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That's what I figured. Some forms of meditation I've heard can be dangerous. Usually "de facto" when discussing meditation people are referring to buddhist meditation, even though it's usually referenced by it's specific name (eg mindfulness). Not that they have a monopoly on it or anything.

I have a friend who swears by using shrooms at least once in your life. Surprisingly it isn't directly harmful (long-term) unless you use it like everyday (can cause hppd). Usually visual drugs are worse for you than non-visuals eg where you actually hallucinate in the sense that you see things or your vision is directly altered. You say outside of drugs self-induced hallucinations can be dangerous, Taktiq, but I seriously doubt meditation is dangerous. Of course meditation isn't the same kind of hallucination you get with sleep deprivation, fever, lsd, or anything else, it's mostly a perceptual change of your location in space and the size of things, similar to epileptic auras in some ways, and probably not the same type of hallucination the OP was looking for (eg LSD type hallucinations). Also I have a friend who has used diphenhydramine and he recommends staying away from it. Disassociates in general seem to cause more problems for people than other drugs, eg salvia or pcp. I have used salvia legit 20x though and found the experience enlightening, but it's seriously something you cannot be prepared for. I'm not a drug person so that's just my opinion but before I started learning about some of this and trying salvia for myself I had a completely different idea about what a hallucination would be. Your entire state of consciousness, your awareness, changes, and then you have hallucinations.

Through meditation? It depends on how much you dedicate yourself. I've been meditating off and on for years, and have been going steady for a while. In many ways it can be similar to a drug experience. States of euphoria aren't uncommon, but the trick is you cant actually search for it; it's more of a by-product (this can be your goal I guess but during meditation if you "chase" after it you'll usually lose your meditative state). During meditation you can experience a sense of infinity; both the infinitely large and the infinitely small. Your body or parts of your body get really large or really small and you can experience like a vastness around you. This is all science of course (mris have been done on mediators before) but science agrees that Buddhist practice can be very beneficial. The state of euphoria I think is called piti (the wiki page I saw on a bb.com forums a long time ago). The "hallucination" is mainly an experience of infinity and/or a destruction of your "ego" (nothing at all to do with Freud, it's called ego death). Also you can find yourself floating or moving through space. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piti http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_death

Has [buddhist] meditation been suggested yet? Not exactly an LSD hallucination but your sense of size and location in space can be altered. This is something you have to practice through.

Have the user input an equation and parse it. The calculus part would be the easiest the hard part would be simplifying it (eg algebra).

I'm in calc 2 and don't really remember much from trig (took it in highschool 3 years ago and my act was so high I skipped college math through calc 1, going strait into calc2). I just need all the basics in one place -- not a lesson (I remember all the basics/principles) just the identities and stuff. Especially the special angles like sin(pi/4)=1/sqrt(2) and the special triangles you use to get these angles. I remember a friend of mine used to have a sheet like this he found on the Internet that was meant specifically to be a reference (but a general website is all I really need).

SkepticLance is correct in what he's saying. There is a lot more to the story than that and implications in every day social interactions but on the basic biological level that's pretty much how it is.

It would be funny if another university did this experiment and their "university students" were better than the chimps.

Yeah that's what I tend to notice too.

I wasn't aware that we actually did. Usually people in history who have had at least close to absolute power have seized control themselves -- nobody ever gave it to them. There's a lot more going on than you realize, Fred56. In the US government for example most of the power is held behind the scenes where through a bit of ingenuity and odd circumstances (otherwise called life) people have gained certain amounts of power.

Emacs is alright. I don't see how you can not know if you like it or not. If you like it go ahead and use it, if you don't then keep using vi. I personally like emacs better but that's just because I've never learned how to use vi. It's confusing as **** unless you really set down and teach yourself how to use it. Instead I prefer nana or even something like k/gedit lol

Hi I recently started learning some SDL but I cant seem to get SDL_CreateRGBSurface to work. http://linux.die.net/man/3/sdl_creatergbsurface http://docs.mandragor.org/files/Common_libs_documentation/SDL/SDL_Documentation_project_en/sdlcreatergbsurface.html I have some basic code which displays a moveable image, and I want a solid color generated with createRGBSurface for my background. So when you move the image you cover up the old image w/ that part of the background and redraw the image. For some reason using 8 bit will generate an all black background (regardless of rgba values), and anything else seems to be completely null or something (the image leaves a trail). #include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h> #include "SDL.h" void Slock(SDL_Surface *screen); void Sulock(SDL_Surface *screen); int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { if( SDL_Init(SDL_INIT_VIDEO | SDL_INIT_VIDEO) < 0) { fprintf(stderr, "Unable to initialize SDL: %s\n", SDL_GetError()); return -1; } SDL_Surface *screen; screen=SDL_SetVideoMode(640,480,32,SDL_HWSURFACE|SDL_DOUBLEBUF); if(screen == NULL) { fprintf(stderr, "Unable to set video mode: %s\n", SDL_GetError()); return 0; } SDL_Surface *image; image = SDL_LoadBMP("doggy.bmp"); if(image == NULL) { fprintf(stderr, "Unable to load image: %s\n", SDL_GetError()); //return 0; } SDL_Surface *back; //background SDL_Event event; SDL_Rect rect; SDL_Rect rback; SDL_Rect rback2; rect.x = 50; rect.y = 50; rback2.x = 50; rback2.y = 50; rback2.w = image->w; rback2.h = image->h; rback.x = 50; rback.y = 50; back = SDL_CreateRGBSurface(SDL_HWSURFACE, 639, 479, 8, 0x70, 0x80, 0x90, 0x64); //639 -- minus one from 640 just in case until it starts working if (back == NULL) { fprintf(stderr, "Unable to create SDL Surface for background" ": %s\n", SDL_GetError()); // exit(1); } Slock(screen); SDL_BlitSurface(back,NULL,screen,NULL); Sulock(screen); SDL_Flip(screen); while(1) { while(SDL_PollEvent(&event)) { switch(event.type) { case SDL_KEYDOWN: switch(event.key.keysym.sym) { case SDLK_ESCAPE: exit(0); break; case SDLK_RIGHT: rect.x +=5; break; case SDLK_LEFT: rect.x -= 5; break; case SDLK_UP: rect.y -=5; break; case SDLK_DOWN: rect.y += 5; break; default: break; } break; case SDL_QUIT: exit(0); break; default: break; } Slock(screen); SDL_BlitSurface(back, &rback2, screen, &rback); SDL_BlitSurface(image, NULL, screen, &rect); Sulock(screen); SDL_Flip(screen); rback.x = rect.x; rback.y = rect.y; rback2.x = rect.x; rback2.y=rect.y; } } } void Slock(SDL_Surface *screen) { if ( SDL_MUSTLOCK(screen) ) { if ( SDL_LockSurface(screen) < 0 ) { return; } } } void Sulock(SDL_Surface *screen) { if ( SDL_MUSTLOCK(screen) ) { SDL_UnlockSurface(screen); } } Here's the part of code that's giving me problems: SDL_Surface *back; ... back = SDL_CreateRGBSurface(SDL_HWSURFACE, 639, 479, 8, 0x70, 0x80, 0x90, 0x64); I've tried all different values for Uinit32 from full string 0x0000ff00 etc to integers and different bits but cant seem to get it working right. Any help is appreciated, thanks

x2. It might take faith technically to be a strong atheist but it makes a hell of a lot more sense than something like Christianity. There are very few people who are actually "theists" and nothing more, but technically I would say theism by itself and strong atheism could be construed as requiring the same amount of faith. Weak atheism is considered a default position, so is the middle ground between strong atheism and theism. Many people who call themselves agnostic because they want to be in the middle are actually weak atheists, because the middle is essentially what weak atheism is.

Damn small Linux is way too large to boot from a floppy Mr Skeptic. Lol I had to laugh you said, " I'm not sure whether Damn Small Linux fits on a floppy." Of course it doesn't 50MB or something is what they advertise and a floppy holds 1.44MB. There are distros of Linux that fit on floppies but you can network boot and it'd probably be a lot easier for you, depending on your needs.

Here's a picture of it: https://www.technologyreview.com/articlefiles/0707MassAve.jpg "On paper, the calculation would cover an area the size of Manhattan. But an international group of 18 mathematicians and computer scientists, including two from MIT, has found a more practical way to calculate the inner workings of E8, one of the most complicated symmetrical structures in mathematics. Mathematics professor David Vogan and Dan Ciubotaru, an instructor in the math department, were among those who put the supercomputer Sage through a 77-hour computation to calculate the 200 billion numbers in E8's character table, generating a 60-gigabyte file. E8 is an example of a Lie group--a continuous symmetry group whose structure is always transforming yet, like a sphere rotating around an axis, always looks the same. All but five Lie groups fall into one of four classes related to linear algebra and Euclidean geometry. E8 is the most complex of these five "exceptional" Lie groups. It describes the symmetries of a 57-dimensional object that can be rotated in 248 ways without changing its appearance. Calculating its character table--a 453,060-by-453,060 matrix that describes all the ways E8 can appear as a symmetry group--is just one important step toward understanding all Lie groups, says Vogan. This computer-generated illustration is of the E8 root system, an arrangement of 240 vectors in an eight-dimensional space. The image is a two-dimensional projection of that eight-dimensional arrangement."

More than one answer can apply here. If you want to get right down to it though scientists have shown how our evolutionary history has carved out basic human morals. Doing the right thing many times can be beneficial to the person. Eg altruism. Humans naturally help each other because it's mutually beneficial. I help you one day you help me another day. You dont? Well big deal the risks associated are outwayed by the benefits. Read about game theory for example. As for my official answer I'd say Conscience, Self-Interest, Social Norms/Parental Instruction, and throw in some philosophy. I don't really think about it morals are morals. I'm a nice person just cause I like making the world a little happier but morals are just what you do. A code of morals is overrated. Even if someone says they follow the ten commandments or something they'll still be in the same position everyone else is in -- just reacting to situations throughout the day however they happen to see fit.

It's mostly an urban legend. I was under the impression that a couple people have actually tried it though -- once it was discovered people thought it was so strange stories started getting made up about it.

People have already said it but from what others have told me the best way to go is cold turkey. I know a lot of people who used to be addicted and finally stoped this way. The gums and stuff never worked for them. You can't just start smoking less you have to quit completely. After two weeks you'll start to fell better and it'll be a lot easier to not smoke. So just commit yourself to two weeks and try to make it. Man lol I like smoking cigars they're so fun but I think I'm running the risk of getting addicted by smoking them. Are they really so bad you can't casually smoke every once in a while or should you just stay the hell away from anything containing nicotine?

This is the one that makes you trip: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvia_divinorum

Yeah that makes perfect sense. Marijuana isn't a "strong" or "good" hallucinogen like pcp, shrooms, or salvia but it's non the less at least a week hallucinogen. In reality actually Psychology 8th edition by David G. Myers says marijuana is a "mild hallucinogen."

I must spread some reputation around before giving it to swansont again.

Adequacy was the same site that had this ridiculously untrue article: http://www.adequacy.org/stories/2002.5.9.13031.15414.html Comment from reader, "Hi there, I have been accessing your site regularly in view of finding accuracy and information. I am however very disappointed to see your article "Exploding the Myths of Teenage Drug Use" as I have now lost total faith in all your articles and feel very concerned that such inaccuracy on your site may well have been prevalent in other articles that I trusted the content of. ... Personally after this article of lies and rubbish with no facts whatsoever has caused me to never return to this site, as all other articles are probably just as inaccurate."

By definition as a psychoactive drug marijuana is1) A stimulant 2) A depressent 3) A hallucinogen That's what makes marijuana such an interesting plant -- some weed you get will make you really high, some will make you a "couch stoner," others will give you plenty of energy to go do something etc. I don't really see how you can say it's not a hallucinogen. Marijuana for the most part does not make you hallucinate in the classical sense but what it does is distort your perception of reality. So instead of seeing a normal hallway with both feet on the ground you'll go floating through a weird dimension. The way you see the world essentially changes while you're high, but you'll rarely trip unless it's really strong weed. I don't know what you're basing your claim from whether it's by definition of "hallucinogen" or personal experience. Marijuana can actually cause psychosis in some people who are slightly schizophrenic. Lol yeah non-drug ways to induce hallucinations and pcp is like one of the worst drugs to do it with. But hey why not try marijuana if you don't want to use a drug? Says Schwarzenegger, "marijuana is not a drug, it's a leaf" http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article3106904.ece

They can change from literally being good tripy mushrooms to the type that can kill you. My friend who grows them says it can sometimes happen overnight but the chances you'll accidentally eat the wrong type are relatively low. If you grow them special or something you can even turn bad ones into the good type. It's not something to really worry about you just have to make sure you're eating the right kind. Lol I'm sure it depends on the person but marijuana can definitely make you hallucinate and even trip out as bad as some of the other psychedelics. Smoke some hydroponic weed out of bowl with keif sprinkled on top and tell me you don't at least have auditory hallucinations. Pcp makes you trip out dude, like really bad most people don't even like it.

You forgot strong weed (like hydro), pcp, hydroponic weed laced w/ pcp, salvia, and jenken lol I'm sure there are more.