, there is something like a bit under a teratonne of carbon in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere so you would be making a lot of organic material. Well, it wouldn't have to extract ALL inorganic carbon from the atmosphere. Just the increased amount factories and cars have been churning out for the past century. Also, with recombinant technology, you can make bacteria do all sorts of bio magic. All I can get from quantum physics is that all particles behave as a wave, and you can predict it's position on the wave based on probabilities. I already know all that relativity and special relativity stuff, I don't find it expanded my brain as much as biology topics since I simply cannot apply quantum physics to everyday life. Hahaha, very interesting concept. I tried this for an hour before posting, and it's more annoying than mind-opening. EDIT: I have no idea what happened here :lol: ^^

^^ Yes, both the turntable and the kick-push vectors were simply traced based on an img (one found on the internet, one I took myself). Very few artists actually create their own vector work when it comes to household objects, or else it would just be less realistic and would take twice as long. Thanks for all the nice comments, in particular for the Falling Up concept. At first the plan for that piece was to take a picture of my friend "falling up" in the summer, and another in exactly that same spot in the winter, just sitting. The problem occurred when I tried linking both images, the winter on top summer on bottom, it simply didn't flow. I had done so much editing to the winter picture before trying to match them, it was heartbreaking :cry: For those wanting more: that's pretty much it. My skills are very much reflected by all these pieces, and I only churn out designs once every 2 months so I can't keep updating the first post :oops: . Many of my shirt designs are just edited versions of other shirt designs over the internet, which I then print of special paper and iron onto a blank t-shirt, so obviously I'm not going to upload or post those.

I normally don't share my works with people I don't know too well, but I feel like venturing in my Design folder and going through my works over the years. Even though I probably won't be making any more graphics other than shirt designs for a while, comments & criticism aren't necessary but still appreciated. Most of my works aren't signatures, and I know the Gallery is full of sig designers, so please bear with me :P [hide=Websites]One of my first websites - a free MSN display picture making service site (coded) Fictional website for Concordia's Biology Department, for practice (coded) Fictional Nintendo website, for practice (not coded) Blog template for a friend.. not sure if it's coded Screencap of a portfolio I made for a fellow coder friend, hawt coding in it When I tried making nice sites.. the style/colours here was pretty much ripped from another designer, so I don't give myself too much credit for this one Screencap of my minimal personal portfolio, now offline [/hide] [hide=Clones]Did these when cloning was first pioneered -My bboy friend doin stuff Friends at shopping mall At the park, this is where I feel like i should remind you guys that i'm not homosexual This one was my first attempt at cloning, notice the urinal colours [/hide] [hide=Misc]...I forget why I made this, but it looks cool ..This neither. Not as cool One of my first GFX. Love it One of many shirt designs I actually won a competition held by Gnarls Barkley themselves with this one.. I have a bunch of printed posters of these somewhere & a cool red vinyl CD of one of their songs Shirt design based on Lupe Fiasco's song This was one of the first thing I've vectored ..and another For a friend when he was sponsored by No Evidence (got a free skateboard :D) And finally, something I made when I was addicted to Counter-Strike [/hide] I would post more recent shirt designs, but they're all CYMK files which aren't supported by imageshack or tinypic, and I really don't want to convert all the files.

We already made one 3 years ago :lol: . Right now my dad and I are advancing our backyard shed onto the driveway, giving more backyard space. Yeah, fooling around with photoshop/XHTML&CSS has kept me creative for the past 3-4 years. If I hadn't done graphic design in the past, this would have been a great suggestion because I know, first hand, that it stimulates me. However, my interests have deviated, and I no longer enjoy making websites or graphics as much... I'll open a thread in the Gallery now, even though I don't like sharing my stuff with people i'm not too familiar with : Good suggestions nonetheless :thumbup: