The Lounge

I just started a new website. http://www.InternationalDiscussionForums.net. It's a site for people of all sorts to talk of things of all sorts. I'm looking for the best forum software available, commercial anyhow. Because from the looks of it, free software does not give me the functionability of a commercial message board like IPB or Vbulletin. Please tell me which one you think is the best one, why, and why the latter isn't. Thanks, your help is really appreciated.

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So in the second semester of this year at uni i'll either be on an industrial placement or a research project. i'm hoping(and expecting) that i'll get an industrial placement. one of the two options i selected, i commute to from home. the other is in newcastle upon tyne(what the hell is it with the english and these weird names). so, anyone know what its like down there? only time i ever see it mentioned is when there's been a spate of murders or something.

As I was thinking about going for a greasy kebab I started wondering how healthily do SFN users live? Since this is a very broad topic I was thinking of having the main focus on dietary habits with a touch of recreational... substances. Personally, I probably drink less alcohol than I literally burn (ethanol and boric acid makes for a neat green flame). I think I last had a drink like 3 months ago. I don't smoke, and have never done any recreational drugs. I do eat quite a bit of fast food (burgers, pizza or such usually around three times a week) and drink around a liter of soft drinks a day. And as mentioned in another thread I should really exercise more. So, …

http://gizmodo.com/5370752/the-boy-who-harnessed-the-wind-persistence-jury+rigging-and-ingenuity-against-all-odds It's a story about a Malawian kid that was kicked out of school because he couldn't afford the $80/yr, but found a book at the library covering windmills, and at 14 not only did he decided to build one (as his village had no electricity) but he pulled it off with junkyard parts and successfully was able to run lights, radios and pumps etc that greatly impacted his life. The video in there is well worth the watch, it's a very inspirational story. Man I love science! When we have all sorts of books so accessible on every topic and especially the intern…

Post your favorite one-liners. I know we already have a joke thread, but I think one-liners deserve one of their own. So here it goes: No+Rohypnol = Yes. My girlfriend is a porn star. She'll be so p*ssed off when she finds out. Your turn.

hello my friends i am new i hope that i will know new things here and meet some good persons

I ran across this and found it rather fascinating: http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/17-10/mf_deadhand?currentPage=1 It details an amazing doomsday mechanism created in the USSR designed to automatically detect a full nuclear attack on Russia and transfer launch authorization directly to whomever was stationed at the underground bunkers with minimal safeguards to ensure a counter attack. It is called "Perimeter" or aka "Dead Hand" to ensure a full scale counter strike even if a successful preemptive strike took the USSR completely by surprise. Unlike most "doomsday mechanisms" it was not publicized and made part of the MAD (we want you to know y…

Hello! Depressing klooper appropriate for my english jer, buti plumb nice re say gJ$)Kd!!!.

As a regular patron of some dire PowerPoint presentations, I'm looking to avoid the same mistakes. It's rare that I've ever witnessed a presentation that was genuinely enjoyable and fun to listen to. Even ones with promising beginnings usually 'sink' in the middle with bogged-down details. In a few weeks I have to do a 10-15 minute PowerPoint presentation to a panel, and I really want to make it excellent. Aside from the problems which dog every presentation (keeping the audience interested, making it understandable, etc.) it has the added difficulty of being presented to some non-scientists. So it'll be a mixed audience of scientists, businessmen and others. None…

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0974014/ I wasn't aware of this until I saw a trailer this morning. It's looks visually pretty impressive - what do you guys think?

Twitter, that brilliant marriage of self-absortion and short attention spans, is now valued at $1 billion, quadrupled since February, despite having a revenue of exactly $0 and no (public) plan to raise that number. There's no possible way this isn't a sound investment. (Also: Is it 1999?)

Does anybody here know of a program (doesn't necessarily have to be freeware) that would allow me to compose music on my PC (not Mac)? But I'm looking for something along the lines of GarageBand, which can make "real" music (piano, guitar, etc.). On second though, if you do know of a good "unreal" music maker, post the name as well...but I'm primarily looking for a "real" music player. Thanks. EDIT: I just found out about Overture, but I'm not sure if it also plays back music, or if it's just for writing. They also have something called "Garritan Personal Orchestra", but I'm not sure if that's a program or just a big collection of samples.

http://www.chooseveg.com/animal-cruelty.asp?gclid=CIrS89aL-ZwCFU8M2godJgmJaQ Now before I present my argument on this, I want you to watch this video. Do you agree with what the creators have intended to claim? Yay or Nay? And why? Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedSince there seems to be no early takers I will propose my case against the agenda behind the video: Which is encouragement of people to practice vegetarianism solely on the basis that cruelty and pain are experienced by the animals used for meat production. And that somehow eating meat is morally wrong. There was also a statement on the website that suggested that compassionate pe…

Hi, I recently managed to stumble across what is in my opinion a very funny game. It' called Forum Warz (http://forumwarz.com/) and it's a browser-based MMO parodying internet culture (with focus on trolling). However, because of the subject matter the game can be very NSFW (no pornography though). It's a game intended to be played a little every day so there are limits in place to prevent you from beating it all in one day. However, it's a great way to kill time. Even if you're not a huge fan of the game, one of it's multiplayer mini-games is incredible. It's called INCIT (http://www.forumwarz.com/incit) and basically you get to are presented with a rando…

Have you guys had this happen on your campuses? It's a thing they've started doing on our campus following in the "spiritual footsteps" of Randy Pausch and his famous "last lecture" before he died of cancer. What's really unfortunate, at least in my opinion, is that a lot of the lectures are posed as religious (or at least "spiritual") in nature. The lecture series on our campus is sponsored by the campus' "spiritual life" club. In fairness, they're still mainly focused on personal achievement and goal-setting, which I think is a good thing to talk to college students about in general. But it raises some real questions in my mind about the seemingly alleged supe…

What's wrong with it? How can we make it better? [acr=In My Opinion]IMO[/acr], it needs some radical overhaul. We aren't teaching the kids the right things and we aren't teaching them effectively. We're teaching them general "facts"(some of which, like in the History department, are untrue) when we should be teaching them how to think and how to effectively communicate that thought. I remember sitting through my math classes and physics classes bored stiff. Is the subject matter inherently boring? No. I think it is the way that the subjects are taught. Take physics, for example, we were spoon fed equations for specific problems. We memorized dozens of equations pe…

Has anyone heard of BioConference Live? Curious to see this new Life Science virtual conference. Has anyone attended a virtual conference before? Pros and cons? http://bioconferencelive.com/ I like the fact that it's free and there is no travel required. Seem to have a great agenda and speakers.

I have recently been trying to lose a little weight and generally become a little healthier. I have cut down my food intake, am being very careful with the sort of things I eat (lots of fruit and veg, very little fat etc) and I am going to the gym regularly. I started off at 98kg and after a little under a month I am down to 92kg. Initially my target weight was 85kg, which I though seemed pretty reasonable. Anyway, my wife suggested that I should check my Body Mass Index to find my ideal weight. This is calculated according to: [math] BMI = \frac{W}{h^2}[/math] where [math]W[/math] is your weight and [math]h[/math] is your height, both in SI units (kilogra…

This question is purely one of interest, but I'm wondering, what do YOU think would be the moral, scientific, philosophical implications if extraterrestrial life as simple as bacteria, were to be discovered beyond Earth? On an alternative note, I'm wondering, why is it that we humans have such an intense fascination of discovering extraterrestrial life (outside of the wierd E.T.- esque romanticism) in the first place? Any thoughts guys?

Hey everyone, For my unversity degree major project for psychology I need to collect a lot of data. I am finding it difficult to get the amount I need so i thought i might be able to get some here. It is an online survey and won't take long to complete. Any help is well appreciated. Here is survey

Some people say that if U-Bomb would not have been discovered, ww2 would have last maybe 20 years more ??

Just wanted to say hello all. This is my first post. I hope to learn a lot here.

A stupid question I know, you can't have a time machine but its always fun to think anyway! Where would you go and why? I would go right back to the start, see how the universe started. What better thing is there? Cheers, Ryan Jones

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2009/09/i_will_not_read.php?page=2 Despite the R-rating (language, rather than nudity) in the article, I thought it was interesting, and some application to SFN, especially so in the Speculations forum. Just substitute "hypothesis" for "script." An underlying theme to a lot of threads there is the seeming lack of recognition by the poster (most no longer with us, for various reasons) that the many users who post here regularly are giving the benefit of their expertise. This takes time and effort; I know I have gotten some in-thread comments, PMs and reputation comments thanking me for answering physics questions, …