Book Review, with Worker Bee
To me, one of the most interesting sections (And useful because I greatly used it in a report for psychology this summer) was the section on human sexuality and attraction. According to the studies that this book references, humans form their "ideal image" of what they'll be attracted to at a very young age. And how do they make this image? From the people that surround them. If somebody is constantly surrounded by people with a certain skin colour, there is a higher probability of them being attracted to that skin colour. Is it a hundred percent certain? Definitely not, I'm not even sure if it’s that much over 60%... Then again, given all the skin colours out there, if there is a 60% chance you'll be most attracted to people of your own skin colour, that seems to be a pretty sizable to me. (Note, I did not just reference the book, so the percentage is probably wrong... Read the book if you want the right percentage) The characteristics that are the most likely to be similar between a person and the person they attracted to are background traits (for example, ethnicity and religion), followed by personality traits (IQ, neatness), and to a lesser, but still significant, extent, physical traits (skin colour, distance between ones eyes). It also points out that some things that we do not consciously make note of at all, somehow also determine whom one is attracted to - say, the length of ones middle finger.
It also has a section called “Uniquely Human” with chapters on art, language, agriculture, and yes, even why humans do drugs. In that section, I was particularly interested on the things on language - Because I enjoy comparing different languages to each other, and it was cool hearing about this whole “Mother Tongue” thing.
Anyhow, I probably shouldn’t give anymore details, because I don’t want to take away reasons for you to read the book. I’d recommend it to anyone, especially to people into human nature.
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Windows XP Performance Tweak, with Koresh
*WARNING! Windows XP will not look as pretty*
Okay. First what you need to locate is your 'My Computer' icon on your desktop. Then right-click it, and select 'Properties' from the menu. Now you see a display of some System Properties. Click the 'Advanced' tab (fig. tip01) Now you see the 'Performance' segment, click 'Settings' you should now see 'Performance Options (fig. tip02) Now click 'Adjust for best performance' if you have an ordinary non-LCD monitor. If you do have an LCD monitor (i.e. Laptop) then click custom, and uncheck everything except 'Smooth edges of screen fonts'. Now click Apply and OK and you're done.
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Cooking, with Red Maiden
1 x medium sized onion
1/2 x Japanese Pumpkin
1 x medium sized potato
3 x Chicken Stock Cubes
1 teaspoon of crushed garlic
1/2 teaspoon of curry powder
Vegetable oil
Soy sauce
Sour cream
Water
Milk
Step one. (we can have lots of fun!)
Slice the onion and place in saucepan (on medium heat) with a bit of oil until its slightly brown.
Step two. (there's so much we can dooo!)
Add teaspoon of garlic, the curry powder and 3 crushed chicken stock cubes to the saucepan. Mix them all together and then add diced pumpkin and the potato (about 1.5 inches or so). Chuck in some water too to keep it moist.
Step three (its just you and meeee!)
Keep it all on low heat, you want it to cook slowly so the onions and the other little things like garlic and the powder don’t burn. Add some oil if you think it’s necessary.
Anyways, let them simmer with the lid on (check and stir it every few mins) until all the pumpkin and potato is mushy.
Step four. (I can give you more!)
Once it’s all mushy (warning, it will look really REALLY gross) take it off the stove, and chuck it all in a blender, and add a VERY SMALL dash of soy sauce (this isn’t absolutely necessary, try it with and without and see which you like better). Blend until it reaches a consistency you’re happy with. Use milk and water to thin it out. Remember this pumpkin soup has a lot in it, so it’s very filling if it’s too thick.
Step five. (DONT YOU KNOW THAT THE TIME IS (A) RIGHT! HUHHHH!...UHHH!...UH!..UH!)
Once the pumpkin soup has reaches your desired consistency, pour from the blender and serve with a dollop of sour cream in the middle. If you want to be fancy about it, you might add a garnish of finely chopped parsley over the sour cream.
*bows with a flourish and says in a French accent* Dinner is served!
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Items and lotto, with Ghost 5-0
The second is what Psycho Disturbed has been doing. Psycho has been posting a list of all the icons in the Premium Store on the Items and Lotto board. This is completely wrong to me because of the Presume part of it. I and many other people pay for Premium status on the site. With Psycho’s actions I believe he’s taken away incentive to become a Premium Member. I posted whether other Premium members thought it was right, and some said no and some yes but there was one that got me.
It was posted by Aether and what it said was basically I don’t believe this is right because I have been saving up for an icon in the Premium Store for a long time now. There is only one of these icons left in the Premium Store and if Psycho were to sell it off to someone I would be screwed. Please PM me what you think about this.
The last thing that isn’t so big is the new Alpha-Beta board. Now as I understand accessibility to this board is based on how long you’ve been a member of the site. If you’ve only been a member for a short amount of time you’ll only have the Beta board. Only people that have been on the site a short amount of time will have the Beta board. And if you’ve been on the site for a longer amount of time, you’ll have the Alpha board. Only people that have been on the site for a longer amount of time can be on this board. This is pretty much so the newer members can talk about things that affect them and the older members can talk about things that affect them.
That’s all I have to say this month, see you next month.
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Psychology Section, with Temujin
Think of this: you see a beautiful woman walking down the street. You may think "She's hot!" or you might think "slut". The point is, your thoughts were probably words echoing in your mind. There are obvious exceptions to this, such as during a dream sometimes, or, perhaps moreso, when you awaken and tyr to recollect the dream. You might have a vague notion, but nothing you could tag words to. Also, while physical attraction is pretty easy to attach words to, when you feel sexual and emotional attachment to someone, it can be the case that you possess the feelings and not the words.
I don't think that our language and words chain our thoughts. I am capable of thinking of love as in sex, or as in brotherly love, without needing the words 'eros' and 'felia'[sp]. But I do think that languages reflect the societies that use them, not necessarily individuals. I also think learning other languages is an excellent thing, possibly the best kind of learning there is. In addition to helping your capacity for thought (according to LRT) it helps communication....
Whilst having English (even if it is a bastardised American form) as a predominant world language makes sense, I think that it is perhaps detrimental sometimes. I think that if an English-speaker takes the time and effort to learn even the rudimentaries of a foreign language, such a thing could be more impressive than very eloquent English.
Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this month's article. I'm trying to think of something interactive that won't be utterly lame for next month.....I'll let you know if I think of anything.
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Sitting with Shyla
(R) :P, No my hair is often mistaken for black, but really its a dark, dark brown. My user name exists as it is solely for the fact that i love the colour red... and I’m a maiden... and it sounds really cool. :P
(S) What's your a/s/l please?
(R) 19 female Sydney, Australia
(S) So how long have you been a member of the fabulous 4thKingdom and what made you join?
(R) I joined back in march 2001, Zincberg told me about the site and so curiosity made me join. It took a few months to get into however.
(S) Tell me, what are the best and worst things you like about 4k? Also, what's your favourite board?
(R) Well the worst thing is that no one gives me all their money and the best thing is that I get to hang out with all these cool people from diverse backgrounds. The nifty feature called "my favourite boards" says that my favourite boards are flame, rants, random, comment/updates, items/lotto and sex.
(S) What is the most outrageous thing you've ever done or seen?
(R) well there was on time when I was Wicca, and I was having a Sabbat (Wiccan get together) in a field near my house. The current affairs of the time were a man and his girlfriend went to jail for the murder and torture of their friends, doing so because the "devil" told them to. Well anyways, 10mins into it we had candles lit, incense burning and we were all chanting and that, and a cop car pulled up and started questioning us. I was all freaked out because I didn’t want my folks to find out about my witchcraft. But now that I’ve typed all that out, it doesn’t seem that outrageous at all... lol
(S) What is the one thing about yourself that you'd probably never tell anyone? (hehe, let's see if you're willing to tell us)
(R) Well the one thing I wouldn’t tell my family about myself is that I’m not a virgin :O! The one thing I wouldn’t tell you guys about myself is that I’m really a man! :O! hehe j/k
(S) Mmhmm, sure you're kidding! =P Well thank you very much for your time Red Maiden and I await you on the boards of 4thKingdom!
(R) Really?! I await you too! :D :P
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