Thorned Rose

Well, didn't take very long for this thread to be hijacked. Sorry FolkRockFan but I have to disagree with pretty much everything you say. Though I am well aware of what the Bible says about money, having once been a devout Catholic and reborn Christian parents. What I said was meant as a joke hence the face. As you said but having "In God we trust" on money IS sanctioning/condoning one particular religion. If you were to be neutral you would either have to not have it at all or have something like "In Gods or God or Yaweh or Godess or Zeus or Allah or Jah or Buddha or Bhagavan or Ahura Mazda or Gitche Manitou or Shang Ti or Odin (etc), in no particular order, we trust". What you say about the separation of church and state is complete bs. The whole point of seperating it is so that people are free choose without any bias towards one particular set of beliefs. Printing "In God we trust" is plain, smack-in-the-face bias. The very fact that you call the U.S. a "God-faring nation" just reeks of bias.I do agree with you however that people should spend more time with their families than working. I would much rather be poor and happy and spending time with my family than spending most of my time slogging away at work that makes me miserable and never seeing my family. But that's a little off topic

Once upon a time that was what I was going to do. Hardware and software IT. It was my dream to work with computers. Then my mother got one. Then she started asking me questions about how to use. Then my brothers broke it. Then I had to fix it. Then it had more problems and my mother had more questions. It never ended. It was then I realised that I didn't have the patience for people's stupidity. And when it comes to computers, there's a lot of stupid going around. That's the only reason why I would recommend people to not get into the computer industry. But if you have oooooodles of patience and like helping people, then by all means give it a go. But be VERY cautious. Take into account that some of the computers you buy will be unfixable and therefore a loss. Don't overextend yourself and always stay within your limits otherwise you will end up broke and have a lot of angry people beating down your door.

The problem is that even if you are careful with your credit card it still fudges your credit rating. When you get older and actually want to do something worthwhile with your credit (like get a house), you'll get asked "do you have a credit card" at every turn. Lenders HATE giving loans to people with credit cards and will avoid it if possible. Don't bother, it's not worth it! If you need to get something that only takes credit cards (like on the net), borrow someone else's! If you can't do that, then forget it. Absolutely do NOT get a credit card. It is so much more satisfying answering "no" when Lenders ask you "Do you have any credit cards".

I'm probably going to get flamed for saying this, but we use Microsoft Outlook (2007 now). It collects all our email addresses (about 6 of them) all into one place. I hate Outlook Express with vehemence. But Outlook 2007 seems to do the job. I also like the integration with MSN Messenger/ Windows Live Messenger. I have no idea if it's worth the money as we get Microsoft Office free.

1. Sorry, but who cares?!2. "In God we trust" excludes people who don't believe in God or adhere to other religions.3. State and religion is supposed to be separate4. I would think that religious people wouldn't want "In God we trust" printed on 'the root of all evil' :PNew Zealand money doesn't have anything like that on it and it nobody cares. State and religion is very separate in this country and nobody gets upset about it. People are allowed to believe what they want rather than having one group of peoples' beliefs shoved down their throats at ever turn. I think what you say as well, sounds decidedly conspirational. From the outside looking in you sound like a stereotypical American or 'Yank'. I'm not trying to sound mean or be mean, just giving you the perspective of someone who lives on the other side of the world.

Obviously you are unaware of the fact that the Wii is outselling the 360 and the PS3. It's not on the downhill, it's having a revolution, pun intended. The PS3 is severely overrated. Sony (as usual) promised so many things that they just haven't delivered on. And they are arrogant about it to boot! For example, the PS3 was supposed to be 100% backwards compatible and it's not. To add salt to the wound Sony has now said that PAL PS3s will be using software emulation to run old games which means it's even less backwards compatible than the NTSC version which aren't 100% compatible anyway. Something I have to laugh at, is a New Zealand website that specialises in selling things like end-of-lines and over-stocked products is selling the PS3 for about $200 less than the RRP. This means that the store selling them is so overstocked that they need to get rid of some quick even with pre-orders! There's also the fact that the 360 has been out a lot longer than the PS3 so it has more games that are in their second or even third generation. Does that make me a 360 fan? I certainly like our 360 and enjoy playing it but just because I'm pis*d off with Sony doesn't mean I don't plan on getting a PS3. My opinion: In first place: 360 In second place: Wii 3rd place goes to the PS3 (you screwed up Sony, big time!)

I can see this topic turning into a BIG debate. Unfortunately, religious people are rather vocal in this area so I would expect a lot of hijacking on their part to occur.Anyway, I believe in the sanctity of life. Not in a religious way, just that *all* life is precious. That said, I also believe in a quality of life. It is nothing but cruel and torturous to expect a living being to endure endless hours of pain and misery because you believe that god owns their soul and not them. I've seen religious people adamantly against euthanasia and yet when they end up with some illness that causes them unbearable pain, cry out that they want to die and to end the pain.It's easy to sit on your high horse and say that it is wrong and pass judgement on other people, essentially saying that you condone a life of torturous and excruciating pain. Try it for yourself sometime and then tell me you're still against it.

I don't think that this is a simple yes or know question. As they currently stand, then definitely not. But you have to remember that the human brain and body is a form of organic machine. What happens if at some point in the future, robots are built to be physically exactly the same as humans just exchanging inorganic material for organic. They will think and feel like humans and you have to concede at some point that a thinking feeling being, whether organic or machine deserves *some* rights. Maybe if we replicate humans on an inorganic level, they will have souls. Maybe they won't. I don't think that question will be able to be answered until a robot is built like that and scientists find a way of measuring the soul. Even now however, there is thought along the lines that machines may be able to have souls. The "ghost in the machine" as it's called.If it got to that point - even if they didn't have souls - but still thought and felt, then I definitely think they should have at least some rights. But maybe I'm just too bigger Isaac Asimov fan

OMG, I don't think I've read a forum more full of crap (other than the religion discussions ) than this one! Don't do anything, just eat healthy food, don't eat junk food, I lost 10 kgs and didn't do anything, eat less.... jeepers! You're all WRONG! Some people have snippets of what is good and others are just down right B.S.! (This is a lot to read but I am writing a book on correct diet, so I'm not talking through a hole in my behind) Here's the real deal - it will work for pretty much anyone so long as you don't have any medical conditions that would inhibit weight loss or exercise (even then, I have Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and that doesn't stop me!) The biggest contributing factor to weight gain or lack of weight loss is carbohydrates and lack of sufficient exercise. STOP! Do not rush out and read every book you can on 'low-carb' diets and absolutely DO NOT cut 'carbs' from your diet. Here's the the secret - sugar is a carbohydrate, a very simple carbohydrate. Yes, there are complex and simple carbohydrates. Simple carbohydrates are high-GI (Glycaemic Index) and complex carbohydrates are low-GI. Sugar for example as a GI of about 77. So does white bread so when you eat white bread, you may as well be chuggng down pure sugar. What you want to do is minimise your simple carbohydrates (sugar, white bread, plain pasta etc) and eat complex carbohydrates like wholegrain/wholewheat bread, basmati rice, brown pasta etc - the lower the GI, the better. Even with complex carbs, you can still go overboard. Throughout the day, you only want complex carbs to make up about 1/3-1/2 your entire food intake. And by no means completely eliminate simple carbs - your body still needs them as instant energy but you need to keep them to an absolute minimum - like one glass of apple juice a day (in the form of fructose sugar) or a teaspoon of brown sugar in your cup of tea/coffee etc. (Just as a note - Xylitol is a really good natural sugar alternative that's actually *good* for your teeth and it has a GI of only 4 to boot!). Next is protein - the Atkins diet - more bs. You may lose weight fast but you'll f*** up your kidneys and heart doing it and to me that isn't a solution to weightloss. Protein (like meat, nuts, eggs etc) is important for hormones, muscles etc so you need it. Just make sure that you have healthy sources of it. Nuts and seeds is a very good source of vegetable protein and a great snack during the day as it helps stave off hunger. Humans need red meat because it contains chemicals necessary to the body. Haem-iron (only found in meat) is much more easily absorbed by the body than iron from veges so I recommend having red meat twice a week but not more than that because it has been linked with bowel cancer making the quality of red meat you eat all the more important (a burger patty from McDonalds counts towards that limit but isn't good quality so will be lower in iron). You will want to then have pork/chicken 3 times a week (for dinner), a fish dinner at least once a week and then a vegetarian dinner to give your digestive system and kidneys a break from all the protein. Which brings me to the next part. Veges and fruit. These should make up *MOST* of your daily intake. On your plate for dinner, you should see near on half to half your plate filled with veges, about 1/3 complex carbs and the rest protein. These are the things that are going to give you most of your vitamins and minerals. And yes, stuff like vege juice does count but bear in mind it has lower fibre which is important for digestive health. Portion control is important. It doesn't mean you starve yourself! What I call 'starvation diets' such as calorie counting etc will only result in you losing weight and then putting on even more when you stop dieting. This is because while you restrict your intake, your body goes into 'starvation mode' thinking that you are lacking for food. So it slows down metabolism making you store more fat and making it difficult to lose what fat you have. Once you start eating normally again, your body goes wohoo and starts to store as much fat as possible just in case it gets starved again. One portion is about the size of your palm. So for dinner, one portion should be protein, 2 carbs and at least 3 veg. Breakfast and lunch should be scaled down accordingly. Which brings up another point - do not miss breakfast! You will actually put on weight if you miss it (if you eat like most people) for the same reason as above (the starvation mode). Drink LOTS of water. It aids in weightloss and detoxifies your body (as you lose fat, a lot of toxins in your stored fat are released so it's really important to cleanse them out of your system). Food is just half of it - exercise is the other half. Now, you don't have to be working out at the gym to get sufficient exercise. 20 mins a day of doing something, anything that gets your heart rate and breathing up is sufficient for a normal healthy weight. If you are trying to lose weight, the more exercise you do, the faster you will lose weight. Now for people who make excuses about not being able to exercise - try Vibration Training - it's excellent! 10-20mins per session and you do the equivalent of 1-3 hours at the gym. I couldn't recommend it more. The only other thing I would really recommend in the way of daily exercise is go hard on the house work! It's sound nuts but you can lose a lot of weight doing speed-housework. Plus you get the cleaning and tidying done so much faster Get enough sleep! What does this have to do with weight loss? People who don't get enough sleep are more likely to put on weight and/or have more trouble losing weight. The minimum is 8 hours though sleep specialists recommend 9. Plus you'll be all the more productive and less stressed for it. One of my pet hates - milk. Avoid it. I know it sounds crazy but when you've studied it as much as I have, you come to realise it's not good stuff. In fact it contributes to weight gain in a BIG way amongst other things! Really, this is all just common sense. The only other piece of advice is something a doctor once told me - "Eat like a caveman". i.e. eat foods that are as natural and unprocessed as possible. If you follow what I've said, you'll not only lose weight but you'll be healthy and so long as you stick with eating properly and exercising at least 20 mins a day, you'll stay that way for the rest of your life!

HAHAHAHAHAHA! About time someone came up with a site to take the crap out of M$. Haven't seen one in quite some time actually. And lovely timing for me too - just installed Vista and I usually use Firefox for browsing, but the constant hijacking by Vista (making me use IE instead) has been driving me up the wall!Thanks for the link! I will be forwarding this around the world!

Gees, this whole thing is such a crock of sh**! I understand that governments cover a lot of things up, no doubt about it but people don't need conspiracies about anything and everything just to complicate things further. Please! Debate about a conspiracy that is real not something that someone has come up with because they are either paranoid, attention seeking or a gossip! Back then it was blinkin' cheaper to *actually* send someone than it was to fake it.For pity's sake, get over this topic - it's old and boring!

My husband is the editor for a gaming magazine so we hear about pretty much all the screw ups and out of all the console makers, Sony make the most. That's not to say the others don't just that Sony seems to make the most and the biggest. I put the website screwup on there just to demonstrate the amount of screwups they have (it may say powered by but the content has to be run past Sony first).The whole launch of the PS3 was one big screwup. I think putting wooden PS3s on display instead of the real thing is screwy (I saw one and have the pictures). If Crazy Ken can say sh** like because they cost so much, it will make people want to work more to own one, Sony can sure as hell making a spelling mistake.

It's funny that modern society is only now just clueing onto the benefits of natural remedies when plants have been used to treat various ailments for thousands of years. While I don't agree with some of the ingredients in Chinese medicine and while some of them are complete hooey, Chinese medicine has been around thousands of years longer than modern medicine and drugs. The same can be said for many other civilisations. Ancient Egyptians used to eat mouldy bread to cure thngs. Nowadays we know it as penicillin, supposedly a 'modern' discovery. Or how about the recent advances on the benefits of high cocoa chocolate - the Aztecs knew a looong time ago how good it was.One thing I would like to point out about cloves other than the ones listed here - it's great for toothache. Got a sore tooth or ulcer and can't get to the dentist fast enough? - crunch down on a clove. Cloves have a natural anaesthetic which will dull the pain and the antimicrobial properties will help kill bacteria.

HA! If only. Sony are masters of screw ups. I wouldn't put this past them at all. Just the other day on their PSP Connect website they used a Project Gotham Racing 3 (Xbox 360) screenshot as an advertisement for Gran Turismo 4. You can see a screenshot of the website here before they finally noticed their screwup and took it down. I couldn't remember the above so I asked my husband what Sony's latest screwup was and he replied "Which one?" which sums it up nicely!

Warrockers, that's thread number two that I have found you copy/pasting stuff. If you do it, please credit it with the author or website and also if you keep doing this, you are going to get in trouble - forums are about ideas, thoughts, opinions etc. It's not a place to go pasting information from other websites.

Gees Warrockers, that's a lot. I'm assuming that's a quote from Wikipedia? If so, you need to say so and put it in a quote.When I saw this thread, I had to laugh. I've heard of them and seen a doco and heard a lot of different theories. All I can say is while *most* theories aren't out of the realms of the impossible (particularly the one about it being an undiscovered species) I won't hold my breath. I would like to see a real study done and some hard scientific evidence before I'll believe it. I'm not a sceptic (I'm very open minded) but most of the 'evidence' so far seems very 'intangible' at best.I think in the mean time people should stop villainising it (or the legend of it really) - it really doesn't help get it investigated in a serious way.

To Korin and Dooga, I guess it probably comes down to human arrogance and superiority lol. Though it is very funny when you think about things on a more 'universal' size. Other peoples and civilisations living and dying, some only just having 'formed' others far advanced. Wars, peace, no concept of either.... Makes you feel small when you really think about it. We are all part of a very big universe and things like racism, countries, war, sexism, class etc all seem petty and ridiculous in the larger scheme of things.

Thanks Matak! Unfortunately I can't lay claim to the design. It's from http://www.dream-logic.com/index.html although I downloaded it from OSWD which has open source css templates. I usually download open source templates for inspiration or for a nice layout. After I'm done with this one, only the layout will be the similar. Anyways, I will give this a go and let you know how it turns out Thank you so much for taking the time to do it! (and yes I'm sure you are very pretty ) In the meantime, I found another interesting workaround: <!--[if IE]><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="iehacks.css" /><![endif]--> And could people (particularly those with IE) still go http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ and let me know if it displays correctly as there are other people interested in knowing if the Star Hack still works.

Thanks hts! It's a very good site. In an interesting update, I came across a hack known as the Star Hack or Star HTML bug. At any rate this is what I have changed: #navcontainer{background:url(bg.gif) #B89482;width:134px;height:574px;position:absolute;margin-top:0px;margin-left:207px;* margin-left:-157px; /* Interpreted only by IE */margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;} And it now displays correctly in IE7. However I believe the CSS now won't validate but I would much rather have something viewable than validating perfectly. What would be great is if you could check it out at http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ and tell me if it displays correctly in your browsers (it works fine for me in FF 2.0.1 and IE 7.05) just to confirm that it does indeed work ok.

Thanks so much for everyone's input! Ok, to the nitty gritty.I can't just remove the header - the header is the space for the graphic so by deleting that, I have no image. (If I do, it does fix it however )Tables are icky and I don't want to have wasted a whole lot of my time learning css to turn around and give up by going back to tables (and yes that would be the easiest solution )Setting margin-left to -1000 still has the same problem although in IE, it has moved slightly more to the right. On a side note, I experimented with setting the margin-left and margin-right with negative values and could get it to the right spot in IE but in FF, it was way off. I've seen 'If' statements use to affect only one browser so maybe someone knows how to apply margin settings using an 'If' in this situation? (I think it might be a hack of some type?)matak, I have considered just chopping the image into two parts and doing that (which I will do as a last resort) because it's such a pain in the bumbum.I tried z-index and unfortunately nada :DDoes anyone know the IE absolute positioning hack?

Sorry if this has been answered before (I looked and couldn't find anything). I am building a site off a template using css however I'm sure as many of you already know, Internet Explorer 7 (and below?) is not displaying the site properly. It's fine in Firefox (no surprises there) but in IE, the menu is waaay off. I've read that this is to do with the css position:absolute but I can't for the life of me find the work around/hack to make it display correctly in IE. Help would be very much welcome and appreciated! Here is the page in Firefox: Here it is in IE and as you can see the menu is too far to the right and over the text: Here's the index.html (style.css is attached below) <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd;<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml&%2334; lang="en" xml:lang="en"><head><title>Fashionista v2.0</title><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /><meta name="author" content="dreamLogic" /><meta name="description" content=" " /><link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css" type="text/css" /></head><body><div id="wrap"><div id="navcontainer"><ul id="navlist"><li><a href="#">home</a></li><li><a href="#">blog</a></li><li><a href="#">portfolio</a></li><li><a href="#">links</a></li><li><a href="#">contact</a></li><li><a href="http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=referer">xhtml</a></li></ul></div><div id="header"></div><div id="content"><h3>Welcome!</h3><p>Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Sed felis. Phasellus enim. Aliquam malesuada mi eu erat. Suspendisse potenti. In diam ante, sagittis vel, rutrum at, fringilla pulvinar, nunc.</p><h3>About the Designer</h3><p>dreamLogic has been creating custom web designs and applications for over 9 years. For more templates, web applications, and our portfolio, visit <a href="dream-logic.com/index.html Web Design</a>.</p><h3>About this Design</h3><p>This template is released as an open source web design, which means that you are free to use it in any way you want, and edit it in any way you want to. We ask that you leave the "Web design by dreamLogic" link in the footer as a friendly gesture, we would appreciate it very much. But there are no obligations so go ahead if you really want to remove it. </p></div></div></body></html>

Teri Luketic, I find your post somewhat ironic, given that you don't believe in evolution, believe in God and are posting in a thread about Extraterrestrials. These three things don't mesh to well - If you are religious then you won't believe in evolution and thus life forming on other planets isn't possible not to mention the fact that the Bible (or whatever religious text you follow) says we are alone in the universe.Not to sound mean, but I find it amusing that religious people say they don't believe in evolution because it is only unproven theory and not fact and yet believe in God and religious text, also in some aspects, unproven theory.Anyways, this sort of conversation belongs in another thread.Like I said before, whether it is life from other planets, government made, or actually just us from the future (or a combination of these) quantum physics/mechanics can technically allow for any of these scenarios. I won't go into details because I would probably end up not making any sense lol, just needless to say it deals in part with realities and possibility.I watched a documentary the other day that looked at the future evolution of humans which showed a divergence of two 'classes' - one a 'superhuman', the other class being more primal (low intelligence, short lived, ugly etc) much like H.G. Wells' Time Machine.Anyway, my point is, anything is possible. Once upon a time, our reality was that the earth was flat and you could sail off into nothingness. Our reality now has changed. Ask yourself this - what things do we know now with all 'certainty' that will turn out to be wrong and change our perception of reality?

Yes, but when you take someone else's life or forfeit your own. I have no sympathy for people who destroy the lives of other people whether it's through murder, rape, abuse, theft etc. The punishment befits the crime.Just because I think this though, doesn't mean I enjoy watching people executed. I certainly enjoy the thought of beating the crap out of some sicko like a paedophile and nor do I have any sympathy if one is executed but to actually revel in someone's death makes you just as bad as them in some respects.No, I will definitely NOT be watching the video, and shame to anyone who does.

Interesting topic. salamangkero, you certainly bring up some interesting points. I was going to bring up quantum physics and possibilities, reality and so forth but I believe that you've done a rather good job. So I guess I will say, that in some respects time will tell.Did you know that little ol' New Zealand has the highest number of UFO sightings in the world? Most people don't and I suppose in some respects shows how closed mouthed many governments are. Of course there is the other side that most people think that UFOs and aliens are a lot of hooey or new age crap and a gov certainly doesn't want to upset the majority :lol:Anyways, on to the quantum physics. Without going into detail (it's hard to wrap your head around it sometimes lol) you could all be right. Different realities, time travel, alternate universes etc etc etc could all mean the very possibility of there existence and could also make possible the idea that they are from the future (human or otherwise) or that they could be from alternate universes.Startrek does have something right - the idea of a 'warp drive' has a very real possibility. The theory and physics behind it are sound so as for travelling longs distances - very feasible.Well, I think I have waffled somewhat but my point is, quantum physics means it's very possible (and I believe it is anyway) but until such time that people get it out of their heads that 'little green men' are hooey, new age, conspiracy theory etc bs, there won't be much movement in this field. People need to start looking at this in a more scientific way. We need far more Carl Sagans in the world before I think this subject will be taken more seriously.

The only problem with drinking recycled water stems from a psychological one i.e. people don't like the idea of drinking water that comes from sewage.The fact of the matter is, water that you use in your household goes either into a sewage system which is treated somewhat and then dumped into the nearest body of water (rivers, lakes, the ocean) and stormwater (like what runs off the road as well as goes down your bathroom and kitchen drains) gets dumped untreated into the nearest water. So you are already drinking what is essentially recycled sewage and drain water. Then you have to factor in things like runoff from farms, acid rain, algal blooms that proliferate because of biological pollution or how about the fact that whenever you take a nice dip in the sea, part of the colour that water has is faecal matter and biological decay and also the fact that sewage and runoff ends up in the sea, often right beside beaches.My advice would be, get over it. Astronauts do it all the time. Many people around the world are drinking recycled water and the fact of the matter is EVERYONE is drinking recycled water to some degree.As for bottled water. Unless you drink distilled water, MOST bottled water is collected from the source (usually a spring) and put straight into bottles. There is no treatment involved. Read the back of the bottle - it will often say "bottled at the source". Tap water is more treated than most bottled water lol. And of course that isn't even taking into account the HUGE impact that the bottles are having on the environment. How's that for your conscience?!I would rather drink recycled water any day knowing that it is better for the environment than buying bottled water which is 1. taking water out of the ecosystem and therefore disrupting it, 2. untreated anyway and 3. leaves behind plastic which pollutes then environment. It's not a hard choice.