21

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Let's find flaws in the Fermi Paradox

« on: May 30, 2017, 07:10:59 PM »

"Fermi’s Paradox is the apparent contradiction between the high probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and the lack of contact with such civilizations."

It makes a lot of sense, right? On the surface it does, but it has never been convincing to me. Here are some of the things I think it overlooks:

• There IS evidence in our field of view. Our detection methods are just too primitive
• They don't want us to know about them
• They are too far away to be contacted/observed
• They made their presence known in the past and decided we were weak sauce
• Earth is an afterthought. Like an anthill you don't notice while driving through the Nevada desert (the ants don't notice you either)
• They don't want us to hack their data centers (lols)

I don't think the Fermi paradox fully appreciates just how big the universe is.

22

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Modern Feminism

« on: May 13, 2017, 05:33:30 AM »

https://www.facebook.com/xicanisma/posts/1630630620311008 (read the comments too)

Terrifyingly hypocritical.

23

Technology & Information / Discord

« on: January 29, 2017, 12:11:31 PM »

I made a Discord server if anyone wants to join.

https://discord.gg/VWSYn

24

Technology & Information / What in the fuck?

« on: October 27, 2016, 05:56:33 PM »

So the new MacBooks don't have hdmi or USB. They have 4 thunderbolt ports. Weeeewwwww lad.

25

Arts & Entertainment / No Man's Sky

« on: August 03, 2016, 07:56:21 AM »

I just pre-purchased this on Steam after watching every single Sean Murray demonstration. I'm either going to play it for 10 minutes and realize I wasted $60, or I'm going to be playing it for 12 hours a day for the first few days. Right now, I feel like it's likely to be the latter.

For those of you who haven't heard of it it is a sci-fi exploration game in which all players exist in the same universe and explore planets and star systems. Players can name planets, creatures and plants that they are the first to discover. The game's lead designer, Sean Murray, has said that the universe is so huge that coming across a planet that another player has discovered will be very unlikely. Supposedly, there are 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 discoverable planets.

26

Technology & Information / Building a New PC today

« on: July 22, 2016, 07:51:02 PM »

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/LffKBP

All this PC talk got me hot and bothered, so I'm building my first system with DDR4 memory. The inspiration for a mini ITX build came from the NZXT. Manta case. It has a hub to power up to 8 fans, which is pretty nice considering the fact that the motherboard I ordered only has 2 fan headers. I will probably end up upgrading it with an Nvidia GTX 1000 series GPU next year, assuming I don't get bottlenecked by the CPU. Discuss, berate etc...

27

Arts & Entertainment / New Legend of Zelda

« on: June 17, 2016, 05:12:49 AM »

This game looks incredible. Like best game of the decade incredible.

28

Technology & Information / Does anyone know about bikes?

« on: May 11, 2016, 05:36:52 PM »

I got a new bike that I assembled myself and I'm having trouble with one part. The handlebar is secured via a quill stem. Basically, you insert the stem into the tube and turn a screw on top of the stem. It causes a little metal thing to press against the tube, securing the handlebar in place. However, it seems like no matter how much I tighten it it always slips out of place. Does that sound like it's defective, or am I just doing something wrong? I was thinking of just epoxying the bitch on, but then I'd never be able to adjust it.

29

Arts & Entertainment / Miitomo

« on: March 31, 2016, 06:31:26 PM »

It just came out for iOS and Android in the U.S.

https://miitomo.com/en/

So far, it seems a little like Tomodachi Life for the 3DS only with less features, but with the social media aspect.

I even took a fancy picture👍

30

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Greed

« on: February 05, 2016, 09:40:04 AM »

Lately I've been considering selling off a large portion of the unnecessary items I own. I've realized they were purchased out of greed and they contribute nothing to my life. In fact, they create more worry. What if they get lost or stolen?

For example, I own a collection of amiibos. I don't actually use them. They just sit on the shelf as decorative ornaments. I have an e-reader and a smartphone. The e-reader is completely unnecessary. I can just read on my phone. I have a messenger bag and a backpack. The messenger bag goes unused most of the time. And the list goes on.

The only things I don't feel guilty about collecting in excess are physical books, of which I have many.

Do you ever feel that twinge of greed when you buy something you know you don't need? It's become a bit of an obsession for me lately when I sort through my stuff.

31

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Has math already proved god?

« on: October 24, 2015, 09:03:38 AM »

Integers are literally endless. If we can refer to infinity in math, why can't we also do the same for god? If there are an infinite number of multiverses, then there is an infinite amount of matter. Further, if our universe simply expands to infinity and never contracts, then at least elementary particles will exist forever. It seems totally reasonable to me, then, to assume an infinite being could also exist in some form. Perhaps it evolved to achieve immortality and learned to transcend dimensions or universes. It may not exist exactly as religions have described, but as far as I'm concerned, theoretical physics have already lent some credence to the idea whether scientists will admit it or not.

32

Science & Alternative Science / Aliens

« on: October 16, 2015, 09:28:34 PM »

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/10/15/the-strange-star-that-has-serious-scientists-talking-about-an-alien-megastructure/

Discuss.

33

Technology & Information / Apple's big event

« on: September 09, 2015, 09:44:12 AM »

Are you guys ready for Apple's keynote in a few hours? What do you think they'll reveal? Being the Apple fanboy that I am, I'm pretty stoked for the new Apple TV. Apparently it will have Siri built in and double as a mobile-game player. With Apple's Metal API and talks of a dedicated controller, this one is sure to hit a home run. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw developers create some pretty sweet console style games for the newly upgraded streaming box.

An iPad mini refresh would be pretty bomb-diggity also, since it hasn't seen a substantial upgrade since the iPad Mini 2.

34

Science & Alternative Science / False Vacuums

« on: June 28, 2015, 09:28:38 PM »

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_vacuum

TLDR: A ball rolling down a hill will tend to settle into the lowest energy state. If it perches itself on an outcropping of rock, for example, it is in a false ground state. Meaning, it only appears to be in its true ground state. An earthquake could dislodge it and it would continue tumbling down to its true ground state, or state of lowest energy. A false vacuum state is the same thing, but with the universe. Basically, if we are currently in a false vacuum state, a burst of tremendous energy could send it tumbling down to its true vacuum state, thereby obliterating the known universe.

Also, it's not clear which state our universe is in. It could be in a true vacuum state, or a prolonged false vacuum state. So, the ball rolling down the hill could have settled into a space where no force has been able to dislodge it.

35

Arts & Entertainment / E3 2015

« on: June 17, 2015, 11:17:38 PM »

Was there anything announced that you're interested in? Personally, I'm excited for Xbone backwards compatibility later this year. I'll be having a Mass Effect marathon for sure. Also, Nintendo's puppet show was pretty sweet.

36

Arts & Entertainment / Splatoon

« on: May 28, 2015, 12:22:16 AM »

I'm thinking Nintendo has goty material here. Have you played it? I can't stop watching the streams.

37

Arts & Entertainment / Destiny

« on: April 29, 2015, 09:53:20 AM »

Does anyone play on the Xbone? I'm looking for fire team members.

38

Technology & Information / Cars

« on: March 25, 2015, 09:08:00 AM »

What car do you drive? Which car are you thinking about for your next purchase? And, what's your dream car?

I have a 2004 Passat Wagon. Although, I'd have a Golf R if I could afford it. That little car packs a huge punch with its little four cylinder turbo. It can go toe to toe with Mustangs and other American muscle cars apparently. Beyond that, I'd be quite ecstatic to have an Audi R8. I've also taken an enormous liking to the BMW i3.

As you can tell, I'm heavily biased towards German cars because the sense of quality you get from them, inside and out, is immediate and genuine. Japanese cars seem to be efficient in terms of cost and gas, but are glaringly chintzy. The only good thing that can be said for American cars is that the research and development that went into hundreds of sub-par vehicles has led to the Dodge Challenger Hellcat and the Z06; both are formidable, but they're the only American cars that are. And both of them still fall slightly short of their European counterparts.

39

Technology & Information / E-readers

« on: December 24, 2014, 01:55:39 AM »

Does anyone have one? I just bought a Kindle Paperwhite because I'm a reading whore, and reading books on my phone started to get a little tedious.

So far, it seems like a decent device. I've never used an ereader before, so I don't really have anything to compare it to. Although, it took some tweaking in terms of font sizes and spacing because it really strained my eyes at first. It seems less straining now, but I'm not sure if that's just because I'm starting to get used to the low resolution screen, or because the tweaking actually did something.

40

Technology & Information / Building Another PC

« on: November 18, 2014, 08:56:08 AM »

My autism is starting to ramp up into full gear with Black Friday coming, and all of those deliciously discounted PC parts. So, this is what I've come up with. My goal was to build a mini-ITX, power efficient gaming box on a budget. I'll be upgrading the system's memory later on.

Case

EVGA Hadron Air with 500W Gold PSU

Motherboard
ASRock B85M-ITX

Memory
Kingston HyperX FURY 4GB

SSD
Crucial MX100 256GB

CPU
Intel Core i3-4130

Video Card
EVGA GeForce GTX 750Ti