Recent content by thequixoticman

Since I'm currently working in the TV industry, no I have never had that experience. I think the whole huge quitting thing is a Hollywood fantasy, mostly because no one in Hollywood can do that. The industry is small, you never know who's actually going to move up and when you're going to be...

There's a fairly large problem with trying to use the Drake equation in an argument. Of the seven variables used, we have an idea on how the numbers resolve for two of them. We have a good idea on rates of star formation and we can make fairly educated guesses about the fraction of stars that...

Yeah, the Miller-Urey experiment is awesome. Although it doesn't show that abiogenesis DID happen, it does show a way it COULD HAVE happened, which means life spontaneously arising from inanimate matter is possible and by way of Occam's Razor, which states that all things being equal the theory...

I don't buy into all these people saying that math or statistics proves alien life. Math and statistics would tell you that we have one and only one data point and that you can't extrapolate anything from that. The Miller-Urey experiments showed that amino acids can, and probably will, be...

That Douglas Adams quote always kind of bugged me, just because he's wrong on the concept of infinity. I mean, what's the full quote... it's something like "It is well known that there are an infinite number of planets but not all of them are inhabited. Any finite number divided by infinity is...

The whole alien thing always annoys me, just from the basic idea that there'd be a reason for them to come in the first place. I think there is probably other life in the universe. If we've learned anything from extremophiles it's that life, if given ANY sort of chance whatsoever, manages to...

I smoked weed for about four years from when I was sixteen until my sophmore year of college. I eventually stopped (I am now 27) because when I was stoned I'd get intensely paranoid and feel stupid. I would literally be scared to talk because I would be certain that anything I could possibly...

The question is, do you mean movies that weren't seen in their day, or movies that aren't seen now? Because if it's just movies that younger people haven't seen... Lawrence of Arabia - I know most of you probably have heard of it, but I don't think there are a lot of people these days...

1 - As others have brought up, the jetpack has been built. It's incredibly expensive to build and even more expensive to run. It's also really heavy. 2 - Cultured meat is far more expensive to produce than cattle. Undoubtedly, there will be people that continue to work on this until it...

I think getting into the thorny question of whether or not video-games are art here is unnecessary. Granted, this is a hard matter to parse without seeing the exact details of the assignment, but part of your job as a student is not just read the basic subject for the assignment but understand...

If you've never checked them out, Roger Zelazny's "Amber" books are pretty good. The basic idea is that it's a struggle for power amongst the ruling family of the one "true" earth, of which every other earth is a shadow. The ruling family has the ability to walk into the other earths. I can...

Just to make a small correction on this - your science is a little out of date. Lactic acid doesn't cause fatigue, it acts to lubricate muscles further and assist in strenuous activity. Current theories on muscle fatigue suggest that what we're really seeing is a break-down of tiny bits of...

I've always been of the opinion that maturity boiled down to a degree of self-knowledge. It's one of the reasons that the older I've gotten, the more I've been interested in reading and watching things created by people with a sense of humor. I find work that's able to laugh at itself to be...

Of course one friend hugging another friend isn't an inherently homosexual act. That's moronic. I would say however that I agree with your friend that I'd have a bad reaction to the response "I'll give you a hug," to the question "What are you getting me for my birthday?" Not because it's...

When I was 11 I read through the first five Amber books, great high fantasy series by Roger Zelazny. First book is called Nine Princes in Amber. Also, Wrinkle in Time should be read by every kid, maybe look into Piers Anthony's "Xanth" series. Some of that stuff might be a bit difficult...