Home
Search Archive
Daily Question
Weekly Picture
FAQ
Featured
Disclaimer
Blog
LeaderBoard
View the LeaderBoard
|
Featured Questions and Answers
Click on a question to reveal an answer
| Featured Questions |
A. Simply put for the biologically minded observer it is a matter of tears being produced by your tear glands. They flow out of the tear ducts. Some of them run down the outside of your face. Some of them are gathered up by a duct after cleaning your eye and drained down through your nose. This loosens up the mucous and your nose runs.
It makes some sense, I guess, biologically. The tears are there to keep the eye moistened, but also in cases of threat from dust and other outside irritants or dangers, to cleanse the eye and wash out impurities. Similarly, snot's there to block and wash out all sorts of external threats and irritants. So if your eyes are sensing a problem it's a good idea to get the nose to protect against it too. The body efficiently takes care of both with the same tears in the case of crying.
But I figure it's there to humble you. If you are weeping you are taking things so very seriously. By making your nose run your body is reminding you that you aren't some great tragic figure. Look, even at your most emotional moment you can still look silly and get all embarrassed by a bodily function out of your control. You are trying to look like a tragic hero, your body is laughing and saying "yeah, but get a kleenex because this beweeping your fate thing doesn't make you look as exalted as you think." Or maybe it's a message that what you think is tragic is really just an irritant to be washed away by salt water and snot, get over it.
|
A. My wife. It was a doozy!
We got married recently after her (and her son) were denied entry into the USA. We had not intended to marry anytime soon and avoided discussing marriage up to and through the rejection at immigration, because of stress and fear and other relationship things and relocation things and just plain things. Anyway it finally became necessary to marry if we hoped to stay together. We did it. Then we sat and waited to see who would rip apart from tension first.
It was me.
I flipped out over a stupid issue (she left her purse on the bed and I couldn't comfortably sit down or stretch my legs). I complained about the purse and she complained about my housekeeping. I yelled about her inability to stay organised and she yelled about my wastefulness with towels. I yelled bigger and more, and she yelled bigger and more. Much breaking of personal promises and valuable possessions ensued in an escalating fight to show who cared less about money and things, and I eventually lost my cool and said the last thing I wanted to say, which I knew was the trump of the fight deck: getting married was the wrong way to handle our problems, etc. I am a huge jerk and cannot ever, ever say this sort of thing again. I don't mean it and it's a low blow even for when fights need to be won -- and this one didn't. Finally we resorted to mutual screaming while her son cried in the next room thinking God know what, probably terrified we would storm against him next. I slept at a hotel and we reconciled the next day. It was our first married fight and needed to be had, but neither of us expected it to go so crazy.
Incidentally she still keeps her purse on the bed and I still dry off with multiple towels and leave them on the floor in the kitchen.
Whew!
|
A. I'm a rather vengeful person (and I'm probably correct in attributing this nasty quality of mine to movies and games), so I actually hardly ever forgive. Instead, I end up forgetting about the person after enough time has passed, but should he or she ever be mentioned, I'll instantly begin stewing in my anger all over again. If it's someone close to me, you might expect that I'd be a bit more lenient about holding grudges, but I end up taking it as a sort of betrayal instead and it's an even worse grudge than one I'd hold against, say, the guy who broke into my house. I only really let it go after I've had some form of revenge (which isn't all that often), and even then I guess you couldn't really call it forgiveness.
I guess I'm a pretty angry fellow. :( Say, I wonder if they have therapists to help fix this? XD
|
A. My belief in the inherent goodness of other people.
I'm one of those idealists who "learn" how wrong they were about people and become bitter.
I always thought that, since I do my very best not to take advantage of others, and since I base my decisions more on 'right' and 'wrong' then on personal gain, that others did so as well. Then I met certain people, my stepsiblings rather high among them. I was taken advantage of right and left, since I assumed we were all looking out for each other as people ought to do. I had a good reputation, since I am so consistently honest; disreputable people then pretended to be my friend so they could ride on the coattails of my good credit.
I tried to be generous; people then duped me out of money, because they always said, "Of course I'll pay you back"
I tried to give people the benefit of the doubt; if they said that the accusation someone else had made was false, I believed them if at all possible.
I still believe that, in an ideal world, people like me would be everywhere. But now I realize that in this world, people like me are considered contemptible fools. It makes me sad, and it makes me bitter.
|
A. When venturing out into the wilds of human civilization, one must be very cautious about their actions! Even the slightest gesture or glance may be an unwitting signal for a female "Clingo Attachamus" to spot you as prey for their parasitic needs. A few key tips can help you avoid this dilemma.
Firstly, avoid eye contact. If eye contact is made, fiercely bear your teeth and mash them together while growling or even squeaking. This deters even the most determined of their kind.
While eating in a public place avoid the use of silverware, instead opting for your hands or feet to grasp food. If it is allowed, do not wear a shirt.
When moving in a street, always run while flailing your arms or holding them high in the air. While this attracts attention, it thoroughly prevents any clinging.
If none of this works, find something to be a complete geek about, collect as much memorabilia as possible, and leave home as little as possible.
|
A. Yeah, that's basically all I do. One of my current goals is to research fuzzy logic a bit more and implement it in the AI of the npcs in a game I'm coding. That's a subgoal of the goal of becoming more adept at logic, specifically the part dealing with learning some of the more common new logics, especially the ones that can be used to solve/inform any of the antimonies ( like paradoxes ). This is part of the larger goal, which is to develop a mastery of logic overall, which includes continuing to work on metalogic, and go through all of the old stuff ( trees, proofs in NK for prop logic and predicate logic, etc ) to make sure I haven't forgotten any of the basics, or especially any of the underlying theory. This is part of the larger goal which is to get into a masters program geared towards logic, cognitive science, or reasoning and inference. This is part of the larger goal of either becoming a professor or working in research dealing with artificial intelligence. Anyway, I listed all of that out so you can see that how I think is really goal oriented. I'd actually be curious to know if most humans think this way, or if the fact that I do is what kind of pulled me towards AI research where I can sit and think how to simulate a mind that gathers info. and decides with some sort of program or axiomatic system. I may have to steal your question and ask it again at some point in the future.
|
A. You know, I'm actually in a quandary right now, because I can't decide if I'm treating a friend of mine unfairly or not.
If I am being unfair, I certainly want to change and start being fair. But part of me says he deserves it.
So, if you would consider it unfair to be quite angry at a friend who disappears for months at a time, shows up when he damn well pleases, returns emails on an extremely infrequent basis, never returns calls even when he gives an exact time to expect a call, and then tries to snog you when you happen to run into him at the bar, then I am currently being very unfair to someone.
But then, what right do I have to expect him to be any other way? He's free to go where he pleases, I guess. So maybe my expectations are unreasonable. Although even still, he doesn't get to kiss me. That's just right out.
Other than that, I can't remember the last time I was unfair. I really try to give people the benefit of the doubt for as long as I can. This guy, though, has had 10 years to change his ways, and I can't take it any longer.
|
A. It would be presumptuous of me to say we failed science. I can only say I did. Why my chemistry grades alone are still probably legendary in my old school.
Science is a tool. Used well and for what it's supposed to be used for it makes life better. Used for a bad end or to accomplish something it can't do and it's worse than useless.
Science tests objective claims. It can tell you how things are, not how they should be. Science can tell you that mixing two chemicals creates a gas that will kill humans. Science has let us here to understand chemical reactions and the respiratory system. If use this to make gas chambers it isn't science's fault. We, not science must decide what use to make of its discoveries.
Some people make a religion of science, and that's failing science. Science can test the natural world. A supernatural claim, a moral claim, an aesthetic claim can't be (usually) tested by science and thus science should not be applied. It's the wrong tool. But just because science can't be used for these things doesn't mean they don't exist or don't matter. Science can't say if there's a God. Maybe there is, maybe there isn't. But some would say that if science can't prove it it isn't real. That's a misunderstanding of science that attempts to revere science but ends up hurting it in a number of ways.
We have made great advances in science. Science as a way of seeing the world's pretty new, but we've come a long way with it. It's served us well and we've encouraged it. Sure we could serve it better. Finance it by means other than companies financially interested in the outcome, for instance. But it's doing well and, thanks largely to it, we are doing pretty well too. Sorry, I rambled, there are a lot of parts to the answer and little space.
|
A. Not even my uncertainty. While I don't know philosophy, I'm aware that it's out there and that there's some doubt on a philisophical level whether reality is real. Is there really a me? You know, matrix sort of questions. Maybe I'm just a character in a really badly written cosmic novel or something.
I suspect most strongly that I exist and that reality is there. But I'm willing to entertain doubts to the contrary and don't feel I can decisively prove it. Same goes for anything. There are things I'm darn certain about. Water being wet, fire being hotter than ice, red being a color, etc. But even the things I think I know might ultimately prove to be wrong when more information is learned.
And yet, this doesn't stop me from being opinionated. I have strong political views, for instance, and a lot to say about moral issues. Even with the uncertainty that doesn't mean that I feel I can afford to not act- I need to do the best I can with the information I have. All the while remembering that I could be wrong. This means I'm a lot less likely to want to kill or imprison those who reach different conclusions from me. They might be right. The closest I come is knowing that I can't dance well. But that doesn't always stop me from dancing anyway. And who knows, maybe there's an alternate universe where those contortions I make are considered the height of dancing prowess. So even that I'm not 100% sure of.
|
A. At first, I thought you were going to Rickroll me, and I was already kind of ready to be disappointed when I put that link into my address bar.
However, I was really kickassedly (it's a word, I swear) surprised.
While I'm sorry to say that I haven't gone to a concert anytime in my seventeen years (my parents are under the impression I'll certainly moshed to death), I just have to thank you for showing me this band. I've been choking through a drought without any new music, and this music seems really awesome.
I mean, really, stranger. If I were actually there, I'd at very least hug you for an awkwardly long time for introducing me to some music that isn't really mediocre.
So, once again, I'm sorry that I can't give you any decent suggestions, and if you rate me low (or not at all) I'm not complaining in the slightest. But seriously. Thanks for spreading awesome music. :D
|
|
|