mpinsky

As I've said before, spelling and grammar is important, plus I find it takes longer for me to type something in 1337 or any other kind of webspeak. Not only that, but I find it takes longer to read it too. And camel caps take even longer because the human eye is taught to read straight and not up and down, such as when looking at camel caps.The reason for all of this?Human nature: laziness.

Personally I think your likes and dislikes are very much related to your enviroment and raising rather than genes.

Very true, I know this as a fact as my upbringing was quite different than what my friends' were and they definitely do not like the same smells that I do when it comes to cooking.

 

Because Judaism is a religion that originally orginated in the Middle East, a lot of the foods we cook at Channukkah, such as latkes, involved using oil for frying things, such as onions for example. One particular friend came over and absolutely hated the smell and asked if I could smell it as well. While the answer was yes, technically I could, I had gotten so used to it that the smell didn't even register any more.

 

Another one of my friends was brought up less priviledged than I was and so her whole family became very modest when giving us a tour of their new house.

 

Then again, things can go wrong, or you get an oddball of the bunch (so to speak), and then the type of upbringing they had has no particular effect on them.

 

I do know for a fact, though, that certain traits, such as being left-handed or right-handed, are genetically related.

To be honest, many scientists do not believe viruses are alive, hence this is why they are not classified in their own kingdom in taxonomy, in fact, they don't belong in any of them at all!

 

While bacteria are eukaryotes (meaning they don't have a nucleus) just like viruses are, viruses don't have all the things that an actual living organism does, the most evident being they don't excrete, something that all living things have to do (yes, organisms in the kingdom Moneran or Protista do excrete waste, just not in the same form animals do).

 

Currently, scientists are at a debate on whether or not viruses should be classified as living things, but at the moment, since the majority of scientists do not, the scientific answer at the moment is that, no, viruses are not alive.

Since this is all hypothetical anyway, what do we really know what would and what wouldn't be carried on in a human clone? Yes, to some extent, what happens in everyday life will effect what will happen, but who's to say that likes and dislikes won't come from something, say, in the brain, the genetic code. I don't know alot of anything about genetics, as people can probably tell from my posts, but there is so much unknowns about human cloning (at least that I know of) that I'm sure it would be a guessing game at first anyway.

Yes, you are quite right, there, Lonebyrd. Likes and dislikes are not carried in the genetic code, but rather developed as the organsim in question grows older. For example, I am the only one in my immediate family (besides my brother) who does not like the taste of olives. Both my brother and I are from the same parents, but we don't like the same things our parents do.

Again, this is what makes any particular organism unique because it develops who they are. Cloning, on the other hand, wouldn't really eliminate this. Your clone may very well like green peas while you yourself do not. It's just like how a perfectly normal couple's child turns out to be a serial killer. These things aren't genetic.

How would they know that Jake's clone would have the same likes and dislikes? These things are not in your genetic code. Instead, these and other such things are aquired tastes, not traits. It is not something that can be controlled Also, why clone Jake if they can just have another child and save money? Jake was a unique being, why clone him if you can have another unique child naturally?

Oh, god, I hated Runescape.

 

The graphics didn't bother me, but everything was choppy and then there were some of the users. You know, the ones that try to keep you locked up in a gate, trick more inexperienced players, etc. Ugh, just ugh. So...1/5.

 

Thank god I stopped playing it years ago.

I'm going to have to disagree with that.Why would you clone someone for that reason? Not only is it expensive, as I've said before, just because you clone someone doesn't mean that they will have the same thoughts, feelings, memories, abilities, etc. as its DNA donor does. Cloning someone is basically creating a whole new person, not an exact replica that will act exactly the same.Plus, I think breaking up with one's girlfriend is not a very good reason for cloning. Why would one even use that method in such a situation in the first place?

i highly doubt we could ever quantify/define soul with anything scientific. so i'll leave that one alone. to get back at the cloning issue...there is nothing wrong with cloning; only in how it is used. the fastest way to make something dangerous is to outlaw it. Establish ethical regulations and enforce these rules.

I fail to see what you mean here. Maybe it's because I didn't quite understand what you wrote. Anyways, the fastest way to make something dangerous is not to outlaw it, but to misuse it.

While I do agree with cloning as long as the purpose is ligitimite, cloning an entire human makes me rather uncomfortable. I mean, what would it prove except that we could?

Also, people get this notion in their minds that a clone will look exactly like its DNA donor and that it will be empty-minded. People have to understand that you're not creating a human being that has no personal will of its own or will be just like its donor, but a whole different entire being with its own range of emotions, thoughts, and feelings.

I agree with yellow. Every time I see a page with yellow text, my eyes are like, "it burns us, it burnssss ussss!". For me, a general rule of thumb is that if you must use some kind of yellow, stick with a goldenrod color of some sort. It's easier on the eyes than just plain, blinding yellow is, and for a black/white/grey picture background on my website I'm building, it came off as a rather nice effect. Matched my buttons and everything. ;p

 

Another good rule of thumb is not to use funky-looking fonts. For the love of God, just don't do it! It makes your site come off as looking unprofessional and thus is not taken seriously. The only time I find this acceptable is if you are building an elegant-looking layout of sorts and you need a font title. Just don't use wedding fonts, they're hardly legible, so I usually stick to something like "Scriptina" or the like.

When I was a newbie at finding website hosts, I decided to try Bravehost. After all, it did look promising, right? Wrong!

 

When I registered, everything was extremely hard to navigate, their FAQ wasn't helpful at all, I got no support whatsoever for some odd reason, and when I unsubscribed from their newsletter, I still kept getting it! I must have unsubscribed like, three times now! Eventually, I got fed up with it and blocked their address from my e-mail account, and yet it still manages to bypass my spam and blocked e-mail addresses filter, every single time!

 

In the end, I didn't even get my website up because their control panel was just too confusing for me to use, not to mention that really ugly banner ad up at the top that screwed everything up.

 

Wasn't impressed at all.

I'm surprised nobody mentioned this, but don't have a text that hurts to look at or blends in with the background. This is especially true when you have a background image of different colors. Also, when using a background image, I find it easier to have a no repeat, fixed background with scrolling text so that when you scroll down you won't see a repeat of the picture or the end of the picture and a giant white space.Also, try and make your pages eye-catching. If your page doesn't look pleasing to the eye, it tends to lead many people to the "back" button on their browser.

Just like what everyone else is saying, oil and the like for fuel is going to be main source of energy when it comes to transportation, because you can get farther on it than any other fuel source. However, besides hydrogen, ethanol, and solar power, I heard that alcohol can run pretty smoothly as a fuel source as well. Technically, you could put anything in your car, and as long as it is able to burn, your car can run off of it, but like I said before, so far, gasoline and oil are the most practical of the fuel sources because you can go farther on it. So I'm supposing this method is going to be sticking with us for quite a while, guys.

I don't have a problem with cloning as long as the person being cloned has a valid reason such as medical reasons or if they are dead and it allows them to continue living. I wouldn't mind a clone of myself.

Okay, now that I have a problem with. I am going to have to agree with you with the sickness part, but the dead and keep them living is a whole different mater entirely. First off, creating a clone does not mean creating an exact duplicate of the cloned person with the same memories and reactions. It would be a whole different person, like identical twins. They look alike, but the have individual minds of their own. Also, who are we to decide who lives and who dies? Without death, we would have an over-population problem. Death is a part of nature that we just have to accept. Once someone is dead, they stay dead. End of story.

 

With mass cloning, not just for "spare parts" like in the movie "The Island", this technique could not be used just for spare parts, but for a whole new way to get cheap labor done, and then we would have slavery all over again, which then leads back to my massive overthrowing by clones ideas again.

In response to this, I think that perfection is only a relative matter. Our current ideals of perfection may be the achievement of wealth, beauty, physical strength, intelligence, health etc, but once we gain those traits, we'll have other, loftier views of perfection and wish that we could achieve those. Competition will still exist--just competition on a higher level. I mean, think back to the cavemen versus modern humans. Their view of a perfect life was probably to succeed at every hunt and bring food so that they can survive. Yet, our current view of success is less about survival, and more about...pleasure. Thus, what is perfection to them (survival) may not be perfection to us. The same goes for the future.

 

Also, about our filtering out undesirable traits--we've been doing that for a long time with other animals. So what gives us the right to breed certain dogs together just because we want certain traits from them? Why should we be allowed to control their lives? At least in the case of filtering out undesirable human genes we're only controlling our lives (though this may affect others' lives too, but I mean of immediate relevance), but with breeding dogs, we're manipulating others to fit our needs.

Geez, and I thought my post was long. Whew!

 

Anyways, I'm going to have to yield to you there as you do have a point. But strength and speed do have a place in survival as well, as does beauty, which comes in handing when it comes to the mating game.

 

As for controlling an animal's traits, breeding them is a completely different matter entirely than cloning.

 

We use artifical selection on breeding, which I believe is acceptable because nature usually does this itself if given the chance. The better the genes, the better animal bred. Of course, this can cause inbreeding, which nature itself doesn't usually do, so it's a win-lose situation there.

I'm surprised nobody brought this up yet, so I thought I might as well, since it still is a rather popular topic of discussion among the news and radio.

 

To clone, or not to clone? That is the question. As for me, if I was in charge of cloning the human race and controlling its factors as well, I'd lose my job faster than one could say "genetics". Being the person I am, I am strong-willed when it comes to expressing my opinion on what I think is right and wrong, and unless one can persuade me otherwise with hard, solid evidence, I will not back down.

 

Nobody, and I reapeat nobody has the right to play the part of God. Picking and choosing what qualities one wants in a person is not only morally and ethically wrong, it would also create quite a lapse in one's individuality in their small part of the human race as a whole. It's just not our desicion to make.

 

Imagine, a world full of people who have the all the qualities they want and they're absolutely perfect. Wonderful, right? Wrong! This would create a heirarchy, where people who were born through conception rather than created in a petri dish would be greatly surpassed in their perfect clone counterparts, where those that created the clones would soon be considered worthless and overthrown by the very clones that they themselves created.

 

In general, all humans desire the same things the rest of humanity does. Beauty, intellegence, strength, speed; what are these except qualities that most people have to work for? Individuality is what makes us human; flaws are what make us human. If everyone had these traits, these traits wouldn't be so desirable anymore, would they?

 

All in all, I really have no right to tamper in the human gene pool and eliminate undesirable traits, as it's those desirable traits that help us learn and grow; give us obstacles to overcome and conquer. I will never be in charge, nor do I really want to be, so this is my point: I do not and will not ever have a perfect human in mind, and in my opinion, neither should the rest of humanity.

 

However, the exception I can accept is the cloning of human organs as you're not really cloning the whole human itself. This method could be used to help save lives, and thus is a huge medical breakthrough, but cloning a whole human? What point would that prove except showing that it's possible?

 

What is your take on this guys?

"Should we sue?" This question seems to have become America's slogan nowadays. The majority of Americans today seem to think that sueing is the only way to solve their problems, mostly because there is a lot of money involved if they win.

 

To many fast food-eaters, the golden arches of MacDonald's have become their god. It calls to them; tells them that their food must be eaten or suffer the penalty of death. So what do they do? None other than follow the calling of MacDonald's and pay homage to its all-powerful pull of eating enjoyment. And yet, people still wonder, "Why am I so overweight nowadays? I only eat fast food every other day." None of them ever stop to think that that might actually be the cause of their problem. Instead, it's, "I file a lawsuit against MacDonald's for making me fat! It's not my fault that I eat there almost every day; Ronald MacDonald makes me. He has evil magic powers." Uh-huh. Yeah, right.

 

People just do not want to admit that they are the cause of their own problems; it's just human nature, but look at it like an addiction to smoking or chewing tobacco. If one hadn't started using it in the first place, they wouldn't be addicted, hmmm? Then again, there's always smokers that sue the tobacco company for their own stupid choices, so who am I talk?

 

So no, I think we should not sue MacDonald's just because we do not want to admit to our own short-comings and defeats, but seeing as this has become America's motto now, there's really nothing we can do to stop it.

 

Well, that's the way the world works now.

 

What is your take on this guys?

What I usually do is take out my sketchbook and make a rough thumbnail sketch first, then I start building up from there. When all that is done, I scan in my work, and kind of edit them from there with Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator. When it comes to layouts though (which I'm not that good at), I usually just kind of wing it and play around with the coding until I wind up getting something that I like, though more often than not, I usually have a very rough outline in my head beforehand. You know, just like if I'm going to have tables or what not in it along with what I'm piddling around with.

I have to admit, this site did amuse me quite a bit, especially me being the huge vector fan that I am. The animation ran smoothly and the menus were rather entertaining, almost as much as the feature works were.Despit it being a bit on the creepy side, both animation and picture wise, I like how it blending the power of abstract art into flash animation; not something many people can accomplish, but they seemed to have hit it right on the button.The only qualm I have with this website was that the opening page is kind of misleading, as it is not the menu screen, so I had to go around searching for it for a few seconds. Also, the animated menus, although wonderfully done, can be a bit confusing to work with. For example, you click on an option and the loading screen starts, but after it says it is done loading, the red spot is still there, albiet pulsing, but still there. I found it confusing and it took me a minute or two to realize how the menu works and that you're supposed to click on the little red pulsing spot to bring up what you are looking for. Besides the menus being confusing, I kind of got a bit frustrated when it came to some of the animations on the menu screen. Sometimes the animation was so long, I kind of got frustrated and started to think, "just show me the damn menu already!". :unsure:All in all though, I rather enjoyed this site, despite its strangeness. Animations were smooth and well executed (not to mention the "music box" feature in the "bits & pieces" section was worth a chuckle or two from me), and overall, I site I'd visit again in my spare time, and check back on once and again to see if there is anything new.My compliments to the creator! Two thumbs up! Way up!

Most countries do use the same punctuation rules and regulations when it comes to different languages; they're universal. However, I have noticed some differences, such as in Japanese, instead of quotation marks, they use kind of this bracket shape instead, however, I do think this only applies when writing Japanese horizontal, but I'm not exactly sure. But that's besides the point.

 

The point is, different languages or not, most non-native English speaker countries usually teach English as a main subject in school because it is typically a buisness language. Also, all people involved in air transportation, whether it is an English-speaking country or not, use English to communicate, so if there is an emergency, all the pilots and ground control officers can understand each other.

 

And I agree, Arbitrary. 1337 really does need to be gotten rid of. I mean, what purpose does it serve in the first place? All in all though, there really is no point typing that way in the first place. It just gets people frustrated and ticked-off, not to mention it lowers the status and credibility of a site or forum down an incredible amount.

I never even liked the FreeWebs service, it's really a piece of crap.

 

xboxrulz

 

It wasn't always a piece of crap; it was actually a pretty decent service despite all its limitations. However, after promising no ads, what do they do? They stick a huge banner ad at the top of your website, making it less professional. Not only that, but they also did it without warning too.

So Christmas comes rolling around, and I get this gift of a Canon iP 1600 photo printer (can print really high resolution photos). Of course, I knew that it came with my mom's new computer because she just wouldn't buy me a printer. Doing what just about any computer geek does, I start getting the specs of it. Nice printer, but Circuit City was cutting corners.

 

In small print above the "What's Included" section, the following cought my eye:

 

I had to absorb this for a moment. Buy computer, get free printer.... buy computer, free printer... For the 'n00bs' that know almost nothing about technology that wonder helplessly into that store everyday looking for a new computer, they would stumble accross such a fantastic deal of buy a computer, they will throw in the printer free! I feel sorry for anyone who bought a computer, got the printer, and set it all up. One piece would render the printer 'useless' until bought: the USB cable.

 

That's strange. I got my computer from Circut City as well and it also came with the "free printer" deal with the exact same printer you were describing. However, mine did come with the USB cable. The only thing it didn't come with was the glossy photo printer paper. However, a USB cable isn't really all that much in the first place, so it shouldn't be that much of a problem anyways.

You know, I really can't believe this topic is being talked about after it has been posted almost 7 months ago. My dear.. I mean, well, no... you guys can talk about it but something should be done about it.

 

I am quite sure the admins/mods have taken action about improving their grammar and spelling but since... well, I don't know if they take that seriously, they should've done something. I don't know what, but maybe like ... no.. i don't think so.

 

Anyway, I'm quite content but I don't think this as a quite professional-looking service. No offense there... just from my humble opinion / view

 

I think it would be rather hard for the admins and mods to take action on improving the grammar of Xisto's users, Cyborgxxi, as enforcing this on a good amount of posts received each day, plus correcting it would take even more time. Imagine trying to sift through about fifty or more posts a day and correcting each persons' improper grammar or deleting them; it would just take too much time. Plus, what about some people who are using English to the best of their ability? It would be unfair for their posts to be deleted when they have done really nothing wrong. It's hard for the admins and mods to tell which people seriously don't know how to correctly use English, and those that are just being lazy. All in all, I think it is up to the individuals who know English very well but take the easy way out to get off their lazy butts and take the time to actually type and use the English language correctly and respectfully.

 

And as for those newspapers and magazines you've seen with incorrect grammar and spelling, Chesso, while the authors and reporters of the articles should take the time to check their spelling and grammar before submitting to the publisher, that is also a sign of an incompetent editor at work. Of all the people in the staff of those newspapers and magazines, it should be the editor that has the most experience with grammar and spelling.

There has been a documentry that has had quite compelling evidence that it was all a set up and it was all fake. But as people have said, they couldn't have done all of that back then. It might just be one of those debates that will never be solved.

 

The dabate will be around, and continue to be around, as long as there are believers and disbelivers in the Moon landing event. And it's not that the government couldn't have done all that back then, as they could easily compared to putting a man on the Moon, but it's more of a matter of why they would go through all that is involved to fake it and release it to the public? It would prove no point (useful or not)!

With regards to planet colonization: I'm wondering what our first step would be to make Mars habitable. I've watched enough Discovery shows to realize that most experts think that atmosphere and temperature needs to be ameliorated before anything else. But how? Some say that you need to release the frozen carbon dioxide, apparently trapped under Martian soil, to elevate global temperatures. This would hopefully lead to the thawing of the polar ice caps and release the water. Then what? Plant some trees? How will we start generating enough oxygen on that planet to get the atmosphere to an acceptable level for human survival? It seems to me that this is a LONG term project that needs to start ASAP given that it will take decades (perhaps centuries) to accomplish...

 

Hmm, I really hadn't thought that far ahead when I posted my answer. ^^;; Anyways, you are right about the long term project idea because we will need a lot of pretty advanced technology to actually accomplish this goal. As for the oxygen, I'm not quite sure. Maybe they will create an oxygen recycler that they use for long-swimming scuba divers or something along the lines of that nature. However, despite NASA wanting to reach Mars, they will need a lot of supplies since of finding some way of creating crono-sleeping instruments as it would take around nine months to get there and nine months to get back. Personally, I don't think this journey to Mars will happen any time soon. T^T

Yes, you are right, Twitch. Spelling matter very much. If you don't spell correctly, nobody will take you seriously, I know I won't, and grammar matters just as much, if not more. I remember when I became a beta-reader for stories, I was stunned that many of the native English-speaking authors' stories I received were spelled and used grammatically horrible I couldn't stand it. I've gotten non-English speakers' stories as well, and their English is a hell of a lot better. The sad thing is is that this kind of diregard to the English language is the average...to native English-speakers! Please use your spelling and grammar correctly folks.