Heee heehhhehe.....made you look!!!
Dunno why wees onna thematic romp into all things skeery-theery lately, perhaps it's to point out the robotic action/reaction response from most monkeys, who like to place, again, convenient labels on concepts too difficult or upsetting to wrap one's head around-"She must be crazy", then a few other monkeys in the group agree, and "Voila!" We have a denial party!!!

Read of the exploits of one, Jasper Maskelyne, the guy who during WW2 who was employed by British Intelligence to create elaborate illusions (literally, smoke n' mirrors)designed to fool the perceptive apparatus of the Axis bombers, and otherwise tweak the mind of the enemy, to bend to the will of Svengali.....

choggie sees no conspiracy, hears no conspiracy, speaks of none (though it would appear that he does) but has a whole lotta fun watching what simpletons do when the flag pops up....some folks go to great lengths to discredit that which they have difficulty conceptualizing, some go get in the closet, others begin to see a pattern....Thank's dystop, for your version of finger-pointing, hope you spent the week pouring through all manner of bizzarro shit, in an attempt perhaps, to block datum disruptive to your comfortable regimen of static, synaptic habit....Got a new nick-name for ya......Dana

Ya did it to yerself, Scully......Now, roll over and get rid of that thigh holster, we got two days before we have to be back in DC, baby!!!

jwray, my views may be interpreted as socio-political, or taken with a grain of sand, they are stream-of-consciousness, and fall outside the realm of feasible solutions to the worlds ills-In particular, so that all may know my motivations for blanket down-voting of certain subjects, in particular, the "he's better that the other guy" crap with respect to the psycho-circus and insult that politics in the United States has become-Horn-blowers and pennant-wavers for one side or the other, I find personally offensive, delusional, herd-like, and a complete waste of valuable synaptic resources-

So, no, none of the above, Obama sucks till the sack is blue, the same as Hillclit or Mc Skeletor, they all create vacuum , and to not demand abrupt alteration to the ways and means of leadership, is an affront to yours, mine, and everyone's self-actualizing potential-and since the demand will never come without some dire events, natural or otherwise (and when they do, check the source), it's eat, drink, be merry, for tomorrow a Tantric high priestess will knock on your door, and lead you into the wondrous land of immediate, and extended bliss......

Hail Eris

Chilaxe,
It's fascinating stuff. Neurophysiology and pharmacology have advanced significantly, but perhaps not as far as some might think. PET scans and metabolic MRIs give us clues as to increased activity in certain brain structures during different types of cognitive and motor activities. That's very generalized information. Excess and deficiencies of neurotransmitters result in well described pathology. While we know cognition and abstract thought is performed in the cerebral cortex, we have very little information on the specific biochemistry and neuronal synaptic pathways that allow it to happen.

Some of the most interesting clinical cases I get to be involved with are awake craniotomies to resect brain tumors. Carrying on a conversation with a patient and witnessing real-time neuro/cognitive dysfunction with manipulation of the brain is something I can't begin to describe.

I'm also fascinated by brain development that is time limited and dependent. For instance, the areas devoted to language. If not stimulated during those crucial first few years of life, development is stunted and the full capacity for language skills is lost forever. I'm getting off topic, but it's fascinating stuff.

It's obvious that all consciousness, thought, and awareness is produced thru biochemical means. Thus, all concepts, precepts, abstracts, etc. are of anatomic and physiologic origin.

However, I'm still waiting to hear a good explanation of how a collection of inanimate atoms coalesce, begin replication, and eventually gain the capacity to look on themselves and determine their own essence.

A little over a year ago I slapped a computer together for my mom using spare parts I had laying around. I installed Ubuntu on it, pointed out a few things and let her go. She really didn't have any problems and I can assure you she's far less savvy than you. I don't find it's normal for the average user to need to use the command line.

The only problem that I would anticipate you having is with your wireless card. The majority of laptops seem to use Broadcom wireless these days and Broadcom has gone out of their way to not support open source. Reverse engineering has yielded solid drivers for some Broadcom chips, but others are still not usable.

I took a quick look at Mint a little while back. It didn't look too shabby but I can't really say much, as I didn't spend enough time with it.

I would recommend against the dual-boot option. It sounds like a great idea, but it can leave your system in a rather strange state if you later try to remove Linux. Use the LiveCD option to try it out instead. The LiveCD won't touch your hard drive so if you don't like what you see, it's as simple as throwing the CD out and you're back to where you are now. The downside of the LiveCD is it will be a bit slow and any changes you make will be lost upon shutdown. If you've got the Windows install disc, I think you're better off just wiping Windows out. If you dislike Linux, you can reinstall Windows. The fresh install might solve a number of your problems anyway.

Keeping the programs that came with Windows is a no-no. In most cases you'll want to find replacements for them instead. Here's a few suggestions:

MS Office -> OpenOffice.org (comes with Ubuntu)
Instant Messaging -> Pidgin (comes with Ubuntu)
Web Browser -> Firefox (comes with Ubuntu), Opera, SeaMonkey
Outlook Express or Windows Mail -> Thunderbird, SeaMonkey

As arvana mentioned above, most Linux distributions come with a package management system now. This means you won't generally go to a website to download a program that you want. Instead you'll go into (in the case of Ubuntu) Synaptic Package Manager and select the program you want. The system will take care of retrieving and installing it.

One last piece of advice: The number of choices available to you when going Linux will be overwhelming. Desktop environments, window managers, composition rendering... there are a dozen options for damn near anything you want to do. Don't let it worry you. Just pick one and go with it. Until you've got a bit of experience, you're not going to be able to make a meaningful decision... and in some cases you still won't a couple years later.

Impossible to imitate without the life experience, so I shall combine a quote,

"yeah well, I tried posting this twice, so, way to show yer true hate, hater of the sifter not the sift! holler and scream all you wish - just linear enough for, in-a-straight-line monkeys to be able to relate to, long enough, for a synaptic motor response on the "up" arrow...."

I almost can't tell if it's good or bad, it's just all magical lyricism, fueled by god knows what...

More power to ya, home-schooling is an indication that you are ever vigilant and not lazy with regard to your child's education-by the time they have passed up the rest of the monkeys by 4-6 grades, you'll be ready for what ever college, university, or au privave ya see fit......your child will be!

Public School is a diseased entity, a tool for re-education and synaptic shut-down....parents should be given major tax breaks, grants, etc., should they choose to home-school-

Gorgonheaps' right, the child is stunted and the process malformed easily....home-schoolers should be aware as well.....

"Choggie, if you argue that video games are a waste of time because they aren't productive" -dinna say that, I said it can create folks who become "detached from healthy interaction and interpersonal relations"
No hostility, that's your process not mine-I expressed frustration, perhaps, my real beef is with people creating tunnels whereby they indulge a path of least resistance as opposed to a healthy, dynamic, multi-faceted experience as a human.

No one seems to speak of the long-term effects of the detachment from healthy human interaction, poor diet, repetitive motor and synaptic disorders no doubt happening but unstudied, etc-this is not an indictment wholesale or some unilateral condemnation of video games-My points are as valid as anyone else's on the subject-social dysfunction is a goddamn epidemic in most western cultures, video games suit the detached of society like hand in glove.

No SDGundamx, never is it the case for everyone-agreed that there would be other outlets for dysfunctionals.

yes, nice pick
Frasier never sings the same words or forms the same tones twice.....I have tried to sift about 5 Cocteau Twins vids....the ones that made it were either requeued till they did, or just linear enough for, in a straight-line monkeys to be able to relate to, long enough for a synaptic motor response on the "up" arrow......

Here's where MINK gets his, a bit late, had to shove wheat-free gluten up some hippie's sterile ass, and kill some game-now that that there is no game, guess we're eatin' crackers n' kale, you have some bitter Prussian bitch's mother to thank for us havin to suffer another mix and match, but that's a mirror's gaze away from where you sit right now, if you are reading this, you half-breed, genetically scarred wart on the planet's surface.....

So the official Roast of MINK had commenced...here follows a few opening thoughts, if you can call stream of consciousness ball-busting any effort whatsoever...

Firstly, some of the other users who chimed in without following proper decorum on past roasts only to find yer clever little asses thrown in the pool of future roastees??? That's yer dumbass, no rules readin', wanting to be noticed, luck. Get ready for the die to fall yer way at a most inopportune time, most likely when you feel really passionate about some issue you have no business touching, because of your grab-bag, anything goes, let everyone do what they think is right for them, sensibilities....fuck you , yer clock is ticking, and we may all be here with you now but wait until you have to actually open yer brain up to the chopping block.......hope ya like, foi grois of useless fat blended.....

Lithuania.
Otherwise known as Stalin's Fistfuck....yer real smart now, but just a few ticks ago, you couldn't decide yer heads from ass as it relates to yer own. Well, guess yer off the hook by now, you and every other ass-bag in the Baltics..it's a wonder someone with a computer and some time to kill, that isn't a complete wife-beating alcoholic, has enough synaptic wherewithall to be here with 2 cogent thoughts to rub together......Heh...ooops , sorry....we only have one asshole from there and he has yet to prove my wonder anything more than hopeful fantasy-

MINK fancies himself a musician, and has even given us a taste of something he feels just fine about....I listened to his theme-song, and his friends need to stop buying the shit Antanas approved for sterilizing goat nipples with back in the 30's, and try some proper grain.....oh wait, they used all barrels for bathtubs after 42'....

I have been told by the man himself, that his decision to become a vegetarian, proceeded his decision to become a vegan, after he had a wittle food poisoniong that took him to the next level, and made him face mortality at the hands of someone not wiping their ass....Is this true MINK? next time you decide to swear off meat, make sure you don't let yer girlfriend. cook for you again....speakin' a which....

in his questionairre, mink answered this when asked what he did when he was not on the computer....
"1. What do you do when you are not on the computer?

"eat vegetarian food, fuck a vegetarian, buy vegetables, that sort of thing.
And make music, but that's on a computer... so.... but I play trumpet... Into a computer"

So you hang out near a feedbag, copulate with Bossie after staelin' her grain, and hum to yerself??....that's no trumpet yer playin', it's a skin flute!!

You nall of late, well, some of you, have a problem with semantics..or tone, or whatever....lemme tell ya what it really is..Most of you were never taught how to derrive meaning from the written word....As a result, you hold some grudge against MINK for coming off, as some frustrated geezer, disillusioned with the sift, with life, with the world at large...

Get over it, you ineffectual meatbots!!! MINK is the man in your mirror that tells you how fucking ugly that mole is is from that angle(straight ahead, you can't miss a schizm like that) or how similar to methane in an elevator that last comment you pulled from Urectum was. He has a better handle on what smells anyhow, seeing as how all you poor sunsabicthces suffer from the many ailments that come with the ingestion of sweatmeats, and he himself, in all his rice-cake eatin', guilty-cheese coveting, politely cared for before being tapped for their juices loving, gonna live better than any of us because he don't kill nor go with those who do, assholes here.

Dude, you really need a vacation. Try Poland-Maybe you can find someone there that is not so pissed that they can't forgive you for your complicity with the Krauts...a deaf, dumb, blind Jewess, that owns a liquor store....

Drug induced sleep can be of two varieties, (1) "drug assisted" (mostly benzodiazepines, like lorazepam (Ativan), or imidazopyridines, like Zolpidem (Ambien), and (2) true "general anesthesia." Benzos assist sleep but because they are potent amnestics, one is less likely to remember a dream, even if you had one. Melatonin is not a benzo. It is an endogenous hormone, produced by the pineal gland. Melatonin is involved in regulating circadian rhythms, although it is not the main determinate. High doses of melatonin seem to be associated with more REM sleep and more dreaming.

"General Anesthesia" is not normal sleep and, rather, is unconsciousness produced by specific inhibition of neuronal communication (synapsis), whether by inactivation of protein channels on cell membranes, or by inhibition of GABA receptors, (a neurotransmitter). Deep levels of general anesthesia can flat-line your EEG, meaning your brain is totally shut down and is doing no synaptic work at all.
However, people may do normal sleeping after recovery from general anesthesia and they do occasionally relate dreaming during the period of recovery. In particular, the sedative/anesthetic Propofol is associated with some "erotic" dreaming and I have had some people relate rather vivid and interesting content. I had one older gentlemen who wanted to be put "back to sleep" so he could continue his "relations" with Gina Lollibrigida.

Sarzy-OCD name that tune....what a thing to suffer with!!...one's own synaptically misfiring recall.....been there done that, and fun to initiate it when one can.....

"shattered lives"....you are being way too nice there qualm...they shattered them themselves, have no pity....show them kindness if you must, but guard yer poke, fer crissakes, and don't get all sad when yer television turns up missing!!!!

Oh and by the way, here's one drug Black folks in the U.S., are smart enough to know, is worse than crack cocaine-never have I ever met a black man or woman, who was a meth head....only sketchy white-trash, who are not very bright.

This could be due mostly to the availability of the raw materials being rurally-avail., or simply because a meth head has not the sense enogugh to hang with the brothers, much less, sell them meth....no, it's because Black folks can smell a lying, synaptic-misfire, from a distance.....

*grubby Gen-X Hippies, w/synaptic misfires

yer right karaidl, real problems, like vitamin K deficiency and Shorted Synaptic Social Schism-SSSS.

Ok Choggie.. I get it. You don't like me, you have been sending me long private messages for weeks now about how much you want to destroy me. Today you are getting your moment in the sun. Congrats.

You made that clear when you messaged me this last week. (prepares statement for the committee)

Choggie to Fedquip:“...and what the fuck is that suppose to mean, and why does it matter....Have you even ever had bush??!!! You are a problem, motherfucker.......but a real straight up, honest type, in your confusion.....take this as a friendly observation, you are nothing but a ball of confused synaptic fire, and most likely, an alcoholic and/or, prescription drug addict.....but that is just how I, irritate YOU, will MY observations.....oyu need to learn than when someone does not agree with your billboard, you may get phone call from those who have to drive by them everyday, and actually have to have a real....conversation woth someone.......yours with me is approaching overdue.....

To Which I replied

Fedquip to Choggie
Choggie,

I don't know what you are getting at with this comment but I would very much appreciate if we could just end this silly squabble. Please just ignore my postings, if you don't like what I do then just ignore me. Videosift does not belong to either of us so it's best that we just play nicely out of respect for Brian.

All the Best,

You chose to disrespect this community by making your hatred for me public today. I am a nice guy, and I mean well, but this is the internet and I have to be prepared to deal with users like yourself. I used to moderate a Hockey forum back in the day, being a Montreal fan you can't imagine what I had to put up with from the Toronto fans in that forum. We had a code of conduct that was centered around building a positive community that respected new ideas and new perspectives. We disposed of community members that personally attacked and threatened other members of the community, it was a no brainer.

I hope only positives come out of this intervention. I hope the videosift community can find something positive out of the way I participate and I hope I can avoid being banned.

Why not allow (100)Gold Star members to self link? I think I have proven to everybody that I am not using videosift to make money, my blog has no ads, I don't use Revver or the vsocial option for advertising. The clips that I self link to included James Burke and David Attenborough they are my favourite presenters.