Physics GRE Discussion Forums

Dear friend i want to mention the importance of music in our area of physics,
i think we need music more than even the musicians
so let us share the best of musics among us and lets enjoy this eternal bliss.
please post the best songs which should just touch the soul at once.
PLEASE AVOID SONGS HAVING RACIALLY DISPARAGING, VULGAR AND GIBBERISH THEME.
SONGS MAY BE INSTRUMENTAL, FROM DIFFERENT LANGUAGE, FORMAL, POP, HYMNS, ANYTHING APART FROM THE ABOVE MENTIONED REDLIST AND LIKES.
My sincerely thanks to all of you genii.
best regards,
Modernphysics.

Let me first give my homage to the God of Music, Sir Mozart,
here is the complete list of all his musical compositions:

http://www.mozart-weltweit.de/mozart00.htm


i hope you'll find it beautiful.

I'm confused about the rules! What counts as GIBBERISH THEME? Can you give some examples of good gibberish theme music?

My favorite composer, by miles, is Arvo Pärt. I struggled to pick a single example of his music but I settled on "Summa for Strings".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzSlmWQuHFw

If you are craving more, some other fantastic works of his are "Tabula Rasa", Cantus In Memoriam "Benjamin Britten" (a memoriam for the famous British modern composer), his many variations of "Fratres" but in particular his "Fratres for 8 Cellos" or "Spiegel im Spiegel".

kroner wrote:I'm confused about the rules! What counts as GIBBERISH THEME? Can you give some examples of good gibberish theme music?

This translates to me as "anything with lyrics/meaningful". I'm obviously not allowed to post. =)

-Riley

Too tired to get your work done? Try "Inertia" from Bruce Dickinson's physics-oriented "Skunkworks" album:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pUWitARq2w

I'm teaching "survey of the sciences" this quarter and wanted an interesting chemical to study as an example. I chose "sodium laureth sulfate", (a component of a lot of stuff in the home, particularly shampoo), partly because of the song by that name on "The Loud Family" album "Interbabe Concern". I don't see it on youtube, but the lyrics are available:

Sample:
http://www.amazon.com/Sodium-Laureth-Su ... B000TPOO76
Lyrics:
http://stormville.blogspot.com/2007/07/ ... yrics.html

kroner wrote:I'm confused about the rules! What counts as GIBBERISH THEME? Can you give some examples of good gibberish theme music?

Aha, being an amateur chess player i can see the trap here.
if i provide the examples then i am accused of violating the rules. so good trap. No?
any way, i know you have no intension of setting any traps.

well! the best two examples of gibberish theme are already given there, and in place of putting just ETC, i included the term gibberish to include other such stuffs which are synonymous and in close relationship with the two mentioned ones.

hope you are clear of your confusions now.
best regards
Modernphysics

HappyQuark wrote:My favorite composer, by miles, is Arvo Pärt. I struggled to pick a single example of his music but I settled on "Summa for Strings".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzSlmWQuHFw

If you are craving more, some other fantastic works of his are "Tabula Rasa", Cantus In Memoriam "Benjamin Britten" (a memoriam for the famous British modern composer), his many variations of "Fratres" but in particular his "Fratres for 8 Cellos" or "Spiegel im Spiegel".

Truly just kept me unmoved. really Sacred Music.

Dear friends,
please check out this website

http://www.symphonyofscience.com/
i know many of know of this site but still refreshing the mind is always a good thing.

my best regards to all of you.
Modernphysics

dear friends for all of you:
http://www.haverford.edu/physics/songs/


best regards
modernphysics

On a whim I decided to use a disk utility to rank the artists in my iTunes library in terms of the amount of data I have for each of them.



What I learned from this is that I have way too much Crystal Method, especially considering how rarely I listen to them. The 'Various Artistis' that shows up approximately 9 down is a 6 cd anthology of western classical music.

HappyQuark wrote:On a whim I decided to use a disk utility to rank the artists in my iTunes library in terms of the amount of data I have for each of them.



What I learned from this is that I have way too much Crystal Method, especially considering how rarely I listen to them. The 'Various Artistis' that shows up approximately 9 down is a 6 cd anthology of western classical music.

In my case, this type of ranking would not represent my "favorites". I buy a lot of music, therefore any artists with more songs would rank higher than they probably should. But just for the hell of it, here are my top 10 artists by number of songs in my itunes library.

70 - Fall Out Boy
68 - System of a Down
64 - Portugal. The Man
63 - Say Anything
60 - Motion City Soundtrack
56 - Horse The Band
52 - The Jamestown Story
51 - Taking Back Sunday
50 - The Matches
48 - The Blood Brothers

Although I don't mind Fall Out Boy, I can guarantee you they aren't my favorite band/artist. I'd say my top 10 look something like this (no particular order):

Alesana
Pierce The Veil
Asking Alexandria
Bring Me The Horizon
We Came As Romans
A Skylit Drive
In Fear And Faith
The Blood Brothers
Mayday Parade
Eyes Set To Kill

Notice only one band/artist makes both of these lists?

-Riley

Yeah, this is sort of a weird exercise. Contributing factors seem to be: how long ago I started liking the band, how much music they've put out to date, how long their albums tend to be.

106 - Beastie Boys
99 - Radiohead
70 - Smashing Pumpkins
64 - Red Hot Chili Peppers
64 - Modest Mouse
59 - Talking Heads
56 - The White Stripes
54 - The Knife
54 - Deerhoof
54 - Jimi Hendrix

WhoaNonstop wrote: In my case, this type of ranking would not represent my "favorites". I buy a lot of music, therefore any artists with more songs would rank higher than they probably should. But just for the hell of it, here are my top 10 artists by number of songs in my itunes library.

70 - Fall Out Boy
68 - System of a Down
64 - Portugal. The Man
63 - Say Anything
60 - Motion City Soundtrack
56 - Horse The Band
52 - The Jamestown Story
51 - Taking Back Sunday
50 - The Matches
48 - The Blood Brothers

Although I don't mind Fall Out Boy, I can guarantee you they aren't my favorite band/artist. I'd say my top 10 look something like this (no particular order):

Alesana
Pierce The Veil
Asking Alexandria
Bring Me The Horizon
We Came As Romans
A Skylit Drive
In Fear And Faith
The Blood Brothers
Mayday Parade
Eyes Set To Kill

Notice only one band/artist makes both of these lists?

-Riley

My list of favorites is not too different from my list of most data and this is probably in part because I refuse to keep songs that I don't like, regardless of whether or not it means I don't have the complete album from a certain artist. In fact, with a cursory skim of itunes, the only albums which I have in their entirety are

Aphex Twin - drukQs
Beastie Boys - Licensed to Ill
Squarepusher - Do You Know Squarepusher
Squarepusher - Ultravisitor
Squarepusher - Feed me weird things
Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works 85-92
Z-Trip - Shifting Gears
DJ Qbert - Demolition Pumpkin Squeeze Music
DJ Shadow - Endtroducing

And as for my actual rankings of favorites, it would go a little something like

Squarepusher
Aphex Twin
Autechre
Venetian Snares
Wisp
Apparat
Mouse on Mars
Boards of Canada
Prefuse73
Plaid
Telefon Tel Aviv
DJ Shadow
Ratatat

HappyQuark wrote: My list of favorites is not too different from my list of most data and this is probably in part because I refuse to keep songs that I don't like, regardless of whether or not it means I don't have the complete album from a certain artist. In fact, with a cursory skim of itunes, the only albums which I have in their entirety are

Aphex Twin - drukQs
Beastie Boys - Licensed to Ill
Squarepusher - Do You Know Squarepusher
Squarepusher - Ultravisitor
Squarepusher - Feed me weird things
Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works 85-92
Z-Trip - Shifting Gears
DJ Qbert - Demolition Pumpkin Squeeze Music
DJ Shadow - Endtroducing

And as for my actual rankings of favorites, it would go a little something like

Squarepusher
Aphex Twin
Autechre
Venetian Snares
Wisp
Apparat
Mouse on Mars
Boards of Canada
Prefuse73
Plaid
Telefon Tel Aviv
DJ Shadow
Ratatat

I own nearly 600 albums and do not have a single song by any of these artists. But I'm sure you could easily say the same about my list. =P

-Riley

WhoaNonstop wrote:I own nearly 600 albums and have do not have a single song by any of these artists. But I'm sure you could easily say the same about my list. =P -Riley

LOL, same here.

By the way, good on you for "owning' 600 albums, if by that you mean that you actually paid for em.

WhoaNonstop wrote:

HappyQuark wrote: My list of favorites is not too different from my list of most data and this is probably in part because I refuse to keep songs that I don't like, regardless of whether or not it means I don't have the complete album from a certain artist. In fact, with a cursory skim of itunes, the only albums which I have in their entirety are

Aphex Twin - drukQs
Beastie Boys - Licensed to Ill
Squarepusher - Do You Know Squarepusher
Squarepusher - Ultravisitor
Squarepusher - Feed me weird things
Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works 85-92
Z-Trip - Shifting Gears
DJ Qbert - Demolition Pumpkin Squeeze Music
DJ Shadow - Endtroducing

And as for my actual rankings of favorites, it would go a little something like

Squarepusher
Aphex Twin
Autechre
Venetian Snares
Wisp
Apparat
Mouse on Mars
Boards of Canada
Prefuse73
Plaid
Telefon Tel Aviv
DJ Shadow
Ratatat

I own nearly 600 albums and have do not have a single song by any of these artists. But I'm sure you could easily say the same about my list. =P

-Riley

I've got roughly 200 albums, or more accurately music from 200 different albums, and I too don't have a single song from any of the musicians,bands you listed. I almost exclusively purchase my music in digital format because of the way I selectively choose songs from entire albums.

CarlBrannen wrote:

WhoaNonstop wrote:I own nearly 600 albums and have do not have a single song by any of these artists. But I'm sure you could easily say the same about my list. =P -Riley

LOL, same here.

By the way, good on you for "owning' 600 albums, if by that you mean that you actually paid for em.

I use to buy most of my music through iTunes when it first was available. However, over the past 3-4 years or so I have changed to buying physical copies of the CDs (even rebuying ones I had previously owned digitally). In a sense, I basically "collect" CDs.

-Riley

I also buy CDs but I've not bought so many the last 5 years. Before then I was designing electronics and worked with headphones on all day. So I spent a lot.

I prefer CDs where the whole CD has some sort of theme, I have a lot of progressive or art rock. But you can say the same thing about other stuff. I.e. Tupac Shakur's "All Eyez On Me" has the theme "gang violence". And then there's around 400 CDs that I used to have in two juke boxes.

Which reminds me, when I teach physics I tell my students that physics is about "sex, money, and murder", cause I'm pretty sure that when you keep your lecture to those subjects the students have an easier time paying attention. I'm sure that those words are the lyric to a rap song but I can't figure out which one.

I took a class in glass blowing at Pilchuck. The glass blowers and artists there all listened to music but as far as I could tell almost none of them bought it. (Maybe this was luck of the draw, but glass artists do tend to be fairly poor.) I thought this was somewhat contrary given that they were making a living selling art.

http://www.pilchuck.com/

Nice HappyQuark, we have several of the same favorites.

There are a few on your list I've never heard of, but I definitely listen to Daft Punk, Aphex Twin and DJ Shadow (I'm not really that into DJ Shadow in general, but Entroducing is too fantastic of an album). I know Ratatat is very good, but I never got into them much. I got Alive 2007 by Daft Punk for Christmas and I highly recommend it if you haven't heard.

I notice you like Boards of Canada. They're ambient right? You should check out Stars of the Lid if you haven't already.

This song's pretty good, got a cute video if anything

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SHnuAgP ... ure=fvwrel

Several Interesting choices and I must agree on a few of them, notably Talking Heads.

I'm quite the fan of some old fashioned picking from greats like:

Doc Watson
Chet Atkins


Also some more popular:

John Denver
Led Zeppelin
Beatles
Rolling Stones
Johnny Cash
George Strait

There's plenty of others on the list, but I should get back to studying! haha

Well My favorites (apart from Indian songs):
U2
Enya
The Beatles
Radiohead
Evanescence
Brian Adam
Eminem
Backstreet Boys
'N Sync
Train
Westlife
Bob Seger
Hans Zimmer
Carl Sagan
Andy Gibb
Johny Cash
Bee Gees
Metric
Amy Grant

Without any apparent order or something. It's relative and mostly depends on my mood.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOMhN-hf ... re=related

sphy wrote:Well My favorites (apart from Indian songs):
U2
Enya
The Beatles
Radiohead
Evanescence
Brian Adam
Eminem
Backstreet Boys
'N Sync
Train
Westlife
Bob Seger
Hans Zimmer
Carl Sagan
Andy Gibb
Johny Cash
Bee Gees
Metric
Amy Grant

Without any apparent order or something. It's relative and mostly depends on my mood.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOMhN-hf ... re=related

hm...you m or f?

twistor wrote:

sphy wrote:Well My favorites (apart from Indian songs):
U2
Enya
The Beatles
Radiohead
Evanescence
Brian Adam
Eminem
Backstreet Boys
'N Sync
Train
Westlife
Bob Seger
Hans Zimmer
Carl Sagan
Andy Gibb
Johny Cash
Bee Gees
Metric
Amy Grant

Without any apparent order or something. It's relative and mostly depends on my mood.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOMhN-hf ... re=related

hm...you m or f?

dun worry he's just indian

twistor wrote:

sphy wrote:Well My favorites (apart from Indian songs):
U2
Enya
The Beatles
Radiohead
Evanescence
Brian Adam
Eminem
Backstreet Boys
'N Sync
Train
Westlife
Bob Seger
Hans Zimmer
Carl Sagan
Andy Gibb
Johny Cash
Bee Gees
Metric
Amy Grant

Without any apparent order or something. It's relative and mostly depends on my mood.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOMhN-hf ... re=related

hm...you m or f?

Hah,
If you are a M, sorry I am not a Gay like you and If you are a F (not Lesbian or Something) PM me.
Don't pollute this forum. Better prepare for your thesis which is due soon. Fcuk you.

sphy wrote:

twistor wrote:

sphy wrote:Well My favorites (apart from Indian songs):
U2
Enya
The Beatles
Radiohead
Evanescence
Brian Adam
Eminem
Backstreet Boys
'N Sync
Train
Westlife
Bob Seger
Hans Zimmer
Carl Sagan
Andy Gibb
Johny Cash
Bee Gees
Metric
Amy Grant

Without any apparent order or something. It's relative and mostly depends on my mood.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOMhN-hf ... re=related

hm...you m or f?

Hah,
If you are a M, sorry I am not a Gay like you and If you are a F (not Lesbian or Something) PM me.
Don't pollute this forum. Better prepare for your thesis which is due soon. Fcuk you.

I find it quaint when international students say things in the most politically incorrect way possible. As a general rule, the following form is not politically correct

a(n) <minority group>
and
the <minority group>

Here are some examples of unacceptable usage,

a gay/the gays
a black/the blacks
an arab/the arabs

Also, you have horrible taste in music and that is objectively true.

As much as I love to agree with Quark, I must say that pawning this music offfff as objectively bad is not correct. Obviously, many of these artists were or are big in the mainstream. Although I don't agree, objective music is what is listened to by most, which is a lot of these artists. However all music should be subjective, that is why we alll love different things. There is no definite wrong or right here

-Riley

sphy don't retard yourself to the PC level of US liberals. count them gays and blacks whenever you feel like it! live long and live true.

WhoaNonstop wrote:As much as I love to agree with Quark, I must say that pawning this music offfff as objectively bad is not correct. Obviously, many of these artists were or are big in the mainstream. Although I don't agree, objective music is what is listened to by most, which is a lot of these artists. However all music should be subjective, that is why we alll love different things. There is no definite wrong or right here

-Riley

Why disagree with me when you know how good it feels to agree? Perhaps you realized that I was being sarcastic and, as such, disagreeing with my statement on objectively good and bad music was in fact an act of agreement and, as such, it feels goooood.

Touché good sir.

negru wrote:sphy don't retard yourself to the PC level of US liberals. count them gays and blacks whenever you feel like it! live long and live true.

I wondered if I ever ran into you at a conference or something whether or not I'd be able to recognize you. At least now I know I will be able to pick you out, I'll just look for the pointy white hood.

sometimes i think you people are on the wrong website. here, i'll help you be on your way http://www.gnaa.eu

negru wrote:sometimes i think you people are on the wrong website. here, i'll help you be on your way http://www.gnaa.eu

I'm neither, and I'm also pretty sure PhysicsGRE isn't a racist website. Given how intolerant you are, how do you feel about immigration mr. international? I'm cool with immigration, but I wouldn't oppose sending you back to whatever backwards a** eastern European country you came from.

how exactly have I expressed intolerance by making reference to some people's color and/or sexual preferences?

also, since you ask, i'm obviously pro unregulated immigration, as long as no one who comes here gets any sort of aid payed for by taxes. if they can work, let them work, if they starve, let them starve.

Do I even need to quote you to prove it? See link above for the most recent evidence.

yeah what about it. it looks like a friendly group of people who are black and gay? what's wrong with it?

midwestphysics wrote:

negru wrote:sphy don't retard yourself to the PC level of US liberals. count them gays and blacks whenever you feel like it! live long and live true.

I wondered if I ever ran into you at a conference or something whether or not I'd be able to recognize you. At least now I know I will be able to pick you out, I'll just look for the pointy white hood.

Are you going to have some fight?

HappyQuark wrote:

WhoaNonstop wrote:As much as I love to agree with Quark, I must say that pawning this music offfff as objectively bad is not correct. Obviously, many of these artists were or are big in the mainstream. Although I don't agree, objective music is what is listened to by most, which is a lot of these artists. However all music should be subjective, that is why we alll love different things. There is no definite wrong or right here

-Riley

Why disagree with me when you know how good it feels to agree? Perhaps you realized that I was being sarcastic and, as such, disagreeing with my statement on objectively good and bad music was in fact an act of agreement and, as such, it feels goooood.

Touché good sir.

I agree with you that you too have a horrible taste in music and that is objectively true.

HappyQuark wrote:...... horrible taste in music and that is objectively true.

YOU are disparaging these great artists, who don't need your objective opinion to be labeled as good musicians. Buy any album of U2 (don't select some songs; that's the class of people who don't have any taste at all and they have testy nature. You are from that group) and tell us how bad they are or any Hans Zimmer's and tell us how horrible his music sounds Or any awesome Indian Music.

negru wrote:yeah what about it. it looks like a friendly group of people who are black and gay? what's wrong with it?

Well I am not a racist at all and I don't approve that in our society but I laughed the hardest on this statement of your's negru. I just wanted to see you in face to face and listen it from your mouth after being asked by midwestphysics.
Take care buddies.

sphy wrote:

HappyQuark wrote:

WhoaNonstop wrote:As much as I love to agree with Quark, I must say that pawning this music offfff as objectively bad is not correct. Obviously, many of these artists were or are big in the mainstream. Although I don't agree, objective music is what is listened to by most, which is a lot of these artists. However all music should be subjective, that is why we alll love different things. There is no definite wrong or right here

-Riley

Why disagree with me when you know how good it feels to agree? Perhaps you realized that I was being sarcastic and, as such, disagreeing with my statement on objectively good and bad music was in fact an act of agreement and, as such, it feels goooood.

Touché good sir.

I agree with you that you too have a horrible taste in music and that is objectively true.

sphy wrote:YOU are disparaging these great artists, who don't need your objective opinion to be labeled as good musicians. Buy any album of U2 (don't select some songs; that's the class of people who don't have any taste at all and they have testy nature. You are from that group) and tell us how bad they are or any Hans Zimmer's and tell us how horrible his music sounds Or any awesome Indian Music.

First, I think you misunderstood my point, in particular when I said that your taste in music was bad and this was "objectively true". I think you have terrible taste in music but of course this is subjective. This is so obvious that I feel a bit patronizing pointing it out to anybody. In my opinion, your taste in music is horrific but, again, it my personal opinion and it is based only on what I feel are valuable attributes of music.

Second, I highly doubt that U2, Eminem, the Backstreet Boys, N Sync, etc read the Physics GRE forums so I seriously doubt I am disparaging any of them.

Third, I don't know where you get this idea that a person who purchases only parts of an album has poor taste in music. No musician or artist I have ever listened to always makes flawless albums without exception. Even my favorite artists have made music I didn't like and so I don't buy it. I would argue that a person who can't distinguish between good music and bad music just because they like the artist would be the one with bad taste in music.

Fourth, I'm struggling to understand what your final sentence is trying to say. Are you suggesting that I made some negative comment in regards to Hans Zimmer and Indian music in general or are you asking me if I dislike either of these? Assuming the second, I know very little about Indian music and have no opinion on it but I do feel that Zimmer is one of the most overrated modern composers the world has ever known.

Fifth, since when is Carl Sagan a musician?

sphy wrote:

negru wrote:yeah what about it. it looks like a friendly group of people who are black and gay? what's wrong with it?

Well I am not a racist at all and I don't approve that in our society but I laughed the hardest on this statement of your's negru. I just wanted to see you in face to face and listen it from your mouth after being asked by midwestphysics.
Take care buddies.

not my problem he immediately associates skin color with negative characteristics, and that the only way he can block the automatic prejudice in his head is to pretend the respective color doesn't exist. you know harry potter had a good reason to not mention the word which must not be mentioned, but that's only because if he did voldemorte would appear and whoop his ass. are you scared some black person is going to appear and whoop YOUR ass?.

and he's preaching others on racism? please.

HappyQuark wrote: First, I think you misunderstood my point, in particular when I said that your taste in music was bad and this was "objectively true". I think you have terrible taste in music but of course this is subjective. This is so obvious that I feel a bit patronizing pointing it out to anybody.

To this: Well don't waste your time and other's, nobody asked you to give any opinion about my music sense or get patronized and show it to others. Did any? You should better read the first post of this section by modernphysics. I am not saying you to listen to these. I just placed my interest as you have already done. And seriously man I don't like your music sense either, but I didn't mention that until you did.

HappyQuark wrote: Second, I highly doubt that U2, Eminem, the Backstreet Boys, N Sync, etc read the Physics GRE forums so I seriously doubt I am disparaging any of them.

You're always doubtful. They should not better read this.
You are disparaging them whatever medium you have right now,that's Physics GRE forum. If you were something like a cheap celebrity with your current state of mind then you would have called a press conference perhaps just to disparage them publicly.

HappyQuark wrote: Third, I don't know where you get this idea that a person who purchases only parts of an album has poor taste in music. No musician or artist I have ever listened to always makes flawless albums without exception. Even my favorite artists have made music I didn't like and so I don't buy it. I would argue that a person who can't distinguish between good music and bad music just because they like the artist would be the one with bad taste in music.

The whole album tells you a continuous story so if you miss some songs then the story is left unfinished. And you don't get a better picture out of it. So I urge you to buy full album. And the shitty artists like yours whose names we have not heard of before don't know the music themselves and they don't have a story line about their album so if you select some songs of their album selectively, subjectively then that's ok. They wanted to sell those songs only. But if you buy their complete album I am sure you'll start hating them as well because you'll know they have nothing in their album. And that's why they don't have any international presence either. Because nobody listens to them except bunch of freaks whose opinion don't count at all.

HappyQuark wrote: Fourth, I'm struggling to understand what your final sentence is trying to say. Are you suggesting that I made some negative comment in regards to Hans Zimmer and Indian music in general or are you asking me if I dislike either of these? Assuming the second, I know very little about Indian music and have no opinion on it but I do feel that Zimmer is one of the most overrated modern composers the world has ever known.

I am sorry to tell you: You better take some rest. That's good for your health and MIND.

HappyQuark wrote: Fifth, since when is Carl Sagan a musician?

Well here I agree with you. He is not but i liked his Symphony of Science project so I mentioned him. That's it.
em, What about R.P.Feynman? If He were not a great physicist, then you would perhaps go on abusing him.
Take great care of yourself.

negru wrote:not my problem he immediately associates skin color with negative characteristics, and that the only way he can block the automatic prejudice in his head is to pretend the respective color doesn't exist. you know harry potter had a good reason to not mention the word which must not be mentioned, but that's only because if he did voldemorte would appear and whoop his ass. are you scared some black person is going to appear and whoop YOUR ass?.

and he's preaching others on racism? please.

What are you 12, harry potter? In any case, either you are the dumbest s.o.b. alive or you're really good at playing it, because 80% of your posts make it so that I don't even need to refute you. The underlying fact of the matter here is that you're some internet ******, who would turn b**** in two seconds in the presence of any of the people you like to insult. I refuse to be a racist or a homophobe like you not because I'm scared, but because unlike you I live around all kinds of different people and I have too much respect for them to let some p.o.s. like you run your mouth without at least someone calling you out on it. You're a loser, and I know that because character is who you are when nobody's looking, and I see a loser.

Sorry to everyone else for getting so fired up, but I refuse to sit idly by while this went down. I’ve said what I needed to say and I’m just going to ignore this crackpot from now on.

negru wrote:how exactly have I expressed intolerance by making reference to some people's color and/or sexual preferences

Because in general circumstance it isn't someone's appearance or sexuality that is being discussed. When you refer to someone as "a black" outside of being asked to describe his/her outward appearance, what you're really asking someone to do is appeal to a stereotype. That's naturally offensive to the person being described.

When you refer to "the blacks", you're assuming that everyone with black skin color can be grouped together in some way other than their appearance. That's also naturally offensive.

Calling someone black isn't offensive if you're trying to describe the person (Do you see that black guy down the street? I really like his backpack.) Calling someone gay isn't offensive if you're describing his sexuality (Sorry Julie, I'd love to set you up with my friend John, but he's gay).

Honestly, coming from an ivy you should already know this. I'd understand if you went to a big state school for undergrad, because then I could conceive that you somehow lacked exposure...

EDIT: Just to head off the very offensive thing I know you will say next, just because there is a correlation between a group and an action doesn't mean you can ascribe the action to that group inoffensively. It's true, for instance, that American blacks are more likely to live in urban areas, which give them a certain type of dialect. To say to someone "You speak like a black" or "you act like a gay" is going a step further--you're ascribing that action or quality as a necessary part of being black/gay. This is naturally offensive, especially when it's a quality you look down upon (but it's also offensive even when it's a quality you admire, because then you're implying they only have that quality because they belong to the group ("Damn, I wish I was a black so i could jump like you" negates all the work the person put into their basketball game, for instance).

sphy wrote:Well My favorites (apart from Indian songs):
U2
Enya
The Beatles
Radiohead
Evanescence
Brian Adam
Eminem
Backstreet Boys
'N Sync
Train
Westlife
Bob Seger
Hans Zimmer
Carl Sagan
Andy Gibb
Johny Cash
Bee Gees
Metric
Amy Grant

Without any apparent order or something. It's relative and mostly depends on my mood.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOMhN-hf ... re=related

Oh! hahaha. wow. !

But dont you think that the Backstreet Boys (atleast some of the time) sound like Brittney Spears sounds (all of the time)- constipated?

guthria wrote:

sphy wrote:Well My favorites (apart from Indian songs):
U2
Enya
The Beatles
Radiohead
Evanescence
Brian Adam
Eminem
Backstreet Boys
'N Sync
Train
Westlife
Bob Seger
Hans Zimmer
Carl Sagan
Andy Gibb
Johny Cash
Bee Gees
Metric
Amy Grant

Without any apparent order or something. It's relative and mostly depends on my mood.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOMhN-hf ... re=related

Oh! hahaha. wow. !

What

sphy wrote:

guthria wrote:

sphy wrote:Well My favorites (apart from Indian songs):
U2
Enya
The Beatles
Radiohead
Evanescence
Brian Adam
Eminem
Backstreet Boys
'N Sync
Train
Westlife
Bob Seger
Hans Zimmer
Carl Sagan
Andy Gibb
Johny Cash
Bee Gees
Metric
Amy Grant

Without any apparent order or something. It's relative and mostly depends on my mood.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOMhN-hf ... re=related

Oh! hahaha. wow. !

What

Nothing, actually. I've been crazy about some of these people myself, a long time ago * shudders *