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Happy Holidays	December 24, 2005, 8:59AM
by: eon
Happy Holidays to all, be safe and enjoy. A few new updates for you: Back / Next in Picture Galleries You can now navigate through picture galleries by clicking back and next links under the pictures. A lot of people requested this as it's kind of annoying having to click and close each individual picture when going through someone's gallery. As a part of this, another field has been added to your picture management page: order. You can now number all of your pictures so you can decide in what order they will appear in your gallery (and consequently what order they will appear in when people back/next through them. Colorful Color Picking You'll notice now on the Look and Feel page that when you select colors for the various elements of your layout, you'll actually see little colored squares appear next to each selection, showing you what color has been selected. I found that it was much easier to pick out colors for my profile this way as I can now see at a glance how the colors coordinate (instead of just seeing color codes and having to guess). Style expansion You'll notice now that the style selections and any CSS you enter for your profile on the Look and Feel page will be applied to your blog as well as individual pages of your picture gallery, creating a more unified feel for your profile. I've done my best to adjust the classes on blog and picture gallery pages so that the styles will apply well and look as they should though you may need to have a look at everything and make adjustments. I may add some more options in the future to give more control over how things are applied to blogs / galleries / etc. Recent Posts in Forums In the forums there is now a 'Your Recent Posts' link. This will show you two different sections: 1. A list of the ten topics you most recently posted to. 2. A list of the ten topics you most recently started. People had been requesting some easier way to keep track of the threads they are involved in and this seemed most practical to me. I may add some additional options to help keep track of threads but for now this seems like it will be a big help. Now when you click any member's 'Posts' link in the forums, you will be taken to their recent posts page so you can see what posts others have made recently as well. I hope you find these updates to be jolly. Again, seasons greatings and keep it safe even if not sane.
topic: Site News
[reply] [9 comments]

Drag Dread?	December 20, 2005, 4:47PM
by: Homo_Tool_the_Prince
I just wanted to get this out there...it's not really much to think on but I would still like to know. Why is it sooooo sexy if a girl wears boxers, wifebeaters, baseball caps, suits, etc.- so-called "boy's clothes", and yet if a boy wears a skirt, dress, blouse, makeup, etc., he's considered gay, or a freak, or considered to be disturbed or confused in some way? Who said boys can't wear clothes that, albeit originally designed to suit the female body, still fit them well and look great on them? Why does a father who walks in on his son applying Mom's lipstick - a boy who in truth absolutely and by all accounts is heterosexual- freak out? I mean for fuck's sake they've even made a brand of boy's underwear, suits, shirts, pajamas and jeans for girls, and yet if a boy wears even those everybody pitches a fit. What the hell is so bad if a guy decides he wants to wear a dress? Why should he be ashamed of that? Most of them look pretty damned sexy in them- and I know guys who look better in makeup than a girl ever would! And since when did what you wear determine your sexuality? Not all gay guys want to be girls. And not all guys who wear girl stuff are gay. Yeah a good deal of them fit that particular criterion but THAT'S NOT 100% YOU MORONS! ...Well, what do you think? And how do you feel about guys dressing in girl clothes?
topic: Rants
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fate	December 19, 2005, 7:33PM
by: brokn_within_secrets
What is considered to be fate? Is it the thought of everything happening for a reason? Or just an action that happens at any given time? Is it possible for your only fate to be changed if it has already been mapped out for you? To your mind fate is probably something that helps you to realize the path in life that god has in store for you. If god makes your fate to be skinny and brave or fat and strong, there's nothing you should do to change it. Or if god decides you'll be a prep and popular or a goth and an outcast, you have to be true to yourself. All of these examples could possibly be your fate and your fate you must live with. Just like abortion, if god gives you the gift to produce another life, live with it. Or regret will be the only feeling left in your fate. Every action that you make will eventually lead to the fate of your future. You hold your life by a thin string, which you may either knot up or keep straight. You hold your fate in your own hands, your fate is your decision. If you believe fate is having only the one you love, then fate shall bring you together. Some believe fate will bring loved ones together, as they were in life. Or even, let someone survive, for which everyone else has died. Fate may be tampered with, when ones self image is distorted due to trying to impress the unimpressable. Or when a life is taken out of someone else's hands, due to suicide or murder. Fate is not a gift of life that should be tampered with. Fate is something that you don't realize, but in the back of your mind, its there. You can only chose your own fate. But you need to realize what it is before believing in your own fate. Once you discover what fate feels real to you, don't change it. The resistance from it will be tempting, but by changing your fate, you might just change your destiny. I dont belive in fate or destiny.... Nothing has led me to even consider believing in them.
topic: Philosophy
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sensory deprivation, LSD and psychosis.	December 19, 2005, 5:38PM
by: Satchell
How do you tell what is real, what is a dream or what is a hallucination? Dreams are a bit obvious because your asleep but then there are sleeping problems like insomnia. I hear you don’t know when you’re asleep and when you’re awake. Then there are daydreams which are mostly just fantasies but often turn into full fledged dreams where you totally forget about what is happening around you. Then there is drug use... I don’t take drugs simply because I have a hard enough time as it is figuring out what is real or not. Forget about how drugs affect people for a moment... the body is perfectly capable of creating its own drugs and giving you a high. Ever been in extreme pain or had an orgasm? You know what I am talking about. Sensory deprivation for example causes you to hallucinate because the lack of stimuli. You are quite literally left with yourself and you project yourself onto your surroundings. So with all this warping of reality how can you be sure of what reality is... what it really is? You cant. Not really. Reality is left with the experience of the majority of life. The common experience. Here is where it really gets tricky. Collective consciousness is the river of information that everyone has access to. Everyone creates reality. The stronger minded ones are the lead designers while the lesser minded don’t do as much. With all this said you start to question math and science. How reliable can they be with all this twisting and manipulation of the world? Simple. Math and science are built on the concepts we think with. With math it’s a simple question of concepts and numbers. With science it’s a simple question of the dominant tendency, which is what reality is built on right? Right! With psychosis you don’t even need to take drugs. Your brain already has fun things in store for you. Here is the other side of the argument... if everyone thought one person could fly (actually 100% believed in them) they would take off in flight. Not because they were actually flying but because everyone believed they could. So with all these mind altering states where does this leave everyone? In a constantly changing and self-altering reality but how real is a reality that is made from the thoughts of people? This is where quantum physics kicks into gear. Matter as it turns out isn’t solid. Everyone knows that sandwiches are made of atoms. Atoms are made from protons, electrons and neutrons. Protons and neutrons make up the nucleus while the electrons fly around in this cloud around it. If you do a Google search of a picture of the atom you will see that they are round orbs. This is incorrect. They would have us think that these little bastards are solid but alas they are not. They are made of even smaller bits called quarks. Now remember that Google search picture of the atom? Very deceptive they were. They showed the electrons and protons and neutrons as being close but in reality they are quite far apart. If a proton were the size of a football the electron would be a football field away. Now we are breaking that even smaller with more space between parts into quarks. God knows what quarks are made up of. It gets to the point where you start to look at matter not as solid objects but energy. It has been proven before that even thoughts are made of energy. Would I be overly bold to say that matter was made up of thought? That your whole body is made of thought? Look up the book "Messages in Water by Dr. Masaru Emoto." he changed the shape of water crystals by using thought. This proves that matter can at the very least be affected by thought. What if this world we live in was not real? (No I haven’t seen the matrix one too many times) what if our 'souls' were using this place as a learning tool? Reincarnation... its all very possible. Thank you for reading.
topic: Philosophy
[reply] [1 comment]

Just a brief topic... Questions that have yet to be answered	December 16, 2005, 6:20PM
by: brokn_within_secrets
Silence of Wrath Does wrath come from the mere thought of pain and suffering? How does someone put up with so much pain, yet add more on top? And why do people try to hide the pain they have? This is just a few of the topics id like answered. Through out your reading you will be given more. And of course, you read at your own risk. For you see every last concept is just something I would normally hold by myself. If you walk into your friends' house and find another human eating your best friends flesh, what would you do? Would this bring you into such a strong urge of wrath that you would beat the shit out of the guy, or would you get scared shitless and run away? In simpler terms, would you try to save your dieing friend or yourself? If you honestly cared for your friend then wrath not fear would come out of this. Would it matter if it was a complete stranger? Not many people would answer that mere, yet simple question as anyone. Preferably they rather save someone for whom they care for, rather then some one they do not even know. With that in mind let's say we throw a little curve into our petty little game you just discovered another human eating your best friends flesh. And you don't beat the shit out of they guy fast enough, and your friend suffered a painful death. Suicide is one again stapled across your mind and repeated over and over again. All of this is just too much for you to handle. You live a life for which you despise worse than any other human could ever imagine. And now your best friend was just brutally murdered. Yet you still don't end your life, you just sit in your room every night and cry like a sick puppy. And now your wishing more then ever that you could just end your life, yet you don't try. Would you still live if I were to through another curve into this hateful game? Probably not enough pain is enough. So well end this conversation with a simple opinion, most suicidal people are afraid to end there life. Fear of leaving others behind or there just too big of pussys to end it all. A new scenario is placed on the table. For the past five years you have been suicidal. Four years ago you tried to hang yourself. Your parents saved you but now they believe your fine. So the thoughts you to die you further restrain from thinking. Finally these thoughts push through and escape from your mind. For this you blame your parents as well as add two cuts on your wrist. In a horrible fight you lose to friends, but in the process gain one. For this conflict you add one cut. Slowly a new cut arrives depending on each situation that you go through. So once again you cover your self indulging cuts. Is this because your afraid, if so, of what? Is it true that some people hide there wrist so there parents wont find out what they have been slaving away on for months? It's the only thing that feels real to you. Why would you want the one thing that feels real to you to be taken away? If you get help, eventually the agony of seeing you're healed over scars will make you renew them. But is this statement true? So once more you'll be addicted to pain. And your parents' money will be a complete waste. And you tell them therapy will never help. They took you out because they "thought" you were okay and "normal" again. Yet they don't seem to get the concept that pain is indeed, forever. Is this statement true? Or is it just something my mind has once again created?
topic: Life
[reply] [5 comments]

A Breakdown of the Recent Server Trouble	December 16, 2005, 3:34AM
by: eon
We've had some rough patches with the server on DS over the past week or so and I wanted a chance to address the various issues being reported. Taking time to read this will give you a bit of insight into what's going on and also help you to know what events should and shouldn't be reported to me. --- "Cannot connect to MC" error: This error will potentially come up for a few seconds and only once every 6 hours. This happens as a certain server process is automatically reset. If you get it, please wait for approximately 10 seconds and then try again. You should then have no trouble. This is normal, there is no need to report it. Server Slowdown: Depending upon the time of day, this may be normal. Between 4-5am and 6-7am CST, automatic maintenance processes run which significantly slow the server down. This is normal, there is no need to report this. Other times, slow downs are due to a server reboot. If during regular hours of operation, you notice that the site suddenly goes offline for a few solid minutes (giving you timeouts and 404 errors) and then comes back online but runs very slowly, this is normal behavior for a reboot. On reboot, the web server and other software goes through a "warm up" period where caches are being loaded up, extra processes are being launched, etc. This can take up to 30 minutes but usually shouldn't take any more than 10 or 15. You'll eventually notice when everything "clicks" into place and suddenly the site becomes very fast and responsive again. During a reboot, if you're in the DS chat room, you will be disconnected. If you suspect a reboot, there is no reason to report it. Recent Intermittent 404 Errors: I received reports from some people who were getting random 404 errors while surfing the site. Often they would experience sudden 404s for anywhere from 5 - 30 seconds and then suddenly everything would be fine again. This behavior would repeat unpredictably and was characterized by the fact that it didn't affect DS chat (during the 404s if you happened to be in the chat room, you wouldn't have been disconnected, unlike with a server reboot). I believe I successfully addressed the cause of these errors as of yesterday (12/15). These errors should now either stop completely or at least be greatly reduced in their frequency and duration. If you continue to see intermittent 404 errors as described above please update this thread with the date and time of the outage, approximately how many people were online at the time it began and for how long the 404s lasted. If by reading the descriptions above, you feel the 404s are the result of a server reboot or regular maintenance, do not bother to report. Much of this is happening because of DarkStarling's continued growth and things having to be changed on the server to help handle the increased demand. Thanks to everyone for your patience as I work on these things and thanks also for your valuable feedback. Hopefully things are running more smoothly now and will continue to improve even more in time. --- Note, this was also posted in the forums in the Town Hall section. For the sake of organization, if you have any technical reports to make, post them on that thread: http://www.darkstarlings.com/bbs/topic.php?id=9990 If you have other general comments feel free to leave them on this article. ---
topic: Site News
[reply] [2 comments]

Videogame violence	December 14, 2005, 11:54PM
by: Satchell
Ok so the idea is that parents are starting to think that video game violence makes kids violent. It’s just a stupid idea. It might make stupid kids more violent but for the majority of the kids playing video games its fine. I have been watching violent films sense I could talk. My dad raised me to never attack first in a fight and always keep your cool. That I should subdue the opponent and not let it become a huge fight. I can watch very gory films and be fine with it. I can lop of limbs in video games and feel no different then when I started. Violent games and movies don’t make kids violent... the opportunity to learn right from wrong in a comfortable setting decides. Well for me it did. My dad always let me see whatever I wanted but he also taught me how to defend myself and how to use force correctly and when needed. The same thing with cursing... he used to try and pay me to say 'fuck.' I would never do it because I had morality as a little bugger. Then I learned that there is nothing wrong with cursing... so he taught me how to do it appropriately. Don’t treat your kids like little kids or they will grow up to know nothing but that. Feed their interests… not oppress them. That only leads to them doing whatever it is with their friends and not doing it properly. Of course videogames and movies program your brain. Everything you experience helps program your brain. When you did led in your hippy outfit it programmed your brain a certain way. When I play a video game I get right into it. I go into a mode that is unlike normal life. I can’t explain what I do in words because the moment I try to explain something as simple as jumping I freeze up. My hands just do it. That’s the programming its doing and not training you to be a ninja... though that doesn’t sound like a bad idea... ninjas are badass. If you play grand theft auto for 48 hours you aren’t going to want and go out and steal a nice car or shoot someone walking down the street. Don’t get me wrong I have had moments where I picture myself as in the game and me doing those things but it’s just for laughs and nothing more. Just because some kid played 007 and shot a guy does not mean 007 should be banned. It just means there is one more stupid fucker with access to guns. It’s sad really... to be blamed for other's actions. As a gamer I feel attacked by the media. Like I am going to go out and shoot someone just because I own a copy of halo 2. My mom thinks I am a video game addict just because I rather sit inside and shoot some bots than sunbathe. So please spread the truth. Stop the hate. Thanks Kris for this wonderful idea.
topic: Technology
[reply] [1 comment]

Morons with Mustangs	December 10, 2005, 5:18PM
by: MistressPuddles
So is it just me, or are all of the drivers in Miami mindless imbeciles? Just a week ago, I was crossing US1 in front of South Miami station to get to my after school ballet class, an innocent task. With me on the curb was an elderly man with a cane, a very pregnant woman with a toddler, and two other students. It was pouring, but we waited patiently for three SUVs to fly through the red light before timorously beginning our slog across the six lanes of momentarily halted traffic. Between lanes four and five the light turned green again, and all six of us (plus the child in utero) became trapped in the flow—or rather, the surge—of crazed motorists. “What the *&@#%$ do you think you’re doing?!” “You’re gonna get hit, you idiots!” The list of expletives went on, and we were graced by at least half a dozen one-finger salutes before we were able to make the remaining few feet to the opposite curb. So much for those big yellow signs that mean YIELD TO THE PEDESTRIANS. Unfortunately, this is just another typical day of road rage in Miami. I don’t know where these morons learn to drive (although I have my suspicions), but they certainly don’t belong behind the wheel of a car. I swear I can hear them saying to themselves, “I almost hit that little kid! Ten points for me!” What will it take to make these drivers obey traffic rules? Last I checked, it wasn’t only common courtesy to wait for a group of people to cross the street instead of trying to run them down, it was the law. Living in this diverse area for thirteen years has made me more than a little jaded. Whenever I see someone cut over to the extreme left from the extreme right to make a U-turn, I cynically dub it a ‘Miami move.’ And my development of agoraphilia? More than the rationale that there’s safety in numbers; if there’s more of you, there’s a larger settlement when you get hit in the crosswalk. How I wish I was kidding about that part, but I’ve seen it happen before my very eyes. However, my cynicism is not without cause. The sheer, brazen rudeness of motorists in Miami is unbelievable. I’m sure any one of us, automobile owners or not, could recount story upon story of compromising traffic situations. When did it become acceptable to throw trash at people walking in front of your vehicle at a stop sign? Jeez, I’m sorry, next time I’ll just jump over your hood instead of going around it. I’ve actually become more accustomed to using my own phalangeal anatomy lately, but in my defense, I was sorely provoked. There comes a point where you may have to abandon your sense of pedestrian virtue rather than put up with being the object of a motorist’s degradation. Screw integrity, kids, just make sure you haul it after the last car runs the red light. Oh, and my personal favorite: a hideous yellow Hummer lurches to a stop so suddenly and so short of the traffic signal that it completely obscures the crosswalk and causes the speeding Jetta behind it to swerve into the shoulder. Both drivers emerge from their cars, cell phones at the ready, and seeing there was no damage, quickly return to their respective steering wheels. Seeing that I have begun to cross the road in front of the Hummer enrages the first driver, and he begins to honk furiously and scream insults in Spanglish. “Get outta the &*#@$% road! ¡Dios mio!” Yeah, buddy, I’ll get out of the middle of the road. When you get the hell off my sidewalk.
topic: Rants
[reply] [1 comment]

What you make of it.	December 9, 2005, 2:00AM
by: Satchell
A friend wrote a blog entry recently. In it he talked about his opinion on how life isn’t what you make of it and how you shouldn’t suppress your anger and feelings. I responded and told him that I disagree and was fairly brief but here I can be as longwinded as I want. Ok! Life is exactly what you make of it. The people who don’t believe that would argue that you cant control everything that happens and thus other people dictate the events of your life. Well that’s a good way of not taking responsibility for your actions. If you ram your car into someone else’s you have to collect his or her info etc. to say that fate directed my wheel to that car would be just downright stupid. You hit them because you weren’t paying attention. If other people’s lives dictated yours there would be no justice system. You would appear before the court and the judge would just say 'well I guess it isn’t your fault... you were looking at an interesting book. You can go. Shit happens.' but alas it is not the case. On to emotions and suppressing them. For the longest time I thought that emotions should be used as much as possible. That if you suppress them you would become unhealthy. I like to think of mud when I am explaining this. Think of a pile of mud. If you try to build a wall with it the wall will just fall apart (water being emotion and the dirt being logic.) but if you take out the water and build a wall using the water as needed it will become strong. What I am trying to get at is that control of your emotions and thoughts will make you a more mentally sound person. It’s not so much that your suppressing them, its simply you controlling them and can use them when needed. Emotion can be a pretty useful tool but like any tool has a specific purpose. You wouldn’t use a hammer to tighten a bolt. So weather your a pile of mud or a hammer... be smart about what your doing. Thanks for reading.
topic: Rants
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Down The Road, Not Across The Street.	December 2, 2005, 10:00AM
by: Hylean
Many people talk about cutting, it's everywhere, on the TV (Hollyoaks in the UK), in magazines, in music and in papers. We cannot escape it anymore, even though its a taboo, and for all that we hear about cutting, very few people actually seem to know why others do it. Ignoring those people such as emos and the like (I will get back to them), lets look at those who are genuine cutters. Those who cut because they feel the need to; yes, others have problems which on the whole are much bigger, but to the cutter, their problems are just as important or as big as those. They cannot see past their problems and they cannot seem to work round them, every normal method fails them. It is often the case that they have become somewhat mentally unbalanced through their problem and thus the normal ways cannot help them. Did you know that some doctors actually recommend cutting when it seems nothing else will work? This is when cutting comes in. For all of those who do not know enough biology to realise this, cutting realises chemicals into the system, adrenalin for example, which give the cutter a buzz and a high. This alone is dangerous because it soon creates a dependancy on the cutting, the cutter needs that high again and so has to cut more and more as the body gets used to the chemicals, as with all drug addictions. So for those who feel cutting is an easy thing to give up, it is not, It is an addiction for those who truly cut and they cannot help what they do anymore than a heroine addict can. Now I know quite a few cutters, genuine ones, and I have seen how hard it was for them to pull themselves out of that pit. However, I have also seen how they fall straight back into it the moment something bad, in their opinion, happens to them. The sharp implement comes out and the cut opens with a swift jerk of the arm. Is it not that way for most drug users? I do not see you all telling them to get a laugh and stop taking the drugs, in fact many of you out there probably do take drugs, so I hope you can sympathise with a true cutter's plight. It is not easy for them. The worst thing about this type of cutting is that, aside from creating an addiction, is that the person cannot and does not learn to deal with the problems that forced them to such an alternative. That is one of the reasons it is so easy for them to fall back into that state of mind when something bad comes along: they never learned to cope in the first place. Thus, they are a more fragile kind of person and take things harder than normal people would. Often they need to go see psychiatrists and psychologists after they have managed to stop cutting, if they ever do. So next time you bitch about cutters, real ones or just in general, remember, it is not all their fault, they cannot escape it and in fact sometimes they have been told to cut in order to help them gain some semblance of normality in their lives. I did say I would talk about the other kind of cutters, and I shall call them "cuttters" throughout the rest of this, in order to differentiate. Well, what can be said about them? I apologise for this sweeping statement, but most of these "cutters" are found in the emo culture. Yes, goths get it too, but not on such a high scale as emos do, and it seems it is because of the cutting stereotype affiliated with the emo subculture. Apologies for any insult emos take from that, but I say: take a look around you, you will see it is true, especially with new wave emo-kids. I digress, these "cutters" are idiots, I am sorry to say. Cutting does not make you any more "scene" than the next person; it does not make you any cooler; it does not make people look up to you: what it does do is get you lots of lovely attention though, doesn't it? We all love attention, well most of us, it makes us feel loved, wanted, needed and special. News flash, cutters do not flash their scars about; they do not hide them under shitty bracelets or under stupid sweatbands; in fact they generally do not cut anywhere near their wrists as they are too easily seen. They tend to cut in the armpits, inner thighs and other such unviewable places (Lisa in Hollyoaks chose the inner thighs). For all you "cutters" out there, the world is not against you; your parents do not hate you just because they wont raise your pocket money to 200 pounds a month instead of the measly 150 you are getting at the moment; your friends do not hate you just because they cannot hang with you on a certain day; and people are not speaking behind your back just because they laugh whenever you are near. Do not spread such crud and stop living in such self-pitying lives. If life is so bad for you and you really want to kill yourself like you claim: DOWN THE ROAD, NOT ACROSS THE STREET. I am sorry, but I am sick of hearing about all these "cutters" with such shit lives that want to kill themselves and then never do anything about. Nearly every cutter I know does not want to die, they just use it to get away from their problems: they never want to go down the road. I am sick of my mates who cut getting a bad reputation because of the "cutters"; my friends are too ashamed to get naked with their lovers because of the scars they have hidden about their bodies whilst the "cutters" go out there and flash their wrists off at everyone passing by. In the end, there are cutters and there are "cutters". Do not bash the cutters because of what those "cutters" portray themselves as and do in order to get attention, not everyone is like that and certainly most cutters are not.
topic: Rants
[reply] [22 comments]

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