Sayonara

I see. \o/ I am teh 50 man!

This is a subject which has been discussed time and time again, and having observed and often participated in such deliberations I have come to the following conclusion: The most satisfactory way to answer this otherwise treacherous question is... The word 'life' is not a state of being associated with the condition of living - it is, as are most words, an assigned identifier that allows us to refer to such a condition in a way which will be understood by a conventional majority. The word came into use after the condition of life was first expressed, and as such its meaning is subject to the consideration of what constituted the condition of life at the time that the word came into use. Since our language is our way of describing our environment, and projecting the sum results of calculations based on sensory input - both of which are subject to our own processing methods and interpretation - it is necessary for our language to expand and adapt to encompass new concepts and metaphoric states. Therefore, since we have now reached a point where we have a need to describe an entity such as a machine or virus - entities varyingly unlike any other entity that has previously been described as expressing a condition of life - we need to carefully review the meaning of the word 'life' in a context that is relevant to what condition we are trying to describe. Taking the example of the machine - I would suggest that arguing it is alive by using further metaphor (such as feeding on electricity) is a flawed logical step. However, the reverse is also true. For instance, I do not consider the argument "a machine cannot be truly independent because it will always need to be supplied with energy in order to continue" to be valid, because everything we currently understand to be expressing the condition of life also experiences this restriction. Did anyone follow that, or am I just being oblique?

It may also explain unusual breezes or changes in temperature at the site of an occurence. Which begs the question - if so inclined, could you safely pass through such an anomaly? Do you have any pics of orbs posted I could take a look at, blike?

Not to mention Solaris, Tru64, HP-UX, SCO, IRIX, AIX, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and OS X. Incidentally, I understand that due to the virtual memory management bugs in the 2.4.X kernels, all of these operating systems (including WinNT/2K) offer better stability than Linux, and according to http://securityfocus.com they all have had fewer reported vulnerabilities than Red Hat. Apparently. Still, glad to see that WinME has 0 votes

Depends what you mean by 'orbs'. I did Google it, but got some rather unsavoury results as you might imagine... I had an idea that an almost scientific explanation for ghosts might involve some sort of temporal fracture, which can act as a window between different time periods. If there was some sort of relatively localised 'gap' in time - for the sake of argument, let's say in your attic - it could be possible for people standing on each 'side' of the gap to see each other, if not the rupture itself. The biggest problem so far with this idea (note, idea. not theory) is that it does not explain how a ghost - that is, the view of a person in a different temporal position - could walk through a wall. It only works where the wall itself lies just outside the range of the rupture. Any thoughts on this, or similar theories/ideas?

I think it's more that you are obviously an intelligent person, but still seem to place stock in the so-called 'certified IQ' result. Anyway, great looking site. I've had a look at some of the threads (which led to me reading through the whole ABC Zarkovian Spin thread on the edge of my seat) and it seems to be an interesting site. I think I shall enjoy being a member here