RationalWiki:Saloon bar/Archive131

Carl Wieland: Fraud or moron?
I actually came upon this via some of ramblings on CP. Seems that Carl Wieland, the nutter in chief at CMI has a new book out.

The bit that caught my eye is this particular claim:

"In her 1994 book Mutant Message Down Under, Dr Marlo Morgan wrote that Australian Aborigines had an ability to communicate over long distances by telepathy."

apparently this finding:

"ought to rock the evolutionary ‘establishment’ to its core"

Well, since one of the bedrocks of the "evolutionary" mindset is that things ought to be verifiable I went to try and look up these claims. One google for "Dr Marlo Morgan" later, and I found she isn't a doctor of anything, let alone anthropology, her book was self-published and an ADMITTED FRAUD.

I can't figure it out. Is Wieland just an astonishing imbecile who doesn't even do the most cursory of fact checking, or is he just a fraud that will say anything to make a buck? Either seems to fit with creationism, so it's hard to decide.

On the side of dumbshittery there's this, also from the article, said of his wife successfully "guessing" 10 cards in a row:

"I had read widely enough to know that the only thing that fitted the facts was that I was witnessing the spiritual warfare between Christ and Satan … … now I had been shown that the ‘bad guys’ were for real, it made sense to join up with the ‘good guys’ as soon as possible."

Really, Carl? That's the only explanation. Satan gave your wife psychic powers? Goat in heaven, this guy's a fucking moron. My guess is that, given this was in the context of doing card tricks, your wife was playing a trick on _you_ as turnabout. I wonder if he even bothered to ask? I suppose an alternative is the anecdote is just fabricated, and the whole book is fraudulent.

I'll probably add this to the Wieland article this evening if it hasn't been done already, but I thought it was hilarious, so I'd share it with y'all. Anyone want to send some tips to sceptic bloggers? -- 11:38, 27 November 2011 (UTC)


 * It's just like Andy, seize upon the slimmest hint of something that you think might be of use to your argument, no matter how crazy or already shown to be false but disregard all sound science because it lends credence to an old-Earth, evolutionary, non-magic explanation. It's hard to say whether it's deliberate fraud or stupidity or just the blindness of a bigot.   16:18, 27 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Or? steriletalk 21:10, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Liberal public school censorship strikes again!
An evil liberal public school principal ordered a poor, defense conservative student to apologize after she tweeted a disparaging message about... oh, wait, it was about Republican Governor Sam Brownback. Nevermind, nothing to see here. MDB (talk) 00:26, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Dominionism
This blog is currently running a short 'n sweet, but good overview of dominionist sects. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 05:57, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Good Lord who fucking cares
[http://news.yahoo.com/obama-leaves-god-thanksgiving-speech-riles-critics-173023786.html If obama didnt mention god in the address. Honestly.] "Somebody ought to remind Obama (and his speechwriter) that when Americans sit down around a meal today and give thanks, they give thanks to God."... Even the atheists!--il&#39;Dictator Mikalosa (talk) 14:17, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's not a very good reason to be upset.--Tiberius Gracchus.jpg. 14:56, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * "when Americans sit down around a meal today and give thanks, they give thanks to God." And that's why Bush the First thought that atheists shouldn't be allowed to vote, I guess: they're not really Americans. PintOfStout Talk Good people drink good beer. 15:00, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Fucking small minded idiots.  And it's as if they forgot every fucking other time that Obama mentions god.  Endlessly.  --[[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]Godot   Some would use a tautology to describe it ("The way things are done around here is the wa 17:14, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I hear that if you play the speech backwards, it says "Allahu Akbar!" Personally, I thank the people who work hard to put food on my family table. And the turkey. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 20:42, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh yeah, Obama also has more god-cred than Bush. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 20:48, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * He only mentions God and Jesus to cover up his Muslim faith; thankfully we have conspiracy theorists and right-wingers who can see through the lies. άλφα Ταλκ 19:18, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
 * When he gestures with his hands during the speech, he momentarily points to a poster with words that suggests that Paul McCartney is dead. -- Seth Peck (talk) 17:16, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm in the weird part of the Internet again.
I was searching for reasons why some European countries have slightly higher suicide rates than average (some wingnuts actually try to use these statistics for welfare state bashing), so maybe we can include something on that.

Anyways, one of the top results relating to it on the almighty Google is this. It's like men's rights movement on steroids. Anyone see this before? Osaka Sun (talk) 10:36, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Flags in Britain
I was musing about the regularity with which my fellow Brits see displays of flags in/on domestic properties (not institutions/government buildings). A house I walk past semi-regularly is usually seen with the Red Hand of Ulster emblazoned on the British flag, then the other day this changed (for some reason) to the logo. This is the only time I've seen flags relating to Northern Ireland in England - usually displays of Ulster unionism in Great Britain are localised to (mostly Western) Scotland, not an English town populated by working-class socialists and students. I occasionally see the odd England or Union Flag when I'm at my hometown, but nothing Northern Irish. 15:46, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I see plenty of St. George's Crosses all over the place (there's a house not far from me that has 3 flagpoles in the back garden, all flying the cross). There was a thing a few years ago about the england flag being "banned" because it's "offensive" (neither of those things are true: the actual story is that a police authority advised some pubs to ban football shirts, including the england one, on the assumption that it'll cause less fights to break out if team support isn't readily advertised) so a lot of people around here love flying them as some kind of defiant gesture. I also see quite a few union flags being flown upside down, which amuses me greatly. X Stickman (talk) 15:56, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I know I shouldn't jump to conclusions about people on the such paltry evidence, but I am always auspicious of folk who display the flag prominently outside some special event like the footie or a royal wedding. I am suspicious of all displays of patriotism - it seems to me very unenglish. OF course, the BNP and their ilk have muddied the waters somewhat (i'm choosing to ignore the colonial and empire building that we once indulged in)AMassiveGay (talk) 18:33, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

As an aside
AMG mentioning displays of Un-Englishness; charming woman has charming opinions. What a fucking embarrassment to white British people. 20:29, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Arrested. 20:34, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Please tell me she's not getting her kid back. --Veni Vidi.png Feci.png 20:47, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh dear. Stupidity personified.
 * For the foreigners who can't understand her accent, she's saying, "Ooh I could do with a lovely cup of tea. Could you make me some tea? How about you? Please?" Ajkgordon (talk) 22:17, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Harper just Reagan-smashed the Wheat Board
While the majority of farmers oppose. There's been so much crap thrown about the CWB being a "protectionist socialist monopoly" and the virtues of the supposed free market that nobody knows what might happen.

But if it's really the worst-case scenario and you have multinational corporations stomping all over the industry, we could possibly have a repeat of 1993 (aka. the Tories might flat-out disappear). And if that occurs... Osaka Sun (talk) 01:27, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Country articles
It's alright with everyone that I'm writing the headings for "see also," "external links," and "footnotes" in the country's language, right? Just making sure. 02:01, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Fine by me. Тy talk 02:01, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't even like them, cause they are some strange blur between funny and serious. but at least that would be really interesting to see.  [[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]Godot   Some would use a tautology to describe it ("The way things are done around here is the wa 02:07, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Cool, my foreign language crusade shall continue then. 02:08, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Just google translate, or do you have some familiarity with some/many of these languages. I'm envious of people with a good head for languages.[[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]Godot   Around, around, around, around, over, and under and through 02:10, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm fluent in every language that I've worked with so far. 02:21, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

why is it so creepy?
this I mean. Scream!! (talk) 04:56, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * My family has a cat that sits in that kind of position sometimes, but not nearly that upright. I get the feeling, however, that that cat is looking into my soul. 05:11, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Now that's right in the Uncanny Valley. (WARNING: TV Tropes link) Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 05:13, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Oh, Herman Cain...
Number five. Osaka Sun (talk) 23:26, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Does the DNC have some new hotshot strategists or something? It seems like a waste to dig up this much dirt on a guy who doesn't really stand a chance anyway. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 23:41, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Who says it's the DNC? It could be the Republicans running against him. MDB (talk) 00:05, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Didn't Cain complain about Parry's advisors starting it up? Whatever, it's still good comedy. Osaka Sun (talk) 01:29, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Dunno. It would make sense, though. The bottom of the barrel pseudo-candidates probably have more incentive to try to out-maneuver each other. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 05:18, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * "I will not fight false claims as it is not what America needs or wants." Double standards for the win, guys. --Veni Vidi.png Feci.png 08:26, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

beautiful video about marriage
http://www.allegiancemusical.com/video/marriage-equality-about-love really nicely done vid on equality. --Godot  Some would use a tautology to describe it ("The way things are done around here is the wa 01:59, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * You are...a douchebag. That's right, a total douchebag. Osaka Sun (talk) 02:29, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * What? I thought that was very well done. 03:21, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Top right. George Takei. :P Osaka Sun (talk) 03:28, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Blue, I had the same question, thinking "what did i do". so i googled.  love takei.--[[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]Godot   Around, around, around, around, over, and under and through 03:33, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Wow. That was really nice.--Dumpling (talk) 07:51, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Multiculturalism and stuff
Since this little racist rant about the destruction of "white British culture" has gone viral, I've started this debate up. Osaka Sun (talk) 07:56, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Would the loudmouth still have been arrested if she had been yelling about the demerits of, for example, pepperoni pizza? 08:31, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I have to question whether arresting her actually does anything to improve the overall situation in the long-term, or if it just creating in her, and those who think like her, a martyrdom/persecution complex. I guess she probably has a lot of anger in her life, quite possibly some mental health issues, and this kind of intervention isn't going to heal that anger or those issues, maybe push it down but just make it worse at the same time. The best cure for racism is positive personal relationships with people of different races/cultures/ethnicities/religions/etc; a visit from the police isn't helping anything. 08:41, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't suppose the police had much choice in the matter. On the preliminary evidence (the video) she was breaking the law. The police had a duty to arrest her. Ajkgordon (talk) 10:25, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * The police don't have a legal duty to arrest anyone. If the police choose not to arrest someone, there is no legal recourse (only political recourse). You can't get a writ of mandamus to force the police to arrest someone since the decision to arrest someone is discretionary. 10:35, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I didn't say "legal" duty. Since the evidence of a crime was so public, they had little option but to investigate. As it happened, finding the woman was relatively easy. An arrest and charge was inevitable. Ajkgordon (talk) 12:16, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Of course if you believe someone has committed a specific serious crime you can just arrest them yourself. The special power of the constable isn't specifically arrest, but a presumption that the arrest is legitimate. You can even carry hand cuffs for this purpose. Since cuffs aren't a weapon they are perfectly legal to carry, although you should expect to be questioned about why you have them in some circumstances. 82.69.171.94 (talk) 10:55, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Don't just consider the women who was arrested, think about the community. If you allow this to be publicised and don't arrest anyone you tacitly accept it, which can be seen as encouragement and sends a very negative message to affected communities. Being arrested just means the police took her away without her having a say in the matter. We don't know what, if any, further action was taken after she'd been arrested and questioned about the incident. An arrest seems like the extent of the message it was necessary to send. "Shouting racist abuse on the tram is not OK". 82.69.171.94 (talk) 10:46, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * She's been charged. Ajkgordon (talk) 12:17, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah I just saw that, and came back to see if someone else had pointed it out. Also, ListenerX, they're using the Public Order Act. That starts out with Section 1, "Riot" (at least 12 specific people, violent uprising, reasonable people fear for their lives, up to 10 years in prison) and works its way down to Section 5 (one person, sustained disorder causes distress, no more than a fine). Yelling about Pepperoni Pizza on a tram and refusing to shut up about it after being asked to stop seems like Section 5 to me if you can show some passengers were distressed by the yelling. Section 5 charges for people who would have been charged Drunk & Disorderly but turn out not to be drunk are not uncommon. 82.69.171.94 (talk) 14:34, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Just in case you thought "liberal" wasn't a snarl word
Critics of the Protection of State Information Bill are "liberals working in the interest of the Democratic Alliance." This from the S.A. Communist party chief. Which would make the SACP... conservative? -- PsyGremlin  15:12, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Communism != Liberalism, also It's been done before. Тy talk 15:15, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Damn, Ty--when I read that article, the description of what Mao considered "liberalism" is what the current GOP leading primary candidacy line-up looks like...was that on purpose, or is that by definition? -- Seth Peck (talk) 15:22, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * EC. No. You're falling into that Andy mode of analysis that reduces all politics to a liberal/conservative dichotomy. Radicals on the left have long gone after liberal (or bourgeois) politics for any number of reasons, most of which have to do with the liberal desire to protect middle-class, as opposed to working-class interests. (There is no meaningful definition of the word "liberal" that does not include some sort of a capitalist economy and private ownership. Communists don't see things that way)  PintOfStout  Talk Good people drink good beer. 15:16, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * To the, liberals are worse than fascists. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 15:25, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * *cough* Scarlet A.pngpostate 15:57, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Siri is pro-life (and by extension, Apple is too)?
This. Makes you wonder if it's the nature of Apple's search application, or if it was deliberately done by an activist programmer. -- Seth Peck (talk) 18:16, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Sadly it was probably built that way to avoid upsetting the conservative family values contingent, who have a tendency to boycott products & create other negative publicity when they don't get want they want. 18:28, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Exactly, can you imagine the shitstorm from the inverse "Siri, I want an abortion" "Found 16 DIY stores, 4 near your area!" Scarlet A.pngtheist 18:31, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Causation, correlation, what? Study finds legalized MJ => lower automobile fatalities
This. -- Seth Peck (talk) 21:45, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * It notes a drop in alcohol use. I believe that cannabis generally compromises reaction time less than alcohol. Therefore, fewer crashes. Either that or probability is just playing a clever prank on potheads. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 22:06, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, those who drink get aggressive. They speed, take sharp turns, etc. Smokers get mellow - that's just what the drug does.  They are likely to be going too slow (and often get pulled over for that reason), they aren't aggressive at taking turns, or trying to beat the guy next to them, or "jumping out" when green lights change, etc.  All those aggressive driving behaviors increase EVEN WHEN THE DRIVER IS LEGALLY UNDER THE LIMIT.  Pot smokers are just "safer" (in the sense of how serious accidents will be, or how other drivers would react to them) drivers.  [[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]Godot   Around, around, around, around, over, and under and through 22:13, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I wonder (not that it matters) if this is something that could have been predicted (was it?) or if it was something that had to be tested and observed in order to discover. -- Seth Peck (talk) 22:20, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Except that we are in an "anti pot" war (not sure why), I think you'll find most experts and lay users have long said it's a far safer drug. People don't beat up their spouses and kids while smoking - though they do when drinking, people are less likely to take advantage, sexually when smoking; they are less likely to pull a gun on a cop, or take personal risks like "let's see if i can cross this train track before the train gets here".  The associated behaviors are just less risk-taking, less thrill seeking, and less "out of control emotionally".  Unless you consider watching hours of bad comedy and trying to cook something when high to be "risky". heh.[[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]<font color="Blue">Godot   Around, around, around, around, over, and under and through 22:33, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I understand the differences, I'm certainly no amateur when it comes to alcohol and I know the arguments for MJ/MMJ...I guess my question is, "did anyone argue that 'more pot => less alcohol => fewer accidents'", or was it just a suspicion that "everyone" believed to be true, but until now no evidence corroborated it? -- Seth Peck (talk) 22:39, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I feel compelled to point out that there's a definite selective reporting effect going on to. Instances of drunks getting violent and hospitalising people are ten-a-penny (sad but true), but if they've had but one joint on their bender it becomes "cannabis user causes injury" not "alcohol user causes injury". The illegality and novelty of the pot use in the story becomes the headline - and people, particularly politicians who make the laws and the table-thumpers who vote for them, mistake headlines for actual cause-and-effect relationships. Not that the drugs themselves are actually the cause anyway when put next to cultural pressures and expectation effects of course. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>narchist 02:00, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

French AIDS awareness ads
Interesting set of AIDS awareness ads in France. Now I just need a way to put these up in my Catholic university. άλφα Ταλκ 00:33, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8CriEQskEg yeah, french AIDES ads are pretty frank. :-)  [[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot   Around, around, around, around, over, and under and through 00:50, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh I'm not falling for looking at those images again! At least I've never had a recurring nightmare about Goatse and 2 Girls 1 Cup. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>theist 01:38, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Well said. I first saw those today, so maybe I'll have absolutely horrific nightmares about them tonight. άλφα Ταλκ 01:53, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Skeptical Science Debunking Handbook
A really excellent little booklet (PDF) about how to debunk global warming myths, from Skeptical Science.-- 00:48, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Nice. I posted the first couple of parts recently but I didn't realize they made it into a booklet. Good stuff -- maybe more people will break out of the "but we've got the facts, how can we possibly lose?" mentality. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 01:06, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that gets you nowhere. I find you either have a "rationalist epiphany" or... you just don't. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>moral 01:23, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Worth paraphrasing that into an RW space article? Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>bomination 01:39, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Leveson Inquiry
For those keeping an eye on it (just me then, fair enough), McMullan has just finished giving his evidence. For those not in the know, McMullan is the former (and, indeed, form) NotW journalist who believes that there is nothing a journalist can do that is wrong or illegal. After listening to his evidence I'm now in severe need of a brain bleaching. Here's just a couple of his best bits:

The hacking of Milly Dowler's phone was not a bad thing for a well-meaning journalist to do. He explains what he means by telling Leveson his child went missing recently from his back garden for 20 minutes and he felt the emotion that Mrs Dowler felt when her own child went missing.
 * 4.46pm: McMullan finishes his evidence by explaining he does not think the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone was malicious.


 * 4.22pm: McMullan says he regrets the stories he did on Jennifer Elliott, the daughter of actor Denholm Elliott.
 * She became a drug user and started begging following the death of her father and the News of the World exposed this.


 * I really regret it because I'd got to know her very well and I really quite liked her. The fact she was begging outside Chalk Farm station came from a police officer, who had been surprised when he asked her to move on.

I went too far on that story. Someone crying out for help, not crying out for a News of the World reporter.

I then took her back to her flat and took a load of pictures of her topless.

Then she went on TV and described me as her boyfriend.


 * He adds:


 * When I heard a few years later that she'd killed herself I thought 'Yeah that's one I really regret.' But there's not many.

Sometimes I wouldn't have bought the News of the World even though I worked for it, but the British public carried on.

''In 21 years of invading people's privacy I've never actually come across anyone who's been doing any good. Privacy is the space bad people need to do bad things in. Privacy is evil; it brings out the worst qualities in people. Privacy is for paedos; fundamentally nobody else needs it.
 * 4.20pm: McMullan is asked to clarify whether he believes that no one should have privacy. He says "yes".

What a shining example of tabloid journalism that piece of shit is. In many ways, I'm rather glad that nobody wants to employ him at the moment.-- 17:12, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

And this an absolute fucking cracker this is:


 * 2.54pm: McMullan also worked on the "name and shame" paedophile story which he says was one of the Rebekah Brooks's good ideas&hellip;
 * &hellip;2.58pm: Leveson interjects and read backs part of McMullan's statement slowly to make sure he heard correctly.

I felt slightly proud that I had written something that created a riot and got a paediatrician beaten up.

-- 17:29, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I thought that "paediatrician = paedophile" story (where people go after a paediatrician and deface the building under the impression that he's a paedophile) was fake? X Stickman (talk) 17:45, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * No, very real. I remember the campaign at the time, and the glee in the Express and the Mail when the campaign backfired and riots started to happen.  My recollection is that they tried to burn the paediatrician out, but to be honest, it was about 15 years ago, so the details are blurring a bit.-- 17:49, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah, 11 years ago, and you're right, the building was vandalised. And additonal linky.  Trust it to be Wales.-- 17:53, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * He is a bit of a twat isn't he? Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>bomination 17:57, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * On the otherhand, he does appear to have single-handedly guaranteed that there will be an independent regulatory body, and that the regulations are going to be so tight that the rags aren't going to be able to cope. A new aphorism - every twat comes complete with an enjoyable clit.  Not as catchy as clouds and silver linings, but hey&hellip;-- 18:12, 29 November 2011 (UTC)-- 18:12, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm going to pretend I didn't snort horribly at that. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>postate 18:27, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

I think overall I actually agree with McMulland about privacy, in fact I think the end of privacy is ultimately unavoidable. But (and these are big caveats) firstly it has to start at the top. If anyone has privacy, it better not be the chairman of a corporation, the head of MI5 or a senior minister. If they're going to watch me walk down the street, I want to know where they are every second of the day. If they want to know who I'm calling, I want to see a transcript of every phone call they make. Secondly it will cause painful changes in society, a cost in human terms that we'd have to confront. For every politician caught getting money under the table, we'll break up a hundred marriages. We will prevent a few bank robberies, but we'll also ruin a lot of surprise birthday parties. A lot more child abuse will be identified and stopped, but a lot more vulnerable people will be targeted by scams. 82.69.171.94 (talk) 17:02, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * McMullen's comments on privacyare complete arse. His contention that in 21 years of invading privacy, he's never come across anyone doing good. What does that mean? everyone has been breaking the law or more likely, they've breached the NOTW's fucked up sense of moralty. If someone is suspected of paedophilia, you call the police, who are properly regulated and can actually help the victims, not the papers who have no interest in the victim but headlines. Privacy is not the sole reserve of criminals. As the BON above mentions, for every one paedaphile caught, you are going to vilify hundreds more people who have not broken the law but offend sensibilitys of their gossiping neighbours. I believe i would go crazy with an axe if i couldnt shut the door to world and be the person I think I am without having to worry who is watching. I've been couch suffing for last few years, and the lack of privacy a truely damaging AMassiveGay (talk) 19:05, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Cain ending bid?
News is reporting Herman Cain is considering ending his bid for the White House now that someone claims she carried on a 13 year long affair with him. He denies the affair, of course, but if he's considering dropping out because of it it sort of sounds like there's probably some truth to it. Furthermore if it is true she's bound to be able to corroborate the story pretty convincingly if it indeed went on for 13 years. This guy was considered the frontrunner not long ago. Weird. DickTurpis (talk) 18:09, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * You just know there's a book in the works - "How to be a potential Presidential candidate and utterly fuck up your chances". At this rate they're going to be begging random strangers off the street to run.-- 18:15, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * "Dispatches from Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan" is the title, I believe. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 18:40, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I remember being told US Presidents are always either Crooks or Shaggers. It seems to me that the American people should prefer Shaggers, and therefore someone with a history of extra-marital affairs would make a good candidate. Am I missing something? 82.69.171.94 (talk) 16:39, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't know about that, but I have heard it said that Americans are unique (at least among the western-style democracies) in that we care if our leaders get a little on the side. I've even seen that some countries (Italy, France for instance) actually expect their leaders to have mistresses, and wonder if something is wrong when they don't.
 * On the other paw, I've heard the argument that a President who fools around shows a lack of personal judgment, and thus his capability to lead is questionable, but on yet another paw, a lack of personal judgment does not necessarily mean he lacks judgment in other regards, and further, the only reason it would show a lack of personal judgment is that we do make such a big deal about it. MDB (talk) 16:51, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

What's wrong with this picture...?
Let me know if you spot it too or if I'm just going mad. <font color=#CC0033>gnostic 18:25, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Other than the fact that our congress people are paid 200K AND get life time pay, AND get life time bennies? [[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot   Around, around, around, around, over, and under and through 18:34, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Looks fine to me. You don't want them to go Galt on us, do you (looter)? Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 18:39, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Perhaps they scaled it by diameter instead of by area, and hence they are looking at the square of the salaries? If I get a chance, I could make a picture. steriletalk 18:45, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Sterile wins the Highly Original Prize. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>gnostic 18:53, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * But yeah, it's massively misleading to do it like that and then scale by diameter. Although to be honest, look at the blue circles, they don't seem to match up even by diameter. There is no way the upper-middle income one is only 3.5 times larger - even in diameter - than the middle income one. And I did the calculations on it earlier, they're implying the great green Death Star thing there is closer to $9.8 billion. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>sshole 18:56, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Mind you, it's still a big circle. (And why does the MediaWiki svg renderer have to use such gruesome fonts? Blech.) steriletalk 19:36, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Because people who make good fonts want money in return, rendering them unavailable (no pun intended) on the Linux machine the Wiki is running on. Also because whoever made the graphic neglected to convert the text to paths prior to uploading it. 04:02, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, it really is still pretty fucking big. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>narchist 20:18, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Another annoying misrepresentation to undermine any good point that could be made. Also, people in Congress don't get life time pay nor benefits. DickTurpis (talk) 20:52, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * A guy on The Young Turks facebook page, after this was pointed out: "You guys need to get laid. It is a freaking diagram, obviously not to scale" - then please, pray tell, what is the fucking point of it? Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>d hominem 22:17, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I lol'd. The point of diagrams is obviously just to draw circles around numbers for no reason. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 22:25, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * It serves the same purpose as those old cartoons of pigs in top-hats sitting on large piles of gold, except now that art has been thoroughly debased, the people who are still able to draw such things command a premium. 03:59, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

any of you who are "geeky" and know computer hardware terminology - help!
I have a little mini laptop (10 inch screen) that I love. But somewhere along the line, I must have compressed it near the headset/mic jacks, cause there is a small crack there. It's been fine till today when i pulled out my headset, and the entire support jack / holder/female side thingy came out with it. I can plug in the headsets and if i wiggle just right, can make the connection - but clearly that's not a solution. My question is 1) are there USB headsets (I've seen usb speakers), and 2) what terms would I use to google, if i wanted to get just a "converter jack" or something for USB to audio jack so I could plug in the speakers I already own? Any suggestions appriciated.--<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot  Around, around, around, around, over, and under and through 19:30, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * 1. Yes, I've seen some before. Check Newegg.com for some good deals.
 * 2. Try 'USB to TRS' or something like that. <font face="Curlz MT"> Flubber <font face="Harrington"> talk to me :D   19:35, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Probably your best bet would be a USB Audio Card. Looks like they have lots of options. Hope that helps! (ʞlɐʇ) ɹǝɯɯɐHʍoƆ 19:37, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * There is a suggestion that these sound cards might even help with teh background noise so common in small laptops, since the electronics are all on top of eachother. Thanks guys! --[[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot   Around, around, around, around, over, and under and through 19:44, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * this one is listed with 'gender changers' for some odd reason but fits the bill and is only $20 with 5 eggs. My last pair of headphones were labelled 'USB' but was really just mini connection headphones and came with a similar USB adapter to the one linked. It worked fine, plug n play on win7. TheCheatI run on alcohol 20:08, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Iran riot at the UK embassy
Can anyone say Iraq War II III? Osaka Sun (talk) 22:15, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * More like Iranian Student Revolution II but without the complications of a puppet Shah, hostages or Oliver North. -- Seth Peck (talk) 22:19, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, we've apparently been wanting a piece of Iran for ages, but since the cost would be INSANE, they can probably do what they like to the embassy and get away with it. I doubt it'll lead anywhere (also, we've had Iraq War II, sort of). Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>pathetic 22:25, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Technically a violation of the Vienna Convention (I think) and could be construed as an act of war (embassies being sovereign). We'll see how this plays.  -- Seth Peck (talk) 22:46, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Considering all the talk about the IAEA report (and the vast amounts of oil there), I'm wondering if Obama wants to pull a Bush.


 * If it comes to that and millions of Iranians (many of whom, as we've seen in 2009, also want the theocracy to go to hell) die, the world might be a different place in a few years. And have we ever written an article about the stupidity that was Mohammad Mosaddegh's coup? Osaka Sun (talk) 22:59, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Vienna violation yes (Iran could clearly have prevented this happening and instead encouraged it), sovereign territory no. The embassy buildings are (like the embassy itself) protected by Vienna, and the host nation is supposed to ensure they aren't damaged. But they're still buildings in the host nation, they aren't a tiny enclave of a foreign state. 82.69.171.94 (talk) 16:19, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

RationalWiki - in the News (as a source)
RW used as a source in the New Statesman. Aceace 01:28, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * How bizarre, though at least he should have bolded the "when applied correctly" part, that's really the point. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>pathetic 01:51, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Can anyone who knows the British economic situation evaluate this? Osaka Sun (talk) 02:02, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think anyone knows what the fuck the situation is. The people who are elected and are paid to know certainly don't. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>postate 09:00, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * No they don't but they do seem to be enjoying themselves - whatever it is they are doing. Aceace 09:03, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Ooh! ooh! Does that makes us notable? /runs off to WP to write article... --<font face="Wild Words"> PsyGremlin  13:58, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Google news search. I guess somebody should sign up for alerts (also, using us as a source is sorta like using Wikipedia as a source- but any mention at all does further our mission of refuting pseudoscience. Maybe Ace could volunteer to go streaking at the next All-Blacks game while holding up a banner that says RationalWiki,org?  kidding, of course.).--  03:54, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Play pen

 * Why don't you volunteer to fuck off? Aceace 03:57, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Jesus, take a joke, will you?-- 03:59, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Jeez Brx, learn to take a joke. Aceace 04:06, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * The difference is, my jokes don't involve lengthy campaigns of harassment and you can usually tell when I'm joking- in the event you can't, I'm always happy to present my apologies and an explanation.-- 05:05, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Aceace 06:07, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Ass. Osaka Sun (talk) 07:01, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Mobile skins and native apps
23:34, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Is there a term for this?
Been working on a cognitive anthropology paper and started editing the sources into some of the relevant RW pages, copy-pasted them back into Word with some of the short write-ups and found I've got a pretty decent outline and biblio. (/self-aggrandizement) Fun:Yak shaving plus? Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 05:22, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Working on a paper which helps RW articles which helps with the paper? Circular Yak Shaving, surely. Speaking of shaving the old yak, I need to go fix about half a dozen computer and re-do the group website (I do chemistry on my days off, really). Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>gnostic 08:57, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Someone needs to sign this chap up
We need members like this bloke. Hopefully he wouldn't want to form a committee, or design an PR voting system for members of a board. DogP (talk) 08:11, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I live, like, 50 miles away from there! Nice to know we've got heroes like him hanging around. (They could have got cancer treatment free on the NHS if they were in Britain - just sayin') --Veni Vidi.png Feci.png 12:52, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Wasn't he on SGU last year or something? We're well too late... Peter talk, or type, or whatever... 23:07, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

EV
Wow, my bank has finally got round to using an EV certificate on their online banking service, so they're only a few years behind the rest of the internet. Now I can make sure that nice Nigerian prince can transfer the monies into my account securely. <font color="#777777">Crundy <font color="#00F0A20">Talk nerdy to me 13:58, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Herman Cain...
does he actually understand how elections work in america? Cain: My opponents are trying to assassinate my character, and are evil for it" Your opponents are attempting to destroy your chances by going after your character and history, STOP THE FUCKING PRESSES!--il&#39;Dictator Mikalosa (talk) 19:45, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Nope, already outed as a parodist. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 19:50, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Vote Democrat, Obi Wan Kenobi. They're our only hope. --Veni Vidi.png Feci.png 20:35, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * And now this...Dammit, another broken irony meter -- Seth Peck (talk) 21:09, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Frozen Planet censored
BBC documentary Frozen Planet has its last episode censored in the USA by the Discovery Channel because the fact of global warming might be upsetting to those Americans who don't like facts. 21:52, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Same link twice, there, dude. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>pathetic 21:55, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Try this one. (ʞlɐʇ) ɹǝɯɯɐHʍoƆ 21:56, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Fixed. Although CH's is better than mine. 21:58, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Fuck the Discovery channel. Damn bastards. <font face="Curlz MT"> Farter <font face="Harrington"> talk to me :D   22:00, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * BBC/Discovery, grow some balls. Osaka Sun (talk) 22:23, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh FFS. Although I can see the explanation, it's not helped that it's a climate change topic. And to be fair, if Attenborough isn't famous in a particular country it's their loss. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>moral 23:42, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * This didn't happen on BBC. They're focused on what they call "balance". In Stargazing Live, for instance:
 * Dara O'Briain: "Astrology is bullshit." (Words to that effect)
 * Brian Cox: "Since this is the BBC, in the interest of balance, I have to say that, yeah, he's absolutely right." --Veni Vidi.png Feci.png 00:22, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Everyday I'm Science'in
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOH2pTVbsz0 So. Awesome.] Osaka Sun (talk) 22:59, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

RationalWikiWiki's down
Everyone else getting the internal server error messages at RWW? 68.56.137.137 (talk) 23:35, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * RWW's default state is down. Тy talk 23:36, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * (EC)I get 500's 50% of the time I try to load RWW, for the last few weeks. Used to be more sporadic. 23:37, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I liked Maratrean's edit to the RWW article on MCWiki that said the site's been replaced with a page saying 500 error. I found it humorous and I chuckled.  --  02:03, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi

 * pops head in to see how things are going, sees shadow, scampers off*'

HAI GUYZ AND GALZ!

00:05, 1 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Hey! Long time no see.  How's tricks?  00:52, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Kentucky church bans interracial couples.
Welcome to Kentucky. Please set your clocks back 50 years. PintOfStout Talk Good people drink good beer. 00:20, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * --Veni Vidi.png Feci.png 00:28, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Osaka Sun (talk) 00:37, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Stuff like this makes me wonder why or how people consider America to be the greatest nation on Earth. It's sad. 00:34, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Yep, im sure that will make your town, your church, state and country look so much better --il&#39;Dictator Mikal (talk) 01:00, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * That's not Kentucky, that's Pike County, Kentucky. Pike County is to Kentucky what Mingo County is to West Virginia.  Ever see Matewan?  Hatfields.  McCoys.  Snakes...  Secret Squirrel (talk) 02:40, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * That's not Kentucky, that's Pike County, Kentucky. Pike County is to Kentucky what Mingo County is to West Virginia.  Ever see Matewan?  Hatfields.  McCoys.  Snakes...  Secret Squirrel (talk) 02:40, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Polygamy
Moved to Debate:Polygamy Bad Faith (talk) 14:57, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Oh god, I"m getting old.
So it's been a long day, and no i've not eaten much, but I went to lunch and had a margarita. JUST ONE. at a bar where they are probably pretty weak. and after JUST ONE. i'm buzzed. shit. I turned around an the kid's music is noise, the movies are filled with actors i've never heard of, and one drink gets me drunk. I"M OLD.--<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot  Around, around, around, around, over, and under and through 21:23, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, shit. I'm old too then. -- 21:25, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * You want old, wait until Saturday, I'll make you feel very old then. Тy talk 21:26, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * That just sounds weird. 21:28, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Does WfG's husband know about your plans, or...? -- 21:30, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * On Saturday I will be old enough to buy my own brandy. Тy talk 21:34, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * OH god. Get the hell off my lawn.  Pouts.  PS.  My husband is asian.  he GETS CARDED still.  Sure, he's younger than me, only turning 40 this year... but he fricking gets carded.  jerk. [[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot   Around, around, around, around, over, and under and through 21:37, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I find I get ID'd for booze way more regularly when I'm clean shaven. I only shave two or three times a month (if that) so I usually have a stubble/whiskery thing going on which makes me look about 25, whereas when I'm freshly shaven I look about 16. This is why I never bother shaving. 21:47, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I knew I was old the day I bought $100 worth of post-Halloween-night-discounted candie, came home, dumped it on the table, and thought "I'm not really in the mood to eat any of this." (I had a sandwich instead.)   21:35, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * (EC) Hey, at least drinking's cheap then. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 21:38, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * If there was chocolate in that candy, i could never be too old. (course, the flip side is that makes me "too fat" but who's counting".[[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot   Around, around, around, around, over, and under and through 21:39, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * The Fat Police. They're always counting... Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 21:42, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * The fat police can go to hell. I'm an american!  it's my right and DUTY to be obese.  we hold the record, you know!  we have to be good at atleast ONE statistic!! [[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot   Around, around, around, around, over, and under and through 21:44, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Since I stopped drinking about 2-3 months ago my weight has crashed through the floor. :S But now the three glasses of wine I grabbed at a drinks reception (I went for the lecture not the freeloading booze, honest) a couple of hours ago definitely took its toll. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>d hominem 21:54, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * One of the things about being obese that "amuses" me is the way other people talk about weight loss. "I don't get what's so damn hard, I lost 20 pounds just giving up soda (alcholo, sugar, etc).  Why it's funny to me?  Most large women (not men, sadly) have actually already given up all that.  The trouble is that a slow life of over eating is virtually impossible to undo.  When I'm being "good" (I haven't been good since July... sighs), I get 1400 cals a day.  That's 2 eggs whites and a bowl of oatmeal, fruit and veg for snack, a small health sandwhich or 1/2 a less healthy sandwhich (child size hamburger as a treat), a slice of cheese or cup of yogurt for snack, and 1/2 a chicken breast, 1/2 cup of whole wheat pasta, and some oil on a salad.  Let me tell you how hungry you are at the end of the day, and none of the diet woo does shit to help.  I know way more about diet woo than I should, just cause you think "ok, my mind says lemons can't help, but what the hell, i'll try".  ;-)  [[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot   Around, around, around, around, over, and under and through 22:02, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, diet woo could "work." Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 22:11, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Get a decent crack habit. You never see fat addicts. AMassiveGay (talk) 22:29, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * It's weird if you're actually hungry. You're not supposed to be hungry if you're eating roughly what you should be. For most people the problem isn't that they're hungry but instead they're simultaneously bored (so they eat when they aren't hungry) and lazy (so they eat convenience foods that have high energy density and aren't terribly filling). There is no magic solution, but unless there's something genuinely wrong with you it should be possible to eat enough to trigger the "full, not hungry, do something else" signal while still slowly slimming to a healthy range by picking low energy foods that fill you up. Whatever you do, it has to be something you can do most days for the rest of your life, not just when you're "being good". 82.69.171.94 (talk) 23:33, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Trust me, on 1200 - 1500 cals, i'm hungry. If i exercised, I could add 500 cals more, which literally would make "all the difference". That's one extra meal.  And yes, I've been doing this for nearly 20 years after I lost my thyroid (no one bothered to tell me then, that you can't eat like a teenager), and yes it's a "lifetime" thing, but if you really look at it, life is not worth living on 1200 cals.  :-)
 * I know exactly what you mean, Godot, and it annoys the hell out of me just as much as any other time someone over-simplifies a problem. But the converse is also remarkably true; that gaining weight when you're under is equally difficult. I know at least one anorexic who has many many issues that go beyond just food (it's more a symptom in this case, really) and people who are under stress tend to simply crash because they're shutting down. Actually, I'm not convinced that "eating more" would be a solution to that even if you could implement it because if you've fucked your body's ability to digest it then you're just converting calories into poop, rather than body mass. And perhaps on the other hand if you were in a starvation mode from a calorie restricted diet, your intestines would be there squeezing every last ounce they could get out of it if you limit yourself, so to lose weight just through that alone you'd have to under under eat which would undoubtedly make the "starvation mode" even worse. Indeed, this is all why diet woo of all kinds is bullshit, it's fucking with an established equilibrium that takes at least a few years of constant attention to undo. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>moral 01:34, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

People also oversimplify "virtues." I do at least some running or biking most days, so I must have "discipline." Actually, I'm a bit of an insomniac so I do it to get a good night's sleep. Clearly this makes me morally superior, or something. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 04:29, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Here is probably my single biggest "oh shut the fuck up" to the medical community. "If you exercise, you'll feel better and have more energy".  THAT'S BULLSHIT. ((Actually, it probably isn't in the long run, but...)  My knees hurt just walking 15 minutes.  I do it, but it hurts.  And when I add in very basic yoga or weight lifting i ache for days.  "it's good pain".  yeah, bite me!  :-) [[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot   Around, around, around, around, over, and under and through 04:39, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * If walking or weight-lifting is painful, you should try swimming. 04:52, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Yoga & weight lifting are for muscle strength & tone, & they will ache is you're not used to them. For weigh loss/general fitness, they're not all that good.  Running, walking, swimming & team sports are good general cardiovascular exercises.  If you're getting aches in specific places from these, you might need to hone your warm-up technique to make sure you stretch the relevant muscles before starting.  08:37, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Or just be a fidgety little thing. I often suspected that all the shaking, twiddling, playing with hair, churning teeth and darting my eyeballs around everywhere added up to significant exercise. If the estimates here are right then you're talking about a calorie consumption difference of about 20% at least between people who can and can't sit still. I know people are supposed to fidget less when watching television and it's this that's supposed to explain the old adage about watching TV leading to obesity (among other factors), but I'm pretty sure I fidget more when watching it. Could be a bigger factor than you think, it seems. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>d hominem 13:38, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Fuck you, Hollywood
Just saw a trailer for 'the Thing'. Why does hollywood insist on raping everything good its ever done? AMassiveGay (talk) 22:18, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Money. -- 22:23, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * John Carpenters The Thing was perfect. It needed nothing. Those fucking bastards fucked with my childhood. Aceace 22:28, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * You do realize that John Carpenter's "The Thing" was itself a remake, right? For that matter, "The Thing" was adapted from a classic sci-fi short story, John W. Campbell's "Who Goes There?"
 * Yes I did know that. But Carpenters version attained perfection. Aceace 00:42, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * It gladdens my heart when I see remakes bomb. Fucking whoresAMassiveGay (talk) 22:32, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm waiting for the point where they've done so remakes that they have to go back to silent films. Battleship Potemkin, now with CGI! Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 22:44, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * "Silent films with 21st century dialogue! Starring the voice talents of Tim Allen and Eddie Murphy!" Ahhhhh GOD! What a horrendous vision! Aceace 22:50, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I want to see a shot for shot talkie remake of the A Trip to the Moon. Starring Christopher Walken. And he has to play it straight. -- 07:05, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * First read as "Battlefield Earth" - David Gerard (talk) 13:39, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Fuck you, Shakespeare. Fuckin' copy cat. <font color="#ff0000">Me!<font color="#649CD6">Sheesh! <font color="#6ff6633">Mine! 22:51, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

This must be illegal, somehow, no?
"Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online." Fourteen bucks on Amazon. PintOfStout Talk Good people drink good beer. 00:44, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * making money off other people's work? That's got to be illegal.[[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot   Around, around, around, around, over, and under and through 00:46, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * No, seriously. I edited ALL of those articles, some of them quite extensively, and I did so on the assumption that CC/GNU/copyleft, etc, meant I was not doing so for somebody else's financial profit. PintOfStout Talk Good people drink good beer. 00:54, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * a) Wow! and b) contact wikipedia. See what their fine print is. I don't think they'd like this, cause it will set precedent for everyone to "write" their own for profit book.[[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot   Around, around, around, around, over, and under and through 00:57, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Sadly, you may have a problem. this is from the wp article on gnu "he GNU Free Documentation License (GNU FDL or simply GFDL) is a copyleft license for free documentation, designed by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) for the GNU Project. It is similar to the GNU General Public License, giving readers the rights to copy, redistribute, and modify a work and requires all copies and derivatives to be available under the same license. Copies may also be sold commercially, but, if produced in larger quantities (greater than 100), the original document or source code must be made available to the work's recipient."  (emphasis mine)[[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot   Around, around, around, around, over, and under and through 01:00, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Don't "contact Wikipedia" before reading their article on the subject: WP:Books LLC Wikipedia is aware of it & doesn't object. See also, this article.  Rightly or wrongly, the publisher claims they are only charging for printing/binding/distribution costs, not for the content.  01:05, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I think this is one of those "long tail" things. Instead of spending ages and lots of cash putting together a book and having to ensure you sell loads to make a profit (say, the Twilight series, or whatever the bollocks-du-jour everyone must read these days), they get a computer program to trawl the net and assemble relevant information on an obscure topic, usually from wikipedia, and sell it print-on-demand for a relatively minute mark-up. The long tail idea is that they can make more money by selling fewer copies of lots of different things than by selling lots of copies of the same thing. One example I recall was a book charting the sale of office chairs in southern India. When people spot them on Amazon it raises an eyebrow of "who the hell would buy this?!?" but the long tail explains it. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>bomination 01:42, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * You were fucking retarded then. --145.94.77.43 (talk) 06:43, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Exactly. The key thing for the GFDL and the CC licenses (except CC-NC) is the idea of contributing to the common good. Preventing other people from making a living is a tangent, and usually seen as an unhelpful one. I'm going to hope that Godot was being sarcastic when saying "making money off other people's work? That's got to be illegal.". Pay-per-byte network access charges (especially for mobile users) mean some ISPs make money from people visiting Wikipedia too. Countless for-pay articles will have been written in magazines and newspapers using Wikipedia for background or as a springboard. Hopefully you don't think either of these things should be illegal.
 * If Books LLC were lying about where the words come from, that would be a different matter. For example there have been numerous outfits that rebadged the GIMP (which I worked on when I was younger) and hide the fact that it's Free Software from their customers/victims. I believe the same happened to Audacity and OpenOffice.org. The projects had to ask eBay to shut these criminals down on many occasions. But people who are open about what they have to offer, that users are free to re-distribute and so on, and the fact that they're charging for convenience and customer support are fine. At the consumer level you can find a market for people who just want a phone number to call when they can't get something to work instead of, say, asking on an unrelated Wiki... 188.220.41.110 (talk) 11:50, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

It's not illegal, but these things are often marketed deceptively - not making clear they're rehashed Wikipedia content, so end up being bought (at stupid prices) by (a) marginally-notable subjects surprised someone's written a book about them (b) Wikipedia editors looking for print sources. See blog post rant - David Gerard (talk) 13:34, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Obligatory Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>d hominem 13:48, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * For people in the EU (where the law is balanced to make distance selling unprofitable if you sell things people realise they didn't actually want) the comment at the end of that blog rant is very appropriate. Return anything which you buy from a web site and realise on arrival isn't what you expected. Don't feel guilty, if it's not what you expected, that's the seller's problem not yours. If they wanted zero returns they'd work harder to make sure you knew what you were buying. 188.220.41.110 (talk) 17:13, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Returns are only a viable option when buying from bigtime sellers like Amazon itself, who have an obligation to provide adequate after-sale service. Whereas if you buy something disappointing from an eBay seller & try to return it, you'll get fucked over nearly every time & have very little recourse.  If you fight hard for it through the dispute process, you might eventually get eBay to force a refund, but there's no certainty of it.  eBay's terrible feedback system doesn't help, as it lets "power sellers" get away with murder.  Situation is probably similar with Amazon marketplace, but I can't really say for sure as I only use it occasionally & can't recall any bad experiences.   00:25, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

So, why sew not sue?
Hubby was saying something about sewing, and pronounced it "sue". Which makes sense when *every single other word with ew is pronounced" ewe.  Anyone have any idea why "to sew" acquired an "oh" sound?  or is it just an american thing and brits pronounce it right?  Dictionary says it comes from old english sīwian, which seems as if it was once then, "sue" or even a harder "ee" sound.  <font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot   Around, around, around, around, over, and under and through 04:51, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * You're the resident linguist here aren't you? Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 05:01, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * yeah, cept you can't chalk this on up to the Great Vowel Shift - so I'm stumped. I've googled.  really![[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot   Around, around, around, around, over, and under and through 05:07, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * If you're expecting English pronunciation to be consistent or logical, you are headed for a life of disappointment. Doctor Dark (talk) 06:15, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Before English spelling was standardised by dictionaries & such, the word "show" was often spelled "shew". I assume it was still pronounced as we would pronounce "show".  08:32, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Agree with the Doctor. Also we have bow (weapon), bow (bend) and bow (front of a ship). But why pick on 'sew' when there's 'ough'? 09:03, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually "sew/sow" is quite an interesting one. For me the following three words are pronounced the same:
 * "sew" with a needle, "sow" seeds in a field and "so" as in "so what?"
 * However I pronounce "sow" (female pig) differently.
 * Which leaves me with three words which are spelt differently but pronounced the same and two words which are spelt the same but pronounced differently. (And none of them are pronounced like sue.)--BobSpring is sprung! 10:53, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * "soe", "sau", "seu"... well, your choice of how to represent the vowels may differ, but I believe I pronounce those words roughly the same way as BobM does 10:57, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Wow. Nobody here knowns why this is spelled differently? Ok, I'll start at the beginning then. English is linguist bastard made up of three different language families: Celtic, Roman and Germanic. The old English tried to keep the etymology of a word corresponding to it's foreign ancestry (that's why brits write "colour" because it comes from French colour). So "to sew" comes from Old English siwian which comes from Proto-Germanic *siwjanan while "to sue" comes from Anglo-Norman suer (sister) and corresponds with French suivre (to follow). So change in pronounciation made "sew" from "siw" and spelling kept the "u" in "sue". So for many people (including me) they sound the same but are written differently. The only reason that comes to mind why "sew" is pronounced differently from "sue" is because of the different etymology. While "sew" is from Germanic ancestry, a highly in inflexive language family, "sue" is from Roman ancenstry, a language family that is much less inflexive and much more regular in such forms. Looking up the old declinations of these verbs, "siwian" is in Anglo-Roman praterite (past) siwode, siwodest, siwode, siwodon — so possibly the "o" took over as as first vowel after "i" died of British laziness and "sue" kept it's weird "u" because of Roman language polishing kept alive in British English. So they are written differently to tell them apart, while only some people pronounce them differently. Basically the same reason why one writes chocolate (from Nahautl chocolatl) and not chocklette... -- 12:13, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Excellent. Now explain "...ough" which must be the most baffling to non-English speakers. Scream!! (talk) 12:29, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * The only thing that I can pull out of my ass about that is that it is simply combination of the diphtong "ou" and the digraph "gh". "ou" has 3 sounds (/ʊ/ should; /ɔ/ cough; /ə/ camouflage), while "gh" has 4 sounds and can be silent (/f/, /x/ or /k/, /ɡ/ or /x/, /p/). That means 3x5=15 variants of which 10 are used. Some of those which are possible simply don't make sense to use as I don't need to write ough but can simply write up to produce "ɔp" (hiccough/hiccup). So you end up with 10 used instead of 15 variants. And yes, for non-natives it is a giant pain in the ass. -- 13:06, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd take some issue with the above. Apart from place-names I don't think there's a lot of Celtic in modern English. There's much "Roman" either - if by "Roman" you mean Latin left behind after the relatively short Roman occupation of the British Isles.  There is certainly a load of Latin which came into the language via Norman-French after the Norman Conquest though.--BobSpring is sprung! 15:03, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Theres a hell of lot words and place name in the UK with a nordic root left over from all the Viking incursions and DanelawAMassiveGay (talk)
 * I don't know if 'nordic' is actually a proper thingAMassiveGay (talk) 18:31, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * @Bob: Erm, yeah. With Roman I meant the Romance language family — so actually that would not only be Anglo-Norman but also French, Spanish and Italian (Ok, badly worded on my part). The influence of Celtic languages is really not all that big, but it is there, not only in a few words but also in prounanciation. @AMG: Nordic is actually more of a geographical term, or meaning Nordic as in "Northern Germanic". Also Nordic languages aren't Celtic languages. -- 20:33, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * The contribution of Celtic is minimal. The page you linked to has a handful of words many of which are archaic. I expect that the Danelaw would have been Old Norse. David Crystal speculates that later merged with Anglo Saxon to produce a language which was less inflected than either of its predecessors.  There is obviously no connection between Norse languages and Celtic ones - apart from the fact that they are both indo european.--BobSpring is sprung! 20:40, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Either I'm reading this wrong or...
A new timeline by the CBC is saying that Canada is reducing emissions? Osaka Sun (talk) 07:37, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Can you crack it?
Any codebreakers here? You can get a job with GCHQ! The code in text format is:

eb 04 af c2 bf a3 81 ec 00 01 00 00 31 c9 88 0c 0c fe c1 75 f9 31 c0 ba ef be ad de 02 04 0c 00 d0 c1 ca 08 8a 1c 0c 8a 3c 04 88 1c 04 88 3c 0c fe c1 75 e8 e9 5c 00 00 00 89 e3 81 c3 04 00 00 00 5c 58 3d 41 41 41 41 75 43 58 3d 42 42 42 42 75 3b 5a 89 d1 89 e6 89 df 29 cf f3 a4 89 de 89 d1 89 df 29 cf 31 c0 31 db 31 d2 fe c0 02 1c 06 8a 14 06 8a 34 1e 88 34 06 88 14 1e 00 f2 30 f6 8a 1c 16 8a 17 30 da 88  17 47 49 75 de 31 db 89 d8 fe c0 cd 80 90 90 e8 9d ff ff ff 41 41 41 41

Running it through a hex-to-text converter gives what looks like an encrypted string:

Although I'm not sure if the data on the page is wrapped or not. Certainly doesn't look like the result of something simple like Vigenère or Caesar's cipher (which I guess you'd expect), but then what would they be using if they want you to decrypt it without a key? <font color="#777777">Crundy <font color="#00F0A20">Talk nerdy to me 11:30, 1 December 2011 (UTC)


 * They're probably not interested in people who can break those pre-modern ciphers following instructions from a book. They want the kind of people who can do something new, which means this probably isn't even a (much harder than the toys you suggested) differential cryptanalysis problem because those can be attacked automatically too. The sort of people GCHQ (or their analogues at the NSA) want to hire have noticed that there are three 00 bytes in a row and three FF bytes in a row, and were already wondering what significance that had before they read the next line of text. 188.220.41.110 (talk) 12:08, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Ha, I'm an imbecile, you can't try differential crypto here because you need chosen plaintext. 188.220.41.110 (talk) 12:10, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Maybe the code above is some kind of compiled app or memory pointers and not ciphertext at all? <font color="#777777">Crundy <font color="#00F0A20">Talk nerdy to me 12:31, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, just found this. <font color="#777777">Crundy <font color="#00F0A20">Talk nerdy to me 12:35, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

My first impressions are that the block seems to be divided in to two sections of 80 bytes. The last block terminated by the 4 octets of 0x41, and the first by the 4 octets 0x42. Looks like some kind of padding to me, and I got kind of excited then I saw the 0x41 (65) might be the length of the "message" bytes in the the block, but that doesn't seem to (64 bytes plus the 9d in the last 8) but that doesn't seem to fit the pattern of the first. I'm fairly sure this 4 octet repetition is important somehow though, and discovering what is probably the key to figuring out the meaning. I'll keep thinking about it. -- 13:22, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Apart from thinking "it's hex, isn't it?" the first thing I saw when looking at it was whether the two blocks meant you had to do some kind of boolean operation on both of them to make one box of numbers and then start breaking it. Analogous to steganography but they've given you the key to start. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>moral 13:30, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Eh, well, Crundy's link has rather ruined it for everyone now. Apparently it's x86 executable code implementing rc4. The decoded data gives: GET /15b436de1f9107f3778aad525e5d0b20.js HTTP/1.1, which is this compsci 101 homework problem. The only slight thing in the first problem is that there was more data hidden in the PNG file in an iTxt field. How fricking tedious is that? It wasn't even a proper code, it's an exercise in spotting opcodes you're used to reading. I might do the next step to see if there's another phase that's more interesting, but this seems like bullshit to me. -- 14:11, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Abuse
Wow, Amazon really don't check who are buying their products do they? Yes I'd really like to buy some nitrous oxide chargers and some baloons for unrelated purposes. <font color="#777777">Crundy <font color="#00F0A20">Talk nerdy to me 11:55, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Seems like it is effectively encouraging safer drug use. Nitrous is relatively safe as drugs go (but hey kids, don't operate heavy machinery), and inhaling single cartridges via a balloon eliminates the scariest "You did that wrong" hospitalisations that occur when idiots play with a whole cylinder and an improvised mask. 188.220.41.110 (talk) 14:38, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Steve-O disagrees with you <font color="#777777">Crundy <font color="#00F0A20">Talk nerdy to me 16:34, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * If he'd vomited into a tight fitting mask he'd be in a lot worse trouble -- also given Steve-O is addicted to Cocaine and regularly uses other drugs including Ketamine, who is to say it is the Nitrous that's responsible for being in this state in the picture? (yes I see the empties, but that's circumstantial at best). 188.220.41.110 (talk) 17:44, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Barmaid, a round of beer for every Tolkien fan in here
We did it guys! Somebody finally recognized Tolkien's languages as the third most conservative on the world. Cheers! -- DasRationalpersone (Annoy me!) 13:10, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Link, please? Is this some remnant from when Tolkiendil was still editing over there? Also, why is this not on Talk:WIGO:CP? 16:02, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Before i realized you meant CP "conservative" i was thinking - well of course it never changes (the definition of conservative), it's not a real language and no one uses it as a first language, duh. But I'm sure andy has his own unique take on linguistics.--[[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot   Around, around, around, around, over, and under and through 16:41, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Click. Probably not. Because I can't buy all Tolkien fans a drink on Talk:WIGO:CP. -- DasRationalpersone Socks cat 1.JPG (Annoy me!) 20:26, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * It has been removed now. 20:34, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * How can a "dead" language be conservative? [[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot   Around, around, around, around, over, and under and through 20:37, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Traditionalist Catholics probably consider Latin to be "conservative" in the liturgical sense. 20:49, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Presumably a dead language would be the most conservative imaginable. It's certainly highly resistant to change and modernisation. Wouldn't it be perfect?--BobSpring is sprung! 21:40, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * You forget Mr. Schlafly's unusual definition of "conservative;" for him it has no other meaning than present-day American wingnuttery. 03:31, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Still, I'm proud. -- DasRationalpersone Socks cat 1.JPG (Annoy me!) 20:45, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * This language was stillborn, lol. It was probably because Reuel was a devout catholic. -- DasRationalpersone Socks cat 1.JPG (Annoy me!) 20:46, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Question for you all (at least in the US)
So I was looking over my car insurance, and it occurred to me that I think I'm getting reamed. I did on online query with Geico and got a quote that was less than half what I'm paying now. I called my current company to see if they could come down in their price, and they basically said no, but also that the quote I got sounded too good to be true (which occurred to me as well). So what do you guys pay for car insurance, for a single car, no collision, injury liability up to $500,000? I'm paying over $600/year, and just got a quote for around $300. Which of those sounds closer to what you're familiar with? And if any of you have Geico is there some fine print or hidden fees I'm overlooking? DickTurpis (talk) 18:25, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Because of the laws of each state, it's really hard to compare between states. I pay about 60 bucks a month with State farm.  We've had no accidents on our car in 15 years of being with them (which didn't stop them from upping our rates when Colorado inacted the procedure that let them base your rates on your credit score and not your driving, thanks Colorado!), insure only one car, a 10 year old saturn - 2 drivers over 35.   Don't know if that helps you or not.  [[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot   Around, around, around, around, over, and under and through 18:48, 1 December 2011 (UTC)  PS, I still carry basic collision - like 5,000 bucks or something, to replace my car if it's my fault.  That is 2 times blue book, and it's minimual addition - maybe 12 bucks a year, cause it's an old car with no accidents.
 * Yeah, different states can make a big difference. Without giving away too much of my sooper seekrit identity, I'm in New York, male, over 30, and have 1 accident a couple years back and no points on my license (I think). Currently I'm with Amica, which I believe is one of the highest rated companies, but hence not the cheapest. DickTurpis (talk) 18:52, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Don't you lot have equivalent websites to compare the Meercat (just click to get to Comparethe market.com) Scream!! (talk) 19:02, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I have no insurance. I just drive fast enough so I never get caught. --188.10.41.57 (talk) 20:57, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I pay 242 every six months with above minimum coverage on medical and liability but not my own car cause it is not worth shit. I have USAA and do practically all my insurance and banking with them. I got access to all their services cause my father served. TheCheatI run on alcohol 22:57, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

That's it, we write a Margaret Wente article now.
It didn't have to take long for denialism to be centre-stage in Canada.

Simply embarrassing. Osaka Sun (talk) 00:09, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Please start using preview-- 00:16, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I'm just disgusted that something like this shows up on the second largest newspaper in the country. Osaka Sun (talk) 00:22, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Are you done massaging your comment into perfection so that other people can chime in? We don't need a Wente article, but this could fit easily into the climate-change denial article. PintOfStout  Talk Good people drink good beer. 00:35, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Dime-a-dozen denialist article? Yawn. In 'Murrica, most conservative pundits are deniers or lukewarmers at best. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 06:00, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Answers Acadamy - Dr Jason Lisle and Ken Ham strike again
There is a homestudy courses by Jason Lisle and Ken Ham available HERE. A youtube video of one section is Here Hamster (talk) 01:01, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Marriage Debate
Debate:Marriage_should_be_un-governmented <font face="Curlz MT"> Flucked <font face="Harrington"> talk to me :D   01:14, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

What kind of 'Murrican accent do you have?
Quiz here. I got Noo Yawk, obviously. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 07:59, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Not that I'm a Merkin, but non-rhotic accents rrrrrrrule... 08:15, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * That quiz tells me I'm probably from New Jersey, Connecticut or Rhode Island. This is news to me.  12:11, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * What a coincidence: me too! Scream!! (talk) 12:14, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Northeast: North Jersey, NYC, Connecticut, Rhode Island. This must be the closest to the London English accent which I actually have. 12:21, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * The Inland North apparently. Who knew they speak with such cultured accents there... --<font face="Wild Words"> PsyGremlin  12:58, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Midland of all places. Тy talk 13:23, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Midland too. I still have an American accent though. -- 13:47, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Apparently, I sound like I'm from Chicago.--Tiberius Gracchus.jpg. 14:37, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Inland North apparently, makes sense with all the Finnish immigrants there. Northeast and Philadelphia were over 80% too. Vulpius (talk) 14:57, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Strange that you'd sound like you're from Chicago when you grew up speaking French, isn't it Brxbrx? 16:02, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I just learned a lot about myself. I grew up in South Central Texas and have the subtle Texas accent (somewhat similar to a southern accent) that's common for city people from around here. It's apparently no accent at all and we may as well be from from southern Ohio, PA, southern Illinois southern Indiana, or Missouri. I don't know why I even bothered taking this highly sophisticated quiz. Everyone knows these accents are basically the same. No twang at all down there on the Ohio. 16:12, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Like SuperJosh, I got the north-eastern one too. From the answers being given to get that I assume that's the only part of the US where you pronounce things as they're actually written. Where I come from people actually speak like Tim Healy but I've actually lost most of it since. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>postate 16:20, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Somehow, this test seems to think I'm from California, even though I once had a Californian tell me that I "have a thick Minnesotan accent." How odd. 17:12, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I rarely hear someone with such a classically Minnesota accent as Goonie. It's not Bemidji and Fargo, but it's so obviously Minnesotan that you have to wonder if the person who thought Goonie was from CA may have been unaware of the joke that basically nobody who lives there is actually from there. It wouldn't surprise me if Angelinos didn't even notice differences between accents anymore.   18:12, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * And I'm damn proud of my alleged accent, too! 22:00, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Midland.--Dumpling (talk) 20:03, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Northeast.... which is odd, considering I'm from the Southeast and have lived in the mid-Atlantic for over twenty years. MDB (talk) 20:08, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
 * North Central, otherwise known as the Minnesota accent. 06:01, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Boston?!? BOSTON? This quiz is obviously bunk. Patently false. Without a doubt. I'm a New Yorker, goddammit 06:07, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
 * So I just took this again and it actually got me right... not sure what I was doing a few days ago. 17:25, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * ^u^ Haha. I actually have no idea on whether or not I do sound like a 'midland-er'? And considering I don't know many American accents besides the South...I can't say.--Dumpling (talk) 06:39, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Fairly accurate here.  South meets Inland North, an almost even match.  It also says I have a 0% match with Boston, which makes sense since the only airport, including overseas, that I've ever landed at and not understood a single word anyone was saying, was Logan. Secret Squirrel (talk) 14:59, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
 * "The West / The Midland" Considering that my mother is from the US west coast, my father is from the deep south, and I grew up with all the weird language patterns, slang, accents on some words, etc. from the various places my parents lived... Plus I grew up near the west coast and in the midwest. I guess it makes sense. Not too shoddy. άλφα Ταλκ 18:38, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Interesting.  Born in Wales but lived in other parts of the UK after age 13.  So I'm not American and nobody would ever mistake me for one but I get - "Judging by how you talk you are probably from north Jersey, New York City, Connecticut or Rhode Island."  New York?  You're kidding, right?--BobSpring is sprung! 21:19, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * It is probably picking up the non-rhoticity. 07:29, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

One Part of the Quiz
asks about "pen" and "pin". I have gotten into heated arguments because I pronounce them identically. I'm so accustomed to them being pronounced identically, I can't even hear the difference. (Well, I can hear it, if someone speaks very clearly. But I can't understand the difference when hearing them, only when reading them.)

A Washington Post columnist once wrote about being disappointed in someone he interviewed for a job, because the interviewee asked for an "ink pen", because that was redundant. Several people wrote him and said, "they must have been from the South -- 'pin' and 'pen' are pronounced indentically, so you specify 'stick pin' or 'ink pen'." MDB (talk) 13:13, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Are you a Kiwi, because they have a similar 'problem'. I well remember my Dutch colleague being flummoxed at Auckland airport when he was told to go to the."chicken disk".   16:52, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Nope, I'm from the American Southeast (east Tennessee, to be exact.)
 * Another peculiarity of my region's dialect is that all brands of soda are called "Coke". "Pepsi", "Sprite" and "Mountain Dew" are all types of "Coke". The exception is Grape Nehi, which is "grapedrink". One word, almost one syllable. MDB (talk) 17:03, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * "He maybe did." 23:45, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah, yes, the old Coke/pop/soda question could have pinpointed ones location even further. They also could have asked whether 'coyote' has two or three syllables, "I have" vs "I've got", "needs to be fixed" vs "needs fixed", positive-anymore sentence construction, and whether 'creek' rhymes with freak or brick. Secret Squirrel (talk) 00:15, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I remember the first time I heard that somebody asked me for a pen and I said "You want a pin? This isn't sewing class," or something stupid along those lines. Much of the rest of the country can't seem to differentiate between the words Mary, merry, and marry either. Learn to vowel, dammit. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 05:09, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I went east and said to someone "you're blinker is on", and they looked at me and said "what the hell are you smoking?". I pointed to their car's light and they said "oh, DIRECTIONAL."  I learned about "coke" the hard way.  I was a waitress in Texas, when I was 18.  "I'd like a coke".  "this isn't what I wanted, i wanted a 7-up". huh?????[[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot   Around, around, around, around, over, and under and through 19:01, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Philsophical Answers Research Jouranal article to review
The most recent ARJ article is a philosophy piece. It's not my forte (although I porbably handle it if need be), so if someone more versed is willing, take a stab at it. steriletalk 01:54, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Is it just me or does that opening paragraph read more like a parody of academic writing than actual academic writing? Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>moral 13:52, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * The whole thing has some, erm, interesting assertions in it. steriletalk 17:29, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Color me underwhelmed. It boils down to 'you can't prove that the sun will rise tomorrow, therefore God'. Granted, it takes a few more steps than that, but ultimately it claims that cause and effect don't exist without the Christian God. I will counter with 'you can't prove that you aren't a brain in a jar, therefore FSM'. Or the ever-popular 'solipsism, therefore nothing'.--Martin Arrowsmith (talk) 00:35, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

F****** Qwest now centurylink
So I placed an order to move my phone and internet from my office to my home so we can work from home. Yeah! Cept, the phone and internet were not moved. Boo... I called Qwest and they say "we have no record of that transaction". I say "I have the transaction number here, buddy boy". Oh, you do. The move was to be scheduled for Wed, the 30th. Good. But it's not in our system." Yeah, that's my problem.  "Oh, well we'll put it in our system. The earliest we can do it is Dec 7th". Wait, you fucked up, and **I** have to wait.  I cannot work, unless I go to village in....  "Yes. it was not scheduled. now it is. anything else?"   NO APPOLOGY.  NO ADMITTING THEY WERE WRONG.  NO discount.  NOTHING.     I'd drop them like a fly, but i'm under contract and it's 200 bucks per line to drop them.   God I can't wait for June when teh contract is up and i go comcast!   Corporations are too big, and have too little repercussions for what they do.--<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot   Around, around, around, around, over, and under and through 16:32, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I was battling cox earlier this week while trying to convince the nut that it was just broken, not a deliberate attempt by them to do... something. Тy talk 16:43, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * You have to remember, the jerkasses on the end of the phone when you're talking to tech support aren't really jerkasses, but just minimum-wage employees who are tired of listening to people whining/complaining, justified or not. <font face="Curlz MT"> Flucked <font face="Harrington"> talk to me :D   16:45, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * (EC2) Yippee! You get to drop one big corporation and sign up with another. 16:46, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, yes. but the products are cooler on Comcast.  This is for a business, and I've never been able to get a better deal out of anyone but the big guns.  the whole "anti monopoly" stuff doesn't work when we are a nation this large.  Cause "competition" exists... it's just as evil as every other one of them.  [[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot   Around, around, around, around, over, and under and through 16:51, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * @LX: Ditto. I hear Comcast blows, but it can't be all that much worse than Time-Warner. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 16:53, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * For those who go by the motto, "Don't be evil," with big corporations being defined as "evil," I understand that there are a number of smaller independent phone companies one can sign up with. This was made possible by your friendly anti-monopolists, who forced Ma Bell to allow other companies' equipment to be connected to their system. 17:08, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I've been quite happy with Verizon FIOS. It beats all hell out of Comcast, at least. MDB (talk) 17:22, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * One of my friends has FIOS and it sucks as well, but I think it might have more to do with his router set-up than the service itself in his case. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 17:39, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Re: small independents - if it's anything like the situation in the UK that helps very little. Most problems (and their solutions) involve the copper (or occasionally fibre) buried in the street and strung overhead. This more or less has to be a monopoly (imagine if there were a dozen telephone poles outside every house? or a dozen street cabinets at every corner), and so the small independent company usually pays the local telco monopoly to provide service. But that service is the same thing Godot is moaning about. So instead of phoning a guy who says he's not going to help, you phone a guy who says he'd love to help, but the big telco are unresponsive. This is not a substantial improvement. The most positive thing that can be said is that telco hardware is boringly reliable, so you will often go months or years without raising your blood pressure by dealing with this stuff. 188.220.41.110 (talk) 17:41, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I've actually worked at a tiny ISP before that provided DSL. Because we didn't own the phone lines (Verizon or Sprint or whoever did), we had to deal with them directly constantly. The only thing going with a smaller ISP solves is putting an extra layer of support between you and the people actually fixing problems. (ʞlɐʇ) ɹǝɯɯɐHʍoƆ 17:58, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I went with the german T-Mobile, with our cells, cause Vic (Hubby) really liked their service in France (for like 1/10th the cost here...sighs). But now they too are "big evil". How does FIOS (that's a kind of voice over IP, right?) work? would it work for business level (5 lines into one phone, roll overs and all that) too?  I can change in June... it doesn't have to be comcast, that's just what i knew.  would love to hear other suggestions. (if it matters, we are 80202 area code).  I feel so amazingly "inadequate" around you all about computers, techie things, etc.  :-) [[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot   Around, around, around, around, over, and under and through 18:16, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * FIOS is FIber Optic Service, so it would just be your Internet connection, nothing more (unless they tack other stuff on there). It's much, much faster than DSL or Cable (potentially, at least. I don't know how to what extent in practice).(ʞlɐʇ) ɹǝɯɯɐHʍoƆ 18:40, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * FIOS can give you phone and TV as well. My limited experience with it is that it doesn't seem all that much faster than cable or DSL, and it has a few annoyances. I believe you need to dial area code with every outgoing phone call, and the TV channels can be all over the place (Comedy Central, one of the few channels I like to watch, went from convenient 36 to annoying 190 when my folks switched from cable to FIOS). Small irritations, to be sure, but coupled with the fact it's usually more expensive, and doesn't seem noticeably better, I'm not sure what the big deal is. Then again, as I said, not much experience with it. DickTurpis (talk) 18:47, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Fiber cables send packets using light rather rather than current. The cable can be longer, and sends data faster, I work with a 40Gb/s fiber network sometimes, it's pretty fun. The reason you don't see much of an improvement is that they cut back on the bandwith to prevent flooding the connection as well as to make money.  Тy talk 19:46, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I do believe battling cox is Cracker's and MDB's purview :D   20:02, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
 * CenturyLink was better when it was Embarq and before they merged with Qwest, but it's better than the alternative (Comcrap). Although I have to give both of them kudos for getting rid of trolls. DMorris2 (talk) 22:07, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Wow, this fucking stupid
Can't tell if this is a step down or step up for creationism. Aceace 01:10, 2 December 2011 (UTC)


 * You mean you don't want a Captain Antagonator costume?? 02:50, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I though this was parody, but then I saw Venomfangx and NephilimFree... WTF? Hm, maybe they duped them or cut their introduction from other videos, this thing can't be serious -- Nx  / talk 07:46, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I think that it is authentic in that it is a real contest asking for entrees and there will be a winner, but the contest is not to actually prove creationism but to satirize it. TheCheatI run on alcohol 17:02, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Entrees?  21:17, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Neph's voice makes my skin crawl. There's something so weird about it. But simultaneously funny. 2:02. 17:25, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

In soviet Russia, Google DoS you
Meh, I'm being DoSed by Google. Well, sort of. My ISP seems to be having a serious problem with major packet loss from Google and only from google. No idea why. Of course since it seems that every fucking website uses google this that and the other, almost no sites will actually load. It's also fucking up my webcache. It has a whole bunch of connections piled up using stuck in SYN_SENT state, and it's causing squid to use 100% CPU time. The box now smells like burning solder and I may have to turn it off until this gets fixed. Fuck the google world. -- 04:14, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Use Bing and boycott Google whereever possible. I started boycotting Google about a year ago and now the only Google service I ever use (not counting Ads by Google, the embedded Google search engine on some websites, and other instances where I have no choice) is YouTube. DMorris2 (talk) 02:53, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
 * How is Microsoft better than Google? They're both big, greedy corporations that at at times have very questionable practices and don't give a fuck about the consumer. In fact, pretty much every single corporation that exists is like that, so I just use the best product, regardless of its manufacturer (save for particularly heinous ones). <font face="Curlz MT"> Fucker <font face="Harrington"> talk to me :D   05:30, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Root races
Why don't have an article on this - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_race - seems like the kind of thing this site would cover.
 * I don't know why Wikipedia has an article on it. At least not as written. It's pure fiction yet not presented as such. Ajkgordon (talk) 19:10, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Greetings from Rome
My children, I have been away from this web site for some time. I'm afraid I've been a little busy lately, but I've got a few days off at Castle Gandoldo before the busy season starts (I'm an old man and I need my rest before saying Midnight Mass, y'know.)

So, is there anything the RCC can do for you godless heathens? We're already working on excommunicating that ASchlafly fellow, but the forms are a mess. We're going paperless here at the Vatican, but the SharePoint site we've set up isn't working yet. I'm probably going to ask The Big Guy to smite Bill Gates sometime soon.

Infallibly yours, PopeBenedictXVI (talk) 14:55, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * You already smote jobs, at least spare the one that is actually doing good deeds with his fortune O.o TheCheatI run on alcohol 15:42, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I had nothing to do with Jobs. We've got a lot of Apple fans here at the Vatican. We were developing an iConfess app for the iPhone, but the project got bogged down when our testers determined it kept classifying jaywalking as a mortal sin, and we just couldn't get the big fixed. PopeBenedictXVI (talk) 19:08, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * So was the Benetton advert really a photo-shop job or are you actually on kissing terms with a Muslim cleric?--BobSpring is sprung! 17:57, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, Mullah Abdul and I go way back. And let me tell you, he doesn't just get down on his knees for prayer, if you know what I mean. PopeBenedictXVI (talk) 19:08, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, it's good to hear about you coming together like that.--BobSpring is sprung! 19:47, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Scam?
I had a letter posted through my door which seems to have been hand posted through everyone's door on my estate. It's from a company called "The Legal Company", and talks about how they are thinking of starting class action against the site developers because... actually I won't bore you with the details. So with my sceptic hat on I went investigating. The domain name (thelegalcompany.co.uk) was only registered in Sept this year, they don't appear to actually be a law firm, as there are no results on the Law Society company search (although they do say on the site "We have access to the country's greatest team of lawyers"), the domain is registered to a sole trader and not a partnership or LLP, and although they claim to be the whole "no win no fee" type, they do say " [You pay] just an administration fee which is paid only when you have an offer of insurance and which the sum is always agreed with you in advance".

The whole thing smacks of advance fee fraud to me. What do you think? <font color="#777777">Crundy <font color="#00F0A20">Talk nerdy to me 15:44, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I would take that letter and go see a local lawyer for an opinion. They should be able to tell you if the proposed class action has merit. You could also approach th "clerk of court" at your local courthouse because in some places misrepresenting yourself as a lawyer is an offense. The website says they have been in business for 30 years. The only thing that raises questions for me is the "insurance" they sell that covers your liability for costs should you lose. Hamster (talk) 16:30, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Certainly sounds very suspicious to me.--BobSpring is sprung! 17:58, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Send it to your local Trading Standards Office. 21:20, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I want to, but I think I need something a bit more concrete than "this looks 419y". The other thing I thought about is that the complaint itself is frivolous. The complaint is that we bought these houses from all the different developers, and were told that a separate developer is going to build things like a local shop (for local people) and a pub. However, said developer has gone into administration. Therefore which are they going to sue?
 * The developer who was supposed to build the amenities? If so then for what? They're in fucking administration!
 * The developer(s) who sold us the houses? Why are they liable? They told us these amenities should be built soon and it isn't their fault the company has gone bankrupt
 * So the suit itself won't fly, and therefore I'm convinced that this is an excuse to get people's cash via administrative fees and insurance and then just say "sorry, we can't sue (whoever)" and make a dash with the cash.
 * People on the estate's facebook page are all talking about it apparently and want in. I want to warn them but I don't have an ArseBook account. <font color="#777777">Crundy <font color="#00F0A20">Talk nerdy to me 21:26, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

"on hold" music!
Odd, it's the theme to Doctor Who. at Colorado Unemployment Appeals Commission. really weird, but better than most hold music.<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot  Been on hold 14 minutes already. sheesh 21:16, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * The old theme or the new theme? (Where?  I'm in Denver) -- Seth Peck (talk) 21:22, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh my god, I"ve been on long enough that they've cycled through the music. It's BACK.   I didn't know there was a new theme, so "old' i'm guessing.  the only guy i watched was teh curley haired doctor.  And this is the music for him.   I work in downtown Denver proper, and live in the North metro area.  [[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot   Been on hold 14 minutes already.  sheesh 21:25, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Gotcha. The "old" music was basically the theme for the first seven Doctors, didn't really change much, though the Seventh Doctor had a slightly different theme.  The newer episodes have a more modern version of the same melody.  -- Seth Peck (talk) 21:28, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * 32 minutes. I really need to talk with the agent, before Monday's hearing, but i'm not sure they know I'm alive.  sighs...[[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot   Been on hold 14 minutes already.  sheesh 21:31, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Michele Bachmann Double-Tap
I don't know how I missed these... A gay man can get married...to a woman and Intelligent Design is a Scientific Fact. Granted, I know neither of these are technically "news" but I think they's bare repeatin'. -- Seth Peck (talk) 21:20, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * "Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachman says it’s fine for a gay man to get married — as long as it’s to a woman." And she would know. (insert rimshot here).  [[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot   Been on hold 14 minutes already.  sheesh 21:27, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * First of all, do not use Bachmann and the word "tap" in one sentence. Just. Please. Don't.
 * Yes, well, man is also free to kill a person ... of course only if that person is yourself. -- 21:50, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Interesting, I was definitely thinking of Zombieland and the use of both barrels of a shotgun, not so much the fingercuffs your suggestion implies...*shudder* -- Seth Peck (talk) 21:57, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Artists rendering of vaginas belonging to various public figures.
I'll just leave this here. Senator Harrison (talk) 23:03, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * That's pretty tasteless and (as far as I'm concerned), misogynistic in an particularly ugly way. PintOfStout Talk Good people drink good beer. 23:16, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm with PintOfStout on this. DMorris2 (talk) 23:37, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Then here, have the rest. Enjoy (: Senator Harrison (talk) 23:50, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

One way to cut down on spam....
Would be to make it so that non-autoconfirmed users cannot create new pages, no? PintOfStout Talk Good people drink good beer. 02:00, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Good god. so simple.  yet so effective. --[[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot   Around, around, around, around, over, and under and through 02:05, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * But what about their userpages..? Peter talk, or type, or whatever... 02:16, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * What about making is so that non-autoconfirmed users can't create mainspace pages, or other popular namespaces?
 * Ah, but half the spammers create their userpage, rather than in the mainspace. Peter talk, or type, or whatever... 02:39, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Seems like throwing the baby out with the bathwater to me. Why shouldn't new users be able to create new pages? It isn't like the spam thing is unmanageable. I've block two or three myself and deleted their spam, takes about 30 seconds to do. Between us I think we've got it under control. -- 04:49, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * 04:53, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Indeed. It's not like we are drowning in the stuff.--BobSpring is sprung! 06:41, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * MediaWiki have a few antispam suggestions. I've actually implemented stopforumspam.com on one of my forums and it works great. I had 4 blocked signups this morning alone. Is there a plugin which implements a blocklist like this into the create account page? <font color="#777777">Crundy <font color="#00F0A20">Talk nerdy to me 09:19, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * We also have the edit filter, so if you see a repetitive pattern in the spam, tell one of the techs. E.g. I wrote a filter to stop the loan spam that has been hitting us recently, and it's working nicely. -- Nx  / talk 10:21, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
 * You might like to hide that: tells 'em what NOT to say. Scream!! (talk) 10:32, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
 * The filter is hidden. -- Nx  / talk 10:35, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Hey, it is working innit? 21:02, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Essential reading on cognitive bias
In the current New York Review of Books, a review by Freeman Dyson of Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman. Truly remarkable essay.-- 02:39, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Nice to see Kahneman in the news and spreading the Good Word of Irrationality. The Freud lovefest near the end stuck in my craw, though, and I don't know where he got the idea that Kahneman somehow single-handedly reinvented psychology as a quantitative science (and his late partner-in-crime should be given due as well). Psychometry was created in the late 19th century, but even before that quantitative models were used in psychophysics. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 05:44, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, I don't know why he gets on Kahneman's case for not studying religion -- is he supposed to be an expert in everything? Dyson seems to think the study of psychology of religion consists entirely of Freud and James. That's true, if you ignore the rest of the entire field. Now that I think about it, the tail end of the article is just awful. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 07:53, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I liked the essay until this bit:  It is understandable that Kahneman has no use for Freud, but it is still regrettable. The insights of Kahneman and Freud are complementary rather than contradictory. Anyone who strives for a complete understanding of human nature has much to learn from both of them. The scope of Kahneman’s psychology is necessarily limited by his method. His method is to study mental processes that can be observed and measured under rigorously controlled experimental conditions. Following this method, he revolutionized psychology. He discovered mental processes that can be described precisely and demonstrated reliably. He discarded the poetic fantasies of Freud. But together with the poetic fantasies, he discarded much else that was valuable. Since strong emotions and obsessions cannot be experimentally controlled, Kahneman’s method did not allow him to study them. The part of the human personality that Kahneman’s method can handle is the nonviolent part, concerned with everyday decisions, artificial parlor games, and gambling for small stakes. The violent and passionate manifestations of human nature, concerned with matters of life and death and love and hate and pain and sex, cannot be experimentally controlled and are beyond Kahneman’s reach. Violence and passion are the territory of Freud. Freud can penetrate deeper than Kahneman because literature digs deeper than science into human nature and human destiny. 
 * This is just plain wrong, for obvious reasons. 19:32, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * The book itself is also very good. 19:29, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Profile of Kahneman in this month's Vanity Fair. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 02:13, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Jeremy Clarkson and the strikers.
Does anyone agree with me that the reaction Jeremy Clarkson's comments on the strike in the UK was a bit hysterical?--BobSpring is sprung! 18:41, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes. Ajkgordon (talk) 18:51, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Wait, so he wants to shoot himself? Osaka Sun (talk) 19:21, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Context does clear it up a bit. Though it is Clarkson being Clarkson. No one takes him seriously, except the people who don't like him. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>gnostic 19:34, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, you'd think by now people would know not to take him seriously. He didn't even advocate violence against strikers, in context he was taking the piss out the Beeb. 19:54, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * British liberals seem to love getting wound up over Clarkson. I think that's why he comes out with the stuff he does - he likes to troll the left. Well, that and the fact that he's more comedian than anything else who lives on shock for humour. I often feel like the only liberal who finds him genuinely funny. ONE / TALK 20:09, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * He's basically the nearest we have to an Ann Coulter. Though I suppose in his favour he's at least not just famous for being famous, he talks about cars too. -- 20:16, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * When you see the whole clip in context it's obviously hyperbole, however, out of context it sounds bad. As Mondy says, those that don't like Clarkson are outraged (like Mrs. K),  everyone else (like me) say DFTT.
 * I should point out that I hate Clarkson, but I still don't think he did anything wrong because he was making a comical remark. He first said that the strikes were great and then (as Josh says) said that as this was the BBC and they had to have balance they should be "executed in front of their families". Though to be fair it's the kind of joke you make down the pub and not on national TV. <font color="#777777">Crundy <font color="#00F0A20">Talk nerdy to me 21:35, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I do not take clarkson seriously, but he is still a prick. AMassiveGay (talk) 22:32, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Honestly, what a load of old bollocks. He is responsible for one of the most successful TV shows in the world partly because he's a great self-publicist and partly because he and his team instinctively know what appeals to the show's demographic. Today was the self-publicity bit kicking in. He makes a living out of being an arse. He's trolling. And he succeeded. Probably more than he intended. He makes what is a poor joke (even when seen in context) and what do the union leaders do? Exactly what he wants. I have a suspicion that they're doing it to deflect criticism levelled at them - build up some sympathy. Some of the comments on that article in the Gruniad.... who gives a fuck what you think of Top Gear? What the fuck has that got to do with anything? Fuck me, get a sense of perspective. Who batted an eyelid when some right-on comedian said that bankers ought to be hung drawn and quartered? Are we becoming so sensitive that mildly insensitive jokes are made a sackable offence?
 * The man's a dick. A successful dick. He doesn't campaign for throwing out the gypos. He doesn't have an anti-gay agenda. He doesn't rant on about anything in particular (except maybe speed cameras and global warming). He's a harmless buffoon, admits as much, and is a good bellweather against over-sensitive political correctness that simply distracts us from the real issues at large.
 * Sorry for the diatribe but I've been drinking. And on that bombshell.... Ajkgordon (talk) 23:15, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * The day he does get taken seriously and turns into the UK Glenn Beck I think we're a bit fucked, but I don't think he'll get to that stage. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>narchist 13:57, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank's Jensen
Whether you're active here or not, I'm sure you like this wiki don't you Jensen? I could just use APNIC, RIPE, or Lookupserver.com, but I think I'll just use Rat-Wiki as my ANI for the IPs of all these proxies. I'm sure they don't mind as it's not like I'm vandalizing anything important or anything. Godspeed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 * I think I speak for everyone at this wiki when I ask, who the fuck are you and what the fuck are you talking about? -- 20:12, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I think he (DMorris) means he's going to pwn us real good to figure out the IPs of some open proxies so that he can block them over at CP. Apparently by vandalizing RW and then looking at the IP in Recent Changes or something. Because he's too retarded to type whatsmyip.org into the proxy. -- Nx  / talk 21:33, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Hooray for pathetic trolling!!! 21:40, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Nah, I lookupserver.com is my personal preference. I figure if I go on a pathetic vandalism spree here every time Jensen goes on a pathetic vandalism spree at CP he'll realize how stupid and desperate it looks. 74.63.112.139 (talk) 21:44, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * The only one looking stupid and desperate is you. -- Nx  / talk 21:49, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * [[File:Goodpost.gif]] 21:51, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Whatever. Trolling is lame anyway; whenever I've done it I quickly get bored with it. These persistent trolls like Jensen and Marcus need help that none of us in the wiki world can offer. DMorris2 (talk) 21:55, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I haven't read anything above and can only assume this thread is about Jensen Button. 01:06, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I thought it was RJJensen, which confused me as it isn't really his style. Kid Jensen maybe? Rennie McGreet (talk) 10:50, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Peddling anti-Islamic fear
God, probably more than anything other than homophobia, I hate people who peddle "anti islamic fear". I have a facebook friend who posted a scare video of "Muslims behead 9 year old boy". of course not one other site seems to back that up, anywhere. The conversation then involves a girl/women who says "Obama is trying to instill Sharia law in the US". Bad enough, but then she goes into rants about how dangerous Islam is, and how all Muslims want is to make the US sharia, and that both Germany and UK have passed laws making Sharia Law, and we are fighting that in court. She's trying very hard to mix right wing anti obama with anti muslim fear to sell... well just fear, I guess. But upon giving her a google showing there are no such laws in germany or the UK, she says "you are ignorant and i have no time for you". GRRRRRRRRR--<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot  Malaka 20:37, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
 * A similar argument used by similar people is "I'M RIGHT YOU'RE WRONG!". There was also a study done showing that these people have minds that you cannot change.  When you show them facts it makes them believe the opposite even more.  Senator Harrison (talk) 21:50, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
 * How can you be friends, FB or IRL, with someone that stupid and hateful? PintOfStout Talk Good people drink good beer. 21:53, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Can't be as bad as Frank Gaffney -- one of the reigning champions of today's know nothingism and too nuts even for CPAC. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 22:24, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
 * POS, they are generally friends of friends. and i just try to show them the error of their ways, despite my better self. ;-)  A year ago or so, I was in a bad place, and played facebook games All. The. Time.  an addition.  some of these friends are residuals that I didn't even know I had.[[Image:Pink mowse.png|25px]]<font face="Estrangelo Edessa"><font color="Blue">Godot   Malaka 08:28, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Account creation
So what're all the new accounts about? Spammer or troll? 22:24, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Most probably spammer. Conservative Punk (talk) 22:25, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Spammers. See also Special:AbuseLog for the edits that were rejected by the edit filter. Hit details to view the diff. -- Nx  / talk 22:32, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Thnx Nx. 22:36, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
 * My word. Now that's pretty cool.--BobSpring is sprung! 22:46, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Now, I'm no advertising guru, but I'm struggling to find the logic behind the "Ok, we need to get our name out there, so go to as many random sites as you can, and annoy them by posting random crap about our company" marketing campaign. It's a bit like you coming home and finding "Shop at Walmart" sprayed on your front door. --<font face="Wild Words"> PsyGremlin  11:14, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm often tempted to contact these companies with a mesage saying 2i will never buy your stuff because you spammed me" but I'm afarid I'd just get even more spam if I did. I sometimes think there's no human involvement in spam at all - most of them are just skynet realising there's more money in business than war. Rennie McGreet (talk) 11:21, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * No one thinks advertising like this really works on them, but it does. If you try, I bet you can name at least two or three of the products being advertised by the spammers.  And those are just the ones you remember consciously.  Research shows that over time, the negative associations we have for such identified products falls away, while you still retain the valuable brand recognition and product awareness.  Plus, there's always the tiny chance that someone on a wiki site will click a link and buy a product right away.  Alas, it works.-- 20:13, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I was reading somewhere that they do it to increase the number of links to their site so it'll be more prominent on a certain search engine beginning with G. 22:18, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * That doesn't work on MediaWiki wikis though, since they add rel=nofollow to external links. -- Nx  / talk 22:20, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Whistlin' Dixie
Brief but good profile of the neo-Confederate League of the South (LoS) up on AlterNet, showing how these organizations that are ostensibly historical societies are infiltrated and co-opted by extremists and pseudohistorians. The general public seems to think that a number of comments made by the usual suspects on the wingnut circuit (e.g., Obama is racist against white people, slavery wasn't that bad, etc.) are "gaffes", but they really aren't -- they are completely logical within the fundamentalist/neo-Confederate paradigm. LoS has been a primary player in the resurrection of the "theological war" and Christian nation thesis. The religious right legal-educational complex was designed to spit out products like Michele Bachmann. And she's not the only one embracing neo-Confederate nonsense. The religious right's brand of Christianity is as much southern as it is Christian, if not more. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 22:01, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * One of the Bachmann links is broken, but there's more good stuff here. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 22:30, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Deja vu
So I finished writing something, got up and walked to pour a cup of tea and I suddenly got a massive rush of deja vu. I thought "I've written this before, and had a massive discussion on this idea and already know what is coming next", and literally stumbled. It was properly WTF deja vu. Then it stuck with a slight epiphany too (if I dare say it). Could the experience be due to you thinking of something faster than you can think about it? As if all the neural patterns in your head corresponding to a thought fire off at the same time - it happens so quick you can't vocalise it to yourself with your internal monologue. So from this you get a feeling that something has happened before because it all hits you at once and you become disorientated as your more "concious" thoughts catch up. I'll look up other explanations and see if there are better ones, but it seemed like this at the time. <font color=#CC0033>gnostic 19:17, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't really follow but it sounds pretty cool. 22:20, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what the jumble of words toward the end means, but planning in the form of prospective memory uses similar processes to actual memory. So you could easily confabulate a false memory for something you planned to do. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 22:39, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Weird deja vu-y feeling is gone, so I'm not sure what I'm talking about anymore either. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>theist 23:21, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I seem to remember reading something that suggested that deja-vu was one of your brain's ways of dealing with extreme situations (which can sometimes misfire). The idea is that when posed with a stressful situation that needs a quick resolution, your brain sifts through thousands of old memories trying to find a match which got you out of a similar situation in the past, which does explain the whole "life flashing before your eyes" phenomenon when having a near-death experience. <font color="#777777">Crundy <font color="#00F0A20">Talk nerdy to me 09:32, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Now, I only got a minor in Psych, and I often feel outclassed by Neb in these discussions, but I did specialize in memory. We were taught essentially what you just described.  Occasionally while making a memory, there's a mis-fire, and you make the memory at the same time you're searching for the memory, trying to see if you've "done this before" and you find it there, happily chilling where you expect it to be (since you're writing it as you're reading it).   12:05, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Following the Penn Jillette link above serendipitously led me to this. 16:21, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Sounds like "life flashing before your eyes". But as you said, that sort of thing can misfire occasionally. This must be what a segfault feels like. Scarlet A.png<font color=#CC0033>bomination 19:06, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
 * But what about vuja de? Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 19:10, 5 December 2011 (UTC)