RationalWiki:Saloon bar/Archive77

Any Linux geeks experts able to help?
I've just upgraded to Ubuntu 9.10, and after getting my eyes used to the new colour scheme and sorting my WiFi connection out; I now find I can't view any Flash videos. (I want to watch that Donald Duck thing up above!). I've using FF 3.6.10, and have removed the flash packages and reinstalled several times, both through apt and as a Debian package, but still nowt. With the addon Shockwave Flash 10.1.r85 enabled - youtube just shows a black box where the video should be. With Shockwave Flash 10.1.r999 Gnash 0.8.6 enabled, the video controls show, with "An error has occurred, please try again later..." at the top. I am not an expert with Linux, so please keep any advice "accessible!"that's a code word for understandable by thickoes - Cheers! 16:54, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Are you running 32bit or 64 bit? -- Nx  / talk 17:05, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * 32bit - sorry, should've mentioned that. (I've got a 64bit install of Ubuntu studio on another external HDD, but have never been able to get WiFi working) 17:16, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * (EC) Tangent...you just now upgraded to 9.10? Why? 10.04 LTS has been out since august.. and 10.10 comes out in 4 days. If you're using 64 bit, you're going to need a special copy of libflashplayer.so. Occasionaluse (talk) 17:18, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Installing the 64 bit version is actually less complicated than the ubuntu package. Just download, extract and copy to /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins. Gnash is crap btw, don't use it. Anyway, I have no idea what can be wrong. Do you maybe have another flash plugin somewhere, e.g. ~/.mozilla/plugins? Did you restart firefox after installing the plugin? -- Nx  / talk 17:32, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd search for all occurrences of libflashplayer.so, remember where they are and then delete them. Go to adobe labs and grab the latest 32-bit player. Put the resulting libflashplayer.so file back where you had previously found it. probably /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins, /usr/lib/xulrunner-addons/plugins and /usr/lib/firefox-addons/plugins. Occasionaluse (talk) 17:47, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Tangent: I had been running 8.04LTS for ages, then all of a sudden it prompted me to upgrade to 9.10. I'll go for 10.04 or 10.10 64bit soon I think, and do a complete fresh install.  Thanks for the tips for now, I'll give them a shot after tea.  I think there's a shit version (like gnash) that's stopping the decent one from working...  18:23, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It is time for someone to insert an obligatory OS War comment here.  DogP Marmite Patrol 18:25, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmmmm, Flash videos play in Chrome OK (albeit at a crap framerate), so it's something specific to FF. I've searched my entire filesystem, and can't find a file called libflashplayer.so anywhere.....  19:14, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah yes, the 32 bit version of Chrome has a built-in flash player plugin. -- Nx  / talk 19:18, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I installed Ubuntu over the weekend and had some minor problems getting flash. I fixed it by installing 'Ubuntu restricted extras' via the ubuntu software centre in the applications menu. It sorts out flash and java and a variety of other stuff.--AMassiveGay (talk) 19:30, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Well I didn't even know about the 'Ubuntu software centre', so thanks for that! I had already installed the restricted extras via the command line though, but it hasn't helped.  What I don't quite get is the the software centre, package manager and apt all show Adobe flash installed, but FF only shows the crap gnash thing.  20:00, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Uninstall gnash? maybe there is some kind of clash--AMassiveGay (talk) 20:08, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Want me to copypaste my rants from two months ago, DoggedP? : )  08:03, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Well then, I 'completely removed' all pieces of gnash via synaptic, went out and got completely leathered, and now flash videos are playing OK. Moral?  Always go out and get pissed when there's a problem, and everything will be fine.   23:38, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * "Leathered"?  00:29, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The English language is far richer when it comes to describing the results of metabolizing ethyl alcohol than the American language. 01:13, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh. I assumed it meant he patronized a BDSM club.   04:36, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

He did, after he got Leathered.HKJGN (talk) 06:03, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Limbaugh: You're not rich unless you have $500 mil
How much is he worth again? So apparently he does not consider himself rich.--Thanatos (talk) 21:01, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I crunched the numbers awhile back, $1,000,000 in 1933 would be the equivalent of $60,000,000 now. That is never needs to do another day of work in your life money right there. 11:04, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Look at it this way. Let's say I had $500 mil, and then I deposited it in my credit union. (Which would be an insanely stupid thing to do, but this is just for example.) They're currently paying 0.45% interest per year on a standard savings account. I would earn $2.25mil in interest every year, from what is probably the most conservative investment plan conceivable. I think I would be considered fabulously wealthy on an income at that level, particularly if my entire "work" was checking my bank statements. Even a tenth of Limbaugh's definition of "wealthy" would give me a quite comfortable income of $225K, keeping with the same very conservative investment plan. Even just putting the money into a money market account would more than double that, and be safe. MDB (talk) 13:47, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * What the hell, my bank gives me an online savings account of 6.25%. 14:02, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It's the comments on the video that I like: "For me, Rush Limbaugh is not really a human being. But for a lot of people, it is." ~Super Hamster  Talk 00:16, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Alternatively, with $500m in the bank you could draw down $10m a year for well over 50 years. (I can't be bothered to work out how long it would last at any assumed rate of return.) 08:27, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Movie theatre idiocy
So I went to see The Social Network today, and a very fine film it is too - Sorkin and Fincher could make rice pudding exciting, so to find that this is a riveting character study that's relevant and punchy and fascinating isn't a surprise. But right at the very end, the douchebag next to me gets a call on his cell and answers it, and in the ensuing WTF-ery as me and everyone else around sssh-es him and waves at him to shut the fuck up, the last, most weighty line of the movie is delivered, and I miss it. Never have I so wanted a movie theatre TiVo as much - "Wait, what did she say?", I thought, before wanting to smash the dorks face in. So, my nice social media movie evening ruined by social media. Fuck social media. DogP Marmite Patrol 04:58, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I came to the conclusion many many years ago that if you want to watch a movie "uninterrupted", do it at home.  05:08, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * PS, I hope the idiot got jumped in the parking lot, and got his tires slashed. 05:09, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * When I saw Watchmen, I set next to a teenage girl who spent most of the movie texting on her glowing phone. Not as bad as talking, to be fair, but she just did not understand why I kept giving her nasty looks. I should have found an usher and complained.


 * Incidentally, that's one of the reason I no longer go to that theater and use one that's a lot less crowded.


 * And DoggedPersistence is right: The Social Network is a great movie. And speaking as a software engineer, I can say they got the technical dialog accurate, too. I even understood most of it. MDB (talk) 11:05, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I saw somewhere that KDE makes an appearance on a computer screen somewhere and that they got the version right for the period (2.something) and the correct date in a terminal window. How cool. Bondurant (talk) 11:25, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * They probably figured that this would be a movie a lot of techies would see, and made an effort to get the details right, because we would notice every mistake they made. MDB (talk) 11:29, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Although from what I've read of it, the resemblance between the movie and the real Mark Zuckerberg would make Starship Troopers appear a true representation of the books. 12:19, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Oh? I've heard that for the deposition sequences, the dialog was taken directly from the court transcripts, and those sequences are when Zuckerberg comes off the worst. MDB (talk) 12:34, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Dogged, that last line is ''"Of course you haven't got 3921 'friends' you sad little twat".  12:47, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Not as bad as an annoying 16yr old with ADD commenting on ever second of the Film at the Scott Pilgrim movie, during the Devil preview he asked like 14 times 'why is the city upside down?', then during the movie he kept announcing the characters names, and what they were saying. I don't know if he had down syndrome or what but i wanted to pull his spine out his throat so i could atleast enjoy /half/ of the movie he was ruining.HKJGN (talk) 06:08, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Fucking fuck buckets of Fuck, why is no one around when you NEED to talk?
I just found out that this totally smokin' babe from my highschool days is doing the cognitive tests on Andrew Wakefield's monkeys! And I can't tell her off because I don't want to loose contact with her (did I mention that she is a total babe?) so I need an outlet, but none of my other friends are online! Fuck! --Opcn (talk) 06:00, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't know what "cognitive tests on Andrew Wakefield's monkeys" are, but I've dropped "smokin' hot babe"s from my "respect" list for being idiots. There are always other smokin' hot babes who don't... well, don't do whatever she did.  06:10, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Andrew Wakefield Is injecting monkeys with MMR vaccine and doing gut biopsies and then cognitive tests trying to prove that he was correct. --Opcn (talk) 07:03, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * OK. So "de-friend" her.  If she absolutely has to come over and fuck you, I wouldn't fault you for humoring her. Otherwise, waste of friendspace.  07:46, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Gimmie her number, I'll talk her around. i9 08:11, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * You'll talk her square, then inside out, then upside down, then turn her into a squid with your majick powerz! 08:18, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Is Wakefield a licenced vivisectionist? I thought he was struck off? 08:30, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Are you Brad Pitt or something? Because unless you've got loads of money then hoping to get anywhere with "smokin hot babes" is probably doomed to failure and actually a pretty shallow way to think about women. 10:19, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Only in the UK, but he's always been funded by US based cranks. No comment on the "smokin' hot" bit. [[image:Face.gif]] 12:17, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * "a pretty shallow way to think about women", get a grip of yersel! The chicks love it!  Only fat old feminist lezzas object to that kind of lingo.  My method of obtaining a "totally smokin' babe" was as follows:  Met a girl and shagged her.  Kept meeting her and shagging her.  This then developed in to a serious relationship, at which point I declared her to be a "totally smokin' babe"; thus I am now going out with a totally smokin' babe!  On a more serious note, Wakefield is a disgustingly amoral discredited quack; I suppose at least he's no longer doing such unnecessary intrusive procedures on kids.  12:20, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, at least there'll be another bullshit paper out for us to debunk. 13:04, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh for fuck's sake. 13:14, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * P.S. Re "Smokin Hot": Pics or it didn't happen. 13:23, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * That's pretty grim reading. Is it just me or do anti-vaxxers sound exactly like cretinists? "Censorship! ''Brave campaigners fighting against the evolutionist/vaccination industry(?)" Plus the fact that so few of them are scientifically literate.
 * Study after study after study, followed by meta analysis and meta meta analysis have been carried on on this very subject, and they all show that vaccines do not cause autism. Whilst I know Big Pharma isn't always exactly honest, but do these people really think that all Millions of Doctors, health workers, government officials, WHO advisers etc etc et-fucking-cet are deliberately harming kids and are all on the payroll of big pharma?  13:41, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * totally smokin' babe is a very subjective term, thus all that matters is that I make the assertion that to me she is a totally smokin' babe.  13:41, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The thing I find funny about articles like the above from "Natural" websites is that they bitch and bitch about big pharma using animal testing, but as soon as a "brave" anti-vaxer starts doing it they hail him as a hero of science. 13:46, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * She lives in another state and was not proselytising, but she is someone that I don't want to declare war one. Additionally I'd post photos but don't want to invade her privacy. Antivaxxers are always going on and on about how they aren't properly safety tested. If you take the time to walk through there concerns you can typically get the to agree that vaccines could be tested by doing X,Y, and Z. Then when you point out that we've already done a test with X, Y, and Z and it came out negative they get angry. --Opcn (talk) 18:56, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * In all seriousness, is any woman so hot that it's worth putting up with bullshit like this just to have a short lived relationship? Find a good looking bird who isn't a moron. 19:34, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not looking for a sexual relationship, not in the short term at least, I just want to oogle her from afar. Also she is not a moron, she is just wrong. Ever hear of Linus Pauling? Absolute genius got DNA wrong then failed big on Vitamin C and cancer. I just wanted an outer so I could talk about it but not to her so as to avoid starting off on the wrong foot. I'm going to encourage her to not put on her resume that she was working with/for Wakefield.--Opcn (talk) 00:02, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * We might like to be told that we're physically attractive but inside we know that it's mostly just men's bullshitting. Most of the women I know, apart from footballers' WAGS, prefer that their blokes actually like them for something other than having a pert arse and a DD that's not round their waist. We are only too well aware that our looks are mostly transient and any bloke that that gets his tail yanked by a 'red-hot babe' is probably not worth having around in the first place. That said, most of my colleagues reckon that they could probably forgive a one-off infidelity if it was purely based on looks. Men's affairs with less glamorous women are far more serious because they probably indicate that there is something more serious lacking in a relationship.  08:06, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Like someone for something other than their looks? thats just sick.--AMassiveGay (talk) 15:57, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

We hadn't talked in 5 years, and she was good looking the entire time. The reason I re-initiated contact to her is because she changed her profile to mention how much she appreciated Darwin. --Opcn (talk) 16:17, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah, Darwin! What a totally hot smokin' dude. 17:37, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Here is an interesting rant
Here is an interesting rant about the Pope's vist (anti-Christian, pro-visit). The blogger is a producer on sports radio but to me that makes it all the more interesting that he would write at such length on this topic.-- 13:47, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It is an interesting rant, well written and well reasoned. I agree with him on the vitriol seen when the Pope was here being reactionary and out of order. I feel he misses one small point though, and that is that the Pope's visit should not have been classed as a state visit, as it was plainly a religious visit. There are some who would say that even £1 of public money spent on a religious visit is too much, and that the bill should have entirely been picked up by the Catholic church. Bondurant (talk) 14:17, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * His comments about the sexual abuse scandals, reducing the cover-ups to "an ultimately misguided adherence to the notion of forgiveness" are a bit off-base. How the Church has treated its own priests over these allegations can perhaps be seen in light of Christian forgiveness, but it has also deliberately kept the allegations from the proper legal authorities, including (if reports are accurate) by intimidating abuse victims into silence.  This can hardly be seen in terms of misguided forgiveness or other Christian virtues, and the Church is only apologising for its past conduct now because the allegations have come to light so publicly.  Yet the attitude of the Catholic Church is still that cases of child abuse by priests should be handled by the Church as an internal matter rather than by secular legal authorities.  This is basically placing the RCC above the law in any country where it operates.   07:03, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Please explain
--85.77.102.232 (talk) 18:14, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Creation
 * 2) Consciousness


 * Random distributions, infinite time.
 * Illusion, evolution. tmtoulouse 18:22, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * None of this was supposed to make any sense, right? --151.82.189.240 (talk) 18:26, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Illusion is a circular explanation for consciousness. I don't see the evolutionary benefits of consciousness. --85.77.102.232 (talk) 18:32, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * "I don't see..." = Argument from ignorance. Also, it's not necessary to have benefits - it can be just an emergent by-product of increased cognitive abilities. If you don't see the benefits of that, well...
 * It would be nice to start with providing some definitions of the things you want explained. As well as some idea of what would you consider an adequate explanation. If you are not willing to do so, then, please:
 * Troll
 * elsewhere.--ZooGuard (talk) 18:41, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Definition: Consciousness (why can we see blue? etc). If you want to say intelligence == consciousness, then say, but how do you think either follows from the other? --85.77.102.232 (talk) 18:52, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Ooh, I'll bite! Consciousness is easy.  Building on what tmtoulouse said above, there are distinct evolutionary advantages to the increasing brainpower it takes to develop a good, complex mapping of one's physical and social surroundings (environment in general).  A good complex map will eventually "include" the creature doing the mapping - "I take up some space in this place, I hunt bison and eat them, etc.; therefore I am".  I could tell the 100,000 year version of the story but I don't think the level of effort put into the question really warrants that.  18:59, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * You didn't click the link, did you? Perception is what lead me to think about this. The answer I'm seeking is how a pile of ordinary matter like me can perceive colors, sounds and so on. What is the leap from dead to conscious? Evolution may explain how we & our consciousness came to be, it doesn't explain consciousness. --85.77.102.232 (talk) 19:13, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * "Evolution may explain how we & our consciousness came to be, it doesn't explain consciousness". So what do you actually mean by "explain consciousness"?  Explain what it is rather than how it originated?  19:18, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It makes my head hurt to try to say what I mean by that. However the point I was making in the quoted part was that evolution as the answer feels too much like a play on words / "the world does its thing". Even if we accept that under circumstances evolution leads to intelligence leads to consciousness. --85.77.102.232 (talk) 20:54, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It's still not clear what sort of explanations you're looking for. Instead of simply telling us to "explain consciousness", try rephrasing it as a question - if we start with a "what" or a "how" or a "why", then we'll at least know what kind of answer you want.   21:03, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually I'm not so sure about consciousness. I suppose we know what "intelligence" is "for". It helps us to solve problems like getting dinner or laid - the two most important things in evolutionary terms.  But this little story that we constantly tell ourselves in our heads (if that is what consciousness is) - what does it do for us in evolutionary terms? --BobSpring is sprung! 19:06, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Don't see the evolutionary benefits of consciousness? Have you noticed perhaps the distinct advantage human beings have gained over many other species during the last few million years in terms of survival & dominance of resources?  Even basic abilities derived from consciousness like abstract thought, problem-solving, communication and understanding of causation give an enormous survival advantage (e.g. in locating food or avoiding predators) over animals which do not have these abilities.  19:08, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * EC:It could be argued that those are benefits of intelligence. Unless you want to argue that lots and lots of intelligence = consciousness.--BobSpring is sprung! 19:15, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I find it doubtful that a creature could evolve the level of intelligence required for those kind of skills without some level of consciousness. Human explained it well above in terms of mapping surroundings, but it equal applies to mapping of time & events (i.e. causation) which is required for abstract problem-solving.   19:23, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It really depends on what you think consciousness is. It's a really massive topic which doesn't really lend itself one-paragraph explanations. Apart from defining it there are other problems. For instance the conscious explanation which we ascribe to our actions seems to frequently come after the the decision to act has been made.  Almost as if consciousness exists to explain our actions to us rather than to actually inform our actions. As I said, it's a big topic.--BobSpring is sprung! 20:06, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * 2. The problem with consciousness is that we don't even know how it works, so an all powerful god might not even have the means to make it, or it might be as simple as an automatic transmission, we just don't know what it is, so how are we supposed to know how it is? Ignorance is very poor ground on which to build your castle.--Opcn (talk) 19:13, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * did someone suggest that animals do not have consciousness ? I understand that to mean a sense of self. Hamster (talk) 21:19, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh, they most certainly do, especially the larger-brained mammals. Trouble is, they lack the tools to grow it from generation to generation (and from peer to peer) that we have - our language abilities, both physical and mental.  Suggested reading: Harold Bloom's Shakespeare: The Invention of Man or some such title.  21:28, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Quite literally lack the tools. Tools replacing the need for raw muscle usage broke us, as a species, out of the muscle developement/lung developement evolutionary arms race that most wild mammalian species are still trapped in.  The brain refuses to use any fuel apart from oxygen so the ability to not have to have such a high ratio of oxygen use dedicated or at least reserved for instant muscle usage means that that amount of oxygen can now be dedicated towards brain usage.  The brains that are most capable of using that fuel effectively will, on odds at least, find themselves in bodies that are most likely to be mated and at least have the chance to pass on that advantage to their offspring (something that can be seen in current monkey species.  Although it is the most physically capable male monkey that claws it's way to the top of the social structure, and so wins the right to mate, the only monkeys that get to stay at the top of the heap are the ones who are intelligent enough to navigate the complex political structure of the troupe and so remain in power.  Monkeys who just have the physical attributes to claw their way to the top, but lack the intelligence to treat the females correctly, find themselves thrown out of the troupe by the collective act of the females).  In effect humans got locked into a tool development/brain development loop.  As our tools developed we freed up the resources necessary for brain development.  Brain development itself would have developed in competition with and in adaption to the surrounding environment.-- 23:41, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Your physiology doesn't sound right, I'd correct it for you, but right now I have to go give a physiology lecture to some undergrads ... --Opcn (talk) 00:05, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Alright. The heart and lungs aren't all that costly to maintain. the extra muscle we loose in the process of loosing muscle actually is what pays for the brain in that scenario, not the decreased heart/lung tissue. However that's nothing like the whole picture. The brain uses the O2 as an oxidizer in order to burn fuel, nerve cells burn carbohydrates primarily and some aminoacids and they rely on oxidation to get the full measure of energy from these fuels. With out oxidation you need a fairly large volume of dedicated cytoplasm and some costly proteins in order to undergo glycolysis and fermentation and you only get a small fraction of the energy (less than 1/15th), this system is too expansive to fit into a nerve cell, not to expensive. If you compare us to a chimp the musculature isn't that terribly different. A Chimp has tremendous arms and hands but there legs aren't shit compared to human legs. Over 25 feet maybe a chimp might beet you, but try running 2500 feet. A healthy human can run for half an hour easily, a healthy chimp would be a quivering pile of goo after that. The big difference is our diet. The human diet is far richer than that of the chimp, both more calorically dense and more fatty acids and protein, which are needed to build and run the expensive brain. I'm not against just so stories, but I think yours needs some work. --Opcn (talk) 01:47, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Not to belittle either of the posts since mine in any way, they are very interesting, but the "tools" I was really referring to were our complex laryngial (word?) capacity and our co-evolved speech center in the brain. Opcn, surely you are just describing the difference between aerobic and anaerobic breakdown of glucose?  02:28, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * By chance I find something on this in the Guardian today. Eleven minutes of interesting listening. Covers a number of issues we have been talking about.--BobSpring is sprung! 17:09, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I was just talking about stunteddwarfs post human, I hadn't even read yours I skimmed until I found something sciency then read it. --Opcn (talk) 19:55, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Lou Dobbs: American hypocrite
An investigative report suggests that Lou Dobbs, famous for bashing illegal immigrant workers, had hired them himself for years. 20:21, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Honestly, I'm not even remotely surprised. It seems like the loudest voices are usually the biggest hypocrites. Churro (talk) 00:06, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Nor was I. Classical example of political hypocrisy.
 * He answered the report on MSNBC last night. I'm not real convinced of his honesty.  On a side note, did anyone see the interview on Rachel Maddow with congressional candidate Art Robinson?  What a toolbag conspiracy theorist nutjob.   13:30, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Awwwww!
This has been getting some airtime over here. Remarkable story - and a HUGE awwwww moment, if it's true. -- PsyGremlin  05:22, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Couldn't make it to 0:30. Didn't know why I was supposed to...  05:42, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Fuck Psy, that is a damned old story firstly. Secondly this proves that Lions could well have been vegetarians and loving during the garden of Eden days so Adam and Eve wouldn't have to worry.....actually, I wonder if PJR would go for that reasoning? i9 06:11, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * You should know Ace, news is slow getting down to these parts. We're all still in shock over that dreadful Titanic thing. -- PsyGremlin  06:17, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Those Zulu Wars really took the wind out of ya. i9 06:23, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * That just means you can get your news from the History Channel.  07:52, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * God forbid, no! That would mean WW2 breaking out at least once a week. -- PsyGremlin  07:58, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Wow. Sexy burka.
Way to make a point I think.--BobSpring is sprung! 07:09, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Reminds me of this. NSFW -- PsyGremlin  07:47, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Meh. Go straight to Google. Rule 34, remember?
 * A friend and I were discussing burkas once and he said his attitude towards them had been totally changed when he found out that most women go naked underneath them - at least in hot weather. –SuspectedReplicant retire me 08:31, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I recently discovered that most women are naked underneath their clothes. Now is that a turn-on or what? 08:52, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not naked under my clothes. It's clothes all the way down. ONE / TALK 09:05, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I put so many clothes on that the sheer mass of my clothes collapsed me into a black hole. Every time I try to hug somebody, they get get spaghettified. So lonely here. (holy crap, how did I let information escape?)--Brendiggg (talk) 17:08, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Widespread capture
Moved to Talk:Main Page. Totnesmartin (talk) 15:26, 8 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Why? It doesn't appear to be anything to do with the site's main page, which is what its talk page is for.  In fact, the bolded text at the top of Talk:Main Page directs anyone with non-technical questions about the site to come to this page & discuss them.   17:28, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Screw you Jindal
http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/politics/104462469.html up to $350 million in cuts. But we haven't raised taxes yet! Yesterday LSU and ULL held rallies including a mock funeral. Russian, Japanese, Portuguese and Swahili are gone. The South's only synchrotron radiation center is gone. Coaches and Administrators got a raise. Jindal ran on an anti-corruption ticket. Apparently his logic is that if the government is no longer spending any money, there will be no corruption. Or something. Considering the infamous "chicken bailout", who knows? Even his own party is turning against him. Yet his approval rating is still great! Hopefully, there will be an upset in 2011, but I doubt it.Tyrannis (talk) 13:50, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Also, he cut taxes 6 times so far. At first he didn't want to do one of them, until they told him it was a way to get rid of the state income tax, so he cut it. $1.1billion over 5 years... Oh, and the chicken factory was $50mil. Tyrannis (talk) 14:16, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Gotta be for us
from here 15:45, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * A clever idea, but I can't imagine who'd want to ride around with that on their heads. Bike shorts are bad enough. 16:07, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Want one, want one, want one! I wonder if they deliver internationally. Hey,, as soon as you get on the bike you look stupid. Healthy, ecologically sound, cost effective, fun and... stupid. It's still my favourite way to get to work. Jack Hughes (talk) 21:25, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

BBC to link to actual science papers in science articles
That's definitely a step in the right direction. Hat tip to Ben Goldacre. 17:16, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Hallelujah! Their reasoning for being actively against it was never quite sound anyway. 07:03, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Why can't I seem to be able to put these in the Category:Images?
Civic Cat (talk) 18:37, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * File:TarekFatahstanding.jpg
 * File:IrshadManji photobyRES.jpg
 * because they're transcluded from Wikimedia commons; they're not part of the RationalWiki site. Totnesmartin (talk) 18:42, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Now all I got to do is read the WP article on transclusion. ;-)  Civic Cat (talk) 18:48, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * We can enter image names like [[image:John F. Kennedy.jpg|20px]] and if they aren't on our wiki, the MW software checks if they are on the commons. If they are, they look just like images that we host, except for the bugaboo you noted.  01:25, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Well I have just added Category:Images to the first file (using HotCat). I don't claim to understand all this inter-wiki stuff but even though RW doesn't host the original image aren't thumbnails and other resolutions cached on the RW server? 08:47, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Can I also point out that using "category:images" for images is a bit lame anyway? 08:53, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree, I just added a Category:Images as proof of concept as that was the original question. 10:32, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah, ok, I see. 18:44, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

WTF do Mormons Believe!!!
Went to youtube today. I saw this in the recommended for me. It is an old cartoon explaining Mormonism. After seeing it, I am glad I am an Anglican.--Thanatos (talk) 01:30, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I've seen that cartoon before, YT keeps trying to delete it and people keep uploading it to prevent deletion. I think it's a joke. At least, I really, really hope it is, it just can't be serious! Or is it? -- 01:33, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * And Glenn Beck is a Mormon. BECK IS TRYING TO BECOME A GOD!!!--Thanatos (talk) 01:38, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not far wrong. Where do you think they nicked half the Battlestar Galactica mythology from? 01:44, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Recent deletions and rampages of delinking
Has it occurred to anyone that articles can be rewritten, before deleting and then purging the site of links to them? For example, see law enforcement, which if it isn't on mission, nothing is. It was crap, but it took me 3 minutes to rewrite it as a decent stub. Of course, now all the links to it have been deleted. Nice job of working together, friends. 01:25, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, the new version seems on-mission. -- 01:37, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks. No blood no foul, but sometimes before deletion we really need to think about whether a topic can easily be fixed.  I agree, the previous version sucked, and I'm glad I able to compose something more useful - which could use a lot more info, and perhaps be a "title article" for template:law.  Someday.   01:40, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry for daring to break your Glorious Wiki oh Great Leader. 01:47, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * All I did was rewrite a deleted article, it wasn't that hard, it was such an obvious on-mission topic. Oh, and at Charles Manson, all I did was follow Weaseloid's suggestion and rearrange the article. You are forgiven your trespasses as you forgive mine, of course - without reservation.  02:02, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with Human on this.  13:11, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

I sick and tired of whorin myself across London
I think I need a boyfriend. Any offers?--AMassiveGay (talk) 04:41, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I am unemployed with no prospects, couch surfing, and crippled by mental health issues. Quite a catch really. On the plus side, I look fucking amazing, with perfect hair, and I am fantastic in the sack. It would probably help if you are incredibly shallow.--AMassiveGay (talk) 04:49, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Have you considered strolling down the King's Row tossing your coiff delicately in the breeze? Surely if you are so hot and young, some rich bloke will have his chauffeur cruising you in no time?  05:08, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Also, public toilets. I hear the Gent's is a great place to get/give a handjob in the dark with a complete stranger. Prick up your ears, young man, there are many ways to thread this needle!  05:09, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Handjobs in toilets is for closeted folk. Besides, george micheal in prison at the moment. Thank christ for gaydar.--AMassiveGay (talk) 06:20, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh, well, then, you need to go to the Cock and Bollocks and wear an appropriate pocket square, one that says "available for boyfriendness, but will settle for a quick tumble in my bum if you are rich or pretty", right? 06:26, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * If you're a god and know you must be worshipped, I have somebody in mind for you. If you're into older... as in very older... guys, that is. :) -- PsyGremlin  09:48, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * My best mate is gay and we live in London, so he fits 2 of the 2 criteria. That said, I don't think he'd be big on dating random online gay sluts with no prospects and crippling mental health issues. 10:08, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * In the end, "A Massive Gay", the hard part (sorry) is finding a person you are sexually compatible with, and also socially/emotionally compatible with. This is far more complicated than getting laid, as I am sure you know.  Join clubs.  Pursue your interests.  Hopefully those ends will meet your needs - in the end.  10:16, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Dammit, I have no interests beyond getting laid. Maybe I should try celibacy for a bit. I can knock the fags and drugs on the head too. I might actually feel better.--AMassiveGay (talk) 12:18, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * "I can knock the fags... on the head". Not the best way of establishing a relationship. 15:11, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Not sure what this is
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbR1KMg6f-M

but I ctrl Vd it before the backup ran. I suspect it might be funny, and might be Angleterrean. 07:50, 8 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Yeah, those guys are about the best thing in British TV comedy these days. You should check out Peep Show (the sitcom they're in).  You can probably find quite a lot of it on YouTube.  17:21, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Was this the same people? Very, very funny around 3:30, I must say. 09:15, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * That's Numberwang! 09:02, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I lolled 8 or 9 times. 27!  09:04, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I've never found the Numberwang one funny, although I do get all the Gilbert & Sullivan references, go figure. 10:10, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

NaNoWriMo
Anyone heard of it? Anyone interested in doing it? I'm strongly considering it, it sounds like a lot of fun. (Plus it'll give me something to complain about in the SB.) 14:48, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I've tried it a few years ago (and failed, but whatever). Veeery tempted to try it again, but this year sounds unlikely since I got an exam to study for. Though I might still join and see how far I get (by writing in the evening when I'm not up for studying anyway). --Sid (talk) 01:29, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I remember a few years back several RWians were participating/contemplating participating in this. IIRC.  01:33, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I did it oh...seven years ago, I think. Finished it in 9 days.  My focus isn't really on writing these days, though, and I've got WAY too much homework this year.  It's pretty extreme. --Kels (talk) 02:04, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Nine days!! Wow, Kels, you write fast! I'll be lucky if I can just barely make it in 30. 02:15, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh heck, it's not that big a deal. One of my friends that year did it in five, then went on to do two more before the end of the month. Although I think I was one of the first 20 or 25 or so done that year. --Kels (talk) 02:47, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Thought about it, and decided against it, recalling that the slogan of NaNoWriMo is "anyone can be a writer if you lower the bar enough". That said, it could be an interesting prospect to use the Media Wiki software to collaborate on a story - as a large group - and see how long it takes to reach the word limit (and see how good it is, of course). 13:41, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * We did try that and it worked pretty well. Might be worth a shot. 13:56, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * That's the "one sentence at a time" job. And yes, those are fun when they go in the right direction. I meant as in a full collaborative thing where people could just edit it as they please in a full collective essay style. 14:03, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * That would definitely be fun. The question is, do we have enough people willing to do it? 17:20, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, it's 1600 words a day. To make it run at the normal pace of an editor on this wiki, you might want to get it as low as 200 words per day per author - so that means 8 people. But then again, only 4 people means the contribution is 400 words a day (about the size of this section here). However, this is not including words made in revisions, which is where the bulk of the work is when writing. I'd base the idea on the theory that writing 1600 words a day is easy enough; but refining those into something meaningful, consistent and good is not easy. So you spread the revision load over numerous people. 16:17, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * In NaNoWriMo you aren't supposed to refine, just write. So that makes it a bit easier. 04:08, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Which is why everything written in its name sucks. 08:25, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

42 day
I was on the verge of asking many times. Now I get it! I am so proud of my broken or mismatched gold jewelry! 08:38, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Onion added 10.10.10 to the Holydaze template but I had just read about it in the Grauniad. Evidently, H2G2 aficionados will be hopping onto No. 42 buses and thinking Deep Thoughts. Unfortunately, it won't be an annual event. 12:19, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Impressive, considering Adams explicitly stated that he didn't write jokes in Base 13 or Base 2. I call BS, though, I bet he did. 12:27, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * He probably meant that he didn't purposefully write jokes like that. Often the funniest things are those which are unintentional. Of course it doesn't matter as fans will invent excuses in any event. But it's like Pi-day which only works for American dates, although it would be fun to have our own on 31/4 - BTW didn't someone once claim 1st May as British Pi-day? 12:57, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay, there's a Facebook "like" going around that says "Today is 10/10/10, won't happen again for another 1000 years so you might as well like it" - Surely, 10th October happens every year, and we'll abbreviate the date as "10" in 2110 - i.e., 100 years from now we'll have anotehr 10/10/10. Am I missing something?? Fucking idiots, why do I tolerate this? 16:37, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The problem is that it spreads to all the other morons quite rapidly - first, there was only one page that said that. Now there are a'plenty. ~Super Hamster  Talk 11:18, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * For the same reason you think 10/10/10 is 42 in binary. Seriously, there are way better days to pick than today. 16:41, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * But 101010 is 42. Try it - although don't make the mistake of trying to translate 42 from text as you get "*" - it's the base 10 number. 16:46, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, well done. You display admirable nerd cred by being able to work with 6-bit numbers. However, the fact remains that concatenating 3 symbols in base 10 does not a binary number make. The logical choice would be the 11th of February, but of course you can't display your deep understanding of computers that way, so it's obviously inferior. 16:58, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Whatthefuckever. It's the value expressed in base 2. It has nothing to do with computers or bits. 17:10, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

666666
As the master of reversion #666,666, I command all to bow down to me as your new satanic overlord!! -- 15:41, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Dear Satanic Overlord
 * Bite Me.
 * Luv Psy -- PsyGremlin  15:54, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * That reminds me, 1.7 million edits in total. We might be able to hit 2 million soon. The competition is on!! 16:11, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * A competition! We should have teams, establish secret namespaces where we can collaborate and appoint independent judges. Or not. 17:49, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, but I broke the wiki with the 1,000,000th edit :) ph33r teh skilz0rz 09:05, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * And fucked it up, too, if I recall correctly. 12:08, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

What a topsy-turvey world we live in today
Ages ago I purchased a DVD. Just tried to watch it put it wouldn't play due to region coding. Rather than fanny around getting it to play I just downloaded the fucker from the Pirate Bay. Up yer hole with a sausage roll, Mr Sony. 00:57, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Mmmmmm, sausage roll! I haven't had one of those since the 60s...  01:26, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Region Encoding: The film industries answer to the question "how do we make them lube up and grab their ankles in the age of the internet and international shipping?".  Our answer, of course, is the ever handy multi-region and region-free DVD players, modern DVD back-up software that quite nicely makes backups of your DVDs whilst, completely coincidentally, removing the region encoding and, of course, our old friend and the FSM's favourite site, The Pirate Bay.-- 03:26, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The funny thing is, the whole reason for region coding is so they could do staggered releases and charge regional prices but as it happens piracy has killed that ability too so all films get released in all regions more or less simultaneously now and at reasonably uniform pricing. Of course that didn't stop the idiot movie industry from trying to do the same thing with blu-ray. Really, the only way they'll learn is kicking them in the bottom line. -- 05:47, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * If by learn you mean find new ways to rip you off -- Nx  / talk 06:10, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * AnyDVD. Best.Software.Package.Ever. -- PsyGremlin  11:10, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * DVDFab, along with DVD Shrink.-- 00:20, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

SarcMark
It's obviously the greatest invention since the exclamation mark (btw, that's it) 06:03, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * How useful... I just prefer using -.- as it doesn't require installing a new character. 10:38, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * My favorite is the interrobang?! 10:40, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I wondered why my old maths teach called factorials "bang". 10:50, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh? A SarcMark? Just the thing for people who don't get sarcasm. -- PsyGremlin  12:59, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Heh, the interrobang is in my signature. 15:40, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh yeah. I just thought it was a stylised question mark; which is what I suppose is what it looks like if you have the wrong type face. 16:38, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

There's a thing
11:31, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Of interest
Just sayin' 11:44, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, there goes my afternoon. 16:10, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Really!!
"...plans amount to an attempt by the police to put themselves beyond the rule of law and undermine constitutional safeguards against abuses of power." Police state? 11:53, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Perhaps use to improve law enforcement? 20:12, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Fancy a saucy faggot?
15:01, 11 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Haven't had faggots in years. I thought they were beef? If not then I may have to have some this week. Mind you, I'm not really a liver fan (except in pate) so might not like them. Oh choices choices. 17:01, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Class. Didn't know about this. "I've nothing against faggots, I just don't fancy them". 17:03, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Faggots are great. Faggots, mash, peas, gravy, & maybe a pinch of wholegrain mustard; can't beat it.  17:19, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * In others news. Isn't mechanically separated meat cool? Sen (talk) 18:04, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Faggots asside, Ofcom really piss me off when they do as in Crundy's link - ban an advert because of three complaints. Fucking faggots.  22:11, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * They didn't: they banned it because they judged it to be a breach of their advertising standards; the number of people who complained is irrelevant. Case summary is here, page 10.  Restrictions on adverts are a lot tighter than on TV shows & movies, because viewers have usually chosen to watch those things with some awareness of what kind of content they will contain, whereas they don't get to choose what they see or hear in an advert.   22:35, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Fresher's week
I'm amused. My Student's Union has decided that, for its fresher's fair that they'd put the atheist and agnostic group (a new one this year, from what I can tell) right next to the christian group. It wouldn't be that bad, but the floor plan puts them both into a tiny hole in the corner, rather than in a row of religious groups like they've done with other categories. I'm just wondering if this is a batshit insane year for the UCCF, they tend to cycle between moderate and tolerant and in-your-face crazy evangelism depending on who's running the show (Yes, they're pretty fucking hardcore). 15:23, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Although at least they didn't repeat the mistake from a few years ago where they put the Palestinian society next to the Israel society. 15:36, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The only society I joined at university was the North of England Society. Some great piss-ups, I seem to recall. 15:54, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * North of England Society? And I thought The Harry Potter Society was pushing it as a bizarrely pointless group (although, still, nothing beats Lemon Fanta Society). 17:41, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm a member of my uni's media society. As an incredibly irritating human being in real life, I thought I'd fit in perfectly with them. I don't, but I'm still a member... 17:47, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah, LSU. Atheists society is between 2 opposing fundie groups, with Islamics, Hindu Fundies, and Catholics rounding out the madness. You can hear Bethany's delegation from ~500m away.Tyrannis (talk) 22:41, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Hanging Hooke
Last weekend I indulged in a spot of culture by visiting the theatre to see a play about Robert Hooke. Unusually the audience was predominantly men of, shall we say, later years. The play was inspired by the discovery of the papers of Robert Hooke, the first Curator of Experiments at the Royal Society, at a house clearance in the Isle of Wight. According to the play Hooke's reputation was deliberately obscured by Isaac Newton, it was Hooke who proposed the inverse square law for gravity and that the planets orbited the sun in a elliptical paths and gave the idea to Newton to work out the maths (without any acknowledgement); invented an anchor escapement for a watch 15 years before Huygens; he also proposed evolution by natural selection (I think); did the engineering for Wren's dome of St. Pauls; had a telescope constructed within the London Monument; constructed a telescope with compound lenses optically superior to Newton's; as well as being a talented artist and microscopist ([[wp:Micrographia|Micrographia) and coming up with a law for springs and proposing the wave theory of light against Newton's particles. His papers are now available online at the Royal Society or Queen Mary's College. Truly a scientist that has been undeservedly overshadowed by his peers.  19:28, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * He was on the first episode of Genius of Britain. Apparently "standing on the shoulders of giants" may have actually been a dig at the fact Hooke had an awkward stature and may have been a hunchback. Newton, according to legend, destroyed all portraits of Hooke, which is why we don't know what he looked like. 20:30, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Err. Kepler showed that planets travel in ecliptic orbits, from Brahe's notes. Unless you are meaning that Hooke was the first to derive Kepler's laws from Newton's laws. CS Miller (talk) 21:13, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Steaming pile of bullshit from CMI
CMI hits a new low and blames Darwin for the plight of the Australian Aborigines. Never mind all those missionary's who forcibly removed children from their parents. i9 19:55, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Don't forget missionaries bringing new diseases to lands.--Thanatos (talk) 22:17, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah, so that is how a creationist joins the rest of us by bragging about his offspring, the doctor. 01:03, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * "Due to evolutionary teaching, many subconsciously believe that Aboriginals are somehow less than fully human..." Yeah... Curse of Ham indeed. Though I'm impressed they managed to not mention how they're doing good work converting them to Christianity, although I don't believe for a second that they're not doing that. 08:22, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I was going to describe how nasty I think Calvinists are and say that the presuppositional approach of the CMI cult is becoming alarmingly common among rank and file Baptists in the United States but I got depressed and stopped. [[file:Nuttysexpistols.png|60px|link=User:Nutty Roux|Nutty Roux]][[file:Nuttytalk.png|35px|link=User_talk:Nutty_Roux|never mind]] 15:19, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

WANT one
Pleeeease! 13:20, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * More of a "suborbital hopper" than a true spaceship really. I wouldn't call a spaceship anything that can't achieve LEO (and preferably deorbit from there under its own power). Sen (talk) 18:09, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I dunno, the definition of "space" is pretty loose, really. I think once one is essentially out of the atmosphere (pressure < .01 bar?) one is in "space".  "Outer space", on the other hand... one could also argue that it's not "space" until unbound from Earth's gravity.  20:08, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * If I recall correctly (can't be bovvered to check) space "officially" starts at 100km. 20:29, 11 October 2010 (UTC) TerrySmall.png [[Image:Toast s.png|alt=Toast|text-bottom|20px|link=User talk:SusanG]]
 * The "edge of space" is called the Kármán line - the zone in which a winged craft should travel at orbital velocity to generate lift in the rarefied air. It is at roughly 100km altitude, so the FAI decided that 100km is the official number. As for "true" and "true-er" spacecraft, the "most true" piloted spacecraft flown so far is the Apollo Lunar Module. :P --ZooGuard (talk) 21:50, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * If nobody can hear you scream, it's space. Totnesmartin (talk) 17:24, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

A must watch
Horizon BBC: What happened before the big Bang? 18:57, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * We were already set up for it. (Hat tip Mrs. K. surprisingly.) 19:02, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * DAMN! Currently missing it. Will pick it up ASAP. So no "what is north of the north pole" type things? 20:31, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It wasn't very good. It tried to explain five different theories but kept jumping back and forth rather than seeing one thing through. Seems to be the way modern documentaries work. Basically, the question was "Was there anything before the big bang?" and it spent an hour coming to the conclusion "We don't know". –SuspectedReplicant retire me 22:51, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, it is Horizon, that's what it does these days. 08:10, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It's what every programme does these days. They must think we have the attention span of a four-year-old after eight espressos. Totnesmartin (talk) 10:05, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Completely Random
To my knowledge(Tvtropes lacks a stats page), this is the 3rd largest wiki(in content pages) I frequent. WP is number 1 at 2.9 million articles, then ED at ~9,000(no I am not making that stupid joke), then this at ~4,000. You beat out 1d4 chan(~2,000) and CWCki (~1000). But rest assured that this is the one I have made the most contributions to, and spend the most time out. Congratulations, you win the prize(note, there is not actually a prize, offer is void in Nebraska. If you are offended, please keep it to your self.)Tyrannis (talk) 22:09, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I am extremely offended! How dare you suggest that librul Wikipedia is bigger than us!! Everyone knows this site is growing rapidly! We have over 10 thousand million billion pageviews, only half of them by clickbots! Aschlafly 01:03, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Wait, doesn't Wookipedia have over 10,000 articles?
 * Tyrannis is speaking of the one's ey frequent, only. 04:37, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Rampletely condom
To my knowledge (RWW lacks anything to have stats about), this is the 3rd smallest wiki I frequent. TEFLpedia is number 1 at 698 articles, then Blightynet at 809 (that's nearly 900!), then this at ~4,000. You beat out TardisWiki (18,000)! Congratulations, you win the banana peel that I forgot to throw away last week. If you are offended, block the rest of the internet, It's nothing to do with me. Totnesmartin (talk) 10:01, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Silly. RWW states how many articles are on the front page. It is 274. Thus it is possible to read the entire wiki in less than a day. Which I have done. Twice. It is updated so infrequently, that you only really need to check it once a month or so. Tyrannis (talk) 16:22, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Is that thing still going? Totnesmartin (talk) 16:48, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Maybe 10 edits a day. 1/2 of which are talk. By comparison, Lumenos wiki has 9 edits this month. So there are deader wikis that are relevant to RW's mission/RW itself. Tyrannis (talk) 17:38, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Ouch
No-one I know personally, but I read this via a friend of a friend of a friend. I have corrected the spg and changed a few words around to make it readable:

And later.

Because that's totally how it works...

Of course, they're not entirely idiotic, they made the assumption that the phone call was a call back from technical support. But still, I read this and didn't know whether to have my jaw drop on the floor or my palm smack into my head. I didn't realise people could fall for that, but if you make assumptions and drop your guard it's all too easy. In other news, I received my first ever 419 email yesterday! I didn't know they were still running that one. Tempted to scam-bait them, but it's probably too much effort to bother, it seemed more like a bot trying to confirm an email address more than an actual scam. 08:25, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * My neighbor got his first 419 (914??) yesterday, he was so thrilled to be part of the Brave New World!  08:47, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I got my first 419 the day after invoking a Nigerian deity at a neopagan ritual. Be careful what you ask for, etc. Totnesmartin (talk) 09:52, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Someone tried exactly the same thing on my parents over the summer. The technical talk confused them, so they had me sort it out. It all sounds very plausible until they start trying to take over the computer, and if you say no they start threatening you with unspecificied computer-doom. Broccoli (talk) 10:00, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Speaking of 419s, my old, rarely visited e-mail account is currently full of mails telling me a) I've won the UK lottery; b) I've won the Euro lottery; c) somebody has died and somebody else needs my account to store the 20 gazillion dollars said dead person has stuck in an off-shore account. -- PsyGremlin  10:14, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Reminds me, I got on the other day telling me my bank needed me to fill in my details again 'if account continue be use by you'. Broccoli (talk) 10:42, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I got one this morning with a subject header that said "We accept Visa, codeine". What about MasterCard and Oxycontin? MDB (talk) 14:09, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Save the Oxycontin for when the cash economy has crumbled and all that's left are roving bands of junkies with machetes. They don't take plastic. [[file:Nuttysexpistols.png|60px|link=User:Nutty Roux|Nutty Roux]][[file:Nuttytalk.png|35px|link=User_talk:Nutty_Roux|never mind]] 14:21, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

They're everywhere!
I'm pretty sure it happens here, plus we have private (that's public to you weird backwards Poms) Christian fundie schools, but it's the first time I've actually seen Homskollaring mentioned out here. Ooh, maybe they have their own Andy Schlafly? -- PsyGremlin  14:35, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

BB1
So I just got an ad for the Peugeot concept car in my inbox. Quirky French design but would anyone here actually buy it? 10:22, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The word "hideous" immediately springs into my mind. MDB (talk) 14:06, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Concur. It looks like something big sat on it. -- PsyGremlin  14:27, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Looks like a crushed tin can on wheels. Totnesmartin (talk) 16:09, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Its looks like a sweet little car.--AMassiveGay (talk) 16:22, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * This is the future.--BobSpring is sprung! 17:13, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Looks like a Smart Car that rear-ended an F150... 18:42, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Looks like something out of 120 Days of Sodom, perhaps attached to Bum-Cleaver. [[file:Nuttysexpistols.png|60px|link=User:Nutty Roux|Nutty Roux]][[file:Nuttytalk.png|35px|link=User_talk:Nutty_Roux|never mind]] 18:59, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I went to a concept car show in Paris a few years back and they had this little fire engine that ran on a hydrogen fuel cell so it produced it's own water. Was pretty cool. i9 19:52, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, the outside is kind of monged, but look at the inside. Sure, the passenger seats remind me disturbingly of bidets, but the front is awesomely star trek. If I could hire will wheaton as chauffeur, I'd sit in the passenger seat and annoy him by continually saying "make it so." -- 23:14, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Category Creation
Am I cool to go ahead and make a 'British Politics' category, and go around categorising things? Or is there a decision process involved in creating new categories? Dalek (talk) 18:12, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I would just create it. If you feel the need, on the talk page of the category, justify it.  18:21, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * And don't capitalize "politics" please. 18:27, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I added it to the PM article, feel free to follow the red link and add some appropriate text. Would be great for the UK pol. parties!  18:29, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It's something that we probably lack as a category. You could even add a navigation template with it too if you fancy experimenting, internet laws is one of the best (well, I say "best", it's a good, clean format and has fairly simple DPL code) to copy in that respect. 10:05, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Worst non-fundy website?
is this the worst commercial website ever? Look at the search page. Ugh! 23:35, 12 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Wow. GeoCities lives on... –SuspectedReplicant retire me 23:48, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * What do you value most about the monikie.co.uk website? "The opportunity to see what the internet used to look like." Totnesmartin (talk) 12:16, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually that reminds me. I don't think I've shared this with y'all yet. It doesn't do too much for us, but MPR looks much better. –SuspectedReplicant retire me 23:53, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Doesn't look "commercial" to me, just badly home-made. 03:06, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * worst website ever. i9 03:21, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * AAH!! The horror! The seizure inducing horror! It's so horrific it's actually hilarious! -- 03:25, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * MY EYES!!! aaaarrrgggg!! 03:30, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * This website apparently creates designs for other websites. Oh dear.... ~Super Hamster  Talk 03:27, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I think calling it "ugly site" counts as parody rather than stupid. 03:35, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Yea, I just realized that they titled their website as that...apparently it's just a test/example of sorts. It's funny, though, how even when one tries to make an ugly site on purpose, there are still worse ones out there whose design is serious. ~Super Hamster  Talk 03:37, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/ is worth checking out. It has coined some very interesting terms to describe bad design. 10:24, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * This must deserve a mention in a section about horrible web design? 13:26, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Any and All of CWC's websites. But of all of them, I'd say Sonichu and Rosechu's Loveshack. Praise GodJesus they are all defunct. Tyrannis (talk) 13:31, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Basil Marceaux
Holy crap. As a spin-off from the 'worst websites' linky, I've come across one Basil Marceaux, who was running for Governor of Tennessee. If this is the kind of semi-literate ignoramus the Republican party is attracting, I fear for America. -- PsyGremlin  12:31, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Ditto. Just been reading his site too.  Such wonderful use of language - Things of important - Things I done for my citizens - he also seems to have wound up some of the Freeman on the Land psychobabble in his page.  It really is incoherent nonsense.  Not surprisingly, he's never won an election to anything.  12:48, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd like to use any vacant plot to plant grass and sell it to use for our expenses? FTW! 13:14, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I've also just been browsing his site & videos. The text on this page is priceless:


 * "The real question is why the U.S. Government does not follow the U.S. Constitution by making sure all the states remain a republic form of government at all cost


 * who drop the ball The Coast Guard, the Army.Navy the marine until now, the people and this is all Thomas Jefferson fault he took us doun the wrong road while the real founders were kiled and jailed.


 * Where would be be if we went down Alexsander Hamilton road a repulican time line? we would all say a pedge to a republic and not half of us who are democrat says a pedge to a republic but belong too a democracy!


 * The last of tlaws, the Sedition Act, passed on July 14 declared that any treasonable activity, including the publication of


 * These sections of the page are good for just about anything - Text, graphics, whatever you want!"


 * Anyway, I reckon we could have an article on this guy. He may not be very significant politically, but apparently he got quite a lot of coverage during his governor campaign (largely for being a moron) & there's certainly a lot of material for RW snark.   18:27, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Colbert made fun of this guy a lot back when the primary was. He thinks that "he might even fine you for not having a gun," and that guns should not be regulated at all, even in cases of the mentally ill. On the plus side, he is fracking hilarious. 20:09, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * "The right too bear arms against our government and not burglars must be protected after the Supreme court ruling."  22:51, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

PZ on Podcast
I have just listened to this podcast. It's PZ defending his "New Atheist" position against an atheist accommodationist - an atheist who thinks athiests can make common cause with moderate theists.

It's interesting to listen to PZ defending his position but also interesting as the debate has the most biased "moderator" I've ever listened to.--BobSpring is sprung! 14:09, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * That reminds, I have the chance to go see PZ make a live appearance at a roundtable discussion at Wiley Hall, University of Minnesota next month. Not sure if I'm going yet or not.... 22:49, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Here's the discussion about the podcast on PZ's blob.

programming gripe
So I'm rewriting the software that manages my eBay store to use the eBay-provided SDK as opposed to hacking together xml strings. I'm not even sure why I'm doing this. The SDK documentation is piss-poor. My SDK code is actually becoming longer and more obfuscated, plus it is stripped of all elegance and I no longer have external XML templates which I can edit on the fly. What the fuck am I doing? Occasionaluse (talk) 17:42, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * You are going to youtube. Keyword fbb. --85.77.118.130 (talk) 17:51, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Weird, but better. Occasionaluse (talk) 17:52, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Baby Woo
I don't know what else to call this heading. So there's this woman, a really good family friend. The hard-core christian type who only listens to Christian music in the car, goes to church twice a week, all that. She's trying to get me a job where she works, so I can't complain too much about her. She's really nice, and a great person. But every time the new baby comes up (he's just over 3 weeks old now, and HUGE, like, in 9 month clothes) she tries to push terrible crap on me. Like berating me for getting him vaccinated.

He has a slight thyroid imbalance. His thyroid levels are good, but whatever hormone triggers thyroid release is elevated, so he's on 25 mcg of synthetic thyroid a day. (Something about keeping his thyroid from burning out before it's finished developing) He has another check-up in November, where it's expected he'll be taken off of it, as his thyroid should be fully functional. Her response? "*sigh* You should take him to my holistic doctor"  Um, no, thanks. I'd prefer not to have a retarded child, thank you. Anyway, I guess I'm just venting, but I was curious if anyone has had similar experiences, or how you'd deal with such. 13:59, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * She has a doctor? Doesn't she just pray to Jeebuz? While I have some sympathy for the idea of holistic medicine - i.e. treating the whole person rather than just the symptoms - it's usually just a euphemism for CAM.   14:21, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * From the context of the conversation, I assumed she meant CAM. And she's surprisingly "New Age" for as christian as she is.  Like, lacy (almost fish-net) gloves, her hobby, and supplemental income is making candles in her basement, and selling them at craft/new age shows.  It's a weird amalgamation.  And between the two incidents, being told I was wrong for vaccinating by far made me more angry.  Apparently the marginal risk of Autism is far, far more likely than the disfigurement from Polio.  Or dying of Whooping Cough.   14:55, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Just politely say that you choose the medical treatments of your child based on scientific knowledge and research, and should any of her treatments pass DBPC trials then you will consider them. 15:06, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * If she's trying to get you a job just smile and say vague platitudes.--BobSpring is sprung! 15:13, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The "marginal" risk of autism is not affected by vaccination. By the way, I think Trent has a relative or friend of the family with similar traits.  Hmmm, not xtian IIRC, but into CAM and all that.  18:37, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm aware of the autism thing. I've given up going the "that's absurd" route, and have fallen to the "even if that's true" route.  I've just had better luck winning people over with that line of reasoning.  And so far, I offer vague platitudes for this particular person, with the whole "friend of the family" thing.  It's so much easier to deal with people if you don't care where the relationship sits after you're done.  ("You're wrong, and an idiot" may be the correct way to respond to "I don't believe in evolution" but it will not gain you any friends, and may result in someone throwing a punch at you.)   20:10, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I know, I only said that "here". Not sure what I would say to bleeding woo family member, luckily I mostly don't have to worry about that.  One or two friends, though... drop the topic and stick to why you're friends, if that works, is what I do.  01:39, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The best results for me getting the autism point across has always been emphasising the evidence gathered for the link. Specifically Wakefield's 1998 Lancet paper that was a ethically dubious set of 12 case studies. You don't even need to understand statistics or anything to instinctively know that this paper didn't prove anything once you're open about the facts (recall that at the height of the scare, more newspaper stories on the subject mentioned Leo Blair than Andrew Wakefield!). The problem is that this is in the UK, rather than the US, where it's thiomersal that's the boogeyman du jour with vaccines. This is a bit more difficult to deal with because chemophobia is rife (it contains mercury, which must be dangerous!!), but it is being phased out and may not be in any modern vaccines at the moment. 10:03, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * We don't have thiomersal, except for a few vaccines, yet it's still used as a reason. If that fails, there seems to be some sort of belief that vaccines "magically" hurt you.  It's really weird.  Like some sort of "don't trust those evil doctors, they just want your money" combined with "we have the best doctors in the world, Socialized medicine will make them kill us!"  I've just blamed it on the same anti-intellectualism that makes people not believe in global warming, or evolution, or that prayer should be part of medical treatment.  I swear, my blood pressure has risen since moving from college back to "real" civilization.   16:50, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Islamophobia at the hairdressers
Went to get the old noggin cut today, and straight away the hairdresser and I started talking about the pub which has closed down opposite her shop. She told me that the local xtian spinoff group has purchased it to use as their headquarters, and then proceeded to tell me that she wasn't going to talk about it too much, as she's worried about offending people. But then she came out with the line "as long as they don't all want to bomb us like the muslims". So I politely pointed out that she shouldn't let her judgement of an entire group be tarnished by a very small minority, but then she launched into an attack on women wearing burquas, and how they're all the same and people who say otherwise haven't grown up like her, where she was "forced" out of her home because "they" were all taking over the neighbourhood and hurling abuse at them as they were the only white people left. I decided to just bite my toungue as she was standing over me holding a pair of scissors, but did pipe up a bit later. She was talking about how her husband was wearing a baseball cap because his hair was wet and muddy after they went on a (rainy) walk, and when they decided to nip into the local pub on the way home the landlord told him he needed to remove his cap if he wanted to stay. "Yeah, you wouldn't have said that if he was a muslim woman wearing a burqua would you?". I pointed out the possibility of a woman wearing a burqua walking into the pub is extremely low, and she then moved onto other topics. Can't wait to move from here. 20:12, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I could easily see that playing out here. Luckily my barber is a pot-head, so rarely has a bad thing to say about anyone.  (His fingers reek of pot while he's cutting my hair..  I'm surprised no one ever says anything.  The woman from my story above recommended me to him)   20:17, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I also got a haircut today, but instead of exciting discussions, I just received some advice about switching to a different shampoo. Maybe I shouldn't have brought a book. On the other hand, bringing a Koran could be a conversation starter. Röstigraben (talk) 20:56, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * You should have smashed her in the face, held the other customers hostage and demanded recompense for all your ills. i9 21:00, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Do you really want to be discussing tetchy subjects while you're trapped in a chair and someone is wielding sharp things close to your head?? 10:27, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Precisely. 12:04, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * That cliché about the baseball cap is entirely fair though. Rules are rules, and religious views should not affect this in any way.  Do you really think you'd get away going about your daily business in a balaclava?  Nope.  Want to cover your face because your sky fairy says so?  Of course!  That's wrong, and why I completely agree with the French ban on face coverings in public places (not a ban on the burqua, as widely reported - just a ban on face covering with no get out clause for superstitious backwards morons). Ahem. Yeah. Good story Crundy.  18:29, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The difference is context. If you wear a balaclava for no obvious reason, people will assume that you are hiding your identity & therefore that you're probably up to no good.  When a kid wears a mask at Halloween, it's obviously just for fun.  When a biker wears a helmet & visor, it's for safety.  When a woman wears a burqua, it's for religious reasons.  People have the right to practice their religion, as long as they're not harming anybody else, & I don't see covering their face as harming anybody or as any kind of special privilege.   12:37, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It's for "security purposes" and the fact that it's hiding your face, not directly harming people, but a bit of an issue. And in all cases, you're hiding your identity; context doesn't change that fact so from a security point of view it doesn't matter if it's a balaclava, halloween mask or a burqa. Although I think a ban on all public places is a little extreme, it makes sense with regard to security. But this could just be security theatre and not particularly helpful. However, there are situations when it's called for. If you walk into a bank with your face covered (helmets for example) you will be challenged - and they should certainly not provide exemptions for any religious garb in that case. 14:56, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Banning it for "security purposes" in public is just one further erosion of our liberty. If you enter a building then the situation is different. I personally don't like concealment of the face for cultural reasons in our society (the burqa is not a religious obligation it is purely cultural) but it shouldn't be criminalised. 16:33, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * You say it's "different" when you actually enter a building, but surely that is "security purposes". The objection should be against a blanket ban on concealment in places where there is no security concern. 16:40, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It's different when you enter a building because it is owned by somebody and you are entering private property. 17:52, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

You're all a bunch of shweebs
The Shweeb. Good? Bad? I think it's pretty cool. It gets you around, no emissions, and above all, it looks pretty fun. Though I would hate to hop into one of those things right after it has been used by a recent taco-bell eater. ~Super Hamster  Talk 21:07, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * How do you get on and off, without causing a huge schweeb traffic jam?--AMassiveGay (talk) 21:47, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Looks like an interesting concept to me. Hmmm. 21:53, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, you won't get me in to one of them there pods until such time as they make the damn things opaque. If I have to look like a tit to get from place to place, at least make it so no one can see me. Also, considering the logistics of the thing, wouldn't the pods tend to accumulate at the most popular destinations? I can't figure out how these are supposed to work in any real sense. -- 22:32, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I would think that the stations will be located off of the main railway, in which riders take "exits" off of the main railway to get to their intended destinations (much like the exits you find on the interstate). If you look at the second-to-last picture of the article, they drew an example of rails splitting into two and merging into one. How they well go about how one shifts to different rails is what I find interesting. ~Super Hamster  Talk 22:48, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Saw this a while ago. It'd never work in my home city of Sheffield - it's a wee bit hilly. (like Rome it's (allegedly) on seven hills). 22:51, 12 October 2010 (UTC) TerrySmall.png [[Image:Toast s.png|alt=Toast|text-bottom|20px|link=User talk:SusanG]]
 * Looks like a voyeur's dream to me. 22:53, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Needs electric boosters; will be jammed up worse than most city streets otherwise - me to schweeb in front of me: "pedal faster, you schweeb!". I suspect "lane changing" would not be hard to engineer.  01:42, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I feel a bit cramped looking at that thing. I can't help but think; would you want to be in one of those during a shweeb traffic jam directly in line of the sun when it's roasting hot out? -- 02:55, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * While I like the "people power" part, might be better driven by a continuous chain or cable drive like a ski lift. 03:04, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I can only imagine that, on a hot summer day, those things will really start to stink up. Anyway, I like the idea they have put together for slower-moving traffic: You literally just bump into the slow shweeber in front of you, pushing them to your speed. The only reason I think they need the ability for electricity to run it is for emergency situations - for example, if a shweeb-mobile breaks down, or if someone has a heart attack from the exhilaration shweebing provides. ~<font color="#07517C">Super <font color="#6FA23B">Hamster  Talk 03:17, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * So I can coast and the muscle-leg behind me will push me home? Schweet!  03:22, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Looks fun but I think vertical pods would be more familiar, comfortable, get better view and faster to enter/exit, just for a little bit more drag. Sen (talk) 13:08, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * So what's the advantage of these over enclosed recumbent bicycles? The rolling resistance from the wheels is probably lower, and as it has its own dedicated lanes, it should be safer (but about the same as having separated cycle lanes). However, recumbent bikes do not need any infrastructure and thus can be cycled anywhere. I don't see the pros out weighting the cons. CS Miller (talk) 13:09, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The advantage for the cities is that it's cheap to build them and they don't require space. Especially when compared to bridges or tunnels. From a user's point of view it's a metro vs car situation. --85.77.118.130 (talk) 17:45, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * That's the biggest load of pointless impractical shite I've seen in a long time. Call me old fashioned, but what's wrong with a bike?  18:41, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I concur. Absolutely ridiculous. Occasionaluse (talk) 18:42, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I have tried biking and it's a pile of bs. It's cold, wet, hot, sweaty, slippery and it can kill you. --85.77.118.130 (talk) 19:04, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * That's basically why the inventor of the shweeb invented the idea - he "found it extremely difficult -- even dangerous -- to ride his bicycle to work every day" in Tokyo. I can only see the shweeb realistically working in large, jam-packed cities where even riding a bike is slow and dangerous. It wouldn't have that much of a practical use in cities where one can conveniently get somewhere through other means just as easily. ~<font color="#07517C">Super <font color="#6FA23B">Hamster  Talk 20:40, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, like the subway? 06:48, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Exactly! Oh, wait... ~<font color="#07517C">Super <font color="#6FA23B">Hamster  Talk 11:18, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

So...wait. I've been to Rotorua, and there was a fantastic and really long gravity-powered go-kart/sled thingy track there that my mates and I had a total blast bombing down. Is this at the same location? I can't imagine I could cope with that much fun. Mind you, as a transit vehicle, I can't imagine anything more useless. <font color="#6CC417">DogP <font color="#993300">Marmite Patrol 04:38, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

WTF???
North Carolina must be a strange place. Where else would you find the "The Creation Museum Taxidermy Hall of Fame of North Carolina and Antique Tool Museum?" I assume the other two are there to make up the entrance fee, after looking at the 30 seconds worth of material proving creation is real. -- PsyGremlin  12:51, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Looks like they've got evoloution licked - David Gerard (talk) 20:53, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

here goes
About to install ubuntu across the entire hard drive (instead of operating from one corner of my hard drive). If you hear swearing and wails of despair, that'll be me. Totnesmartin (talk) 21:28, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Can I join in when you when the swearing and walls of despair start? 22:01, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Let me know how it goes: I need to do the same. 22:05, 13 October 2010 (UTC) TerrySmall.png [[Image:Toast s.png|alt=Toast|text-bottom|20px|link=User talk:SusanG]]
 * cp:Speciationspeed good Sir, may I wish you all the best in your endeavour. There are very few that attempt this.  What version are you installing?  (It will be fine, in my experience it's the dual booting that causes most of the problems rather than linux per se)  22:09, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, I've done it. Forgotted to save my bookmarks though.[[image:Ashamed.gif]]. 23:37, 13 October 2010 (UTC) TerrySmall.png [[Image:Toast s.png|alt=Toast|text-bottom|20px|link=User talk:SusanG]]
 * HALP! Before I installed Ubuntu, I dumped (almost) everything to my 2TB drive. Before, it showed up onth desktop & in the "file manager" or whatever it's called. Now it doesn't show so I can't get anything back off it. It shows in "Disk Utility" but nowhere else. How do I access it please? 00:21, 14 October 2010 (UTC) TerrySmall.png [[Image:Toast s.png|alt=Toast|text-bottom|20px|link=User talk:SusanG]]
 * You're going to need to manually mount it fnarr fnarr!.  00:29, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It should be in the sidebar of the file browser, click it to mount it. If you want it mounted automatically on startup, you'll need to Google around, it involves editing fstab and finding the uuid of the drive. -- Nx  / talk 07:51, 14 October 2010 (UTC)


 * It's not in the sidebar: File:File thing 01.png . It's in disk utility but says it's mounted and not mounted!: alt=SusanG|text-bottom|20px|link=User:SusanG [[Image:Toast s.png|alt=Toast|text-bottom|20px|link=User talk:SusanG]] (Files deleted)
 * <tt>sudo mkdir /mnt/backup</tt> then <tt>sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/backup</tt> -- Nx  / talk 10:40, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * [[image:Kiss.gif]] 10/10 for Nx: that's done the trick. [[image:Kiss.gif]] 10:55, 14 October 2010 (UTC) TerrySmall.png [[Image:Toast s.png|alt=Toast|text-bottom|20px|link=User talk:SusanG]]
 * It's not the most elegant solution though. If the thing was plugged in during boot, you might want to try unplugging and plugging in again. If it doesn't work run dmesg after plugging it in to see if there are any error messages. -- Nx  / talk 11:04, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Unplug &rarr; replug &rarr; WORKETH! Shall now leave well alone! Also had some trouble with flash &rarr; sorted. 11:13, 14 October 2010 (UTC) TerrySmall.png [[Image:Toast s.png|alt=Toast|text-bottom|20px|link=User talk:SusanG]]
 * (ECx2 HULK SMASH!) Done! It's version 10.10 (majestic markhor or something like that). Lost a load of bookmarks that I never used (or even occasionally used), and the cracked copy of Reason which I never got the hang of, and, in fact, all my other windows-only software, but as all my music and photos were backed up it doesn't matter - I can now port them back to the pooter and free up a usb socket. Anyway, works fine. Totnesmartin (talk) 00:31, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Why lose your bookmarks & passwords when there's Firefox sync? 07:43, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Pah! You're not a real linux user until you've recompiled your kernel, without dynamic module support, and only compiling in the minimum you think you need to run your system :) 07:47, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I refuse to recompile my kernel. Ever. Totnesmartin (talk) 09:44, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm working on getting the server side of linux up and running. I had it almost done, then 10.10 came out, and when I updated it, it borke something, and I'e just been too busy this week to fix it.  And you lie, you're not a real linux user until you compile your kernel to enable your CD/RW.  And DRI.  Heh.  DRI...  Man, I've been using linux for too long.   17:21, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Getting someone out of a rampaging memetic infection
So, I have this friend who is showing signs of a raging memetic infection. Like memetic flu, with sneezing and coughing and gastric symptoms, but they insist they've never felt better, as their life slowly collapses around them. Not just a wild enthusiasm or a particularly compelling new hobby, they've gone distinctly weird.

I'm assuming this is primarily an affliction of the thoughts, rather than a chemical problem (as yet, I realise there's no firm software/hardware divide between the mind and brain).

The question is, what to do? There's no classical cult structures to expose. This is a personal affliction they're suffering. Basically, they have to think themselves out of something they think they thought themselves into. I'm wondering what memes I can introduce myself that will help a process of realisation.

When I had a raging memetic infection, many years ago, the sucker shoot analogy was vastly helpful. On a living plant, a sucker shoot grows with wild abandon, looking like the essence of vitality and wonder. Meanwhile, it drains resources from the main plant. And this is neither healthy nor viable. The analogy went into more detail about the hazards of sucker shoots in one's life, enough for me to go "ah, that's what's happening."

So, have you ever suffered a raging memetic infection, to the point of affecting your life, and how did you get out of it? - David Gerard (talk) 07:55, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Um, what form of mime are they inflected by? 08:27, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Someone else's exciting ideas that will change the world. The ideas aren't necessarily entirely wrong, the problem appears to be the meme as affliction - David Gerard (talk) 08:41, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * No offense, and please excuse my jokey first response, but without details it is really hard to offer bad advice. 08:44, 14 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I know. I'm wondering if others have suffered similar (religion is not quite what I'm thinking of) and how they got out of it. Mine was joining a multi-level marketing company - only took me 18 months to wear out my mind and soul and realise how much goodwill I'd blown with everyone who knew me.
 * This one is big ideas that may well change the world, but the instance of said ideas on their mind is not in any way healthy. Other symptoms include cut'n'paste conversations and too much in-jargon in conversation with non-converts.
 * I can't see a way out of this other than them realising for themselves the approach isn't healthy, so I'm looking at how others got themselves out of similar things - David Gerard (talk) 09:26, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Rewording: HE READ A BOOK THAT ATE HIS BRAIN. WHAT TO DO? - David Gerard (talk) 09:52, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * If the problem is his reaction, not the ideas themselves, I suggest distracting him or infecting him with something else. Or "showing him the mirror" - other people behaving in the same manner, with the hope that he will find it repulsive enough.--ZooGuard (talk) 10:17, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Good examples that spring to mind? - David Gerard (talk) 14:29, 14 October 2010 (UTC)


 * What book? 11:14, 14 October 2010 (UTC) TerrySmall.png [[Image:Toast s.png|alt=Toast|text-bottom|20px|link=User talk:SusanG]]
 * I'd rather not say, but in fact keep it abstract - David Gerard (talk) 14:29, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * My current best (or least ineffective) solution is: ignore the memetic sucker shoots and try to address the life failures, which carries the risk of codependency (fortunately, I'm way too busy with my family to do much of that these days) but may at least unfuck the life. I don't think the meme affliction is affecting the concept of self care, just alienating and worrying all their friends. This way they get to keep their precious meme infection but not smell funny in public. Anyone tried this with anyone, or had it tried with them? - David Gerard (talk) 14:29, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * My guess would be distraction+time. I find that a lot of the time the problem with something like this is that it provides a clear, simple, and ultimately wrong way of looking at things. Simply giving a person time when they are not rehearsing that explanation to themselves, and have the opportunity to encounter other viewpoints, can help.
 * It's difficult to say what to do without specifics. Is the problem related to politics, social interaction, technology, economics, personal finances, philosophy...? Are they taking a view of the world that merely focuses too much on one thing, or actually is so narrow that it becomes frequently wrong?
 * Memes aren't... simple. There's not some one recipe for persuading people out of them that works in all situations (and that's a good thing too, otherwise people would be more vulnerable to manipulation). --Quantheory (talk) 18:12, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd try giving them another book to read - another brain-eater, like zen and the art of 'cycle maintenance, stranger in a strange land, etc. Also, if you are in conversation and they are "cutting and pasting", by which I assume you mean spouting exact phrases etc. from the meme/book, try to get them to explain it in their own words (by pretending to not understand), at least they'll have use said eaten brain to do that. If all else fails, introduce them to Scientology.  20:05, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually all people can be put to a manipulatable state with prolonged sensory deprivation and drugs. --85.76.55.198 (talk) 05:07, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Ok, who's the comedian?
it's a CP joke...on WP? Totnesmartin (talk) 11:36, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Someone's being naughty. How long will it last? [[image:Smiley.gif]] 11:41, 14 October 2010 (UTC) TerrySmall.png [[Image:Toast s.png|alt=Toast|text-bottom|20px|link=User talk:SusanG]]
 * I was just reverting his other bits of wandalism (came across him by accident) but that made me laugh. Totnesmartin (talk) 11:44, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Reverted by one R.Fiend, who patrols WP's conservapedia page. He probably read this. Hello R.Fiend! Totnesmartin (talk) 22:03, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

New Tea Party Leader
Funny. –SuspectedReplicant retire me 14:27, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * That is a completely, totally unfair, vicious attack.... on Sauron. MDB (talk) 14:47, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Am I sad for thinking of the X-men Sauron when I read your comment? Actually, don't answer that... Totnesmartin (talk) 15:13, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Sauron would probably make a better, more intelligent leader than Sarah Palin, in my opinion. 22:25, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Sauron has plenty of experience as a political leader! He's someone the Republicans can get behind. -- 02:03, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Phyllis Schlafly: Muslim Cleric
Anyone seen this?
 * Oh dear. 03:14, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Major feature on Colbert tonight
Goats being used to do "landscaping". Doing work Dubya used to proud of - clearing brush, the old fashioned way. 06:12, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Family Guy
Holy crap! I can't believe Rush Limbaugh actually starred as himself in the latest Family Guy. Especially saying things like "Oh I'll be around. Wherever there's a rich white guy in need of another tax break, I'll be there. Wherever there's a brain-dead woman in need of expensive life support her husband doesn't want, I'll be there. Wherever there's a country that needs to be invaded for reasons that don't exactly pan out, I'll be there too. Oh yes, I will be around". Is this the new way Conservatives get their message across? Perhaps Assfly should have a guest appearance? 08:31, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I assume you saw the one where they found out Rush Limbaugh was Michael Moore (well, both are actually Fred Savage). I think he did his own voice in all appearances. 08:41, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * No, not that one. It was on recently (latest episode) when Brian goes to his book signing and ends up becoming a conservative. 09:21, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * he was in their Star Wars spoof as well. Must be a big fan. Totnesmartin (talk) 09:49, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I've gotten the impression before that Limbaugh has something of sense of humor about himself. When you have his curious mix of arrogance and insecurity ("It's all about me! me! me! Isn't it?"), you have to. I think he also did an episode of Designing Women years ago, playing himself, and that was certainly a trip into the lion's den. MDB (talk) 14:12, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I should have clarified that as "in addition" to the episode described - which is one I haven't see, yet. The one where they're the same person is where Lois is working for Fox News. 09:53, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I've always assumed that Limbaugh is like Richard Littlejohn. He's kind of an asshole in what he spouts, but he also doesn't really feel all that strongly about it. He's just playing to an audience, and he knows what they want. X Stickman (talk) 01:27, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, I'm not entirely convinced by that assessment of Littlejohn. There's certainly an element of playing to an audience when you're writing, but I think that might only be with respect to the rhetoric used, rather than subject matter or intensity of belief in what they're saying. 15:00, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Littlejohn is an odd one, I think. He's certainly homophobic, at the very least. He's almost certainly racist, but I don't think this extends to actual immigration policies or anything (which is what he tries to frame it as, usually), rather he's just "ew brown people". He's definitely an unpleasant person, but where it gets fuzzier is around the other stuff he writes. I don't think he gives a damn about recycling or wheelie bins, for example. I don't think he gives a damn about health and safety regulations. What he *does* give a damn about, however, is the fact that other people care about them, and that he can exploit it. In this particular area, he knows his crowd and he plays up for them. The "Issues with own readers" subheading of this is pretty revealing in some ways. X Stickman (talk) 16:19, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Just watched it. Funny. Rips the piss out of everything. 23:34, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * If you care about plot, DO NOT WATCH THE LIMBAUGH EPISODE BEFORE THE SERIES OPENER! 00:39, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Whoops!
Umm, ok. So I went upstairs to nick one of the wife's piriton (anti-histamine) tablets because I haven't been sleeping well, but didn't realise until afterwards that the blister strips look the same as her contraceptive tablets. I only realised when I saw the tablet I took was marked "Tues". So what do I do? Presumably if I grow tits I have to take photos of me pushing them together and send them to you guys? 20:59, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I once ate a whole load of those. Ain't no thing. i9 21:01, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Christ's sake ace, is there anything in the world you haven't taken? God's sake. I'm so pissed off with all of you. And if you don't know why them I'm not telling you. Where's the chocolate? 21:03, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think I have ever taken.....hmmmm.......i9 21:05, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmm, Bromo-Dragonfly? 21:08, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, never fooled around with that one. i9 21:14, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Probably for the best, being basically an intense acid experience that lasts for 3 days. 21:17, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmmm you have piqued my interest though... i9 21:27, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Crundy disclaims any responsibility for what happens to ace after this. 21:33, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I have to say, you're "an intense acid trip that lasts 3 days" comment doesn't exactly scare me. In fact, I had to go look at prices from that comment.  Good move.    16:57, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Might want to read this first. 17:19, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Food coloring
Does anybody know anything scientific about food coloring (in the US: yellow 5, yellow 6, red 3, red 40, green 3, blue 1 and blue 2)? There seems to be a lot of panic out there, but it seems hard to get good information on them. sterile 00:47, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Over here they're "E" numbers. This includes every food additive including vitamins and stuff. Tartrazine (yellow I think) was banned. 00:53, 13 October 2010 (UTC) TerrySmall.png [[Image:Toast s.png|alt=Toast|text-bottom|20px|link=User talk:SusanG]]
 * Hmmm... I wonder what's in your yellow M&Ms.... sterile 00:59, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Just checkin' FD&C Yellow No. 5 – Tartrazine, E102 (yellow shade) is OK in the US. 01:03, 13 October 2010 (UTC) TerrySmall.png [[Image:Toast s.png|alt=Toast|text-bottom|20px|link=User talk:SusanG]]
 * Brit info here. Phew - I no longer need to believe what I was told in primary school that E123 meant "anything you want". –SuspectedReplicant retire me 01:44, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * FDA info [HERE] Some people respond badly to some food colors and should avoid them where possible. Hamster (talk) 05:06, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * If you're in the UK I would recommend Food Additives: An Edible Adventure. Was very interesting. 08:40, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I know that if it is given an E-number (and IIRC, the US is less well regulated as they'll view anything the EU does as authoritarian and overbearing) it means they have actual data on its food safety. Which is ironic when people say they're not good for you because they're "dangerous chemicals" - chemicals are only "dangerous" when you don't have information on them and don't deal with them properly. 10:17, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * We has a scare a few years ago, when it turned out various spices sold off the shelf were contaminated with something called Sudan Red. -- PsyGremlin  12:24, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I've still got the "Food Additives" program on my media center where they were talking about food colours. Drop me an email if you want me to encode and upload it. 18:38, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah, Sudan Red, that rings a bell. Wasn't that a big issue as it was used in the UK's national dish, Chicken Tikka Masala?  19:01, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I faintly remember something about colourings in curry hitting the news a long time ago, so perhaps. (Sudan Red is an azo dye, we get 1st year chemistry students to synthesise similar things. They're pretty intense dyes so I really wouldn't be surpised about any scares.) 08:04, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Yep. 08:06, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I had a bottle of St Helier Blueberry Pear Cider last night and was surprised to find it the colour of car windscreen washer fluid - electric blue. 12:45, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Classical Japanese
* shoots self in head*. EddyP (talk) 16:30, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Surely "stabs self in stomach". 18:24, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * That'll just look like a plea for attention. EddyP (talk) 18:54, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * "Crashes plane into battleship"--Thanatos (talk) 22:46, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Reminds me of the time I was flying JAL from Narita to Honolulu. The pilot came over the intercom, "Honourable ladies and gentlemen, we are approaching Honolulu airport... and they don't know we're coming." -- PsyGremlin  08:07, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Please to fix honorable typo to make joke the funny more? 10:58, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah, I have dishonoured my family, with such a foolish mistake! Honourable disembowelling shall now commence to atone. -- PsyGremlin  11:32, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * "Need to fly a plane into a battleship? There's a Jap for that" 17:12, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Bookz!
Reading conservapedia is fun and everything but surely such a densely jam packed internet place thing of dashing rationalists must have one or two good reading suggestions to suggest. Please suggest them. I crave ideas & imagination to stick into my brain. Sen (talk) 23:38, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Battle Royale by Koushun Takami is a great read, if you can stomach students being forced to kill each other in a totalitarian government program. John Grisham's The Runaway Jury and The Rainmaker are also good. Salem's Lot by Stevie King is great if you want to get away from sparkly vampires.--Thanatos (talk) 01:02, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * 'A scanner darkly' Philip K Dick - best book I've read recently--AMassiveGay (talk) 01:05, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Mr Nice Howard Marks (autobiography of the worlds foremost marijuana smuggler)
 * American Psycho Bret Easton Ellis (No intro needed)
 * Hells Angels Hunter Thompson (ditto)
 * I am Legend Richard Matheson (awesome horror/thriller - began the "zombie apocalypse" genre)
 * A Fraction of the Whole Steve Toltz (fantastic novel by Aussie author)
 * Off the top of my head...i9 01:08, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * What are you looking for? Some Rationalwiki-type books seem to me to be kind of this:
 * Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman A collection of anecdotes and memoirs by Richard Feynman, a renaissance man, rationalist, and generally amazing guy whose career in physics wound a path through the center of the 20th century.
 * Foundation A science fiction book by Isaac Asimov, followed by two excellent sequels (as well as some additional others of lesser quality).  It is a wide view of the evolution of a people, with some clever thinking and writing about how different minds can work to cross purposes.
 * Foucalt's Pendulum Much more challenging than the previous two, this mystery by Umberto Eco references both deep Renaissance history, sectarian theology, and all kinds of woo as well as legitimate science in a story about a small vanity publishing company who create a mock conspiracy theory that comes to life.  Like everything by Eco, it is pure gold.
 * Pale Fire This is Vladimir Nabakov's masterwork, and one of the most enjoyable and challenging things I have ever read.  It is deliberately written in a way so that you solve a series of mysteries about the author and the plot as you read it and re-read it.  I have been blogging about it for a month now, and still have only dipped down a bit below the surface.
 * But of course there's also many other kinds of things to read. These are some items I just thought would appeal to the typical RW reader who likes critical thinking and rational consideration.  Any genre or topics you're interested in?-- 04:19, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Just about anything by Murakami, particularly The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, if you don't mind the elements of magical realism. And Pratchett, of course, but most people here seem to have read all of his stuff already anyway. Röstigraben (talk) 06:24, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * This is the second post on this topic in recent weeks. Perhaps we should have a RationalWiki Book Club Forum. 08:03, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * We probably already have five or six such pages scattered about the wiki... 10:57, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Here presenteth ye Doggedpersistence Summer 2010 Reading List:
 * Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy
 * Alone in Berlin, Hans Fallada
 * The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, Milan Kundera
 * Journeys by Moonlight, Antal Szerb
 * Let The Great World Spin, Colm McCann
 * The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera (I was so inspired by TBOLAF above I had to consume more
 * Here ye, hear ye, and each of the books were declared wholly excellent to a man by DogP.  <font color="#6CC417">DogP <font color="#993300">Marmite Patrol 21:39, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Billo puts foot in mouth
BillO on the view --Thanatos (talk) 23:38, 14 October 2010 (UTC)]]
 * Meh, everybody knows that nobody but cranky, middle-aged women watch "The View" anyways, thus why I've never understood BillO the clown was so obsessed with that show. 22:33, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Tea Party vs. Sane Individuals
Whenever I think of (or see) some lunatic Tea Partier having a debate with a seasoned politician this clip always comes to mind......(yes, it is poor quality but go fuck yourselves eh!) i9 02:02, 15 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Oh wow...that describes yesterday's debate exactly. 03:16, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * As a bit of Simpsons trivia, Ray Patterson is voiced by none other than Steve Martin. MDB (talk) 11:10, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, as they always said, the Democrats brought facts to the table, the Republicans brought soundbites. 18:02, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Lynchmobs in the streets!
If the hype around 'Inside job' is to be believed. Btw, isn't the Washington Post the Moonie owned paper? And they're daring to drag St Ronnie into the mix? -- PsyGremlin  09:51, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * No, the Washington Times is the moonie one, although they're trying to sell it. Totnesmartin (talk) 10:41, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Now I've read that link, it looks like a film I want to see. ...and I think I just said I wanted to see a film about economics. Totnesmartin (talk) 10:51, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Echo. 11:14, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Alpha male
I was looking around for stuff on the Alpha course and found out that Bear Grylls did it. Spits sand. 10:31, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Grrrrrrr lol. 10:43, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It's in the middle of a re-branding, apparently. Although it might be an offshoot that I'm thinking of. 15:29, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Is the rebrand still in Beta? Totnesmartin (talk) 19:49, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

xkcd for October 15
is the dream of techies everywhere.

I would bet money that the front line phone teams at Comcast and other ISP's are currently scratching their heads, asking "why do some of my callers keep saying 'shibboleet'?" right about now... &mdash; Unsigned, by: MDB / talk / contribs
 * Funny. Yes, funny.  But why not 'shibboleth'? Oh, I see, I get it.  Not so funny any more... Comic was funnier in the middle than at the end.  11:08, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The point isn't the funny; the point is the fantasy. MDB (talk) 12:11, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * This is xkcd: it stopped being funny quite some time ago, and is only enjoyed by the lesser class of nerd. 12:17, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * You're like the Andy Schlafly of math nerd commentary. Do you think you could do better? Do you know the guy? Butthurt? Occasionaluse (talk) 20:26, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Harrumpf. MDB (talk) 12:41, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Stopped being funny?? Blasphemy!! 12:48, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * xkcd is still the same as it always was. Some people just hate it for the same reason "hardcore" metal heads hate Metallica - their little pet favourite thing in the world that was just special for them and them only got a little too big and popular. Once you're no longer in a minority in liking something, it's not cool anymore and people become desperate to get that special feeling back and you switch to making disparaging comments about how it was better before, you know, when just you liked it, because that's cool. 15:27, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * xkcd is like most other things, very uneven. Today's was pretty good. Wednesday's was awful. DickTurpis (talk) 15:42, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Also it's hard to consistently come up with new jokes. Sometimes you rehash the same joke in a different way. Both can be funny on their own but look lame together or if you are already familiar with the meme. 15:46, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It's like drugs - one develops tolerance (this applies to other good things, too). :) I used to check it first thing in the morning on M/W/F, now I've mostly forgotten about the schedule - whatever I do, I'll see someone linking to it at least once before the end of the day.--ZooGuard (talk) 19:04, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * "xkcd is still the same as it always was." This. It hasn't changed in quality, it's only become less "special" by becoming popular and familiar and routine. Plus, the crappy old xkcd comics are the ones you forget. When you're comparing the day to day "some good some bad" strips to how impressed you were by the most memorable ones from the first few hundred, of course it's not going to measure up. --Quantheory (talk) 20:06, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * That's an aspect of talent decay I hadn't considered before, actually. It's probably very true; the more you have to compare it against as time goes on the more it needs to live up to. Still, I think there are great ones cropping up even today, I mean even the biggest cynic from xkcdsucks.com (well, maybe not those guys as they're the most self-righteous, uppity, jealous prats on the internet) has to admit that this one is pretty cool. 22:16, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

One of the Funniest Movie Scenes Ever
From Student Bodies(1981), which ranks number 3 on my Favorite Movies List--Thanatos (talk) 17:53, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * [[image:Bored.gif]] That must be some list.  20:16, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The movie as a whole is funny, like a slasher version of the Naked Gun. Since your interested, here is my top 5:


 * 1) The Truman Show
 * 2) Pleastantville
 * 3) Student Bodies
 * 4) Fight Club
 * 5) Trick 'r Treat--Thanatos (talk) 20:23, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The Truman Show was funny? i9 21:15, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * My Top 5 Favorite Movies of any genre.--Thanatos (talk) 21:42, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * No Bogart? Totnesmartin (talk) 21:49, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I only recently started getting into older films. I like Lugosi. Right now, I wanna see Nosferatu. The image of Count Orlok scared me when I was a wee lad and finally want to confront my devil--Thanatos (talk) 21:53, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Medal of Honor
I see the new MoH game came out today, despite calls to ban it because there's a level where you have to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan. So you play as an American then? 18:24, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * B'dum tish! 19:09, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Christina Aguilera
If RW is to be considered as a credible educational resource, it's of the utmost importance that there is an article on Christina Aguilera. She's a singer godammit! -Aswh1 (talk) 06:21, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
 * But we aren't trying to be a "credible educational resource". And who the hell is this "Christina Aguilera" stratum?  Quartzite?  Sedimentary?   06:37, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Chilean Miners
Wonderful stuff. Makes me weepy. i9 08:01, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I hear they're bringing them out Juan by Juan. SNORT SNORT 08:20, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Yesterday's Grauniad had an article about rival churches (Catholic, Evangelical and 7th Day Adventist) each trying to claim credit. I'm trying to find a net linky. I expect CP will put their own spin on it as well - Andy's own prayers being answered?  09:16, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Ajkgordon (talk) 11:28, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Miracle? Miracle? So I guess the fucking drill nearby was for decoration or something? Sen (talk) 12:39, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * You are so going to hell. But I suppose it takes Juan to know Juan. 10:08, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * If nothing else, this will be the feel good story of the year. If Chile doesn't cash in on the global goodwill flowing their way, they're silly. -- PsyGremlin  11:22, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * However, I think Yonni Barrios might want to stay down there, after his wife and mistress turned up at the pit-head to await his rescue. -- PsyGremlin  11:59, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The question I want answered is; how long until the film version? 13:38, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Or even better, the complex and existential TV series. 33 guys trapped underground with batshit crazy goings on would make an excellent replacement for Lost! 13:39, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * On a much more serious note, anyone who blogs or who has a blogger's ear should really make a priority of contrasting this success to China's annual mining tragedies. The global online community can exert some positive pressure here.--Brendiggg (talk) 14:51, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
 * This sort of thing? 16:37, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Running with the "how long until the film/show" theme, anyone wanna place bets on what they'll call the film/show? My money's on OPERATION: EARTH FUCK (referring to the drilling.) X Stickman (talk) 01:39, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * 33 RPM? 06:47, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Los 33 06:50, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Who needs a film deal? Just think of the overtime! Totnesmartin (talk) 11:30, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, IIRC, they stopped getting paid the moment the shaft collapsed. The same way the Titanic's crew had their pay stopped at the moment the iceberg hit! 16:43, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Lol, that's silly. How could they punch out from down there? (in either case...)  00:23, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

New Perspective on Africa
–Africa is big. Really, really big. I mean you may think it's a long way down the street to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to Africa! Look! –SuspectedReplicant retire me 08:56, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Lol, Portugal isn't in Africa! I blame Mercator, that deceitful projector of eurocentrism! 09:00, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * tut, tut, Human. Don't you know the saying "Africa begins at the Pyrenees"? Totnesmartin (talk) 10:54, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Look at the map in the link! Portugal is offshore!  10:56, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Some very "interesting" plate tectonics going on there... 15:38, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Wait...  Does the guy who made that realize Africa is a continent, and not a country?  Because after reading that graphic, I'm not so sure..   02:25, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes. He's just making the point that people always underestimate its size. I certainly hadn't realised you could cram North America, China and all Europe into it. –SuspectedReplicant retire me 06:41, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Not all of N.A., just the US. note they didn't tackle the Russian "republic"... 06:44, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Indeed. I stand corrected. Another interesting map, of course, is the Peters Projection. Always freaky the first time you see it. –SuspectedReplicant retire me 07:56, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

A problem
Suppose you have a fair, six-sided die. How might you use this die to generate a random number between: while maintaining an equal probability of each number occuring? The simplest solutions win. Let the arguing begin. ONE / TALK 14:37, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * 1 and 2
 * 1 and 4
 * 1 and 7
 * 1 and 12


 * 1 and 2. Roll the die.  If it's 1-3 take your random number to be 1.  If it's 4-6 make it 2.
 * 1 and 4. Roll twice, let N = (6*first)+second.  Your random number is the remainder when N is divided by 4 (or 4, if that's 0)
 * 1 and 12. As above. Your random number is the remainder when N is divided by 12.
 * 1 and 7. As above, but if you get double sixes, roll again.  Your random number the remainder when N is divided by 7. --MarkGall (talk) 15:11, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Can you elaborate? Is there supposed to be one solution for each or a generic solution encapsulating those cases? And what is "simple"? The number of rules or the number of steps in the process (e.g. roll the die 84 times...)? Occasionaluse (talk) 15:16, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, one solution for each. Though, an all-purpose solution would definitely be an impressive feat. As for "simple" - yes, I've left that rather undefined, hence the inevitable arguing. MarkGall: nice work, but I can think of a simpler solution for at least problem #2 - just keep rolling the die until you don't get a 5 or a 6 ;) ONE / TALK 15:21, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Sure, you could do that, but mine guarantees you'll only need two rolls! If you do it that way you could be rolling forever (though on average you'll only need to roll 1.5 times, so maybe it counts as simpler). --MarkGall (talk) 15:25, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * (EC) ⌊(([die]-1)/5)*[outcomes-1]+1⌋? Occasionaluse (talk) 15:34, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * For 4, roll once, if it's 1-4 keep it. Otherwise roll again.  If the first was 5 and the second is odd, take 1.  If first was 5 and second even, take 2.  6, odd -> 3.  6, even -> 4. On average you need 4/3 rolls, and never more than 2. --MarkGall (talk) 15:37, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * further on bending the rules, if it's 1-3 it's 1 and 4-6 it's 2. This is a random number and it's between 1-2, 1-4, 1-7 and 1-12 and each possible outcome has an equal opportunity of occurring. I don't think a simpler solution can exist. Occasionaluse (talk) 15:38, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The trouble with "roll until it's not 5 or 6" is it might never end. For 1 to 4 just "double" 1 to 2 perhaps?  Roll, even=1, odd=0, repeat, use as binary digits (00-11), add one, convert to decimal.  00:55, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, wait, on Mark's 1-12 example, how do you get a remainder of 11 or 12? Also, don't you have to add one as well (in the 1-7 example, remainders will be 0-6, right)?  I think shifting bases is required perhaps, as well as the modulo function?  00:58, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Oops, doh, I got it. But yes, in Mark's modulo algos the last step is to add 1.  01:11, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
 * 1 flip a coin
 * 2 get out your old D&D equipment (don't pretend you don't have any; this place is Geek Central) and get out your tetrahedron (d4)
 * 3 go to www.random.org and have it select a number between 1 and 7 for you (works for all these actually) but dice are more fun
 * 4 see #2 but use a dodecahedron this time (d12) DickTurpis (talk) 15:39, 15 October 2010 (UTC)


 * For 1-12, roll both dice. If the first one is odd, then take the second as is, otherwise double the second one.
 * For 1-4, do 1-12, then divide by 3.
 * You can't simply roll multiple dice, as that will give a Gaussian distribution. CS Miller (talk) 19:31, 16 October 2010 (UTC)


 * You can't do 1-12 that way. You could if you added 6 to the second one, but not if you doubled it(otherwise you couldn't get 11).
 * In general it's the numbers that are coprime with and larger than 6 that are hard. There are many clever tricks to get 4 and 12 simply, but for coprimes I think you really either need many rolls or to throw out and retry some possible outcomes.
 * One very simple (and inefficient) way of picking a random number up to X is to roll the die X times, one for each number from 1 to X, have the highest roll win, and then have another round to distinguish between ties.
 * Another option would be to roll dice in order to generate a seed, and feed that seed into a pseudorandom number generating algorithm that accepts base 6 input. --Quantheory (talk) 23:49, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Scientific Facts Mentioned in the Qur'an:
Came upon this. He seems to be about as "scientific" as CP. The first thing I saw was "At the time when the Qur’an was revealed, people thought the world was flat", bollocks, I thought no they didn't. Second: "The light of the moon can be its own light or a reflected light. The Qur’an rightly says it is a reflected light." Surely it was generally surmised that it was reflected at the time of 'revelation' (610 to 632 CE)? As to the water thing "?" 1 in 10,000 "?". 16:55, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think any of that makes much sense. 17:16, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I suggest Googling "Qur'an moon split". Totally scientific. :) --ZooGuard (talk) 19:00, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Googling Qu'ran pulsars is, um, interesting too. Totnesmartin (talk) 19:57, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * We need a way of quantifying debatably scientific stuff. Some kind of scale that goes String Theory > TeVeS >>>>> ID > YEC > Homeopathy > Quantum stir rods > Timecube. (Cue someone telling me that's out of order.) --Quantheory (talk) 20:28, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, once you get into it, Time Cube makes some abstract sense. Albeit only in a metaphorical way and certainly not what you could consider science. And I've never heard of "quantum stiry rods", but generally the order is spot on there. I'll fix ur post with a few extra ">". 22:07, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Uh, appreciated. I wish I had a better example to fill in that middle section there, but there's a pretty wide gap between people really working within science (however odd their ideas) and people who just want to beat science with something else. --Quantheory (talk) 23:29, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

It would have been a bit more interesting if he had quoted the actual parts of the Qur'an which are claimed to contain this science. There are people who claim to get all sorts of science out of the Bible - probably this is more of the same.--BobSpring is sprung! 23:08, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Which is a shame, because I quite enjoyed writing up the ones on the Bible, doing the same for the Koran would be interesting - particularly as 8th Century Islamic scholars had some legitimate claims to being called scientists. But as we can see from the bible examples, once you start actually quoting the verses you're talking about, even the most hardened believer will see that you're full of shit. 23:46, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I looked up the examples in my xtian homskollar textbook, and most verses said nothing about the claim at hand (I think I added it to the BS foreknowledge article). But this guy, with his whacky "proof by probability" should be introduced to Aschlafly, I'd love to see that debate!  00:34, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
 * My big end-of-degree-project involved people who spoke different languages. I checked my bible and *bam*, right in there, there's discussion of people speaking different languages. Truly, the bible is a book of scientific prophecy. X Stickman (talk) 03:24, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I left a note on the blog asking if he could quote the passages. Let's see what happens. I'd be impressed though if it says something like: "The earth spins in space at the the same time as it orbits the sun which is itself orbiting the Milky Way galaxy as it flies through space under the effect of dark energy." --BobSpring is sprung! 11:44, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
 * philhellenes has a recent video about some similar probabilistic Islamic nuttery, BTW. --Quantheory (talk) 23:32, 16 October 2010 (UTC)