W_L

Centripetal force solves part of the issue with gravity imbalance, we even train people today with it That ain't Sci-fi unless you don't believe in Jet Fighter pilots or astronauts Of course, a regular fission nuke alone will not be enough to jump start Mars' Core into something that can sustain a plate tectonic system and create constant friction that generates heat. However, a chain reaction of "Fusion" devices would be more probable (we still have not achieved controlled fusion yet, sadly ) @Cel, but...we can "Civilize" them and put them into human schools, give them nice little plots of land that aren't prime for anything except bars and casinos, and maybe one day make TV/movies that make human beings feel less shitty for what we did to the Pandorans They won't use Napalm, it would harm the land and local resources. My best bet is a bio-weapon specifically targeting their genetic makeup. If smallpox and typhoid worked so well in human history, modern artificially made germs can kill even faster and more efficiently. After the initial disease passes, it will leave them wide open to invasion due to disunity and shattered social systems. @ CIA, yeah I saw it, but it's not Earth's 1st cousin, it is like our 3rd cousin from hell freezing over If we find another Earth, I'd be interested in what we will do? Will we head there ourselves, send a probe, or be scared to do anything at all for the metaphysical reality that we are not unique.

Grabs a tribble to cuddle

I switched to a CD player in 2003 then a nano in 2005 I can imagine an argument in the future now: Kid 1 I tell you digital music players evolved from analog machines Kid.2 (a future apple faithful): Blasphemy ! Digital muzic was creatwd by the Great Jobs before he ascended to the heavenly apple store for accessories -------- Honestly, kids have no grasp on scope

We need to ignite the core of Mars and create a greenhouse effect before we can even begin terraforming operations. If we can create a magnetosphere, then half the problem is solved with radiation, the other half is a thick ozone. As for low gravity, I wouldn't be offended by it. We can adapt to lower gravity and even lift several hundred pounds in earth standard material. .

You know James cameron took avatar as a scifi version of Dances with wolves "p I would love to be a martian pioneer, building a new world. Is it our world to build on? Maybe if.there is no native life. Besides terraforming is hard work.

A generational ship would be an idea, a floating city to the cosmos could solve extreme isolation issues. There are many examples of isolated communities in the world that have survived centuries of isolation from civilization, but have not gone mad. We just need to avoid British accented computers named HAL Correction: HAL was canadian Atleast his voice actor was

...to explore new life and new civilizations, to bodly go where no one has gone before That is why space is the final frontier, despite its cost and insane dangers (I am not even talking about space monsters ) we seek out knowledge. I'd sign up in a second if offerred. It's the similar reason why people have signed up to be martian colonists.

Dp

In my opinion, I think Greed comes from basic instinct of hording. Our ancestors like squirrels, apes, and other mammals horded food and other resources in order to stave off starvation or death. At some point, humanity began to develop tools to help us horde more and even cultivate our resources into a sustainable and stable source. However, a million years of natural evolution does not disappear that quickly or easily. In today's world, we base our entire civilization on the concept of hording; we really don't need a full closet full of outfits to mix and match. We don't need a kitchen filled with a dozen tools to cut, dice, or liquify food into exotic forms for consumption. Even the most tribal cultures in Africa are hording in their own way, showcasing excess in the form of wares and prestigious jewelry. One of the basis in all modern human consumerism, no matter which political or philosophical ideology you identify with, is based on a common trait from our ancestors, we horde.

As an often quote phrase said: "Simpsons did it" (Sorry, but whenever this subject comes up, all I can think in context is Waylon Smithers and Mr. Burns) There's nothing wrong with it inherently, it is just different as Graeme points out. Not my cup of tea, but if both of the guys are happy and fully functional enough to make decisions, who am I to judge? Mark, you're a male cougar

@Zombie, why not use generational ships or hibernation ships? Even at .50c (assuming we can bring Anti-matter costs down to something akin to rocket fuel) we can reach our nearest neighbors within a human lifetime. I am not saying we go to the Andromeda galaxy or anything crazy Maybe a little trip to Epsilon Eridani just to check out the place, since it has planets, an asteroid belt, and an oort cloud at only 22 LY. As for aliens vs. humans, what if the aliens are advanced and peaceful in most ways, but they just need one thing from human being....they want to eat us!!! (Twilight Zone to serve man )? They offer us technology and resources thousands of years more advanced, plus end poverty, conflict, and bigotry on Earth. Would a few human burgers really be that awful, if we're well fed, well cared for, and life was simpler? An alien species may be radically different than us in terms of moral or ethical values; what we may consider barbaric or backwards could seem to them like normal.

And if other species expand their power and reach through conquests, war, and destructive exploitation, does that make the universe any less perverse than if humanity does the same? One of the interesting beliefs remaining among Sci-Fi lovers is that any sufficiently advanced civilization should have evolved beyond petty conflicts and wars if they can reach other stars. I am more in the area of Babylon 5 mentality, when it comes to alien species. Yes perhaps some species have evolved beyond good or evil, exploiting resources, or conflict. However, if the technology necessary to explore space is really not that far off, then other species at our level of development would be engaging in the same kind of actions. Then, what do we say about the universe or our roles in it? Exploitation and colonization is going to happen eventually, the question for purists is are we as humans the only species that does this in the universe or are we just following a reality of social development among spacefaring civilizations?

Well if you want Enterprise... My favorite scene was from TNG The Defector: However if you want a simple science factoid on Planets, try this one: Two Earth-like Planets in the same Solar System I can imagine a great Sci-Fi love story from this, a young alien from each planet looking up at the nearby planet wondering what is out there. What will happen if they should meet one another? Reveal that there is in fact life beyond their world?

Let's go through a recap of why I haven't been on lately: My Grandmother fell in her elder housing unit, she had to be rushed to Tufts Medical Center in Boston. At 88 years old, she is growing more and more feeble and senile, tragically. She was rushed first to the emergency room and inspected, we all thought it was just a fall, but then a deeper CT scan revealed a big problem. She had blood build up in her lung, a substantial amount that blocked air in her right lung specifically. They had hospitalize her and place a tube into her lung to flush the blood out with saline solution. While all this was happening, I had a payroll migration going on at work. As the head of Accounting, I am the go to person among all the employees. I am also my grandmother's health care proxy. I've been stuck in hell of details for the last few weeks and even though as my editor can attest, I finished the latest chapter of Causality and sent it for 1st draft of editing, I have not had time to re-edit it. Life is complex and filled with a lot of tough issues

Nah, our generation, Generation Y, is way cooler, we got the internet, gay marriage, 9/11, and had highest rates of unemployment with the Great Recession due to low hiring rates that persisted for 3 years. We are a weird generation that is kind of depressing on some levels; brilliant on others. Xers can be summed up with this from the Simpsons as they really were the MTV generation, we're more internet youtube driven:

Nope, unless they are planning to act upon it. Premeditation and mindset is an important factor in a person's mind. Btw, my favorite scene of that infamous cadinot porn is the woodshop sequence Do i want to violate a guy on a wooden bench? No but i liked the scene

Cadinot boys' dormatory is nice gay porn and I would not consider it to be anything worse than Nifty's Gay Authoritarian section, which some of us frequent Is rape fantasy bad in porn? I don't think it is intentionally evil, but it is questionable issue. The level of comfort for this sub-genre of porn I leave to each person to decide. Most rape in porn is simulated or fake to begin with, so there is consent. Fetishes like BDSM that can be outgrowths of rape fantasy porn is consensual by both the top/master and sub/slave. No matter how distorted things get, the participants are partners of their shared interest. For that, I doubt any of us have issues. Consent is my line in the sand for porn, if there is no consent in the matter of live action or "real" porn, then it is evil, because you are forcing someone to act contrary to their desires. In any sexual, I believe fundamentally both or multiple participants have to want to be involved actively with full understanding and personal freedom.

Wow, I love these diverse views and amazing life stories. For a few key points, yes, I do agree that money ain't everything (I'm an accountant, so I should know as I see millions of dollars come in and go out, but I don't get to use it myself ). However, I like my job, because I enjoy working on numbers with meaning behind it. My life and experiences in the last few years has changed me. For me, health care wasn't my first calling; it was the allure of Wall Street and High Finance. I didn't go into college with a desire to be Einstein or Socrates, but maybe develop my skills so I can male a million dollars in an hour My original major was Economics and Finance, but in my second year, I switched it to accounting, because I saw enough to know I should change my major. Even then, I didn't actually have a clue that I wanted to get into health care as my first internships were with accounting firms. After being told there were no jobs in big firms, I looked for a job, any job really that would pay. I worked as an Administrative assistant for a time to pay for my graduate degree. Even after I finished my Master's degree, jobs were still scarce. I ended up working for a non-profit Community Health Center Management company in Dorchester, one of the most crime ridden parts of Boston. I went through two drive-bys and a stabbing. I thought; "well, if I am going to work my way up, I got to start somewhere at the bottom and I got to fight through this.". I took on the task of managing the books of a faltering institution, too much spending and poor collections from medicaid pool had pushed cash down severely. Health Care reform in Massachusetts was a dramatic shift for community health centers, who depended on the Massachusetts uninsured pool of funding for support on patients, who had no money. The transition eliminated the free care pool of money and meant for several months, patients without health insurance were getting services without an offsetting source of money on our end. The genius of a collaborative management firm was that several health centers could pool together their reserve funds and endowments together to weather the reform, but in the end, the concept failed due to poor management and expensive capital projects that drained funding without a reliable period of collections. Before it was too late, I jumped ship and landed my current position with a for profit health care firm that I have worked and built as one of Massachusetts fastest growing firms. Life is complicated and there's a lot of unexpected turns. Even with a great education, drive, and determination, you can't say that things will go your way. I have always been a slight cynic of humanity, because nothing comes easy. You can only fight and have faith that something better will come your way. At points, I stopped fighting and lost faith in the possibility of a better world; I broke down and cried at my life,thinking my life is at a dead-end. However, I found something to claw back and keep on fighting, because I had to. In some ways, I have to thank GA and all of you guys for keeping me sane and resolute (even the disagreable Zombie ). You guys helped give me a world to escape to, when my life was stressful and hellish. Beyond Education from school, I think the best education is from those around; GA itself is a great learning institution

Any insights? Or are you onto the next blog

We never talk about our education levels on GA much; nor do we really discuss things like going back to school or career progression. For some people on the site, it is an afterthought; education does not denote success, nor skill alone. However, it does impact how you perceive the world and how you view others around you. In real life, I was checking up on work done by a finance clerk and found several errors. She was apologetic and I went about teaching her how to run numbers for reports better with different tools from Excel. She commented that she had not been in college for almost 15 years and had not been adept at using Excel, except for basic spreadsheets. She asked me to take care of the reports, because I was more technical. My CFO heard that as he was passing by and she was terminated a few days later. A sad story about human limitations that reveals a technical gap between generations and people. She held a Bachelors degree, but her technical sophistication was lacking. I am a Masters' level guy, I still like to keep on learning and I am mandated to keep up Continuing education every yea by my professional board (long story about professional certification processes). A generation ago, a college education with a bachelors was enough for most jobs, but is it enough for modern times? I think education is extremely important and people should seek to update themselves from time to time, just so they don't become obsolete. However, I wonder how many people are willing to do that and keep it going? My value on education is a personal view, you may have a different view than me on this.

@Mark, you're an educator, don't you have an essay tool that can summarize all these nasty run on sentences up into a concise MLA format. (Half joking, there was something in development back in 07, when I was in college that was a program to pick out key word combinations in sentences for professors. Not sure if that ever got further developed) @Adam, I used to do essay format type debates on GA. As I have grown older, I have gained a bit of introspection: short and sweet on what you enjoy and only go long on details and examples of what you know from personal observations/anecdotes. Stream of consciousness was a great form of exposition in the 20th century; condensation is 21st century method of writing. Here's what I see in your long paragraphs: 1. Porn is neither good nor bad without reference 2. Questions are raised by who should be the moral authority of Porn 3. You apply law as the ultimate judge; though, not clear cut accross all locales 4. Separating the concepts of legal and dangerous Also, please remember, Zombie enjoys having fun with debates; he picks fight with anyone for a good thrill. I like to engage him from time to time myself, too. Don't take it too seriously and you will enjoy the vast areas of disagreements with a Anglo-centric zombie @Zombie: Well played sir! Back to topic: Has anyone noticed that gay porn in recent years has gotten a lot better in terms of focus and production quality? I was watching a Helix studio flick, Velo from 2013, and found that it was incredibly good in terms of picture and sound. Yes, it is a sexual fantasy (I'd love to meet a courier like that), but I can't help enjoying it. In movie industry, there has been a movement towards making things more visceral, but an unsaid truth is that pornography is also getting the same treatment. People can actually apply the same questions over movie violence and intense scenes with pornographic sex acts and human motions.

Well, we can agree in a majority sense, Snuff porn is illegal, inhumane, and unconscionable to most human beings. Sure, some poeple like to see murder and mutilation like that on camera, but there is a majority understanding as part of human nature. With that bottom line set, we can start building on what we agree is evil porn versus good harmless porn. Also, that bottom line can never be crossed, because once we do cross that line; human life no longer has value and civilization is dead.

If I have free time between writing and work, Friedrich Nietzsche He is often misunderstood, but there's a lot of interesting paradoxes in his philosophy.

Depends on several factors: Location, I know for instance based on our facility in Florida that there is no mass transit in the Palm Beach area that would reach the residential apartments complexes our employees live in. They must drive into work, paying the cost of gas as well to get from home to work daily. It adds to the sedimentary lifestyle and cost of living. As for cost of living. Food prices are not uniform across the 50 states, nor is other cost of living like rent and utilities. You also must plan to take time out of your day for exercise, which after a long workday may be less incentive than most people would imagine. When you are that tired, you just want to get to sleep. As for poverty and success, I agree with you that people can internally strive for success. I am one-eyed accounting manager, who paid my grad school costs by working as an Office Administrator (You guys didn't know that when I first joined GA ). However, I am practical guy; I know not everyone has the internal drive to fight and keep on fighting until either you die or you reach your goals. People like me are rare in the world; the vast majority need to be motivated, trained, and directed. Not everyone can reach their full potential, because beyond personal responsibility, there is "drive".

Actually my entire Blog entry is centered on Bioethics? That point holds true, because health care people do like to debate Pasteur when you talk to them about bioethics. Ask around? Also, I have noticed you are deflecting from my question from before about the UK NHS: