Thorned Rose

What I mean by "an eye for an eye" is not about getting revenge. Revenge has it's place in *some* situations but certainly not this one. What I mean is "the punishment befits the crime". If you take someone's life your own is forfeit. I have no problem with torturing *bad* people if it means lives are saved etc or sentencing people who have killed, to death. But the world is not black and white and good and bad isn't always obvious or even there. I think people need to look between the lines more often. This isn't just about hanging a bad man. There are so many other variables that come into this.As for people like Osama? I think people should be focusing on more immediate problems like the health of the planet which affects *everyone* rather than being paranoid about phantoms that may or may not eventuate.

I've always been a firm believer in "an eye for an eye" so I'm glad he finally got it. But like Erin said, it came at a huge cost which can in no way be justified. War can never be justified no matter what excuses people use.They should have assassinated him when they had the chance. But for some reason people prefer that countries go to war and kill large numbers of innocent people rather than bumping a few people off on the quiet. Stupid and egotistical really :/

Dude, read the posts above before you put your own 2 cents in otherwise your contribution to the thread doesn't make any sense!!

What the company says it's software does is theoretically possible. My ISP has uncapped speeds so I get as fast as the line will provide, but again this is internet speed limited by hardware (much like with the 56k modem).The software doesn't alter what the hardware does, just stuff like packet handling. On a 56k modem, the most data your modem can handle is 56kb of information per second. The software supposedly just changes how that information is sent and received so your hardware isn't going to go any faster but you may still see an increase software side. Think of the difference between IE and Firefox. You can have exactly the same connection and yet get faster speeds on Firefox. Why? Because the software is different.This isn't to say that cFos Speed actually works - read what I said above and you'll see I didn't have a very good time with it, all I am saying is that it is theoretically possible and may work for some people.So pleeeease stop saying, "nope can't work because your speed is determined by hardware" - next time your itchy little fingers feels inclined to type something along those lines - just remember the difference between IE and Firefox and then try to explain that one away before you start mouthing off about other software.(I still hate cFos Speed btw)

Yeah, I got fairly pi**ed off at them after they replied to my request for help (before I figured out what had gone wrong) with: I told them (with firm language) that it was a problem with their software not my computer I would also like to point out that their advice was useless given my network connections were deleted along with corrupting my drivers which meant that I kept getting errors trying to set up a new connection.

Well, I finally got round to trying it and doing the trial and all of that.The Jury is in and the virdict is...... drum roll please...... I didn't really see any difference.I have ADSL so no dial up restrictions. My ISP is one of the best in New Zealand etc etc etc. After the trial expired, my internet speed really doesn't seem any different.I also did their ISP submission thing to get a free license but they never even bothered to acknowledge my submission (after initially accepting my application) let alone send me a license.On top of this, when I uninstalled it, it killed my internet connection my corrupting my modem and network card drivers. :/My best advice - give it a go but run speed test several times (at the same times throughout the day) before and after installing it so you can make sure that it is *actually* improving your speed. If it works for you great - buy it. If it doesn't be very, VERY careful uninstalling it. If your internet connection dies after uninstall, trying reinstalling your modem/router and/all network card drivers (depending on how you connect to the net)(As a side note, they also told me that their software couldn't possible interfere with my computer which is obviously bollocks because my drivers were corrupted upon uninstall) - user beware!

Well, first off I will admit that I never actually *played* the game. HOWEVER, I did watch my husband when he was playing it. Before you say, well you can't really comment because you ain't not played it (or something to that effect) I've got a long history of watching games rather than playing them (don't ask me why because even I don't know) and I have a rather good eye for what's hot and what's not.There was a LOT of hooey surrounding the release of Ninja Gaiden and I have to say that when I finally laid eyes upon it and my husband laid hands upon the controller, I wasn't overwhelmed. Of course I was still, "damn, that's some eye candy" but particularly with the gameplay, I was just kinda.... blah. I got more shivers from watching Tenchu than I did Ninja Gaiden.Don't get me wrong, I still thinks it's a GREAT game, I just don't think it's as good as what most people make it out to be.

Is this even a real question?! Really, do you need to even ask! I remember seeing a ingame footage promo video for Halo 2 and people in the crowd actually started applauding (especially when MC duel-wielded) - I think that pretty much sums up the feeling in my camp - Halo - absolutley brilliant. Halo 2 - even better!

While I have not tried this myself *yet* I would just like to point out that Lucid Dreaming and Astral Projection are two quite difference things. LD involves having dreams in which you are in control of all aspects of the dream (think like the Matrix only you control the reality) whereas AP is leaving your body and wandering around (think like a ghost). Obviously in AP you cannot change anything as you are not creating a reality you are just moving through actual reality without any physical form. I have only had very limited experience with AP as I have not tried it in earnest and only experienced it by accident a couple of times. If any one has some good links on how to teach yourself AP, please post it!

While technically true, still somewhat deceptive: There is a point at which you can't do more exercise - what I mean is that a person who is perfectly healthy and perfectly fit could exercise 24/7 but still eat more calories than they could burn in that time (not to mention eventually they would collapse even attempting to exercise non-stop) There is also the fact that even if you exercise enough to burn off all the calories you eat in a high-refined sugar diet, you could still end up with Insulin-Resistant Hypoglycaemia (the sudden increase in sugar levels after eating something sugary would cause this even though eventually you would burn off all the sugar in your body through exercise). I have Hypoglycaemia and trust me, it something you do not want to have! With regards to calorie counting - unfortunately this is another version of a 'starvation diet' i.e. a restriction diet. It is far from a healthy way to lose weight. Calorie counting or restricting your diet will send your body into 'starvation mode' where it essentially panics because of lack of energy and starts to try and retain as much of that energy as possible which means it will try to store as much fat as possible, slowing down weight loss and increasing the absorption of fat from food into the body. This is why so often people stop losing weight on a diet and why when the cease the diet they end up putting on even more weight than they had to start with. Instead of thinking in terms of calorie counting or restriction, you want portion control. this doesn't mean having smaller portions than is the normal healthy amount for a person, it means eating the amount that a person should eat to be healthy (one serving protein, two servings of complex carbohydrates and 3-5 servings of vegetables - one serving being about the size of your palm). In all likelyhood you could eat as much vegetables as you want because you end up very full before you managed to eat more calories than you could burn. All this brings me to the point about losing weight the healthy way. It starts with diet. If you eat well with the right portions and the right ingredients, even if you don't get any extra exercise than you already get, you will more than likely lose some small amount of weight. To go the full distance, you need to exercise. Again, you don't want to be exercising more than a normal person needs. Doing this, you will lose weight slowly but surely. It won't be up and down, it will be consistent and healthy. This isn't a 'diet', this is just a healthy way of living. One of the great things about this, is when you reach a healthy weight, you don't stop living this way, you keep it up and your weight will remain stable! Many tv shows that involve people losing weight often have people losing weight too fast. You really should only be losing about 1kg a week. Any more than that and your risk things like Orthostatic Intolerance, blood pressure problems, heart problems (like palpatations) or shock. Of course if for some reason you want to push yourself and lose weight fast, increase the amount of exercise you do, absolutely do not decrease your necessary food intake (otherwise you could create a vitamin and mineral deficiency, another reason why calorie counting or restriction diets are dangerous). Seriously, if you do this, not only will you end up being a stable healthy weight, you will be much healthier. I have M.E. so exercise is very difficult for me, but even so, eating right and small amounts of exercise every day have given me a marked improvement in energy levels, my skin and hair are really soft, I have a healthy glow, I can think better and I have lost 13kgs so far (only 7 more kilos to go)!

OMG, this has turned into such a PS3 fanboy thread!The PS3 is NOT an upgrade from the 360 because they end up being both about the same. Sony said the Ps3 would be backwards compatible but now it's been found that it's not. And yes I do know that it is more backwards compatible than the 360 but still not 100%. If you go by statistics, very few people actually take advantage of backwards compatibility anyway. As for blu ray - it's got issues, it's not as nice as they would like to make out (I have seen a side by side comparison). Not to mention that the PS3 only supports 720p or 1080p HDTVs so if you have anything other than this it will downgrade the resolution to 480p.The fact the the PS3 is newer doesn't make it a good thing. It means there are less games for it, it means it's at it's most expensive, it means that there will be problems that haven't been ironed out yet, it means that there aren't second generation games yet (i.e. better games than 1st gen).Stop taking sides and being a 'lame fanboy' by saying one is better than the other when you don't have either, you don't know the facts and your haven't seen both in action.

Actually research has found that small amount of caffeine every day is good for you. BUT it is *small* amounts - as in not more than four normal size/strength (no expresso!) coffees per day. Although everything else you and Albus said I have to whole heartedly agree with. I was watching a program the other day in which a chick pretty much lived off energy drinks, downing about 40 per week and eating very little (caffeine can supress your appetite). She was trying to lose weight and get healthy on this tv program but they couldn't let her exercise at first because even jogging for a couple of minutes increased her heart rate to being 10bpm away from a heart attack! Her resting heart rate was that of a person doing vigorous exercise! I can't even remember the last time I had fizzy drink let alone an energy drink. They are bad news - stay away from all that sort of crap!

OMG, this is a funny thread! Whether there is anything there alien related, Gov knows (no, that isn't a typo). Did there used to be? Probably. Hows this for a fact for you conspiracy theorists: New Zealand has the highest UFO sighting rate in the world and yet you don't hear peep about it in New Zealand. In the States officials have 'addressed' the issue but in NZ there is absolutely nothing. Prolly why very few people know that statistic. My dad used to be in the army and often trained in a place called South Kaipara Heads. He said more often than not there would be Airforce officers there taking pictures of UFOs and I don't mean alien spaceships, I mean unidentified flying objects. As to whether they were aliens or not, who knows but they are certainly interesting to the Gov This is a pic of the Kaipara Heads. Pretty, but not very interesting lol.

I have seen them side by side and they don't stack up. And the reason that game developers don't use the full system power is because the PS3 is very difficult to code for. Not to mention that when consoles first come out, developers never code to a system's full potential. Nor has the 360s limit been reached yet. There is also the issue of loading time - the PS3 has very bad loading times and if they code to the system's full 'potential' load times will be even worse. Of course they have made a work around for this by giving users the option to 'install' a game onto the PS3s HDD BUT given that the games take up 5GB+, even the 60GB HDD won't last long. As I said, that would be because the 360 is far more 'coder friendly' - naturally developers would build a game on a system that is easy to code on and then port the program to the other system. Given this, 360/PS3 cross-platform games are going to look virtually identical and it says nothing about the graphical 'eyecandy' prowess of either system.

Well, I just got to see several PS3s in action and I have to say I'm not wowed. The graphics were excellent of course but I didn't look at them and go, "OMG, that's $%@ good looking!". I more looked at it and went "meh". It seems to have the same graphical 'annoyance' as the other playstations in that it looks over sharp and slightly pixely. And before you whine a b*tch, these were on HD Sony Bravia tvs so no excuses there.On the other hand, when I first saw the 360 in action, I said to myself "holy sh*t!".I also got to see a blu-ray player and was very definitely not wowed. It was again on an HD tv but the HD tv playing National Geographic channel right beside it looked miles better!I'm sure of course that we will end up with a PS3 but only because of the PS3 exclusive games not because I think it is better or even equal to the 360.Until such time as we get one, I am very happy with our 360.

I have very little sympathy for people that knowingly inflict health problems upon themselves. If you smoke and get cancer - you've got no one to blame but yourself. If you eat to excess and don't exercise and become obese, don't bi*ch - you only have yourself to blame!Once, when there was so little awareness surrounding the importance of eating well and exercising, people might have been able to declare ignorance but nowadays there really is little excuse.I certainly feel sorry for people with physiological problems that can cause obesity especially when they unfortunately get lumped in with the lazy buggers and called mean names. Of course there are also lazy fat people who use medical conditions as an excuse.I have M.E. and have had it for near on 7 years now. After having my two children, I put on about 20kg (about 44 pounds) and for a long time I didn't know what to do because exercise is extremely difficult for me. However eventually I found Vibration Training. I've always eaten better than most but my making my diet even better and virtually cutting out all refined carbohydrates (i.e. sugar, white bread etc) and eating lots of veg, complex carbohydrates etc and doing Vibration training I've lost 14kg (31lbs) which just goes to show that it is possible for people who so called 'can't exercise' to.There really is no excuse any more. 1. you shouldn't get like that to start with and 2. even if you do because of one thing or another there is ALWAYS *something* that you can do about it. Eating right + exercise like aquarobics, aquajogging or vibration training etc = healthier, more energy and longer, happier life.

Gees, this topic is going no where and I'm tired of hearing the same crap over and over. You cannot argue with religious people because they have an 'answer' for everything despite overwhelming evidence and knowledge to the contrary.I have enough trouble with bible/koran/torah/tablet/etc bashing from people around me, people on tv and people coming to my door.I'm not gonna bother with this thread any more because it is pointless. You will never win against self-righteousness and the ability to use god as an 'answer' and excuse for everything.Get some integrity and stop relying on an external force to make you behave. Humans are perfectly capable of being good without co-dependence on an absent 'omnipresent' being who is happy to sit on it's a** and let the world suffer, all the while making out that people cause their own suffering (yes if I don't completely cover my body, I deserve to be raped - it's not god sitting back and letting me be raped, it's just that I'm a dirty sinful person or the toddler that was tortured and dropped into boiling water repeatedly deserved what it got cause god sure as hell didn't do anything to save it) Whatever! This whole thing is ridiculous.Stop making excuses and relying on other things to live you life. Get some integrity and self-belief! Love and life! - Live love and love life.(oh and I wouldn't bother making any specific addresses to me because I won't be reading them and I know I sound harsh but I am sick of going round and round in circles with people who switch their brains off when it comes to beliefs and morals)

Gees, this might sound weird but I feel really sorry for this guy. Yes, he's a complete loser and weirdo but I just can't imagine how sh*t he must feel being that his mum is obviously a control freak that tramples all over him and the whole school hates his guts. He must feel really, really lonely.

You can believe what you want, I deal in logic.I am one person out of billions and yet no other person has had exactly the same experiences as me. That makes me unique, as it does everyone else. I have come to my own truths based on my personal experience and knowledge. Last I looked, I was only one person with these experiences, knowledge and beliefs not a group of people (unless you are accusing me of Dissociative Identity Disorder). All my friends and those around me do not share those experiences, knowledge and beliefs - they are all individuals as well. Of course we share common morals and beliefs but that does not make those around me or those I know part of 'my' religion. Religion is shared and indoctrinated beliefs not commonality. If it only came down to having common beliefs there would be virtually only one religion in the world. Most people can agree on things like not killing, being kind to other people, prioritising love etc but that doesn't make them all of the some religion.Atheism is not a religion. It is a state - the state in which a person believes in nothing. Although given the term 'atheist' is somewhat of a philosophical term, it is naturally open to debate.As you said, it requires a group. And a group that agree on common beliefs etc. Once those things are agreed upon, it becomes indoctrinated and thus a religion.Of course you can argue this point till the cows come home but you are only arguing semantics.My point is and always has been, you do not *need* religion to be a good person. I am case in point of that fact.

I hardly think that violence is the answer either. It's just brainless and stupid not to mention the definition of torture is to inflict pain upon someone to illicit information or persuade them into doing what you want.You have to understand that if this person probably has amazingly bad self-esteem - here you are inflicting physical violence on him and yet he has so little self worth that he still stays with you. Of course I'm sure there is some inherent attachment psychology as well but my point is you are only making the situation worse.If you have tried talking or are unwilling to do so, the fastest way to solve your problem is to ignore and avoid him. And I mean completely ignore - as though he is not there. It will probably get worse before it gets better but it will work eventually.Of course given that your 'friend' obviously has self-esteem and attachment issues this would make things a lot worse for him. I've seen people like this before. They have nothing in their lives to make it worth living so they attach themselves to someone or something. When they lose that, they lose their point to living. It often ends up bad. If you want to fix this the right way then you'll need to find why he has these issues and build up his self esteem by making him feel like he is worth something (usually involving you being a good friend). You'd have to treat him like a child essentially - not talking down to him etc but making him feel good about himself, like he is in control, rewarding desirable behaviour and ignoring bad behaviour mostly through being a good role model.This is long winded and a pin in the a** I know but if you want to be happy and want to be a good person, this is pretty much the best way you can do it (short of fobbing him off on someone else to get attached to who can build up his self esteem etc which would still make him feel abandoned).

I agree. At that age, girls are REALLY sensitive. Girls still get upset at 20, 25, 30... when they get dumped like that. But I also agree that people are extremely annoying when they act like that.It sounds like she is overcompensating for the way she is feeling (low self esteem, unwanted, depressed etc). If you want to be a good friend, talk to her about it in a genuine way. Give her an outlet for her emotions. She will end up happier, she will appreciate you more and she will be a better friend to you for it.

From Wikipedia: I do understand what you mean and perhaps I have a religion in your opinion or perspective but I am not religious by common consensus which interestingly and ironically is part of what defines religion - common consensus.My point is and always has been that you don't need 'Religion' to be a good person or believe in God.

Wow, 21 pages and still going strong on this topic Nice to see you are taking a more restrained and informative approach to this topic But I have to disagree about people making about their minds being in religions. I'm not anything, I'm not atheist and nor am I religious. I have made up my own mind without other people dictating to me what they think I should believe. You have a point that being religious can make people 'nicer' however in the 'grand scheme' of things I think overall while individuals are capable of being nice the majority discriminate because of religion and harm others indirectly (like not helping others of differing beliefs) or directly (as is obvious with the current problems in places like Israel). I resent the idea of sinning and hell however, especially the concept of original sin. For one it is disgustingly sexist and is responsible for the murder and torture of millions of women. It is also ridiculous to say that a baby is sinful. To me the idea is ludicrous. It's just another 'rule' set in place by bureaucracy to wheedle people into doing the 'right' thing while marginalising certain groups. And the other thing is is that you don't need to be religious to be a good person. I believe strongly in being a kind and generous person, I like to 'pay it forward' as the saying goes. I always say "have a nice day" and genuinely mean it. I'm prolife. I believe that family is more important than work and having lots of money. I believe that all people are equal. That life is sacred. That love is one of the most important things in this world. That it is important that people have virtue and integrity etc etc etc. I am by no means religious. I respect that people can believe what they want to believe but I don't have to respect religion in and of itself. My six year old daughter chooses to believe in God (namely because one her friends at school inundates her with it) and I am very careful to respect that that is what she wants to believe in. But I also explain that people have a lot of different beliefs and that what is true for one person is different for another. I believe that she has the right to make up her own mind and if she chooses to be religious, it is her choice which religion that is. I'm not going to bias that by providing information on only one perspective as so many religions do. People are perfectly capable of holding themselves in check. Many religions make people believe they are weak and need a higher power to keep them in control which is just not true. More people need to believe in themselves.

Well, I don't know of how much use my opinion is as to the best as I have only played Runescape, Horizons and WoW. Horizons is a pitiful excuse for an MMORPG. I currently play World of Warcraft and whether it is actually better than others, I can't really say but 7 million people certainly seem to enjoy it and I am very definitely a fan!

Yes, what you experienced is certainly odd but as you said No offense to you but it sounds like a case of paranoia. And I don't mean that in the way most people think it these days. I mean clinical paranoia with hypervigilance. If you've throughout most of your life worried about these sorts of things or notice odd things like this a lot, it may pay to see a doctor. And I mean that with with the best intentions.I'm not saying you're a nutter. I fully believe what you said. What might be skewing things more to the negative may be your own perspective and self belief. Seriously, for your own sake, I would talk to someone.