Stuff you LOVE, baby

[tushantin]

Ah crap, that's forums for ya, ignoring my curiosity. Then again, my question was probably lame. 

Things I love: My netbook battery might die out soon (even though it's just been a year). I should be sad about it, but I really wanted a 6-cell one.

[Mr Bekkler]

Sorry tush, it'll take some time for meto collect my thoughts for an answer.

[FaustWolf]

Kickass

music

is

my

anti-

drug.

It is

so

incredibly

awesome.


Darn, I guess that's pretty far away from being a haiku.  But it's true! 

[Shee]

If you wanna fight the power get the power to fight.


8/7

[GenesisOne]

I gotta shake hands with whoever invented the water cooler. If s/he's dead, then I salute, anyway.

In terms of investment, it's got the highest power-to-weight ratio of any domestic product I've bought yet.

Instant hot water and cold water and the press of a lever.

Science rules!! 

[tushantin]

@Faustwolf: Gaddammit! *Bookmarks em all, and all related links* I SEE BEFORE MY EYES THE EINHERJAR AND VALKYRIE DOIN BROADWAY AND EXPLODING INTO THOUSANDS OF TINY STARS!! Damn, the tracks addicting!

@Everybody:
Do Dogs Have A Sense Of Morality?

I saw an amusing thing today that made me wonder. Think of it this way: If a guy, probably some rough, Alpha guy who finds his territory precious. A guy trespasses, perhaps absent minded, and the Alpha chases after him to teach him a lesson. The trespasser runs for his life, the Alpha with bloodlust in his eyes, and they both somehow get into the trespasser's house where the Alpha tries to beat the crap outta the trespasser. But then the trespasser's kids come about. Harmless kids, couldn't even hurt a fly, and they scream at the Alpha to "let go of Papa!" In most cases, the kids are also bound to get hurt, unless the the Alpha is considerate. But this sort of "consideration" was assumed to only pertain to intellectual beings like Humans.

And yet, today I saw a vicious dog chasing another white dog and starting fighting with it. Reason: the white dog was in their territory, and in those areas, any trespassing dog gets their ass kicked. When the chase led to the white dog's territory, the fight broke out nevertheless. But a bunch of harmless puppies came out and began barking madly at the intruding Alpha, as if they wanna pick a fight. But the dog was vicious and strong, and could easily take them all on. But instead of grinding them to dust, he simply left the white dog and walked out of their territory with his head bowing in apology. My I accidentally dropped my chewing gum as my jaw remained open as I saw this, and I saw the white dog calmly walking with the puppies and sitting behind a car, with another puppy licking the not-so-serious wounds of the white dog.

The scene boggled my mind. Why did the dog give away his chance of revenge? Why he didn't argue like any other idiotic human being that, "This motherfucker trespassed my territory FIRST" and get away with murder? Why didn't he attack the puppies who were just looking for trouble, trying to provoke him? Do dogs really have a moral conscience? Do they have regional dialect like us humans do?

There are so many questions I keep asking myself, but there's just no answer in sight... And yet it looks like they're smarter than us. All of us. They don't argue with their higher-ups about "dog rights" or whatever; when they know they're in the wrong territory they get the hell outta there. I haven't even seen them fight for territory either, but just defend it. It's like they've suddenly decided they wanna live in peace with everyone, "so long as they don't threaten us or our territory".

[GenesisOne]

Very interesting story, tushantin, and an equally interesting question.

Judging from the reaction of the Alpha to the puppies' protestst, he I conclusion that I arrive at is that dogs (or at least, the dogs you witnessed in your account of the incident) have a sense of social propriety, if not morality. There is however, scientific evidence which points to domesticated dogs having developed their own morality from their human guardians. Notice how I use the word "guardian" instead of "owner," because owner implies an inequal relationship between (wo)man and dog.

But yeah, it sounds more like respect for familial boundaries. I postuale because of a thought-experiment I had while perusing your story: would the Alpha have reacted differently if the puppies weren't there to stand up for the trespasser? In contrast, would the Alpha have continued to attack the trespasser regardless of the puppies' presence? One can only speculate. Me personally, I do believe dogs do have a sense of morality, albeit it is slightly more challenging to discern that human morality.

For your consideration: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-ethical-dog

[Licawolf]

How interesting. I think that the more complex a social species is, it starts to developt a basic level of ethics out of the necessity of being able to function as a community. Social animals are forced to learn basic social rules like respect for personal space or respect for social hierarchy... but  this is a very interesting case because the dog demostrated respect to members of a different pack, a rival pack (rivals in the sense that they are competing for food and space), did the Alpha benefited somehow with that act of mercy or is this a demostration of true humanitarianism? (as ironic as it sounds). I also wonder if there are more cases like this in other similar population of dogs.

[CuyahogaRiver]

I LOVE KAYAKING!!! Anyone else???

[Bard_of_Time]

I went on a boat once. I loved it because my dad got seasick.

I loooooove vacations! Being able to just take some time and relax is good for everyone. I don't have to worry about school, or grades, or any of that. Plus, Sam is heading up to Vancouver, Alex is apparently going to be taking pictures of the Marathon (we have a couple of dudes running up there, I think), and Mom and Dad are going to some... thing. So I get the house to myself!

PARTYYYYY 

[CuyahogaRiver]

INUYASHA!

[Licawolf]

Aww, I just finished playing the Dead Sea part with my little nephew. He got TOTALLY BORED with Miguel's giant infodump, even if I tried to translate it for him and read it out loud with all my emotion xD he ended up using the time shifter to fast forward the rest of the scene. When the battle started he was like "But why I'm fighting with him, I thought he was a friend of Serge's dad?"  


My nephew is convinced he is such a good gamer, no one can defeat him, truth is he's playing my new game+ and that's why he's so invincible   but I don't tell him that, of course.


EDIT: Ha ha, before going to sleep he came into my room asking to play Chrono trigger, and I told him "the one we're playing is called Chrono Cross" and he answered "No, no. I want to play the other one" xD I think he probably told his dad about what he played today, and my brother probably told him about Chrono Trigger...or maybe he was actually paying attention to my dramatized infodump  

[tushantin]

Damatized infodump. Get in the theatre, lassy! And he ought to know that Serge's father is an abusive parent. Burn him (Serge's father, not the nephew)! 

Come to think of it, Wazuki didn't cause these events intentionally, and he was merely brainwashed by FATE. Shouldn't we sympathize with the guy? Shouldn't Serge have some kind of a regret killing him when he finds out?

Haha I remember playing Chrono Cross at work and some passing kids loved the special effects and battle scenes. Problem is, they found the 'RPG-ness' boring; they were more into action, like DMC.

@GenesisOne: Thanks for the insight, and the article! Hah, read the whole thing through. I knew that communal bonding and tribes were caused by necessity of surviving in large scale, but how did the simple factor not occur to me that morality, rituals and manners were directly related to living in packs? Doh!

Thanks a bunch, man!

[Licawolf]

Damatized infodump. Get in the theatre, lassy! And he ought to know that Serge's father is an abusive parent. Burn him (Serge's father, not the nephew)!  

Come to think of it, Wazuki didn't cause these events intentionally, and he was merely brainwashed by FATE. Shouldn't we sympathize with the guy? Shouldn't Serge have some kind of a regret killing him when he finds out?

Haha I remember playing Chrono Cross at work and some passing kids loved the special effects and battle scenes. Problem is, they found the 'RPG-ness' boring; they were more into action, like DMC.

IMO I think Wazuki was totally not to blame, he was just FATE's puppet. But poor Serge, having his dad attempt drowning him and then transforming into a crazy panther man who stole his body, the guy should have some serious daddy issues.

As for Serge's lack of regret on killing Lynx, I don't blame him, I blame Kato for throwing the "and BTW, Lynx was your dad" revelation on the very last five minutes of the game xD

I thought my nephew wasn't going to like the game because of the RPG-ness, but he actually learnt the battle system faster than me  

[Sajainta]

I FINALLY got my hair re-bleached and dyed!    I was so sick of this brown with pink streaks absurdity that is clearly shown in the first picture (my boyfriend is cute though ^_^).

I look terrible in the second pic, but I finally have purple hair again!  YES.  Brown doesn't even feel like my natural hair colour anymore.

I also love my camera phone, because it takes infinitely better pictures than my actual camera.  XD