MajesticTreeFrog

Sarah81:as a large person, I wish you WOULD go ***** at them. But gently. Anything to get people working on their problem. It takes real motivation to do.That said, once you have motivation, you can lose weight. I have lost 45 pounds this year...

Not to agree or disagree with the switzerland thing, but it really avoids confounding variables.For instance, Switzerland, like the other scandinavian countries, has a very high (and consistent) standard of living, and a peaceful populace without a lot of ethnic/religous/etc differences to fight over.Compare that to the US, where there is tremendous poverty, lots of different, sometimes hostile, ethnic groups, religions, racist groups, whatever else you want to name, creating lots of internal conflict. I think gun ownership just magnifies the current status quo. If it is violent, guns make it more violent. If it is peaceful, then yet another reason to not be an *bottom*.

Actually, it is not just the weight, it is WHERE it is stored. People who store all their extra weight on their belly/midsection have increased risk of heart attack, etc.People who store it in their hips and legs have reduced risk of heart attack, etc.If you account for where fat is stored, then BMI ceases to have meaning.This is as of a few days ago from a 27000 person study across ethnic groups and continents.As in, that spare tire is bad for you.The real measure of risk seems to be hips to waist ratio. You want your waste to be smaller than your hips (yes, that includes men, though the ratio is larger for them. Health is a 0.9 ratio).

But I am utterly offended by the idea that some people are born as homosexuals, as if we do not have freedom to choose.  Along with this are some other very noxious ideas to which I am also very opposed.  This includes the idea that only men bursting with testosterone, athletics and "manliness" are not homosexual.  I am a strong advocate of male liberation from these absurd ideas about how men should behave and live their lives.  Trying to make homosexuality out to be some kind of genetic conditon is a terrible mistake, and will not help anyone.

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While I agree that male stereotypes are generally something we need to move past, genetics DO have an affect on our lives. I didn't choose my hair color, my ethnicity, or any of that. I have never been attracted to men, even though sometimes I wish I could (like periods in my life where gay men were interested in me, but no women...and the guys were so sweet. It sucked turning them down).

 

So, yes, our freedom to choose some things, even perhaps our sexuality is not under our control. We may choose how we DEAL with that sexuality, but not so much the sexuality itself.

 

More to the point, whether genetic, or not, who cares? Homosexuality is a private matter. Or, as I like to say, "I have better things to worry about than who sticks what, where, in whom."

 

Another post talked about the logic of homosexuality. Since when have people been very 'logical' about sex?? Besides, procreation, these days, just isn't an issue. There are PLENTY of people on the planet. If some people live lives that don't give rise to children, that is their issue. From this perspective, a heterosexual couple that chooses not to have children is no different than a pair of gay men (or lesbians if they choose to not have a kid via artificial means). If we are OK with such a heterosexual couple, then why have a problem with gay men?

 

Or what about couples that adopt instead of raising their own kid? Gay men can do this as well, and lesbians (I have even known such a couple-they did just fine).

To ArmTheMobNo, dealth penalty is still given out. And sometimes forensics are wrong. We are even now freeing people based on DNA evidence, where we once thought they were guilty beyond any possible doubt. Now that we have DNA evidence, we may think we won't have this problem anymore. That our evidence is ACTUALLY beyond a doubt. Then, in 30 years, we will discover that.......You get the idea.Once we have somebody, killing them is sort of beyond the point. In a cell, they cannot hurt people (provided the cell is actually a cell). On the other hand, we CAN learn from them, and figure out (or try) why the hell they went bonkers, and what we can do about that.Of course, this solution requires people to listen, and think, instead of freak out and play politics, so...good luck on that ever happening.

1. We have all kinds of people in prison here in the States. Even Martha Stewart went to jail. Tom DeLay, a major political figure, might actually find his stupid butt in prison as well. Poverty DOES have a part in it, of course - there are plenty of poor people in jails and prisons all over the U.S. - but that doesn't mean that it's the biggest factor.

 

There are actually a ton of reasons for the overcrowding - not the least of which is the fact that criminals often don't serve even half of their original sentences. Even rapists and murderers are let out early on parole because, oops, we need their cells and beds for the new criminals.

 

Also: if you look at the U.S. prison system's rates of reincarceration (i.e. the percentage of inmates who are paroled/released/cleared/whatever and then are reincarcerated for committing another crime) ... it's gone up. Even though the inmates have access to FREE college education and job training (i.e. so that they don't have to be poor anymore - and unlike the rest of us, they aren't burdened with student loans), many still go out and commit more crimes instead of doing something with the opportunities that tax dollars have given to them. Poverty stinks, yeah, but it's not like inmates have no choice but to remain poor.

 

2. I made the "not commit crimes" comment in direct reference to the incident that started this particular thread (drug smuggling). That's usually not considered an unjust law.

3. I spent the rest of the "work camp" paragraph explaining what I meant. That paragraph serves to clarify for any people who have knee-jerk flashbacks to horrors that actually don't have anything to do with what I'm talking about.

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Actually, there are lots of bits of missing data here. People are not getting early parole as much as they used to, because of mandatory minimums. Also, when people DO get out, background checks are MUCH more thorough than they used to be. Getting a job is tremendously harder for that reason. I know this for a fact. A friend of mine got out of jail 40 YEARS ago, and still has it come up in job interviews. If you can't live honestly, you live as best you can. If the only people you know anymore are those that you met in prison, then it should surprise no one if people turn back to crime, especially when some crime is so profitable.

 

 

Finally, yes, some people are ****ed up. But those are the extremes. Does anyone think that the US, with its HUGE incarceration rate, really has such a higher percentage of lunatics than other countries. And if so, WHY??? That would be the real question.

 

Finally, anyone convicted of a drug crime (including minor possession of Marijuana) is banned from any federal education aid or employment. This means that a lot of the people who would be best served by the 'free education' services are those that don't get it. The war on drugs has hurt our social freedoms and created problems with organized crime the exact same way prohibition of alcohol did.

 

Finally, putting people in jail, trying them, etc, is expensive. Especially for small crimes (drugs again), this is money being wasted without actually achieving anything.

 

Those who think jail isn't harsh enough have clearly never been there. It is no cake walk. The reason people think this is because the really ****ed up ones are the ones who run things there. I don't mean the guards. I mean the crazy mother****ers have the easiest time because everyone is afraid of them, so their time in prison is the easiest, while the minor criminals get it the worst.

 

Therefore, the people we would most like jail to frighten are the least frightened.

 

While killing people may satisfy our hate, anger, and wish for revenge, it doesn't achieve anything positive. Putting someone behind bars keeps them from killing/etc just as well as killing does. The main difference is that even behind bars there is a chance that a person will turn around and do something worth while.

 

And yes, there are people Like Ted Bundy. But how many of them are their really compared to the entire prison population? Not a whole lot. How many potentially worthwhile human beings are there? A good number. The problem is that we seem to have forgotten that most things don't fit into extremes. Most people are neither bundy nor pot smoking teenager. Most people are moderately messed up, moderately dangerous, and moderately reformable.

 

The actual thing that needs to be done is to be able to better distinguish who is far gone and who just ****ed up in life and just needs another chance. Do that, and you will lower the incarceration rate, keep the real crazies locked up, and let people who could actually be productive actually do so.

 

Suggestions: End the war on drugs. Learn from prohibition. It didn't work then, it isn't working now. All it does is fund terrorists and weapons manufacturers.

 

Remove mandatory minimums. These miss the peculiarities of real life.

 

Identify crimes of passion and separate them from crimes of serious mental defect. Child molestors are the second. They are hard to reform because they are actually broken in the head, its not just a 'choice' for them (AFAIK, I could be wrong). On the same note, separate ACTUAL child molestation from statutory rape. ACTUAL child molestation involves going after people who aren't physically mature. Some people lye about their age and look older than they are, and this shouldn't be the fault of the people they have sex with (of their own free will).

 

Raise the quality of our schools. Make the schoolday longer, really. Right now kids get out of school before their parents get off from work, which means there are hours of time where these kids have no supervision and sets the stage for bad things to happen.

 

Have more cultural festivals and such. I know this seems like a weird suggestion, but around where I live (NC), the kids I knew who 'went bad' did it mainly as a slow offshoot of boredom and parental neglect. You can't make someone a good parent, but at least you can keep kids from getting terminally bored to the point of lighting things on fire.

 

 

 

Oh, and to answer the root question: Death penalty wrong. Come on, we are better than that, at least supposedly. Violent nasty career criminals have no compassion. Hate them for it if you will, but realize that you are a step closer as soon as you no longer care about their life.

No more than Catholicicsm is the same as Christianity and yet Christians get blamed for everything the Catholics did.  So likewise since the communists are a member of the group atheism and if atheism can be considered a religion then atheism is the worst religion of them all.

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No, communists are atheists (usually), but they are not related. Atheism is not a form of Communism, nor is Communism a form of Atheism. One can be an atheist and have nothing to do with Communism, in terms of historical lineage or ideology. Similarly, one can be a Communist and have nothing to do with atheism. That the recent communists were atheists is unfortunate, but not necessarily related.

 

On the other hand, Catholicism IS a form of christianity, and protestant forms of christianity, while not part of catholicism, ARE related, both historically and ideologically.

 

Which is why conclusions get drawn as they are.

MajesticTreeFrog,

 

While I dislike your unfounded insinuation, I will attempt to handle it properly; firstly, realize that the above comment I made was nothing more than a joke to put some levity into this thread.  Secondly, I have no fear of such an occurence - none at all... as a matter of fact, I'm unsure where you came up with such an opinion.

 

HTML_Guru

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In your own post you assured people they wouldn't be killed. From that statement I presumed that you thought such an assurance was necessary. If it was a joke, I just misunderstood. No need to get so bent out of shape.

 

But as for where I came up with such an opinion- from my misunderstanding of your post.

 

Chill.

There is supposedly a plugin/skin for the GIMP that arranges its menus like Photoshop, which is WONDERFUL. I suggest you get that, because photoshop is sorta the default, and the more like photoshop it is the easier the transition when you finally get going with it.

(From what I have heard, Q4 may be at the top here, after I play it)1. HL 22. HL 13. Unreal (The first one. And no, NOT unreal tournament)4. Quake 1 (go play it again, it is better than you remember)5. Doom - You know it.Also on my list are things like Red Faction and Natural Selection....There are a lot of damn good ones.

Fallout 2Ultima Underworld 1MorrowindZelda and such aren't really RPGs, they are adventure games.And I consider the FF series more like play through novels, as there isn't any actual ROLE PLAYING happening. They really need to divide the genre between games like morrowind, where you have actual choices, and FF, where it is just a linear booklike experience that you play instead of read/watch.

Errrr...  You change one thing on the computer and all the benchmarks turn in the others favor...  Just stick with your favorite and try to configure the PC as best as you can.

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Which is why you keep everything except the CPU the same, or as close as possible, and repeat using multiple variations of matched hardware. My comment about AMD stands.

 

Not like I care, I like my Mac, and computers are so fast these days that it has basically stopped mattering.

Eeeshhh...  Too much reading but I believe in what can be explained and what can be backed up.  Things that make sense.  Things that have concrete evidence.  To me, those are the only things that are really true.  In other words I believe all religion is total nonsense and I have no idea how any sane person could accept something like that.  We are so used to things like god but when you really stop and think about it, itâs just madness.  How can so many people believe in that stuff?  Not just a few but the most of the world.  ErrrRRRRrrrrRRRRR⌠ IT BLOWS MY MIND OMG!!!  HOW CAN PEOPLE BELIEVE IN THAT STUFF AYEEEEEEE!!!  ITâS JUST MADNESS, I CANâT STAND IT!!!!  HHHOOOWWW???  WWWHHHYYY???  ARRRRRRRR!!!

 

Iâm doneâŚ

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Have you considered that some things in religion can be backed up? And when I say, 'in religion' I don't mean christianity, or any other specific religion, just the entire spiritual spectrum. Some of it can be backed up.

 

For instance, consider spontaneous acts of kindness. Religions of all stripes honor these, say they are good, worthwhile, and noble.

 

Granted, you do not need a religion to have these values, but at the same time, these values are not things that are 'backed up'. Even if you find evidence for them, that isn't really why people do them, and likely as not, if you agree with these values, being 'backed up' has little to do with WHY you believe them.

 

Anyway, I think your issue with religion comes when religion covers questions that are factual and phyiscal in nature, rather than spiritual (like the beginning of life, etc). If this is the case then I agree, Religion has no business yapping about such things. Science is far better suited.

Aaargh! How can you like Naruto when there's the Dragonball series ?

 

Just Kidding. I couldn't find any Naruto episodes dubbed into English and that's why I think Dragonball is the best.

 

Glad to have you aboard, Uzumaki-Naruto . Hope you enjoy yourself here at Xisto.

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http://www.baka-updates.com/

 

All the anime you will ever need.

I play guitar bass t-sax and piano.  Anybody here play with a band at all?  Whats the best resources for unsigned bands?  Maybe this would be better in a topic of its own but it seems like there's a big demand out there for better ways for an unsigned band to get noticed.  Personal experiences anybody?

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Well, for unsigned bands your job is really to get word of mouth and 'buzz' going. Anything that does that is good. This is why some 'shock' acts work. The shock creates buzz.

 

First, cut some tracks and mix them using mastering software and put up MP3s.

 

https://www.scene.org/ is a place that will take them, there are many others as well.

 

Play a lot of clubs, and be professional.

 

Learn to play a crowd. Leave the audience captivated so all they can do is talk about you.

 

Learn about contracts. This keeps you paid, and it keeps you out of trouble.

 

Learn about marketing. SERIOUSLY. Good marketing will go a long way. Its part of the 'buzz' thing.

 

Be distinctive. I realize that this may be counter intuitive given the manufacture crap on the radio, but being distinctive is what makes people remember you.

 

Know your market. Know what type of people like your type of music, and get them samples. If you have a good market, and good buzz, and some 'cred' in whatever scene you are in, you are a lot more likely to get signed. Labels want to make money, if you can show that you have a market that will pay money for your work, they are a LOT more likely to take you on.

Yeah, they're on the expensive side. But they're much easier to use than a PC, and a PowerPC processor is the equivalent of an x86 at twice the chip speed.

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No, the PPC processors are nothing special. I am a mac user, but I hate this BS. The PPC is no better than x86 chips. They are good, but they aren't magic or special or 'twice as fast' or any of that. Such statements are marketing/PR hoodoo.

For who this may concern,

 

for the purpose of keeping this forum clean, I will be as least touchy as possible, as I mean to keep all my friends and hopefully not lose any chances of gaining new ones.  Please don't criticize, and understand my point of view.

 

I am a scientologist; I have been all my life.  Throughout my experience in Scientology (which is a whole of 15-some years), I have yet to encounter any situation whereupon someone truthful and WITH Scientology 1) banned someone from the some part of the religion or whole without a "without a doubt", and I mean "without a doubt" reason and with just cause. 2) No significant Scientologist has ever killed some other Scientologist, significant or not, for leaving, attempting to leave, or making someone leave - never.  I can surely say that no one in truthfully with Scientology has ever purposely hurt anyone else in Scientology, either leaving, attempting to leave, or making someone else leave.

 

I ask that before you attempt to renounce my religion, read up on it.  Find out about it. Trust me, you will NOT be killed  .

 

In any case, I have enough knowledge in my own religion that I can take any questions one might have.  Make sure the question is valid and not far out.  Also, I'm just gonig to disregard rants because, for the sake of religion, I don't think it's fair to renounce any religion and thusly, I don't do so.

 

So, any questions?

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By your own statement 'you won't be killed' it is clear that there is a well known fear. Where do you think this comes from?

Sketchup is fantastic. It isn't really a 3d design program. Its a rapid prototyping/architectural software. A quick and dirty CAD program.That being said, it has one of the best interfaces I have ever used.

I personally think this is stupid. First of all, they already have faster chips: a PowerPC rated at 2.7GHz is the equivalent of an Intel chip at 5.4GHz. Second, if you want to run Windows, buy Virtual PC!

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I love Macs, and I own one that I use for most everything. But this is just silly. In terms of real processing output the G5 is decent but no better than anything else out there. AMDs Opteron is overall better in fact...sometimes significantly.

 

There is also the question of supply. IBM is going to be producing chips for the next gen consoles, which means they won't have the production capacity or financial incentive to supply Apple with better chips. They just wouldn't make enough money from apple to justify the development/retooling costs.

 

Even Apple's latest upgrade, the quad G5, uses a chip IBM developed a while ago: the PowerPC MP.

 

Moving to Intel on the other hand gives them access to faster chips at CHEAPER prices. With the huge market for x86 processors, the cost for each chip is lower. Finally, the architextural differences between the old CISC x86 chipset and the PowerPC RISC setup have been dropping for years because of the improvements AMD and Intel have been making (SSE, MMX, SSE2, etc....)

Last benchmarks I looked at for high end AMD and Intel processors showed that AMD has the obvious advantage in terms of speed/$, max speed, and speed/heat output.That being said, Intel's notebook chips are fantastic. For a desktop, AMD is the clear choice under most circumstances, but in a laptop I would take Intel.As for the Mac, they just put out their dual core, dual CPU powermac. (That means a 4way CPU grid). I am sure that is fast as hell. And yeah, for graphics, and general productivity, Macs are great.

what nobody here has mentioned is the fact that catholics put way to much emphasis on humans and not enough on God.  For example, they pray to the virgin Mary.  Yeah she was a great woman, but that is all she was; a human woman.  The Bible states that "thou shalt not have any other gods before you."  I would say praying to a human comes dangerously close to breaking that law.  However, I am not trying to say Catholics are sinners, thats not my job, but for some reason I get an uneasy feeling whenever I have attended a catholic service.  Bottom line love the Lord, live a blameless life, and share God's love with everyone you can and that is all that matters.  God doesn't care if you are protestant, non denominational, or whatever denomination you claim in the end its how you lived that will determine whether He says I never knew you or welcome my child.  This is my hope for the christian world, put aside your differences and work together as one, it is then and only then that we will see the true power of the church.  God bless.

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I want to point out that Catholicism is much much older than protestantism, and that its traditions stretch back to almost the time of the main man himself (Jesus), as such, I am more inclined to consider them the authority on such things than you. No offense, but they have been reading, studying, and debating the bible for centuries.

 

Which is not to say I always agree with them, but that is because I am not Christian.

 

In any case, reading the bible and deciding what it means, without a SOLID understanding of the economic, political, and historical events underwhich each section was written, and the similar situation under which the modern bible was put together (not to mention translated), is very shortsighted, in my opinion. Especially when people like to quote it as law. Even if you know the words, unless you know all the stuff above, you don't REALLY know what you are talking about.

 

But that is just my opinion.

Six million Jews were killed because of their religion but not in name of any religion.  More than twice that number were killed by the communists, and if you call what they had a religion then atheism is the worst religion of them all.  Then there is the impressive slaughter by Ghingus Khan.  Two world wars. The civil war.  How does the example of the crusades and a few wars in Europe during the reformation, with religion as the thinnest excuse, justify this claim of yours?

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Communism is not the same as Atheism, I just want to point that out.

 

Religion has little to do with it I think. Extremism and hate, and envy and greed are the root cause. Sometimes these things stem from religious fervor, or hate of a certain religious group. Sometimes it is 'the glorious future' as said by the communists. In general, the explanation is something abstract and easy to BS to always back your actions. Religion can be very good for this, but so can any ideology.

 

Religious trappings or not, the sources of suffering are the same: Hate, greed, envy, attachment to views, seeing others as different from ourselves, less than human, as things.

 

So, the real test is whether or not the religion/ideology/whatever encourages this, either overtly or passively.

Thatâs the whole point in the evolution! You lose abilities and you gain abilities.For some reason the apes (that later would become humans) settled in the savannahs and vast plains instead of in the jungle and the forest. Out here they couldnât use their ability to climb trees, so over time they lost that ability. They didnât practise it, so it was forgotten so to say.
Instead, out in the vast plains it was really useful to be able to see far away. So over time the apes began to walk on the hind legs, but the price was that they couldnât run so fast. But they had gained a very important ability; they could spot enemies from far distances.
Yes, the apes would have been there in the first place. And before them the dinosaurs. And before them the amphibians. And before them the single celled creatures â and so on. So every creature on Earth has evolved from single celled creatures!

This is actually incorrect, this isn't darwinian evolution, but instead Lamarckism, which is incorrect. From a species basis (as opposed to individual basis), there is no such thing as 'use it or lose it'. Species do not forget. And, while you may not realize it since people generally live in cities these days, humans are VERY good tree climbers. Maybe not as good as some monkeys, but pretty damn good in any case.

Similarly, You example of seeing far distance vs. running quickly is flawed. My cat can stand on its hind legs, and it can see far distances, but it is not a biped. There is not an 'ability trade off' in this sense. Realize that in evolution, everything must happen at a genetic level. So, The only time you will have a trade off is when the trade off is necessitated at the genetic level. Basically, if you have a gene that codes for something, it therefore doesn't code for all the other possibilities. Add in control genes and this gets complicated, so I am gonna stop here.

A good example comes from viruses/bacteria in sicknesses. These days, we have antibiotics, so viruses that cannot overcome these generally die. However, being resiliant to drugs is 'genetically costly' in that genes are spent on coding for characterists that help the bug overcome medicine INSTEAD OF coding for things that would make the the bug better at infecting things. Thus, when you remove the presence of antibiotics, the non-resistant bugs out compete the resistent ones, and the 'drug resistence' genes fall out of the gene pool due to natural selection.

Once again, slightly oversimplified, but hopefully this illustrates the principle.

O k a y...getting kinda off topic here....

err...

anyway!

I think that Gd does exist since i am a religous person. Thats not the point here anyway..havent you noticed some flaws in the in theory of evolution lately?

 

If we were apes in the beginning, then how did we lose all our abilities to jump from tree to tree in jungles and climb up trees so fast. And also, the apes had to be created in the first place as well for them to actually have evolved into us...Even if i ignore that, there is still the unexplained questions...How did people suddenly appear on the earth when it was created, no matter how it was created in the first place..

Answert that...if you can!

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Before you claim there are holes in evolution, be sure you understand evolution. You seem to have a number of misunderstandings.

 

First, Humans did NOT evolve from apes/monkeys as currently seen on earth. People say this only because they don't get it. Humans evolved from the same base species that monkeys/apes did. This means that instead of Apes/Monkeys being our great great...grandparents, they are more like our very distant cousins.

 

Second, there is the general misunderstanding that evolution happens linearly. As in, Species A becomes Species B becomes Species C. This doesn't really cover it. Species A evolves, and perhaps the population splits, and then there is Species B AND Species C, which are very similar to each other and to Species A. Also, Species A may not disappear when this happens. So, from Species A we get Species A, B, and C. That is just an example, and simplified, but hopefully that will clear things up on that point.

 

As for Apes needing to be created to evolve into Humans, as suggested, the above two points should handle most of that misunderstanding.

 

More to the point, no species needs to be 'created', all of them can evolve into increasing complexity. As I explained in a different post, Evolution doesn't just happen, it MUST happen. Attacks on how evolution happen are irrelevant, because in the end, whatever methods are involved, EVOLUTION HAPPENS.

 

You can put things in a lab and watch them evolve. I know, I have done it.

For your price range I wouldn't worry about 256MB. Your friend is is dissatisfied is probably not dissatisfied because of the amount of RAM on the card, but instead the speed of the GPU on the card. Take a look at reviews at toms hardware and similar sites. My last (breif) look at such sites made it seem as though nVidia had the best high end, but ATI had the best midrange (which is what you are looking at) with products like the 9600XT and such. I have an XT, and it is very good, gives me no problems at all.