The Lounge

So, Daniel Dennett and some other EDGE people attending an Evolution conference were sitting around, and Paris Hilton showed up... http://edge.org/ (Yes, that sounds like the set up for a bad joke, but it actually happened) Too bad big thinkers can't be superstars...

Yesterday during my 3ds Max class, someone next to me was[i don't think they were in the class; it's a VERY relaxed environment ] was doing this Rubik's Cube like flash game. It's pretty sweet. Check it out, it's called 3DLogic And speaking of Rubik's Cube, that really got me into puzzle games[i'm trying to expand my mind so I can be a better programmer:D], so I think I'm giong to get a Rubik's Cube soon. I guess it was a fad a few years back, still looks fun. Any of you play with Rubik's Cubes?

Hi everyone, I'm looking for a few good books on tribal societies and culture. Specifically, I'm looking for something on African tribes and South American tribes - one book for each would be preferable. I'm looking for something as broad as possible - culture, arts, religions, politics, social dynamics, ecology, etc. Anybody know any good books?

Yeah, we really kind of jacked up the whole planet didn't we. Oh well, me likey. How about you?

I don't know what this is supposed to proove.... I am just interested in the results this poll will provide.

Hey all, I went through a very rough time recently. Mostly becaouse of stereotyping and people spreading rumors. This was not a highschool scale problem, it could have had a huge impact on my life. However, justice came through, even if some people did not. So I feel like talking about opinions, stereotypes and their infliuence on sociaty. Please leave your 2c as I feel it is an important topic. Forming an option about someone should be a careful and rational procedure. It is often too easy to assume or borrow opinions from others. However, assuming and stereotyping are rarely reflections of reality. How do you know that person said that? How do you know he did th…

I hope i'm not being presumptuous but i assume in a science forum i won't have to explain what it means. Personally I like 'how many roads must a man walk down' ***Discuss***

Over the past... however many weeks it has been since school started, I have grown increasingly frustrated by my government class. It is an AP course (AP U.S. and Comparative Government, for those of you residing outside of the States) and should be university-level education. However, the class reminds me more of grade school than uni. We constantly do nothing in the class. We continually do projects that teach us nothing and allow us to fake doing work. In the past... two months I don't believe I have learned a single thing in that class. In fact, the teacher has made progress in dumbing us down - she encourages 5-paragraph essay format, which is heralded by o…

Couldn't find anything through google (that specifically answers this) for some reason, very simple question, my red savina chili plant has been flowering for nearly two weeks now, does anybody know when it'll start bearing chilies...yes, I'm being impatient.

I'm looking for a good name for a website that debunks various pseudoscientific claims. Any ideas? Thanks.

Woohoo!!! i have to write this fast because the power could go out any second. anyway we have a ton of snow and the power is out everywhere. trees are falling, its amazing. YAY MOTHER NATURE!!!!

Well, at least those of you over eighteen and 110 pounds. Would you make an appointment to donate blood platelets tomorrow? And while you're donating, would you please seriously consider registering as a stem cell/bone marrow donor. Donating platelets takes a bit longer than giving blood, and it can feel a little weird, but it's worth it. And they can get stem cells from your blood, so they don't have to drill holes in your bones. Here are a couple of URLs for the U.S. http://www.givelife2.org/donor/apheresis.asp#top%20idtop http://www.marrow.org/cgi-bin/NETWORK/all_center.pl?ctr_typ=DC&sort_order=ctr_st You will save a life. If you are o…

...is now hanging on my wall. Seurat's Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte: (and ugh, this scan can't come close to doing it justice) This painting embodies Seurat's disdain for the haphazard approach of the Impressionists and the crowning achievement of pointilism/neo-Impressionism. Seurat discarded the whimsical approach to color used by the Impressionists and sought out scientific and biological color theories when developing his pointilist technique. The painting appears as splotches of contrasting colors up close, but from a distance blends into a beautiful, vibrant whole. To me the painting represents the abandoment of a haphazar…

Say, why does it seem that when I exorcise I also snack less? I would assume exorise would encourage me to eat more to gain energy.

I'm not an expert on the economy, but I've heard from many sources that the United States economy could be heading in the wrong direction. In the US, we import a much greater value of goods and services than we can export. The latest statistics from the US Census Bureau show that the US economy had a total international trade deficit of $68 billion in the month of July 2006, and that number is increasing each month. You can visit http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/ to see the value of goods that the United States is trading with each country. The US used to have profitable trade with other developed nations, such as the UK. However, now it seems that the …

Today we passed 300,000 posts! congratulations Blike (SFN owner), Dave (admin), and everybody. Especially congratulations to people who have had ideas for some really intriguing provocative threads, which people liked to discuss about. At the risk of being unfair, I will mention a couple of people who have had some interesting ideas that have stimulated discussion. Bascule, IMM are two that come to mind. but then there are obvious other devisers of lively threads and i don't want to get into a long list, so apologies to Pangloss and other worthy thread-wrights. =============== well, does anyone have ideas about what sorts of discussion contribute to a liv…

am i the only one?

The web site facebook.com really annoys me! I've heard that it is similar to MySpace, but it won't let me view anyone's profiles. They actually expect me to give them my information before I can even view the site. Isn't that ridiculous? I sent them an e-mail saying they should visit MySpace because they obviously have no clue on how to setup a web site.

Latly I've been feeling a bit nostagic and have been trying to search the internet for old firends. One person I have been looking for graduated when I was a sophmore in high school and I thought went to UMaine like me. However whne I came here I did not find her, either physicaly or in the directory. I know that her family moved to North Carolina half a year after she graduated. How might I be able to find this old firend?

Ok, for those of you who've known me for the past year and a half, you probably already know that my husband and I divorced because we just werent in love anymore. I worked nights, he worked days, and we only ever saw each other for 2 hours at the most in a day, and usually one of us was tired and wanted to sleep... and it was like that for almost 4 years. Then he said, "are we still in love", and I said I didnt know, and he said "thats not really a yes is it?", and so we parted ways peacefully. And so for the last year, I've been using online dating services, because its really hard to meet vegetarians and vegans in the real world, so I put aside at least one night a wee…

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/daniel_davies/2006/10/faking_the_physics.html Harry Collins, a sociologist, managed to convince a panel of physicsts that he knew more about gravity waves than a gravity wave physicist. From the article:

I just noticed this book is number three bestseller (all types of books) at US amazon. http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/ref=pd_ts_b_ldr/103-6432418-0205431 1. State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III by Bob Woodward 2. a self-help book 3. Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris 4. a diet book 5. a success book ... ... (and so on) ================== It is probably significant what kind of book this Sam Harris is. Has anyone read it? I think it matters that it is selling a huge number of copies. excuse my being so quantitative:-) I'll get some review comment to help characterize the book

Glad to see a skeptical take on the peak oil issue: http://www.reason.com/0605/fe.rb.peak.shtml

No, not last call... I mean, what's with the coloured bars under users' sig lines? And how can I get one? It must be the longest. And the prettiest.

Hey everyone, I am exceptionally excited right now - my business partner and I launched our first fully automated internet based service website Its for graphic designers and basically lets people build presentations online and CD-ROMs easily, and its really exciting but I don't want to post the URL in case I'd be breaking spam rules. I am not trying to push it here of course I just want to do a little happy-dance and share a really cool milestone that I got to experience. Would it be in bad taste to share the URL so people could look at it?