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inhuman14
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Name: Ian Location: Dayton, Ohio, United States Birthday: 11/21/1990 Gender: Male
Interests: Concert Band, Jazz Band, Marching Band, Flutes, Various RPGs, Chess, Astronomy, Weather, Piano, etc... Expertise: Not really an expert at anything except certain gameboy Advance games that start in Poke and end in mon, but I am pretty good at playing the Flute, composing music, and blowing stuff up. Occupation: Student Industry: Other
Message: message meEmail: email me
Member Since:
10/10/2005
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| Should I "restart" my xanga? I haven't posted in ages, but I might get around to it sometime soon. | | |
| Well, I made jazz 1 on bari. This surprised me, actually. I didn't expect to beat Kara.... I beat the awesome Bari solo from Puffy Taco! @.@ | | |
| Moderator: We're here today to debate the hot new topic, evolution versus Intelligent Des---(Scientist pulls out baseball bat.) Moderator: Hey, what are you doing? (Scientist breaks Intelligent Design advocate's kneecap.) Intelligent Design advocate: YEAAARRRRGGGHHHH! YOU BROKE MY KNEECAP! Scientist: Perhaps it only appears that I broke your kneecap. Certainly, all the evidence points to the hypothesis I broke your kneecap. For example, your kneecap is broken; it appears to be a fresh wound; and I am holding a baseball bat, which is spattered with your blood. However, a mere preponderance of evidence doesn't mean anything. Perhaps your kneecap was designed that way. Certainly, there are some features of the current situation that are inexplicable according to the "naturalistic" explanation you have just advanced, such as the exact contours of the excruciating pain that you are experiencing right now. Intelligent Design advocate: AAAAH! THE PAIN! Scientist: Frankly, I personally find it completely implausible that the random actions of a scientist such as myself could cause pain of this particular kind. I have no precise explanation for why I find this hypothesis implausible --- it just is. Your knee must have been designed that way! Intelligent Design advocate: YOU BASTARD! YOU KNOW YOU DID IT! Scientist: I surely do not. How can we know anything for certain? Frankly, I think we should expose people to all points of view. Furthermore, you should really re-examine whether your hypothesis is scientific at all: the breaking of your kneecap happened in the past, so we can't rewind and run it over again, like a laboratory experiment. Even if we could, it wouldn't prove that I broke your kneecap the previous time. Plus, let's not even get into the fact that the entire universe might have just popped into existence right before I said this sentence, with all the evidence of my alleged kneecap-breaking already pre-formed. Intelligent Design advocate: That's a load of bullshit sophistry! Get me a doctor and a lawyer, not necessarily in that order, and we'll see how that plays in court! Scientist (turning to audience): And so we see, ladies and gentlemen, when push comes to shove, advocates of Intelligent Design do not actually believe any of the arguments that they profess to believe. When it comes to matters that hit home, they prefer evidence, the scientific method, testable hypotheses, and naturalistic explanations. In fact, they strongly privilege naturalistic explanations over supernatural hocus-pocus or metaphysical wankery. It is only within the reality-distortion field of their ideological crusade that they give credence to the flimsy, ridiculous arguments which we so commonly see on display. I must confess, it kind of felt good, for once, to be the one spouting free-form bullshit; it's so terribly easy and relaxing, compared to marshaling rigorous arguments backed up by empirical evidence. But I fear that if I were to continue, then it would be habit-forming, and bad for my soul. Therefore, I bid you adieu. | | |
| Rules:
This is the Science Fiction Book Club's list of the fifty most significant science fiction/fantasy novels published between 1953 and 2002. Bold the ones you've read, strike-out the ones you hated, italicize those you started but never finished and put an asterisk beside the ones you loved.
*1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
Great books.
*2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
Ditto
3. Dune, Frank Herbert
meh. idk. it was alright, I guess
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson
7. Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley Not bad...
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
Read it for english class... three times. not too bad
11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
13. The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
14. Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
15. Cities in Flight, James Blish
*16. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
The first Discworld book. Not the best, but here's where it started.
17. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
18. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
Actually, I'm not sure if I read these or not. If I did, they can't have been good, or I'd remember them.
19. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
20. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
*21. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
Good book, but her books later got old, fast.
*22. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
THE BEST BOOK EVAR!
23. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson Arg. can't get rid of this stupid strike through.
24. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
25. Gateway, Frederik Pohl
*26. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J. K. Rowling
The first, and in my opinion, one of the best.
*27. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
Funny, but not worth re-reading.
28. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
29. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
30. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
31. Little, Big, John Crowley
32. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
*34. Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement Good book, but you probably wouldn't like it unless you love hard sci-fi
35. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
36. The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
37. On the Beach, Nevil Shute
38. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
39. Ringworld, Larry Niven
40. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
41. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
Seems good
42. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
43. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
44. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
45. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
46. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
48. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
49. Timescape, Gregory Benford
*50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer | | |
| Life's fairly decent latey. I'm being prone to forgetting things lately, big surprise. but oh well. My report card was fairly decent, at least for me, and I can probably get 1 or 2 of those bs up next quarter. | | |
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