Phi for All

Perhaps the amount of hate hasn't increased as much as our ability to let everyone in the world know about each act of hate. The media isn't overly fond of reporting on love since it doesn't seem to sell as well as violence. The way media stories are presented, they also force us to instantly judge each story very quickly and then move on to the next due to sheer volume. This tends to cause devisiveness within a society due to snap judgements and one-sided arguments. We also have a racial tendency (the human race) to lump things into piles, categories, sets, and lists. And for some strange reason, it seems easier to start with piling all the bad stuff together first. If we have time leftover then we think about the good stuff. Probably has to do with an outdated instinctual threat-assessment technique, but we should really think about changing that.

Immigration improves everyone's quality of life, but if Superman thinks he can come here, take advantage of our system, flout our laws and use his x-ray vision on our women, well, I guess he does understand "the American way".

Not at all. For his work at the Daily Planet, he has his green card. Unfortunately, it's green kryptonite.

I agree that we have no need to bad mouth another site. Mudslinging is not a very strong position. As a complete sidenote NOT in defense of Severian, the OP from the thread he cites as giggleworthy used to post here, and was banned for many posts like this one:

My Palm Treo 700w is pretty impressive. I haven't begun to utilize all it's features (I've had it for about a month). My company set it up to link with our Microsoft Exhange server. I'm not up to speed on all it can do but I like it so far.

So far, I haven't seen any really compelling reasons to change. Longer editing time may be nice for the few of you who would respect it, but there are many more people out there (especially people we don't know *yet*) who would take advantage or abuse it. The more I think about it, the more I see editing beyond six hours will end up being a crutch. Better to think harder and proofread before hitting "Submit Reply". For the occasional post where you were "slightly tired" or bombed out of your mind, you can always request a Staff member make specific changes or even delete the post if there have not been a bunch of replies to it. And as woelen said, you can always add a new post explaining why your old post was bollocks. Btw, did you know that if you edit within 5 minutes of posting, your changes won't even incur a "Last edited by:" marker?

This reminds me of an old Steve Martin stand-up bit: "I do a lot of charity work with unwed mothers. No, it's not like *that*, I'm just helping them get their start." Why? Do you collect it from FBI laboratories?

Hey, everyone, you want to hear some funny? Welcome to the club! It looks like dueling stand-up with Gilded! He thinks he's such a wit, but he's wrong by half! The man couldn't put a joke together without gluing his fingers to his nostrils. Most of the laughs he gets here at the club are when he falls off the stage at the end of his act. I'll bet you were wondering how anyone could be that thirsty telling bad jokes. Seriously, Gilded doesn't have a drinking problem, he has a strength problem. His arm gets tired lifting two-litre Finlandia bottles. Drinking makes him *feel* sophisticated even though he can't *say* sophisticated. Tell us, Gilded, vodka you planning on doing later? He's a good guy, although he really puts the "scandal" in Scandalnavian. He dates mostly young, married women and is very popular in Finland. His hearing is excellent and he's getting very good at climbing out of upper floor windows. He really needs to remember his pants more often, given Finland's climate. The other day I saw him in a dress. I asked him where he got it and he told he he'd just climbed down from a bedroom window into an alley when a cute girl on a Vespa saw him. He was naked so she hopped off her motorbike, took off her dress and said, "Take what you want!" Jeez, Gilded, if you'd remembered to grab your pants you could've had a Vespa!

Uh-oh, more O/C verbals, but the same Mod can handle both TimbaLanD and GutZ.

The standard tactic for negotiating market changes like abandoning Network Neutrality is to ask for X and settle for half of X, which is really all you wanted in the first place.

Add 2 Moderators; 1 to issue warnings to those who Flamed the spell checkers, and 1 to tell TimbaLanD that he shouldn't be so O/C about rounding up to even numbers.

I believe it's set for six hours. I'll check to see about increasing it. The problem is, everyone usually wants more and more time. We need some kind of short limit because we've had people who went back and changed posts people had already responded to, which makes the forum look really weird to someone coming late to a thread. We've also had people get pissy and go back and put "..." in every post to satisfy the minimum character limits. But I'll take it up with management. Would twelve be better than six or does it have to be twenty-four?

10. "There's a spot over there closer to the canal." 9. "Let me out, I gotta go BAD!" 8. "Venus would have been warmer." 7. "Pass the green face paint." 6. "Mission Control, we've found the canal. We've also found a man in a gondola singing, 'La Donna è Mobile'!" 5. "Resistance is futile!" 4. "Where's the beach?" 3. "I'm the first person to land on Mars! Nyah, nya-nya nyah nyah!" 2. "Can we go home now?" 1. "Where did I put the Illudium PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator?" Next: Top 10 Things NOT to Put in Your Mouth

We have stickied this thread in both Evolution, Morphology and Exobiology forum and Religion and Philosophy. It basically states that if you're just going to bring up the same old same old then don't bother. We've been lax in enforcing it due to the fact that we want to encourage new insights and understanding, but I haven't seen anything new crop up. If you see a post or a thread in Evolution, Morphology and Exobiology that you feel violates the spirit fo the forum, please report it using the little red triangle at the bottom left of the offensive post. It will be reviewed and possibly removed. My personal take on the religious debates are that it can be fun to discuss, but some people get too passionate. Beliefs tend to be that way, so we have to have certain rules of behavior. No one wants to censor or be too authoritarian but the Staff really gets tired of breaking up fights and leading preachers off the stage.

Please define "wake surgery".

OK, this one is my new favorite! 10. Ummm... they're both... errr... people? 9. Hate is a four-letter word 8. Paris might get you some extra pillow mints at one of her family's hotels 7. One more film for Lindsey and her Disney contract is done 6. Who would feed their pets? 5. Maim Paris and you'll mess up her shot at taking out Lindsey 4. Do what you want to Paris but leave Lindsey alone! 3. Either one could spare a lab rat much suffering 2. Eating them would be more ecological 1. Maiming wastes perfectly good donor tissue Top 10 Rejected Patents

I think I found the problem with the Universal Mind. By my count it only predicted Netherlands vs Cote d'Ivoire accurately. That's one *right* out of five. The problem is in your math. It should be more... reality-based.

On the contrary, yours were my favorite so far. 10. Carbonated drink centrifuge 9. Plasma bikinis 8. Kellogg's Pork Krispies 7. Quantum mustard 6. Balsa wood microprocessors 5. Hover anvils 4. Post Mutton Bran 3. Superconducting whipped cream 2. Near-frictionless carbon-coated shoes 1. Nanobratwurst Top 10 Best Father's Day Gifts

*choke* Wow. Just... wow. Amazing math.

That's the part I shouldn't have left out. What you've encountered so far doesn't matter as much as you think it does. You have so little good or bad experience that every bit of it is blown out of proportion for you. A year from now you'll know a lot more. Three years from now you'll look back and wonder why it meant so much to you. It's all just life and learning and it's all valid but in the long run it doesn't really have the importance you're probably attaching to it. Mokele's right, just kick back, relax, go out and have fun.

You really need to burn your whole play book. You have no skill set whatsoever. I'm not saying this to be mean. You need practical, on-the-job training. You need to get out and date as much as possible. You need experience and you need it right away. Do NOT let past failures paralyze you. Throw off whatever mantle of past failure you're wearing that keeps you from asking other girls out. You need to find out how other people live. You need to talk, just talk to women about stuff. Not about how much you adore them or think they look angelic. Not about what makes them tick or anything else you *think* they want to hear from you. You just need to talk. Keep it real. Keep it low-key. Listen more than you talk. There is no need to commiserate with their problems, just listen to them. You don't have to relate to what they are saying and you don't need to solve anything. You don't need to "know what they mean". You just need to be out with people, preferably women, or with mixed groups to see how other people get along. Just remember that it gets better and you're not alone. Calm down, you've got time and a world full of people out there to practice with.

Anything that starts out nice and ends in a stern warning and possible punitive action should be treated like a mother bear with cubs around. Just drop it and walk slowly away. When it comes to human relationships, nothing is simple, you have to work at it, but no part of it should be that difficult either. An honest approach should never get you in trouble. If you've been told to lay off, lay off. Staying in that situation is a crutch, you know it will never progress and you can't get hurt any worse so you just keep banging your head against the wall because at least you know how to do that. Change of pace. Go out, meet someone else, take a chance, make some more mistakes, get dirty, get bloody, have some fun, talk to other girls (but don't talk about the "angel" to them). Your only problem is that you're young and inexperienced. You've had no good experiences so it all seems overwhelming. Ramble, ramble, ramble. Sorry. Pick a few of these pick up lines and go practice. Relationships are like ice skating. At first you fall down a lot but if you don't get up again your butt's going to get cold. Yeah, it's like the line that isn't.

Have you tried, "Would you go out on a date with me?"