taks

thanks dakoth, this statement is true, but kaftan was referring to my comment, not gromnir's taks

but i'm in the US responding to politics (and a vote) in the US, therefore i'm justified using the left-wing definition of "liberal." if anybody is incapable of discerning that difference, then they probably are not qualified to comment on this discussion. taks

uh, that statement is incredibly naive. first of all, in every other country, what you deem as "conservative" is still liberal by our standards. second of all, the rest of the democratic nations in the world are almost all "social democracies" which, by definition, are liberal. finally, just because other countries with "economic elite" do indeed have what we would deem "conservatives", your statement addresses only a few while i was addressing a generality. do some research before you make such statements, kaftan. the US is, without a doubt, the most conservative country in the world (with the sole exception being australia). taks

oh, and half of those that are from the US are below voting age anyway... taks

gee, 2/3 of the board population are non-US... d'ya think they might be a bit on the liberal side? taks

hehe, liberals tried to use the ole skull and bones argument against bush in the first round. i guess it ain't so bad now that their guy is one too! taks

i believe the new blurb that was released said it WAS 3D... not just an educated guess then. taks

hehe, genetics is probably more of a science than any i mentioned. completely uncharted territory whereas most engineering fields are about applying known theory to different situations. though maybe not as mathish, i'll agree taks

there aren't many ceramic engineering programs in the world, and i think met lacks a huge representation as well (plenty of chem, however). missouri-rolla (my school for BS and MS) does have all three as well as 16 other engineering related degrees. taks

uh, bermuda is a real country in the atlantic... pretty far north, actually, but warm year-round. taks

hehe, not really. you can't "prove" unlikely or likely. terms unlikely and likely are probabilistic arguments. carl sagan provided a logical argument that said a lack of life was unlikely. he didn't prove anything... i agree with him, btw, before you go and get your panties in a stitch. taks

that's my ENTIRE POINT PoTC... sheeeeesh... is it that hard to understand? this is what people BELIEVE, not what the bible says. for god's sake i'm agreeing with you and you continue to argue moot points. get OVER YOURSELF! taks

you TOTALLY missed my point. i'm not saying this is what is the problem, i'm saying this is what religious people fear. pay attention. just because you don't think that way doesn't mean a vast majority don't. this is a rather common idea... again... taks

you're taking dallas? gutsy. taks

uh, every other person on the field has full pads... QBs don't. their pads (and helmets) are MUCH lighter for obvious reasons... if they get hit as hard as anybody else, they're toast. taks

uh, i'm a giants fan these days (i was a rams fan until they hired mike martz...) missouri tigers all the way (i'm a graduate from the missouri university system... not the mizzou campus, however). taks

i didn't think there was that much above water yet... bermuda maybe? taks

oh yes... that saved me the first time when i though was going to die in that dungeon in PoR:RoMD. you know which dungeon i mean, the boring one... taks

*sniff* taks

Baldur's Gate 3: Back into the Pool of Radiant Hell. taks

oh no... not at all. technical drawings exist, certainly, but that's only part of the picture. autocad is more of a mechanical designer job, usually related to a 2 year technician type degree. metallurgy has it's own degree (metalurgical, aka "no-sweat-met") and welding is, well, a trade (union). mechanical engineers tend to do a lot of load analysis which involves extensive finite element mathematics. HVAC is another major field as well as airframes, etc. ceramic engineers exist in a similar world as chemical engineers (and even some metalurgical engineers) with the study of complex material interactions (i have a friend that designs the glass beads they use in reflective highway paints and signs). civil engineers design roadways and bridges and stuff. they're also involved with building designs. electrical is unbelievably diverse... computer engineering, software engineering (most are EEs), signal processing/communications (my field), analog circuit design, digital circuit design, radio frequency circuit design, antenna design, micro-chip design (analog and digital), control systems design (the systems that control large automated plants, etc. among other things), power design which could be power systems for a satellite or large power transmission systems for cities and towns... i could go on forever. the six major areas are dsp/comm, digital, analog, power, controls and computers. since you already have a math degree, EE is actually a natural step. my particular interests, btw, revolve around orthonormal bases for various reasons. my theses (MS) was on a subject regarding wavelets, an orthonormal basis alternative to the fourier series providing simultaneous time and frequency analysis capabilities (fourier is only frequency). the theory was advanced primarily by a woman named ingrid daubechies at rutgers, a mathemetician. my work is primarily detection theory (in a nutshell) for which reference #1 is Thomas Bayes, a statistician. his famous work "Essay towards solving a problem in the doctrine of chances" was published in 1764 (posthumously) and is the foundation for Bayesian statistics... my upcoming classwork (phd) includes complex variables and algebraic coding theory, both math classes and both semi-required (at my advisor's behest). if you want a smattering of theory that i live in, do a search on the following: Fourier, Laplace, Hertz, Marconi, Swerling, Central Limit Theorem, Bayes, Nyquist, Claude Shannon, Heaviside, Viterbi (qualcomm founder)... and on it goes. taks

the best martial artist, great showman, terrible actor. taks

you missed my point... if they "created" us, then yes, they become our "god." that's why i put the quotes around god. that does not superceded the possibility of another god (logic does that by itself). the point is that we are suddenly not created by some omniscient power, but by other mortal (presumed) beings... what??? that doesn't make sense. the religious believe we are unique in the universe... "unique" defined as "the only planet with life" or better "god's children." if it turns out that another race created us, this belief is obviously incorrect. you're trying to apply a micro view to a macro situation. taks

it is also reasonable to assume they would have a difficult time communicating with us due to their level of advancement. akin to humans trying to communicate with an ant, for example. perhaps we're sooooo far behind that they could never properly get their point across. taks

uh, actually, i think the problem the biblical teachings have with alien lifeforms isn't really "there is NO intelligent life other than here" since that is not directly stated. the problem is twofold, actually... 1. if there is life elsewhere, particularly intelligent, suddenly we aren't unique and what was god doing? timeshare? 2. if there is life elsewhere, particularly more advanced than us, the possibility that said life put us here intentionally increases. their current presence would possibly indicate a case of "lab-rat analysis" so to speak. this pretty much shoots the whole god thing in the foot, btw, as said alien life woulld actually be our "god." i typically lean toward the latter explanation of what's going on, btw... taks