General Chat

[Stevo985]

Journo rumours is the only use for it that I can see.

I joined a few weeks back and followed a load of "interesting" people.

Went back on last night and it's just full of these interesting people retweeting everything that comes their way. So eventhough I'm follwoing Jonathan Wilson, he retweets loads of stuff. Some of it is good, but most is just randoms tuff from random people.

I also had to unfollow a few people. Charlie Brooker for example. He was tweeting every 10 seconds.

[BOF]

Is there a way of filtering out re-tweets? If I wanted those tweets I'd follow that person in the first place :?

[The_Rev]

Serendipity BOF, serendipity.

[The_Rev]

Oh, and I take no credit for this. Shamelessly stolen from another forum I post on, a post on a thread where people of a certain age (say, 25+) are reminiscing about the days when the only way to see porn was in a dirty magazine.

My first encounter with an art pamphlet was at the age of 10, my junior school was alongside a main road, and along this boundary was a not inconsiderable hedge. I remeber it was a sunny wednesday morning and we were playing football before school started, the ball was booted into the hedge and my mate Terry went in there to retrieve it, what he came out with was not a football, it was a centrefold of a girl with her legs wide open and her growler splayed wide apart. with most of us being nine or ten the sight that in 5 years time we would chew our left arms to see was deemed disgusting. Terry promply ran around the playground chasing people with it, and we fled fearing that if it touched us we might catch something, I believe the most feared schoolboy disease of my school then was african bum disease, several of my classmates were infected with it that day due to Terry being a fast runner and catching them and rubbing the picture on them.

Several minor encounters were made with jazz mags until one faitfull day. Rumours had flown around the class and i needed confirmation, Paul Shiel, a classmate who at the age of 14 looked 17 had succesfully purchased porn from his local newsagent that morning, after protracted questioning that the SS would have proud of, the rumour was true. Within a week Paul had a jazz mag supply business Alan Sugar would have been proud of. £2 mark up on magazine price, a maximum of 3 magazines imported a day into school, a £1 queue jump service to get priority on your order. basically for the next 4 months most of my paper round money went straight to him. This was the start of the Erotic library of Podger, something that in 3 years time would achieve legendary or even mythical status. As puberty really kicked in, other pupils grew in stature and other less scrupulous but well stocked news agents were found. Steven Thompson found a news agent that stocked copies of Hustler, which compared to the standard Paul Raymond fare put them to shame, then one day gold was struck. A hot summers day and a bus strike combined for the perfect storm, walking home with school blazer and tie in the bag, taking a route i had never walked before, i stopped at a news agent for a cold drink and i saw my own personal Mecca, not just a top shelf, but 3. They ran the length of the shop, magazines i had never heard of each with seductive looking ladies, i had to have one, i summoned all of my power and authority and along with my can of sprite bought myself a copy of Swank. I walked home at a pace never seen before, my boner pointing like a compass towards my home urging me home with each throb. I knew i would have the house to myself for 30 minutes before my mother got home. I held back my usual urge to fire as soon as possible, i wanted to give each girl, each page, each picture their own time, even the adverts were of superioir quality. when i was finished i didnt have to clear the mess of myself, as it flew out with such force it went over my shoulder and hit the wall.

From then on i was a slave to the filth, when any classmate got caught and was told to get rid, i would take their collection, and my purchasing didnt slow down either. by the sixth form my vast collection inspired awe in those who had seen it, and disbelief by those who hadn't. A long running joke amongst my peers was that my parents found my bed the other day on top of all my porn. I would be questioned on a daily basis by my friend Sovan if i really had that much porn, but he was unwilling to visit my home to view it, and thats when i had an epiphany. Like Bill Gates with his billions of dollars he realised he could never spend, he setup the Gates foundation giving away vast swathes of money to needy causes, i decided to give away my collection, the decision was made after one weekend when i wanted to give each page of each mag 10 seconds of time and not to finish until i had done the lot, hours later i was finished and physically spent, i knew i had given them the send off they needed. It went down in school history as the great Podger porn purge. over the next week i lugged the collection into school filling my full size locker to 4 foot high of filth. when the collection was there in its entirity i awaited Sovans questioning. He had no idea the any of it was there let alone the whole lot, and when he started asking if i really had as much porn as everyone said, i said "No", "its now yours" and threw him my locker key. Sovan was normally a talkative fellow, but for that day he was silent, it was like his normal mental processes had been halted by something incomprehensible. it took him 2 weeks to smuggle it home, and the boy was bleary eyed every day for the next month.

it saddens me that kids these days have lesbian dramas on bbc of a night time, im glad they they have what we never had, but it think the search for hedgeporn helped make my generation the resourceful lot we are

[rjw63]

^^^

**** brilliant!

[villaajax]

I used to share my room with my brother and when I was 15 I was having a clear out to make the room my own, and I found an old copy of Playboy. For some reason I thought it was a good idea to bring it in to school to show my friends so I tucked it away in my graphics folder and that was that. Later that day it just so happened my head of year decided to carry out random bag inspections after some kid had been caught with drugs. I was crapping myself but luckily they only bothered to check my actual bag. So walking home down the quiet route with two of my friends I said "Look at this..." and pulled out the magazine, their faces lit up as one of them snatches it off me and ran down the street so harass some girls with it saying "You've got one of them haven't you?!" :oops:

[Brumerican]

Stephen Hawking has kicked up another religious shitstorm

[abdulaziz1]

Hello ..

I don't know if it's ok to say it here .. it's my first replay in this thread ..

But what about an idea of playing some football after Liverpool game ?

Hopefully I would be there .. and as we're safe now .. even a defeat won't be as much as if in stress ..

So I think it would be nice to play as Vters .. lol

[mjmooney]

Stephen Hawking has kicked up another religious shitstorm

So he has. Good man.

Stephen Hawking: 'There is no heaven; it's a fairy story'

A belief that heaven or an afterlife awaits us is a "fairy story" for people afraid of death, Stephen Hawking has said.

In a dismissal that underlines his firm rejection of religious comforts, Britain's most eminent scientist said there was nothing beyond the moment when the brain flickers for the final time.

Hawking, who was diagnosed with motor neurone disease at the age of 21, shares his thoughts on death, human purpose and our chance existence in an exclusive interview with the Guardian today.

The incurable illness was expected to kill Hawking within a few years of its symptoms arising, an outlook that turned the young scientist to Wagner, but ultimately led him to enjoy life more, he has said, despite the cloud hanging over his future.

"I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first," he said.

"I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark," he added.

Hawking's latest comments go beyond those laid out in his 2010 book, The Grand Design, in which he asserted that there is no need for a creator to explain the existence of the universe. The book provoked a backlash from some religious leaders, including the chief rabbi, Lord Sacks, who accused Hawking of committing an "elementary fallacy" of logic.

The 69-year-old physicist fell seriously ill after a lecture tour in the US in 2009 and was taken to Addenbrookes hospital in an episode that sparked grave concerns for his health. He has since returned to his Cambridge department as director of research.

The physicist's remarks draw a stark line between the use of God as a metaphor and the belief in an omniscient creator whose hands guide the workings of the cosmos.

In his bestselling 1988 book, A Brief History of Time, Hawking drew on the device so beloved of Einstein, when he described what it would mean for scientists to develop a "theory of everything" – a set of equations that described every particle and force in the entire universe. "It would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we should know the mind of God," he wrote.

The book sold a reported 9 million copies and propelled the physicist to instant stardom. His fame has led to guest roles in The Simpsons, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Red Dwarf. One of his greatest achievements in physics is a theory that describes how black holes emit radiation.

In the interview, Hawking rejected the notion of life beyond death and emphasised the need to fulfil our potential on Earth by making good use of our lives. In answer to a question on how we should live, he said, simply: "We should seek the greatest value of our action."

In answering another, he wrote of the beauty of science, such as the exquisite double helix of DNA in biology, or the fundamental equations of physics.

Hawking responded to questions posed by the Guardian and a reader in advance of a lecture tomorrow at the Google Zeitgeist meeting in London, in which he will address the question: "Why are we here?"

In the talk, he will argue that tiny quantum fluctuations in the very early universe became the seeds from which galaxies, stars, and ultimately human life emerged. "Science predicts that many different kinds of universe will be spontaneously created out of nothing. It is a matter of chance which we are in," he said.

Hawking suggests that with modern space-based instruments, such as the European Space Agency's Planck mission, it may be possible to spot ancient fingerprints in the light left over from the earliest moments of the universe and work out how our own place in space came to be.

His talk will focus on M-theory, a broad mathematical framework that encompasses string theory, which is regarded by many physicists as the best hope yet of developing a theory of everything.

M-theory demands a universe with 11 dimensions, including a dimension of time and the three familiar spatial dimensions. The rest are curled up too small for us to see.

Evidence in support of M-theory might also come from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at Cern, the European particle physics laboratory near Geneva.

One possibility predicted by M-theory is supersymmetry, an idea that says fundamental particles have heavy – and as yet undiscovered – twins, with curious names such as selectrons and squarks.

Confirmation of supersymmetry would be a shot in the arm for M-theory and help physicists explain how each force at work in the universe arose from one super-force at the dawn of time.

Another potential discovery at the LHC, that of the elusive Higgs boson, which is thought to give mass to elementary particles, might be less welcome to Hawking, who has a long-standing bet that the long-sought entity will never be found at the laboratory.

Hawking will join other speakers at the London event, including the chancellor, George Osborne, and the Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.

Science, truth and beauty: Hawking's answers

What is the value in knowing "Why are we here?"

The universe is governed by science. But science tells us that we can't solve the equations, directly in the abstract. We need to use the effective theory of Darwinian natural selection of those societies most likely to survive. We assign them higher value.

You've said there is no reason to invoke God to light the blue touchpaper. Is our existence all down to luck?

Science predicts that many different kinds of universe will be spontaneously created out of nothing. It is a matter of chance which we are in.

So here we are. What should we do?

We should seek the greatest value of our action.

You had a health scare and spent time in hospital in 2009. What, if anything, do you fear about death?

I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first. I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.

What are the things you find most beautiful in science?

Science is beautiful when it makes simple explanations of phenomena or connections between different observations. Examples include the double helix in biology, and the fundamental equations of physics."

[Stevo985]

Is there a way of filtering out re-tweets? If I wanted those tweets I'd follow that person in the first place :?

Exactly what I asked my friends who coinvinced me to join Twitter.

Again, using the Jonathan Wilson example. I really want to know what he has to say, because he's a footballing god.

But I don't want to know what his random followers say that he constantly retweets.

I'd happily filter out any retweets.

[theunderstudy]

I just ignore them.

[Stevo985]

Yeh but they fill up the feed/homepage or whatever it's called.

I want to know what Prof Brian Cox has to say, I don't want to read whatever Charlie Brooker is retweeting from Joe Bloggs

[theunderstudy]

That's true. But I just follow a load of people so it all blends in for me

EDIT: that'll teach me to speedtype whilst attempting to do trigonometric equations.

[GarethRDR]

it all blends in for me.

You're more plugged in than Baron Fortesque. I'm not entirely convinced that you're not part-robot.

[mjmooney]

I just gollow a load of people

Never heard it called that before.

[theunderstudy]

it all blends in for me.

You're more plugged in than Baron Fortesque. I'm not entirely convinced that you're not part-robot.

I'm just someone with far too low an attention span, and far too able at multi-tasking most of the time.

[GarethRDR]

Fair enough, but don't complain if a Navvie/Brigand/Gentleman/Mercenary/Thug/Preacher come for your robot blood.

[theunderstudy]

My blood is 10% proof.

[Xann]

"You will love the sensation of burning" - Said the presenter on QVC's candle show.

Interesting sales pitch.

[theunderstudy]

Gareth! Your photobuckets gone! No more Dr. Rick Dagless M.D.