do you believe in curses?

[jefhatfield]

chief tecumseh's curse where something bad will happen to an american president every 20 years..which is has in assasinations, attempts at assasination, death, bad health, etc since the winner or the 1860 election

the kennedy curse...enough said

the boston red sox (and the sf giants since they moved from new york) ;)

thoughts?

[iJon]

hmm thats a good question. cant say im really sure but im interested in what other people have to say.

iJon

[cubist]

Oh, I thought you meant curses as in Unix. It's been replaced by terminfo, I think; but nowadays, few Unix programs use it; most either use simple stdin/stdout or use X11. That's why X11 integration in Panther is an important feature. Strange nobody's talking about it.

[jefhatfield]

what'a a curse in unix?

[wdlove]

I personally don't believe in curses. As a human you really only have the power to control ones self, which has its limits.

The Boston Red Sox Fans definitely have continued the so called curse of Babe Ruth. When it really depends of the quality of players and there desire to win. You need to have the fire in the belly!

[QCassidy352]

no way. Curses only appear to exist when you look selectively at the data. There are plenty of presidents who have had misfortunes outside those 20 yr. intervals, and baseball teams who haven't won in longer than the Red Sox.

[eyelikeart]

I believe in karma...good...bad...overall. I believe there's a greater power, presiding over us here earth. I believe there's more to life than what we see.

I don't think things just happen by pure coincidence, not always anyway.

Jef, u forgot to mention the Lee family curse (Bruce, Brandon, etc.). ;)

[MacFan25]

I don't really believe in them, but I do think some are pretty interesting.

I've never really been superstitious.

[Rower_CPU]

Here's one way to look at curses:

The human mind is very susceptible to suggestion, and if a person's belief system and culture support the suggestion the "curse" will work.

For instance in voodoo practices, it is more often the belief in the validity of the curse that results in its effectiveness, than the curse itself. So, if a witch doctor tells you there's a curse on you and you will die in 2 weeks, a person from that culture will probably die in 2 weeks because they believe the curse.

Trippy.

[Macco]

Originally posted by jefhatfield
what'a a curse in unix?

When you get a kernal panic twice in a month.

[themadchemist]

Originally posted by cubist
Oh, I thought you meant curses as in Unix. It's been replaced by terminfo, I think; but nowadays, few Unix programs use it; most either use simple stdin/stdout or use X11. That's why X11 integration in Panther is an important feature. Strange nobody's talking about it.

Oh jeez, we're all such nerds...And not just you, either. I mean all of us. I start randomly talking about organic chemistry sometimes...And then, I turn around, and I notice I'm talking to myself...Please, don't take offense, it's just that what you said reminded so much of something that I might say.

[themadchemist]

I kind of believe in curses...But I definitely believe that everything happens through some sort of physio-chemical chain of processes. That doesn't mean that some higher power cannot intervene for a specific purpose or perhaps set off certain physio-chemical processes in order to achieve some end (and by having ultimate knowledge of everything, be able to predict how to create a certain end from a certain action, since there are no unknown variables to Him).

If curses exist, there's got to be some logical grounding. I don't think that PEOPLE can make things happen that break basic laws of the universe. Power of suggestion is one factor, definitely, but maybe there is some inherent scientific grounding in the curse itself...Maybe the person really has some power, and causes some tangible reaction that enacts his/her curse.

Perhaps that's why some curses seem to work and others don't. It's a matter of doing things right...Like science experiments, I suppose.