Whenever I smell incense, it reminds me of my friend's house from when I was a kid back in Abu Dhabi. My next door neighbour was Palestinian, and I would spent far more time in his house than I would in my own. It got to the point where I was pretty much an extended family member; and his mother (a typical mother hen figure) used to cluck about me as much as her own two sons... And scold me in the exact same way she'd scold her sons as well. My sister (Jen) used to hang out with us quite a bit, actually, and I remember their mom saying "Oh my God, Jen, I'm so glad you're friends with Rashed and Kareem! You don't know how bad it is to only have sons! They fight, they're smelly, they're loud, Ya Allah!" But anyway, they always had an incense stick burning in their house. So whenever someone burns incense I'm reminded of that time.
This is awesome! Love how there's a lot of different genres in there.
I was in a particularly drawn out meeting at work today, where as an intern I had very little input with the topic at hand... So I ended up doodling a tree. Because trees are pretty great.
It was pretty mind boggling. The whole album was awesome. Literally the whole album. It's the first time I'd ever experienced that.
So I spent the second semester of college this year living with a guy who's a hardcore metalhead/biker. Now this lad is into some really heavy, demonic, evil sounding music, but as a result of my living with him for a few months I ended up looking into (much softer) rock music again. Which is refreshing. For the past few years it's been mostly house/dance music for me. "PUP" is a punk band I found online. Some of my favourite tracks include DVP and Dark Days. And I actually have no clue what genre this would be. They're called "Alarmist". Experimental Rock maybe? They're a couple of lads from Wicklow here in Ireland, and they're really great anyway. Whatever they are.
I recently stumbled across Let's Build a Home by The Hops Party. It's such an awesome tune. Every time I play it when I'm in the apartment alone I Molly Ringwald my ass off.
When I was in the last year of secondary school preparing for the state exams, my school brought in a guy to talk to us about study habits and the like. He told us that according to some study, the best type of music to study to is baroque music, Luckily I had to study Bach in music class, so I was pumping out a lot of Jesu, Der Du Meine until I got sick of it.
This one is a classic here in Ireland. Because I grew up abroad I didn't hear it until Christmas 2011. Most of my Irish friends are sick of it, but I absolutely love it! Fairytale of New York - The Pogues feat. Kirsty MacColl It's refreshing, because it's actually quite a sad song. It revolves around an argument between two former lovers about their lost dreams and misspent youth.
Hopefully this counts. A whole house made from windows... A greenhouse. Taken at the National Botanical Gardens in Dublin.
There's really nothing like a good collaborative shit-doing. Seriously though, these are some catchy tunes. I'm particularly liking the second one.
My girlfriend dumped me a few days ago, so I've been re-discovering my sad music playlist. Namely, World Without You - Hudson Taylor
Yes, I believe in free will. And that is why. If we are simply the result of the complex physical and chemical reactions that govern how matter interacts with itself here in the universe; that's a pretty compelling argument for the non-existence of free will. In that scenario, everything we do; every choice, action, and even actions we decide not to take in order to try and display our own "free will" is just governed by these interactions between cells and signals in the brain. There is no "you," therefore there is no free will, because you are not you, you're just the net sum of all of these interactions. On the other hand, I think that there is a part of you that is uniquely you. Let's call it a "soul". There is this part of you that asks these philosophical questions, or is moved by a certain song, or sees something in a piece of art or writing. I don't think that these things can be taken into account in the uncountable simultaneous equations that make up a physical human. I believe in a "soul," so that makes room for the belief of "free will."Our brains make the decisions. Our brains are not exempt from physics, so I'm pretty certain it doesn't exist.
Is this a stickers which I see before me? Come, let me stick thee! Thanks so much insomniasexx!! Made my day!
I don't keep a formal list really, but there are a few things I'd really like to do. - Write a book - See the Northern Lights - Own a house near a beach - Visit at least one country in every continent (excluding Antarctica... Although visiting Antarctica could be interesting...)
Akira Kosemura - Light Dance I knew I would like the song just a few seconds in, but at 2:38 I fell in love with the track.
We definitely should. Looking back at our old conversation, Kaius is Irish as well, if he's still around? I'm in Dublin for college, so if you ever have to make the trek up do give me a shout! It's not very often I pass through the Kingdom, but if I am for any extended period, you can expect a PM! ;D.
I think it just keeps going! I usually hit a question that would take profuse googling and just refresh the page. And I agree! You end up trying some creative stuff sometimes to get an accurate estimation.
Looks like I'm going first: "What does an African elephant weigh, measured in units of electrons?" I remember from secondary school an electron weighs something times 10^(-28) grams. So let's say 5*10(^-31) kgs. I had no idea how much an African elephant weighs, so let's call it 1500 kilos. Divide one by the other, I got 3*10^(33) And 10^33 was the right answer... That was lucky as hell...
Okay, hold on a minute. I didn't say that those events were a matter of opinion, I know that black people went through a hell of a time over there. Fucking hell. I was simply asking about people's overall attitude at the time; commonly referred to as 'popular opinion'. Also, I'm mixed race and know very well that racism isn't dead yet, but I also can appreciate that had I been born 50 or 60 years earlier things would have been a lot different. Overall our attitudes towards racism have shifted dramatically. As for the rest of your comment, fair points and food for thought. I didn't initially come here to argue with you about the ins and outs of racist cake legislation, but it's been a good run. All I was saying is that either way, somebody's an unhappy person indeed. HomophoBaker will feel that his right to practice religion is being compromised, or the gay person will feel hard done by, and rightly so; and there is no easy solution. The "ideal" bigoted baker (never thought I'd say that) in my hypothetical world I created in my first post would refuse the gay person his services, but then be judged in turn by society for being an ass. Yes, an "economic violence" has been committed, and now the customer doesn't get his cake. On the other hand, now the baker has to pay for it with a big smear on his business' reputation and lose sales. You win lose you some some. In my mind, a situation like that is probably better than a legal situation where someone is forced by law to do something that they feel is morally unacceptable. If they really feel it's morally unacceptable, then fine, let them do it and let them be a victim of their own decision. You obviously disagree, and I see why. In your mind (as far as I can tell), the customer should never be discriminated against in the first place, and everybody should have equal access to everything. Also, you don't trust society to make the right decision. This is a fair way of looking at things; I can see your train of thought and I definitely don't disagree. All I can say is, if I was refused a service because I'm brown I wouldn't try to sue them, but I would sing from the rooftops about what a shitty person the owner is.It was not opinion, it was fact. And still is...
So I wrote up a long answer, but my train of thought was difficult to follow, and I was addressing a lot of things at once, so I'll just try and break things down and get more information. I don't know much about U.S. history. When those laws came into place, was it popular opinion that black people were being discriminated against? On some level people just know when somebody is being hard done by. In the case of the Classical Liberal theory thing you were talking about, the analogy works because people know it's unfair. You seem to be implying that the law changed the way people feel, but I would say it's the other way around. Also, in order for a gay person to be discriminated against on the level you were illustrating would require a huge cultural and political shift which I simply don't see happening. My original post wasn't the "general case", it was making the assumption that we are living in today's society and with no major reversals of social progress.
I'm a bit late, but I thought I'd just give you my two cents. I'm a Christian as well, and pretty serious about my faith. Over the past few years gay marriage/abortion have been huge talking points here in Ireland, and this topic is inherently part of that discussion. The Bible is not something on which we can reliably base a society. It's an unfortunate fact that Christianity is an incredibly fragmented religion; the Bible talks a lot about compassion and unification, but even within our faith we're very fragmented and uncompassionate. If we can't even come to a consensus ourselves, why should we then start forcing our beliefs down the throats of other people? Your game analogy isn't entirely accurate. Simply by functioning in society you are including everyone else in your game; and there is no referee. My philosophy is that we need to make a clear distinction between the "societal" teachings in the Bible, and the "spiritual" teachings in the Bible. The spiritual teachings are time-invariant and as applicable now as they ever were. The societal teachings are useful because they show us how times have changed and how people used to live. It's up to you to look at the world, look at the Bible, and come to a conclusion that makes sense to you. The root of Jesus' teachings was the individual, and their relationship with God. When it comes to issues of society as a whole all you can do is think things through as objectively as possible, and then come to your own conclusion. So to take it back to one of your examples, if I were a baker, should I be able to refuse to make a wedding cake for a gay couple? In my opinion, yes I should be able to refuse to make a cake for a gay couple, but then I shouldn't be surprised when people start calling me an asshole and my sales dry up. As far as I can tell, it's a more "Christian" act to make the damn cake, and to celebrate and contribute to the joy and happiness of my fellow man.
I impulse-bought a milk foamer when I was killing an hour or two in Ikea the other day. I wonder what it is about foamy milk that makes coffee taste so much better?
So someone in college is trying to re-boot the pretty dead mechanical engineering society. I always thought it was a shame the MechSoc died out, so I decided to offer myself up if they needed any help. About 5 minutes later I am now MechSoc's Events Officer. Need to make sure the power doesn't go to my head.
This song was in Ruby Sparks! Such a good film :'D
I wouldn't be surprised. In one of my classes today we had a guest lecturer who's a researcher in 3D printing. He was showing us all the cool stuff they can print (prosthetics, gears, aluminium/bronze stuff, all the things you kind of expect), and then he came to this weird-looking plastic, porous thing. Apparently the maths people got curious about what would happen if you fed an abstract equation into the 3D printer. So they did it. And now they have this weird, sci-fi looking space coral thing. I don't know what the point of it was, but hey, at least now we know how to make space corals.
I really love these Numberphile videos. When I see these sorts of abstract mathematical "proofs" I always wonder what the mathematician was trying to do when they came up with that process.
Found this while studying to music on Spotify. I may try to figure out the piano portion one of these days... Chilly Gonzales - Switchcraft
I don't come on all that often. With college back in full swing, I generally don't spend so long killing time online. Also, Hubski moves quite slowly pretty much always, but being on GMT makes it move way, way slower. A lot of the active contributors will be asleep when I'm awake. Things tend to pick up quite a bit just before I go to sleep though.