I don't think there is any question that people can be born bad. It's called anti-social personality disorder, and in its more extreme forms, sociopathic or psychopathic. There is an acronym for remembering the diagnostic criteria: corrupt.
* C - cannot follow law
* O - obligations ignored
* R - remorselessness
* R - recklessness
* U - underhandedness
* P - planning deficit
* T - temper
Here's the checklist for a psychopath
1. Glibness/superficial charm
2. Grandiose sense of self-worth
3. Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
4. Pathological lying
5. Cunning/manipulative
6. Lack of remorse or guilt
7. Shallow affect
8. Callous/lack of empathy
9. Parasitic lifestyle
10. Poor behavioral controls
11. Promiscuous sexual behavior
12. Early behavioral problems
13. Lack of realistic, long-term goals
14. Impulsivity
15. Irresponsibility
16. Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
17. Many short-term marital relationships
18. Juvenile delinquency
19. Revocation of conditional release
20. Criminal versatility
I'm glad to see that the RIAA/MPAA's War on Customers is failing, and IANAL, but that article summary is terrible. Can you possibly make it any more confusing?
Feeshing Ixpedeeshun vreetes in veet a stury in Ers repurteeng thet zee RIEA hes deceeded tu eppeel a joodge's deceesiun tu everd etturneys' fees tu deffendunt Debbeee-a Fuster in Cepeetul Recurds f. Fuster. Iff zee everd stunds, zee RIEA cuoold feend itselff in truooble-a in noomeruoos oozeer ceses, und zeey knoo it. Zeeur reel feer, mure-a thun zee etturneys' fees, is zee joodge's feending thet zee RIEE's ergooments fur cuntreebootury und feeceriuoos inffreengement cleeems in ceses leeke-a thees oone-a ere-a nut feeeble-a. Bork Bork Bork!
What the fuck is "internet lingo"? There are a lot of people who have been using the internet a lot longer than you, and yet they do not talk like retards. Imagine that.
That's because you aren't a cunning linguist. But you can still be a master debater.
I'm sure glad it landed intact, I've been told that a crashing squid can cover a whole neighborhood in calamari. Wait, what? That's not what that headline meant? Never mind.
Faith without evidence is bad because it interferes with gathering evidence that might contradict that faith.
Being a member of a religious group has one of the highest corellations with happiness, but so does being a member of any close community. The Sangha (community) of Buddhism has the same unity without worshipping anything. So, it is possible, but I will give you that there are benefits to being in a religious group.
Faith in the absence of evidence is bad, and when it gets big it gets very bad. Faith supported by evidence is not so bad, but then it is more appropriately called an educated guess. Religion does do good, but that is part of its strategy for control and there is no evidence that all of the good accomplished by religion would not be accomplished by non-religious groups if religion didn't exist.
Hehe, it's fun for about half an hour, until you realize that there is NO challenge. It makes all the thieves guild quests rather unchallenging as well. Higher level goblins are actually surprisingly tough, I would put them on a par with high level daedra. They were still a challenge for me even when I was whipping through bandits and other run of the mill encounters like a hot knife through butter.
One of the things about the Elder Scrolls series, there are many viable strategies and ways of dealing with situations. Take one approach and an encounter will be insanely difficult, while with a different strategy, the same character wouldn't even work up a sweat.
One skill that can make things insanely easy is alchemy. The ingredients for restoring health, fatigue and mana are easy to come by, and a few home made potions can turn a bloody defeat into an easy victory.
Also, the AI is rather stupid. If there are a number of enemies in a room, you can often times shoot one of them, lead him off and kill him, and repeat until all the enemies are dead. Also, they can often not reach places that you can get to, or they may take a roundabout path to get to you that leaves you plenty of time to snipe them on the way.
Many enemies are slow but strong. You can shoot them with arrows or spells while running backwards in a large circle. Or you can dart in, smack them, and retreat before they can hit you.
Pairs of waterwalking shoes are easy to make or come by. Then you can lure enemies into the water and shoot them at your leisure. Several NPCs in the game will even recommend this tactic.
Finally, play to the strengths of your character and develop a strategy that works for you. This is far more important than how you level up your character. If you are a thief-type, sneak and snipe, don't rush up and start bashing ogres with a club. If you are a lumbering fighter with heavy armor, don't use a strategy that requires speed. If you are a mage, make use of the mages guild to create customized spells that match your abilities.
You still haven't addressed the first case I provided, and all I have to do is show one case that meets your criteria where the person was executed. I have done so.
The sad fact is that criminal investigations are often political, and law enforcement officials are pressured into getting a conviction no matter what. Also, some people in law enforcement are racist and have no qualms seeing an innocent minority killed. Innocent people have been executed in this country, and innocents will continue to be executed. I'm sure I won't convince you or other reactionaries of this fact, but I don't really need to. I only need to convince the fence sitters, and as I have presented a much stronger argument than you have, I feel like I've done what I set out to do.
I will admit that, if you are white and/or make enough money, you have little to worry about wrongful execution. Another sad fact about our justice system.
By level 30, even if you have been getting +2 stat increases the whole time rather than +5, assuming you have some halfway decent armor and weapons, you should be able to stroll through the toughest enemies blindfolded with one arm and one leg tied behind your back. At level 33, I can take on 5-6 of the toughest enemies at the same time, and dispatch them all within 30 seconds using at most one potion.
Actually, having all combat skills as main is suicide. To get the best character, you do need to level a certain way. In order to do that, you need to control when you level. In order to do that, you need some combat skills that are not main skills, so you can switch to those when you don't want to level. It also helps to have a few skills that you can use in the opposite fashion, for quickly gaining a level after you have advanced your skills enough to get the bonuses you want.
I didn't powerlevel much, getting three +3 stat increases per level on average. By level 25, nothing could come close to killing me. Levels 2-20 were kind of frustrating though, as it really didn't feel like I was getting any better. After level 20, things started to get easier, then as I said, by level 25 they were a cakewalk.
I will also say, there are some cheapskate techniques one can use to kick ass any time things get hard. Do the mages guild quests to the point where you can enchant. Run around collecting grapes and tomatos near Skingraad. Make and sell restore fatigue potions until you can afford to enchant five things with chameleon 20%. You are now permanently invisble, nothing can see you to hit you, and you always get sneak attack bonuses. 10 hours into the game and you are invincible.
I dind't find that trick until level 25 or so, but there's no reason you couldn't use it much, much earlier.
I already gave you what you asked for, then. You obviously have not even read the links I provided. Since you are too lazy to click on a link, let me copy and paste for you.
a witness significantly altering testimony
Juan Moreno, who was wounded during the attempted robbery and was a key eyewitness in the case against Cantu, now says that it was not Cantu who shot him and that he only identified Cantu as the shooter because he felt pressured and was afraid of the authorities.
Ruben Cantu was executed in 1993
Jones was convicted of murdering a police officer in Jacksonville, Florida. Jones signed a confession after several hours of police interrogation, but he later claimed the confession was coerced. In the mid-1980s, the policeman who arrested Jones and the detective who took his confession were forced out of uniform for ethical violations. The policeman was later identified by a fellow officer as an "enforcer" who had used torture. Many witnesses came forward pointing to another suspect in the case.
Leo Jones was executed 1998
Do accept the fact that you are wrong, or will you try to weasel out of this by claiming that some part of your criteria were not fulfilled? If you wish to try to weasel out of it, I would posit that the burden of proof is now on you. Go look up their cases and show me where all your criteria were not fulfilled. I suppose in the second case he doesn't technically fulfill the "not confessing to the crime" criteria, but I don't think a confession tortured out of someone should count, do you?
This is why I had you state your beliefs clearly and unequivically. I had already provided you with the proof that you were wrong, had you bothered to read the articles I ilnked to. But you had left yourself an out in how you worded your original statement. You also had neglected to state what you would consider proof. Now you are trapped between your own statements and the cold hard facts. You have stated a belief that has been proven false, and made to look quite the fool. I will enjoy watching you squirm as you try to extricate yourself.
Ahhhh, how exactly is one to be proven innocent after one is dead? Who would go to the bother, and who exactly would decide? What would you accept as proof of innocence?
I'm sorry but you have set up criteria that are impossible to fulfill. And can you please answer the question: do you think that innocent people, defined by your criteria, are NEVER executed? Really? Never? Go ahead, say it plainly and clearly and see how it sounds: "Innocent people, as defined by my criteria, have never, are never, and will never be executed." Go on, say it. We all need a good laugh.
IBM Lawyer [plants flag]: I claim Microsoft for IBM! Ballmer: You can't claim us, we work here, 76,000 of us! IBM Lawyer: Do you have a flag? Ballmer: We don't need a bloody flag! It's our company, you bastards! IBM Lawyer: No flag, no company, you can't have one! That's the rules that I've just made up, and I'm backing it up with this writ that was lent from the National Bar Association.
Are you saying that people who are innocent and take all necessary steps will NEVER be executed? And then you want counter examples? So we're supposed to find cases where someone has been executed, THEN proven innocent, and ALL those things are true? If we can't find any, that would prove what, exactly? Do you REALLY not see how ridiculous your criteria are?
Thanks for playing "Excusing the Inexcusable." Here's a copy of our home game, in which players attempt to construct arguments supporting such things as torture, rape, and Celine Dion.
So you can't tell bad acting from good? And a child throwing a temper tantrum looks the same to you as a person in real emotional crisis? Maybe what they say about geeks' social skills really is true...
Do you know, I've had the same thought? Sometimes I just want to be a plumber, or a welder, or a carpenter because of the satisfaction of manipulating physical objects and having something tangible to look at at the end of the day and say, "I made that."
Very nice thoughts on meaning, by the way. Deserves a +5 more than my comment does. I was just being pithy, really. You've hit on an important distinction that makes certain activities inherently more meaningful than others.
Tears are a privileged channel of communication. Humans can learn quite a bit from other humans, but this leaves us open to manipulation. In strong emotional states, actual, verifiable bodily resources are invested in the communication. Salt and water are invested in the case of sadness, calories (verifiable through shaking, raised blood pressure, etc.) in the case of anger and fear, and so forth. Tears have everything to do with sincerity and authenticity. Remember, the system doesn't have to be perfect to be evolutionarily advantageous.
Men, on averaqe, have worse emotional BS detectors. Half our brain is specialized for computing the trajectory of thrown objects, which also happens to make us (on average*) better at math. In women, that half gets used for social processing, making them better at detecting BS, listening to two conversations at once, and so forth.
We also get very hurt around emotions. Because we have been taught to repress our own emotions, when we see others in strong emotional states, it brings up conflicting feelings of hurt around our own oppression. Because of this, our BS detectors don't function at full capacity most of the time.
All this is really tangential to my point, which is just that there is a reason people can tell good acting from bad. Do you honestly disagree with that premise? Or do you just disagree with the my argument as to why they can tell good acting from bad?
* This is not meant to oppress women. Any particular woman may be better than any particular man at math, and the best mathematician in the world could well be a woman, but on average men are better. Just like we're taller, and women can have babies. We're different, get over it.
Not all humans have Faith, big F. Every human has faith, little f. Faith that the sun will rise, that solid objects will remain so, and that other humans have an interior life similar to ours. This is faith from evidence, though. Religions require faith without evidence. Spirituality, which is a very good thing in my book, does not. Spirituality is about direct perception of the mysterious or Divine. Please understand, I support spirituality, but I feel that organized religion does more harm than good. I know this is a controversial stance to take, and I can understand if people are upset with me or think I'm trolling. I'm not, I'm trying to have a dialogue and so far, I have not heard any convincing defense of organized religion.
In fact, everything has only and exactly the meaning you give it, and for you, no other meaning is possible. You chose to give certain situations in your life meaning, and you chose to say that others had no meaning. That was your choice. But it is not entirely up to you, your choices are never made as freely as you think. As a child you had little choice but to accept the meaning-templates that society provided you. You can choose to move on and redefine your templates, but that is a hard thing, and most never do it.
I'm glad you've found more meaning in your life, though. That is always a good thing. Just don't shut out those "meaningless" parts, they may have more meaning than you thought at the time.
Very interesting. Have you ever read The Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan? I would say that the defining characteristic of the stage medium is it's immediacy. Something that would be merely moving on television or film can be like a punch in the gut when witnessed in real life, from a few dozen feet away. This is the major reason why stage acting won't go away (at least until we develop full-sensory broadcast, and even then I imagine it will be used to give a first person perspective from the main characters point of view rather than being used to recreate the experience of going to a theater.
Hmm, you know, I don't really know. The wikipedia page on cat senses claims they can distinguish color, but without much accuity and mostly at close range. Unfortunately, there are no references provided where I could look for more info, so a quick trip to google searching for "cat senses" was necessary. Evidently, a cat sees color like a colorblind human does, for example it sees red and yellow colors as bluish and greenish nuances. I would assume from this that the lack of full spectrum lighting would be even less noticeable to a cat, but that is just my theory. I suppose you could test it by teaching a cat to distinguish colors in exchange for treats under natural light and then see if they could still distinguish those colors under limited spectrum lights.
Yes, but that is not the real problem. The problem is that the spectrum produced by a CFL isn't full. Subtracting more colors fom it will not make it more full. It may make it warmer, but there are already warm spectrum CFLs. Because they don't have a full spectrum, when their light is reflected, it will produce different colors than you would see from a full spectrum light, even if the color temperature is the same. That's my theory anyway, what do you think?
Gels work by subtracting wavelengths from the spectrum of light. CFLs have a spectrum with at most four sharp peaks, they do not radiate a full black body spectrum. There isn't anything between the peaks for the warming gel pack to subtract. Therefore, this is not a solution. The only solution is to add more types of phosphors to generate a fuller spectrum. This both adds to the cost and decreases the efficiency, however.
One more thing: LED and OLED suffer from the same CRI issue. You won't have real black-body spectrum white light, you'll have a combination of narrow wavelengths of red, green, and blue that looks white until it reflects off of things and the color of everything in the room is a little off.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think there is any question that people can be born bad. It's called anti-social personality disorder, and in its more extreme forms, sociopathic or psychopathic. There is an acronym for remembering the diagnostic criteria: corrupt.
* C - cannot follow law
* O - obligations ignored
* R - remorselessness
* R - recklessness
* U - underhandedness
* P - planning deficit
* T - temper
Here's the checklist for a psychopath
1. Glibness/superficial charm
2. Grandiose sense of self-worth
3. Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
4. Pathological lying
5. Cunning/manipulative
6. Lack of remorse or guilt
7. Shallow affect
8. Callous/lack of empathy
9. Parasitic lifestyle
10. Poor behavioral controls
11. Promiscuous sexual behavior
12. Early behavioral problems
13. Lack of realistic, long-term goals
14. Impulsivity
15. Irresponsibility
16. Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
17. Many short-term marital relationships
18. Juvenile delinquency
19. Revocation of conditional release
20. Criminal versatility
That's a pretty clear definition of "bad."
I'm glad to see that the RIAA/MPAA's War on Customers is failing, and IANAL, but that article summary is terrible. Can you possibly make it any more confusing?
Feeshing Ixpedeeshun vreetes in veet a stury in Ers repurteeng thet zee RIEA hes deceeded tu eppeel a joodge's deceesiun tu everd etturneys' fees tu deffendunt Debbeee-a Fuster in Cepeetul Recurds f. Fuster. Iff zee everd stunds, zee RIEA cuoold feend itselff in truooble-a in noomeruoos oozeer ceses, und zeey knoo it. Zeeur reel feer, mure-a thun zee etturneys' fees, is zee joodge's feending thet zee RIEE's ergooments fur cuntreebootury und feeceriuoos inffreengement cleeems in ceses leeke-a thees oone-a ere-a nut feeeble-a. Bork Bork Bork!
What the fuck is "internet lingo"? There are a lot of people who have been using the internet a lot longer than you, and yet they do not talk like retards. Imagine that.
That's because you aren't a cunning linguist. But you can still be a master debater.
I'm sure glad it landed intact, I've been told that a crashing squid can cover a whole neighborhood in calamari. Wait, what? That's not what that headline meant? Never mind.
Faith without evidence is bad because it interferes with gathering evidence that might contradict that faith.
Being a member of a religious group has one of the highest corellations with happiness, but so does being a member of any close community. The Sangha (community) of Buddhism has the same unity without worshipping anything. So, it is possible, but I will give you that there are benefits to being in a religious group.
Faith in the absence of evidence is bad, and when it gets big it gets very bad. Faith supported by evidence is not so bad, but then it is more appropriately called an educated guess. Religion does do good, but that is part of its strategy for control and there is no evidence that all of the good accomplished by religion would not be accomplished by non-religious groups if religion didn't exist.
"Help! I'm on fire and I can't get up!"
I'm going to try that tonight, that's hilarious.
Remeber that a "Backronym" (hate that word!) is a subtype of acronym.
Would Muhammad Ali's GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) line of food products be considered a snackronym or a blackronym?
Hehe, it's fun for about half an hour, until you realize that there is NO challenge. It makes all the thieves guild quests rather unchallenging as well. Higher level goblins are actually surprisingly tough, I would put them on a par with high level daedra. They were still a challenge for me even when I was whipping through bandits and other run of the mill encounters like a hot knife through butter.
One of the things about the Elder Scrolls series, there are many viable strategies and ways of dealing with situations. Take one approach and an encounter will be insanely difficult, while with a different strategy, the same character wouldn't even work up a sweat.
One skill that can make things insanely easy is alchemy. The ingredients for restoring health, fatigue and mana are easy to come by, and a few home made potions can turn a bloody defeat into an easy victory.
Also, the AI is rather stupid. If there are a number of enemies in a room, you can often times shoot one of them, lead him off and kill him, and repeat until all the enemies are dead. Also, they can often not reach places that you can get to, or they may take a roundabout path to get to you that leaves you plenty of time to snipe them on the way.
Many enemies are slow but strong. You can shoot them with arrows or spells while running backwards in a large circle. Or you can dart in, smack them, and retreat before they can hit you.
Pairs of waterwalking shoes are easy to make or come by. Then you can lure enemies into the water and shoot them at your leisure. Several NPCs in the game will even recommend this tactic.
Finally, play to the strengths of your character and develop a strategy that works for you. This is far more important than how you level up your character. If you are a thief-type, sneak and snipe, don't rush up and start bashing ogres with a club. If you are a lumbering fighter with heavy armor, don't use a strategy that requires speed. If you are a mage, make use of the mages guild to create customized spells that match your abilities.
You still haven't addressed the first case I provided, and all I have to do is show one case that meets your criteria where the person was executed. I have done so.
The sad fact is that criminal investigations are often political, and law enforcement officials are pressured into getting a conviction no matter what. Also, some people in law enforcement are racist and have no qualms seeing an innocent minority killed. Innocent people have been executed in this country, and innocents will continue to be executed. I'm sure I won't convince you or other reactionaries of this fact, but I don't really need to. I only need to convince the fence sitters, and as I have presented a much stronger argument than you have, I feel like I've done what I set out to do.
I will admit that, if you are white and/or make enough money, you have little to worry about wrongful execution. Another sad fact about our justice system.
By level 30, even if you have been getting +2 stat increases the whole time rather than +5, assuming you have some halfway decent armor and weapons, you should be able to stroll through the toughest enemies blindfolded with one arm and one leg tied behind your back. At level 33, I can take on 5-6 of the toughest enemies at the same time, and dispatch them all within 30 seconds using at most one potion.
Actually, having all combat skills as main is suicide. To get the best character, you do need to level a certain way. In order to do that, you need to control when you level. In order to do that, you need some combat skills that are not main skills, so you can switch to those when you don't want to level. It also helps to have a few skills that you can use in the opposite fashion, for quickly gaining a level after you have advanced your skills enough to get the bonuses you want.
I didn't powerlevel much, getting three +3 stat increases per level on average. By level 25, nothing could come close to killing me. Levels 2-20 were kind of frustrating though, as it really didn't feel like I was getting any better. After level 20, things started to get easier, then as I said, by level 25 they were a cakewalk.
I will also say, there are some cheapskate techniques one can use to kick ass any time things get hard. Do the mages guild quests to the point where you can enchant. Run around collecting grapes and tomatos near Skingraad. Make and sell restore fatigue potions until you can afford to enchant five things with chameleon 20%. You are now permanently invisble, nothing can see you to hit you, and you always get sneak attack bonuses. 10 hours into the game and you are invincible.
I dind't find that trick until level 25 or so, but there's no reason you couldn't use it much, much earlier.
a witness significantly altering testimony
Ruben Cantu was executed in 1993
Leo Jones was executed 1998
Do accept the fact that you are wrong, or will you try to weasel out of this by claiming that some part of your criteria were not fulfilled? If you wish to try to weasel out of it, I would posit that the burden of proof is now on you. Go look up their cases and show me where all your criteria were not fulfilled. I suppose in the second case he doesn't technically fulfill the "not confessing to the crime" criteria, but I don't think a confession tortured out of someone should count, do you?
This is why I had you state your beliefs clearly and unequivically. I had already provided you with the proof that you were wrong, had you bothered to read the articles I ilnked to. But you had left yourself an out in how you worded your original statement. You also had neglected to state what you would consider proof. Now you are trapped between your own statements and the cold hard facts. You have stated a belief that has been proven false, and made to look quite the fool. I will enjoy watching you squirm as you try to extricate yourself.
Ahhhh, how exactly is one to be proven innocent after one is dead? Who would go to the bother, and who exactly would decide? What would you accept as proof of innocence?
I'm sorry but you have set up criteria that are impossible to fulfill. And can you please answer the question: do you think that innocent people, defined by your criteria, are NEVER executed? Really? Never? Go ahead, say it plainly and clearly and see how it sounds: "Innocent people, as defined by my criteria, have never, are never, and will never be executed." Go on, say it. We all need a good laugh.
IBM Lawyer [plants flag]: I claim Microsoft for IBM!
Ballmer: You can't claim us, we work here, 76,000 of us!
IBM Lawyer: Do you have a flag?
Ballmer: We don't need a bloody flag! It's our company, you bastards!
IBM Lawyer: No flag, no company, you can't have one! That's the rules that I've just made up, and I'm backing it up with this writ that was lent from the National Bar Association.
Are you saying that people who are innocent and take all necessary steps will NEVER be executed? And then you want counter examples? So we're supposed to find cases where someone has been executed, THEN proven innocent, and ALL those things are true? If we can't find any, that would prove what, exactly? Do you REALLY not see how ridiculous your criteria are?
Here's a list of death row inmates exonerated since 1973. There is at least one case in that list that meets all the criteria, and would have been executed, except they were subsequently found innocent on appeal. Here's a list of people executed, but possibly innocent Realistically, that's as close as it's possible to get to providing counter examples.
Thanks for playing "Excusing the Inexcusable." Here's a copy of our home game, in which players attempt to construct arguments supporting such things as torture, rape, and Celine Dion.
So you can't tell bad acting from good? And a child throwing a temper tantrum looks the same to you as a person in real emotional crisis? Maybe what they say about geeks' social skills really is true...
Do you know, I've had the same thought? Sometimes I just want to be a plumber, or a welder, or a carpenter because of the satisfaction of manipulating physical objects and having something tangible to look at at the end of the day and say, "I made that."
Very nice thoughts on meaning, by the way. Deserves a +5 more than my comment does. I was just being pithy, really. You've hit on an important distinction that makes certain activities inherently more meaningful than others.
Tears are a privileged channel of communication. Humans can learn quite a bit from other humans, but this leaves us open to manipulation. In strong emotional states, actual, verifiable bodily resources are invested in the communication. Salt and water are invested in the case of sadness, calories (verifiable through shaking, raised blood pressure, etc.) in the case of anger and fear, and so forth. Tears have everything to do with sincerity and authenticity. Remember, the system doesn't have to be perfect to be evolutionarily advantageous.
Men, on averaqe, have worse emotional BS detectors. Half our brain is specialized for computing the trajectory of thrown objects, which also happens to make us (on average*) better at math. In women, that half gets used for social processing, making them better at detecting BS, listening to two conversations at once, and so forth.
We also get very hurt around emotions. Because we have been taught to repress our own emotions, when we see others in strong emotional states, it brings up conflicting feelings of hurt around our own oppression. Because of this, our BS detectors don't function at full capacity most of the time.
All this is really tangential to my point, which is just that there is a reason people can tell good acting from bad. Do you honestly disagree with that premise? Or do you just disagree with the my argument as to why they can tell good acting from bad?
* This is not meant to oppress women. Any particular woman may be better than any particular man at math, and the best mathematician in the world could well be a woman, but on average men are better. Just like we're taller, and women can have babies. We're different, get over it.
Not all humans have Faith, big F. Every human has faith, little f. Faith that the sun will rise, that solid objects will remain so, and that other humans have an interior life similar to ours. This is faith from evidence, though. Religions require faith without evidence. Spirituality, which is a very good thing in my book, does not. Spirituality is about direct perception of the mysterious or Divine. Please understand, I support spirituality, but I feel that organized religion does more harm than good. I know this is a controversial stance to take, and I can understand if people are upset with me or think I'm trolling. I'm not, I'm trying to have a dialogue and so far, I have not heard any convincing defense of organized religion.
In fact, everything has only and exactly the meaning you give it, and for you, no other meaning is possible. You chose to give certain situations in your life meaning, and you chose to say that others had no meaning. That was your choice. But it is not entirely up to you, your choices are never made as freely as you think. As a child you had little choice but to accept the meaning-templates that society provided you. You can choose to move on and redefine your templates, but that is a hard thing, and most never do it.
I'm glad you've found more meaning in your life, though. That is always a good thing. Just don't shut out those "meaningless" parts, they may have more meaning than you thought at the time.
Very interesting. Have you ever read The Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan? I would say that the defining characteristic of the stage medium is it's immediacy. Something that would be merely moving on television or film can be like a punch in the gut when witnessed in real life, from a few dozen feet away. This is the major reason why stage acting won't go away (at least until we develop full-sensory broadcast, and even then I imagine it will be used to give a first person perspective from the main characters point of view rather than being used to recreate the experience of going to a theater.
Hmm, you know, I don't really know. The wikipedia page on cat senses claims they can distinguish color, but without much accuity and mostly at close range. Unfortunately, there are no references provided where I could look for more info, so a quick trip to google searching for "cat senses" was necessary. Evidently, a cat sees color like a colorblind human does, for example it sees red and yellow colors as bluish and greenish nuances. I would assume from this that the lack of full spectrum lighting would be even less noticeable to a cat, but that is just my theory. I suppose you could test it by teaching a cat to distinguish colors in exchange for treats under natural light and then see if they could still distinguish those colors under limited spectrum lights.
Yes, but that is not the real problem. The problem is that the spectrum produced by a CFL isn't full. Subtracting more colors fom it will not make it more full. It may make it warmer, but there are already warm spectrum CFLs. Because they don't have a full spectrum, when their light is reflected, it will produce different colors than you would see from a full spectrum light, even if the color temperature is the same. That's my theory anyway, what do you think?
Gels work by subtracting wavelengths from the spectrum of light. CFLs have a spectrum with at most four sharp peaks, they do not radiate a full black body spectrum. There isn't anything between the peaks for the warming gel pack to subtract. Therefore, this is not a solution. The only solution is to add more types of phosphors to generate a fuller spectrum. This both adds to the cost and decreases the efficiency, however.
One more thing: LED and OLED suffer from the same CRI issue. You won't have real black-body spectrum white light, you'll have a combination of narrow wavelengths of red, green, and blue that looks white until it reflects off of things and the color of everything in the room is a little off.