-=XFS=- X-Fleet Sentinels

61% The American

Nova — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 07:03:40 GMT

As beautifully shot as it is emotionally restrained, The American is an unusually divisive spy thriller -- and one that rests on an unusually subdued performance from George Clooney.

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FFXIV Open Beta testing now up for PC, PS3 soon.

OMEGA — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 10:58:04 GMT

Its finally here, I'll be plugged into this 24 hours a day! No worries guys, I'll still be as active as I am now with the 360. Been looking forward to this for awhile. Built my PC specifically for this game.

Wanna play the beta with me go to FINAL FANTASY XIV and sign up and download. Warning, its a big game with demanding requirements.

I will likely go to Bahamut Server.

27% Takers

Nova — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 22:33:45 GMT

Takers boasts some gripping set pieces and keeps things moving quickly, but its two-dimensional characters, clich�d script, and brazenly derivative plot make it hard to recommend.

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help with overheating!

Voodoo Maniac — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 07:23:11 GMT

Hey I'm new here I just got hired yesterday to this wonderful Clan. And I have a computer problem :) MY laptop has to always be set on powersaver, if its on even balanced for more than 10-15 minutes it shuts down and I can restart it untill it has cooled down. It never used to do this only in the last half year ive had it. Is there a solution to this? If I were to reboot it from the disk like it was brand new, would it also not overheat anymore! thank-you guys!

:signs040:

70% The Last Exorcism

Nova — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 07:06:09 GMT

It doesn't fully deliver on the chilly promise of its Blair Witch-style premise, but The Last Exorcism offers a surprising number of clever thrills.

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It's me *****es!

Fiery — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 21:05:44 GMT

Well, I'm back from my army training as of august 13th. Good times my friends good times. Learned how to properly clear rooms of terrorists and all that fun stuff. I also got to blow up some real c4 and tnt. Beat that guys! Also went through our whole training with an M4 with rail systems and no handguard. Those ****ers get hot after shooting enough rounds off....

Haven't really had a chance to get on here mainly because I've been busy intaking lots of food, jager, and beer. Pretty short lived being home though. Anyone out near Washington state? I'm being stationed at Ft. lewis with the 2nd infantry div. 5th stryker brigade, and would like to know about the area a little. Well that's all I got for now, If you have any questions just drop em here or something. No access to xfire or msn for a while. Peace,,,,,, Fiery!!!!!

A funny way for Star Trek XI to end

Sentinel-Prime — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 03:07:14 GMT

I rather enjoyed this for some reason lol

Happy bday Omega

Sentinel-Prime — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 20:50:22 GMT

Your old....have fun with that. :P

Coming soon, new speed record...

Illusion — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 06:01:30 GMT

I read about this a while back, but forgot to post it, this is mainly for the science/space buffs out there (Which are popular among gamers). It would seem a new form of technology known as Photonic Propulsion has been tested in the lab and shows great potential. Now its not going to break the light barrier(Though it would get us pretty damn close!), but with anything else, things come in baby steps for a reason. After all, we need to get to know our own hood first. It wont let us explore other star systems right away, but it will allow us to get a foot hold or even colonize our own sooner than we thought.

If this goes into practicle application, other technologies will still be under research, such as Alcubierre's warps drive or the use of tachyon or gravitational field propulsion. Some sounds like Science fiction, but if we think about it, much of yesterday's SciFi is todays science fact. Its as if science is only limited to mankind's imagination. In either case, I felt this a worthwhile topic to discuss in this forum. I was excited enough alone to know that we may be traveling to mars in less than a week, but i'm greedy like that, so I had to take it a step further. We can't break the light barrier according to the theory of relativity, but many credible scientists do believe that we can either go around it, fool it or at the very least, bend it. An example would be the tachyon theory, surrounding a starship with a tachyon field(which are allowed to have negative mass), permitting it to travel it and anything within it at these speeds. Kind of like how a virus disguises itself as a protein to fool the antibodies.

Sorry guys, sometimes I get bored and explore things like this, but at least it gives you something to do in the event your bored at the time of reading my posts. You'll either find this interesting or your won't, no skin off my nose either way.

Looking around.

Exiled — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 04:31:32 GMT

I am a tuner/driver for forza 3 and im currently a member of lbaw. I have been told by a good friend of mine Omega, that this is the team to be part of. So i have desided to take a look around and talk to some of the xfs members to see if i should make the change or not. I mainly race so forza and when its released gt5 is where i will be mostly. Thanks for letting me look around the site.

42% The Expendables

Nova — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 11:42:20 GMT

It makes good on the old-school action it promises, but given all the talent on display, The Expendables should hit harder.

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Happy Birthday Voodoo

Zii — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 12:12:44 GMT

Yeah, I know, another one right.

Happy Birthday Voodoo, your crazy maniac.

Happy Birthday Imperial!

Zii — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 20:39:11 GMT

Imperial, happy birthday. Have a good one.

Alien Myths: Debunk the Debunkers (If you can)

Illusion — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 03:20:40 GMT

So I found this random article on Space.com, which is usually in favor of searching for intelligence using a scientific method. One blogger claims to have debunked the top 10 encounters, though rather vague, I won't comment one way or the other. Though, I did figure it would be a fun project for some, to attempt to debunk the debunkers claims. Re-bunk them all or just select those of your choosing. The author passes a series of links, so he could just be trying to sell stuff he gains a commission on. If you agree with all the debunkers claims, then as an alternative, you may choose to back up the "Real Stories". Or, overall, we can attempt to debunk the debunker's entire claims. Let the games begin. The blog link can be found at Alien Engineers

Quote:

The story:
Science can�t explain how the Great Pyramids of Egypt were constructed; because they are so precisely aligned and designed, aliens must have had a role in creating them thousands of years ago.

The real story:
While many people assume that those living in earlier times (such as the ancient Egyptians) were not resourceful enough to possibly have created impressive engineering feats without extraterrestial aid, this is not true. Actually, the methods by which the pyramids could have been constructed are well documented, and have appeared in many places including National Geographic magazine and Mark Lehner�s book The Complete Pyramids. The only real mystery surrounding the pyramids is why anyone would still think aliens were involved.

Further reading:

Mark Lehner. The Complete Pyramids.

Quote:

The story:
When alien visitors are not abducting people (see number 2) or implanting things in them (number 3), or making circles in crops (number 7), they butcher cattle, either for research purposes or perhaps sadistic amusement. Since the 1970s, hundreds of animal corpses have been found with unusual or inexplicable features, including being drained of blood and having their organs removed with "surgical precision."

The real story:
Livestock predation has plagued ranchers and farmers for millennia, but it wasn�t until the last few decades (during the public�s peaking interest in UFOs) that anyone thought to attribute the deaths to aliens. Research has shown that the "mysterious" features are in fact quite ordinary and are caused by natural decay processes and scavenger attacks. Curiously, exactly the same phenomena has been attributed to not only aliens but also to Satanic cults and the dreaded chupacabra creature of Hispanic folklore.

Further reading:

Kendrick Frazier, ed. The UFO Invasion.

Quote:

The story:
Area 51 is where the U.S. government stores and studies extraterrestrial bodies and aircraft, including the unfortunate (and apparently poorly-trained) alien pilots that crashed in Roswell. Some even say that it is an officially-sanctioned landing base for spaceships.

The real story:
The simple fact of the matter is that the public doesn�t really know much about what goes on at the military base near Groom Dry Lake, Nevada (popularly but not officially called Area 51). It is a top secret military base, and there are of course perfectly legitimate government and military reasons for keeping the base�s purposes secret that have nothing to do with aliens or UFOs; 60 Minutes correspondent Leslie Stahl suggested that the area may be a dumping ground for toxic waste. There�s no reason to think that anything alien is going on there, but where there is secrecy, there will be conspiracy.

Further reading:

Robert Carroll. The Skeptic�s Dictionary.

Quote:

Aliens are the most likely explanation for the mysterious circles and other designs that occasionally appear in farmers� fields. They are some sort of sign or message that humans have not yet deciphered.

The real story:
Despite films like Signs, there is no evidence that crop circles are made by alien intelligences. Hoaxing is by far the best explanation for crop circles�far more so than aliens who supposedly travel across the vast universe to reach Earth, only to flatten wheat in rural English and American farms as some sort of information. (You�d think that aliens with superior intelligence would realize their messages aren�t getting through, and be a little more direct.)

Further reading:

Kevin Christopher. "CSICOP Crop Circle Experiments."

Quote:

The story:
Proof that intelligent alien life exists in the universe can be found on Mars�or so claims Richard Hoagland, author of the book The Monuments of Mars: A City on the Edge of Forever. According to Hoagland, NASA photographs of the Cydonia region of Mars show a human-like face. According to Hoagland, this must have been constructed by intelligent beings and indicates that there are (or were) alien cities on Mars.

The real story:
The "Face on Mars" is an example of imagination and wishful thinking. The photographs that show an area vaguely resembling a face on Mars were taken by the Viking 1 Orbiter in 1976. Since then, far better photographs have been taken of Mars (for example, by the Mars Global Surveyor in 1998). They show that the area is heavily eroded, and the "face" was simply a combination of low image resolution and tricks of light and shadow.

Further reading:

Phil Plait�s Web site Bad Astronomy.com.

Quote:

The story:
The 1947 "Roswell Incident" (see number 1) got a boost of credibility in 1995 when a grainy, black-and-white film surfaced. The top-secret film (shot by the military and showing a post-mortem dissection of an alien body) was touted as evidence of what some UFO buffs had claimed all along: that alien bodies had been recovered by the U.S. government.

The real story:
Soon after the alien autopsy footage was broadcast on Fox television, serious doubts were raised about the authenticity of the film. Skeptics (and even many UFO researchers) branded the film a hoax, pointing out anachronisms and inconsistencies in the film. Yet because the Roswell story is so short on evidence, others clung to the autopsy footage as real. Earlier this year, the special effects artist who created the alien confessed that it was in fact a hoax.

Further reading:

Joe Nickell. "Alien Autopsy Hoax."

Quote:

The story:
On June 24, 1947, the modern UFO era began when a man named Kenneth Arnold saw nine �flying saucers� moving at high speed near Mount Rainer, Washington. Soon others began reporting seeing similar UFOs, spawning a �flap.�

The real story:
The phrase "flying saucer," so familiar to Americans and UFO buffs, is the result of a reporter�s error. After interviewing Arnold about his sighting, a reporter from the Eastern Oregonian newspaper reported that Arnold saw round, aerial objects (in fact he said they were "crescent shaped"). Arnold stated that the objects "flew erratic, like a saucer if you skip it across the water"�not that what he saw resembled an actual saucer. Yet that "saucer" interpretation stuck, prompting many eyewitnesses to repeat (and hoaxers to duplicate) Arnold�s nonexistent description. This strongly shows the role of suggestion in UFO sightings; as skeptic Marty Kottmeyer asks, "Why would extraterrestrials redesign their craft to conform to [the reporter�s] mistake?"

Further reading:

Robert Carroll. The Skeptic�s Dictionary.

Quote:

The story:
As part of nefarious experiments, aliens have implanted various objects in human abductees. Victims have found small foreign objects in their bodies and come to realize they had been abducted. Several alien implants have been recovered, and when they are scientifically tested, they are found to be indestructible or of materials not found on Earth.

The real story:
Joe Nickell, a columnist for Skeptical Inquirer magazine, noted that �Since 1994 alleged implants have been surgically recovered but they�ve become remarkably diverse: one looks like a shard of glass, another a triangular piece of metal, still another a carbon fiber, and so on. None was located in the brain or nasal cavity, instead being recovered from such extremities as toe, hand, shin, external ear, etc.; some were accompanied by scars while others were not. As physicians know, a foreign object can enter the body unnoticed, as during a fall, or while running barefoot in sand or grass�even as a splinter from a larger impacting object.� People find all sorts of weird things in their bodies, but so far none are of alien origin.

Further reading:

Joe Nickell. "Alien Implants: The New �Hard Evidence."

Quote:

The story:
Hundreds of people claim to have been abducted by aliens, especially during in the 1980s. They were subjected to rape, experiments and implantations (see number 3), and other bodily intrusions. Several prominent researchers, including Harvard�s John Mack, supported the claims and wrote books about these victims.

The real story:
There may be several causes of the alien abduction experience. Many of these experiences are only recovered years later, during psychological treatment for other issues. Research has proven that false memories can be created in the course of therapy by careless psychologists. People can actually come to believe they were abducted or abused when they were not. Other researchers have shown that a common psychological process called sleep paralysis may be misinterpreted as an alien abduction.

Further reading:

Susan Blackmore, Abduction by Aliens or Sleep Paralysis?

Quote:

The Story
The most famous UFO crash in history occurred in 1947, on a ranch just outside of Roswell, a dusty New Mexican town. Mysterious debris and alien bodies (see number 5) were recovered, spirited away in a government cover-up.

The real story:
There was indeed a cover-up of what crashed outside Roswell, but authorities were hiding not a crashed alien saucer but a weather balloon from a secret spy program called Project Mogul. The debris described by the original eyewitnesses exactly matches the balloons used in the program; the fanciful stories of alien bodies did not appear until much later. The Roswell Incident was in fact only one of many similar (and clearly folkloric) stories of crashed vessels containing alien bodies and debris�some dating back nearly 100 years earlier.

Further reading:

Philip J. Klass. The Real Roswell Crashed-Saucer Coverup.

Robert Bartholomew and Benjamin Radford. Hoaxes, Myths, and Manias: Why We Need Critical Thinking.

Happy Birthday Voyager

Zii — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 11:24:10 GMT

We may never see you around anymore, but Happy Birthday none the less.