killerbichon

NEVER LET THE INTERNET KNOW WHO YOU ARE.

An Atari 800. I used it to program BASIC for the first time ever and it basically changed my life. I have a great job, a great house, and a pretty good life thanks to my interest in computers.

Most people don't take a historical perspective on religion. If they did they would realize how silly all of this is. Most people don't realize that Judaism and Christianity didn't separate until around 53AD at the first ecumenical council. Most people don't realize that Islam didn't separate itself from either Judaism or Christianity until around 622 when Muhammad fled to Medina. All 3 religions use the Old Testament, Christianity has added the New Testament, and Islam has added the Qumran. People need to feel superior (why spend all that time effort and money on one religion if it isn't better than all the others?). If there is no clear, irrefutable evidence whey they are better, they will make it up at the expense of those against whom they need to feel superior. Do this long enough and it becomes doctrine. http://xkcd.com/154/

You might as well be against agriculture. Pre-historic man was tribal and nomadic. As we began to not die as often, we discovered we could grow plants where we wanted and not go out and find them randomly. The better we got at that, the more of us in one place we were and the more free time we had. When groups of people get together they begin to arrange themsleves in hierarchies. Like in high school for instance. The more institutionalized these hierarchies become, and the more dependent people become on controlling natural processes, the more likely religion is to arise. Egypt, the Aztechs, Rome, Greece, almost every society that arises hits a point where religion enters in, in a big way. The exception was the mongols (Ghengis Khan). They sort of became the managers of many religious societies and maintained a separate, more aloof clan structure on top of these. Mazlow's hierarchy of needs talks about this, essentially: the more successful you are at surviving, the more free time you have to devote to non-survival activities like introspective thought. We are a curious species and we tend to want to know "why." Religion is the ultimate "why" Q&A session. Whether it is right or wrong doesn't matter. Science does not offer a moral framework. A purely logical or scientific society would be devoid of compassion. Take for example the idea that we should kill all people with mental disabilities, becuase it is better for the species. A simple scientific study on genetics and inheritance could make a strong argument for this. The problem is if you go too far in that direction you begin to sound like the Nazi's did. What is right and wrong, often cannot be empirically tested. What cannot be empirically tested is not science. People discriminate. Religion does not create discrimination, it is just another excuse people use to discriminate. "Discrimination" is important... not the "bad" kind where one race has to be better than another, but the "good" kind where people can evaluate situations and solutions and determine if one is better than another. That some people are not very good at this and inappropriately apply discrimination to things like race, creed, or color is just a product of this natural need to place ourselves in hierarchies, determine right from wrong, who is "better" and "worse" and so on. It is difficult to say if we would be better or worse without religion. It is safe to say that the more that societies freely exchange ideas (not at the point of a gun) the more peace and prosperity there is. It may be that religion has been a necessary stepping stone to a higher, more civilized existance.

First of all, dragons did not exist. People that go on and on about this are more than a little creepy. As for ice breath, if you let the air out of a tire, it gets frosty. If a creature could compress air and force it out then I could see it being "icy" but we are talking about something that is physically impossible with life as we know it. The other option would be something like the endothermic reaction that occurs in those instant ice packs, but either way ultimate we are making ice breath for what? For the purposes of making their prey cold? Not a real winner for getting a leg up as a species.

Be confident in yourself. You are asking them out because you know how to have fun and you want to share that with them. If they don't want to have fun with you, it is their loss.Be clean. Shave, cut your hair, wash everywhere often, not much cologne (if any).And try some solid, honest approaches like: "You seem like a fun person, would you like to get a coffee sometime?" or "I am going to the movies, would you like to come?"It is ok to have a "line" if for no other reason than you will be able to practice it and sound confident. It can't be a stupid line though.If they reject you (and they will, often, no worries) then say "If you change your mind, here is my number... I would love to hear from you sometime" or a similarly self-confident, non embarassed statement which makes it clear that you are not devistated by the results.The more confident you are, the less attractive/rich you have to be. Being rich and attractive helps, but unlike men, women are more into substance than looks. Crazy I know.

Find a reliable retailer, I like Newegg (http://www.newegg.com/). You will need to buy: A GROUNDING STRAP (no, I am not kidding... why risk killing your $400 dollar video card because you wore the wrong sweater?) A case (with a 300w or larger power supply) A Floppy Drive (or get a USB one) A motherboard RAM compatible with the above A hard drive A video card A DVD burner (They are 30 bucks... why wouldn't you?) It is harder to put legos together than a computer. Really. The only real challenge is screwing the motherboard into the case, but a quick examination of where the holes for the screws are and the standoffs on the case are and it should be pretty obvious. The second challenge is plugging the power supply into the motherboard. It used to be possible to put them on motherboards incorrectly and fry them... now the power leads are keyed so there is only one way to do it. Hard drives are installed board down (though I doubt it matters much anymore) Go slow, don't force anything, use a grounding strap (to dissipate static) and it is easy. You can put together a computer in 45 minutes and save yourself a couple of hundred bucks.

This is a sophmoric line of thought.We are just as "Natural" as anything that as ever drawn breath on this planet. Our behaviors are the products of natural processes and we are less cruel than almost any other apex predator out there. Consider yeast, which eats sugar and makes alcohol... until it makes so much alcohol that it kills itself off. Perhaps there are yeast cells which complain, hold up signs about the end being nigh, and try and get the others to quit eating and excreting alcohol... but what good would it do?As for cruelty, we are living in a period of absolutely unprecedented peace and stability in the history of our species. Fewer people die today of disease, warfare, violent crime, and any other measure you can think of than has ever been the case, ever. There is so much food on the planet that obesity is now a problem. Not just in the US, places like South Africa (Where 40% of the black female population is now considered obese). Thanks to the interet, more people, from more diverse backgrounds than ever, are talking, sharing, and in general coming to common understandings thanever before.Most of the time I hear someone say this, I just roll my eyes and think "That person needs to get laid more often."

Its tough, but the best thing for your friend these first few relationships is to get used to heartbreak: Both recieving it and giving it. As long as they don't do anything foolish like get pregnant, get raped, catch an STD, or in some other get in to some other sort of life altering trouble, this is good practice.They shouldn't take anything too seriously until later in life.

Sex for men and women is very different. For men, it is a physical activity that is fun, feels great, and we would do with anyone and everyone we could if societal rules would allow that. For women, sex is a deeply emotional act that is filled with intimacy and is best shared with someone that they love and (even if only hypothetically) would want to have children with.There is kind of a sliding spectrum (no pun intended) there between the very casual and very emotional and men and women will almost always find themselves on opposite sides.In otherwords, if you are lucky enough to find a willing partner, you will be ready to have an orgasm, but she probably has emotional strings she wants to attach to everything.Don't kid yourself into believing that you can just have sex and la-dee-da thats it. The younger you are, the more unprepared you are to deal with the strong emotions and intimacy that sex will instantly create between two people. The more you have sex and deny the feelings that accompany the physical act, the more likely you are to deaden yourself to these feelings... and at that point the real joy of sex (sharing intimacy with someone you love and are committed to) becomes devalued to the point of worthless.My advice: not that anyone 13 years old who wants to have sex will listen, is avoid the messiness that sex brings with it for a few years. Get into a relationship that means something to you, and then when you have more information than you do now, make a more informed decision.

DC++ is not a programming tool, it is a P2P file sharing tool.GCC however is an excellent programming compiler for CShareaza is another good P2P that connects to eDonkey, Gnutella (1 and 2) and bittorrents. It is open source and adware free too which is nice.OpenOffice is really great.

Anti-Virus: F-Prot from FSIAnti-Spyware: Ewido and SpybotFirewall: Hardware+Linux based iptables

There is a double standard that is inherent in society when it comes to how men and women are percieved when it comes to sex. This is mostly due to the fact that women have a higher degree of responsibility placed on them biologically when they become pregnant. Men don't have to carry a baby to term or breastfeed it afterwards. As a result, women (from an evolutionary standpoint) have had more "home-centric" existances while men have had more outward facing roles (hunting, warfare, trading etc.)That a double standard where male "playas" are celebrated and women who are not faithful are regarded as "sl*ts" or worse is not surprising in this context. 200,000 years of surviving as a species tends to get us stuck in a rut.If you want to avoid the drama, just have emotionally mature relationships with a partner who values you and you will be amazed at the results. If you are going to be casual, "play" around, and then get burned... what you give is what you get.

Use an external USB Hard drive that is somewhat larger than the hard drive on your computer. Then just copy the files you want saved.If you really want to go all out, use some backup software and make an image of your live system. Then if you have a total failure, you can restore and reboot.It is hard to beat an 8.1GB dual layer DVD for pictures and documents. Newegg has recorders for 30 bucks, the discs are like $1-3 depending on how many you buy, and you can take the disc to your bank and put it in a safe deposit box.If you are paranoid, you can make encrypted DVD's with a piece of open source software like TrueCrypt (sourceforge.net has it).

The most stressful time for an electronic component is when it goes from "off" to "on." Most components are over-engineered for this though so it isn't really an issue. If a component is about to go though, it will most likely happen right after it has been turned on... not days or years later. It is more expensive to leave a computer on, but just because you have a 450w power supply does not mean that you are burning the same juice as a high powered spotlight of the same wattage. The idle current on a computer is quite low and its consumption is measured in pennies per day.

It hardly matters what brand of computer you buy. If you get a >2Ghz processor, a high end ATI card, 2GB of RAM and a fast SATA II hard drive (or ideally 3-4 fast SATA Drives in a RAID0 array) and put it in a shoe box with a power supply, you will blow the doors off of most "Brand name" computers. The brands buy components in bulk and often these are not the top of the line in any given category.Alienware tends to have higher end/performance spec'd units but they are 20-50% more expensive than they should be.IMHO