The Lounge

I thought for any new members that we have, it might be nice to introduce yourself. feel free to do so here

whatever next! http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/looflirpa/igrill.shtml ROFLMFAO If I knew how to post a POLL I would... do you think we should have a jokes section in the forums?

What interesting fact or trivia did you learn today? For example, today I learned that a shamrock and four-leaf clover are not the same. It seems that shamrock describes a three-leaf clover and, as folklore has it, was used by St.Patrick as a religious totem. The four-leaf clover, which is not associated with St.Patrick, owes it's reputation for luck to its rarity. So, do you have something interesting to share?

You may have seen various acronyms used on the forums and wondered what they stood for. This non-exhaustive list is to clarify their meanings: IOW - in other words IMO - in my opinion IMHO - in my humble/honest opinion IIRC - if I remember correctly AFAIK - as far as I know ATM - at the moment (also "atinymonkey" on this site in particular) POV - point of view Please feel free to add relevant acronyms or query the meaning of any I have missed off.

I want to invite anyone in the Baltimore, MD area to come visit us for one of our weekly meetups. We get together to work on all things related to science and technology. We mostly focus on the technology portion right now but I would like to get more people who are interested in science to start hanging out with us as well. Visit http://baltimorehackerspace.com for more information. FYI, this is not some lame group of guys. We have mathematicians, robotic engineers, bio engineers, and more all hanging out together sharing ideas and working on projects. Together we can accomplish anything.

Welcome to SFN! In order to help people who are unfamiliar with internet forums, I have put together a small tutorial to expedite the development of the posting abilities of the forum as a whole especially the new members. SFN is a great place to talk about various subjects with an amazing community. We have a forum for just about anything related to science and we even have a forum to talk about non-science related things. Most of the forums are open to all users. However, some forums do have restrictions in order to minimize issues inherent in boards with such forums. Politics, Philosophy, Ethics, and Religion are all restricted to posters with a minimum of 30 pos…

OK. this thread is for haiku. if ur an ignorant person, who doesnt know anything about other cultures. then haiku is a form of japanese poem. of 17 syllables . partitioned into 5 - 7 - 5 syllables. ok ill will start. River flows dirty; Fish jumping, sun sets in west- Queen Fades away git.

I find myself studying the goldfish in my pool , and seeing how I stack up in the hirarcy of living things . In my immediate hirarcy , I am clearly ' Up Here ' and they are quite content to be ' down there' I feed them , battle off the foes like frogs . Feed them , count them , clean their water, plant water plants, reeds . We have a good relation. What I wonder is what if I think about the other way ? What is next above me , looking down ? Mike

I am so tired of seeing dating web sites that claim you will find "happiness". They should be taken off the Internet because dating is completely pointless. There is absolutely no sense in deciding that you want a boyfriend or girlfriend and then go "looking" for one. You will never find true happiness by dating. You must wait until you find the perfect person. You should find somebody with a great personality, and somebody who will really care about you forever. You must find someone who cares about you for who you really are, not who you can pretend to be. I am a guy, but I must say that the way most guys treat their girlfriends is just awful. They often c…

I have a fairly high stress, high pressure, cortisol and adrenaline stimulating job with big clients and big money and big expectations. Working out and exercise help, as does awesome craft beer, but I’ve recently begun to get into woodworking. There’s a certain zen about it. I’ve got zero experience and even fewer coaches / mentors available to me. Like me, my pops was a corp software guy who grew up in NYC, so I’ve been watching YouTube for a couple of weeks and doing a bunch of trial and error this past month or so. One of my goals is to avoid using screws and power tools when possible (except the table saw, but no routers, pocket hole jigs, etc.), so I’m s…

This is the Word Association Game. To play, you take the word mentioned before and post what it reminds you of or is similar to, like "explosives" to "emergency room". I'll start. Acid!

Just as a thought experiment lets say that on June 25th the Pentagon confirms that UAPs or UFOs are indeed crafts of some sort from another place driven by the little grey guys so often described as being their pilots. I am going to add a poll for the four possibilities that cover what is being reported by people who see and or interact with the crafts.

I like to keep mine relatively clean, with all my major downloads on the desktop. I have disabled all the effects in windows to maximise performance.

ok. so u say a word that rhymes with the last word said my the last poster. ur not allowed to post again until three unique pple post after you. ill start. Wanker [edit] ok. change of format now. we have to find a synonym for the word and write the word which rhymes with that word. [/edit]

Hey guys, I'm 25 years old and a virgin. I've also never dated and my contact with women has been little to none all my life. I recently started thinking about this, and from an evolutionary standpoint, this does not seem good to me. I figured I would try to figure out what the reason for this is, but I wanted to approach it 100% scientifically. What are some scientific reasons a guy may have gone his first 25 years without female interaction? Or without any interest from females at all? I thought the people here could help me figure it out. Thanks.

I just though I'd start a thread for what if's, someone posts a what if and then the next person answers the what if and posts their own and it so continues.... This may be interesting too see what ideas peopel come up with! I'll start: What if the meteor that hit the Earth 65,000,000 years ago did not hit? Cheers, Ryan Jones

I'll be using this thread to post stories about driving around in my 2001 Mustang GT MT. Story 1: Road Rage I was driving up to Sarasota, I'm in the left lane stuck behind traffic doing 10 under the speed limit. A stretch in the right lane opens up, so I shift into it. No sooner than I get fully in the lane and pull past the first car, someone cuts me off to the point where I have to really slam on the brakes hard. My mother is in the car with me, and immediately starts warning me about saying anything to this cretinous jackass. So I shift back into the left lane and go around him, and as I'm passing, I stay true to my word and don't say anything, just giving him the…

Without OBVIOUS evidence ? We are constantly looking for evidence of other life existing in nearby or further away places. What happens if there indeed is further life forms , superior to the human race , far more developed , with skills both technically and intellectually far superior to us , who are " as we speak " , observing our human civilization , together with its current handling of the finite resources on our planet. Should they make their presence known, keep secret , Or what . That is of course IF THEY EXIST ? How could we find out , IF in fact they exist, and if so , have they anything to say? Forget 'Bug eyed monsters ' I a…

I start by declaring my political stance on guns. I am in favour of much stricter gun control. I am a non American, but have visited the USA several times. I find myself tensing when in public due to my knowledge that guns, and especially hand-guns are in wide use among members of the public. In today's local newspaper is a small article quoting American sources, and relating to hand-guns. Here are some facts they report. 1. According to Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, of all deaths from fire-arms in 2005, suicides accounted for 55%. Homicides 40%. Accidents 3%. 'Legal' killings 2% (such as police shooting someone.) Hand-guns are over-r…

Just out of curiosity what type of music fo you guys/gals like? I find all to often 'popular' music is what the record companies tell us to be popular and rarely reflects intelligent people choice in aural enjoyment. Personally I am a big fan of Breakbeat(also sometimes called Nu-skool) which is basically electronic music built around a syncopated or 'broken' beat (see Freestylers, Stanton Warriors, Rennie Pilgrem etc.). I like a fair bit of Drum and Bass also (Aphrodite and the like). Nothing like phat worbling bass with crazy drum loops to sooth the soul.

I would like to create a little room here for the wonderfully unexpected, beautiful,... (add your adjective) in Nature. Unexpected and/or beautiful could be interpreted as curious/spectacular, or similar. I mean to use these examples in order to keep the kids interested in Nature. The youngest ones get bored very easily. Examples could be: a rare animal, plant or protist, an almost unbelievably beautiful geological phenomenon, an amazingly complicated molecule that looks like a tinker-toy assembly, spectacular phenomena in water eddies and such. You get the idea. My getting-started examples: Glasswinged butterfly A family of butterflies that eat …

Yep that's right, just for you, all the little fun things that people say that you who don't use the chatroom miss out on...

Dawkins has a new television program out, called "The Enemies of Reason". He attacks new agers, charlatans, and other purveyors of pseudoscience: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8669488783707640763 (note: this is a legitimate Channel 4 release on Google Video. It has been uploaded by the original content creator and is therefore not pirated)

On every science board and physics-related video comments section, there is invariably a plethora of crackpots willing to endlessly spew their personal brand of buzzword-salad. They usually have virtually no math, physics, or even general science knowledge. They usually think they're smarter than everyone else. Attempting to correct them is like arguing with a wall. And they're always talking about physics. If there's crackpottery around, you can bet it's physics-related. But why is this? My guess would be that some of it is because of popsci books and documentaries that romanticize "the elusive quest for the theory of everything." That would explain the people who se…