The Lounge

Here's something I'd like to start doing. Everyday I will post a discussion in which we discuss and share opinions on important figures of past and present. Today's person is Che Guevara, what do you think of him? Che Guevara was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat, military theorist, and major figure of the Cuban Revolution. He traveled the world to preach communism to whom he believed to be oppressed peoples. He was captured and later executed in Bolivia by a joint CIA-Bolivian task force. After his death, he became an international symbol of communism. What are your thoughts on Che Guevera, his life, his works…

I think that cell phones shouldn't be banned for truck and bus drivers. I don't think we should descriminate against someone just because they drive a truck. However, I believe that the trucking companies should be allowed to decide whether or not they want to permit their truckers to use cell phones while driving or not.

He shouldn't have been going through his wife's e-mail, but in my opinion this should be more of a moral problem than a criminal problem. In other words, he was in the wrong, but he shouldn't go to jail or go to court over something so stupid.

What are the benefits of having citizenship in multiple nations? Is it in anyway a bad thing? Overall does everyone thing it's a good thing to have? Do you want to have multiple citizenships?

An interesting post from Facebook's staff on Thursday shows statistics on user posts. Facebook looked at about 1 million English-language status updates, filtering them against a collection of 68 keywords and then correlating the data against two factors: User age, and number of friends. This graphic shows the results: Facebook's assessment: Also, I thought this bit was interesting: Makes sense, right? You might have to take a look at some samples to check your algorithm, but you could have the computer remove the names of the samples you pull, so the data stays private. I think it's interesting to see this kind of work being don…

I just got randomly curious, and am wondering whether coca-cola can rot or spoil (when still pressurized inside its container). From what I hear its some pretty nasty stuff and I'm wondering whether anything can live in it. And has anyone ever had some laying around for a long time that they think is spoiled?

NORAD Tracks Santa Update http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2008/norad_santa.html

I don't know who's worse, the terrorists or the dad. I think there are a thousand other ways the father could have handled the situation, all of which would have been better than murdering his own daughter. What do you think of this? Is the father a hero, a villain, or just misunderstood?

Most people in the world disapprove of the concept of school uniforms existing in public schools, despite this, a few individuals (primarily lower-class individuals living in England) approve of the concept. So let's just take a moment and look at the pros and cons of school uniforms. Why school uniforms shouldn't ever exist in public schools: -Students work better when they are able to choose their own attire. -This is one thing that separates public schools from private schools, since private (often religious) schools have them, and public schools don't. If you want your son/daughter to wear a uniform, you send them to a private school, if not, then don't. …

I have a bengal kitten who loves to lounge in high places. I've thought about getting a cat tree, but I really don't find them aesthetically appealing at all. I was wondering if it's possible to plant an indoor tree that is nontoxic to cats and also strong and durable enough for him to lounge in/climb. Does that even exist? He will be about 15-20lbs so it will need to have strong branches. Also, the easier it is to take care of, the better.

I was six years old when I had my best ever Christmas gift. At a few times in my life, I have had nothing. Absolutely nothing. Barely enough to get by on. This was one of those occasions. My father's business had collapsed and the cupboards in the kitchen were getting bare. My mother warned me that there was going to be less food and I did not expect much from Christmas that year. On Christmas day, we had a Christmas tree that had seen better days. Some cheap Christmas lights brought some relief to the grim walls. I woke up without expectation but my mother smiled at me that day, her face revealing lines of sacrifice and ageing before her years. She pointed a…

In my ever constant search, as of yet still not as successful as I would hope, to find my peeps I recently spent some time on some Freenode.net IRC channels. I loaded ##C++, ##C++-social, #Haskel, #Robotics, #physics, #math, #not-math and so on and frequented them for the better part of the last two months. I asked a few questions in #math revolving around first order logic and maybe two questions in ##C++ and whether or not there were any suggested reads from the #robotics club on rubber type EAPs. For the most part I either knew everything about a topic of discussion or nothing and me being a bit clumsy I avoided answering anything that I did know and just kept on ey…

The SFN chat room is a great place to get quick answers for questions. Usually there are several of us in the chat room at any given time. This is an under used feature of these boards and we would like it if some of you new users gave it a shot. There are three ways to get chatting to us, the simple(but not very good way), the slightly more complicated way(but useful and more feature rich way) and the way for those who are blocked by schools or work. Seeing as most of you will just be wanting to ask a quick question and probably not be on that often the simple way will be the best for you. 1/ The Simple Way Click "Chat" on the bar at the top of this page …

I am Ludwik Kowalski, a retired nuclear physicist. Wikipedia will show you the link to my publications, etc.

I'm watching Apocalypto (directed by Mel Gibson) now and it seems pretty barbaric/violent/savage. At least with how its depicted, shown and portrayed. This has got me wondering, what exactly is the most barbaric society/civilisation which as ever lived/existed?

Im kind of new to science. But I've been playing guitar off and on for thirtyish years. Im just curios if there are others.

When you look at a clock and its hands are turning to the right you say this is clockwise. From the clock's perspective though, its hands are turning counterclockwise. Why?

Here's the list of most amazing natural phenomenon in the world. As We know, There's a lot of natural phenomenon happen around us. But I guess We're sometime still says that some natural phenomenons is amazing. So here's the natural phenomenon happen around the world and I guess You will say It's the most amazing natural phenomenon around the world. 10. Ice Circles Ice circle is extremely rare phenomenon happen in cold water. The great circle can be found in Scandinavian and North America, and the latest one happen in the UK, in January 2009. Ice Circles 9. Red Tides A natural phenomena occurs because gathering of microorganisms in the coastal area fro…

I'm interested in non-religious criticisms of evolution theory. I welcome comments to my initial post in the Speculation forum: http://bit.ly/hjuS1T

Is it hard to become one? Would it be easy if you constantly travelled overseas to different countries? I'm interested in learning Mandarin, Arabic and pretty much the other major languages spoken in Asia (e.g. Russian, Japanese, Korean). I am already conversational in Indonesian. Though I learnt Indonesian by accident while living in Indonesia while I was younger. I have no interest in Indonesian and I think it more of as an extension of English due to the large similarities. I also have no interest in learning European languages as these are all predominantly similar to English and less interesting as well. I am considering learning Mandarin next year, maybe at uni…

What football team do you guys support. By football I mean soccer for our American friends. I support Watford.

The mystery religions of the Ancient World all claimed to transmit some secret knowledge of the nature of the universe to their initiates, and in the late 16th and early 17th centuries the interest in secret organizations able to impart esoteric knowledge to their members revived with such groups as the Freemasons and the Rosicrucians. It seems probable to me that estoeric knowledge of any value could not remain secret for long, since some initiates of any group privy to it would seek to profit from using or revealing their knowledge in the public sphere. But I'm just wondering, does anyone know of any secret societies in existence today which in fact do have esote…

So I've recently thought of something unusual that happens to me when I try to bring up a mental picture of someone. I can usually get a pretty good idea of what they look like if I know them very well, but if I think about an actual picture of them on facebook or something, I can get a much more vivid picture. I can see details a lot more clearly. Is there any explanation for this discrepancy in clarity? Has anyone else experienced this? Also, I put this in The Lounge because I didn't know where to put it. If a mod has a better idea of what category this falls into, I would be thankful for them moving it for me.

Right. Winter break is coming. It's a month long. I have a few books to read, a few things to fix on SFN, a poetry generator to fix up, but nothing that'll occupy me full time for the entire break. So. What should I do? Give me a: Book to read Thingy to build Hobby to start Program to program Book to write I have limited access to transportation (family car) and a small budget. Make a suggestion and have the satisfaction of knowing you've determined how I stave off boredom-inspired insanity!

A fantastic Diagram be David mcCandless, putting all the billions of dollars spent on this and that into beautiful perspective. It really gives you an idea of how much things cost relative to each other. Enjoy