Come visit Indiana...

Thank you for your feedback. I would love to hear more about why you prefer that logo. Is it  the colors, the composition? What is it that makes his logo better?

I actually tried the code, and it wouldn't allow me to use it anymore. The error message said:  "Sorry, this special offer code FAMILYTOUR is not valid."

Yeah, I don't understand how the dad isn't stressed out at all! I think it might be because they have had other babies before without a problem... lol

I came up with some other logo and website designs based on what /u/operadevil did above. What do you think?

#1. ValME logo suggestion:

#2. ValME symbol suggestion (to pick among the 3):

#3. ValME front page design suggestions:

Do you have ad-blocker? I have it and I didn't see any ads...

haha probably... ;)

I agree that you need a logo icon.... but if you intend to keep that dark green on the logo, you need to get rid of that blue. I would suggest you make a version of the logo in white in order for it to be placed on the top bar (which, would now be green instead of blue), ..... and then keep a version of the logo in green to be placed against a white background. Makes sense?

Blue and green don't really go together, especially if they both are darker tones of such.

I like it better than the one you currently have. It's much cleaner.... so if I had to pick, I would absolutely replace the current logo for that new one.

Now, what I don't like....I don't like the shadow of green you picked. It's too dark and it looks too heavy on a logo. Another thing is that the ".io" part now has too much emphasis, and unless that's what you wanted to do (i.e. for people to remember that it is ".io" and not ".com"), I think you shouldn't put that much emphasis on that part. Also, I think the website should be based on just two main colors, whether it is: blue and white, OR green and white... but green blue white doesn't look good.  Hope it helps.

That is a very good point. Thanks.

I was referring to success as what I assumed to be the most common idea of success... which is just accumulating wealth and being socially known as a celebrity or something of the sort. Of course, using dishonesty is not how I would achieve success... I just meant to say that a lot of people reach a similar social status by just lying. I personally would rather not being that kind of 'successful' if that implied lying.

With that said, I think a majority of people would not define 'success' as "earning wealth by honest trade, no matter how much you accumulate", which actually might show how corrupted our society is. But I have no data to prove this, so it's just an assumption and I might be wrong.

Honesty will make you righteous, but it won't always make you succeed.... those are 2 different things.

I thought the dog's face was so funny lol

Actually, it's not that "everything is not known". Of course there are many things that are known for a fact to be true (e.g. there's gravity on earth, 2 2 = 4, etc.). Now, that doesn't mean we as humans know everything, because the truth is that we don't. There are still many things that are completely unknown to us, but that doesn't mean we can't rely on what we already know to be true. /u/TattooedWanderer

I think it's terrible that so many women are taking their spouse's money and their families away from them when they divorce. It just seems common sense that that is the wrong thing to do. Don't these people see that? Maybe they do, and they just don't care. 

But, I also think we must not generalize about women because we all aren't the same way. Before my husband and I married, I offered him a pre-marital agreement saying I wouldn't be taking money from him neither I would be taking his kids away. He didn't ask me to do it. I was the one bringing it up and offering that to him. Candidly, we didn't find a way to make this agreement legal, but I know one thing, and that is that I won't be taking my husband's money if we divorce, and I also know I won't be taking his family away from him. If we ever divorce, I would ask him to give me a time frame to find a job and move out, but I would not steal his money. 

With that said, in the article it says that married couples have sex less often, and assumes that it's women's fault. That is not necessarily true - women enjoy sex probably as much as men do, and assuming a lack of sex is women's fault is dumb. It could also be the other way around  - that after marrying, the male party wouldn't be so interested in sex with their wives anymore. I know women who have been in that situation and have been sexually frustrated at their husband. A lot of times it's the husbands who cheat on their wives too, and so that's why then they don't want to have sex with their wives as often. So, whose fault is that? 

I agree. How sad.

How's that for a workout encouragement... lol

LOL

 /u/c_prompt you need to see this...

hahahahahah omg!!!! #everythingisterrible

Why not? before and after pictures! 

With all that said, I would imagine that some people may change over time... so how much time has it gone through between the takes of the test would be another fact to analyze

I have taken the test at least 4 times (if not more) for the last couple of years and I've always gotten the same result. My husband has taken it twice and he also got the same result. I have a female friend who took it twice and got the same result as well... and I have another male friend who took it 3 times getting, again, the same result. The other folks just took it once that I know of....? having said that, we are only a small portion of the test takers... 

The guy in this article might be right... but my personal experience with this test tells me differently. Not that that proves much, of course. A handful of my friends and some family members have taken this test, as well as my husband and I, and each one of us got a different result. When reading each other's results and discussing them among my friends, I could see how each result were very similar to their personalities - and would not just fit anybody else in the group. I believe the friends/family who took the test with us are people who I know pretty well... so, I am still not fully convinced that such test is completely "meaningless". The guy in the article would have to do more specific testing.... 

And, by the way, you don't need to be a psychology major to do great findings... 

wow! Thank you /u/c_prompt! It works great! - and thanks for making it automatic to subscribe to comments, I like that too :) 

These are 3 interesting takes on it (RE: about different people seeing the same thing while on drugs)

So, I'm curious. How does an ordinary person find drug dealers or other people who'd sell you drugs? I mean, it's not like you can just Google it, right? I have no intention of buying drugs, but I've always been interested to know how other people get them so easily.I would imagine that if you use the internet to get them you could easily be tracked by the police...

I really enjoyed reading your article. Thanks for sharing your experience. The only drugs I've ever taken are alcohol, cigarettes and marijuana. Honestly, your article just made me realize even more of how dangerous drugs can be! Your second mushroom experience was absolutely terrifying.

I find it interesting when multiple people see the same thing while taking drugs. It seems like it's a pretty common thing.  why do you think that is? Why would different people see the exact same thing?

Do you have other stories to tell about other things you've seen while taking drugs? 

That sure was fun to read. Thank you! :)

I don't remembering ever faking an orgasm. If the guy stinks in bed, I am going to tell him (and I have in the past). I am not sure why women would fake orgasms... maybe to prevent the guy from feeling terrible about how bad he is at making love? Well, then perhaps the guy should work a little harder at it... I would hate if my husband faked an orgasm (but of course, he can't). Anyhow, what a bunch of despicable liars!

Unfortunately, and regardless of the disappointment of many people, the truth is that today we don't have scientific answers to everything. In which case, there are only three approaches left to take:

1) Accept that a great percentage of the possible existing knowledge is completely unknown to us and because of that, we must be open to the different possibilities of what we can learn and have a COMPLETELY  open mind towards what the truth actually is.

2) Be arrogant and think that science knows everything and close ourselves to the real truth out there that we might not yet be able to comprehend. In which case, we would have to build up our beliefs based on purely "rational" theories that require faith to be believed on (since there won't be solid scientific proof of them).

3) Base our thinking in religious beliefs (which also rely on faith).

Essentially, I have learned that to be purely rational you *must* be open to the unknown. You must be willing to accept that you might be wrong about some scientific knowledge you think you have. You must overall be always open to investigate what is really TRUE out there. That is to me the best and most perfect rational approach to life. But of course, I don't think many people hold that approach... but instead get stuck within what they think they know. 

With all that said, I think it's very difficult not to have any kind of believes whatsoever. We as humans analyze nature and then make up our own conclusions based on what we learn. sometimes we are right, some other times we aren't. But, I think essentially every theory that hasn't been proven 100% over and over again relies on a belief. In our lifetimes, we will never learn what the truth of life is, or what the truth  behind the whole universe is... but we have to make our choice and decide what we want to believe in. I think that is an important part of life itself and that determines who we are. What do you believe in? Which ones of this approaches would you take? I know the one I would take...

I think Hawking has an admirable strength that most people would not have, besides obviously being a very intelligent person. So, I don't mean to discredit him with my comments... it's just my humble opinion and I can be wrong. 

I admire his quotes on disability, on fate vs. free will and on the advice to his children. I'd like to make a couple of comments though... 

"If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans. We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet."

I personally have to disagree with that. There is too many assumptions implied in this quote... the first assumption is that any other forms of intelligence out there are similar to our intelligence. There are tens of billions of galaxies out there (that we can see), and we still don't know how big the universe is... life could form on so many different ways! so, it is extremely unlikely not only that we are the only intelligent life out there, but that other intelligent life out there would be similar to our intelligence. Second assumption, even if such intelligence were similar to ours, it doesn't necessarily mean that aliens would act as we do. That would depend not only on cultural factors, but on moral values and on how advanced they would be. So, this quote doesn't make any rational sense to me, since it's based on too many cultural assumptions that wouldn't necessarily be correct in the case of aliens existing. It lacks of too much information. 

Another thing is that I strongly believe (and that is just my personal choice) that extraterrestrial beings are already here on earth. For personal experience, I will say that when I was little, my parents and I witnessed this big orange light in the sky that was moving literary 40 times faster than a plane would...  we witnessed it for a minute just crossing the whole sky. it also moved forming a Z pattern. It wasn't some kind of star... it seemed to be something completely artificial, because then it disappeared into thin air. So, we knew that wasn't human... it was just too strikingly amazing. This happened about 16 years ago and I can still remember perfectly. There are plenty of testimonies like this and testimonies that go even further in the subject that we should take into consideration. There are just way too many experiences of this type for the whole subject to be ignored. Not to mention that logically, it would make perfect sense that considering how enormous the universe is, there could be some other much more advanced civilizations than us. Big deal! Ger over it, really... Aliens are probably here already.  If they wanted to harm us, they would have done it already because they can!

"There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win, because it works."

Religion is not just based on authority but on faith - versus reason, though there is inarguably some reasoning within religion (though a quite limited reasoning).While science does indeed work, I find that it has always limited itself because a lot of scientists have been too arrogant to consider the possibilities of the unknown. Because of that, science has also made a lot of  wrong assumptions based on faith and not on purely scientific proof (e.g. that everything revolved around earth,  as well as other current 'theories')...  

If there was a button for  "insulting" for me posting that on art, I would have earned quite a few votes on this article lol...  

No, I just couldn't find any other community? There wasn't a fashion community.   I didn't mean to do this on purpose, but I guess that's what people do when they can't categorize something lol.... how terrible! seriously...

Well, now he is going to be in jail and the own criminals there are going to treat him like shit. He will have some time to think about what he's done. However, most people who are sexual predators that have come to that point don't typically change unless it's through some psychiatric treatment. And still, they have trouble for the rest of their lives. But, who knows, perhaps the beating ups in jail will open his eyes, this kid is still young. I think he's 18.... what a way of ruining one's life! 

It's not important what he saw. I would just have enjoyed reading about it, even if it's for the fiction/fantasy of the story. 

I agree that drugs do alter our consciousness, but that's not what I meant to say. What I meant to say is that other things - outside drugs (like pursuing your goals, or having friendships) don't alter our consciousness. And, I don't think a lot of people do these things to just to "alter their consciousness" as he refers to it. The choices we make might alter the way we feel about reality but we still perceive reality on a certain way no matter what (e.g. we perceive blue as blue, no matter whether we bought a blue shirt yesterday or not). Another thing to say is that drugs distort reality. I agree with that, drugs do - a friendship probably doesn't. 

Trying drugs once can also be very dangerous if you don't know what you are doing (e.g. what dosage to take), and that could kill you. Also, you'd want to make sure you are not alone obviously...

You have mentioned "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat" before, I need to read it. I know both sides of the argument though, but still that side doesn't explain all the stuff that goes on and leaves some things in the air... that's why these loops make me not buy that position scientifically. They are obviously missing stuff... but that's a different topic. Perhaps when I read the book we can discuss.. I agree though that science should do whatever it takes (including trying on drugs) to see what's behind that curtain. I am sure there's something going on that we are missing and I'd like to know what it is. Hopefully, the future scientists will stop ignoring these questions and accepting the possibility of something new... :) 

I have smoked marijuana a couple of times. It did absolutely nothing to me. At all. When I asked other people, they said that sometimes you just don't notice any effects at the beginning but that you need to actually smoke more often to notice something...

Overall, I enjoyed a lot reading the article. It's really interesting, although I would like to have read more in-depth about his experiences with these drugs. E.g. what happened specifically? What did he see? He didn't get into much detain about that... 

Now, the first statement that I disagree with..."Everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness.We form friendships so that we can feel certain emotions, like love, and avoid others, like loneliness. We eat specific foods to enjoy their fleeting presence on our tongues. We read for the pleasure of thinking another person’s thoughts. "  First off, let's define consciousness. Consciousness is "the state of being awake and aware of one's surroundings" or "the awareness or perception of something by a person." We don't necessarily 'alter our consciousness' by doing the things he mentioned above. Our perception of the world remains the same, I think he just means to change our surroundings so that we perceive a major number of pleasant experiences rather than unpleasant ones. But, for the sake of this argument, let's assume he's right and that "everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness." I don't think that's right. In fact, I know everything we do is not for that reason. First of all, different people do things because of different reasons. Not everybody lives their life the same way and we all don't have the same perceptions of what life's purpose is supposed to be. The truth is that different people do things for many different reasons. For instance, someone may want to have a friendship because they  value someone in particular - sometimes friendships are hard and not pleasant, but not everybody breaks up with their friends just because they are going through a tough time. Same thing happens with love, we don't just marry someone so that we can alter our consciousness and feel love. Marriages are tough. Again, different people have different goals too.. Religious people certainly have a very different view of life than atheists, and I know for a fact that a great part of religious people don't just do things "to feel good" but because they are seeking for a higher purpose - even if they have to do things they don't like on the way. Sometimes people want to selflessly help others, and not everybody feels good about helping others... but some people do it because they just think it's the right thing to do. My point is that it's not all about altering our consciousness. Altering consciousness is just one tiny part of life. Life is really so much deeper and complex than just the  "feel good here and now" kind of thing. So, I don't think we can generalize and say "all we do is to alter our consciousness". That is just an untrue statement. 

Now, I am aware that this article is about drugs.... So, first, I'd like to clarify that I do NOT think any kind of drug should be illegal. I think the government should step out of the subject, and let individuals judge for themselves... and make their own choices (and their own mistakes). Having said that, there are a few things I don't quite buy about this article. 

The author claims that some drugs like psilocybin and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) "pose no apparent risk of addiction" (p.2). It just seems to me as if that is a vague statement that lacks a great deal of testing and support. And, doing a little bit of research out there, it looks like there is not that much actual testing done on these drugs... though there is some. But, even if this were solid 100% accurate evidence, the fact that these two drugs may not be addictive doesn't mean they can't damage your brain on a different way... so let's be aware of that possibility at least. According to an article I came across while researching for this, "long term abusers of mushrooms may experience depression, insomnia, or “flashbacks”. A flashback is the experience of a mushroom trip days, months or years after using the drug",  (from http://www.addictionhope.com/mushrooms). Not to mention that these drugs cause strong hallucinations, and I don't think science fully understands the true nature of these hallucinations and their effect on our brain in the long run. Besides, such experiences with the drug apparently can be either very positive or terribly negative, and such hallucinations could lead people to actually do crazy stuff.... "For several days following the use of mushrooms, users may experience a period of psychological withdrawal and have difficulty discerning reality" (from: http://www.cesar.umd.edu/cesar/drugs/psilocybin.asp)

In fact, the author of this article even points out the striking mental states that some of these drugs can give you and their dangers: "I have spent hours, both good and bad, in which any understanding that I had ingested a drug was lost, and all memories of my past along with it. Immersion in the present moment to this degree is synonymous with the feeling that one has always been and will always be in precisely this condition. (...) An encounter like that takes something out of you. Even if LSD and similar drugs are biologically safe, they have the potential to produce extremely unpleasant and destabilizing experiences. I believe I was positively affected by my good trips, and negatively affected by the bad ones, for weeks and months."

And here's an statement he makes that seems to lack a whole lot of thought to it: "a life lived entirely without drugs is neither foreseeable nor, I think, desirable". What kind of bullshit is that? Fist, that completely depends on your views of life. I think a life without drugs could be totally awesome, and it just depends on what you achieve in life, the things you do to make it that way, and the people you share your life with. I don't think anyone "needs" drugs to have a desirable life... If I needed drugs to make my life desirable, I would have to have a really sad life that lacks of purpose. Is it what life really is about? I don't think so...

With all that said, there is so much about human consciousness that we don't understand. Yep, that's right. We don't know it all... I've precisely been reading a lot about human consciousness within the last couple of years, and there is this constant debate among neurologists that argues whether there might be some levels of consciousness that exist outside the brain. Sounds crazy, right? but there is actually a section of the scientific community that has some solid reasons to at least study it deeper. And, honestly, I am all for it. Go ahead and find out! So certainly, I wouldn't really want to mess with my consciousness when we still don't fully understand how it works, and when scientists don't even seem to agree on the nature of consciousness itself. 

To all of this of course, we have assume that in order to take ANY drug, you need to have some understanding of the dosage you're taking or you could very easily die immediately or screw up your brain forever. And, I really don't think most people have that knowledge about the dosages they're taking. It's not like you can just awake up one morning and decide that you are going to take hallucinogens and that everything is going to be a happy story because it probably won't be...

He also mentions how some drugs are used to help depression, or to help other drug addiction problems... when I studied psychology at school, I learned that a lot of times drugs that were legally prescribed such as Prozac to help depression could actually cause major psychotic breaks and paranoia. I studied a case of this girl from Indiana who just had depression when she went to the psychologist, they gave her Prozac and to this day she suffers from paranoid schizophrenia. My teacher (who is a psychiatrist) explained to us that this girl wasn't an schizophrenic before, but the Prozac gave her constant hallucinations and paranoia. I think the hallucinations lessened when she stopped taking Prozac, but now she needs to take a different medication for her schizophrenia. And, that is some major stuff... My teacher also pointed out that a lot of times anti depressants will make people a lot worse than they were before and oftentimes they will produce permanent paranoia, hallucinations and a significant reduction of the grey matter in their brains that CANNOT be recovered. Another case study that I did was of this other lady who, because of taking some other recreational drug (I can't remember what it was) also developed paranoia and hallucinations and would see people where there was nobody. She would also talk to the electric heater at the psychiatrist's office, and she believes she is an important government official that has some secret mission. All of that for taking some recreational drug. Certainly, I don't think it's a great idea to mess your brain up 'just for fun'. That sounds like pure stupidity to me. 

The following statement he makes doesn't make any sense, not even for highly spiritual people. I don't think highly spiritual people believe it's any good to damage their brains... except for some idiot perhaps. " In fact, strategically damaging the brain should be the most reliable method of spiritual practice available to anyone. In almost every case, loss of brain should yield more mind. But that is not how the mind works." 

When he talks about the brain being like a radio theory, it reminded me of the case of this guy that went into a coma and then was in a vegetative state  for 12 years, while he was FULLY conscious of what was going on but nobody ever knew he was actually conscious. From that article: "He remembers many things from that time, when everyone around him thought he couldn’t hear them and thought he didn’t know what was going on. “Everyone was so used to me not being there that they didn’t notice when I began to be present again,” he told National Public Radio."  Here's the link to the article: http://fox4kc.com/2015/01/13/man-awakens-after-12-years-in-coma-says-he-was-aware-of-everything/

I believe what he says here: "One thing is certain: The mind is vaster and more fluid than our ordinary, waking consciousness suggests. And it is simply impossible to communicate the profundity (or seeming profundity) of psychedelic states to those who have never experienced them. Indeed, it is even difficult to remind oneself of the power of these states once they have passed."

  And, an interesting question would be: WHY does the mind block this other huge side of it, with all its deepness and complexity? why is our brain behavior so limited? 

Ha! Nice... who would have guessed!

haha a bobcat skid steer costume, that's funny. I'd love to see that. Btw, what type of paint do you use on the glass?

Thanks for posting that! I really enjoyed the colors of the painting. Which other forms of art do you do? you seem like a really talented person! 

I understand perfectly what you mean, and it's a wonderful feeling. Would you mind posting some of your other artwork? I really enjoyed your writing :)

Nice! I think I could use it for a few things. Thanks!

This actually was really useful to me. Great suggestions and thanks for getting back to me so fast! I appreciate it :)

This just reminds me of this Tim & Eric video. The only thing, that YO app is no fiction...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEW5b5ZtaV0