Treasure Where? I GET IT!

I think we could use him, he has kids so he's home a lot and he probably has a good connection. My guess is he's a solid poster. Does he know that if he plays there's a good chance of him getting skull fucked?

I agree we fucked up, but come on thats how it should have worked. Orcus wanted to get us. Maybe he owes us for falling for his pathetic plan allowing him to save face with the other evil gods? I even said that I didn't think that we were in Grito and that we were prolly on that plane where the gods fight, but ya know I did what I did, and got skull fucked by a mean mean DM.

You know this isn't going to stop. If you'd like to change the subject let's talk about Minotaurs or something we can all agree on....Or Maybe we could talk about a world with no iron or something cool like that.

Heh, sorry. Well not really. I don't think table talk would be table talk without some Bitchin, isn't that how it is.

PS don't let mike and pam stay in your small house with their 3 kids unless you really like them. It's hectic.

YA RLY

In other news, Steve Stamps and I have been emailing back and forth over the last couple weeks, and he might be interested in joining the group.

O RLY?

Look, all this talk of 'skull fucking'... like I said, I don't feel bad at all for you guys getting stuck in Hello.

Well, maybe that's not accurate. I do feel bad, but more in a 'pity' kind of way than a 'responsible' kind of way.

It's almost like I said 'Hey there's a treasure chest over there. But there's a pit in front of it. There's no obvious way to get to the chest without falling in the pit.'

And then you were all like 'Hell yeah! We open the chest and get the treasure!' And Renwick said 'What about the pit, guys?' And you all were like 'Pit? We'll deal with the pit after we get the treasure!'

Let's just move on, huh? Haven't you tapped all the 'Bitch' land, tapped it out already?

Rally

Ok, boys.

Yes, we have been skull fucked. Fucked in the skull as it were. Skull fucked.

However, I think it's time to say fuck it, and move on. Let's get out of Hello Airport and get back to the good ol' adventuring we once knew.

I agree with Marivhon, our Book of Poppies deadline has long run out. Besides, Vrill is up on deck and probably changing Abby's plans. I think we need to talk to Zelba. For some reason, Orcus has our number. I think we need another God to get us out.

That's my plan.

blah blah blog.

Ok we were supposed to do the following.

Abbey said the following to Dave.

I don't care how you do it, or what you do to him. But I need you to find my father and learn from him the location and words to unlock the- now, this is important, this is what I need you to remember, as your mind begins to decay- I need to know how to access the White Book, the Book of Poppies. The White Book, priest- get this information from Vrill."

Thats what we were supposed to do within one week. It's game over time now, we're fucked unless we do something about it. Hence we are going to talk to Zelba, cause why not! Unless anyone has another idea....But we're here now so why not?

Marivhon

damn man skull fuck and skull fucked still don't show us, at least not on the first 7 pages, when you google it. HEh.

I must try harder.

Yeah, X1 sucks.

Yeah, Isle of Dread is insanely unfair. But, you get the point.

-I remember cat people on cats. So lame.

I shoulda known, as adventuring in the planes always sucks

Actually you'd hate the Isle of Dread. Horribly unfair module, trust me, I've gone through it as a player in table top. PCs of about your level, fighting dinosaurs, a green dragon, and mind-controlling mudmen.

The point wasn't just to challenge you, it was a parody of a classsic inexperienced DM mistake.

Paul, as of 2.15.06, you have done the following:
1) went into the temple, fought some undead
2) returned to temple, killed death knight, died
3) hung out in Hello Airport

The dearth of excitement and levelling is only partially the DM's 'fault', and is strongly correlated with the dearth of substantial posting by PCs.

But I hear your complaints- hard not to- and next module will be back to basics.

I brought a knife to a gun fight.

I hope we don't have to fight a God. I am sick of fighting things like Grand Masters of Flowers, Monks that are immune to our spells, undead that can't be turned, and Death Knights that stole our friends.

I feel like we are in the wrong modules.

It seems that every place we go is overrun by extremely powerful adversaries.

The MOPs, Knights of Armek, unturnable undead legions, kidnapping Death Knights... I don't think any of us wanted to deal with these guys.

If we get out of HA, I think we should cut our losses and sail out of these modules. Maybe we can find the Isle of Dread or something.

Marivhon

posted 2-15 by Rob.

Marivhon, you just need 2,000 xp to hit 5th level. Should be do-able soon.

I did some research. I last leveled on 12-13-05.

It's now May 26th. Just some fun facts while I wait.

Rebuttal

Part of the trap was getting the xp in the first place. You haven't got the xp for this adventure yet. Somewhere along the lines it may have also come up that you or anyone can't train in Hello Airport. Besides, Orcus is like a god? So he can do as he please. Plus, he hates you guys, so why would he give you 10000 xp?

Terminal 713B? You guys had a week, and then the portal closed. Sorry, thought it was fairly obvious that you weren't in the real Grito.

My brain!

It hurts. My brain hurts.

We just need to get to terminal 713B. That's the goal. That's all I care about now.

eh?

If Orcus' reality was so good why doesn't the training count to next level?

A note from the DM

Ya, sorry guys, I know you hate Hello Airport. The way the adventure went, though, I can't lead you around, so you're gonna have to figure out how to get out on your own. The good news is you really can't die forever down there, so feel free to try shit out.

Brogg:

I say you just give bonus XP for those who do their part. I think we know what that means.

We know DFoO's MO, and it's obvious whether or not he's living up to it. It's not always quantity, but quality.

I've got those real world demands too.

Everybody get random

Good points, bro. I'll drop the idea. Okay, maybe I'll just provide random, arbitrary xp bonuses for plot advancement in general, sorta no different than how it is now, just a bit more frequent.

Dave, Fist of Odin

Well, okay, I suppose, but it feels a little false. I mean, I'm really busy right now, and my head is filled with topology - and one of the things I like about DiD is that I can check in, make a bunch of posts, and then go for awhile and just go along. You know? Like, most of the time in Hello Airport, I didn't have much to say anyway - so I didn't post.

Should I post on days where we're just slogging along, to say something like 'yup, me too?' I mean, if I posted every day in H.A. - those would be my posts, or I'd gussy them up with some bullshit but it'd be about the same thing, really, and I'd feel like I've got one more thing I have to do.

And really, it won't change my behavior any. When I've got a bunch of time I post a lot - when I don't, I don't - and it's not because posting is something I HAVE to do, like write another fucking paper - it's something I LIKE to do.

Or, if this is a social obligation that I am not meeting, then I should regretfully bow out entirely, because I cannot commit to posting every day.

Player appreciation award

I'm going to start awarding xp for posting. Every day that a PC posts- and it has to be (subjectively) substantial, e.g., advancing the plot or participating in combat- you'll get an amount of xp equal to 1% towards your next level. That's in addition to any xp from normal adventuring. Multiple posts per day don't give bonus xp, although they're much appreciated.

Comments, questions, criticism welcome. It starts as of today.

How does it feel?

Hey Mark - can you put up the fourth level priest spells? If I remember correctly, now that I'm seventh level I can neutralize me some poisons, yo!

Also - Rob, do the summoning keep coming? I hope to be able to summon a shark riding an elephant - just stomping and eating everything they see.

That's the most dangerous animal, you know. The elephant-riding shark.

Dance to the radio

May 18, yo.

Teleport

Just read a New York Times article about new TV shows- don't ask why- but it talked about a new show where people have superpowers, blah blah blah. But it used the word 'teleport' in passing, and I was wondering if the word 'teleport' is common enough that it doesn't need to be explained in a newspaper article.

Weird.

Alertness check

I'll go to the end of the week. Friday, I say. The real question isn't whether or not there's a post... it's whether or not Cinder notices that there are three questions to be answered. We very well could see a post where Cinder plays some Magic cards, and there we go.

Marivhon

anyone got bets on how long till ed posts?
I say wednesday.

Fashionista!

It's green with a light blue feathery trim on the cuffs.
Black toeless prada plats. It's weird how sexy you can look when you tape some maxi pads to your hips and wrap a couple of balled up socks in toilet paper and stuff them in a bra.

Damn.

Yeah, I think I read something about that on Salon.

What color dress?

Chris vs the Amazons

He joined a couble of weeks ago. Portland was attacked and half of it's population was killed. You might not have heard about it in the mainstream press. We're not sure who did it, but roving gangs of feminists are running all over the city killing men. I guess it was the Amazons but nobody is really sure. Dave has been taken hostage as some sort of king for a year then sacrifice thing I think. Yvette is out in the streets right now trying to sort it all out. Chris signed up with whats left of the males to fight back, but I don't think we stand a chance so I'm just holed up in the house in a dress hoping for the best.

Blogger headache

Hey Chris, welcome back! Yeah, the website goes down from time to time. When I'm writing a long one, I write it in a textfile first and save it... I've lost pages of text when blogger crashed all of a sudden, if I've just been writing a post on-line.

When did you enlist with the National Guard?

Positivism

Chris joined the national guard? When did this happen? Whoa.

Science as map-making is among the best analogies I've heard. I'm going to use that one and give credit when appropriate.

Sounds like the solipsists could be called 'positivists'. Palimpsists need a better name than that, as it doesn't quite roll off the tongue. I once had an idea for a campaign in which it was all a dream, because that's such a horrid cliche- each character was the dream of a demon being tortured in hell, and the goal was to get the PCs to meet their dreamers, freeing the demons, and thus the PCs would ablate themselves.

For what it's worth, solipsism and palimpsism are orthogonal if one can subscribe to either or both philosophies at the same time. If it's exclusively either/or, then Sism and Pism are opposing. Okay, here's a great example. Affinity along the Good/Evil axis and the Lawful/Chaotic axis is orthogonal. You can be LG, LN, or LE just fine... the fact that you're Lawful means nothing in terms of good or evil. Hopefully we can put this word to bed, sorry guys.

Chris

He joined the army national guard and is doing boot camp right now. So he can't post. He's going to be an infantry man so wish him luck.

Paul.

BTW fuck religion. For the most part I think all people can be said to be crazy, and rightly so.

Saying that science is faith-based because everything humans do is faith-based... I find that uninteresting and uncritical, because I basically think it amounts to solipsism (or at least acknowledging that solipsism is a serious and valid outlook/philosophy, which is bollocks of course). Who cares if, yes okay, we can 'never actually know what is true'? Is this a useful or helpful statement in any way?

If it's ture then it's true. It may be uninteresting and uncritical because it's obviously true. It's always useful and helpful to try and deal with what we believe to be the case.

Marivhon or Paul I don't know.

hrm I guess I should say that science is an exploration that is ongoing. Science is an esperiment in map making to get to a destination that is unknown. Scientists invent maps and then see if it gets them where they want to go. They use reason to create their maps. They believe, I would think, that the map they have invented will get them somewhere useful. There is no finishing this map. Things on the map that have been firmly set on previous maps can be shown to be a mirage. Scientists assuming they have it right isn't science, it's faith and it's necessary.

Rob your faith in science is fine with me, in fact I think reason is about the only really valid thing to have faith in. Reason does require being informed, but thats only fair. I have talked about affecture with people, it's a term I invented. It is the spin that words have as symbols in our life. I would say that faith has a negative affecture for you Rob and so you don't like it being used in regards to your belief in science. It's affecture is religious I would say, and because of that you don't like it. Faith doesn't have to be used in a religious sense.

Fred Phelps' daughter is what kicked all this off. I understand her religion and her religious feelings,
I think. <--faith in your reasoning while not being religious.

It's that simple. We think we are right, we may not be. Most scientist at some point in their career think they have something right and then they find out they don't. They had faith, and were wrong.

This is one of those times I do wish we were all together.

Marivhon

from what I can gather I would say that the 2 views I have presented are orthoganal. The solipsist philosphers in my world would view themselves independants in the world, and assume as little as possible in regards to their being influenced by the divine, karmic pasts, social pressures etc. They would set out to construct their realities based solely on their experience and exlude from the realm of reality anything they do not have direct experience of. The palimbsest world view would make sense of the individual through culture, the divine, and the self. More importantly the individaul can be overriden by these things, hence the writting over part. It's a way of making sense of some things. It's also the belief that individuals are really divine at their core and only have their individuality written faintly over that divine being. They are the two main philosphical outlooks on life in my world.

Ortho 2

Usage comes from the stats literature. Imagine a distribution of datapoints with some variance, like this:

....*........... *
..*......... *
* .....*...... *
....*..... *
..* ....*
.......*
.....*

Whence the variance in the data? Well, start by taking the mean, that'll be a point somewhere in the middle. Now draw a line (technically, an eigenvector) through the mean that best captures the variance in the distribution... that'll be a vertical line right down the middle, as the data is distributed more 'verticaly' than 'horizontally' as I've drawn the points. But there's still some horizontal scatter unaccounted for by the vertical line, so draw another line through the mean that best captures the remaining scatter. That'll be a horizontal line that's orthogonal to the vertical line. Moreover, the horizontal scatter is independent of the vertical scatter. As a general heuristic, in most datasets, there are two orthogonal eigenvectors that best capture/explain the variance. Hope that's clear... hard to tell you about it like this in a blog. Thus 'orthogonal' vectors describe statistical independence, but it might only work- or at least work cleanest- when the data is normally distributed.

Determining eigenvectors is standard operating procedure in a few of our subfields; if you want to know more, I'm happy to provide refs that treat it more intuitively or mathematically.

Huh.

That's a weird use of orthogonal to me. I guess it's because in physics, things we describe so often have x,y-dependent relationships. Like curls, for instance. In my encounters, it's always been a stress on the perpendicular relationship, not independence. Then again, I guess it's a matter of perspective. -The path of a thrown ball is described by x,y relationship, however, the x and y components are independent.

Eh, po'tato, pota'to.

Orthogonality

Sorry, 'orthogonal' is jargon. In my corner of science, it's used so often that I use the term informally now. 'x is orthogonal to y' means that these two variables are independent of each other. For example, the color of a candy (say an M&M) is orthogonal to its flavor, they have nothing to do with each other.

Hence 'solipsism is orthogonal to palimpsism', meaning that whether or not you believe you're the center of the universe has no bearing on how many times something has been written on that manuscript over there (or how many times you've revised your history). But that's not-so-strict usage of the term.

Interesting, I think it'd be harder to do a solipsistic character/religion than a palimpsistic one. UO seems close to what you were saying, Mark, with a character's journal apart from the main narrative, which is a fantastic idea; I'd love to run a campaign where the 'master narrative' isn't quite clear.

Where is Renwick?

Yeah. Paul and I both used "debate". But, call it what you like.

I hadn't posted since before Paul asked "What is science?" so I was catching up. -I think you covered the "What is science?" to my satisfaction, though.

I was still speaking to faith and belief: the difference between faith in science and faith in religion, and how I see them to be different.

Anyhow...

Palimpsest is a great word. However I don't think it's orthogonal to 'solipsist'. Could something be? Did you mean dissimilar? I'd say unrelated, but I could imagine parallel or conflicting uses of the two.

What's the curl of the palimpsest and solipsist components of soliloquy? -Heh.

I think a palimpsest-style game could be cool. I once planned a character that would keep a journal of events as-he-saw-them, much different from the perspective of the party. I thought it would be great if his actions could be logically explained in two very different perspectives at the same time. -That would be the challenge, to keep the two sets of reasoning consistent with his actions, but quite different in their motivations.

Solipsism should be easy to work into a game. Hell, the entire last century is full of examples in art, fiction, religion... what-have-you. Isn't the whole "It was only a dream!" the biggest, crappiest use of solipsism there is? To be honest, I can hardly take it. It's a kind of masturbation, -a calling oneself on the phone, no?

As for a Palimpsest component to a game, now I think that would be interesting. And, likely very difficult build so as to produce a positive effect. That would be some high-level DMing...

I'd like to hear more.

No, actually Mr DM, I rolled a 20

I don't think there's actually a debate here about anything going on. Paul asked 'What is Science?' and I gave him my answer.

I think the word you're looking for is 'palimpsest'? Seems a bit orthogonal to 'solipsist' though, but I'm interested... can you explain the palimpsistic religious view? Also, can you explain how you implement solipsism in the game as well? I would think that any game that, at it's core is centered around a d20, can't be solipsistic/subjective/player-driven.

My faith is your faith.

This is interesting. I do agree it would be better in person, but the written word has some unique advantages too.

One thing, I don't understand this statement: Science doesn't assume finality, it's strange because without the assumption of finality it can avoid it being faith based.

Need I to assume finality? Is finality somehow more rational than infinitude?

I'd actually assert the opposite. Finality would make me suspicious of some "other" thing. -But that's just me.

I also suggest we are confusing function and philosophy here.

In a sense, this debate is very tired. It's almost comical in its regressive futility. Humans are intrinsically a poor authority on human perception and experience. All the data is skewed, and we have no unbiased controls.

That is why I am not religious. I don't see anything non-human to suggest the validity of human religions.

That's a bit tricky, but think about it. Basically, religion exists because humans exist. Gods exists because humans do. I have never seen any non-human evidence for a higher power.

In other words, humans tell me something exists, and they tell me that it is not entirely human in its attributes. However, that's all the evidence I've been given. Completely human evidence. Do you blame me for being suspicious?

And, don't tell me I am simply not looking at things correctly to see it in the world around me, as that "correct perception" is entirely a human construct.

Also, don't tell me that my skepticism simply is a human construct as well. The evidence I am looking for is the kind that bucks all preconceptions, skepticism, and belief. -Like the attraction of gravity. Believe what you want, desire otherwise, argue against it, still, masses attract each other. There is non-human evidence of it.

-If you say this can't be proved, I'd say you are wasting my time. -All physical evidence suggests that masses are attracted to each other despite human existence. There is no physical evidence to the contrary. No non-human evidence to the contrary.

If you say something like "we can't be 100% sure that masses attracted one another before humans existed" I'd say you are being dishonest and argumentative. It's like standing in the rain and saying "It's not raining!" Doing this nullifies all communication. If you want to go there, then we should just stop talking.

Gravity functions regardless of humans. Atheists, rocks, leaves, priests, ants, all masses attract one another. -Now there is a basis for a belief system!

Marivhon

well I reread what I posted with yvette and I'm sorry it was so hard to follow. I hope you got the meat and potato part out of it. I would like to say that we can agree to agree if we were together talking about this and had more time. this isn't really a good medium for all of this. It's funny you brought up Solipsism. I've been thinking a lot about it for my game. The 2 main philosophical world views are solipsism and palymsism. I don't think I spelled that last part right, but it's founded on the idea of Palymsists. Books written over other books, that still contain the original texts but hidden in a way. Well that in and of itself would be a long talk between DM and player.... Ah well.

On a side note I have made my 3rd batch of beer and they keep getting better.

If you can read this: why aren't you posting on the main page?

So when I use the word 'science', I mean one of two rather different things.

First is the common usage- 'science' as a collection of facts, theories, methods, data, stories, and histories of the universe. Saying that science is faith-based because everything humans do is faith-based... I find that uninteresting and uncritical, because I basically think it amounts to solipsism (or at least acknowledging that solipsism is a serious and valid outlook/philosophy, which is bollocks of course). Who cares if, yes okay, we can 'never actually know what is true'? Is this a useful or helpful statement in any way? The age of armchair epistemology is over, and I think that pondering these sorts of questions is tantamount to masturbation- there's no way to demonstrate it, and no practical consequences of any sort. Or worse, as applied 'faith-based living' or solipsism equates to schizophrenia and/or megalomania, i.e., you have no friends and your life sucks. What a great philosophy.

Science is what allows us to go and reliably act in the world today. To me, this first definition of science can also be stated as such- the entire collection of logical consequences that follow from the law of causality. Mysticism and solipsism are the other possible choices, but unfortunately don't allow you to reliably, successfully operate in the outside world. To appropriate a phrase, your mysticism ends where my fist begins.

The second definition of the word science is far more personal. Science, to me, is my religion. I mean this quite literally. It's my way of life. It controls or at least informs all the major decisions, and many of the minor, I make in life (e.g., where to eat today, what to eat, why am I getting out of bed, who should I date and how, etc). It's what brings me happiness and comfort in an otherwise bizarre, absurd, and awful world. It's what gives me hope and fills me with a sense of higher purpose, and belief of continuing on, in whatever small indirect way, after I die. What else is religion to a person? Why be religious if it doesn't do these things?

I've known a lot of scientists- neuroscientists and geneticists of all people- who were very religious. Very christian, in the general American sense. To many scientists, I guess, science is just a job- vocation but not avocation.

Fred Phelps' daughter is what kicked all this off. I understand her religion and her religious feelings, I think. I see in her eyes a look of supposed superiority and confidence. 'GOD HATES YOU' one of the signs read, and my god is there power in those words. Not dissimilar I think from the confidence I find when I record from neurons.

...

Regarding communal living, well, didn't we all do that at 2 Kelly?

oh yeah.

I guess to be fair I should say.
Why isn't it fair (heh) to equate faith in bridges to faith in god. I asked what is science? It's the next question that would follow what is g.....that Wittgenstein would shift in his chair or laugh or slap you for asking.
I will definately agree they function very differntly, science and other faith based beliefs that is, especially religious ones. Purpose is an common definer of the form of function in beliefs, I think.

A little time to myself after work

This isn't really a debate about semantics. (Someday I'll kill that word.)
I think that religious people, more often than not, don't bother to study and engage in a rational examination of what they believe. I don't think most people bother to do it either for that matter. Since religious world views are hard, if not impossible to test it's easy to assume that they are not governed by or according to reason. As I admitted often they are not. This does not mean that religious beliefs are somehow different from other beliefs. When someone decides to add something like apples to a red pasta dish they are making they can have various reasons to do so. Rationality is, in some sense, how well they can justify adding apples to someone who is observing. They might be a chemist and a weird one at that, who can talk about the acids in the tomatoes, the acids in the apples and how the onions and all that shit will work together. They might laugh if you said something about how you never thought a fruit should be put in a pasta sauce and point out the tomato fruit fact. This person would seem very rational and unless they make the sauce then we don't ever get to know if they were a better chemist than cook. The idea that seems to come up with talks about science and religion is that religion cannot be tested. That is what some people say at least. Which isn't a very scientific viewpoint by the way. Just because we can't do something now doesn't mean it can't be done. No negative proofs. Back to my pasta sauce. What makes it scientific? What is Science? I don't want to dictionary definition. The chemist says the sauce will be good. Lets say the sauce is good. Is it because of science? If it's bad, does it make his science wrong? We have had scientists be wrong with their predictions and still get good results. The do the tests to see if they are right. Performing the test is an assertion that is based. They don't know the outcome. If they didn't think it would work they wouldn't perform the test. Since science only has faith in the oberservable and testable, maybe more things but I'll stick with these 2, it has nothing to say about a great many subjects. When it does try to get involved in morality and ethics or any number of other social fields that are essentially Asthetics science is a miserable failure. Wittgenstein, I am told, has a very good scientific arguement as to why this is true on logical grounds. There are people who disagree with him but they cannot prove Wittgenstein to be false.
The fact that science was used to prove the sun went around the earth for a long time doesn't invalidate science as a belief. It does tell us assuming that we have arrived at final truths, just because we can make predictions and build impressive models, is not scientific. Science doesn't assume finalty, it's strange because without the assumption of finality it can avoid it being faith based. It's agnostic to borrow a phrase from another arena of debate. When science and by that I mean scientists assume truths and make Laws they are operating out of faith in their science. There are competing models for all sorts of things within the field of astrophysics, I think that they use science in the field, and the competing scientists have faith their model is right. I can't see how anyone could rationally believe otherwise. All humans have beliefs which are almost always faith based. Faith is well grounded in bridges, I'll agree to that. Partially because I have faith in the science behind bridges, but even more important to my faith in them is because I have been on them many times.

Paul

Descent into deep talk...

Communal living. I guess if you want to, then it's great. Otherwise, not so fun.

Personally, I'd choose the right commune over the burbs. But a bad commune... could there be anything worse?

Sure science is faith-based. As much as all human experience is. But, if you ask me, that's not a very compelling argument to equate faith in bridges to faith in God.

Science is composed of rational beliefs. -Those based on or extended from testable hypotheses.

No testability in religion. -Not based on or extended from any testable hypotheses. That's why it's irrational. Or from Webster's: not governed by or according to reason.

Symantics can confuse faith in science and faith in religion, but outside of this debate, they function very differently.

I'd love to continue this one in person.

Marivhon

we can agree to talk about this in person. All things are based on belief. Belief is irrational. I bet when the first bridge was built people were a little scared to walk across it. It does get down to an arguement based ono authority. I also didn't mean marxist communism I just meant communal living. The simple life as it were.

Let's agree to disagree

Science ain't faith-based, friend. Walk across a bridge. It doesn't matter what your faith is... how faithless, ignorant, or antiauthoritarian you are. The bridge stands, the bridge spans, and you get across. Physics works regardless of what you think of it (or feel or believe).

Same for, e.g., your heart or brain- it's not just math, engineering, and the raw physical sciences which work independent of your faith, or lack thereof. I'll just state this now and I'll provide further arguments later if you want.

Even medicine can be independent of, well, you and your faith. The placebo effect is probably closest to what you're talking about, but still- the placebo effect is grounded in good, solid science. Placebo effects can be blocked by treatment with naloxone (sort of the opposite of morphine).

...

I think it's absolutely, literally crazy to be communist. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is against biology, strictly against neurobiology, and thus by operational definition, 'crazy'. By this I mean that people in general expect to be rewarded for working hard, and enjoy doing whatever they please with their reward. If you're rewarded only according to need, and not ability, there's no incentive, no drive, no real motivation to work hard. Right? Not sure how you motivate people without a basically capitalistic system, except with guns, which is historically what seems to have been in place. Can't motivate with guns for long- it's not self-sustainable, which again is what historically what seems to have been shown.

Lord beezlwebort

Mahjority smagority.

Belife in itself is symptenmatic of someting fucked up with people right? I mean it all get's to faith. It's moer importnat to ask about it's internal consistacny. I mean if you have faith in the bible then you got's preoblems iwth the whoel new testament versus old testement shit and then you got papal infalliability and now they might just think condoms are ok when they have gone on record that it's not. So shit I'm voting soon and thats fucked I mean come on it's so "team" orented for people that it's kind of a joke. Waskington has a great farewwell address you might want to read youcoan goggle washingtons farewleell adress and get it if you like it's a goog read. Science. hah! its' faith based to by jove. I mean it's an arguement based on authortity and well thats faith wehn you get rights down to er. I think it's crazy to join the army. I think it's craxy to vote for a guy you don't know shit about, it crazy to be anything but a frickin farmer communist freak. I mean come on. Farmer that's fucking respectable you grow shit you eat it. Straight up right? Fuck that workin for the man and shit. canni get an amen well maybe not. Fuck it you know I mean we all belive shit and thats crazy the buddha don't belive shit and the jesus I know don't care he justts love ya so fuck all the who knows what.

wish you wwre her mike.

God loves, he hates... he does what ever you want!

I read about some guy the other day that is trying to get religiousness classified as a mental illness.

He said the irrational belief and behavior could be considered pathological.

I'd be apt to agree if religious folk weren't in the majority. -I think it's a bit presumptous to state the majority of the human race is mentally ill.

Hell, maybe I'm mentally ill since I'm not religious.

However, what people do in the name of their beliefs, now that's another story.

I'd respect this lady's freedom of speech within reason. -A rule keeping demonstrators 500+ feet away from a funeral seems reasonable to me.

I sure as hell wouldn't give her air-time. It was almost like putting someone with turret's on TV, -just because it's hard not to watch.

Obviously, it was just an attention-grabbing spectacle.

Marivhon

Frankly I couldn't find anything wrong with what she said. If they'd treated her with respect instead of setting up the forum as an attack she may have been able to make her ideas more persuasive. She was the most mature person on the panel and treated the 2 interviewers with more respect than they did her. It sickens me to see suck an erudite leader demean herself in such a way. I will pray for her this evening.

Marivhon

I'm coming in august I think just so Yvette and I can get some more mullah first.

Jesus fucking christ

http://media.spikedhumor.com/24864/insane_woman_on_fox_news.wmv

Those of us who play NPC priests, or even PC priests- here's a fantastic model. I'm not even kidding. The conviction, damn it- the conviction, faith, and belief in absolute horror.

Cedar Paul?

Hey Paul, what's up with the whole coming to the D, thing?

Some algorithms are better than others

This cracked me up (posted from a lyrics search website)...


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iTunes shuffle

So I use iTunes for all my music, which means I basically live with iTunes as my soundtrack. Plays at work, when I sleep, all the time really.

I haven't listened to a lot of industrial stuff in years, cause of the whole techno thing, but I was feeling it today and got some Thrill Kill Kult and Skinny Puppy. Played a couple songs. Got back to work, with iTunes on shuffle, and what comes up next, randomly? KMDFM. Then a Lords of Acid remix, the only one out of hundreds of tracks. How the fuck did iTunes randomly select two more industrial tracks? Blows my mind.

There's nothing in the 'Genre' field either, so it can't just be that simple. Anyone heard anything about the randomizer algorithm? I can't believe it's FFTing my music and finding other songs with similar frequency profiles or some such, but if it is, that's awesome.

Hmm, but what about 4D?

Yeah, that is really helpful.

Sorry I have been slow on Hello Airport. It's that Goddamned real world. I've got grants to write and a paper to revise.

Plus that whole Iliad thing...