Gravity, electromagnetism, relativity... Absolutely nothing about the way the universe operates changed after these things were discovered by human beings. This discovery is no different.

We could tell based on the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn that there must be another planet noone had seen yet, and with the advent of adequate telescopes we discovered Uranus and Neptune. Relativity made black holes a mathematical possibility, and once we discovered what to look for, we found that the universe is populated with black holes. We broke apart atoms to discover what they were made of and postulated that there must be something responsible for giving all these particles mass, and with a sensitive enough detector, we've finally confirmed the existence of a here-to-fore purely theoretical subatomic particle.

Sometimes sculptors claim not to create their masterpieces but merely to free what was already locked inside the wood or stone, or whatever their medium may be. That's what has happened. We looked into the atom and saw the Higgs there, then began chipping away until it was free.

Here's a TED talk by Nico Alm himself where he tells the story about renewing his driver's license in his own words.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjQ3ufqnf-M

I'm married to my job. We move every couple of years. The question is would I Stay in one place for a relationship. So far the answer there has been no.

I'm in!
http://vimeo.com/7419367

Weird Al never ceases to amaze me.
If That Isn't Love
From his new album Alpocalypse
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86ph-VQW-e8

Some things are best left to the imagination.

Thanks Message. I was totally expecting to get blasted for that post.

What makes Mingle so different from facebook? Other than the obvious taboo about not talking to strangers that gave birth to "facebook stalking," but it gets thrown out the window here.

Anonymity used to be something that was available in cyberspace in a way that was impossible in the real world. Your screen name was like your alter-ego. Then myspace came along and started asking people for their real names which it then displayed under their user names for all the world to see! "Well, that's crazy," I thought, "Why would anybody want to do that?"

And then along came facebook. Real names, photographs, phone numbers, addreses... I never used to consider myself very old (even though I'm probably still younger than the average Mingle user), but there's already a new generation of people who are obsessed with sharing EVERYTHING they do online. Where they are, what they're doing, who they're with... I can't even imagine what life will be like for their children, when their parents started sharing their information before they were even born!

You want to know the real reason I don't post my pictures online? Call it paranoia, if you will. Maybe not extreme, but certainly not unjustified. Does that make me a dishonest person? Possibly. But who else is honest enough to give that as their reason?

I'm also pretty camera shy, and don't have a gf who is constantly taking my picture. So I do not have a wide variety of pics to choose from. They're all pretty much either old, of me in uniform, or of me in a bar. Not that I'm not proud of any of those pictures. So far, the bar experience has been a ton of fun. but it has not been very productive in the area of finding the person I want to spend the rest of my life with... If such a person exists at all. So I have chosen not to share those, because it would give the first impression that... IDK, you fill in whatever conclusions you would draw.

My point is that people will see a picture and then make an assumption. The same thing happens when they don't see a picture. Your assumption may or may not be true, but it's what you believe. And it's certainly easier to believe an assumption than to ask a person for the real story.

To whoever said, "I have heard alot of excuses... but not any good ones," is, "Because I choose not to," good enough for you? If not, well then that's too bad, because it's good enough for me. If pictures WERE "essential," there would be someone somewhere at Mingle HQ going through everyone's profiles and disabling all the ones who didn't have pictures of a person with a face. Then that might cause people to go out and upload pictures other people, photoshopped pics, pics from when they were 26, etc.



Pictures are optional. They are a personal choice. And if by chance I ever end up actually meeting someone from Mingle, then I will not hesitate to share my picture. But if I find someone that I can enjoy having a decent, enjoyable, intelligent conversation with, no matter where in the world they happen to live, then why should it make any difference to me what that person looks like?

I will not apologize for the rant. I believe I've said what was on my mind. If a picture is worth a thousand words, well then consider this my picture. Take it or leave it.



Iz Rocks! Thanks for sharing the song, Jeannie. Always makes me smile :-)

Oh, I can post all day long. But there's no way I'm actually reading through 13 pages of this nonsense.

FML! Why have I never heard of this before?



How about wrapping paper and ribbons?

Wow, is this topic really still here? And going strong, I see.
Ok, well, I'll be moving on now... still not caring.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1jJ-ttrSd8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ1LgAm7ipo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vk8EANdpAj0

Admiral, there be whales here!

We can't stop here! This is bat country!

http://blog.longnow.org/2011/07/28/100-year-starship-symposium/

More news about NASA and DARPA's 100 year starship project. According to the article,
"The 100 Year Starship Study public symposium will be held from September 30 through October 2, 2011 at the Hilton Convention Center in Orlando, FL"
Sounds like a pretty cool opportunity to me.

If you can't catch it, you keep it.
If you catch it, you throw it away.
What is it?

...for the rest of us.

http://www.despair.com/bittersweets.html

Two reasons...



And

I actually DO know a little bit about DNA, and to my knowledge, it has only 4 building blocks, 5 if you count RNA. Granted these building blocks are fairly complex chemical compounds, and repeated a staggering, but finite number of times. Like all chemical compounds though, they in turn are assembled from atomic building blocks. The atoms are behaving the was atoms are expected to behave and the chemicals are behaving the way they are expected to behave. How does this make things "impossible to be random?"

In case "self-explanatory" wasn't enough, here's an explanation.

The circumference of a circle is equal to twice the radius multiplied by PI.
The diameter of a circle is equal to twice the radius.
The circumference of a circle is equal to the diameter multiplied by PI.
TAU is equal to twice PI.
The circumference of a circle is equal to the radius multiplied by TAU.

That's the great thing about math, there are so many different ways to look at the same thing.