RationalWiki:Saloon bar/Archive80

Fall Classic 2010
'''THE GIANTS WIN THE SERIES! THE GIANTS WIN THE SERIES!''' --AmazingTechnicolorCheeseWedge (talk) 02:55, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Impossible. How can a bunch of homos beat a team of real men? I smell liberal deceit. DickTurpis (talk) 02:59, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * There hasn't been a Fall classic since This Nation's Saving Grace. Totnesmartin (talk) 08:28, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

If there ever was a WIGO:Media...
this would have to be there. 04:47, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Is this an NBC station? --AmazingTechnicolorCheeseWedge (talk) 05:13, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Seems like the floor manager must have been too busy jacking off to pay attention. Everything just cascaded down from that opening blooper. Although that doesn't explain the clusterfuck camera work on the outside broadcast. I'd say it was one of those "deliberate" things where they compile a piece of footage to show things going wrong (I saw something similar while doing media training) but it's just not over-the-top enough for that. 05:40, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I would add this story, which ran right in the middle of the front page of a local newspaper. Hint: The headline is "Waiting in heaven: Rochester family loses uncle; newborn expected to follow on Christmas". The "newborn" in question is diagnosed with anencephaly. 12:49, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Inbox insanity
I'm in a few paranormal-related yahoo groups and I get some weird stuff sometimes, but I can't make head nor tail of this: ''Started with 3 and now 13 were talking Aliens, making these out of foam out of a can. Sure you still have to make a skeleton. For 4 years volcano island, and 3 years aliens , rick wants to go fishing till the 1st of jan. and decide what do we do with this.Any suggestions ? 10-31-10 Great showing, 60 kids is what my brother said, i just make the stuff .Don't need to be present,but I will say this next year this will end here ,where it shoulded of ended in the 1st place ,alienvolcanomodels'' Can anyone help? Totnesmartin (talk) 08:31, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * What is this? I don't even. 10:11, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Looks like robot-generated text. 12:51, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Gene Ray? TyrannisAn Iron, but caring, fist 15:10, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * There are a lot of nonsensical emails flying about at the moment. Apparently they're just bots trying to verify email addresses. 02:27, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Questions
When did Cyanide & Happiness go animated? And how much awesomeness have I missed? Am I about to lose several days of my life in catching up? -- PsyGremlin  14:06, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Let me give you some starters - Waiting for the Bus, Hungertube, The Barbershop Quartet Performs Surgery, and I Love Noodles 15:40, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, I suppose someone who thinks rickrolling is still funny would use Java. 16:18, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Making fun of people
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLHJQao8SAU and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xpAhFhrYjw --AmazingTechnicolorCheeseWedge (talk) 16:37, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * [[image:yawn.gif]] From here on out I'm gonna boycott YouTube links pasted on this page except where a good reason to click on them is presented.  20:11, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

...and suddenly I am afraid of the Tea Party
This is obvious anti-Tea Party quote mining, but scary nonetheless. 01:45, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * A modern bullet proof vest is comfortable, and will stop most handguns, shotguns, and rifles at a distance. If they get up close, you are out of luck. Most AP weapons are either to big to conceal, or rather expensive. I doubt most tea partiers can afford guns from A-Square or H&H of London, so you should be safe in your house, provided you have LEXAN windows, or don't go near them. Put a 3/4" thick steel plate in your door. A dead bolt won't cut it. Use a bar lock than braces in the floor, as well as a deadbolt. Yeah, I used to hang out with some survivalists, why do you ask? TyrannisAn Iron, but caring, fist 01:59, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, the US seems to be heading in the direction where those are the people who will rule it and decide its future. So I for one would like to welcome our new Chinese overlords and would like to offer my services in rounding up dissident individuals. 03:17, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I seriously doubt that. The Dems may suffer on Tuesday but that doesn't mean the Tea Party is going to control Congress. 12:00, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * From what I have seen of the TP it is largely focussed as a negative force rather than emphasising positives so it is filled with hate and bitterness rather than hope and optimism. And that is always going to appear unpleasant. 10:32, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The stupid can be found wherever you want to look for it. Ajkgordon (talk) 07:58, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't see why, just run off somewhere where their rascal scooters can't follow. At least the ones out here have trouble getting in and out of the grocery store under their own power to get more Cheeto's

Pretty soon the lunatics will turn on each other in a frenzy of rooting out the "heretics" in the group to obtain "purity". It has already started with people pointing fingers at the fringe for ruining the chance to control the senate. It would be interesting at least to see how that plays out. Subsound

Nephilim free $300 an hour
NephilimFree, while insisting upon his basic misunderstandings of physics, revealed a little more than he wanted. Turns out that everyone's favorite creationist has a thing for escorts. God help those poor girls... Nephy "accidentally" deleted the video and reposted a copy without his porn links. Too bad someone was watching. Occasionaluse (talk) 13:42, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Ha! Ha! Wonderful. Yet another fundie shown to have feet of clay. What next? Andy caught in a gimp suit? urg - pass the brain bleach. -- PsyGremlin  14:04, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I know one or two rent boys (as friends, not as a client I hasten to add) and met some of the people who procure their services. People who use escorts, rent boys etc all seem to be thoroughly disgusting people. They seem to regard everyone, not just escorts, in pure monetary value. I know nothing of this NephilimFree character, but I bet he is a prick.--AMassiveGay (talk) 14:07, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I thought that he was claiming poverty at one point? 14:10, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Will he pull a Swaggert? TyrannisAn Iron, but caring, fist 14:16, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Not a "prick" as such. More a bit of a moron. Thunderf00t has repeatedly stated that the laws of physics do not allow for what he says, and did actually demonstrate it on video with water bottles and a toilet. Neph responds to this by stating the same point repeatedly. It's getting boring now, Thunderf00t is not going to "debate" him because he's not worth debating. As Dara O'Briain pointed out "my arse, a qualified dentist doesn't debate some idiot who removes his own teeth with a piece of string and a door". As for the porn and escorts, I don't particularly care, he's human, he'll do that occasionally. 18:34, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Also, anyone else think he might look a little like Walter White from Breaking Bad? 18:35, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * It's just refreshing to find out, to their own chagrin, that fundies, no matter how loony, are human too. Occasionaluse (talk) 18:59, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I couldn't tell from the snippets of the argument, so what was this principle of physics they were arguing about? I'm pretty sure Neph was actually right about some of what he was saying, so I'm pretty sure that's not what Thunderf00t was contradicting him on. Anyone who's ever covered most of the nozzle of a hose with your thumb will know this gets the water to spray further; I'd like to think no one's denying that. Is Neph trying to say that regardless of the energy going in a small enough hole will allow water to shoot a nearly infinite distance? DickTurpis (talk) 19:40, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * NephilimFree fails to understand that the system he is describing is under a constant pressure, therefore nozzle size wouldn't have an effect on the height of the water (barring various frictions). When you put your thumb over a hose, the pressure builds up behind it, but that's not what happens in NephilimFree's scenario because you only have the weight of the earth affecting pressure, and it's effect would be nearly constant. Occasionaluse (talk) 20:32, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Check out this applet: http://home.earthlink.net/~mmc1919/venturi.html. The system has a constant supply of pressure, which is what we'd expect to find in the model NephilimFree describes. Make the right side completely open, representing the end of the nozzle. Do whatever you want to the rest of the model and see if you can make the resulting velocity change. EDIT: I guess it'd be easier just to try and make the flow rate change. Occasionaluse (talk) 20:43, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I guess part of the problem is I really can't make heads or tails of what Neph is saying at all. He thinks the Earth was filled with water at one point, and then the crust shrunk or something, forcing the water into space? Is that it? It's so preposterous I don't even know where to begin. How did he come up with this idea, let alone think he has even the slightest indication that there is any evidence for it whatsoever? Then again, when you reach Ken levels of stupidity all bets are off. DickTurpis (talk) 20:57, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * what, exactly, are they arguing about, for the benefit of people who can't be arsed wading through youtube talking head pieces? Totnesmartin (talk) 20:59, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * @Dick & Martin, Neph is just a rather dumb regurgitator of Cretinist nonsense. What he is trying to put across is hydroplate "theory", the YEC explanation of where all the water came from for Noah's flood. Terry Chuckarse writes about it in greater clarity but no less idiocy on his Examiner blog. The Crets regard it as their grand theory-of-everything to describe continental drift, the flood, the massive layers of limestone, water and craters on the Moon (and Mars), icy comets and whatever else they can tuck in. 10:24, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Thunderf00t offers a great explanation of it, but you have to dig through his recent Islam-hyperdrama to get to it. Basically, it's conservation of momentum. I'll paraphrase and see if I can dig it out. Imagine a section of crust dropping onto water. This produces a certain amount of downward force. This can be calculated (essentially, the weight of a segment multiplied by how far it drops) and this is the amount of force we have to play with. Energy has to be conserved, so assuming a perfect and frictionless system, the water below this crust will shoot up in response. You can try to envision this at home with a pair of stackable tumblers; fill one with some water and push the other one into it - the water will then spurt up the sides as you displace water. We can calculate the downward force as we know gravity and we know how much rock weighs and this IS NOT enough force to move water from the Earth to the moon, it just isn't. Neph claims that if the water squeezes through a tighter hole, but this cannot work because it would violate conservation of momentum. Nozzle size and pressure don't matter, the upward force cannot exceed the downward force. 21:12, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The illustrated version is here starting about half way through after a couple of minutes of Conservapedia related introduction. (one of the first vids on the subject is here) 21:19, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * And dprjones summarises the escort thing for anyone else who is lost on that. 21:32, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Salt
Enlighten me. As far as I know, salt is sodium chloride, and sodium chloride has one specific molecular structure. So what is "sea salt", and how does it differ from "normal" salt? Why are there so many different brands of salt in the supermarket, and why are some 'higher quality' than others? Do some salts taste better than others? Is it all just one big myth perpetuated by advertising or are some salts actually different from other salts? It's doing my head in ONE / TALK 10:38, 2 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm pretty sure "gourmet" salts are not iodized, at least in most cases. I have no idea if that makes a difference in taste, though. And there is a difference in the size of the crystals, which at least is important if you're doing something like making pretzels where you want obvious big chunks of salt.


 * As per wikipedia, sea salt has a different mineral content (i.e. the stuff beyond NaCl) and that does make a diffence in taste. MDB (talk) 10:43, 2 November 2010 (UTC)


 * To say that NaCl has a "molecular structure" isn't quite right. It's certainly not a molecule as you'd recognise it in organic chemistry like toluene or methamphetamine. It's a repeating cubic lattice that alternates between Na+ ions and Cl- ions - it's these that break up when it dissolves in water so you have these floating in water freely. However, like most repeating structures, crystals have flaws and other atoms can worm their way in to spots that were previously reserved for either Na+ or Cl-. Potassium ions (K+) are the obvious example, and potassium chloride (KCl) is the main component of "Lo Salt", that is, low sodium salt that's supposedly healthier but tastes foul. So your different "flavours" of salt will be due to these impurities, if they're even large enough to be noticeable. What you get from slow evapouration of sea water will be different to the stuff you get mined from underground. But mostly, the difference as far as shops are concerned are 1) can we give it a fancier and more natural sounding name to market it to health-food freaks, and 2) is it shiny and pretty so we can sell it at a higher mark-up. The overall difference may just be the method of production, which is apparently important even when the product is the same. 11:13, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * (EC) Salt, in common parlance, is sodium chloride and most table salt is derived from rock salt either by brine extraction or mining. It is refined for culinary use to remove impurities and this produces almost pure sodium chloride. To produce a free-flowing salt for daily use some dessicant is added to prevent caking and a small amount of sodium or potassium iodide as a public health measure to provide necessary trace iodine. Salt without additives is available for pickling and preserving. Sea-salt is obtained by evaporating sea-water in shallow lagoons and is therefore a mixture of dissolved salts, mainly NaCl but also other trace minerals which will vary globally depending on local water composition; salinity is not constant around the globe and river water contributes different minerals. Sea-salt is claimed to have different tastes like some mineral waters do, but as it is often sold in a much coarser form than table salt it can also provide texture. If you're just adding it to disposable cooking water then I would say table salt is perfectly adequate. Table salt is useless if you want to bake something in a salt crust which some fish recipes call for. 11:38, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Tbh, if you're just seasoning a dish then you won't notice the difference in taste. If you're sprinking a little around the edge of the plate then a flaked sea salt like Maldon Salt will make a big difference (esp if you use their smoked sea salt flakes). 11:45, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm craving salt now... 11:49, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Sea salt has things that also happen to be in the sea. other salts, seaweed, oil slicks, brown-eyed mullets... Totnesmartin (talk) 12:27, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, a salt is a more generic term for any compound formed in the reaction of an acid and a base (sodium carbonate, sodium bicarbonate, blah, blah), although Genghis's desription is quite good above. Pure sodium chloride is really expensive.  sterile 23:01, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah true. Potassium Cynaide is a salt, but you wouldn't put that on your chips. Mmm, almondy chips. 10:56, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I think everyone knows we're talking sodium chloride, which is known as salt and is its actual name. The use of the term for generic ionic compounds is very rarely used. 12:54, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I beg to differ. Epsom Salts (Mg-something)?  Smelling salts (even a salt?), saltpeter... other ionic compounds are well known.  Sure, when the word "salt" is used mostly it's referring to table salt, but there are many, many common uses that aren't NaCl.  13:22, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm just saying that I've been working in an inorganic lab for three years and never really heard anyone use the term "salt" except for with common table salt. Yes, that's the definition, but it's hardly used that much. 18:46, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

An open invitation
As some of you know, I am trading in my rifle for a laptop and a Government Travel Card. I go to my military contracting school in February.

That being said, I am leaving the Commonwealth of Kentucky (the first of many who will flee to avoid the embarrassment of Rand Paul in the months and years to come, I presume) and will thusly lose my prestigious proximity to the Creation Science Museum. I have never been there but the threat of missed lulz looms on the horizon. I've tried to get my brothers to come down from Michigan, but they always find a way to worm out and this type of thing just can't be done solo.

I would like to extend an invitation to any and all takers to join me in an ad hoc adventure deep into fundie territory, probably in early December or so. Who's with me? The Foxhole Atheist (talk) 14:11, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd really like to do this trip but my schedule is screwy in the beginning of December. When's your last day in Ky? [[file:Nuttysexpistols.png|60px|link=User:Nutty Roux|Nutty Roux]][[file:Nuttytalk.png|35px|link=User_talk:Nutty_Roux|never mind]] 14:27, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Like I said, the school I am attending starts in February, so I will be at Fort Knox through the end of January, but the end of the month will be filled with post-clearing procedures. I'm open to just about anything, so I guess we could build a consensus (if other people want to go) and work from there. The Foxhole Atheist (talk) 14:37, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I would suggest that you could find no better Cretin Musim companion than the Nutty One, if you can find a schedule that works for both of you. 00:08, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

The Onion
Nonvoter Knew It Would Turn Out This Way. Once again, the Onion hits the mark. At the usual "I knew the result so I didn't vote" mob. -- PsyGremlin  17:46, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Feeling Rough - Redux


Although to be fair redux possibly isn't a word you want next to the word ill. Still, DLA forms are now done and about to be posted, but the chest infection is refusing to shift. Bummer. Still, when it does I've got this >

to look forward too. Yippee.-- 22:42, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

It's Election Day in the States
And things aren't looking good if you're a bleeding heart liberal.

Well, I've decided to take a different viewpoint.

I, for one, welcome our new Tea Party overlords, and would like to remind them that a skilled software engineer will be useful in creating the software systems they use to monitor dissenters who oppose the Glorious Conservative Agenda. Especially if such an engineer is a regular participant at a site that mocks their Holy Values.

Palin/Beck in 2012!

MDB (talk) 10:37, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * On the BBC Radio 4 this morning someone they interviewed from the US speculated that a Republican success could actually make Obama more reelectable come 2012. 11:12, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * At least if the Tea Party get in, they'll stop scientists from creating mice with human brains. 11:18, 2 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, if there's any good way to spin this for the Democrats, it's that the Tea Party is basically the whackjobs and nutcases of the Republican Party, and it gives Obama ample material to campaign against.


 * I think I saw an MSNBC report last night the the Republican leadership is getting really antsy about Sarah Palin, because they think she could easily win the nomination, and would then be trounced by Obama in the general election. MDB (talk) 11:19, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, they won't be able to lay all of the blame for the state of the country on Democrats any more if they succeed in taking over the House. But I think the most important way in which this election could influence the 2012 presidential race is if the teabaggers get overconfident and actually manage to get Palin elected as the Republican candidate (assuming that she will indeed run). If most of the TP candidates win their races now, that would make electability arguments against Palin much less likely to work, even though she'd be in a very different position as a candidate who'd have to campaign nationwide and who is so well-known that there's little chance her strongly negative approval ratings will significantly improve. Röstigraben (talk) 11:25, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Let Palin win the nomination. 2012 will be the Apocalypse for the Republicans. Let's just hope we last that long. TyrannisAn Iron, but caring, fist 11:55, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I endorse the Rent Is Too Damn High Party. Remember to vote early and often, especially if you're dead. Secret Squirrel (talk) 12:09, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm in Louisiana, not New York. My choice is C-Dem, Rep, Libertarian, and Reform party. TyrannisAn Iron, but caring, fist 12:12, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I think that the Republicans will either have to go mainstream, and alienate the Tea Party (which is part of what has carried them through this election) or go Tea Party, and alienate everyone else (Republican apocalypse). Here's hoping they take the Tea Party route, but personally I'm predicting a lot of angry TPers calling for more ideological purification of the Republican party. EddyP (talk) 13:08, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Tea Party will fracture on cue right after the election. It's too diverse; on the one hand are the Beck/Palin constituency who are hawks on the war on terror, crime, drug prohibition, immigration control and like issues, and think America is an evangelical Christian nation.  On the other, the Ron Paul constituency who are antiwar and much more libertarian.  Then there are the perpetually disgruntled who could just as easily be on the left, and are only hanging out with the TP because that is where the action is right now.  Glenn Beck realizes this which is why he's trying to indoctrinate as many of them with a great books reading program of David Barton and W. Cleon Skousen and their ilk before the inevitable split comes.  I've seen this too many times before.  (EC) I'm not in NY either..but the Rent is Too Damn High Party is just too damn fun.  I was tempted to write them in for every local race this year.  Almost. Secret Squirrel (talk) 13:28, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * You may be right, but the TP has had far longer legs than was expected. RP has far less influence than SP and GB, I suspect. The split might be a tear in the GOP - social conservatives to the TP, traditional (Rockefeller) conservatives staying in the GOP.  But that's an extreme projection.  13:54, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

The problem with saying the TP will result in the social conservatives splitting off is that the Tea Party isn't strictly a social conservative movement. A lot of social conservatives have gravitated to the Tea Party, but it's real roots are among the Libertarians, and they're not predisposed to play well with social conservatives. And the Rockefeller wing would have to do more than split off from Tea Partiers; it would have to rise from the near-dead. MDB (talk) 14:22, 2 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Electoral-Vote has a nice little list of seats that should declare early and may indicate the broader trend of the night. Of course, this is a little simplistic but it might at least give some indication as to what's happening. –SuspectedReplicant retire me 14:48, 2 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Lefty's take on it. CS Miller (talk) 19:16, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * And his take on the result. CS Miller (talk) 13:47, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, here's the facts: a large segment of the Tea Party voted for Obama. Tea Partiers are not loyal to, nor enamoured with party name brands. The progressive libs vastly misread the 2008 results. America did not embrace Socialism. America remains center right. The moderates who voted for Obama did so after thier 401(k) retirement's were wiped out three weeks before election day in the October stock market crash of 2008. They were ready for 'change' after that. Within months they discovered Obama was anti-capitalist, and they voted for him cause they believed he could help restore the capitalist system they invested in so heavily.
 * Now they are rewarded by being called racist, after they elected Obama. Jus da facts, ma'am. nobsdon't bother me 19:26, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * [citation needed] For every sentence, it seems.--ZooGuard (talk) 19:43, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep in mind we're dealing with Conservapedia math here. "A large segment" can mean 15%. DickTurpis (talk) 19:46, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * What ever happened to the cp:ConservaMath Medal anyway? CS Miller (talk) 19:53, 2 November 2010 (UTC) fixed typo. CS Miller (talk) 20:08, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 49% of Tea Partiers voted for Obama while only 44% voted for McCain. Source: Question 50e, Quinnipiac Poll, March 24, 2010.


 * On November 12, 2008, 55% of Tea Partiers had a favorable opinion of the Democratic party vs only 36% of the GOP (Trends 16 & 17) and more Tea Partiers consider themselves Democrats than GOPers, 32 to 28, with 35% Ind; Question 50b). &mdash; Unsigned, by: RobSmith / talk / contribs 19:54, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Tea Partiers are pissed off Southern good ol boys because the Democratic party was taken over by commies. As Reagan said, "I didn't leave the Democratic Party, the party left me." It's just another example of the vast rightwing Southern Strategy conspiracy at work. But Axelrod & Co. fucked up bigtime calling loyal Democrats, Southern good ol boys who voted for Obama, racists. TFB, you fucking nitwits.  nobsdon't bother me 19:57, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Christian Nation myth
Ed Brayton has put up an interesting piece about how the myth that the Founding Fathers intended the US to be a "Christian" nation all along is a relatively recent development, and how fundamentalists used to fight the 1st Amendment because they realized that it did actually contain a very strict separation of church and state. I was just looking for an article to add that info to, and unless I've overlooked something, it seems like we don't really have one that deals with the whole "Christian Nation" myth. We've got a stub on the 1st Amendment, a short article about church/state separation in general, and some about specific doctrines like Dominionism. Since this is a very influential and widespread belief among American fundamentalists, I think we should have something that addresses the issue directly - quote the most important misconceptions and their origins, then debunk them point-by-point. So, would any actual Yanks who are knowlegeable about the Constitution and this debate be interested in collaborating on this? It might take your minds off the impending Obamageddon, too. Röstigraben (talk) 12:35, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Put up a frame work and I'll try. TyrannisAn Iron, but caring, fist 12:23, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Framework. 15:33, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Ed's got another bit here. 15:37, 4 November 2010 (UTC) TerrySmall.png [[Image:Toast s.png|alt=Toast|text-bottom|20px|link=User talk:SusanG]]

What Tea Partiers believe
... in cartoon form.

Strangely, with voices like robots.



MDB (talk) 17:45, 2 November 2010 (UTC)


 * [[image:yawn.gif]] Try this.  19:02, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * [[image:yawn.gif]] From here on out I'm gonna boycott YouTube links pasted on this page except where a good reason to click on them is presented. :P Occasionaluse (talk) 15:51, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The voices are robotic because it's done on XtraNormal, which is basically a text-to-speech tool with an option of semi-automatically generating shots of characters to go with it. I've considered using it to make animatics for various things as it's quite a nice toy. I quite like this one, because the script sort of works with the synthesised voice "I want to be a coll-ege pro-fess-or". 02:04, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * That is the best one I've seen on that site (most seem to suck). Xtranormal seems to have navigation problems; I see no search option, and the highest rated seems to just show the most recently created ones (which suck) which are somehow given a default 5 star rating. A neat idea, though. DickTurpis (talk) 02:08, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The "Obama Interrupted" one is also pretty good. It uses a recording of Obama at a press conference just before Glenn Beck storms in and screams "GET OF MY SHOW!!" 02:20, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Janitorial Work
I've got the Sysop's guide, the to-do-list and been through all of the special pages. Is there any other janitorial work, anything that gets overlooked?

TL;DR - Give me boring shit and I might just do it. Dalek (talk) 18:29, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Speeling czecking and It's &rarr; its (or vice versa) & you're &rarr; your as a start. 18:39, 2 November 2010 (UTC) TerrySmall.png [[Image:Toast s.png|alt=Toast|text-bottom|20px|link=User talk:SusanG]]
 * We have a much neglected "to do" list, as well as all these articles requiring attention.  Or copyediting random articles is always useful.  None of these are specifically sysop duties, but they are broadly janitorial.  19:06, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * You could do my laundry. --I&#39;m bored (talk) 19:39, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Clicking "random page" is a good way of passing the time. Usually it doesn't take long to find some formatting problems. Often if it's a massive text wall it can be broken up into sections or images added. See also and external link sections are also usually missing. Categories too are things to look at. Basically, there's a ton of things you can do, it's just a case of hitting the random button until you find one that interests you enough to care about it. 02:00, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 1. Improve pages at category:articles requiring attention.
 * 2. Divide a bloated category into subcategories. Start looking at category:categories.
 * 3. Categorize templates. 02:25, 3 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Work through Special:Allpages and read and check over all the articles in the entire mainspace. I've been through 'em all a coupla times - David Gerard (talk) 16:02, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Pumpkin Pi
My dad traditionally likes to put up interesting and fun carved pumpkin's every year. I thought RW might appreciate this years. tmtoulouse 17:01, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Very good! -- PsyGremlin  17:50, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * heh...fun. Occasionaluse (talk) 21:01, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * That is more like it. 22:47, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Excellent! 23:54, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I hope he's going to honour all RW editors. 08:50, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Singles chart
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1326113/Nadine-Coyle-facing-chart-misery-debut-single-sells-just-117-copies-day.html

Okay, the story itself is something I couldn't give a crap about, but that's not the point. What is interesting are the numbers behind it. Physical sales are now counted in the hundreds rather than thousands. Basically, if I wrote a song and flogged it to all my mates that would be interested, I'd have sold more discs than these guys. Of course, it is all digital these days with iTunes being where all the cool kids are at, but still, the numbers are striking. 19:21, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh for the days when we would buy the latest vinyl 45 rpm and spend all evening round our Dansette listening to it over and over and over and over... Silly twit (talk) 19:27, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * spend all evening round our Dansette - only if you had the thruppenny bit selotaped to the end of the tone arm - otherwise the tracking was crap. Ah, the days when the choice was between 'LP' and '78'. Jack Hughes (talk) 10:05, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I am far more advanced - I blu tac a penny to the arm.-- 10:41, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I dread the day kids will come up to me and say "wait, you actually had your music on THINGS? Not just downloaded??" Still, I don't think anything will ever beat the satisfaction of having music in its cases and discs racked up on the wall, proudly displayed for all to see how awesome you are. 11:58, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Do they make gatefold MP3s for cleaning pot? 12:30, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Just this last weekend I finally dug out all my old vinyl and repacked it into usable crates.  Next up is a new turntable.   But when I dug them out, I found such gems, it was such a fabulous experience going back through.   I've got some real gems - like a pristine copy of the Beatles' 1970 compilation album of their Christmas messages to their fan club, including the Flexidisc (ask me what a Flexidisc is, kids, I have many) of their 1969 message.   They're not worth as much as I'd hoped - about $100 each - but the sheer nostalgia value is spectacular.   Also the original picture bag 45s for Holidays in Cambodia and God Save the Queen, and the 12" of Blue Monday in the limited edition sleeve.....joy unbounded.    No download can match the pleasure.  DogP Marmite Patrol 15:14, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Physical singles are strictly novelty items these days, only available from specialist stores or direct mail order. I last saw one in a record shop five years ago. In any case, it takes vanishingly few copies to make the singles chart these days, as compared to hundreds of thousands of copies in the 1970s and 1980s - the reason you've never heard of any of these people is that they're not actually famous, they just happen to be what's left of the music industry. 2500 copies to get to number 35? That's how few you have to buy yourself to buy a chart listing. (Album sales have stayed high, so albums that chart are actually popular the same way chart albums were popular thirty years ago.) - David Gerard (talk) 16:13, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Now that digital downloads are included in the singles chart, it must be incredibly easy and cheap for an unscrupulous artist, producer or record label to buy enough copies to get to the top of the charts as a loss-leader / promotion to get their album bought or to sell concert tickets. It's the only explanation I can think of as to why talent vacuums like Ke$sha can get to number one. Bondurant (talk) 16:27, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Kesha isn't that bad if you mix it up a little. But I think they do have weighings and systems in place to prevent that sort of thing. I'm sure I remember reading about how they look for suspect download activity. 17:41, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Haggard
Any of you guys know them? Listen --I&#39;m bored (talk) 21:31, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, actually. I have it on a playlist or two but I'm not a massive fan since baroque chamber music has never been high on my list of appreciated favourites. Since I've spent quite a bit of time listening to the best music of that style, performed by some very competent and professional players, Haggard sounds pretty flat to me. Even shoehorning distorted guitar in there doesn't quite get me going so much, which is strange because I usually like that. It mostly seems to be played at this awkward pace which is fine for the chamber music aspect, but it doesn't quite work for the metal playing which either needs to be slow and punctuated or fast and furious - that middle tempo doesn't quite work for me. 03:16, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Obviously no related to Ted. 03:16, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Or Merle. MDB (talk) 11:10, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Har de har
This made me laugh and laugh and laugh. And then I looked at it again and began laughing again. The best laugh is a laugh at yourself.... DogP Marmite Patrol 15:08, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Election lulz


Anyone else watching the MSNBC coverage of the election returns? Keith Olbermann just said that Michelle Bachmann was under the influence of the Hypnotoad. 02:32, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Makes sense, to me. It would explain a lot about that bitch. 02:35, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * (EC)That was hilarious. "Are you hypnotized?" "We need to create jobs..." "Are you hypnotized?" "The American people have spoken..." [[File:Coffee spray.gif]] 02:35, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Seems the election turned out as expected. GOP get house, Dems keep Senate. Good to see Angle and O'Donnell getting whupped (there is hope for the general sanity of Yanks yet). Only 4 teabaggers making it through. Any bets on Palin/Paul for 2012? -- PsyGremlin  08:27, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Palin and Paul are philosophically way too far apart to make a realistic team. I do generally hope Palin gets the nomination, although it would still worry me greatly. She's 95% certain to lose, but that other 5% scares the shit out of me. DickTurpis (talk) 10:33, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, that 5% would probably be a lot higher. Elections aren't so much decided on how good the potential candidate is but by how crap their opposition is. If the economy fails to recover Obama will get the blame (as absurd as that is) and that means he probably won't be re-elected, even if the Republicans put an actual monkey against him. The same thing happened in the UK 2010 election. I'm pretty sure the public weren't wowed by how great Cameron's Conservative Party were, but more by how bad Labour were - although I still can't remember the part where Gordon Brown ate a baby on live television, which is the only explanation I can think of for why everyone hated him so much. 12:52, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * What I find lulzy is how well the Green Party did in South Carolina. 9% in the finals. That is unheard of for a third party. TyrannisAn Iron, but caring, fist 13:00, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Considering the Democratic candidate wasn't viable (or hardly even a candidate for that matter) I'm almost surprised they didn't do better. DickTurpis (talk) 13:09, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I actually voted Green for the first time yesterday, in the Maryland Senate race. Mikulski was a lock for re-election, so I decided to actually vote Green for once. I considered voting Green in the gubernatorial election, but that was actually slightly competitive, and I didn't want to wake up this morning feeling like a Nader voter in Florida in 2000. MDB (talk) 13:16, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Judging from CNN results this morning, thats what happened in Illinois. where if the Greens(3%) had voted Dem, the GOP would have lost. TyrannisAn Iron, but caring, fist 13:24, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I have never been terribly enamored with the Greens. DickTurpis (talk) 16:54, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Just remember to elect the guy with supernatural powers and hope he doesn't get pissed--Thanatos (talk) 19:50, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Er, the Democrats and the GOP -- for the most part -- are completely crap parties. For any progressive (who isn't a politician, of course) the Greens are much better than the Dems. 00:17, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * And it's patently absurd to hold the Greens or Nader responsible for the actions of the GOP and Bush. 00:19, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * That may be so.... But the Dems actually have electable candidates and a real shot at winning elections... When's the last time a Green party member won something above City Counsel? 03:57, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

UK student fees
I guess I was expecting this so I'm not really surprised:

Students in universities in England face tuition fees of up to £9,000 per year from 2012, as the government reveals its plans for higher education.

Fucking absurd. I just posted this comment:

It amuses me that the members of the public who are calling for students to pay these fees are the same people who, in ten years time, will be complaining that they're waiting twice as long in the A&E queues, paying twice as much at the vets & dentists, and being remanded in custody for twice as long because there aren't enough doctors, vets, dentists and crown prosecutors to deal with demand.

Education should not only be free, but encouraged.

09:14, 3 November 2010 (UTC)


 * It is fucked. In a rightful world people would prefer to pay 30,000+ in taxes over their career. --62.142.167.134 (talk) 10:42, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree it's a odd situation, but I'm not sure what the solution is. The Graduate tax idea is just stupid. On average people who go to uni get paid more later in life and so end up paying more tax anyway. 10:46, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Not knowing what it is, but it sounds like what we have in Australia. However most people I know either a) don't earn enough to pay it back (the threshold keeps creeping up more than wages), or b) move overseas and avoid it entirely. 12:03, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * On a related note, the wife has been sent to the local uni's career fair today to talk to students. I told her to be honest, that if you study law you will:
 * Be doing far more lectures, seminars and coursework than anyone else at uni
 * Spend all your free time at uni working your arse off in the library only to get a 2:1 at the end of it anyway (unless you're related to the faculty staff)
 * Get a huge graduate loan to do an LPC and then spend the entire year / two years trying to get a training contract
 * Eventually get a training contract 200 miles away from where you live, uproot and move and spend the time not being trained, but being used as a cheap lawyer
 * All this only to be told when you qualify that there's no job for you, and then have to commute 100 miles every day to another office, only to have the burden of redundancy hanging over your head for the rest of your career, and feeling trapped as you know you won't be able to get a job anywhere else.
 * So yeah. Join the CPS! 10:52, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I couldn't agree more with your original comment, Crundy. As someone from a poor upbringing, I benefitted from having to pay no tuition fees and had a grant, but still came out of uni with over £10k of debts. If I had been faced with the prospect up front of being even more in debt then I wouldn't have gone in the first place and I wouldn't have the job I do now, where my monthly deductions (tax, NI, charidee, etc.) are more than I take home. Bondurant (talk) 11:48, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Whenever I get my yearly statement from the Student Loans Company, I have to take a very stiff drink to work up the courage to open it... anyway, I'm actually in favour of a graduate tax. I don't know why it was ruled out, the argument that people with degrees earn more anyway isn't particularly strong because, in principle, even non-graduates could earn that amount too. It's also already included in the the governments revenue so doesn't actually generate the extra money required to go into higher education. I'm also sure it doesn't have to be much, half a percent or so. It would be less than the amount you'd pay back a loan and less than how VAT fluctuates. If you want to completely remove financial barriers then it still has to be paid for somehow, which means a tax hike so you may as well hike it on the people who are benefiting. And those people should be happy that they're directly contributing to higher education so that the generations under them can get the same experience and opportunities. 12:47, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Not that I was planning on voting for them anyway, but this has put me off voting for the Tories for the rest of my life. If I ever have kids, they aren't going to university. 13:16, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Likewise. 13:30, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * You forgot how mind-numbing the LPC is, Crundy. I was vaguely hoping to get a public sector job, but now the Tories are in I might as well subject myself to a year of hell and have half a chance of actually being employed. Webbtje (talk) 13:35, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The wife quite liked the LPC, although she did do it part time. It's interesting really, because she spent 7 years "training" in total to become a lawyer. Even doctors don't study / train for that long. 13:49, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I wasn't around for 80s Britain, so I don't have any first hand experience of Thatcher the Milk Snatcher, the selling off of publicly-owned British companies to foreigners, the mass unemployment and recession. But now, I see the same elitists twenty years later, with their "fuck the poor" attitude. Last year some toff knocked at my front door campaigning for the Tory in my area. He asked if I'd vote for Tories and I said no, Labour's where it's at, Labour's for the people. He says Tories under Thatcher did a lot for the people, and that Labour had started a recession and skyrocketed unemployment. I pointed out that there was massive unemployment and recession under Thatcher and he replied by shifting his gaze to his feet and saying, "well, recessions happen under all world governments..." He fucked off shortly afterwards which I was pleased about, because it was only ten on a Saturday morning and I was hungover. 13:53, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Crundy wrote:"It amuses me that the members of the public who are calling for students to pay these fees are the same people who, in ten years time, will be complaining ... etc" ... but they won't 'cause the'll be the ones who can pay for fast tracking through a privatised system. Or at least they think they will. It'll be "Fuck you, I'm alright, Jack." As is the typical Tory mindset. 14:03, 3 November 2010 (UTC) TerrySmall.png [[Image:Toast s.png|alt=Toast|text-bottom|20px|link=User talk:SusanG]]
 * I was thinking more of the people they were interviewing on the news, like a hairdresser. People with menial jobs who hate students. 14:44, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I may or may not go to a protest. On the one hand, I've never been to one before and it seems to be part of student life. On the other hand, I sympathise with the coalition - if there isn't any money, there isn't any money. And there isn't any money. EddyP (talk) 15:55, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Surely a better idea would be to make universities get rid of the "mickey mouse" degrees which are a waste of taxpayer money? I mean for fuck's sake (that one isn't in the UK, but we have similar stupid courses here). 16:01, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * That would be good, but I'm not sure how much of a difference that would make. I can't imagine that those courses have masses of students. EddyP (talk) 16:04, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The number of students makes it  worse . Staff & resources used on similar courses to little or no advantage! 16:09, 3 November 2010 (UTC) TerrySmall.png [[Image:Toast s.png|alt=Toast|text-bottom|20px|link=User talk:SusanG]]
 * True. But I think fees would still have to go up. EddyP (talk) 16:18, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * ಠ_ಠ Sen (talk) 16:23, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * In fairness chemists usualy win out on 1 and the medical students on 2. As for the rest well there are very few degrees these days that offer you a decent chance of walking into a job (nursing perhaps?) and things like fashion probably have the most depressing career path. Stasticaly about the only things that increase a student's earning power as much as law are medicine and accounting. When you remeber that there are courses out their that actualy on average decrease a student's earning power it doesn't look so bad.Geni (talk) 04:04, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Education should not only be free, but encouraged. Surely a better idea would be to make universities get rid of the "mickey mouse" degrees ''I was thinking more of the people they were interviewing on the news, like a hairdresser. People with menial jobs... On average people who go to uni get paid more later in life and so end up paying more tax anyway'' Elitist? A two lawyer DINKY household? Just because you pay more tax doesn't negate the fact that you also benefit more. Silly twit (talk) 18:04, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * So the benefits should be negated? --62.142.167.134 (talk) 18:26, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Au contraire, the benefits should be shared. Even £9000 pa (most will be £6K or less) doesn't cover the full costs of a university education. Silly twit (talk) 18:35, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, last I checked it costs somewhere in the region of £60,000 a year for me to do a PhD and that's not including stipend. It's always been far more expensive than the fees seem to suggest, certainly in most experimental sciences. You can whine about how the government could save money by getting rid of the so-called "Mickey Mouse" degrees, but frankly, you could shut down half a Philosophy department and barely save enough to fund a handful of engineering students. 18:41, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * May I politely suggest that you include the Theology department as well? Silly twit (talk) 18:46, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

As far as I can follow this, Thatcher's bloody Britain, meet Reagan's fucking Merica. 00:14, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Insomuch that theology (that isn't historical or literary scholarship or psychology) is an actual academic discipline, probably. But it's all relative, you can generate good excuses for trimming any academic department away. For instance, you could argue that you can strip funding away from science because it is powered by industry (indeed, most funding for postgraduate R&D is industry sponsored - GSK, AstraZenica and Sasol funding half of my group at least - rather than government sponsored such as the EPSRC) and they could happily pick up the slack in education and profit quite highly from it. In fact, since the majority of grants are derived from industrial sponsorship and other sources, it's sometimes a wonder that these departments require state funding at all. Compared that to poor old English departments that don't really have billion dollar industries fighting to grab their graduates and you can make a decent case for diverting funding to the apparently useless humanities and "Micky Mouse" degrees. 03:00, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Worse than that a lot of the so called "Micky Mouse" degrees are specialized business studies. Sure dumping the various Complementary Medicine courses would have some benifits but the various courses related to say golf have a tendacy to be legitimate. I suppose some money could be saved through consolidation and moving univerisities out of more expensive areas but with increasing numbers of students living at home through their courses that has it's own issues.Geni (talk) 04:14, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Fuck it. UK uni's need funding, the state is broke... hello new fee's. I think its only fair, those who get good, useful degrees (Not this endless stream of 'media studies' crap we see a load of talentless hipsters indulging in) will earn a good salary. Its only fair they pay their way for a better paid job. Plus the government has a provision for students to not pay anything under 21k, raising the 15k labour cap (Meaning if you worked in Asda you'd be repaying your medicine tuition costs... Silly, I know) MarcusCicero (talk) 22:06, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * My brother, hippie that he is, tried encouraging me to get a "media studies" degree. I was at pains to explain to him that my idea of a career did not involve running a soulless corporation's Twitter and Youtube accounts (which is, btw, where most of the paying jobs in "new media" are going to be—have fun, hipsters!).  If I'm going to work for an soulless corporation it'll be in the back office.   01:25, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Illinois teachers FTW
Resolution No. 11 - Keep Supernaturalism Out of the Science Curriculum Good! (didn't know where to put this: WIGOW; WIGOBlog?) 15:57, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * is excellent resolution and appears to be all one looong sentance, although with lotsa semicolons Hamster (talk) 03:20, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Genes reunited
Many years ago I signed up with Genes reunited (part of Friends reunited) and promptly forgot all about it. Sunday a friend suggested I sign up - I did and they just sent me a match - ME!! Yup, I'm related to me! 22:15, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Being related to me is why I avoid family reunions. #rimshot# MDB (talk) 10:58, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Send in the clones! With an army of SusanG clones, we shall take over the World(OF COURSE)! None shall dare oppose us! All we have to do is wait for them to grow. TyrannisAn Iron, but caring, fist 12:26, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Bad idea. By the time they were legal I'd be 60. Totnesmartin (talk) 10:26, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Shock troops. Not cloned... what? Why would you...? That's not... You dirty old person! TyrannisAn Iron, but caring, fist 14:09, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Division by zero
0/0 = every number. Division is the opposite of multiplication. The reason 56/56 = 1 is because 1 * 56 = 56. The same works for negative numbers, -13/-13 = 1. For this reason, 0/0 = every real number, including 0. Prove me wrong. 23:18, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Well done, you have invented the concept of indeterminacy. For further information, learn some calculus. 16:28, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Careful now. 23:32, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * No, it's "nullity"!! Come to think of it this guy could probably use a RationalWiki page -- I'll see what I can do. --MarkGall (talk) 00:34, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

0/0 is undefined. Dalek (talk) 01:29, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * No, 1/0 is undefined, since there exists no n such that 0n=1. 0/0 is indeterminate, since 0n=0 for all n. 19:22, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I remember reading about "nullity" and thinking "well, you haven't really solved a problem, just given it a nice rebranding and taken the edge off" 02:53, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Divide by zero, you say? 11:56, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

"0/0 = every number." This obviously implies that all numbers are the same. Which is somewhat confusing. --I&#39;m bored (talk) 18:39, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Depending on the program, I get some very interesting results when I try to divide by zero on the CAD/CAM simulators at work. 14:21, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Holy shit @ IT

 * Me: What's the windows workgroup name?
 * IT: We don't have one.
 * Me: Yes, you do. It's.


 * Me: What is the server name the files are on?
 * IT: What?


 * Me: Fuck it.

Occasionaluse (talk) 19:22, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * What? --I&#39;m bored (talk) 19:32, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Trying to connect to a windows share, but the "tech" people can't tell me anything about it. Occasionaluse (talk) 19:44, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * That's because you don't have one. --I&#39;m bored (talk) 19:46, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * You sound a lot like them. Occasionaluse (talk) 19:53, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Glad to help you. Have a nice day. --I&#39;m bored (talk) 20:09, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Have you tried saying "shibboleet" yet? MDB (talk) 19:54, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * It might be worth it to see the blank stare... Occasionaluse (talk) 20:07, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * If your IT people don't get XKCD references, then you need new IT people. MDB (talk) 20:12, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Well said. Occasionaluse (talk) 20:19, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * [[image:Goodpost.gif]] Definitely. There are "IT" guys, and then there are IT guys. 12:44, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

The Soldier Fitness Results
First, i'd like to thank the many different suggestions given to me by friends and acquaintances here on RW and other areas. Your suggestions helped me narrow down my submissions and gave me some awesome reading material.

After about two weeks and five 'finalist' books, I decided that the book I would send to the Chaplain for review was 'The little guide to Atheist Spirituality' by Compte-Sporville. To be honest, I wanted to submit 'Letters to a Christian Nation' or 'The Atheist's Way', but I ended up with this choice for three main reasons:

1) The tone. Personally, I find the arguments in the book a bit weak for my tastes, but it keeps away from the type of language that puts a believer on his guard. The man who wrote it made his move from faith to atheism a while back, and it shows that some of the ideals are still in his writing.

2) The title. 'Spirituality' makes a connection with the reader who believes, but as one finds in the book his views tend toward more of an 'Atheist thought', dealing with fidelity and honor in place of faith and piety. It's a start.

3) The style. It's simple, easy to read and follow, but it goes into surprising depth with some of the explanations. It's kind of like a teacher showing you different ways around a problem without giving you the answers, letting you use the tools to make your own choices.

So I sent up the book, and the Chaplain got back with me yesterday. They put in the request for it, and they'll stock it in the Resiliency Campus. I was honestly surprised when he told me the news, but also happy about it. It's a secular title to add to the rows of religious text. It's a small, easy to read book to give the believer or newly doubting a few stepping stones up to the real good reading. Also, the 'reviews' from Ayyan Hirsi Ali and other secular authors, complete with their book titles, gives them something else to read after they finish.

NOW, today I finally got my copy of 'The Atheist's Guide to Christmas'. And I wish I could take back my earlier decision.

The book, or at least the foreward and three stories i've read so far, is magnificent. Not just from a secular viewpoint, which it does well, but just from the way the stories are told and presented. They're concise, warming, poignant, humorous and dramatic all while being human. Which means I'll have to put down my copy of 'Portable Atheist' to read it. [Quick note: Anything over 500 pages is NOT portable. At least 350 pages and it becomes 'weapon substitute' status.]

To be honest, I wish I could put it on the shelf instead. It's so much more representative of what being an atheist is instead of what it means.

Ah, such is life. I take my victories where I can. -- CodyH (talk) 20:54, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I must commend you on this little inroad into the established faiths in the military. I hope that it will benefit those soldiers who have a more "rational" worldview. 22:56, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Good work soldier! I can only imagine how annoyingly ingrained christianity is within the US military; and thus your choice of non-too confrontational literature (lest the poor fundies get scared and stop reading, only to return to a certain book beginning with 'B' that can only be described as confrontational to the extreme) is very sensible.  I have not heard of the two 'guide' books you mention, but I shall scope them out.  12:22, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I imagine that, as good as the Guide is, it wouldn't be suitable for your purpose. It's a little too lighthearted in its presentation. The big, bold text and pale and friendly colours of the ABC campaign in general are a little too "forced" for me. Trying too hard to be approachable. Not that this is bad, but I don't think it'd be the perfect choice for your spirituality thing. 12:42, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Computer annoyance
I haven't had this specific feeling for ages, but I'm currently experiencing massive waves of anger and frustration you suffer when you try and do a very simple thing on a computer and it completely fucks up on you. The kind of feeling that would be eased if your smashed the shit out of something. Why won't computer just learn? Why do I need fifty fucking thousand email accounts for one fucking thing? It's frustration like this that makes me want a fucking cigarette, and it's frustration like this that's gonna give me a fucking heart attack before I turn thirty. 21:20, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * In the last two days I have reinstalled my OS twice and then installed a completely new one over that after it completely refused to coöperate. I'm still fixing everything from the migration. 21:36, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I have nothing to add to this conversation, I just want to test my bot.-- Nx  / talk 01:54, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I hear you brother, I had the same experience recently whilst trying to carry out the extremely complex task of buying a fucking train ticket. The kind of thing that takes about 30 seconds at the ticket office, but 15 minutes at a computer.  In't technology brilliant?  12:18, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * My only frustration at the moment is with trackpads on laptops. They just plain don't like me. 12:34, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I tend to disable mine and add a mini Bluetooth/wireless mouse. 12:53, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Boring Cunts on Wikipedia
So I went on a harmless trolling spree on wikipedia (See here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:86.47.30.250#Talk_page_etiquette) I don't know if you know who Margaret Ritchie (Leader of the SDLP) is, but she is Northern Ireland's Sarah Palin. Anyway, I saw a particularly sappy party political broadcast from that party today and her sheer inarticulateness annoyed me. (See the edit history of my IP over there)

But then a load of boring WP cunts came along and spoiled the party. Fair enough, I thought, its their job to be a boring cunt, as they need to keep annoying cunts like me away from the good stuff. So I decide to mess with them.

They are, to a man, the most boring shower of wankers I've ever come across. At least you lot give a reaction when I trolled you with impunity, this lot just throw out their template and feign hurt feelings like a pack of 13 year olds half way through a milk run but get a broken wrist. MarcusCicero (talk) 21:57, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Ironic coming from the most boring halfwit I have ever had the displeasure of reading. Aceword up 22:08, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Yah right, you're the same cunt who claims to live such a libertine lifestyle yet spends all his free time on a site populated by teenagers and losers. MarcusCicero (talk) 22:10, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * You're still as witty as a dinner plate I see. Everything is in order. Aceword up 22:13, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't being witty. These are facts. MarcusCicero (talk) 22:16, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Did you try rebooting? Maybe you have a virus. --I&#39;m bored (talk) 22:19, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

He started it. And stop enjoying it you smug self obsessed little arse of a man, back to wikipedia you little cunt. MarcusCicero (talk) 22:16, 4 November 2010 (UTC) Pretty Kara....Aceword up 22:24, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Back to the point: There has to be a way to troll Wikipedia. I think you were off to a good start by picking Irish politics as something to concentrate on, but maybe too many people know about that? The other thing to do might be to bog people down in fiddling details and wiki-rules, until they get frustrated with you, so anyone trying to moderate from outside might be fooled into thinking you're actually in the right. Could you find a touchy topic and kick off an edit war between editors with different viewpoints? Broccoli (talk) 22:32, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Nah, I've done that before and to hilarious effect. So many wikipedians are self important dullards with an expert understanding of wiki law. Its not difficult to pretend to be an expert on the subject. Frankly Wikipedians are a horrible race of people, some of the most boring losers you will ever come across. I admit this was just a lazy diversion and I didn't put a whole lot of effort into it. MarcusCicero (talk) 22:48, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Wouldn't conversations about trolling be better discussed on ED or in play-group after finger painting but before nap-time?? Aceword up 22:35, 4 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Go away Ace. You are not funny. you are not cool. These are facts. You are a virgin. You dwell in your mothers basement. These are facts. Facts my friend. Facts. A whole load of facts. MarcusCicero (talk) 22:48, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * But my mother doesn't even own a house anymore, how is this possible? Aceword up 23:02, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Would MC do a ur mum joke? We need to know. --85.76.194.151 (talk) 07:13, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Yay! Argumentum ad cellarium! So nice to see you back in teh saddle, Jinx Marcus. Totnesmartin (talk) 10:21, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm immune to that one because I reproduce by budding. Which makes the "virgin" thing rather a moot point as well. Honestly, I don't know why people even bother with insults that only work on sexual species. --Quantheory (talk) 23:38, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

BDIAFP redux
I was perusing the SB archives and noticed a reference to Billy's Dad is a Fudge-Packer which wasn't available online at the time. I can now reveal that it is back up on e-Baum's World, enjoy. 12:02, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

There's just something... right...
... about starting your Friday morning with a little PDQ Bach.

MDB (talk) 12:13, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm now looking up PDQ Bach and smirking quite heavily. But you still can't beat the cockney arrangement of the William Tell Overture. 17:03, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Palin's new ad...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11699682?ref=nf

To be honest, if I were to script and direct a parody of super-patriotic US political ads, it wouldn't turn out much different from this. 12:36, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, that's officially the most content-free soundbite I've ever heard. I like the grizzly, though. Röstigraben (talk) 15:52, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Cretinism & the light from distant stars
Someone what knows about this sort of stuff read this and comment please. 16:07, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I see a lot of trampolines and no maths. Sen (talk) 16:51, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * That's the most nonsensical diagram I've ever seen, and I practically make nonsensical diagrams for a living. 17:22, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Is this a galaxy bouncing between two trampolines? O_o --ZooGuard (talk) 07:09, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * As I've just noticed that Martin has jumped on there and left a comment, should the rest of RW do too? 12:06, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * If you really want to sign up to goth livejournal... but should we all pile on to one guy and do a tag-team number on him? We're not 4chan. Totnesmartin (talk) 14:57, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not so much for trolling as much as getting a point across. That we're here and we're not going to put up with bullshit. But I suppose that could be taken as a little extreme. 19:08, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The "RW Way" is to write an article about them here. 14:18, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Add to Russell Humphreys, likely. Maybe already there.  sterile 01:30, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Not as awful as it looks.
AC/DC's Thunderstruck... on bagpipes. -- PsyGremlin  16:31, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * There are no words... 17:16, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you. You must know that many of those notes were never intended by its creator to be played on a bagpipe chanter. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 19:34, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Slamming techno from a Philharmonic Orchestra? Aceword up 20:28, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Photoshopped. --I&#39;m bored (talk) 21:00, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I take it you can tell by the pixels? TyrannisAn Iron, but caring, fist 21:02, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I can hear them distinctly. --I&#39;m bored (talk) 21:09, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Speaking of philharmonics doing weird things. -- 21:12, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Not as awful as it looks, maybe, but every bit as awful as it sounds : )  01:26, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Sweet, this led me to "Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra", now I need help finding free software that will help me d/l the seven parts and stitch them together onto a dvd... 15:14, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Moer Bill Bailey 15:24, 6 November 2010 (UTC) TerrySmall.png [[Image:Toast s.png|alt=Toast|text-bottom|20px|link=User talk:SusanG]]
 * Well, that sarod player is a man after my own heart. 18:19, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Awesome, thank you! 01:45, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

CTRL-W pisse me off
CTRL-W=search in pico.

CTRL-W=close current tab in firefox.

Tmtoulouse (talk) 00:01, 6 November 2010 (UTC)


 * You could always remap it to "format hard drive" just for fun. --I&#39;m bored (talk) 00:05, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh, and set your default runlevel to 6. --I&#39;m bored (talk) 00:07, 6 November 2010 (UTC)


 * CTRL-SHIFT-T=undo close tab. --Sigma 7 (talk) 00:25, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Or right-click on the tab bar, it's in the context menu. But you are obviously working rodent-free.  13:01, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * If you don't have a mouse while using Firefox, you're doing something badly wrong. He's just using the shortcuts because they're much faster than the equivalent mouse action. 13:32, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Mouse gestures? 18:13, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Social Cohesion
Last night I was in the smoking room of a particular London establishment. Two spanish speaking chaps walked and preceded to have a conversation in spanish. Then up walks some pissed up twat and proceeds to harangue them by aggressively shouting 'social cohesion' at them. What a cunt. Its been awhile since I have witnessed anything like and I did not expect it there of all places which has a very diverse mix of people (though al gay). I really dislike feeling compelled to apologise for my half witted country men--AMassiveGay (talk) 13:59, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * He must have been pissed. What point was he making by yelling that - that they should be speaking English? -- PsyGremlin  14:11, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Did they understand him?--BobSpring is sprung! 14:21, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * They both spoke english. One very well, the other not so well. He kept rambling on about democracy, though I wasn't sure what point he was he trying to make--AMassiveGay (talk) 14:27, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I think what really pissed me off was that although I instinctively felt what ever point was being made (however incoherent it was) was wrong, I am just too inarticulate myself, coupled with a lack of appropriate knowledge to make a decent reasoned argument against his pissed up diatribe.--AMassiveGay (talk) 15:00, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Focusing on a different part of your story, you were smoking inside? Am I right in guessing you were in a discreet gay man's club?  15:31, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * it was kind of a room outside - 4 brick walls with a canopy. Is by discreet you mean seedy, then yes.--AMassiveGay (talk) 15:38, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * They make bike sheds with beer now? -- 16:49, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The bike sheds at my secondary school came with cigarettes, not beer. 16:59, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Conservapedia Day Awards.
I've put it on Talk:WIGO CP, but I thought I'd make sure everybody saw it, since the awards are open for nominations and category discussion. Forum:2010 Conservapedia Day Awards

Dalek (talk) 22:10, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

For Christ's sake!
No, really... 23:09, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

More fun with Google.
I'm not sure which is worse, people who create things like this, or people who find them.
 * 1) Go to Google maps.
 * 2) Go to "Get Directions"
 * 3) Type Japan as the start location
 * 4) Type China as the end location
 * 5) Go to Direction #43....... Laugh  -- PsyGremlin  12:52, 5 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Or the fact that people here keep bringing this up constantly, when it is actually relatively old. TyrannisAn Iron, but caring, fist 12:57, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, things are a bit slow getting to our part of the woods. We're still wondering if that Chamberlain chap was right to trust that Hitler bloke. Time will tell, I guess. -- PsyGremlin  13:04, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I tried that and got "We couldn't understand this location." However, when I reversed the end points it worked. I presume #42 in the reverse direction is what you were referring to. 13:13, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 'sokay. I remember when it used to do something similar from US->England. TyrannisAn Iron, but caring, fist 13:16, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Just taking a random stab at it, I just found Los Angeles, CA, United States to Honolulu, HI, United States. 13:30, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * ED used to be pretty good at documenting this stuff, until, well, you know. TyrannisAn Iron, but caring, fist 13:33, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Argh.. EC. Now, someone on Twitter pointed this one out. Dover to Land's End by road.  Now change it to Walkign directions and see a spectacular new route :) (works for me anyway)  13:34, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * As stupid as that seems it would be the way to walk from Dover to Land's End with the least amount of walking. 13:43, 5 November 2010 (UTC)


 * One gets this for trips along the coast (like this one) - obviously, the distance you travel on a ferry is neglected... 13:57, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Groweth a tad boring after a while. 14:03, 5 November 2010 (UTC) TerrySmall.png [[Image:Toast s.png|alt=Toast|text-bottom|20px|link=User talk:SusanG]]
 * For some reason they don't count ferries as public transport. 14:50, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Maybe they are private? 13:03, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * In the UK most railways and bus companies are private. 20:18, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * And of course the more generic term is mass transit. 15:32, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Why is remembering rewarding?
Context:

I happened across some youtube videos of very early television shows that I suddenly "remembered" seeing. Doing some research I discovered that I could not have been more than 2 years old. There were a few episodic details associated with remembering the shows that point to my being between 1-2 years old. Now its not like I suddenly remembered life as an 18 month old but it was a real memory. There were some interesting properties of it, individual clips of the show didn't trigger anything, it was the theme music that triggered it. So the parts I saw only once weren't there, but rather it was the highly repetitive elements that I would have had repeated exposure. Another point, it pretty much took the magic of the internet and direct exposure to identical stimuli to elicit the remembering of those very early memories. This is an interesting phenomenon as is, and brings up interesting things about early memory. However....

The point:

The really interesting question for me came from the visceral response of "reward" I got from remembering. Being exposed to this early stimuli and suddenly remembering was a highly rewarding experience. And it seemed rewarding as a primary reinforcer (i.e. something that is rewarding in and of itself not because of an implicit association with primary reinforcers). I tried to study this "rewarding" feeling a bit, exposure to stimuli from my childhood that I hadn't exactly forgot, but hadn't though about in years wasn't nearly as rewarding. Exposure to the material after the memory retrieval was no longer really rewarding. It seems that that remembering that was truly "forgotten" is an intrinsically rewarding thing.

Intrinsic motivators and rewards are shaped by evolution because they are adaptive to seek out. Things like food, sex, and even novelty are easy to see the advantages. But I am a bit stumped on this one. Any thoughts? Tmtoulouse (talk) 17:51, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Adaptation vs. Spandrels
Wrong way around. When you think about evolution you need to think about the disadvantages something incurs, not the advantages. If something isn't disadvantageous enough to wipe you or your descendents out before you pass on your genetic pattern, or isn't considered disadvantageous enough by the rest of your species to stop you breeding with them, then whatever it is you talk about in the first place tends to stick around. In your case you experienced a surprise, your brain determined it was pleasant, and then it reacted accordingly. There's nothing in that sequence that would have barred your ancestors from breeding so it's a genetic and social package that gets handed down from one generation to the next. A good counter-example would be that you experience a surprise, your brain determines it is pleasant, and your brain stops your heart and lungs functioning. Fairly obviously this is so disadvantageous that the chance of anyone living long enough to pass on that particular genetic package is going to be zero.-- 18:11, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes and no. Evolution is the change in allele frequency over time in a population. Natural selection does decrease the frequency of deleterious mutations overtime but also increases the frequency of beneficial mutation. Traits that are beneficial and "selected for" are adaptations, complex traits that are just there due to random chance and basic population issues (like drift, bottle necking, etc.) I like the label given by Gould of Spandrels (the space between arches that appears to be on purpose because it is often decorated, but is merely the by-product of the design of archways).


 * So how do we tell the difference between adaptation or spandrels? This isn't as simple as it might appear, and my own opinion has changed drastically over the years. However, I would argue that primary reinforcers, those things that illicit the classic dopamine response pattern without the need of any previous associations is likely something that has been positively selected. Dopamine motivates behavior, and having random spandrels be reinforced through the reinforcement learning pathways is likely deleterious in and of itself. Secondary reinforcers are another story all together.


 * But that is one argument to my point, that somehow there are primary reinforcers that can be spandrels, or that the "remembering as rewarding" is actually a secondary reinforcement and I just don't remember the association that I have made to make it seem rewarding. But I remain skeptical of this answer. But I am open to it if you really thing its down the right path. Tmtoulouse (talk) 18:23, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * My point was more the way that you are viewing adaptations and rating them on the advantages that they provide to the organism and then asking why a certain adaptation exists based on the the degree of advantage it gives. My experience of evolution, at least from the point of view of a palaeontologist, is that you have to look at an mutation, compare it to all the other mutations that exist or pre-existed within that species, and then rate that mutation based on its disadvantages to explain why that particular adaptation/spandrel survived to be passed on.  I guess my approach is much more focused on the biological point of view, rather than the anthropological or equivalent for other species.  Because of that I don't make any distinction between adaptations and spandrals, there really isn't any point or need.  For instance, eye colour.  Humans, as a species, aren't unique in having different eye colours within the species, but it is quite rare and, where it does occur, it's usually as a result of selective breeding of a species by humans.  So, from your point of view, varying eye colour in humans would initially be a spandral, but would rapidly become adaptation as eye colour becomes selected for in terms of looking for a mate and preferring one eye colour over another, or bottle-necking or fencing off of a population.  On the other hand eye-colour in something like a house cat would be solely an adaptation, something that was deliberately selected for as part of a package and look.  From my point of view variation in eye-colour is solely a genetic mutation, from whatever source, that provides absolutely no biological advantage to the specific organism but doesn't provide enough of a disadvantage that it ends up being bred out of a species yet.  And that yet is important because it is impossible to predict when any mutation can suddenly become enough of a disadvantage that it begins to be bred out of a population.  From that point of view either:
 * a mutation is not enough of a disadvantage to be bred out of a population or result in the eventual extinction of the population (e.g. the esophagus crossed by the left main bronchus),
 * or two mutations that effect the same function are in existence, in competition with each other, but neither mutation gives such significant level of disadvantage that it gets bred out of the population or ends in the eventual extinction of the species (e.g. variation in eye-colour),
 * or two mutations that effect the same function are in existence, in competition with each other, and one mutation gives a such significant level of disadvantage that it gets bred out of the population or ends in the eventual extinction of the species (e.g. the crouched posture in early humans getting bred out because those individuals with that posture were at a much higher level of disadvantage compared to those with a much more vertical posture),
 * or a mutation comes into being that is enough of a disadvantage that it gets bred out of the population or ends in the extinction of the species.-- 21:15, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Of course, I'm also out of head with my third week of a chest and sinus infection, so I could be talking out of my arse, hard to tell at the moment.-- 21:16, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Let me ask you this, do you think natural selection as a mechanism of evolution can increase the frequency of a trait because it confers in increased advantage to those that posses it? Tmtoulouse (talk) 21:19, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Surely the crouching vs. erect posture example is about an advantageous mutation, not about disadvantage? The "mutation" in question is the more erect posture, which confered a survival advantage (in their environment at the time), and so spread throughout the species over time?  15:25, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

jon ronson
I was looking through the 'to do list' vainly looking for something that I could so as to justify my presence on this site (I didn't find anything - I really am very uneducated) and noticed that there seems to be a complete absence of Jon Ronson, author of 'Them: Adventures with extremists' and it's companion TV series 'The Secret Rulers of the World'. Would something about this character be on message? On the TV I seem to remember an episode where he infiltrated Bohemian Grove with Alex Jones and came to vastly different conclusions was quite funny. If it is on message, I am prepared to have go creating an article. I have no idea how to go about this so any suggestions would be welcomed.--AMassiveGay (talk) 19:46, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I think there was an episode with Omar Bakri, who later gained much notoriety, presenting him as an almost comical figure--AMassiveGay (talk) 19:46, 6 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Crank investigators have missionality from dealing with crank ideas and are well worth an article IMO - David Gerard (talk) 20:20, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * He also wrote The Men Who Stare at Goats, so his goatliness makes him on-mission. Totnesmartin (talk) 16:17, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I've read both Them and Goats, and they're both good and about cranks -I'd say it's appropriate. --Gulik (talk) 23:55, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I made a difference
Two weeks ago, I noted here that Beck used a bunch of Star Wars references within a week. No one responded here and for a lark I sent it to Mediamatters, thinking someone there could make an article on it. Guess what? At the end of this week's Big Picture They do a bit on Beck's usage of Star Wars. I'm just going to take credit for it around here.--Thanatos (talk) 23:19, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Wow. That's amazing. Good job, man. 15:30, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

A funny
I lolzed Sen (talk) 16:44, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Science Blogs down
Not just for me 15:40, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Back up. 18:35, 7 November 2010 (UTC) TerrySmall.png [[Image:Toast s.png|alt=Toast|text-bottom|20px|link=User talk:SusanG]]
 * Thanx. 10:09, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Are you a mature goat?
which one of these are you? Totnesmartin (talk) 12:16, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Looks like a fairly typical RationalWiki gathering.  13:15, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Wow, that's amazingly good. 16:01, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

One day, when I'm rich and infamous
I'm going to get me one of these. -- Ψ Gremlin  13:51, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * "Honey, have you mowed the roof yet?!" 15:56, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * One can dream... TyrannisAn Iron, but caring, fist 13:52, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I want to live in a house like this. MDB (talk) 13:54, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * My BiL worked there (he's an arborist) a while back. 'Twas also featured in that last Peter Sellers movie, or at least some weird thing on its grounds was.  15:56, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I totally read "arborist" as "abortionist" in that post. The Foxhole Atheist (talk) 17:17, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I visited the place, probably 25-30 years ago. It's abso-frikkin-lutely amazing. And it was someone's home at one time. MDB (talk) 17:37, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the Biltmore's, go figure. 01:12, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * This is my dream. Well, a working one anyway.--Thanatos (talk) 02:09, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Specialized stubs
In the category of annoying administrative business that everyone is reluctant to pay attention to, I'm putting this here so that someone might respond.

I have adjusted template:stub per discussion at template talk:stub to have one parameter, which puts the article into a particular category of stubs, i.e. putting on a page would change the stub format to "This abortion-related article is a stub" (etc.) and would add the article to :category:abortion-related stubs. (The new system has been put into effect as a demonstration at category:abortion.)

Consider this a formal request for mob consensus. I'd like to move forward on implementing this system, but if anyone objects to the aesthetics or formatting, please tell me. Or just say that it's fine now.

The reason why I'm asking here is that this is a fundamental overhaul of the stub system, and even though it's something of little interest, it is "big." 04:07, 7 November 2010 (UTC)


 * At the moment stubs are marked automatically by a bot. Will continued automation of stubs make this more difficult to manage? There is really no way to automate subcategories because that seems to require a judgment call? Tmtoulouse (talk) 04:15, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Good point. It would still be possible to use the bot, but I think (since the new stub doesn't alter anything if no parameter is provided) that once all existing stubs have been converted, stubbot could still use, and every so often people could check category:articles needing expansion and convert those pages. (did that make sense?)  04:20, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * My concern I guess is that seems to fall squarely into the category of work that no one will really do. Or do once and then forget about. People seem pretty good about putting categories into articles though, if we make the sub-categories for stubs the same as major categories on the wiki we might be able to automate it based on that. Tmtoulouse (talk) 04:23, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The issue there is that RW might grow so large that we need more specialized types other than Politics, History, Religion, etc. Also, the category structure is so convoluted that automatic checking of parent cats would be very difficult for a bot to do, if not impossible. For example, cat:history is a very large cat but it's also in cat:politics, and cat:politics is in cat:culture, and so on... 04:28, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * And it seemed from the discussion at template:stub that people thought this was a system worth setting up (Armondikov, Human, RA, and David Gerard all voiced approval). 04:35, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Don't use my name for "approval". I said, as I recall, try it on a few pages and then let's discuss it.  First off, do we really need it at all?  Second, will it break stubbot (stubbot both marks stubs, small pages, and unmarks them.  It also ignores pages marked "nostub").  In general, this strikes me as chrome we probably don't need. Also, more importantly, a thing most people will never know about or use.  05:05, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Also also Blue, the idea of cats as a "tree" ("parent cats") is not entirely valid, and disputed (I think they can be a "web", whodathunkit?) Be careful in your overhaul of the entire site's structure, ok?  05:10, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 1. Honestly and realistically, how many of the articles at cat:stubs (or whatever it is) are ever going to be expanded? The way I see it, dividing that cat into subcats is a way of making it easier to improve the wiki's stubs - if someone is interested in British politics, they wouldn't have to sift through the monstrous category to find the British politics articles that are stubs. Right now, it's nearly impossible to find a particular type of stub to improve. I believe one of the biggest advantages of the Wikipedia way is that contributors can select a topic to focus on; right now that's virtually impossible.
 * 2. It won't break stubbot. Stubbot would have to be altered slightly, but the process would stay the same. (Of course, I don't know what Stubbot's code looks like, so I can't speak authoritatively here.)
 * 3. My point about category structure was exactly what you're saying, apologies that it wasn't clear. 05:30, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I like the concept, and if people are will to put in the work to manage it I think it would be an improvement. If we decide to move forward with this let me know and we can see what we need stubbot to do. Tmtoulouse (talk) 05:33, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm both for and aginst it. If done well, and transparently (ie, a noob can figure it out), it's a good idea.  If it makes everyone's life more complicated, not so much.  As I said, don't bot it yet, experiment manually and report to Ed your writing list, or whatever the hell he calls it.  05:41, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I wasn't going to do anything of the sort ("bot it")... and I think the way I did it is as simple as humanly (ha! ha! ha....) possible. All existing versions (i.e. without the parameter) are completely unaffected, and the parameter is just name of the category. Noobs at once cannot bork it and can easily guess how it's done.  05:46, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not necessarily against this, but I'm not convinced of the value we'd gain from it, balanced against the effort it would involve. Fact is, I doubt that there are many editors who particularly want to "find a particular type of stub to improve".  For the most part, people tend to find & edit the things they are interested in (regardless of whether they are stubs) by using the search feature, regular categories, or just by noticing stuff in RC, rather than using the "articles needing attention" categories, which articles tend to sit in for a long time.  What might be more useful would be if there was a way of configuring the regular category pages so that the articles which were also in a "needing attention" category were highlighted.   16:24, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, I've tried building a template for that here but I've hit a wall. Is dpl not compatible  with parameters like ?  17:22, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Two things: one, I believe the value is directly related to the size of the wiki, i.e. the larger we grow, the more useful this will become as a way to sort through the biggest topics; two, DPL is highly problematic and buggy right now.
 * The workload will be next to nothing after the initial conversion, and even in the initial onslaught most of the nitty-gritty will be done by bots. And while you're right that most experienced editors just watch RC to find something to do, I think new editors would find this incredibly useful to "get their bearings." As would I, for one. 20:20, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * While I don't have a problem with this, I disagree with your reasons for its usefulness. How does one "get one's bearings" by looking at stubs?  Also, how is a bot going to decide which category should be used for any given stub (if it has none or more than one)?  21:45, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * A new user may not know "where to begin," in terms of improving articles. Expanding stubs is very important - but a new user (and old users) may be overwhelmed by the sheer size of the stub cat, and they can "get their bearings" by identifying a chief area of interest and being able to see those articles in the stub cat that are in that area of interest. Also, the bot would only be used on specific subcategories; obviously cat:United States history would go in cat:History stubs, cat:Political terms would go in cat:Politics stubs, etc. The bot would be quite unintelligent, all the judgement calls would be made by the human. 01:50, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I've just clicked random and gone through half a dozen stubs or so. Not as many of our articles as you might think are stubs, it appears. Perhaps because we set the boundary too low, I can see some things that I'm sure need to be stubs but are above the 500 character limit. Anyway, they can be quite wide ranging, I think I only used the "politics" one twice. 15:01, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll been doing some. minor edit explanation st. I'll go random for a bit more. TyrannisAn Iron, but caring, fist 15:03, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Because this has yet to receive a more or less official go-ahead, it would be better if everyone held off on changing any of the templates. Especially since formatting 'has not been worked out. 19:25, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Um, Armondikov and I have kinda done at least 100 or so, er, It looks like bots may be unnecessary, as, err, at our current rate, hmmm, as we are burning through them. Sorry, I'll stop if you want me to. TyrannisAn Iron, but caring, fist 19:41, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Style: The thing only works grammatically if the parameter is lowercase, i.e. put instead of  . Other than that, it's perfectly functional and ready. I'm going to have my bot go through and change the grammatical cases soon.  19:59, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Fixed it. -- Nx  / talk 20:13, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah! thanks very much. 20:23, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Lowercase, got it. Back to work then? Or is the bot doing it?TyrannisAn Iron, but caring, fist 20:04, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Lowercase magic bad idea. Try. I know it's not a cat, but it should or could be. What if the cat is "United States"? 03:41, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I agree. Best way to do it would be to fix by hand. 07:08, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * If you guys would like me to do some categorising, give me a stub category and send me on my waaayyy...! 20:24, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Bill Maher
This has nothing to do with anything but Bill Maher is an arrogant prick. Why do people care what he thinks? He's one step above Jenny McCarthy. 09:50, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, it's true that he's better then ol' Jenny, but then again the fact that he denies some very basic scientific facts makes him extremely irksome. We would support him totally if it wasn't for that.. Plus there's this: http://moviebob.blogspot.com/2010/11/bill-maher-fails-at-life-again.htmlRyantherebel (talk) 14:31, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * In response to you, Chuck, I never cared much for Bill Maher. Mind you, I haven't watched him since his "Politically Incorrect" days, but I never thought much of him then and I still don't, because he has a tendency to throw out bullshit assumptions that are wrong, and use said bullshit, wrong assumptions to argue his points. 15:34, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Sometimes Maher is right on the money, sometimes he's way off. There's no one I agree with 100% of the time. DickTurpis (talk) 16:07, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * He's not quite a stopped clock, though. I can't say I know much of Maher outside of Religulous and the occasional vid that gets posted here, but I haven't seen anything to make me think he's in douche or turd sandwich territory. 02:11, 8 November 2010 (UTC)


 * He is a horrible person, and religulous is a pathetic film (It was like Louis Theroux without the insight or inherent sympathy) His perspective literally is puddle deep. He is the Rush Limbaugh of the left, a laughable character really. MarcusCicero (talk) 21:24, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Most Insane Thing Ever to Happen
Either I need to check myself into an insane asylum, or my computer has gone off it's rocker.

Here is a Java program I'm running:

class WhatTheFuck { public static void main (String[] args) { for (int i = 1, j = 77; i < j; i++) System.out.println(i); } }

Here is the output:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76

Notice anything strange? Notice anything COMPLETELY FUCKING INSANE??? Seriously, I'm about to fucking lose my mind. What the fuck is going on? Occasionaluse (talk) 18:17, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Where did 11-15 go? -- Nx  / talk 18:25, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Behind the tool shed to have a smoke. 18:28, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I HAVE NO FUCKING CLUE. MY WORLD IS COMING DOWN AROUND ME. Occasionaluse (talk) 18:27, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Have you tried turning it into an equivalent while loop to see if the results are the same? MDB (talk) 18:30, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

OH MY GOD IT'S GETTING WORSE: class WhatTheFuck { public static void main (String[] args) { for (int i = 1, j = 62; i < j; i++) System.out.println(i); } }

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 GOD SAVE US Occasionaluse (talk) 18:31, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Equivalent loop: class WhatTheFuck { public static void main (String[] args) { for (int i = 1; i < 62; ) System.out.println(i++); } }

same output as above (2-73 followed by 1-61) Occasionaluse (talk) 18:34, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Works for me. -- Nx  / talk 18:35, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I opened a new terminal and everything works as normal. But I have a terminal open that still produces the fucked up output. Occasionaluse (talk) 18:36, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * To the youtubes! --62.142.167.134 (talk) 19:00, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, it's not youtube, but here it is: File: WTF.ogv. Please forgive the erratic typing, I'm on the verge of a breakdown. Occasionaluse (talk) 19:35, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Bizzare. What JDK (+version) are you using? 21:45, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * java version "1.6.0_18"
 * OpenJDK Runtime Environment (IcedTea6 1.8.2) (6b18-1.8.2-4ubuntu2)
 * OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 16.0-b13, mixed mode)
 * Occasionaluse (talk) 22:11, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I think you need to use some GOTOs. That's it, throw some of those in.  Corry (talk) 21:47, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * You could always try dumping all of the environment variables and comparing them. 21:56, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm very unfamiliar with the java debugger, but when I set break points and step through, it executes normally. I'm not sure if that's a relief or not... Occasionaluse (talk) 22:31, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

My question is, why do you need a computer to count from 1 to 76, especially since it obviously isn't up the task? 01:11, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Also, stop dropping your computer and unplugging it when it's running. sterile 02:43, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

I assume you want to do this for the same reason the first computer program (Ada Lovelace excepted) was to factorise prime numbers. 11:06, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Like this
I know nothing (and care less) about the Merkin version of rugger, but this amused me immensely Hat tip 00:43, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Nice one. It's always cool when people who don't even know what the wargame is called can enjoy a highlight clip.  And that one is truly classic, as the QB saunters through the defensive line before pouring on the steam!   01:04, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * That was hilarious! Absolute genius, those kids are going to be laughing about that one for a while! -- 01:32, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * So funny I watched it twice. 11:00, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 100% legal, 0% fair. 11:02, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Didn't something like this happen in one of the MASH stories? The original book perhaps? RagTop Gone sailing 11:07, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * It was in the film, and the book I believe. The QB hands off to the center, who hides the ball under his jersey and wanders downfield. There a YouTube clip of a kids gaming doing almost exactly the same thing a few years back.  13:14, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Pope acts swiftly
[http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/pope-calls-his-cardinals-to-rome-for-sexabuse-summit-14999107.html Pope calls his cardinals to Rome for sex-abuse summit. Do I hear the stable door being shut?] I put this on WIGOWorld but thought the exposure here would help. 03:22, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * A sex-abuse summit sounds likely to get him in to even more trouble if you ask me. Poor cardinals. -- 04:02, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Does he want to brainstorm new ways of covering it up? Corry (talk) 04:21, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Get them into a room and say "look guys, just stop fucking kids. Seriously. I mean it this time." 10:28, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Or "if you're going to fuck with kids then you need to make sure that they don't blab about it later". Or maybe not. 11:02, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * There's only one sure way of making sure they don't blab, though... Come to think of it. Churches. Cemeteries. Silent victims. It's starting to make sense. 12:42, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Last week for the boy scouts, I had to attend a seminar on child sexual abuse. Not once did they mention priests. Not. Once. Cops, Santas, teachers, neighbors, all. But not priests. TyrannisAn Iron, but caring, fist 18:19, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Considering you're talking US boy scouts, with their uber religious mantra (something not as actively repeated elsewhere in the world, in the UK it's still official policy to endorse religion but they don't bemoan you for being gay or atheist) I'm not at all surprised they didn't mention it. But in fairness, in the grand scheme of things priests are the least of your worries when it comes to abuse and sexual abuse. Sure, it's highly salient but that's because they're put in both a position of trust and supposed moral authority - it doesn't mean it's truly prevalent and that a notable proportion of abuse cases are priests. The biggest risks to children still remain with parents and people close to them such as neighbours or extended family. 19:32, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Slaver ants choose strong victims
Slavemaking ant species target well-defended nests. How long before they start looking at us? Will we become human slaves in an insect nation? Totnesmartin (talk) 10:34, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Well I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords. -Tygrehart

Dubya's memoirs
Just the news report about them on TV this morning made me want to puke. 11:06, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I read a little via a Facebook post. Which then prompted a decision as to whether it was Clinton's fault for not dealing with it in the 90s. 13:30, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Dealing with what? Kanye West?  14:26, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Interesting that he seems to be (still) defending torture.--BobSpring is sprung! 18:51, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Or as someone else I know on Facebook pointed out "your torture didn't stop 7/7 so fuck you". Which is great rhetoric, if slightly (well, heavily) flawed logically. 23:52, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Hoam Skool (Of sorts)
Actually, it's "supplementary self-directed education".

Anyway, we're off to the Louisville Science Center with the younguns. Have a great day, everyone! The Foxhole Atheist (talk) 15:59, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Enjoy! Or, I hope you enjoyed!  01:39, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * We did... Up until we wound up in the Louisville ER because the boy had a quick onset crippling ear infection. We have amoxycilin, ear drops and some Tylenol now, so he's finally asleep. Anyway, the normal deal is we go to the science center, get dinner on Fourth Street where we talk about what we saw and then stop off at the Barnes and Noble on the way home so my daughter Avalyn can get a book about the thing she found the most interesting. That didn't happen today, though, because of the ER visit, but I promised her we'd Google us up some facts in the morning and we'll make a book of our own. This month's topic is marshland wildlife because she was absolutely engrossed in the Ohio River watershed exhibit. There was a hilarious exchange in there between the two of us, too:  Me: Wow, check this out A! It's a beaver! She: I don't get it... It's just an animal. Me: Well... Yeah. Beavers are wetland creatures. They chew down trees and build dams that make reservoirs that wind up being a habitat for a lot of other animals. What were you expecting? She: Well, something different. Arianna, Ashley and Rachel are always talking about this "Justin Beaver" at school. I guess he sings songs. Does this mean he's like Chuck E. Cheese or something?  Lastly, there was a Sesame Street themed human body exhibit. My personal favorite? The key on The Count's Organ Organ that goes *peeing sound effect* "Ah-hah-ha! That is ONE! very relieved bladder... Hah-ha-ha!" The Foxhole Atheist (talk) 02:38, 7 November 2010 (UTC)


 * My sympathies on the kid with an ear infection. I had one in high school. I was old enough to drive myself to the doctor's office; the pain got so bad I had to pull off the road in tears before I could keep driving. At least they're easily treatable. MDB (talk)
 * Ear infections are horrible, I think that most young kids suffer from them until they have built up a decent immune response. 11:06, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not just kids. I also got one (in both ears) when I was forty. No pain, but my ears were clogged so thoroughly I could barely hear anything. The doctor said it was probably because I had taken a couple of plane trips not long before. (After I asked "how does a forty year old man get an ear infection; aren't those usually reserved for pre-schoolers?") Antibiotics and a few days time cleared it right up. I remember swallowing one day at work, and then "I can hear!" MDB (talk) 11:36, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * First off, that sounds like it was fun, trip to the ER excluded. Second, my understanding is not that adults don't get ear infections, but due to children having smaller inner ears, it takes much less of an infection for them to have problems.  So in your large, adult ear canals, it takes a much worse infection before you're rolling on the ground in tears.   21:58, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Vuvuzelas defeated
Japan claims the title of world's most annoying instrument. Yet at the same time, I want one. EddyP (talk) 16:20, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Is a souped up stylophone, nicht wahr? 16:33, 7 November 2010 (UTC) TerrySmall.png [[Image:Toast s.png|alt=Toast|text-bottom|20px|link=User talk:SusanG]]
 * Are these things even legal? --I&#39;m bored (talk) 16:34, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The two that start the video off seem sort of like modified chanters. --Kels (talk) 16:37, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * For sale in UK at Firebox. 17:50, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't care how out of tune they sound - I WILL get one. ~Super Hamster  Talk 18:29, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The tromboon is the worst, surely. 02:06, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Otamatones in Silent Night. 04:52, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * That is really cruelly ironic, the title of the song being Silent Night... ~Super Hamster  Talk 05:21, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Or as the comment says "yea its not silent night anymore. more like i want to shoot myself in the face﻿ night" 12:06, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * You can rock out Hendrix style with this jumbo otamatone. 18:58, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * That is simply awesome! I need to get one and play it on public transit at 7am every morning. ~ Subsound ~ 02:56, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Weird stuff
Not sure if anybody else has found this. Running Avast anti-virus, and now, every time I click a Google link, it defaults to http://click2mix.info/go.php?p=85721640&subid=542&affid=37 and throws out a malware warning? Has anybody else come across this? Avast say the problem is fixed, but I don't think so. How do I fix, besides installing a new anti-virus? -- PsyGremlin  11:00, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I tend to disable all those security measures when they get too intrusive. 11:02, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Get another AV.. maybe a spyware thing...   That does suck, and can be a bitch to get out.   I had that on a laptop here, and it took several hours, and multiple programs to finally get it out.   Maybe calling a priest in will help?   21:34, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

FRC research
The Family Research Council is doing some survey work. Feel free to troll away if you're so inclined - although in fairness I wouldn't say "troll" exactly, as they did ask for peoples opinions. http://resonateresearch.com/frcsurvey/ 12:36, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * That's a messed up survey - rank from agree to disagree "The Family Research Council is a reliable source of information;" "I trust the Family Research Council; "I feel loyal to the Family Research Council." Loyal? Added my honest opinion of them. Bet you the results are never published. -- Ψ Gremlin  13:01, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Lovely: Have you ever given money to the FRC? Next block: If not, why not? -- Ψ Gremlin  13:05, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * And be honest with your reasons. [[image:Shifty.gif]] 13:23, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I beg to differ with one of their claims, too. They say "Only one in four members randomly selected to participate in the survey actually participated." Really? Is that so? There was a bulk e-mail put out to ALL Soldiers in the U.S. Army notifying them of the survey and asking for input. It was also sent out through AKO to all Soldiers that have spouses registered in DEERS (the thingamajig that the DoD uses to track benefit eligibility) that the spouse survey was up and participation was strongly encouraged. There was nothing random about it, from my perspective. (No, I don't have copies of the e-mails, before you ask, as that was months ago and yes, I did participate). The Foxhole Atheist (talk) 15:58, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * You should've been right on to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. (If that comes up as a redlink please write the article!) 19:49, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * There was a very, very good story about the founder of that which appeared on WIGO a while back. Really quite inspiring. Turns out it's not the atheist shrill organization the wingnuts would make you believe it is, and the majority of its cases are about defending Muslims and minority Christian sects rather than enforcing secularism or whining about atheists. 19:52, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * In fact I recall reading that the bulk of their (the MRFF) work is defending mainline christians against fundamentalists who attack them for not being christian enough (or the wrong kind of christian) 11:35, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Pascal's Wager
Good, in depth refutation here. -- Ψ Gremlin  15:58, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Pascal's Wager isn't difficult to refute. You just allow for the god in question to be any one of an infinite number of gods, or even just one of the finite number that have been worshipped over the course of human history, and the entire concept falls apart. Dawkins in TGD seems to think that Pascal wasn't being entirely serious with it, IIRC. I'm inclined to agree with that assessment considering how silly the whole thing is. 17:02, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Not to mention that it assumes doxastic voluntarism, which is something I really need to remember so I can bring it up whenever the Wager gets raised. 17:03, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Didn't know there was a name for it, it's always been a bit of a bugbear of mine. I believe what I believe not what I want to believe. 19:09, 9 November 2010 (UTC) TerrySmall.png [[Image:Toast s.png|alt=Toast|text-bottom|20px|link=User talk:SusanG]]
 * I think pretty much everyone picks up on the concept when they hear about Pascal's Wager. It's one of those "wait... but... what the fuck?" moments where you realise there's a serious flaw in something that, on the surface, seems reasonable. The name is a bit of a mouthful, so I'm not surprised if no one knows it. I only ever can remember it by going to the RW article for Pascal's Wager and clicking "what links here" (although it is also mentioned in the article somewhere). 19:16, 9 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Pascal had a point. Though it requires a few quirks here or there. If there is a God, and you profess a belief in some kind of higher God without specifying which (Covers all bases) then you have a shot of eternal life. If there isn't a God, and you keep up the charade, whats to lose? You won't care when your body is decaying in the earth. MarcusCicero (talk) 21:25, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * You lose the costs of keeping up the charade: learning the songs, doing the dances, kissing the right rings, and then there is that whole tithing thing. Bendz addresses this in section 7 up there, and yet, truth be told, I do take issue with his "Imagine if all that energy had been used for science, arts and music."
 * Who is to say that religion does not provide energy and inspiration to some artists? Gots no problem with them what pays their money and takes their choice, so long as they keep their grubby mitts off what's left of my free will. __ Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 22:23, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * If God is so capricious as to punish anyone who doubts His existence with eternal Hell and reward anyone who pretends to believe in Him with eternal Heaven, then He is not worthy of worship. If God does not exist then he is also not worthy of worship.  Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.   23:13, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * MC is crediting Pascal a little too much with that point. Take the Christian God, which is well established in the OT to be a jealous god. So much for being generic with your beliefs, such things wouldn't wash with many potential deities. As SJC above points out, you lose by wasting your life on a lie if you're wrong (although that's a more subjective point). And again, such a thing presumes doxastic voluntarism, which I think can be shown to not work pretty easily. 23:49, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * At the risk of running through all the old arguments, my main beef with PW is that religions demand such petty obeisances. Any gOD whom I might wish to please would be happy if I lived my life in a way that respected the lives of other people and did not foul up planet for future generations. Having to prostrate myself and toady to some insecure despot on an ego trip is not an honourable lifestyle. It's bad enough that the peoples of certain nations (North Korea, Burma, Zimbabwe, etc.) are obliged to do it to another human but voluntarily submitting to an unseen and unknowable entity on the offchance is nothing short of stupid. 08:31, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Challenge for the coders
WIGO voting: occasionally there's a WIGO that I really, really, really like/dislike. Would it be possibe/desirable to replace the Up/Down arrows with a "-10 &rarr; +10" slider? 19:07, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Honestly, I think the beauty of WIGO is its simplicity. Really good/bad WIGOs will attract other votes, and to really draw attention to them a talk page comment can work as well. Tmtoulouse (talk) 19:09, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * While I like the idea, I think a lot of people would just, as a matter of course, use +10 or -10 for everything. Then, if you usually use -5 or +5, unless you feel particularly strongly about it, then your vote will be worth half as much. Dalek (talk) 19:11, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * (EC, pretty much the same as Dalek said, it appears)I agree with Trent there. While I did prefer YouTube back in the days when you could give it a star rating rather than this "like/dislike" crap (I think they just replaced it because fanboys would always give it 5 stars and haters would give it 1 star. Like Amazon reviews, you get nothing in the middle), the simplicity and visual nature of the up/down option is superior. It's more accessible and prevents people overestimating their opinion of it by an order of magnitude. But we do have slider voting as it was used on AotW before it became defunct. It'd just be a fairly simple case of replacing the vote code. 19:13, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Simplicity is king, that is the lesson I have learned both from my own mistakes and watching the mistakes of others, and also the successes. I still want to add some sort of article rating system here to help us in our search for the good and bad of RW. Tmtoulouse (talk) 19:16, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually I'm always slightly confused about WIGO voting - although it's probably explained somewhere. If I read something which is really stupid am I supposed to vote it down because it's stupid or up because it's stupid? It looks as though people vote it up because it's stupid and therefore "good" or "liked"- but logically shouldn't it be the other way around? Shouldn't something really stupid get a negative vote? Or is the voting to approve the existence of the WIGO and to reward the WIGO creator?--BobSpring is sprung! 19:21, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I vote according to if I like the existence of the WIGO. Amusing, showing stupidy, teaching me something new... gets voted up. Seen it all before, same-old same-old or particularly laboured, vote down. Meh = Neutral. Dalek (talk) 19:24, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Eh there is some fuzziness around the WIGO. I like to think of it as a vote for "worth checking out" or "safe to ignore." There are a lot of problems like, suppose a link is worth checking out but the WIGO itself is incoherent or stupid, what then? If the link is worth looking at I would still vote up. But who knows what our army of readers do! Tmtoulouse (talk) 19:25, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * (EC shitstorm going on here)Yeah, I think that's pretty much it. It's just about how you feel about the entry and where it's placed. Kind of from "great" to "meh" to "you're fucking kidding me, right?". It becomes a bit more of an issue on WIGO:World because that's less opinions and more events, so the criteria seem to be "is this relevant to RW?", or in Human's case "is it worded the way I like?". 19:27, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Vote up to keep the existing up/down voting! 19:36, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Vote up to agree to use up/down voting to keep the existing up/down voting! Tmtoulouse (talk) 19:41, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Think of it in terms of a Facebook status. Someone posts "oh, my life is shit, I'm going to cry and kill myself"... do you actually click "like"?? 19:50, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Sometimes.......Tmtoulouse (talk) 19:50, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * If by "like" you mean "DO IT FAGGOT", then yes. -- Nx  / talk 20:00, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

I really don't think that's a good idea unless your account is controlled by ten different people. -- 22:59, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * No matter how much you may dis/like a politician you still only get the one vote either way. I'm afraid that's the rule of a democracy. Special pleading to wield greater influence is something that I would expect from the religious right and to hear it being suggested by Susan makes me a little disappointed and to be frank, has taken the gloss off my day. 08:08, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * We should all get one plus or minus five wigo vote per month, use it wisely. 14:38, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I operate from about 5-6 different IPs. Not to say that I actively exploit this situation, but sometimes I forget whether I've voted before and need to click to test it. 16:15, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Easter egg
Am I the last one to the party in not knowing about Google's recursion joke? Tmtoulouse (talk) 19:43, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Think it's been in there a few years. I just assumed the RW one got the idea from there. 19:56, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Everyone who understands the word and has a sense of humor comes up with it on their own. 04:23, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I didn't. Well, not at first. 08:46, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Do we have a set of easy-to-award things like Wikipedia's Barnstars?
Do we have such a thing, for giving to editors for good work? I imagine it'd be a fair bit snarkier than barnstars? If not, would anybody be interested in collaborating on it as a project? 00:36, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Not really, there is a project for such a thing, but it's inactive at the moment. Why not revive it? -- 00:40, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * On it! BBC article, then that :) 00:43, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Inactive? Nonsense! I still awards pats on the back. But we are always looking for new members with new ideas. 00:50, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * We can haz an award now, too: template:Back pat 01:19, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Yey. Although, it is very big... 01:21, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The idea has come up a few time before. As someone once said, "I you want rewards, join a frequent flyers program" or something like that, maybe it was a coffee shop loyalty card I can't remember. Any way, the feeling was that the Wikipedia barnstar was a bit of a circle jerk. If someone wants to go around congratulating people off their own back, like Goonie or Secret Santa, then more power to them, but an organised system of awards did seem a little self-congratulatory, especially on a small project like this were everyone knows everyone else anyway. -  π    01:33, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * All well and good, sez I, but when there's nobbut dead soldiers, empty glasses, and a tray of fag ends on the table, a pint would do just nicely. Never mind, I wasn't thirsty anyway. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 01:38, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Share the wikilove? SHARE THE WIKILOVE?!?! That's freaking cringe-worthy. 01:44, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * At least the one that Sprocket linked to was beer. It's usually a cookie that you see being passed around. ~Super Hamster  Talk 01:53, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * My cynical side agrees with Pi. The best reward is that people read and appreciate your work, and get involved in the discussion around it. I'd rather have 10 comments on an SB post I started than a single barnstar. It's like on DeviantART where everyone prefers comments to favs (okay, so I'm also guilty of perpetuating that problem, but I try my best, I really do.) or Facebook where a few comments feel much better than someone clicking a "like" button like it was free candy. So getting involved, drawing people in, learning more and sharing information is both the purpose of the site and its own reward. That said, by the very nature of the project those that are happy with an article stay silent - only those who have an "issue" to raise will raise it, and this will give undue weight to the one thing in a hundred that's bad. Talk pages are there for hashing out problems and not for, *ahem* circle jerking. So you never hear it as part of the natural course of things. Therefore some semi-organised and informal system - such as Goonie's back patting - is a practical option and doesn't appear as insincere as an organised "award" scheme where someone can mindlessly dump a template on someone's page just to feel like they're doing something. 02:05, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Don't like 'em myself but something like this out of the blue is nice. 02:10, 10 November 2010 (UTC) TerrySmall.png [[Image:Toast s.png|alt=Toast|text-bottom|20px|link=User talk:SusanG]]
 * Exactly. No offense to the Goonie One's template, but a handwritten note always trumps a Hallmark robo-card. That said, either is far better than no back patting at all.  04:17, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Crundy gave me a 1/2 eaten cookie once when I went on a linking binge. It is the 1/2 stale cookie template. Robothead.svg iron, yet caring fist 14:05, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I just checked, we have a whole category: Barnstar award templates. It just appears that they've all been forgotten. Most seem to date from 2007, or CUR. Which may be whyRobothead.svg iron, yet caring fist 14:08, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * In reply to the mutated Kaled, naturally someone would recast the local into a mood more suitable for the alleged lifeforms inhabiting RW. A pint is a pint, with or without soppy accompaniment. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 18:19, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

I no longer have any hope for humanity
The new Snuggie commercial is to the tune of the Macarena.

I view that as a major sign that as a species, we're doomed. We might as well go ahead and choke on our own waste products to save trouble later.

If you want to torture yourself...

MDB (talk) 12:00, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Urg. I'm reminded of the SF tale, where alien archaeologists are digging through Earth's remains and they find a video. On playing it, they're amazed at the race of superbeings that lived here and can't figure out how such a species died out. Turns out they were watching a cartoon. Would be sad if all we leave behind are things like this and McDonalds. Of course, that said, the broadcasts of Hitler's speeches should be reaching potentially inhabited planets by now... -- Ψ Gremlin  12:19, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Wait till they discover Gilligan's Island. "This species is so pathetic they can't even figured out how to build a boat on an island filled with wood! Launch the invasion fleet now." MDB (talk) 12:25, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * And that makes me think of Harry Turtledove's Earthwar series. The lizard people from outer space send a probe to Earth that arrives during the Middle Ages. They say knights in armor fighting and say "no problem, we'll conquer them in a few weeks." Now, they're using slower than light drives, so they get here about 1942, and are rather surprised to hear radio broadcasts from the Earth, and people driving around in tanks, and... oh shit the humans are working on nuclear weapons. You see, the lizard people take scientific research slowly and cautiously, like the other worlds they conquered, so they figured humans would have made very little progress during their travel time. Surprise! MDB (talk) 12:32, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Snuggies, for people too incompetent to operate a blanket. Also, I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who read Worldwar.&mdash; Unsigned, by: Tyrannis / talk / contribs 14:11, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * It wasn't as good as Guns of the South or the twelve volume series that began with How Few Remain, but I enjoyed it. MDB (talk) 14:43, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I, for one, as the owner of 7 versions of the Macarena, am deeply disappointed in the prostitution of this great work of art to sell such a silly product. 14:28, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * There are seven versions of the Macarena? Isn't that about eight too many? MDB (talk) 14:35, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Between remixes, differing tempos, and at least two different languages spread across three cd singles (well, one is more of an EP, with a delightful Spanish version of All My Loving), it is barely enough. Keep in mind I also have at least 5 versions of Round and Round...  16:10, 10 November 2010 (UTC)