Random thoughts thread

[cycodamo]

Job interview tomorrow, flying to Tahiti on Friday for a short break on the beach and will arrive in Mexico on Monday. And then it'll be six weeks of trying not to get my arse shot off in a city where drug gangs are engaging in increasingly brazen and random shootings.

[Jodi]

God. Are all the C# .NET jobs fucking C# + SQL + ASP? I'm sick of it. I must be the only one in NZ with over 3 years .NET experience and minimal web/sql exposure (Writing apps for R&D tech).

Heh, on the flip side, it also means its near impossible for us to hire experienced c# developers, as they are all C# .NET ASP monkeys with minimal app development.

Argh, I hate trawling seek.

[Sp0nge]

Originally Posted by cycodamo

will arrive in Mexico on Monday. And then it'll be six weeks of trying not to get my arse shot off in a city where drug gangs are engaging in increasingly brazen and random shootings.

when you bring your drugs back, remember to swallow the condoms and not stick them up your arse.

[Ashley]

Originally Posted by cycodamo

Job interview tomorrow, flying to Tahiti on Friday for a short break on the beach and will arrive in Mexico on Monday. And then it'll be six weeks of trying not to get my arse shot off in a city where drug gangs are engaging in increasingly brazen and random shootings.

Fantastic, let me know how it is please, and where ya stay hehe. Tahiti that is.

[MoP]

Originally Posted by Jodi

God. Are all the C# .NET jobs fucking C# + SQL + ASP? I'm sick of it. I must be the only one in NZ with over 3 years .NET experience and minimal web/sql exposure (Writing apps for R&D tech).
Heh, on the flip side, it also means its near impossible for us to hire experienced c# developers, as they are all C# .NET ASP monkeys with minimal app development.
Argh, I hate trawling seek.

Maybe look for good Java coders and give em a crash course in .NET?

[A Corpse]

How do drug gangs profit from random shootings?

[?>Superman]

Do you know how much street props u get from shootings?

I hear its even get even more props if you hold ur gun sidewayz.

With a z motherfucker. With a z.

[CCS]

Originally Posted by A Corpse

How do drug gangs profit from random shootings?

How do they? How don't they?

[Whiplash]

Erebus crash blamed for Antartica 'ghosts' ...

Seriously? Some people need to be beaten with a clue stick.

[[Malks] Pixie]

Originally Posted by Whiplash

Erebus crash blamed for Antartica 'ghosts' ...

Seriously? Some people need to be beaten with a clue stick.

Why? Because they encountered something which they coulnd't explain?

What is the "clue" which you would beat into them - your own beliefs?

Pixie

[caffiend]

Careful Pixie; Whiplash is a paid-up member of Carl Sagan's Factinista.

[Whiplash]

... uh no. Not my beliefs. Just, y'know, reality.

Sure if they couldn't explain it then they should say so. Assuming it's the ghost of xmas pudding, however, is just the wrong kind of logic that has continued through the imagination of people since before timeline.jpg's were invented.

[[Malks] Pixie]

Originally Posted by Whiplash

... uh no. Not my beliefs. Just, y'know, reality.

Sure if they couldn't explain it then they should say so. Assuming it's the ghost of xmas pudding, however, is just the wrong kind of logic that has continued through the imagination of people since before timeline.jpg's were invented.

It would have been quicker for you to just say - "yes, my beliefs".

[because that is exactly what you have said above - just used more words]

Pixie

[Whiplash]

Uhm, no. A belief would be based on some kind of personal thing right? Wheras scientific studies of the brain can explain why people 'see' or 'hear' things which then falls into that whole nasty 'evidence' bucket that a lot of people don't like to accept.

Here's an exerpt from Richard Dawkins' God Delusion that might help illustrate this phenomena;

(...)
I say all this just to demonstrate the formidable power of the
brain's simulation software. It is well capable of constructing
'visions' and 'visitations' of the utmost veridical power. To simulate
a ghost or an angel or a Virgin Mary would be child's play to software
of this sophistication. And the same thing works for hearing.
When we hear a sound, it is not faithfully transported up the
auditory nerve and relayed to the brain as if by a high-fidelity Bang
and Olufsen. As with vision, the brain constructs a sound model,
based upon continuously updated auditory nerve data. That is why
we hear a trumpet blast as a single note, rather than as the composite
of pure-tone harmonics that gives it its brassy snarl. A
clarinet playing the same note sounds 'woody', and an oboe sounds
'reedy', because of different balances of harmonics. If you carefully
manipulate a sound synthesizer to bring in the separate harmonics
one by one, the brain hears them as a combination of pure tones for
a short while, until its simulation software 'gets it', and from then
on we experience only a single note of pure trumpet or oboe or
whatever it is. The vowels and consonants of speech are constructed
in the brain in the same kind of way, and so, at another
level, are higher-order phonemes and words.
Once, as a child, I heard a ghost: a male voice murmuring, as if
in recitation or prayer. I could almost, but not quite, make out the
words, which seemed to have a serious, solemn timbre. I had been
told stories of priest holes in ancient houses, and I was a little
frightened. But I got out of bed and crept up on the source of the
sound. As I got closer, it grew louder, and then suddenly it 'flipped'
inside my head. I was now close enough to discern what it really
was. The wind, gusting through the keyhole, was creating sounds
which the simulation software in my brain had used to construct a
model of male speech, solemnly intoned. Had I been a more impressionable
child, it is possible that I would have 'heard' not just
unintelligible speech but particular words and even sentences.
And had I been both impressionable and religiously brought up, I
wonder what words the wind might have spoken.
On another occasion, when I was about the same age, I saw a
giant round face gazing, with unspeakable malevolence, out
through the window of an otherwise ordinary house in a seaside
village. In trepidation, I approached until I was close enough to see
what it really was: just a vaguely face-like pattern created by the
chance fall of the curtains. The face itself, and its evil mien, had
been constructed in my fearful child's brain. On 11 September
2001, pious people thought they saw the face of Satan in the smoke
rising from the Twin Towers: a superstition backed by a photograph
which was published on the Internet and widely circulated.
Constructing models is something the human brain is very good
at. When we are asleep it is called dreaming; when we are awake
we call it imagination or, when it is exceptionally vivid, hallucination.

The brain is an incredible piece of engineering. But it's not perfect.

[Whiplash]

Originally Posted by caffiend

Careful Pixie; Whiplash is a paid-up member of Carl Sagan's Factinista.

Ghost Of Carl Sagan Warns Against Dangers Of Superstition

[Rince]

Sir Edmund Hillary claimed to have been greeted by Sir Ernest Shackleton's ghost when he visited the polar explorer's hut nearby a few years ago.

he was prolly pissed at the time!

Barden worked in Building 174, where toxic and flammable goods are stored and which she considered to be "a boring place to haunt", but she said others claimed to have felt similar spectral visits.

hmmm... seeing things after working in a flammable/toxic goods store.... ummm, got ventilation?

[caffiend]

Originally Posted by Whiplash

Ghost Of Carl Sagan Warns Against Dangers Of Superstition

Gotta love The Onion

But still, I have to agree with Pixie; if only because I believe that science is a doctrine that people 'believe' or 'have faith' in, in exactly the same way as any religion you care to mention. I don't see the difference.

For the record, I have discovered that the label applied to my belief structure (or at least the closest I've found) is Fallibilism.

[Whiplash]

Well, when phenomena like this are proven via scientific method and scrutiny then I'll quite happily accept it as real. Until then, keeping in mind each attempt so far to do so has failed, i'll stick with the current evidence. Such is science.

[Whiplash]

[[Malks] Pixie]

Originally Posted by Whiplash

Well, when phenomena like this are proven via scientific method and scrutiny then I'll quite happily accept it as real. Until then, keeping in mind each attempt so far to do so has failed, i'll stick with the current evidence. Such is science.

Which was my point to start with - you have chosen to believe in science even though you are aware that we have less than a total understanding of how everything works. Science is also yet to disprove these types of events conclusivley - so as you said, until it's confirmed either way it's still a possibility.

Of course when you say real you are opening an entirley new can of sardines in regards to the definition of reality and how individuals affect or create it - which was also what I was trying to get at originally.

Pixie

[Draco T Bastard]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4029191a11.html

"The seven men aren't acting on behalf of the church and certainly aren't acting on any instructions from Australia or from New Zealand or from anybody in the church.

"They're a group of concerned businessmen, family men, taxpayers that are having their voice and the church hasn't been involved in that.

"It's been unfortunate that yet again the church has been brought into it just because they're members but the church certainly hasn't had anything to do with it," Mr McCorkell said

When similar things happen around the world and are done by members of the same church then the only thing that the above quote can be called is BS.

[Pimp-X]

There is one reality, and that's the real one. Where things can be tested and measured.

Everything else is Duke Forever.

[Whiplash]

Originally Posted by [Malks] Pixie

Which was my point to start with - you have chosen to believe in science even though you are aware that we have less than a total understanding of how everything works. Science is also yet to disprove these types of events conclusivley - so as you said, until it's confirmed either way it's still a possibility.

Of course when you say real you are opening an entirley new can of sardines in regards to the definition of reality and how individuals affect or create it - which was also what I was trying to get at originally.

Pixie

Thats the most amazing flip-flop display of fence sitting i've ever seen.

Here's an amusing comic that relates to you:

[Cyberbob]

This site rocks.

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by Whiplash

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/dream_girl.png

What I want to know is what does make something real.

[Juju]

Drugs.

[Lightspeed]

What makes the drugs real?

[[Malks] Pixie]

Originally Posted by Whiplash

Thats the most amazing flip-flop display of fence sitting i've ever seen.

Just forget it - you obviously missed my point.

Dumb cartoon too.

Pixie

[Draco T Bastard]

Originally Posted by Whiplash

Here's an amusing comic that relates to you:

[/img]http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/dream_girl.png[/img]

So, got an explanation for this? Or would it just be pure fluke even though he did remember the number from a dream?

Things happen and they don't necessarily have a scientific explanation.


PS - really boring cartoon

[Cyberbob]

[Whiplash]

Originally Posted by [Malks] Pixie

Just forget it - you obviously missed my point.

Dumb cartoon too.

Pixie

Oh no, I get your point. You want to keep an "open" mind. Which is fine - but be careful it doesn't fall out.

There are things that are possible and things that are just fantasy. When those things get confused you get superstition.

[Juju]

Originally Posted by Draco T Bastard

So, got an explanation for this? Or would it just be pure fluke even though he did remember the number from a dream?

Things happen and they don't necessarily have a scientific explanation.


PS - really boring cartoon

"I've no idea how I ended up with her number in my head -- it's only a few digits different from mine."

Says it all really...

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by Cyberbob

This site rocks.

Meh, that's only scratching the surface.

The real fun is when you do stuff like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?...ldid=105945327

[[Malks] Pixie]

Originally Posted by Whiplash

There are things that are possible and things that are just fantasy. When those things get confused you get superstition.

Glad to know that you've already got a complete definition of what is and what isn't possible. The fact that you even made that statement shows that you totally missed the point that I was originally driving at - hence my call to just forget it.

Pixie

[cEvin]

Originally Posted by Whiplash

Thats the most amazing flip-flop display of fence sitting i've ever seen.

qft.

i see no problem in questioning everything, but when the evidence heavily sways in one direction, like the subject of ghosts, then it's probably safe to go with that evidence.

[cEvin]

Originally Posted by [Malks] Pixie

The fact that you even made that statement shows that you totally missed the point that I was originally driving at - hence my call to just forget it.

Arrogant much?

[[Malks] Pixie]

Originally Posted by cEvin

qft.

i see no problem in questioning everything, but when the evidence heavily sways in one direction, like the subject of ghosts, then it's probably safe to go with that evidence.

SO you pretty much missed my point too...

Arrogant much?

Pixie

[Of course all this means is that I started down a track which I couldn't be bothered following because it would have required far more time than I was willing to put in to explain what I was meaning - hence my call to "just forget it"]

[Helious]

Can't we all just get along?!

[cEvin]

Originally Posted by [Malks] Pixie

SO you pretty much missed my point too...

[thank you for letting us know your point, oh holy busy one]

[Pimp-X]

Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.