RationalWiki:Saloon bar/Archive173

Question Evolution!
Just a reminder that I have this work in progress going. Could do with some more opinions on it. narchist 12:53, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Dunno... kinda boring. --2.34.113.53 (talk) 19:20, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Hurricane Coincidence
So, I was talking with my Mom last night, and she remarked that she thought it was "interesting" that Hurricane Isaac struck New Orleans on the anniversary of Katrina.

I said not really, and made the points that:
 * 1) Hurricane season lasts six months, but the really dangerous time is only a month or two
 * 2) New Orleans regularly gets hit by hurricanes; its not like Katrina and Isaac were the only storms ever to hit the city.
 * So, it's really nothing special.

She responded with a tone that basically boiled down to "I regret all that money I spent to get you educated." (Okay, not really, but she does get annoyed when I get rational on her.)

Any other points to make that I didn't think of? MDB (the MD is for Maryland, the B is for Bear) 15:47, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I know that tone of voice very well. --K. (talk) 18:13, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * wp:Birthday problem, although that strictly doesn't apply if you're exclusively thinking about Katrina and Katrina only - intuitive odds would apply - but if you generalise it to this hurricane struck on the same date as that hurricane, then it becomes important. Scarlet A.pngnarchist silverbrain.png 15:51, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Ha, I'd forgotten about that article, though I've read it before. A lot of stupid shit involved with that...I think back to my 9th birthday, which was memorable because there was a flood in Chicago, Olga the Walrus at the Brookfield Zoo died, and the Cubs beat the Mets 6-1.  I also remember two ex-girlfriends who both had the same birthday, and I think about two of my friends who were both born on 9/11.  -- Seth Peck (talk) 15:54, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Huh, reminds me of why I hate late August/early September.
 * 1997: All over Labor Day weekend, the first man I ever dated more than once says he's not interested in seeing me anymore, a friend dies of AIDS and Princess Diana is killed. (Okay, I didn't care that much about Diana, it just added to the gloominess.)
 * 2006, mid-September: my brother dies unexpectedly at far too young an age, leaving a wife and a three year old son.
 * 2010, Labor Day weekend: My boyfriend of 10.5 years and I split up. (Though it has been going downhill for some time.)
 * 2011, mid-August through early September: A experience an earthquake (no damage), a hurricane that left me without power for three days, and getting laid off from a job I loved.
 * So, yeah, this time of year historically sucks for me. I'd hide in a cave this weekend, but we'd probably get another earthquake causing it to collapse on me.
 * On the other paw, 39 years ago in early September, I got a baby sister. And my Mom is a September baby, too. MDB (the MD is for Maryland, the B is for Bear) 16:12, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * That reminds me of my fear of February 27th. Two local legends and heroes of my youth (Fred Rogers and Myron Cope) died, and my dad was laid off (i.e. let go permanently) from a job he held for 41 years.  That day comes around and I'm walking on eggshells.   16:56, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

and I think about two of my friends who were both born on 9/11. Fucking hell, I still can't believe there are people who were born around 9/11 who are now old enough to have a conversation with. Where did the last ten years go? ONE / TALK 16:21, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I should have been clear...their birthdate is September 11th, but not 2001 (I think one is 1980, the other is 1983). But they hate talking about when their birthday is now.  -- Seth Peck (talk) 17:14, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Perhaps they can adopt the british convention of putting the day before the month ie 11/9. AMassiveGay (talk) 17:36, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * That's not a phone number that dials anything though. -- Seth Peck (talk) 17:48, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Hahaha, you think two Hurricanes hitting a town on the same day is worthy of mention, how about a "destiny day" for a whole nation? --K. (talk) 18:13, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Reminds me of wp:April 19, being the day of the Branch Davidians seige as well as the Oklahoma City bombing, though in this case one was a retaliation for other...followed up by the very next day's Columbine High School shooting a few years later on 420 day. -- Seth Peck (talk) 18:20, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Obligatory Scarlet A.pngpathetic silverbrain.png 19:17, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Also. -- Seth Peck (talk) 19:34, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Family values
The GOP is big on family values. Very big family values, if you know what I mean. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 20:38, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Great song! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gAPxcF6Rx0 Secret Squirrel (talk) 23:44, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Paul Ryan at the RNC.
Did anyone else watch Paul Ryan's address to the RNC? I had to drink a bottle and half of wine before casting my eyes on him. You Yanks better hope he doesn't get in - he is a dangerous ideologue. Acei9 21:22, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I've been struggling through it, and I'm getting drunk while trying to make sense of a few things. I understand why there are so many women there - the Uncle Ruckus thing? The "errors"? Sure, let's assume they are errors and not lies. The goal if reducing spending to 20% or less of GDP. Sure, that'll happen when the secret plan is enacted. I'm guessing they won't be mothballing a shit load of military hardware, as that would be too obvious. Concernedresident  omg!!! ponies!!! 21:54, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * A lying liar lied. That's the summary. Republicans have been utterly shameful in this election cycle. rpeh •T•C•E• 22:00, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, his errors and half truths are being savaged by the media. Acei9 22:07, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Cue outrage over the smears by the lamestream media in 3,2,1... Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 22:11, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I went to huff po, and they had a run down of just how many papers and prominent media names are calling him on his lies. The list is huge.  Do these people not get that we live in an age of INSTANT fact checking?  --[[Image:green mowse.png|25px]]Godot RIP original "muahahahah".  1...2....3...4...muahahahahah  22:49, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * "We're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers." Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 22:51, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The fucking lie here is claiming Ryan blamed Obama for the Janesville GM plant closure, cause he sure as fuck did not. nobsCorporations are people, too 23:32, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * He strongly implied it: A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that GM plant. Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said: "I believe that if our government is there to support you. this plant will be here for another hundred years." That's what he said in 2008. Well, as it turned out, that plant didn't last another year. It is locked up and empty to this day. And that's how it is in so many towns today, where the recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight. Acei9 23:42, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Fact: "As president, I will lead an effort to retool plants like the GM facility in Janesville so we can build the fuel-efficient cars of tomorrow and create good-paying jobs in Wisconsin and all across America." It is the president and his team that is the motherfuckin' liar here, and not Ryan. nobsCorporations are people, too 23:46, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * yeah but nevermind that the plant closed before Obama was sworn in. Acei9 23:56, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Er...Rob, wasn't that at the exact time GM was on the TARP dole? Today you can technically call the company nationalized.


 * For someone who has a pure distaste for anything socialistic, you seem to have an affinity for it when the person wanting it is a Republican. Osaka Sun (talk) 00:20, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Perhaps he's just a troll who saids anything that will annoy people? --Revolverman (talk) 00:26, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
 * [[file:falldownlaugh.gif]] Scarlet A.pngnarchist silverbrain.png 00:28, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Romney Takes the Stage
Anyone else watching this Christian Revivalist meeting RNC speech by Romney? Acei9 02:34, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Yep. And I'm scared. sterilesporadic heavy hitter 03:12, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
 * That was awful. Acei9 03:14, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Who mocks climate change so blatantly? What a strange speech. sterilesporadic heavy hitter 03:15, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Maybe they got Clint Eastwood to go before him so he'd look better. sterilesporadic heavy hitter 03:16, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Neil Armstrong's Funeral -- Somebody noticed
Neil Armstrong's funeral is today.

Today is also a blue moon.

And on my way to work today, I saw a wonderfully huge moon, shaded orange in the dawn light. I winked. To whoever up there arranges such things: you did good for Neil. MDB (the MD is for Maryland, the B is for Bear) 11:13, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I keep reading astronomers saying that it's not actually any larger than normal. It's just an optical illusion caused by it being close to recognisable objects like trees or buildings in the middle distance and foreground. But it sure looks much bigger sometimes. Ajkgordon (talk) 12:50, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I figured it was just atmospheric conditions or something. The point was more that it made me think of a real hero. MDB (the MD is for Maryland, the B is for Bear) 14:52, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
 * There's still some debate on why the moon appears larger near the horizon when it does not on camera. One theory is that it's an extension of the effect that just as people and vehicles register as the same size when seen half a mile a way horizontally but seem smaller when seen half a mile in the sky or below one's feet, so also the moon.--WickerGuy (talk) 15:44, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I believe I shall honor him tonight in a toast while drinking a Blue Moon. -- Seth Peck (talk) 16:04, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

How should we calculating debt?
So Alberta just realized what happens when you make your economy run on a dying industry. The wingnut excuse for not going all commie Norway and have public debt range at a manageable 50% of GDP? "If we do that we'll suffer with hundreds of billions in external debt!"

Of course, if you use that statistic Greece (174%) looks more fiscally sound than Hong Kong (334%), Switzerland (229%) and Luxembourg (a mind-fucking 3,443%). What should we be using to calculate what a country owes? Osaka Sun (talk) 03:44, 31 August 2012 (UTC)


 * If Alberta goes have-not, I don't know what will be louder. Albertian Nationalists (and they exist) Blowing their brains out, or Ontario getting some serious schadenfreude laughs in. --Revolverman (talk) 03:57, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I really don't understand macroeconomics. Everyone seems to owe everyone else some money. How does this not even and cancel out? Scarlet A.pngbomination silverbrain.png 02:30, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
 * "As the Bank of International Settlements explains, small countries with large financial sectors tend to have disproportionately large gross external debts as well as holding large cross-border debt assets.[1] Luxembourg is a net creditor country." You know what that means? UK NO.1! UK NO.1! UK NO.1! UK NO.1! FUCK YEAAAH!!! UK NO.1! UK NO.1! UK NO.1! UK NO.1! FUCK YEAH!!! Scarlet A.pngbomination silverbrain.png 02:32, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Clint Eastwood
There goes the election. Osaka Sun (talk) 16:59, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I'll never forget the battle between The Man with No Name and the Man who Wasn't There. As I told my Dad last night, I'm not convinced that Eastwood is senile and crazy because he endorsed Mitt Romney. I'm convinced that he is senile and crazy because he made said endorsement while arguing back and forth with an empty chair that he claimed was Barack Obama.  Smedley (talk) 18:36, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Look at the shite I dug out of the Eagle Forum -_-
[http://www.eagleforum.org/topics/marriage/pdf/77reasonsREAD-ONLY.pdf WARNING: logical fallacy overload certain. ] P3A58NT86 21:23, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I like how homophobic creationists suddenly care about preserving the integrity of "biology" when it comes to gay marriage. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 21:35, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Absolutely amazing... --Bona fide Taylor Swift lover, according to Conservapedia admins! (talk) 21:45, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
 * 77? Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu... I suppose we can bung it up on Gish Gallop. Scarlet A.pngsshole silverbrain.png 02:03, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Just picking one at random, 40, isn't a reason at all. It's more like some misrepresented factoid. Scarlet A.pngmoral silverbrain.png 02:06, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Gawd, I just hate it when they bust out, like, 99 "arguments" and crap like that. So damn tedious-- "Shut up, Brx." 03:17, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Why 77? Why not 80? or 100, or 777 if they want the faux biblical reference. --Revolverman (talk) 03:18, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
 * No. 31 is possibly the dumbest argument I've ever seen presented about anything. 03:38, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm going to use #31 to argue against age of consent laws being so high. (NO, I am not a sock of Tisane, and no, I'm not pro-pedo. It's snark about how stupid #31's logic is.) Ochotonaprincepsnot a pokémon 1013 points 20:19, 2 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I want to SBS this, not for refutation purposes, but to snark the fuck out of it. Scarlet A.pngnarchist silverbrain.png 11:57, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

I can refute all that in one go: it's a PDF and PDFs on the Web are totally annoying. Hence they're wrong and I'm right. --2.34.113.53 (talk) 13:10, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

YEC Pseudoscience
Scientists have accepted the use of half-life decay rates to be in millions or billions years for radiometric dating method or radioactive dating method. Some would suggest that Noah’s ark should have caused the rocks to have accelerate decay and that would have caused the age of the earth to be misled in millions or billions years. Discuss.

Noah’s ark that had appeared in the past might not cause the rocks to decay accelerate for the following reasons:

a)Some rocks that have been created in the very beginning would be as hard as diamond so much so that it is impossible for these rocks to decay. As these rocks would be impossible to decay, the appearance of Noah’s ark would not cause any damage of these rocks. As these rocks could be as hard as diamond, it is irrational to suggest their decay rates to be in millions or billions of years since it would be impossible for them to decay in the first place and that the decay rate for them should be set at 0. To give the high value of decay rates, such as, billion years, for hard rocks in which they are impossible to decay, Scientists have indirectly pushed the age of fossils and the earth to billions years unrealistically.

b)Only the soft rocks that would have created in the very beginning would decay rapidly instead of the hard one. Scientists might have observed the change of shape of the rocks and comment that they should be the cause of decaying rocks. However, they should consider also the change of shape of rocks could be the result of soft rocks instead of hard since the hard would be impossible for them to decay. Besides, the hard rocks that could have been created initially would look like the current shape. As these hard rocks could never decay since they are as solid as diamond, there is no way for Noah’s ark or wind or whatever to cause them to decay. As these hard rocks could not decay, it is irrational to suggest that the incidence of Noah’s ark would have any influence upon the shape of hard rocks.

The reliability of radiometric dating method that has been adopted by scientists to determine the age of fossils as well as the earth would be in question on the condition of the possible existence of rocks that would be as hard as diamond so much so that there is no way for them to decay. If that would be so, there should be no reason for scientists to suggest that the decay rates of the rocks should be million or billion years since they would have been created in the beginning in such a way that there is no way for them to decay. If that could be so, to insist the value of decaying rates for hard rocks with millions or billions of years would simply be unrealistic and unreliable.

The following is the list of isotopes that have been used by scientists to estimate the age of the earth as well as fossils:

Samarium-147 (parent); Neodymium-143 (daughter); decaying rate: 106 billion years Rubidium-87 (parent); Strontium-87 (daughter); decaying rate: 50 billion years Uranium-238 (parent); Lead-206 (daughter); decaying rate: 4.47 billion years Potassium-40 (parent); Argon-40 (daughter); decaying rate: 1.3 billion years Uranium-235 (parent); Lead-207 (daughter); decaying rate: 704 million years Uranium-234 (parent); Thorium-230 (daughter); decaying rate: 80,000 years Carbon-14 (parent); Nitrogen-14 (daughter); decaying rate: 5,730 years

Using radioactive dating method to date the age of fossils and the earth would be unreliable. Let’s take Samarium-147 (parent) and Neodymium-143 (daughter) to be one of the examples from above for illustration.

a)What if Neodymium-143 would have been created in the very beginning instead of it would be the result of decaying from Samarium-147, it is irrational to link up the relationship between them and to comment that Neodymium-143 was the transformation of Samarium-147 and to establish its half-life decaying rate to be 106 billion years.

b)What if both Samarium-147 and Neodymium-143 would have been created as hard as diamond that it would be impossible for them to decay, it is irrational to conclude that Neodymium-143 should be the daughter of Samarium-147 and to suggest that the decaying rate for Neodymium-143 from Samarium-147 to be 106 billion years. This is by virtue of the half life decay rate for Neodymium-143 from Samarium-147 should be set at 0 at the absence of the possibility of decaying.

c)How could scientists have established the relationship between these items and comment that Neodymium-143 should have decayed from Samarium-147 instead of other source or material or substance? There would be a possibility that Neodymium-143 might decay and turn into another form of material instead of Samarium-147.

d)How do the scientists derive the decay rate for each material and to ensure its accuracy of decay rate? For instance, the Scientists have suggested the half-life decay rate for Neodymium-143 from Samarium-147 to be 106 billion years. Why should the decay rate be 106 billion years instead of a few thousand years? How do they get this figure or whether they would have plucked from sky since nobody could live so long so as to witness this would come true for the transformation?

e) When the scientists suggested the decay rates for various materials, such as, from Argon-40 to Potassium-40 or from Samarium-147 to Neodymium-143, how do they arrange in such a way that the decay rate for Argon-40 to Potassium-40 would be lower than Samarium-147 to Neodymium-143 and not the other way round?

d)As nobody could live millions or billions of years to witness whether Samarium-147 would turn up to be Neodymium-143, the reliability of radioactive dating method by means of the use of isotopes is questionable.

All the above have placed the reliability of radioactive dating method into question especially the setting of decay rate in million or billions years have indirectly pushed the age of fossils and the earth unreasonably to billion years.

This turned up in Liberapedia, and aparently refers to the webshite,  Radiometric Dating A Christian Perspective  I need help from people who understand radioactivity etc better than I do to refute this. Proxima Centauri (talk) 19:51, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Do you think you're likely to make the drive-by evangelist who posted it change his/her mind? 20:24, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

If I delete it that's censorship, I need to refute it in simple language so young teens who read Liberapedia know it's wrong. Proxima Centauri (talk) 20:44, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
 * How many are there of those? Tmtoulouse (talk) 20:52, 1 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Nearly as many as come to read Conservapedia. Nevertheless, the slab of spam in question has been posted all over the place in the last couple of days, so might be worth refuting if anyone can be bothered - David Gerard (talk) 21:38, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
 * talk origins has some stuff on the RATE team research. There was a bunch of stuff on ASK if you want to sieve it out of the muck. You can not really refute "and then God changed the decay rates ...." but you can mention the cause of radioactive decay and other constants in Physics that get involved. Melting the planet is one minor issue. Hamster (talk) 02:52, 2 September 2012 (UTC)


 * The person who wrote that really only made two points: 1) that the "hardness" of rocks in pre-Flood times would have slowed down radioactive decay, and 2) that scientists don't know enough about nuclear theory to sort radioactive decay products for dating. This was my response:

Hope this helps you get that crap off the site, but don't expect it to convince any fundies.RachelW (talk) 02:55, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for adding it to Liberapedia. Proxima Centauri (talk) 18:52, 2 September 2012 (UTC)


 * isn't there a way of determining if something is ONLY created by a decay process ? i.e there is no naturally occuring lead, but only what was formed by Uranium - lead decay Hamster (talk) 03:11, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Isn't the typical response to your logical argument, something along the childish lines of "how do we know it's always been the same", and/or "you just don't get it". Though if this page is being monitored by someone who can understand your argument, maybe it will get removed. [[Image:green mowse.png|25px]]Godot RIP original "muahahahah".  1...2....3...4...muahahahahah  18:44, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm the person monitoring it but the usual rule is that comments in talk sections stay unless they're abusive, obscene or very bad for other reasons. If I just disagree with a comment it's better to leave the comment and explain why it's wrong.  Christians and Conservatives are nattering enough in chat-rooms about censorship at Liberapedia. Leaving the comment at least for some time and explaining that it's silly should reduce nattering and show why YEC doesn't make sense. Proxima Centauri (talk) 19:07, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes. Radiometic dating is rarely about straight proportions of elements and usually about feeding isotope ratios in model simulations. There are four isotopes of lead for example. Only one of which is considered "primordial", while 208 and 209 come from different routes. . Scarlet A.pngtheist silverbrain.png 08:43, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Magical thinking


I added some measures of "magical thinking" on the last round of experiments I did, mostly for fun, but to start prodding the idea of the connection to some of these thought processes and specific neurological differences. I am correlating a lot of measures with endogenous dopamine levels, and its looking like magical thinking correlates really strongly with a lot of known correlates of higher dopamine levels in certain brain regions. Just thought it was interesting. 20:25, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Does that have any implications? Humanities majors needs a translation!--[[Image:adsig.png|25px|link=User:AD|AD]]talk 01:03, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Magical thinking releases pleasure chemicals into the brain. I'd hypothesize it might not be the thought pattern itself but the ease by which one can think 'nice' thoughts by it. So more 'nice' or pleasurable thoughts with less in-between worrying and considering, maybe more dopamine? No idea if that's true or not though. ._. <font face="MS Sans Serif" size="3">±[[File:knightoftldrsig.png]]KnightOfTL;DR sufficiently advanced argument still distinguishable from magic 01:14, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Well the cause and effect relationship is difficult to parse. But at root I am studying base differences in people in the amount of dopamine in lower regions of the brain. People naturally have different base amounts, some more, some less. What we are finding is that people that naturally have higher levels of this chemical exhibit certain altered thought patterns. Most people have looked at things like schizotypy, OCD, attentional/psychosis issues, etc. What I am finding is that slight differences in "normal" populations still have what appear to be fairly strongly altering thought patterns. One of the biggest ones I have found as the graph shows is in magical thinking. UFOs, supernatural, psychics, future prediction, etc. People that latch on to these ideas have naturally higher dopamine levels in mid brain structures. This relates to my modeling work as I have a specific hypothesis for what these systems are doing in our brain, relating to things like contextual processing, and salience. Shortest version: people who believe crazy things might actually have a biological mechanism that makes them prone to it. Tmtoulouse (talk) 02:37, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Check out Krummenacher et al 2009 for an experiment on this. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 08:25, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

When Attack Ads Go Full Retard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCtgpPnKSKw&feature=g-u-u Does this top the "sheep" add from a couple years back?Ryantherebel (talk) 21:49, 1 September 2012 (UTC)


 * and... why was there a guy in an anonymous/Guy Faulks mask? Is the add implying Anonymous is funded by Obama? --Revolverman (talk) 21:52, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
 * My guess is that masked guy represents the Occupy Wall St movement. 21:59, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
 * While... it talks about how Obama bailed out.. the bank...s.... [TOTAL SYSTEM FAILURE] --Revolverman (talk) 22:02, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
 * It's too disjointed to even be heavy-handed... --TheLateGatsby (talk) 22:32, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Wow... The Alan Grayson parrot made me crack up for some reason though. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 18:57, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Existential cat wins film festival
All my Internets. Take them all. Osaka Sun (talk) 03:25, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Henri really touched a deep part of me there. The unrelenting clarity of his blunt prose just completely opened my eyes to all the internal and external angst that affects all of us in this world. <font color=00BB77 face="Tempus Sans ITC"> Sam   Tally-ho!  03:34, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Ugh, thw French was terrible. Was this made by Canadians or something?  Sorry, it's just that sometimes little things like this can prevent my enjoyment.  No reflection on the overall quality of the video or the tastes of its fans.  Just me nitpicking-- "Shut up, Brx." 04:36, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * "They mock my French, but why? My French is perfect." Osaka Sun (talk) 04:42, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * O, oui-oui oui-oui le croissant! Au revoir, François, et escargot et grenouilles! Hoho Robespierre! <font color=00BB77 face="Tempus Sans ITC"> Sam   Tally-ho!  05:25, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Je voudrais un croissant! Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 08:30, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Look at the new WND smoking gun
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X12000610P3A58NT86 16:26, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * It's not new. The controversy is at least two months old. See for example this. Perhaps it's a good topic for an article.--ZooGuard (talk) 16:45, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I just got a fresh email from Eugene Delgaudio about this study. I wonder how the homophobic lobby feels about all the other studies showing that gay parents are just as good as straight parents (and lesbians are apparently the best parents)?-- "Shut up, Brx." 00:06, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Laryngeal nerve
Turns out it is designed!

Though the most interesting part is towards the bottom where they try to say that this nerve's rather terrible routing is the result of embryological development - yet anyone who has read either Origin of Species or Greatest Show on Earth will know how evolutionary biology and embryology have been shown to be intertwined considerably (biological homology, for instance). The refutation proves nothing. Even the part about how the nerve branches supply multiple points near the chest cavity neglects the point where the nerve branches, and gives no reason why it should branch there - nor why it should be branching and moving in this direction anyway if it was the result of design. <font color=#CC0033>gnostic 08:54, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Atheopath? Is that like someone who dilutes atheism with holy water? Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 08:58, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * It's as good an explanation as ever. It only took me so long between reading and posting this because I was scratching my head figuring out what that means. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>theist silverbrain.png 09:01, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * you should have said Sarfati wrote the paper Hamster (talk) 16:54, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Wow that Sarfati is one of the nastiest meanest fundamentalists I've had the displeasure of reading. Nate Keaton (talk) 18:59, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * If we write an article on the Laryngeal nerve this is a useful link. Proxima Centauri (talk) 20:10, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The fact that his only reference outside of a specifically-creationist journal dates back to 1859 prior to the application of embryology or genetics to evolution (in fact, prior to most editions of Darwins best work) says something about the intellectual honesty of the piece. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>pathetic silverbrain.png 20:17, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Stopped Clock
Now I don't know what to think. -- Seth Peck (talk) 18:35, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Only now does Karl Rove see the monster he helped create is out of control. --TheLateGatsby (talk) 19:07, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

RW used as an example of atheists ignoring Islamophobia
Here, apparently because it didn't cover the Sikh temple shooting. I wonder what kind of coverage this guy expected, and how he looked for it.--ZooGuard (talk) 07:10, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Fail. And why would news about a Sikh temple be in the atheism faq article?? Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 07:13, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The FAQ thing is used only as an example that RW is atheism-affiliated. As for the specific incident, I'm pretty sure it was at least discussed in the Saloon Bar.--ZooGuard (talk) 07:30, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Ah, I skimmed it pretty quickly. Good points otherwise. It was in the SB, so maybe he overlooked it because it was there rather than in the WIGOs. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 07:36, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
 * If only there was some kind of way rational and concerned users could somehow submit stories to the site. Perhaps some form of editable website... Sen (talk) 10:42, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
 * See, that requires effort. It's much easier to just piss and moan. --TheLateGatsby (talk) 10:57, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I thought we discussed it at length, although I can't see how much material you can drag out of something best summed up by this quote Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>pathetic silverbrain.png 11:59, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm still trying to connect the dots between Islamophobia and Sihkism (it hasn't been established if Frank Silva Roque is an atheist or not.) nobsCorporations are people, too 19:38, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
 * It's presumed that the Sikh temple was attacked because they were mistaken for Muslims, due to their wearing beards and turbans. Seriously stupid behavior. RachelW (talk) 03:05, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

When atheists don't attack Islam we're accused of cowardice, see Fatwa envy. When we do criticise Islam we're accused of stirring up trouble. We can't get things right however hard we try.Proxima Centauri (talk) 07:31, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * It might help if you don't paint all Muslims as suicide bombers with an itchy trigger finger and then call for racial profiling. Even John Ashcroft wasn't that much of a wingnut. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 08:07, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't by any means support the whole spiritual agenda of Sam Harris. I've researched and Chris Stedman is a Humanist.


 * 1) Chris Stedman made a mistake criticizing RationalWiki without checking carefully what we actually did. Well I and a great many of us have made comparable mistakes, it's just impossible to know or research everything on the web.
 * 2) Chris Stedman made a mistake believing atheists can make common ground with Muslims. Muslims divide humanity into:-
 * 3) The faithful (Fellow Muslims)
 * 4) People of the book (Jews and Christians)
 * 5) Kafirs That includes us, Hindus and all others who don't accept any Abrahamic religion. We can gain nothing from trying to make common ground with Muslims since they won't make common ground with us.
 * Trying to make common ground with other religious minorities like Buddhists and Hindus may be more worthwhile. Do we have to stop pointing out that their beliefs are irrational if we make common ground with them? Proxima Centauri (talk) 09:21, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

It's true that, as a community, we really don't talk as much about radical Islam as we do radical Christianity or even Islamophobia. There are numerous reasons for this: So while I do think it's true that RW and online atheists are less interested in Islam, there are some good systemic reasons for that. I don't really see it going away, any time soon.--talk 10:21, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) Like many groups, atheists tend to be split along language lines, and Islam has a minimal penetration into anglophonic countries. Christianity is enormously more influential, popular, and historic in the communities in which English-speaking atheists live.
 * 2) Along the same lines, there's less push-back from Islam; no Muslim has ever tried to evangelize me, so I am less likely to complain about Muslim evangelicals.
 * 3) Radical Islam is one of very few groups on the planet today that pursue ideological vendettas to the death, internationally. Incidents like the persecution of Salman Rushdie and the murder of Theo van Gogh originated not just with individual lunacy, but from organized calls to death.  This has genuinely and obviously cowed many speakers, artists, etc.  It leads to less harsh criticism.
 * 4) An unfortunate amount of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend;" while Islamophobia from Christians is wrong, that doesn't make Muslims any less dangerously wrong and benighted in their own way.
 * Is there a particular article that those four points can be inserted into? Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>bomination silverbrain.png 13:53, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Probably, but I don't know which.--[[Image:adsig.png|25px|link=User:AD|AD]]talk 10:42, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Accommodationism too often/always means atheists shutting up while believers evangelise and teach their faith based viewpoint to children who cannot think for themselves yet. Not all atheists are comfortable about this. Proxima Centauri (talk) 11:29, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * "We can gain nothing from trying to make common ground with Muslims since they won't make common ground with us." Do you actually know any Muslims. Like, in that thing they call real life? Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 18:32, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * No, but when she sees them on the telly it's always about killing people. Now her face tightens a little in fear whenever she thinks she spies a turban.   07:20, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * hmm, it's all interesting, but I wonder what orthodox muslims think and say about atheists? do they have a record of standing up for the rights of atheists to be free thinkers? Didn't Reagan & Brzezinski, for example, back Taliban and al-Qeada types and shed blood playing on their fear the godless Soviet Union would impose atheism on them? nobsCorporations are people, too 21:56, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Alzheimer's disease denialism?
There is a German person named Cornelia Stolze who wrote a book called "Forget Alzheimer" (Vergiss Alzheimer). The book claims that Alzheimer's disease is not actually a disease, has no clinical symptoms, and results from misdiagnosis of other conditions. There's also a good dose of Big Pharma conspiracy theories.

Here's an article that supports her (Google translation from Polish). There's also a German Wikipedia article, but it doesn't have anything useful. Is anyone with a better grasp of the language willing to do some more research?
 * Uh, considering that it has seriously observable symptoms and identifying characteristics I have no idea how this person thinks it's misdiagnosis of... what? I have relatives who contributed extensively to Alzheimer's disease research and the idea that they spent that long in the lab misidentifying everything is pretty... laughable actually. <font face="MS Sans Serif" size="3">±[[File:knightoftldrsig.png]]KnightOfTL;DR longissimus non legeri 18:45, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I know that Alzheimer's has observable symptoms, even non-behavioral ones, which is why I labeled this as denialism. I was asking about researching Cornelia Stolze :) --Tweenk (talk) 18:55, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I know, I'm just marveling that anyone could find this something to be a denialist about. ._.; <font face="MS Sans Serif" size="3">±[[File:knightoftldrsig.png]]KnightOfTL;DR going galt: the literal crazy train 19:12, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Knight, there are still ROUND EARTH DENIALISTS. Taking a position that never actually existed in history! --Revolverman (talk) 19:49, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Well I 'researched' a bit (i.e. I read some newspaper articles). Sunds like Stolzes mainpoints are the following: 1. She has doubts about Alzheimer's as a specific disease and would prefer if it would be diagnosed more generally as "dementia". 2. She laments that there is no cure against Alzheimer's, just a lot of expensive medication that effects the disease only a little bit. 3. and probably most intersting point: She thinks that the Alzheimers symptoms (i.e. dementia, loss of memory, confusion etc.) might not just be caused by protein depositions in the brain but rather by other factors. Accodring to her, Alzheimer like symptoms might also be caused by for instance over medication, dehydration, low blood sugar etc. She says that there are seniors with normal brain function, that have those protein depositions, which would negate protein deposition as a cause for Alzheimers. From what I've read I would say the following: Stolze does probably have a point when she criticises the diagnostics of Alzheimer's which are difficult and she also has apoint criticising the Alzheimer's scare, which in Germany was propagated by doctors who were pai by corporations selling Alzheimer medicine. She does however seem to be very imprecise in her own assessment of the disease... My sources: http://www.wiwo.de/technologie/medizin-alzheimer-die-erfundene-krankheit/5224508.html and a http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/buecher/rezensionen/sachbuch/cornelia-stolze-vergiss-alzheimer-praezision-ist-keine-aerztliche-tugend-11581825.html Th. Bernhard (talk) 22:20, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the info.
 * I read that protein plaques in the brain are no longer thought to be the cause of the disease, but they are a symptom. --Tweenk (talk) 19:25, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * You're welcome. If you would like to know more about her, just ask :-)--Th. Bernhard (talk) 21:19, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Moon
According to Twitter: "Sun Myung Moon...founder of Unification Church, dies at age 92". Scream!! (talk) 19:05, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * It only makes sense that after Neil Armstrong died, the Moon would soon follow. --Kels (talk) 04:33, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Like. --Horace (talk) 18:24, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Good bye, Rev. Moon, and good riddance! Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 01:16, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

You are all a bunch of worthless scumbags.
Horrible rape beasts, the lot of you. Acei9 21:43, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Ah, you're what they call a "moderator" here? More like a troll in drag! PringleMan (talk) 22:18, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Yesterday I went into the city wearing my bathrobe. Then I stole a glass of cider from a pub which I gave to a homeless man. Acei9 22:43, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Did the homeless man accept it? You see, homeless people are usually very wary of folks doing them good turn, doubly so when the do-er is clad in a bathrobe. PringleMan (talk) 22:49, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think homeless drunks are pretty much accepting of any free booze. Acei9 22:58, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * 100% true story. I once saw a homeless man refuse a beer some young guy gave him because it was quote "That Sasquash piss Kokanee shit" --Revolverman (talk) 23:04, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Damn right. Even homeless guys have standards. Ochotonaprinceps<sup style="color:#0066DD; font-size: 0.7em; font-style: oblique">not a pokémon <font face="Courier" color="#800080" size="1">1013 points 23:42, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * When I was a lad, we lived in a sort of company town, oh the company didn't own it nor did it rent to its employees but basically there was one company from which all economic wellness ensued. Anyways, the son of the president of the company was right asshole and would zip through town through the only traffic light regardless of whether he had the green or the red, in a 1957 Chevy Biscayne. All of the fender-benders and hit pets were forgiven the young scamp until the day he hit a young girl on a bicycle. Her injuries weren't severe but her daddy went to the president of the company and assured him that this was the last time Jr would do anything like this again; to reiterate, the girl's father told the Bossman that Jr would not be doing anything Iike this again. Simple. Concise, (certainly much shorter than this magillah), with no overt threats. It did not happen again. I suspect that if I substituted the bathrobe for the automobile we'd get a pretty good idea of what is going on here. Most people who venture out "into the city" in their bathrobe do not get to return home 1) soon; 2) unscathed; 3) well enough to troll a wiki. Well, enjoy it while you can Mr Ace. PringleMan (talk) 23:45, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Who the hell is this guy? 01:37, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Some kind of electric hat, I believe. 01:42, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Oooo.... me! Me! I'm a scumbag! Me! sterilesporadic heavy hitter 23:52, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Does anyone else feel like they never know what is going on around this place, or is it just me? Doctor Dark (talk) 03:18, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I am reliably informed that if one were to substitute a bathrobe for an automobile, one would get a pretty good idea of what is going on here.  07:01, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I vomit clams when I get excited. Acei9 03:33, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * That's exactly why aardvarks are always first in the dictionary yet they never feature in thesauruses. Coincidence? I think not.--Brendiggg (talk) 03:39, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * How old are you people? Nate Keaton (talk) 14:51, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Old enough to know that every so often you have to relax, let it all hang out, and go  CRAZY!!!!!   . Wibble.--X-Wing-icon.png  Jabba de Chops 15:20, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Wibble, wibble. Scream!! (talk) 15:24, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Anyone else look at the top of this section and reminded of the Argonath from LOTR? Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>moral silverbrain.png 18:05, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Not really. Which one was the Argonath?  Was he a hobbit?  Did he wear a bathrobe and drive a 1957 Chevy Biscotti?  18:19, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Argonath, Pillars of Hercules, it's all good. Congrats Ace, you are now the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar.  Or infested with orcs.  One of the two.--X-Wing-icon.png  Jabba de Chops 18:22, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I am awfully glad this section got some traction. RW has seemed a little bored and tired recently so thought I'd Ace it up a little. Glad to know some awesomeness still resides in the saloon. Acei9 20:49, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * My first thought was Arthur Dent, where did you get those peril-sensitive sunglasses before you thumbed to the Vogon fleet? CS Miller (talk) 23:39, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Arthur Dent in some darker and edgier reboot, perhaps. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>sshole silverbrain.png 00:04, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Ace would make the best Arthur Dent ever. <font face="MS Sans Serif" size="3">±[[File:knightoftldrsig.png]]KnightOfTL;DR sufficiently advanced argument still distinguishable from magic 00:15, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Due to my vicious dislike of all things sci-fi I don't think I'd make a good Dent. Acei9 00:23, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * That's exactly why I think you would make a good Dent, though. His adventures were not exactly enjoyable or called-for. <font face="MS Sans Serif" size="3">±[[File:knightoftldrsig.png]]KnightOfTL;DR critical thinking is the key to success! 00:35, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * But does Ace like cricket? Peter Rapidly running out of marmite 01:27, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Ace's favourite sport is cricket...though he cannot watch his national team play because it seems that while everyone is playing cricket they seem to want to play 'get out as quickly as you can without making any runs'. Acei9 01:29, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Sounds like Dent to me. Peter Rapidly running out of marmite 01:55, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

This homeless guy I know from the jailhouse ministry I'm involved in. I've prayed with him and attended numerous services over the years. I worry about his spiritual wellbeing, and don't think he's quite grasped what Christian ministry is yet. But I love him anyway, despite his sins. nobsCorporations are people, too 03:42, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Cool Story, Bro. --Revolverman (talk) 03:46, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Shut up, Rob. This is MY thread. MY THREAD. Start you own. Acei9 04:07, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

"Healthicine"
RW has a visitor with a some unconventional ideas about health. Any medically-inclined visitors are encouranged to engage them. It's a pity PaulMD is not around any more.--ZooGuard (talk) 19:13, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I'll see. Typically, the best way to confront these people is to ask for a mechanism of action (like, how does acupuncture improve health?).-- "Shut up, Brx." 19:41, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Nevermind, that isn't his schtick. I'll read more of his stuff and make an assessment, assuming I know enough about the subject and won't wander off before learning anything-- "Shut up, Brx." 19:49, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay, after reading one of his blog posts and glancing at others, it seems this guy is very into semantics, and he enjoys resorting to citing the dictionary to make his point. He is very concerned about the perceived difference between health and medicine, which reeks of holistic woo.  To his credit, I haven't seen any instances of him promoting any quackery.  Also, a major tenet of his point of view is "healthicine," a buzzword of his creation meant to denote the "science of health" (not medicine).  He created his own taxonomy of healthicine, where he includes study of community and spirit as necessary aspects of healthicine (community might fly, since cultural practices and geography may impact your health in a number of ways).  His healthicine is based on anatomy 101 breakdown of life, albeit with some unnecessary steps (if you're going to include nutrition, wouldn't it go before genetics?).  So far, he's just a harmless crank.  Just don't let him touch mainspace.-- "Shut up, Brx." 20:02, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Promoting healthy lifestyle isn't exactly harmful, but that is the worst argumentum ad dictionarium going. Dictionary editors are historians of usage, not legislators of language. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>bomination silverbrain.png 01:26, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Ya, fairly common mistake though. Even in English, the very existence of games like Scrabble depends on instilling dictionaries with an authority they didn't ask for and can't ever deserve. Not understanding how natural languages really work leads to goofs like 1984's Newspeak (Orwell also wrote similarly misinformed non-fiction rants...) or the stupid ending of the otherwise interesting Embassytown by China Miéville. It also results in futile Canute-like behaviour from entities set up to "protect" natural languages like French or Japanese. 82.69.171.94 (talk) 09:58, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I always made the assumption that Orwell knew Newspeak was bollocks. One of the most common tropes of dystopian fiction is an over-the-top mechanism of population control - Panem has The Hunger Games, the Tetragrammaton Council has prozium, and Oceania has Newspeak. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>bomination silverbrain.png 10:13, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Hunt the Homeopath
After today's cabinet reshuffle, we have Jeremy Hunt as health minister. He's supports homeopathy and the Guardian is running a poll about it. You know what to do. rpeh •T•C•E• 12:56, 4 September 2012 (UTC)


 * What does someone have to do to get sacked from this government? I was certain he'd be fired for the whole BSkyB/Murdoch thing. Instead, he's promoted. Gah. DalekIcon.gif EXTERMINATE 14:05, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Promoted? Lined up for the knife I'd say.  Tory Health Ministers these days have life expectancies only slightly longer than the NHS patients they've fucked over.--X-Wing-icon.png  Jabba de Chops 16:09, 4 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I hope they roll back some of the shit they did recently. Although with Hunt in charge it'll probably come down to what Rupert Murdoch wants. rpeh •T•C•E• 17:02, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

News about the Obvious, part XXVII...
Study shows conservatives ignore facts more than liberals --DinsdaleP (talk) 14:53, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Conservatives will ignore this study. -- Seth Peck (talk) 17:02, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * [[file:Fish.jpg|30 px]]Right. I get all my info from factcheck.obama.org. nobsCorporations are people, too 18:58, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Non sequitur -- Seth Peck (talk) 19:02, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Two new Chick tracts
HERE and HERE. Nothing too lulzy, though witches demanding equal rights because of the Salem witch trials is pretty funny.--Th. Bernhard (talk) 15:04, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I think I already WIGO'd them. <font face="MS Sans Serif" size="3">±[[File:knightoftldrsig.png]]KnightOfTL;DR walls of text while-u-wait 15:06, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Damn. I rarely check WIGO clogs. Sorry about that.--Th. Bernhard (talk) 15:11, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Is it just me, or has Chick become completely incoherent? I can't even follow his non-sequiturs anymore.  But omgonoz I bet it's because I've been militantly agnostic in a state of rebellion against GAWD for so long that DEMONZ has gotten a hold of my brain and dumbed me down onoz YAAAAAAAAAA Secret Squirrel (talk) 00:15, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * But seriously..."Born Wild!" just does not compute when I try to read it. Didn't even attempt the other one. Secret Squirrel (talk) 00:19, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * 68 million deaths from the Inquisition? That's something like 6 Black Plagues. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 03:03, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Why do Chick's villains always look like they're off a Goebbels poster? Matzosphere (talk) 08:37, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Shooting in Qubec
This is a bit disturbing... Gunman enters victory rally for Qubec's new PQ premier, aparently yelling "The English are waking up!" Just happened last night. Link to AJE article. -- 11:12, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm in Québec and while watching the news at work my coworkers and I were joking about a politician getting assassinated when it started. I feel kinda bad. And for fuck's sake, even if they're xenophobic separatists don't shoot them until the RCMP says there's electoral fraud! That's just pissing on democracy.173.177.150.209 (talk) 14:11, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Chickens are coming home to roost. --Revolverman (talk) 18:34, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Voter suppression and Section 5
Interesting article on the Voting Rights Act. Looks like it could prevent some of the recent attempts at voter suppression. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 19:44, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Can someone explain the photo ID debate in international terms, or create an article on the VRA itself? In Canuckistan we've had voter identification for as long as I remember, then again we haven't had massive redneck uprisings. Osaka Sun (talk) 20:25, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * tl;dr version: Bogus fears of voter fraud are often ginned up (by the GOP, in this day and age) in order to pass voter ID laws that throw a roadblock in front of the ballot box for traditionally Democratic constituencies. Longer version: See here. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 20:38, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * @OS. so in the US, you by and large have always needed to confirm you are who you are when you vote.  Not exactly unreasonable.  It was most commonly done by polesters, who said "why Jane, good to see you, here, sign the ballot book and go vote", but of course as soon as your little parish had more than 100 people, that become a problem.  pre photo ID, a list of things that would prove you are you, and prove you live in the area you are voting in include tax bills, driver's liscences, utility bills, library cards, etc.  Then along came photo IDs, and most places started to ask "wait, how do we know if that tax bill was really Jane, if i can't hook up her looks to her name". So a generic ID for photo ID came along.  driver's license, military IDs, school IDs, etc.   Come 2000 and Bush v. Gore, and a whole lot of right wing "oh  my god, there's cheating!" (which there isn't), and HAVA (help Americans vote act) set out to define a national list of standards that would be allowed for IDs.
 * The biggest concern is that poor people, students and elderly do not have access to the correct documents to get proper photo identification. Many people who are of an age have lost their birth certificates and states records are not that great before, say, the 50's.  The poor and under educated probably don't have the information on how to get an origial BC, much less have time to do it before an election.
 * That said, it's largely bullshit on both sides. on teh right: it's just not needed, and any photo id should be sufficient.  2) on the left, the actual number of people truly and honestly disenfranchised by this law is miniscule.  most people can fairly easily get their documents if they ask for assistance from voting agencies, the Secretary of State, or County Clerks.  and there is funding to help pay for these documents if it is a hardship case.--[[Image:green mowse.png|25px]]<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot RIP original "muahahahah".  1...2....3...4...muahahahahah  21:05, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Godot's argument assumes people are organised. This is not so. A significant number of people will turn on the late evening news on polling day and discover to their genuine surprise that they were supposed to vote and have now missed their chance. This same level of disorganisation easily makes it possible to realise, hours or days before the poll that you need identity documents you don't have and can't obtain in time. Raising the barrier even a little has drastic consequences for turn out. You can effectively disenfranchise people just by moving the polling place somewhere inconvenient. In the UK there are reminder cards, sent to every registered voter for a vote, which state clearly the location, with a map, date and time, and fact that the card itself is not needed (nor is any other documentation including ID). Despite that, many people forget to go, attend the wrong polling place, or cite the loss of the card as the reason why they did not vote. Does the US have a true secret ballot? Most industrialised nations do not (despite our often insisting on it in new democracies) and so they can detect fraud after the fact by reversing the ballot (going from the unique mark on the ballot to the list of voters, a painstaking method impossible with a true secret ballot) anyway, meaning that if voter ID fraud was happening you could prove it, and the lack of such proof suggests that it just doesn't happen. 82.69.171.94 (talk) 23:59, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Thing is, I don't buy your "wake up and realize its time to vote" argument. You have to register to vote, 30 days before any election.  To register to vote, you have to provide 2 different documents, one proving your identity and one proving your right to vote in that precinct.  At the time of registration, at least in Colorado, you are informed of what documents you will need to vote, which are in effect the exact same documents you just used.  never the less, if you do not have the appropriate documents (and HAVA is a hell of a mess to unfold, due to the fact that it is one of the worst written laws I've read), you are told you will need them, and given information how to find them.  At that point, if you cannot find them, or do not have the money for them, the clerk will tell you how to get assistance to get your documents.  60 days prior to any election, you receive a post card, telling you of the election, what precinct you are in, if you are qualified/registered for mail ballots and what you need to bring to a polling place, should you vote that way.  While I understand an EXTREMELY small number of people are not capable of following these instructions, i then ask if they are qualified to vote.  Like most things in Voter Registration issues, the whole thing is largely for show.  either to show "we are stopping those evil bastards" or 'we are the party that helps everyone!". When you move to actual facts and actual number of people who are limited in their right to vote, by voter ID laws, there is no "there", there.  [[Image:green mowse.png|25px]]<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot RIP original "muahahahah".  1...2....3...4...muahahahahah  00:36, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * You have to register to vote, with you so far. Not sure what this stuff is about needing to "provide documents" for registration. For reference in the UK a list arrives periodically addressed to "Occupier" at each residence. You just write new people's names (and in some cases their birth date and nationality as directed) on the list, mark anybody who moved out and sign it then it put it in a post box. Why make it needlessly complicated? The only reason I can imagine for the approach you describe is that this disenfranchises a portion of the electorate. It's no more honest to insist on spurious "documents" than the farcical literacy test, or other shenanigans. If you want to disenfranchise the poor (for they always seem to be the target in the US) just say "No poor people may vote" and have done with it. 82.69.171.94 (talk) 02:40, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I always find it funny when people who don't live in the US, tell us what we are doing wrong, based on the way their country (the size of one of our states) is doing it. Yes, you need two different documents.  You need one that proves who you are, and one that proves you live in the district you want to vote in, not withstanding teh fact that you could vote in 30 states this way, if no one checks up on it.  "why make it needlessly complicated".  cause we have 50 states, taht are not on any one system, all of whom have their own rules about how to register to vote, adn what documents are acceptable, all trying to make sure someone isn't voting in two states on election day.  The Brennan study along with several studies we used in Colorado to look at this very issue, found that the number of people who are truly unable to obtain a state ID card is minimal.  and worse, these people generally do not vote even when they have the IDs.  In colorado, there are funds avaliable if you cannot get your ID, and there are "special dispensations" if you really cannot get documentation (for example, the county had a fire in 1930).  Wanna know how many people came forward to ask assistance for getting registered and having their IDs?  less than 10, and those were easily fixed with a call to other states to get birth records.  Again, this is largely a red herring, and someone else posting about voter apathy in the US is more "right on teh money".  until you convince people that they want to vote, and need to vote, IDs won't matter one way or the other.[[Image:green mowse.png|25px]]<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot RIP original "muahahahah".  1...2....3...4...muahahahahah  01:10, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * @Godot: The Brennan Center recently released a report called "The Challenge of Obtaining Voter Identification. I haven't read through it, though. Also, if I look at their press releases, a lot of these laws are getting struck down, so it may end up being inconsequential. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 03:14, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Nods, we used it as part of our list of qualifying identification, as well as our justification for special consideration. The biggest thing is that people who are not in teh system (ie, drivers liscence or State id's) tend not to care about the system, and tend not to vote.  That's not always the case, of course, but there are ways you help those like the 90 year old woman who doesn't drive, or own a home, or pay rent.  Odds are, she has some kind of social security number and some kind of health insurance number.  so we work around it. [[Image:green mowse.png|25px]]<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot RIP original "muahahahah".  1...2....3...4...muahahahahah  01:10, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The poor already have a significant impediment to their voting rights before we even get to this step. They've generally received a sub-par education, and, as the majority of their lives are spent providing for themselves/their family, they lack the ability to take the necessary time out of their day to learn about each and every candidate.  Even if you give them the benefit of the doubt, and say they were confident in who they wanted to be president, how much do they really feel that will impact them in the end?  Neither presidential candidate really acknowledges the poor even exist, and, when they actually talk about issues the working class can relate to, they both repeat the same worthless platitudes ("We need to create more jobs!").  So, before even attempting to make the decision to try and vote, you already have all the makings of voter apathy!  Now, they have to find money to spend on ID, need to take even more time out of their schedule to go obtain said ID, and need to find a way to actually get to the office that issues the ID in the first place, which is often 10-15 miles away (..they quite obviously don't drive).  All to cast a single vote which probably won't affect their lives in any meaningful way.
 * Fuck that. You know what I'd do with that time and money instead?  Buy a video game, so I could spend a few hours a day escaping from the shit life I would feel I had no hope of ever improving.  Q0 (talk) 14:04, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * By the way, I want to stress that the voter ID part is just the icing on the cake. After all, nearly 50% of the voting population doesn't vote in presidential elections (average 53.4% turnout the last 10 elections), and over 60% don't vote in midterm elections. Q0 (talk) 14:34, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Why is there no national ID in the U.S.? By having just one form of ID that's required everywhere, you effectively force all people to have the documents required for voting always with them. My country has a national ID and the problem of voter disenfranchisement due to missing documents simply doesn't exist. --Tweenk (talk) 20:48, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Probably because too many would get ripped up by people trying to take out the RFID tag on them planted by the New World Order. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 20:55, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Such an ID is invariably a target of forgery which makes it expensive if it's not to be so unreliable as to be worthless. If you recoup the cost from individual citizens (e.g. a fee to re-issue lost ID) it certainly will disenfranchise the poor, if you recoup the cost from the taxpayer centrally it adds to the burden of running the state, an already contentious issue in the US. But let's return to lost ID for a moment. You need a way to re-issue lost or stolen ID. Whatever mechanism you use in this case bears the entire weight of the identity verification for the system. But it cannot use the ID because that's not present. So whatever mechanism you use for lost or stolen ID is the same means by which a country without such ID would verify identity in the exceptional circumstances of it coming into question. This has not historically proved to be a difficult problem.
 * What has proved to be a problem, time and again, is lazy bureaucrats relying on a supposedly unique identifier. In the US for example, even without any single national ID some social security numbers were mistakenly issued twice, used by fraudsters, foolishly publicised, or otherwise rendered unusable. People whose SSN is unusable must be re-allocated, a time consuming and often very frustrating process for the individual. Before the modern randomisation scheme the numbers implicitly gave away personal information not explicitly represented in them (your age and where you were born) and the numbers are in any case far too short and poorly encoded to be robust against data entry mistakes resulting in people being mistakenly declared dead or worse based on a typo.
 * A further problem is contextual abuse. If there's a national ID, who gets one exactly? For a large country there will almost always be many highly overlapping yet non-identical groups of people with a relationship to the state. If any of these relationships do not constitute enough reason to issue ID, or if the IDs issued are incompatible, this will cause havoc for those caught in some tiny slice of the Venn diagram. For example, suppose Poland [used as an example since Tweenk is evidently Polish] issues these IDs to all Polish citizens. A permanent resident is not entitled to an ID, but they have almost all of the rights of a citizen, however exercising these rights will be frustratingly difficult without the recognised ID, in practice their rights may be infringed constantly. Poland's EU status means that other EU citizens also have almost all the rights of its own citizens. They can vote, they're entitled to social security, their freedom of movement and of speech aren't allowed to be more restricted than Polish citizens, and so on. On the other hand, if the IDs are issued to the superset of all who might interact with the Polish state (e.g. maybe I could have got one when I went through the blue channel at JP II airport ?) that's subject to major abuse as those not entitled to something access it by waving the ubiquitous ID. 82.69.171.94 (talk) 22:33, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I get your point(s). For example, where I live:
 * Everyone is assigned an identity number at birth (actually, encoded birthdate + unique number).
 * Everyone is legally required to get an identity card at the age of 14. Identity cards follow the EU standard: wp:National identity cards in the European Union.
 * Resident foreigners have their special foreigner identity numbers and are also required to get identity cards and periodically renew them, which can be a bit of pain in the ass, accroding to the complaints I've heard. :)
 * Foreign tourists use their passports as an ID. You can't get inside the country without a passport, unless you are trafficked in.
 * People are semi-required to keep the authorities informed of their current place of residence, which helps with election lists.
 * Despite all of this, election fraud still happens, though it's unclear if it's as bad as the allegations.--ZooGuard (talk) 11:45, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The UK, which is a much smaller country and much more used to abuses of power - we just accept them as the way it is - tried ID cards a few years back. Boy, were they a success, so much of a success that they were quietly dropped. Of course, if, as part of the registration of births, every new citizen were to give a DNA sample and have an RFID chip implanted.... Bad Faith (talk) 11:51, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Alex Jones would get even more...interesting. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 20:56, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * "Such an ID is invariably a target of forgery" - any of the many forms of IDs acceptable as proof of voting rights are also targets of forgery. The ID is linked via a personal identification number to an electronic database, with an entry for each person established at birth. Forging an ID for serious use would involve also inserting a fraudulent entry into the database, which is rather difficult.
 * The problems with Social Security numbers result from the fact that something which was not specifically designed as a unique personal identifier is used as such anyway. If the system was designed with that purpose in mind from the start, many of the problems would not appear. --Tweenk (talk) 17:40, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Technology certainly exists for fingerprint or retina eye scans which could be used inside a voting booth after the curtain is drawn insuring each voter pulls the handle only once. But some 83 year old woman, with no criminal history, would likely object and sue claiming she should not be fingerprinted like a criminal just to exercise her democratic rights. It would take decades to resolve in the courts. nobsCorporations are people, too 18:55, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm kind of with nobs on this one. Someone would kick up a huge fuss and complain and scream about their constitutional rights being violated and try their best to kick up a huge voting scandal (while trying to keep themselves in the center of attention for as long as possible) that would take ages to untangle. Ochotonaprinceps<sup style="color:#0066DD; font-size: 0.7em; font-style: oblique">not a pokémon <font face="Courier" color="#800080" size="1">1013 points 19:41, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * On the other hand - i) Cost - Who would foot the bill for all the fancy, reliable, retina and fingerprint scanners, and pay out for data storage and access, given that elections take place for every governmental level in the US, plus posts that people in the UK wouldn't even think of voting about, and ii) As with current biometric ID, how do you take into account people who have no finger prints or retinal prints, and in the US are probably the people most least likely able to afford other forms of government accredited ID?--X-Wing-icon.png  Jabba de Chops 17:00, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Homeland Security presumably could have a big enough budget for federal elections. But elections are state and local affairs, so a low-cost exchange system could be developed that taps into the NCIC, or the FBI's nationwide criminal database which would at least prevent felons (in most states) from voting. Otherwise one would have to give up a fingerprint at time of voter registration (with exceptions made for amputees, etc.), which would not be that costly or cumbersome to states and localities. In the U.S., it's likely some state or locality would try this first, fight a few court battles and tweak the system, then other states and localities would model their programs after it. It's not likely a federal or nationwide program would come in to existence, other than the federal government making funding and incentives available to states to implement their own programs.  nobsCorporations are people, too 20:28, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

We have a plagiarist
See here. It looks like debunktionjunction.net has a contributor going by the moniker of "ZoeDKatzePhD" who has lifted a lot of RW material and posted it there under her byline. Indigo child, PIDOOMA , Dick Cheney , Thiomersal , 666 , Amnesty International , MLK's I Have a Dream speech , and Orly Taitz have all been subject to this uplifting influence. I'm sure there is more, but I got tired of looking. Sprocket J Cogswell(talk) 02:36, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the heads up. Might be something we want to look into. Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 09:18, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * How does RW's license work, I just kinda thought everything was public domain. --Revolverman (talk) 03:17, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Here you go. Тy JFBAA 03:18, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Ahh, ok fairly simple. I see where the problem is now. --Revolverman (talk) 03:20, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Note the terms of CC-BY-SA. Firstly, there is no attribution either to RW as an entity (which usually suffices for BY) nor individual authors/editors. Secondly, the blog doesn't have a CC-BY-SA license attached so it violates the share-alike (SA) clause. So yeah, technically it's a license violation. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>postate silverbrain.png 09:51, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Very clever username. Also, read the site's mission statement. Osaka Sun (talk) 03:34, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * There are numerous other stolen articles. I have politely commented on her About page, asking her to abide by the license.--[[Image:adsig.png|25px|link=User:AD|AD]]talk 10:41, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Polite? Damn it all, I just ordered in 100 flaming torches and 50 pitchforks.  Now what am I going to do with them?--X-Wing-icon.png  Jabba de Chops 11:02, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * No reply yet - comment still waiting moderation, which means it's invisible. In a few more days, I'll directly email a polite but rather sterner request.--[[Image:adsig.png|25px|link=User:AD|AD]]talk 00:11, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

I wonder if this counts as attribution: Many thanks also go out to my partners and brethren, the crew at Rational Wiki for saving us hours of research and for their incredible dedication.

Barely, in my opinion, since the on the face of the stolen pages attribution appeareth not, with all of them being under the color of the feline byline. There is also some handwaving in the direction of fair use on this page, but it might not withstand a challenge, since numerous pages appear to have been copied wholesale in near entirety. The DBJ page on Rush Limbaugh, for example, has attracted some praise for its writing style (ironically, many of those bouquets appear to come from speakers of EFL) which the "author" has taken no pains to coughdebunk.

Peripherally to this, it seems that "Katze" has a beef with Summer House detox facilities. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 11:40, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what the lawyer-readable CC license states about sufficient attribution, I assume David Gerard would be the most appropriate to ask about that. But if, as original author, you don't feel sufficient attribution has been made, you would probably have grounds to challenge it as a license violation. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>narchist silverbrain.png 11:48, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * That praise you speak of seems to be more like bot spam than actual comments. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>narchist silverbrain.png 11:50, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Aye, it does have that whiff about it. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 11:53, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * ...and yet, comment visibility implies moderator action. Kitty seems to like flattery, even from bots, and the appearance of reader activity adds a certain je ne sais quoi. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 23:09, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I notice that debunktionjunction.wordpress.com was "suspended for a violation of our Terms of Service". <font color=Blue>Генгис silverbrain.png 23:26, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
 * This post on Rachel Maddow has a lot of links to RationalWiki but the Michele Bachmann post is probably the first. He also says our partners at RationalWiki. <font color=Blue>Генгис silverbrain.png 23:38, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Oh...
Notice the cat-themed name and avatar... <font color=#CC0033>postate 11:53, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * This is weird:
 * "This blog is an english language mirror of my French blog which originates in Paris, and our servers are currently in France, where the Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés has jurisdiction."
 * Doesn't seem very believable.--Weirdstuff (talk) 12:15, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Judging by the small frequent mistakes in the french text I'm calling bullshit. 173.177.150.209 (talk) 18:13, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Also the fact that most of the articles are about US issues.--Weirdstuff (talk) 18:55, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

As much as it matters, I doubt it matters.

They also stole the copyrighted chickenhawk logo which we had permission to use, but of course, they don't. Tempest in a teapot.

Want to fight it? Register and leave links to the stuff it stole. <font color="#DD00DD" face="comic sans ms"> ħ uman  09:06, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Agree with Human here. We should create a section for people here to list violations. Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 12:44, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
 * This person claims he'll just ignore complaints unless they show some inaccuracy and the website doesn't appear to have any contact information. I'm not inclined to leave a public comment since DMCA claims aren't public business. Strange. Does anyone know who owns this site? [[file:Nuttysig.svg|95px|link=User:Nutty Roux|Nutty Roux]]100x100 anarchy symbol.svg 21:57, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Whois was not much help:

Registrant: Domains By Proxy, LLC DomainsByProxy.com 14747 N Northsight Blvd Suite 111, PMB 309 Scottsdale, Arizona 85260 United States
 * Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 00:45, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I think a dmca notice or cease and desist letter to the Domains by Proxy should be all thats required. They are essentially the sites agent for any contact Hamster (talk) 01:49, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 * It's hosted by Wordpress. It's a paying account.  Send complaints to Wordpress.  Scroll to the bottom, and you'll see "powered by Wordpress."  It's possible that they're using just the software, with an independent host, but looking at the quality of what hasn't been plagiarized from us, I'd say that this blogger is too incompetent to manage something like that.-- "Shut up, Brx." 02:35, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 * WordPress is just the software, not the host - just like we use MediaWiki. <font color=Blue>Генгис silverbrain.png 03:08, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Something odd which says the site is down. But it's not.--Weirdstuff (talk) 10:48, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I mentioned that above, it's a different domain extension and looks like the blog was originally hosted by WordPress. <font color=Blue>Генгис silverbrain.png 10:54, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 * OK. But it's linked to by the existing blog.--Weirdstuff (talk) 18:07, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

List violations you've found under this section please
Please list plagiarized material you've found at Debunktion Junction under this section so that the we can have a defined list of things to review. Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 12:44, 6 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Michele Bachmann
 * Glenn Beck
 * Fun:Glenn Beck
 * Rush Limbaugh
 * Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
 * Social_networking_websites
 * Creationism
 * Fun:Real world
 * Scientology
 * Bullshit
 * New Age
 * Existentialism
 * Søren Kierkegaard
 * Human
 * Pornography
 * Fundamentalism
 * Age of Autism
 * God
 * The American Dream
 * Fun:Eric Clapton
 * Hollywood values
 * Homosexuality
 * Education
 * List of actions prohibited by the Bible & Actions punishable by death in the Old Testament
 * Quackery
 * Webshite
 * L. Ron Hubbard
 * Con artist
 * Pwned
 * Mutually assured destruction
 * Nuclear war
 * War
 * War on drugs
 * War on Science
 * Pseudoscience
 * Woo
 * Alternative medicine
 * Flying Spaghetti Monster
 * Parody religion
 * Dog
 * Evolution
 * Skepticism
 * Wingnut
 * Sex
 * Wikipedia
 * Deepak Chopra
 * Fox News
 * Holocaust denial
 * Dick Cheney
 * Dalai Lama
 * Orly Taitz
 * Amnesty International
 * MLK's I Have a Dream speech
 * 666
 * Thiomersal
 * PIDOOMA
 * Indigo child
 * Oprah Winfrey
 * Quote mining & Popular quote mines
 * Name it and claim it
 * I got as far as Wikipedia on 26 Dec, 2011 before I realised that there is probably too much to list on the SB. It looks like someone had nothing to do over last Christmas and spent at least a week non-stop copying RW articles while adding the odd self-reference to make it look like it was original work. <font color=Blue>Генгис silverbrain.png 10:48, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Wow. Osaka Sun (talk) 00:50, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Wow is right, and here is why we must either shut this site down or get them to add links to our pages on all their above pages: We promise our editors that their work will be (mercilessly edited, etc.) credited under the CC BY SA copyright (left?) notice, which requires that anything they contribute will be credited, even by mirrors or reproductions - and also that such copies are required to have the same license.  The Board is just spinning its wheels on this, so it might be time for someone to carefully craft a letter to whoever hosts this crap.  One of those DMCA takedown things. <font color="#DD00DD" face="comic sans ms"> ħ uman  04:46, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 * A DMCA request would need to come from the Foundation and authorized officer anyway. Its only been 24 hours since it was brought up as a board issue, most of which was spent exhausting avenues to find contact info on the author. Give it a little more time. Tmtoulouse (talk) 04:59, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 * OK, so call a vote on the Board list. Or don't - you don't need to, as you are the authorized officer.  I always do my copyright violation emails on the same day I find them. We have established that there is no contact info (I looked for hours!).  Time to contact the host. <font color="#DD00DD" face="comic sans ms"> ħ uman  05:22, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Do we really need to be that anal about this? They're not using the content commercially, and their purposes in publishing it seem broadly similar to our own.  Asking them to give attribution is fair enough, but taking the legal route & trying to get the site shut down seems needlessly vindictive.  It's not like RW is free of copyright violations either.   07:10, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 * As with any legal complaint, you first say "Hey, please do X" and then you wait a little while. Even if you're 100% sure they will hire lawyers and refuse to co-operate, begin with the friendly overtures. Only start worrying about writing lawyer letters after they refuse either explicitly or by apparently ignoring you. It's not about being anal, it's about being reasonable and a reasonable person begins with a polite request and only invokes the law when that clearly hasn't worked. 82.69.171.94 (talk) 10:53, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with this. Write a couple of polite emails/comments on the website first to just explain that we aren't happy with the situation.  Talk of DMCA complaints is way premature IMO.  --DamoHi 11:21, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Front page now has attribution RWF on it. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>theist silverbrain.png 12:03, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I've posted a comment that the simple front page attribution is not acceptable. Individual posts need to be attributed to RW as there is no way of knowing what is CC-by-SA licensed and what is not. I have seen some commenters asking if they can use the content on their own blogs/website and Zoe giving them permission without any attribution to RW. <font color=Blue>Генгис silverbrain.png 13:01, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Even the front page attribution is bad. It should be both attributed and linked.  Not just attributed. --Weirdstuff (talk) 18:11, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Spam
I've not noticed this thread before - just thought I'd mention that all the front page comments are spam and would have been ripped out if WP filtered. The name (ZoeDKatzePhD) is one that was invented by Steve Eichel (read it) and referred to by S Fry on QI. Load of storm in teacup. Scream!! (talk) 08:30, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Question
Okay. Noticed yesterday, although the problem has probably existed since the upgrade. I can't click on the tags on this page, and only this page, so I can't hit things like the fossil record, add new section tag, etc. I can click on the edit buttons on each individual topic, and the tags start working once I'm in the edit window, although they aren't a lot of use there. Is this just happening to me? Does anyone know of any Firefox Add-on that has this slightly bizarre effect. Or has my mind broken under the stress and I'm just hallucinating this?-- Jabba de Chops 11:04, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Works fine for me... Have you noticed any correlation with the size of the page? I.e., if it gets longer do they links stop working? Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>postate silverbrain.png 11:14, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * There is a bit of javascript that rearranges those buttons based on screen resolution - it animates and reshuffles them, which I assume deactivates them as a by-product. You can see it if you resize the browser window or zoom in. Does that happen for you? And does it cause the links to start/stop working? Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>bomination silverbrain.png 11:16, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Resizing and zooming doesn't make any difference, the tags are still non-operational. Links in the page itself still works, and the tag for this page is still clickable on this page.  What's weird is that it's just this page, no other.  I can't tell if it's the page length.  I'll copy-sandbox this page, see if I can recreate this problem.--X-Wing-icon.png  Jabba de Chops 11:28, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * It looks like a problem with the way that the template is being called.  If I remove all the contents of the page up to  the problem still exists, but when I replace the  with what's actually in the template, the problems disappear.  I will leave this to wiser heads, mostly because I've got to dash to see my psychologist.  Or stand in a roundabout shouting, one of the two.  Later all.--X-Wing-icon.png  Jabba de Chops 11:44, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I have recently had some problems viewing RW with FF on one machine so uninstalled and reinstalled it. No luck, so I then completely cleared my cache and things went back to normal. <font color=Blue>Генгис silverbrain.png 18:50, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Are you talking about this problem? Do you have the same problem at Fun:RationalWikiWikiWiki by any chance? Peter Rapidly running out of marmite 08:33, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * That looks like the problem. Clearing the cache hasn't done anything unfortunately.  Guess I'll wait until it's fixed.  Thanks folks.--X-Wing-icon.png  Jabba de Chops 10:46, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I doubt it will fix itself. You will probably need to find a tech that isn't all "you still use monobook‽" Peter Subsisting on honey 22:14, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

The Wheels Have Fallen Off
So, for those who remember, I applied to Durham Uni to study an MSc via the Foundation School, got accepted by the Foundation School but knocked back by the Chemistry department because of a lack of recent educational experience. So I started college last year to pick up my A-level in Maths and restudy my A-level in Chemistry. Sat the AS-Exams and signed on to study the A2 part of the course this year. Unfortunately, just got a phonecall this morning saying that both the A2 Maths and Chemistry courses have been cancelled because of a lack of interest. Apparently there was only one student who signed up for either course, and that was me. So that's me utterly fucked. Not one of my local colleges is doing the A2 part of either course, the nearest college that does is a 3½ hour journey each way, which I just can't do, and distance learning is too damned expensive. I really feel like getting my [http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki:Saloon_bar#You_are_all_a_bunch_of_worthless_scumbags. bathrobe] out, going up to town and standing in the middle of the roundabout shouting   "Fuck you, Kincaid!!!"     I've got no idea who Kincaid is, but hey, why not?--  Jabba de Chops 11:09, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * That's fucking bad. But if it's any consolation, the modern AS/A2 maths and chemistry courses don't adequately prepare you for university-level chemistry anyway. We're pretty much teaching first years here on a "assume no prior knowledge" basis, and the entry requirements are staggeringly high! Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>pathetic silverbrain.png 11:35, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it was appalling how much of my old GCSE stuff was being taught in the AS part of the course. Unfortunately I'm now kind of screwed in the being able to show that I can learn department, because I really doubt that the Chem department is going to be too impressed with a qualification in nailcare, which seems to be just about the only thing being offered these days.--X-Wing-icon.png  Jabba de Chops 11:40, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The really sad thing is that a qualification in nail care is probably more useful in today's Britain than a degree in Chemistry. Bad Faith (talk) 11:45, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I'd point out how that's wrong, but I'll let sarcasm/hyperbole slide. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>d hominem silverbrain.png 14:22, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Nailcare involves in part nail varnish, and cleaning-off-thereof products (no more acetone) - which is 'applied chemistry', and see what else it can be combined with (including training by the companies themselves). 212.85.6.26 (talk) 15:34, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

'''Have you considered the |pcrid|13006763182&gclid=CP-Zje3knrICFVF0fAodpQgAlA Open university. I did a course with them a few years ago and the teaching was very good.''' You can always ask if Maths for science is right for you. How about Practical science: chemistry and analysis? If those two aren't right they'll have something else to offer. Proxima Centauri (talk) 15:50, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) This Introductory Level 1 Maths is probably to easy for you.
 * 2) One or other of these should suit you, Try contacting the OU and see what they have to offer.
 * I have thought about the OU, but, because of current disabilities, trying to work out how the funding would work and how that might affect future funding if I could then get on the MSc course is a nightmare. The OU only does HE courses, which is a completely different funding stream compared to GCSEs and A-levels, and, because it's distance learning, I almost certain that I wouldn't qualify for the grants that I would get if I was doing an HE course full-time on campus.  On top of that, one of the advantages of doing either A-levels or HE on a campus means I've got full access to the disabled facilities and services there, which I just don't have access to at home.  However, even as I'm writing this, my would have been maths tutor has just phoned and said that the college is thinking about running an Access to Maths and Computing course which will include the AS-Maths syllabus as a part of it, but if the course does get going he's going to have a look at me studying the A2 maths part independently, which could be useful.  So back to the college tomorrow.--X-Wing-icon.png  Jabba de Chops 17:25, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Bugger. Sorry, so thrown by trying to work out what's meant to be happening tomorrow I completely forget to say thanks for the info.  Thanks.--X-Wing-icon.png  Jabba de Chops 18:15, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Are you entitles to disability benefits? Are you getting what you're entitled to?  The OU may be able to advise you on funding.  If your tutor wants to talk to you tomorrow dealing with what your tutor suggests first looks like a good idea. Proxima Centauri (talk) 19:14, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I'm on disability benefits and that's where a lot of the problem comes from. Essentially I'm allowed funding for one HE qualification, so if I complete an OU course, even a one year one and then try to switch to Durham, then there's every possibility that the DWP will turn round and say 'well, that's your qualification, we won't fund you to do the MSc'.  What's making it even more difficult is that like every other disabled person on benefits I've got no idea what the rules are going to be for either the benefits or funding for education in a year's time, simply because things are being changed almost monthly now.  I knew that being disabled under a Tory government wouldn't be a whole heap of fun, but right now we are getting a real kicking, and it's getting worse.  The original aim was to reduce the disability benefit budget by 20%, and now it's been announced that another £10bn is to be cut.  Bear in mind that's out of a budget that sees a 0.5% fraud rate so no matter how you do the sums, people who meet the qualifications to receive disability benefits will end up having them taken off of them, because it will be the only way to meet reduction targets.--X-Wing-icon.png  Jabba de Chops 20:20, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Would the OU accept you for the chemistry? I've been tripping over OU students all summer here and from what I hear the course is actually really good. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>d hominem silverbrain.png 20:49, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The Arthritis Foundation may be able to help and they certainly know where you can get advice. I guess you already know them. Proxima Centauri (talk) 09:09, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, good news, I think. The course being offered was an Access to Higher Education course, in this case Maths & Computing. The maths is pretty much everything I did last year, but with the Mech module added, and the computing, well it isn't computing, it's IT, and stuff I've been doing since I was 7, so the tutors have said that they'll throw in as much of the A2 maths components into the course as modules for me to take so I can add it to the AS modules. I'm not entirely sure how it's going to work out, but the course is 14 hours a week, so hopefully should be a) fairly comprehensive, and b) repeating so much of what I already know that the main part of the course should be a piece of cake and I can concentrate on the maths elements that I haven't done before.-- Jabba de Chops 16:50, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The wheels have been fitted back on. I'm pleased things came right for you, still that's nothing to do with our government.  Many people in the Public Sector are better than our government. Proxima Centauri (talk) 07:19, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

School starts, how was it?
Hello, just wondering, how was your first day at school after summer break? RandonGeneration (talk) 18:05, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Considering mine was.. 15 days ago, overall ok. Luckily the class i have after that 5 hour gap is... entertaining and not that thought provoking. -- Mikal Harass  Follow 18:26, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Mmmmble, scrmble, fmble. Feckin' college cancelling my courses 6 days before I'm due to start. *Shakes fist at sky*. "Fuck you, Kincaid!!!"  Murmble, furble, scurmble. Get off my lawn you damn kids!!. Mumble, grumble, scrumble. --X-Wing-icon.png  Jabba de Chops 23:05, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Fall quarter for me doesn't even start until the 27th. <font color=00BB77 face="Tempus Sans ITC"> Sam   Tally-ho!  02:36, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Just how long are your classes and when does it end for you? -- Mikal Harass  Follow 02:52, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Each quarter's 10 weeks long (not sure if that includes finals week or not). Spring quarter finals end in mid-June. <font color=00BB77 face="Tempus Sans ITC"> Sam   Tally-ho!  02:57, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * ahh... Aug 20, with the first week of december being finals, jan 10thish, with finals week being the first week of may-- Mikal Harass  Follow 03:00, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Psh, semester systems... <font color=00BB77 face="Tempus Sans ITC"> Sam   Tally-ho!  03:06, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * IT'S AWESOMEEEEEE! If you ignore the after-effects of Isaac and that our academic calender for this semester is a tad bit messed up...yeah. I like my classes this semester. --Dumpling (talk) 05:09, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Some of us have been at school since February (exams next week! :O ). Peter Rapidly running out of marmite 08:43, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Doesn't kick off here until October, and quite late this year. Gawd I'm going to be bored for a few weeks. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>moral silverbrain.png 20:51, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * My first week back at school has been very nice, thanks for asking. My first week back to teaching in the afternoons and evenings (instead of in the mornings like I did in July and August) at my private language school, that is.--Spud (talk) 15:18, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

School stopped? I know what you mean, but school never stops. Life is non-stop school, as long as you stay enrolled. <font color="#DD00DD" face="comic sans ms"> ħ uman  04:57, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

It just occurred to me
...Which way is "up" in the universe? I suppose on a scale that large, direction doesn't really matter. Living a little planet, you need to know which way is North, or up, but in all creation, there's no north, and everything is up. Does anyone good at astronomy have a more precise understanding of stellar directions? --TheLateGatsby (talk) 02:38, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't think there is an "up" in space unless you're in the gravitational field of a planet or something like that. That's my impression anyway, it could be some bullshit meme I just picked up somewhere. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 02:49, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Welcome to trying to understand three dimensions while effectively living in two. -- Mikal Harass  Follow 02:55, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * There is no objective up or down in the universe (or even the galaxy or solar system); there's nothing you can really use to determine which direction could be up. The reason you see the solar system always presented in the same direction (with the Earth's North Pole pointing "up") is because we arbitrarily choose our Earthly north-south directions as "up" and "down." Presenting the solar system "upside-down" or sideways from how we're used to seeing it is just as correct. <font color=00BB77 face="Tempus Sans ITC"> Sam   Tally-ho!  03:05, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I think most say there is no directionality in the Universe. I was reading a paper last year (sorry no link) in which it said there may indeed be some bias in the universe. I seem to remember it was talking about spin and therefore a spin axis must exist. Hamster (talk) 03:15, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Nor is there "up" on the Earth. there was a push in the 80's to print "south up" globes, because it has been shown that "north up" globes are culturally biased.  course, really, we are all probably sideways. --[[Image:green mowse.png|25px]]<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot RIP original "muahahahah".  1...2....3...4...muahahahahah  03:55, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes! Antipodean rights! Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 04:00, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't know which way is up, but the enemy's gate is down. rpeh •T•C•E• 04:40, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Alright, let's say, as a given, that there is no directionality to space but suppose we marked Earth's "place" with some sort of buoy that marked North and can get it to actually stay where it was placed. In a year where would we be in relation to that buoy and what would have been our path? We can dispense with the rotational aspect of the planet (we know that that would look like mmmmm as we went from day to day) but would we see some sort of drunken corkscrewing going on? Matzosphere (talk) 08:50, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Depends on your reference frame. Yes, there will be some "corkscrewing" due to the Earth's orbit around the sun. I've seen periodically people who have noticed this and start saying things like "Science lies! The Earth is not orbiting the Sun, it's moving on a spiral!" (Technically, it's called a helix.) I'm not sure what is the Sun's directional vector relative to the plane of the Earth's orbit, though.--ZooGuard (talk) 10:28, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * In point of fact there is an "up" on the earth but it's relative to you. It's a line drawn from the centre of the earth through your body and towards the sky. "Down" is the other direction. Of course this is a different kind of "up" to the one witch refers to the arbitrary orientation of maps, and it's equally useless if we are talking about an effectively infinite universe. Having said that, one does hear occasional reference to "galactic north" where the orientation of the milky way is assumed from the orientation of the pane of the Earth's orbit. But that still doesn't mean that the universe has a "north" or "up".--Weirdstuff (talk) 10:52, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Sideways, you say? - Anyway, this is related a bit to the centre of the universe. Without a boundary there's no fixed reference frame. In fact, the lack of a reference frame is really important in physics as theories need to be frame-independent to truly explain everything, which we've known ever since the aether was discounted - even still, the aether itself would have to be frame-independent. The fact that the universe is boundless plays havoc with the entire concept of non-arbitrary co-ordinate systems. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>d hominem silverbrain.png 10:54, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Exactly Armondikov. Matz: A "buoy" works in the sea because its location is fixed relative to something, often a point on the seabed. If you fix your "space buoy" then your results will depend on what you fixed the buoy to. This is your "frame of reference" and is arbitrary. Pick the Earth itself and it just sits there. Pick the Sun and Earth orbits in a slightly rough and ready ellipsoid. Pick a spaceship hurrying off to Betelgeuse, and the Earth recedes into the distance. 82.69.171.94 (talk) 11:19, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Though when it comes to spaceships speeding away from Earth, acceleration and deceleration do change things somewhat. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>d hominem silverbrain.png 11:47, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Considering I play Warhammer 40,000, I should already know this.... --TheLateGatsby (talk) 11:35, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * F**king Emperor, thinks he's the centre of the bloody universe... Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>d hominem silverbrain.png 11:47, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, there is something pretty constant in the universe. That would be c. Intuitively I feel that someone ought to be able to define a system where c is basically, the, you know "0" thing, and everyone else is defined in terms of delta-v in relationship to it (and each other) or something, no matter how much space-twisting you have to do. If this makes any sense, or if you are able to visualise this, good luck. Reading things like this might also help. Or not: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_of_simultaneity Sen (talk) 18:25, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

South Up Globes and Maps
Picking up on WfG's comment on the 80's push for South Up globes, I think the problem here is we all like to think that we're the centre of the universe - well, I'm certainly the centre of mine - and with world culture being dominated by "the West" (how can you have "the west" on a globe?) the northern hemisphere will always be on top. Indeed, as a Brit, I find US based world maps strange because they don't put the Greenwich meridian in the centre.

But the problem goes far deeper than that. Because our perception of the earth comes from North-up Mercator projections we have very distorted ideas of the relative size of land masses. Quickly, without thinking about it, how many times does the US fit into Africa? How about Greenland?

So, there's a viscous circle. We put ourselves at the centre of the map because that's what feels right but that reinforces the belief that we're the centre of the map. Up, it's north, of course it is. My map says so. Bad Faith (talk) 12:52, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I first learned about South Up maps on West Wing, of all places. I didn't believe it was a thing, till I wikipedia'd it back then.  I recently saw a meme going around, showing canada, US, and all of europe spliced up and shoved into africa.  Even knowing it was bigger, i don't think i understood just how much bigger! --[[Image:green mowse.png|25px]]<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot RIP original "muahahahah".  1...2....3...4...muahahahahah  14:21, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I gotta say, US-centered mercator projections make even very minor map enthusiasts like me want to vomit. DickTurpis (talk) 14:25, 5 September 2012 (UTC)


 * The orientation doesn't affect land sizes. The Mercator projection is symmetrical, so even in a "south-up" map landmasses near the poles will be distorted. If you want to compare dicks sizes, you need an equal-area projection, like the one to the right. The Mercator projection is so widespread because it's conformal, i.e. it preserves angles, which is useful in navigation. See wp:Map projection for a lot more.--ZooGuard (talk) 15:21, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * No, the orientation doesn't affect land sizes except that, well, it sort of does. We tend to see things at the top as more important and they become perceived as bigger. With the US/Africa thing, despite the fact that the distortion because the US is generally farther from the equator than Africa is pretty minor, the way that the US is on the top means that it doesn't look like slightly less than a third the size. Seriously, try turning the map upside down - as they did on The West Wing, yes, WfG, I saw The Big Cheese episode as well, and you'll find your perception changes dramatically. Or, maybe you won't. But it did for me. Bad Faith (talk) 15:42, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Incidentally, try this. Blank-map-world-south-up.png Faith (talk) 15:47, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I always find the assertion that the Mercator projection make the northern hemisphere bigger, and therefore more important rather odd because it equally distorts the southern hemisphere equally. It's just that we have considerably more landmass in the northern region where the scale distortion happens than the southern. More landmass in temperate zones, more population, more chance of it being the "dominant" group. Go figure. Anyway, the one true projection as far as I'm concerned. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>bomination silverbrain.png 21:05, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I think that you'll find that the criticisms of the Mercator projection are more concerned with representations of equatorial regions (and specifically Africa) compared to northern Europe. That's why the Peters (equal area) Projection was championed by the likes of New Internationalist. <font color=Blue>Генгис silverbrain.png 21:45, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * This one's pretty good, just the wrong way up. --Horace (talk) 22:05, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I've got an Australian map which has the north at the bottom and the south at the top. I ordered it from Amazon--Spud (talk) 15:24, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

I love maps and globes and also where this thread went, the best of RW. The general map usually used of Earth is crap, it puts Europe in the middle and makes Asia look weird. There's a map out there that centers the Pacific and uses the lack of land in the Atlantic as a convenient "cutting point". I remember when my sister and BiL were going to fly to China, over the North Pole, of course, using a piece of string, a globe, and a flashlight to figure out if they would see the Sun set on their left, or just almost set and then rise. I want to take that flight after a long night of sleep so I can watch it... <font color="#DD00DD" face="comic sans ms"> ħ uman  05:04, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Also a big fan of maps, and I agree the pacific centred map is by far the most attractive. It's aesthetically well balanced, and makes a lot more sense than "chop Oceania in two" Eurocentric arrangement. Plus, I like having the Pacific in the centre as I can day-dream about island hopping my way from Noumea to Mangareva, with a bucket load of time to learn some Taetae ni Kiribati and Tahitian... One day, I promise myself! --Llegar a las estrellas¿Dígame? 00:26, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

The Voyager 1 spacecraft.....
.....Is nearing the 35th anniversary of its launch. To celebrate, the spacecraft has announced its intent to leave the solar system. Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 10:09, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Call me a dreamer, but I believe before I die, I will see us chasing after our space equivalent of a 72 chevelle with a bad 8-track jammed in the dash. --Revolverman (talk) 10:17, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Better that then letting it become assimilated by the Borg. -- Seth Peck (talk) 16:21, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Also, one of the best Twitter feeds Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>postate silverbrain.png 10:44, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * For the science geeks, what does "leave teh solar system" mean? is it out beyond just pluto?  or the ort belts or what?.--[[Image:green mowse.png|25px]]<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot RIP original "muahahahah".  1...2....3...4...muahahahahah  14:22, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The Heliopause. Тy JFBAA 14:27, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Don't confuse it with the Menopause. Apparently that's an entirely different thing.--X-Wing-icon.png  Jabba de Chops 15:24, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I am a mid 40's female. you may trust those will never be confused. ;-)  So we are beyond the "kyper belt" which is all the pluto like critters, but the ort cloud is way far away?  this is so amazing.  a 35 year old ship still sending us info.  I assume that like the Mars rovers, NASA planned that it would be dead after 10 or so years?  love science, even as a "science lite" type. [[Image:green mowse.png|25px]]<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot RIP original "muahahahah".  1...2....3...4...muahahahahah  16:17, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * For those old enough: "Send more Chuck Berry!" That is all. Matzosphere (talk)
 * Like the new Mars rover the Voyager craft are powered by a radio-thermal generator. ie You put something radioactive in a box, it gets hot and you use the heat to make electricity. This is a messy/ polluting technology, so we rarely use it on Earth (but the Russians didn't give a fuck, so be careful of mysterious metal objects if hiking in Siberia). Over time as the radioactive material decays the RTG produces less power, and this has resulted in Voyager progressively shutting down its least important systems. Eventually the RTG power output will be too little for even essential systems and it will become completely inactive like a watch that hasn't been wound up for too long. NASA can probably tell you when they expect that to happen. 82.69.171.94 (talk) 17:32, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * RTGs are not particularly polluting or messy, since the radioactive material (plutonium-238 oxide) is insoluble in water and sealed in a device with no moving parts; they're just far more expensive than other sources. Plutonium-238 for just one generator can cost several million $. Russians used minimally shielded generators with strontium-90 (not a good idea). --Tweenk (talk) 20:03, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Anyway, what would the other options for voyager have been? As you move away from the sun solar wouldn't work and I guess that clockwork would only take you so far.--Weirdstuff (talk) 20:39, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Mice!? <font color=Blue>Генгис silverbrain.png 21:48, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Ah! White mice of course! (Mildly obscure hitch-hikers reference.)--Weirdstuff (talk) 12:30, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The only other option that could work is a nuclear reactor. This was actually used by the old Soviet US-A (aka RORSAT) military satellites, and there were some tests done by the U.S. as well as part of the Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power program. However, a reactor necessarily has some moving parts and would be far more likely to fail early, and moreover experience with space-based nuclear reactors is limited. For deep space missions, RTGs are the best choice, so their price is worth paying. --Tweenk (talk) 00:19, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Voyager I (and Voyager II) is currently in the Heliosheath, which is a region some 80 to 100 AU beyond the sun. It is a region where the solar wind is slower than subsonic speed dueto its interaction with, and pressure from, the interstellar medium.  It is believed that the craft will reach the outer boundary of this bubble of space, called the heliopause, within a year or two.  The heliopause is the point where solar winds from our sun are stopped by the interstellar medium; making it a good marker for the boundary of the solar system so once the crafts past this, they will be in true interstellar space.--BMcP - Just an astronomy guy 12:19, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Don't forget the missing bow shock! Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>sshole silverbrain.png 15:54, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Mmmm, an interesting koan - can you forget something that never was? Answer- You can with enough intoxicants.--X-Wing-icon.png  Jabba de Chops 16:54, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
 * REading a lot as i go. So BMcP, will the cross over into interstellar space tells us anything about the existence of the Ort cloud?  Apparently, it's still theoretical?  I ask not only out of curiosity, but cause i see fundies saying that there is no ort cloud, in some attempt to keep the universe about 6000 years.[[Image:green mowse.png|25px]]<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot RIP original "muahahahah".  1...2....3...4...muahahahahah  17:05, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The absence of an oort cloud hardly seems sufficient to argue a case for YEC. -- Seth Peck (talk) 17:13, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Nope, nothing about the Oort cloud. In the same way you can pass through the Main (asteroid) Belt between Mars and Jupiter without ever coming closer to an asteroid. Space is mostly nothing with some detritus sprinkled on top. And like the Kuiper belt, the Oort cloud is named after a Dutchman.--ZooGuard (talk) 18:30, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The Oort Cloud, if it exists, is thought to start some 2,000 AU from the Sun, far beyond the Kulper Belt, the Scattered Disk, and even the Heliopause. Voyager I is only some 120 AU out, so by the time it reaches where the Oort Cloud is to begin, its instruments would have long ago stopped working.--BMcP - Just an astronomy guy 02:28, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 * For me the most amazing thing is that the probe can still maneuver and reorient itself. --Tweenk (talk) 00:19, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Wiki-walking from the Oort Cloud sent me here. We can actually get something analogous to a "tide" with comets. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>moral silverbrain.png 13:37, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I gotta say (again) it's nice to see this place looking and sounding like it used to. Smart people trying to make themselves smarter and better informed! Great work, folks. <font color="#DD00DD" face="comic sans ms"> ħ uman  05:08, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Can anyone here read Arabic?
Just wondering what this review on one of my apps says. I'm guessing it's not positive, considering they left a 1 star review:



Google translate is no help:

"Nano love Ro; Nano love Ro."

? <font color="#777777">Crundy <font color="#00F0A20">Talk nerdy to me 10:47, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Can't read Arabic, but there are other automated translators which tend to be more reliable than Google when dealing with non-European languages. If you can copy-paste the Arabic as text instead of an image, it might help to try some.  12:10, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Who's the bloke currently writing Arabic articles? Sophie  Wilder  13:24, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * My Arabic is very rusty, but I don't think this will be machine translatable. The middle word is clear enough: "I love you". The first and third words are not proper Arabic words - they could well be proper nouns, as Google seems to think, or transliterations of foreign words, or slang terms that don't occur in my Arabic-English dictionary (and don't follow Modern Standard Arabic grammar rules). The phrase itself doesn't seem to follow normal Arabic grammar rules - it is likely idiomatic, or possibly nonsense. The third "word" (Google Translate's "Ro") isn't "Ro". It is either "roro" (or "rooroo"), or a one syllable word repeated ("Ro" or "Roo"), or the letter sequence ra waw ra waw (r u r u). Transliterating Arabic to English is difficult, because they both have sounds the other lacks, and written Arabic omits most nouns (native speakers can normally fill them in unconsciously from context). If "Nano" and "Ro Ro" are transliterations, they may well be English (or another language) words or names with different vowellings. My best guess at a translation would be "Nano, I love you, Ro Ro." Or maybe ra waw ra waw is the Arabic equivalent of x o x o? "Nano, I love you, hugs and kisses"? 209.188.44.97 (talk) 13:42, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Don't you mean vowels, not nouns? <font color=Blue>Генгис silverbrain.png 16:49, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * D'oh! Yes. Written Arabic omits most vowels. I don't know why I wrote "nouns" there.209.188.44.97 (talk) 22:54, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Bizarre. I do get a lot of weird (and stupid) comments, but if that is a general translation then this one takes the cake. Cheers! <font color="#777777">Crundy <font color="#00F0A20">Talk nerdy to me 15:59, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Perhaps he is saying something like "I'm not loving it"? :P Sen (talk) 00:25, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Or possibly "Like! FTW! LOL!" 00:40, 6 September 2012 (UTC)