Humodour

Whoops, almost missed that, pretty epic. Yeah, that one is pretty good.

So cool! Build it! So the idea spreads and maybe my own council has the balls to do something like it. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/855802805/lowline-an-underground-park-on-nycs-lower-east-sid

http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/q6is0/in_september_2009_after_admitting_to_my_parents/ **** that. Seriously, if you're a US citizens, do something about that **** - support the bill to ban those hell holes.

Great job, Anonymous. I do say great job to them for the rest of the Stratfor stuff they leaked. Strafor's actions are scary - they're like an intelligence branch of a government, except not as accountable (which is saying something), and used by government(s) for that reason.

This.

Su arte no es ni bello ni po

Overrated. There are better things to read in Spanish than El Quijote What do you recommend? I'm after a gradient of difficulty levels, so easy is fine. "Se respetan en esta edici

It's the "winner takes all" system, not the campaign costs which result in that. Actually, you're both correct. The US electoral system (first past the post) ****s over new parties and candidates who want to change things, and the fairly non-existent limits on political 'donations' ensure that, generally, only the parties and candidates favoured by the big corporations stay in or take power.

<3

So countries are like witches. They can't cross water? Well, either way, it still doesn't make sense given that the Falklands is across an ocean, and an entire hemisphere. Unless there's some form of "island hegemony" in play. Kind of like Guam, eh? Is a nearby government saying "It's ours you prick!" to the USA? No? Then no, it's not like Guam. So colonialism isn't controlling a foreign territory and not allowing them participation in the democratic process but denying Argentinians oil? Ok. Guam is welcome to join the political process... they have a rep in the senate (among other things) and are relatively autonomous. Federal Taxes collected on the island go to the local government, rather than the Feds. They have enough people that if they they could go and become a state, but they don't want to. Sounds a lot like the Falklands, then. Well, apart from the fact that the representative of Guam is just an observer. I just wanted in on whats shaping up to be a hell of a quote pyramid. I disagree.

Why Why Dutch? As a native Dutch speaker, I can tell you it's a terrible language. Half of the grammar is unneccesary and it has all the personality of a hospital. I sometimes go around pretending to be a tourist just so I can avoid speaking it. P.S. Eddie Izzard quote for the occasion: "Two languages in the same head? No one can live at that speed!" No way. Your language is cool, your women are babes, and their accent is adorable.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/putin-promises-big-russian-buildup/2012/02/20/gIQAzITMPR_story.html ****ing idiot. As if his people need more war, soldiers, and bombs. I can think of a few things that money would be better spent on. Maybe education, healthcare, and infrastructure?

I am actually hugely sceptical that this is scalable. The process used certainly isn't scalable (but that's not necessarily a long-term obstacle because we may find another process, or produce innovations that somewhat commoditise the existing one), but more importantly I find it difficult to see how you could radiation harden a transistor made of a single atom. Today's circuits are sufficiently big that it takes a large amount of energy to flip things into states they shouldn't be. A single atom? You get one stray ray of EMR and flipflop! I used to be a huge proponent of nanotechnology, and while I still adore materials science in general, I now think that the hype of nanotechnology is a myth. Yes, it's the future of humanity. No, it isn't magic. The future of nanotechnology, and humanity, lies in things like what Gifted posted above - still spectacular and awesome, but not quite the vision Eric Drexler had in mind.

Danke! Muchas gracias!

I speak Spanish poorly, read Spanish far better. It's improving. I've been learning German this year. On my list after I've cemented these ones in are Portuguese (Brazil!), Dutch (I want to learn the closest language to my mother tongue, and it gives me access to Indonesian and Afrikaans), Swedish (Scandinavia!), Indonesian (it's an Australian thing). I'll probably pick up Dutch and Indonesian first (Indo grammar is trivially easy and half the vocab is Dutch). But Spanish is my first love. My goal is to read Don Quixote natively. I bought a Spanish copy in Costa Rica. Just got to build up the vocab. Massive respect to anybody who fluently knows more than one language. I envy you.

Awesome! Great to see so many bilinguals. Or maybe it's the norm in the non-English speaking world. Aussies are sadly by and large monolingual. And Gorgon is right - learning languages has been linked to delaying the onset of various brain rots. Bilingual patients with Alzheimer's get their Alzheimer's on average 5 years later than monolinguals. That's an extra 5 years of my life I'm willing to work for considering the high risk of everybody on this board getting Alzheimer's at some point in their life. In fact, a body of works has come out recently reaffirming the concept of the brain as a muscle (examining computer gamers, taxi drivers, etc). Gamers had increased situational awareness, taxi drivers had increased spatial thinking, etc. The brain areas were actually physically larger due to the increased neuronal density. So use it or lose it. And if you chose to lose it, that doesn't bode well for when you get old. Other things I like to do (or want to do) to exercise my brain are learn an instrument (I've bought the instrument and fiddled with it... just need to get some music theory lessons. Heh), computer programming, and physical exercise (exercise is, apart from "enriched environments", the only known way to increase neurogenesis, or new brain cell creation - another thing which helps ward of Alzheimer's).

Das ist gut! Get cracking, Obsid.

What languages do you guy know or want to know? What do you think are the most useful languages to know?

Can the Spanish and German speakers of this forum recommend me some good music in their native tongues?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/17/us-china-tibet-idUSTRE81G1VY20120217 It's a sad thing that barbarians still rule over a large swathe of this planet's population and there's little we can do about it.

It increases the owning country's exclusive economic zone - which typically means more fish and oil.

I would put in $10 or $20. Just saying. Would be nice if you went all retro too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kickstarter

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/02/12/1816255/journalist-arrested-for-tweet-deported-to-saudi-arabia Muhammad's blessings and executions for all!

How about the fact that we have a huge common culture, borne from a shared experience of two world wars, economic systems, and thousands if not millions of artworks across film, literature, and the internet. And Americans combine naivety with idealism and a tremendous drive to succeed with being a bit mental, and often naked? I didn't say the US hasn't given the world anything of a value - I just said it's difficult to find anybody willing to say good things about it these days. Probably because the amount of crap and misery they commit and export is beginning to significantly outweigh their redeeming virtues (for example, their internal inaction on, and international diplomatic disruptiveness on global warming).

I just puked a little in my mouth at the thought of the Republicans. I'm in Costa Rica right now, and honestly, it's pretty difficult to find anybody willing to say a single good word about the US - Including the 53 Australians I am here with.