RationalWiki:Saloon bar/Archive104

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, (new)(back)

Feeling shitty

Turned down for Durham, and now I discover that either a) PayPal has gone berserk and confused my account with someone else's or (far more likely) b) my PayPal account got hacked and so I'm going to have to spend a shit load of time on the phone tomorrow sorting it out. Oh wonderful.-- ^{Spirit of the Cherry Blossom} 21:18, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

That's bad luck. Was it the summer pool for Durham? It seems a bit of a strange time to be hearing about unis. As for PayPal, don't fret yourself too much, they'll sort it out. EddyP ^{Great King! Disaster!} 23:18, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Nah, it was last month I was informed about Durham (it's here in the archives somewhere). Hopefully PayPal will sort it out. The funny thing is whoever hacked my account also used it to try and receive funds from another hacked account as well, and there's nothing on the PayPal website that allows you to say - 'Hey, I didn't actually try and sell that guy anything, he got had by fraudsters,' so it was phonecall palooza this morning.

On the good news note, however, I now have a functioning external Blu-Ray player for my PC, and full 5.1 surround sound. Loving the fifth series of Doc Who with the Surround Sound and PowerDVD 11.-- ^{Spirit of the Cherry Blossom} 13:14, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I got an email from a nice Nigerian guy who says he can help you with your paypal problems. Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 20:21, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Tom & Jerry

Watching the Spotlight Collection - there's some seriously violent shit going down in those cartoons. --PsyGremlinParla! 12:43, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Jerry is a complete asshole, too. In some of the episodes Tom is doing literally nothing until Jerry starts screwing with him, and then Tom fights back and still loses whilst Jerry is portrayed as the good guy. That fucking mouse. X Stickman (talk) 14:10, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Itchy & Scratchy only exaggerates a little bit...

As for "two fighting animals" cartoons, I prefer Road Runner (Velocitus Incredibilus) and Coyote (Hungerus Constantus). But that's because the Coyote is an engineer and is thus in the same career field as me.

I cannot count the number of times I've done something as my computer, realized a made a mistake, and wanted to hold up a little sign like ol' Wile E. MDB (talk) 16:27, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I lost sympathy for Wile E a long time ago. If he can't figure out after 40 years that Acme Stores sell crap, then he deserves everything that comes his way. And for animal cartoons, Foghorn Leghorn still rocks, with Droopy a close second. --PsyGremlinHable! 16:35, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I realized some time ago that the Microsort is part of the Acme Corportation. The whole world made much more sense after that.

Bugs Bunny is my favorite. What's Opera Doc may be the single most brilliant seven minutes ever put to film.

Foghorn Leghorn is cool, too, though, being from the American South, he reminds me of too many real people. And Psy, since you're not from States, you probably haven't seen the new insurance commercial that envisions him doing audio book narration. "It was the best, ah say, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Though not as bad as my Aunt's..." You get the picture. MDB (talk) 16:39, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

~\Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit/~... Yeah. 19:48, 16 May 2011 (UTC) C®ackeЯ

Anyway, Acme may have a monopoly on products the Coyote needs. I mean, how many other places do you know that will ship a rocket sled on rails via mail? MDB (talk) 16:41, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

--PsyGremlin講話 16:47, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

It can all be quite frustrating until you see if for the allegory it is. Tom represents the proletariat, while Jerry embodies the perfectibilists lurking behind the scenes of life's struggles. Occasionaluse (talk) 17:50, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Speaking of the Foghorn Leghorn insurance commercial MDB (talk) 01:18, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

So, what are your plans for Saturday...

... the Rapture occurs?

Me, I'm going to be playing th classic Avalon Hill board game Advanced Civilization. MDB (talk) 16:33, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm going to indulge in a large dose of the Good Doctor's finest. To quote Lance Longthorne in The League of Gentlemen are Behind You "They'll see fuckin' angels, all right!" --PsyGremlinTal! 16:37, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

End of the world party (just in case) Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 17:29, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Classic Magic Realm for me (Another Avalon Hill bit of brilliance). Mind you, having built the game three years ago (it's next to impossible to buy at a price where you would be happy actually using the pieces) I'm still learning the rules. Bit thick that there rulebook.-- ^{Spirit of the Cherry Blossom} 18:28, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I've never played Magic Realm. Advanced Civ is one of my favorites, though. Unfortunately, another one of the players... well, she drives me up a wall. She has to have every rule explained to her in excrutiating detail. I might end up hoping Harold Camping is right and she'll get taken out of the game via Rapture. MDB (talk) 18:58, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

We should draw up lists of people we don't like and send them to the fundies, so they can hopefully convert and get raptured out of lives on Saturday. Disclaimer: If Jehovah Witnesses or Mormons knock on your door anytime in the next few days, it's just a horrible coincidence. --PsyGremlinRunāt! 19:17, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

That Rapture better be timed for after Doctor Who mind…-- ^{Spirit of the Cherry Blossom} 18:30, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I shall be ensconced on a boat in the middle of the North Sea. Генгис^{RationalWiki GOLD member} 19:31, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I thought pirate radio was dead? --PsyGremlin話しなさい 19:41, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

That would explain why nobody ever takes any notice of me. Генгис^{RationalWiki GOLD member} 23:06, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

It's my cat's first birthday. I'm going to have a little party and I bought her a nice Tiffany bracelet to wear as a necklace. Occasionaluse (talk) 19:32, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I'll be busy, Rapturin' folks. Hey, tain't easy what with these holes in my hands! 19:53, 16 May 2011 (UTC) C®ackeЯ

Drinking probably. If jeebus turns up to tell me I've been a worse person than the homophobic xenophobic assholes who have always claimed they're going to heaven while I'm gonna burn in hell then I'll need to be a bit stoked to give the stunted asshole a good bitchslap. Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 20:20, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

If it occurs GMT, I shall most likely be asleep. What a thing to wake up to. Тy^Talk. 21:31, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

It's occuring all day long at 6PM your time. Senator Harrison (talk) 21:36, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh, so I'll be watching a movie. And then suddenly *poof* no more stupid rules. Тy^Talk. 01:23, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm hoping to sit back and watch the news reports of mass disappearances (and plane crashes and other disasters due to pilots, nuclear techs, etc. suddenly not being there) from Europe and Asia roll in. If no reports, then I shall reasonably assume that the only ones righteous enough to ascend live in the American south, and thus I'll be hearing about it a bit later. --Kels (talk) 23:42, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I hope at least some of you will drop by the 4th animalversary party on my talk page (sorry for the endless pimping) and share some vandalism, trolling, and generally obnoxious behavior. Second prize goes to the first person to make it uneditable (server side is cheating). First prize goes to whoever fixes it. ħuman 02:32, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Saturday? My wife suffers back problems so I am attending a professional massage course so she doesn't need to go to the chiropractor all the time (this will certainlty increase the chances of even more frequent sexy times) followed by liquor and booze. Ace ^{of Spades} 02:37, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

That's basically what I'll be doing. Blue (is useful) 02:42, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Engaging in rough sexy times? The "You be the naughty nun while I'll be the dirty train driver?" kind? Ace ^{of Spades} 02:44, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Actually, Saturday is Lesbian Cosplay Fight Club Day. Tell me when this starts getting weird. Blue (pester) 02:50, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

So much that was once a mystery is now explained. Тy^Talk. 02:51, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Truss-worthy source?

This site obviously has a liberal bias, but has a lot of material on fringe wingnut conspiracy theories and shady characters. I found it looking for a debunking of Fed/goldbug/survivalist conspiracies, which I'm already familiar with, and it checks out on that. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 17:51, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Teachers and Utter Scientific Nonsense

My Social Studies 11 class has finally made it to global warming. Of course, this just had to result in my teacher going on about the two sides of the issue, and explaining that frankly, he's confused about the issue, and that people like (okay, here's where this gets interesting) Christopher Monckton (I refuse to call that man a lord) and Steve McIntyre, as well as the movie The Great Global Warming Swindle, make excellent points against global warming. And he brought up Climategate. I feel that I need to ask two things:
1. Why does this keep happening?
2. How do I deal with things like this? Rodlen (talk) 01:33, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, there's two options. Either your teacher actually believes the anti-AGW propaganda, or they don't but present it out of fear of angry letters from parents. The only way to tell is to ask. Just approach your teacher politely after class and ask them if they really take these lunatics' opinions seriously. But it would probably be better if you didn't use the word "lunatic."

If they really believe this crap, then the best thing to do is take a complaint further up the food chain. If they don't, then get as many pupils to let them know they don't really need to hear both sides of a debate where one side is so clearly talking bollocks. --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 02:04, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

When my sister took Environmental Science in High School, they had to obtain Parent permission to watch The Inconvenient Truth. The teacher was not a denialist, the administration ordered him. I agree with Jeeves here, ask the teacher if he believes, then, if he does not, ask him why he showed that to you. Тy^Talk. 02:08, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

The denialist movement has many well-oiled propaganda outlets and its constant presence in the media has given a false pretense of debate. I also bought into the "science isn't settled" nonsense until I decided to get my nails dirty and dig into the real science instead of relying on secondhand media reports. Then I realized that the denialists are basically employing the same techniques as creationists -- I think AGW is even more difficult for a lay person to grasp because climatology is very esoteric (look at even moderately technical stuff and half of the words are abbreviations) and requires much more of an ability to think statistically than evolution does.

Anyway, (shameless self-promotion time) I did a debunking of The Great Global Warming Swindle that I think is pretty good. I think THE resource for refuting denialist PRATTs is SkepticalScience, which could be called the Talk Origins of AGW. I would also highly recommend Logical Science and Real Climate, though Real Climate is a good educational source, it's not the best for using to argue denialists because one of the bloggers is Michael Mann, head of the Evil Liberal Science Conspiracy (the RCWiki has tons of useful links to other sources, though). Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 03:11, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh, also, Deltoid is another excellent resource, especially for keeping tabs on that crank Steve McIntyre. McIntyre is one of the most dishonest SOBs I've ever seen. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 03:18, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Wegman-gate continues to unfold

Earlier, I put up a post on WIGO:Blogosphere about a retraction of the plagiarized Wegman Report (John Mashey's 100+ page dismantling of it on Deep Climate is the definitive takedown if you want to get really deep into it). Wegman is now basically admitting to plagiarism, but blaming it on one of his students. Now that a massive scandal is rocking the denialist community, will it get the same coverage as the Climategate manufactroversy? I wouldn't bet on it. IOW, fuck the media. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 03:23, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Funny how these things work. For most of the public this is just one more story competing for their attention and in their mind everything gets all mashed together. I can't find the reference right now, but at least one study has that found when a story later was solidly refuted it actually strengthened the public's belief in the original story. Not because people twisted the facts but because most people work only on vague impressions rather than careful analysis, and the refutation caused another mental imprint of the original story. So the Wegman thing may well simply come across as a fuzzy construction of "climate science... plagiarism... dubious research ethics" that only reinforces what people took away from the Climategate episode.

But yes, Wegman's in a pickle. Either the unnamed "student" wrote a substantial part of the paper and didn't get proper authorship credit, or Wegman is fibbing and wrote it himself. Wegman loses either way. Doctor Dark (talk) 03:56, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I've seen the study you're talking about. AFAIK, though, this has only gotten coverage (ironically) in USAToday so far. Interesting point on Wegman, though. The more he talks about this, the more he loses plausible deniability. And GMU has been dragging out this investigation as long as it possibly can. If this really blows up on Wegman, GMU could get really hammered for employing a stable of Koch/Scaife/Exxon experts for hire. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 04:13, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Kiddies book

I think I've found my fave kiddies' book, after Where's My Cow? Behold Spiders are wonderful --PsyGremlinParla! 14:34, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Child psychiatrists drumming up business again? --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 16:08, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I read Where's My Cow to my nieces when I visited them in Germany. I'm not sure which of us enjoyed it more: me reading or them listening to it. MDB (talk) 16:30, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Sequel: Doctor Seuss, where's my Ritalin? 19:50, 16 May 2011 (UTC) C®ackeЯ

My childhood favorite was always Goodnight Moon. Тy^Talk. 01:22, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Mine was a book called The More the Merrier. This was because my mother loathed it. She hated reading it to me, and would actually hide it in our house. I always managed to find it and insist she read it to me. MDB (talk) 11:57, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

QVC addiction

Hey all. The mother-in-law has a bit a TV shopping channel addiction going on recently, and has been absolutely draining her life savings on it (several thousand pounds a month). She's asked us twice before to block the channel for her, only to ask for it to be unblocked again a week later because she "just wants to watch it and won't buy anything" only to spend a few more thousand quid again.

Now personally I don't give a shit what she does with her life savings (although I am a little pissed off that there are loads of things she actually needs around the house that will benefit her like a new cooker etc rather than mountains of shit clothes and jewelry that she'll never use), but her savings are on the verge of drying up and I know that at some point she'll end up bleeding us dry to pay off the debts. Anyone have any experience with retail therapy addiction and can offer any advice? She does know she has a problem and seems to want to stop, but feels like she has nothing else in her life and has to buy all this crap. Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 21:20, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

First, you can just keep the channel blocked. Second, help her find a new hobby to keep her focus off shopping. Third, find a therapist who specializes in addiction. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 21:24, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

One of my grandmothers has the same problem. Except we provide all her money, so we can enforce a quasi-limit by limiting her allowance. Тy^Talk. 21:29, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, the last time we blocked it I was the only one who knew the code. The wife eventually caved in and we had a massive argument to the point where she almost left me because I wouldn't give her the unblock code. We've tried to find her other hobbies but she's a miserable layabout who just wants to watch shit on TV about the latest shite from the most fashionable designers. She would never ever go and see a therapist, because she has that arrogant "I'm the mother, so everything I do must be right" mindset. Even her own account balance isn't any kind of limit because she does that "3 'easy' payments" thing where they keep billing your card every month. She showed us her bank statement once which was shocking to say the least. It was about 8 double-sided A4 sheets which were 99.9% QVC payments. Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 21:36, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Don't you have "yard sales" and junk shops in Blighty? Need to shift her addiction from passively draining her spirit into the tubemeisters to going out of the house and scouring through cheap crap for cheap treasures. Encourage her to develop her own sense of style. Get her a subscription to Martha Stewart Living (I am serious). I dunno, that's all I've got. ħuman 02:18, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

you can try contacting the shopping network and see if they will ban her from purchasing. One of the us networks will do that if asked. They dont want the public relations problem . 67.72.98.46 (talk) 04:03, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

@Human: she hardly ever leaves the house because she's disabled. I think we'll have to wait until she gets into financial ruin again and then try and convince her to phone QVC and self ban her account, although knowing her she'd probably just convince them to set up a new account after a week. Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 10:27, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I have a bit of an on-off shopping addiction, especially with eBay, which has occasionally got a little bit out of hand. In my case I think it's partly OCD-related, & tends to come & go with whatever I'm preoccupied with at the time. Nowadays it's mostly movies, so I sporadically buy large numbers of DVDs, more than I'll ever get around to watching. But that's a pretty cheap hobby, whereas sometimes in the past I've ended up spending silly amounts on binges of buying old records or musical instruments. It's been worst when I've been unemployed, or otherwise at a loose end: when there's nothing much to do & nothing much to look forward to, it's nice to find something to get excited about or fascinated by, & buying things is an easy way of doing this, as well as killing time. It may be the same for your MIL, if she is spending a lot of time alone in the house. Human's suggestion, to try & shift the buying mania to something safer & less extortionate, is a good one (pretty much what I've done), but it's hard to do with somebody else. Another hobby would help too, or maybe spending more time with other people, or even getting a pet. But really the impetus to make some changes needs to come from her. ΨΣΔξΣΓΩΙÐ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 18:50, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Career Advice

I have been unemployed too long and I have given up on getting a new job any time soon. I have no qualifications besides GCSE (which I am being told are next to useless) and an entry level OU certificate in Computing and Mathematics. I have ballsed up the OU degree I was doing for a whole of list of reasons, plus it would have been years away from being any use to me. Retraining seems to be the way to be the only way forward at this point but I have no clue as to what form this should take. I have been looking at compTIA and there appears to be hundreds of places that offer such courses (I am hoping that the DHSS will pay course fees). Ideally I need something that would give me a usable qualification within 6 months. Any suggestions? AMassiveGay (talk) 21:34, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Get a very low level job in IT (e.g. junior developer position) which will pay fuck all, get a couple of years experience, then leave the company for another to get a several grand payrise. Rinse, repeat as required. IT is the easiest job to work your way up in, as long as you keep your eye on the classifieds. Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 21:39, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

What kind of thing are you interested in? The general drift of your studies suggests something with computers. Software engineering? Statistical analysis? Computer aided design? --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 21:41, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Get a trade son! Seriously, most of those courses are a waste of time, they're only there to get your (or the social's) money. Try to land yourself an apprenticeship in a good recognised trade, electrics, electronics or plumbing / gas heating. These skills are in demand as very few school leavers can be arsed doing such work. DeltaStar_{Senior Sysop}^{Speciationspeed!} 21:42, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

This. Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 21:44, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree and would add the auto repair field to that list. The computer and math skills/interest will actually come in handy nowadays. ħuman 01:53, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

And welding. These all assume you have some mechanical aptitude, of course. ħuman 01:55, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

(EC)If you can cope with the memory work involved then ILEX Paralegal Training is a good idea. It can be done as a distance learning course so you can do something else at the same time, plus at the end of two years (one for the Level II, one for the Level III) you're a fully qualified paralegal. Admittedly it isn't exactly a well paying job, but it's a foot on the ladder and then gives you options to study to become a legal executive, or even go the whole hog and then study to become a lawyer. As far as I remember, the only qualification you need is the ability to read and understand English. Computer qualification wise, from what I've heard, the only Comp quals worth having for a decent job are the very high-level ones (BSc Software Engineering, Masters Computing, etc), essentially because there are so many other people with the same qualifications you need something that will make you stand out, either an exceptional quality degree, or experience. 6 month qualifications - the only things I can think of that might offer that quick a turn around that would actually net you a chance of a job would be Beauty Therapy courses of one description or another.-- ^{Spirit of the Cherry Blossom} 21:49, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I know practically nothing of these things, but I agree with Crundy and Delta - there's no substitute for on the job experience. Delta's idea would be easier, I think, but Crundy's seems to be more in line with what you want to do with your life. Whatever you decide, go in with a positive attitude and work hard. EddyP ^{Great King! Disaster!} 21:53, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm all for on the job training but I am unemployable. Traditional trades are right out as I was always shit that kind of thing. And I have no idea what a paralegal does and I am genetically incapable of a positive attitude. Also just to be clear as I think your perceptions of a decent paying job may differ to mine - the most I have ever earned is about 17,000 a year. AMassiveGay (talk) 22:04, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

17,000 pounds? You got me beat. By the way, working with good people doing something useful can alter that alleged genetic attitude deficiency. Have you considered volunteer work along the way? Totally underpaid help doing something that interests you? Do you have any hobbies that relate to the real world? Are you an expert in any microcosm? ħuman 02:09, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Start a large grocery store as a bagger and work your way up to manager. I did it. Then I quit. Senator Harrison (talk) 22:11, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

(EC)If you want to become a lawyer then become a paralegal. It's the "easy way" into the profession. Long winded, but a hell of a lot easier with no uni-work required. P.S. There's no such thing as "unemployable". Work on your interview technique. Rappor with the interviewer(s) works like a charm. I've only ever not been offered a job once and that's when the guy interviewing me wasn't interested from the start and it was impossible to build up a rappor with him. Seriously, I left uni with a shit pharm-tox grade and got into computing because I blagged it with the interviewers. As long as you're a quick learner you'll have no problems. The other easy profession to get into is being a chef (although it will take ages to make good money and it's hard work). Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 22:16, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

So you're "shit" at traditional (and also you imply not so traditional) trades, and aren't very attractive to employers. You can't be arsed with anything that might take a few years of graft, so you want a well-paying easy job in to which you can directly walk - it's got to be the public sector for you then. Although times they are slowly a-changin'. DeltaStar_{Senior Sysop}^{Speciationspeed!} 22:19, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, that's the thing. If you want a high-paid job that requires no experience, qualifications, training, or nepotism then you have to accept that there are thousands of other people in the same position. Pick something (like programming, cooking or paralegal work), do some reading in your spare time, apply for a job, then prove to them that you have a vague idea of what the job intails. I got my first job (central web manager) with absolutely no experience, qualifications or training, and my presentation of my skills went horribly wrong (because they used netscape and I hadn't tested my demo with that) but still got it because I talked my way round all the problems. I'm a pro-developer now, thanks to that initial bit of blagging. Anyone can do it. Stop being such a defeatist! Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 22:25, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

(ec²) Well, I can't really give you any great career advice because I honsetly don't have one yet (except if you count college education). But here are two things I can say: 1. Think about what you want to do, if you end up in job you don't like you may have money but you will probably feel miserable. 2. If you simply don't care, take one that gives you the least pain in the ass. 3. Be a pain in the ass: As more interest as you show a company (Be informed, call for information, make an internship (I'm sure social service would cover the costs of that?)) as more probable it is they'll take you over somebody who is on paper better more qualified than you but doesn't seem to care. That's basically all I have - and I might add: I only needed to write three applications before I had an apprenticeship - which then ended after 2 months (I got fired the day I wanted to quit). --ǓḤṂ^³ 22:27, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Hrm. So I had a think about it. Do you have any interest in writing software for mobile devices at all? --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 22:45, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Speaking of which, Android development is a piece of piss. Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 22:47, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

But pays fuck-all according to the BBC. ^{ONE / TALK} 09:08, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

At the moment. It'll pick up in the next year or so. Plus, Google really need to start selling physical voucher cards in shops and supermarkets like iTunes currently have. Very few kids have a google checkout account linked to a credit card after all. Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 10:25, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

You could chuck it all in, move to a foreign country and start teaching English You'll be paid a pittance for the first ten years or so and be exploited by unscrupulous schools but if you're prepared to put in the effort it can work out in the end.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 19:47, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Muslim creationists tour France denouncing Darwin

How will Schlafly will welcome his new ally? Alain (talk) 15:35, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

They aren't real creationists, because they believe Allah created the world 6000 years ago. Everyone knows it was God. --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 16:38, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

That's Mr. God since it's His for-real NAME, (according to tehschlaf). 17:48, 17 May 2011 (UTC) C®ackeЯ

Anyone left on this site...?

^{— Unsigned, by: Nebuchadnezzar / talk / contribs}

Yo. Тy^Talk. 16:34, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Mh, but only because I mostly stayed out of the recent trainwreck to preserve my sanity. --Sid (talk) 16:37, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Word. Aboriginal Noise ^{What the ...} 16:38, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Then it is time to form a new cabal. Begin the mass banning, my minions. Oh, I declare myself emperor of the Wiki starting now, BTW. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 17:13, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm also declaring Swabbie and Ken positions now open for my underlings. Whoever calls first gets dibs Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 17:16, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

OO! Oooo! I'm really good at writing badly done and unfunny parody articles, let me take the Ken position! --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 17:25, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Good. Your first assignment is to spam funspace with flying kitties. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 17:27, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

and obligatory link. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 17:34, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Excellent. I've also demoted you to temporary Swabbie/JPratt/DMorris until the positions are filled. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 19:09, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Funny :) ħuman 06:26, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

The opinion of a wikignome

Cut the crap already. Our point here is to provide accurate information about things that are often believed but are not true, and to have some fun with the subject while doing it. I've never been one to get into site politics (although I have met a few other editors here who shall remain nameless that I think really don't belong here) but it isn't helping us. You do realize people actually do cite us for information, right? EVDebs (talk) 17:05, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I have actually seen people doing so IRL. Тy^Talk. 17:07, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I think that problem is pretty much solved now that various instigators of "crap" have decided to LANCB. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 17:15, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't use that to describe Blue or any of the others really. Well, maybe ADK. More like a combo of them leaving and Trent acting, really. Тy^Talk. 17:18, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, actual editing hasn't stopped. We still discuss CP, we still edit mainspace (by we, I mean actual, contributing editors, not me). The only issue is discussing user rights, and after that looms the discussion over an anti-troll policy. BTW, I'd suggest y'all throw your vote in with the Jacobins.---brxbrx 17:23, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I think an anti-troll policy would involve getting rid of most of the site. If MarcusCicero was right about anything, it's that we can troll ourselves far better than any troll can. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 17:25, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I disagree. Instances such as Nutty bullying Ty and MC randomly flaming people would be met with repercussions, thus discouraging this kind of behavior. By troll, I mean something very specific. Purposeful and obvious actions or speech meant to degrade or sow chaos.---brxbrx 17:34, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

"Nutty bullying Ty"? By making one/two edits? You moron. And MC is three times the intelligence you will ever be. See Eira's post below for a more sensible elocution of my views on this. I have a bad habit of thinking that what I see as obvious will be obvious to others and use too few words to express my point. ħuman 06:23, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I have to agree... we avoid trolls and vandalism by making it semi-policy that it's relatively tolerated. MC, RobSmith, Maratrean, and JimJast don't have a lot of Mainspace edits that don't go unreverted... the trolling stays behind the scenes, where it is controlled. As for brxbrx' s comments... while it seems obvious to you what is a troll or not, unless we define specific behaviors and actions as wrong, we're apt to label anyone who dissents as a troll. Rationalism is harsh and abusive... it's easy to describe someone that disagrees with you as a troll, or a child, or any of a number of things. While I would describe MC as a troll, I don't think that alone justifies blocking him forever, or even for a week... it's a good thing that personal subjective assessments aren't enforced. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 17:40, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Excuse me Eira, that's not true. The majority of my mainspace edits have never been reverted. (((Zack Martin)))^™ 19:47, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Are you real Ty? You've seen someone site us IRL? I mean, beyond Poe's Law, which we all accept is perhaps the single biggest thing we're known for beyond "that site that hates CP". I'm just interested in how we were used and in what way. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 17:27, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Amanda Marcotte in particular cites us for definitions pretty regularly. I'm surprised she's not an editor here. EVDebs (talk) 17:32, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

(EC) At my gym there was an argument over the lemonade diet, and a guy pulled out his phone and I saw the familiar bracket brain logo. Тy^Talk. 17:34, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

That's fucking awesome to hear. :) --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 17:48, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Wait...what? An RWian in a gym?!? (If he wasn't there doing IT werk I would suspect him highly.) And just what were you' doing at a "gym" Ty?^{— Unsigned, by: Cracker / talk / contribs}

I lift weights. Тy^Talk. 18:05, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

There is statistical evidence that 9 out of ever 10 guys who goes to a gym are homosexual. Deny this and lose all credibility. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 18:10, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Eh, actually, at my gym it is around 40% or so. I do live in tha South. Тy^Talk. 18:12, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

419

Anybody else been receiving an explosion in 419 emails as of late?---brxbrx 00:19, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

No, just the usual one or two per day per email address. Why? Are you sure they are frauds? ħuman 06:16, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Godspeed, Priest

So I went and saw Priest today. Pretty good movie and all that, but at the very end, the Priestess said "Godspeed" to another Priest as they departed. It was at that very moment that I looked into Maggie Quigley's eyes and saw the looming soul of Andy smiling at me.

I can't go anywhere without some unintentional reference to Conservapedia sneaking in, goddammit. I wonder how long it will take before Andy isn't the first thing that comes to mind whenever I hear the term Godspeed. Anyone else have this problem? ~SuperHamster Talk 03:22, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, from time to time. Godspeed is one of the worst offenders, of course, but there are others. ħuman 04:34, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

'Open your mind' is forever an indication of rigid nutty thinking for me.  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 09:30, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

They're everywhere. A site I use quite often is called "TK Translate"... --PsyGremlin話しなさい 12:48, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Insight. I'm not even a CP watcher and the word now causes me to crack up.Тy^Talk. 13:17, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

When I was watching Angel Beats. It's a shame CP-TK never had such awesome catchphrases. Röstigraben (talk) 13:33, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Vandalism... of liberals?

We all see traces of CP IRL sometimes. The late TK was apparently in a local pub of mine a couple years back. SJ ^Debaser 13:36, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

The Co-op supermarkets abbreviate their name to CP on the till receipts, so I always read it as conservapedia milk, conservapedia bread, etc etc. Not normal. DeltaStar_{Senior Sysop}^{Speciationspeed!} 14:47, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I get that at the Co-op too. Disturbing - David Gerard (talk) 08:04, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I rarely get any "Gosdpeed"s or "Open Your Mind"s but the "Credit Point" system makes me nervous now. "You'll get 3 CPs with this course!" "Wha, one Conservapedia is enough!"--ǓḤṂ^³ 14:56, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

All I know is I'll never be able to watch the first two seasons of Digimon again. «-Bfa-» 14:59, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Watching any Digimon is it's own worst punishment. --PsyGremlinTal! 15:40, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Shortening the interim

As I am currently the only "civilian" bureaucrat, I would like to move toward the end of the interim period as fast as possible. It is a breeding ground for HCM and we are losing people left and right. Here are some measures I am considering (I'm open to suggestions):

• Reinstating 5 former bureaucrats, who would be able to do what they would in restoring other rights lost in the coup
• Aggressively reducing flame wars and related HCM through the use of cooling-off blocks
• Reinstating 4 former bureaucrats to act as a transition council

Again, I'm open to suggestions. Blue (pester) 04:19, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Everyone's rights are back, I think. Blue (is useful) 05:32, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Everyone who was active, anyway+Gauss. Тy^Talk. 05:36, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I take it these are separate suggestions? Тy^Talk. 04:34, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

No one can agree on any of the ten billion different propositions floating around. Want to end the tedious bullshit? Simple. Revert the wiki to the way it was before the HCMs. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 04:41, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Not even I'm magic. I can't turn back time. And there aren't actually that many suggestions, there are just a lot of variations on a single theme. Blue (is useful) 04:43, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Doesn't the voting on the number of crates end at 17/18 midnight? If we can prevent insanity that long we might actually get this done. Тy^Talk. 04:46, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Voting on how many? And how? And why? Kid, I know you care, but you aren't paying attention sometimes. ħuman 07:32, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Er, not literally revert. What I meant is restore user rights to pre-mass promotion. Now we have this idiotic baton-passing system that makes even less sense than the earlier one. I mean, before Nx and ADK decided to just randomly promote the entire site, I said doing that would only lead to further HCM and butthurt, but hoocoodanode, right? Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 04:51, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Another solution would be to open the crat elections right now, even if they are a sham. --62.142.167.134 (talk) 04:53, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

(EC)I have been appreciating "hoocoodanode" for a while now, thanks, Neb. And that is something I am strongly considering. Blue (is useful) 04:55, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't recognize your authority to do anything more than discuss things like the rest of us. I like you and respect you a lot. But sorry. Nutty Roux (talk) 04:57, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

You know what, Nutty? I 100% agree. Blue (pester) 05:29, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, at least one positive outcome of this has been to spread one of my favorite pieces of internets lingo. :P Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 04:58, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

You have the power to do anything if you believe in yourself. --62.142.167.134 (talk) 05:00, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

So Blue and Ty have undone everythign have they? Just to prolong the HCM again. And so they can fuck off to RWW and write about it? Fuck that. It's clear from their pathetic "political party" categories that they're only fucking around and yet somehow the others here think this is a good idea. Well, Godspeed to all of you. In a week, you've managed to turn RW into a cesspit by giving any credence to the little trolls. --PsyGremlinSnakk! 07:17, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Turning the wiki back to the way it was-to the way IT WAS VOTED ON PREVIOUSLY is being a troll? Why are people being such total and complete dicks? δ_ij$^{i.broke.it.}$ 07:21, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

This is lame... Nx apparently thinks this is his wiki to do anything he wants with, because he's the almighty Goat. And now that he's given you cratship, the first thing you do is abuse it... yeah, this HCM isn't close to being settled... --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 05:06, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

"And now that he's given you cratship, the first thing you do is abuse it" 213.1.33.1 (talk) 08:55, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Best. Fucking. Response. Ever. --ǓḤṂ^³ 09:11, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

It's one election away from being settled, to be exact. --62.142.167.134 (talk) 05:09, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I wish nothing had changed, and that we had just held LJ elections again and submitted the Human incident to them. That would have been better. Ah, well.--^talk 05:28, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Or submitted it to them after we elected them last week, sort of. I was acquitted. In several different ways. ħuman 05:44, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Apparently you weren't following my argument with Kels, or Blue, or one of the New Cabal peoples... there was apparently no consensus, because the vote was invalid. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 05:49, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, there was no case against Human in the first place. Blue (pester) 06:22, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Guess someone thought I was talking sense, or, as they say, dang me. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 05:30, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Blue did say that if she got the crat from Totnesmartin that she would recrat everyone. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 05:42, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Then there we are. Time to kick Nx off the server and wonder about why such a smart guy as ADK could be such an asshole. ħuman 05:45, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

In that case, enjoy another equally nonsensical Roger Miller song. (BTW, ADK is not a guy.)Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 05:46, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

While I don't want to ruin the whole fun... Human is right. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 05:52, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Let's have a vote on it. --62.142.167.134 (talk) 05:47, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Aye! ħuman 06:26, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

My rights are not back. I was a crat. Just saying. sterile^talk 10:36, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

The utter naivete of what Ty and Blue have done here utterly astounds me. EddyP ^{Great King! Disaster!} 13:39, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

The utter naivite of people who thought shitslinging and coups d'etat would make this place better astounds me. And people who think what I did was to further HCM and/or personal interest are just fucking stupid or butthurt. Blue (pester) 15:22, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I'll side with Eddy on this one. This was extremely shortsighted. --Sid (talk) 16:27, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

What ADK and Nx did was an exercise in (IMO justified) cynicism, not naivite. To turn around and undo that when it was going better than any of us thought it would was naivite. To be frank I wouldn't call what came out of what Nx and ADK did HCM. EddyP ^{Great King! Disaster!} 20:56, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

What ADK and NX did was simple abuse of powers and access to push a point, which they aren't even presenting/haven't presented coherently. PS, I know the word troll is thrown around here these days with utter abandon, but Eddy, you are a lesser form of life than that. We don't even have a word for it. ħuman 06:35, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Forgive me Human, we can't all be wikigods. I am not worthy, I am not worthy. EddyP ^{Great King! Disaster!} 10:51, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

psychopaths

I was watching Jon Ronson on the Daily Show, and he said something: 1 out of a 100 people are psychopaths. Is that true? Any headshrinkers wanna rebut? ---brxbrx 13:16, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like Schlafly statistics to me. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 16:44, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

It's a spectrum disorder, like Autism, and gender incongruence. As such depending on where you want to draw the line, you can really get any arbitrary prevalence race you want... as such, it's Schlafly statistics, and a bit of "truth". --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 17:29, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Psychopaths? Yes, the figure sounds way LOW but yeah. Human beings are animals that push their brains to the limits (and beyond). We each make a usable version of "reality" for ourselves...some of us are closer to the objective reality than others but we all do it. There are many times that this way of making it through this life is going to go awry. Hilarity ensues. 17:43, 17 May 2011 (UTC) C®ackeЯ

I broke mine yesterday. Luckily, it grew back. Thank the Lord! ħuman 06:28, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

The statistic I usually hear is that 4 in 100 are sociopaths, but Eira pretty much nailed it when she said it's a spectrum disorder, and besides, as far as I can tell the 4:100 stat originated in some bullshit pop-psych book about how "OMG SOCIOPATHS ARE RAPIN' EVERYBODY OUT HERE". Hardly a respected academic journal, so I doubt it's actually true. --The Emperor _{Kneel before Zod!} 23:23, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I am given to understand that sociopaths are a subset of psychopaths, (severe depressives can be psychopaths). 23:27, 17 May 2011 (UTC) C®ackeЯ

I'm pretty sure they're mostly interchangeable terms, with psychopath implying violence. Can't cite anything though. That's why I was hoping a psych person would pitch in. I've always been fascinated with and terrified of people incapable of empathy and indifferent to morality. This statistic I found to be troubling.---brxbrx 01:49, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Technically, I'm a "psych person," but those of us on the cog/neuro-sci end of things tend to look at ab psych with a little, er, suspicion, and I feel that my knowledge of the ab psych literature is somewhat dated. According to Wiki, the number does come from a peer-reviewed study (if it's on wiki, it's gotta be true!). Though as Eira mentioned, and as with many disorders, there is a spectrum. IMSEO (In my semi-educated opinion), many cases of psychopathy are probably traceable to an underactive or underdeveloped limbic system, specifically the amygdala. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 03:32, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I hate it when people refer to wikipedia as "wiki". It betrays a lack of knowing there are other wikis. I must now track you down and kill you. Slowly. ħuman 06:30, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

(By the way, who created this abomination)?--ZooGuard (talk) 06:50, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

The benefits of having a conservative husband

...The former California governor fathered a child over ten years ago with a longtime member of the couple's household staff...

Olé Olé Olé Alain (talk) 14:15, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

So did John Edwards. He's liberal.---brxbrx 14:37, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Yeah I know, I was just getting Schadenfreudy cause the Schlafly was blaming his liberal wife last week. Alain (talk) 15:11, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

At least the "longtime member of the couple's household staff" was a woman, that's something, and maybe she's the next Nancy Reagan, is she conservative? (We know she didn't use birth control). 17:46, 17 May 2011 (UTC) C®ackeЯ

Or he didn't and said he did. ħuman 06:27, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Random encounter with an Infowarrior

So I was having a beer at a random bar and I got talking to a guy next to me. It didn't take long for him to start spouting Alex Jones crap. I didn't really engage him because I had places to go, but also because I don't know exactly what to say to guys like that. "Don't be an idiot" isn't terribly diplomatic. Also, they have their talking points down much better than I do, so while I know what they're saying is largely crap (though usually based on a snippet of fact) I don't have the facts handy to counter them. They start going off on the Federal Reserve, which I am far from an expert on, and while I don't actually think they have a better understanding of it then I do, they do have their "facts" handy, repeated straight from whatever crank site they read. "I'm pretty sure you're wrong on that" isn't a terribly convincing response. He brought up fluoridation, of course, and when I responded "I hear it's a commie conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids" he seemed to take me seriously. As well as the "Osama's been dead for years" BS he told me about a bill that would make 10 votes in the Senate all that is necessary for the President to sign a bill into law once passed by the House. Of course that makes no sense on any level, all I could say is that there's no way that's true, but of course I couldn't prove it, and since I had no idea what he was talking about I couldn't set him straight. Turns out I think he was talking about this attempt to cut the number of executive appointments subject to Congressional approval. Only guys with Alex Jones's nuts on their chin would think that not subjecting the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Financial Management to Senate approval is tantamount to tyranny. Anyway, anyone else encounter guys like this, and what's the best way to handle a debate they've prepared for and you haven't? Of course, we're severely handicapped by having to stick to actual facts. Also, they often have a way of making you seem like a government stooge for defending any mainstream views. DickTurpis (talk) 04:51, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Quit drinking. 04:59, 18 May 2011 (UTC) C®ackeЯ

Conversely, drink much, much more! 05:00, 18 May 2011 (UTC) C®ackeЯ

Humor them and lead them on so they become increasingly foolish, and laugh inwardly. There's absolutely no point trying to talk sense to such people, so best treat it as entertainment. Doctor Dark (talk) 05:25, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I was in Faro, Portugal a couple of weeks ago browsing round an antiques shop. Got chatting to the owner (in French) who was a delightful old man - very knowledgeable about local history and the history of the antiques he had, including various statues and objects from churches that had been destroyed in a huge earthquake last century.

All of a sudden he took out a dollar bill from his wallet, starting pointing out the eye in the pyramid, "In God We Trust", Star of David in the seal, the Freemasons, and so on, then started ranting about Zionist conspiracies and all that.

I couldn't back away very quickly in a room packed full of priceless artefacts and antiques. Ajkgordon (talk) 12:43, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Be crazier than they are until they leave you alone? - David Gerard (talk) 14:49, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Where I used to live in Essex, pointing out the flaws of peoples arguments in the pub would result in a glass to the face AMassiveGay (talk) 15:01, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Those people are too far down the rabbit hole -- no doubt you're a gummint disinfo agent! I do love the Federal Reserve cranks' ability to turn accounting identities into a conspiracy/Jewish slavery, though. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 16:30, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Trident

Fresh from defeating the Lib Dems in their holy grail of electoral reform, and only months after heaping humiliation onto them over university tuition fees, now the Tories have announced that they are going against another key Lib Dem policy (and part of the coalition agreement) by announcing the renewal of Trident. Seems like the Tories know when they have the Lib Dems cowed. I bet a quid that we'll not see any reform of the House of Lords in this parliament as well. It's hard to see how the Lib Dems could become any more irrelevant. Bondurant (talk) 14:23, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

You have to wonder just what the tories could possibly do to make the lib dems leave the coalition. AMassiveGay (talk) 14:43, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps they fear being being wiped out in a general election AMassiveGay (talk) 14:48, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Basically the Tories are the only party with the finances for a general election at the drop of a hat. Labour need a bit more run up, but have the union dues; the LibDems need considerable run up - David Gerard (talk) 14:51, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

If the Lib Dems pulled out of the coalition now, they would be decimated at the polls. They both know that they don't have a leg to stand on right now - the Lib Dems have zero influence and have a mountain to climb to become relevant again. Bondurant (talk) 15:07, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

The whole thing pisses me off as I am left with no one to vote for. The tories have always been cunts and labour sold out their core voters. Now with Lib dems in bed with the tories, I'm gonna have to actually consider their policies instead of blindly voting for an appropriately coloured rosette. Bunch of arseholes. AMassiveGay (talk) 23:27, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Cracked evolution article

The article isn't too bad, but the comments look to be getting interesting already. Only a few there now, but should take off soon enough.The Micro/Macro evolution question has come up already. Linky. X Stickman (talk) 14:57, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Someone brought up the ol' "peppered moths don't land on trees" thing. Sigh... Thunderkatz^Ho! 15:18, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm kind of surprised there were no comments like "Pollution? Global warming? Look, we'll adapt!" Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 16:26, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

this is despicable

Apparently, Strauss-Kahn's defense is "she's not pretty enough to rape."[1] I'm ashamed that people in France would buy this.---brxbrx 22:35, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't see anything in that article suggesting that's his defence. It looks more like the issue of whether she's pretty or not is something stirred up by French tabloids while there's currently not much more than speculation to go on about the actual legal case. ₩€₳$€£ΘĪÐ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 22:54, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

That is so wrong on so many levels. Rationalize (talk) 01:13, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I think that those French need to get that crime is crime. This is just absurd.--Colonel Sanders (talk) 01:21, 19 May 2011 (UTC)£900

Tweren't Camus French? 01:31, 19 May 2011 (UTC) C®ackeЯ

Awkward cat is awkward.

So here I am on my queen sized bed, and one cat is managing to take up literally 90% of the horizontal room and 60% of the vertical. I'm sure he does it on purpose to show me who is boss. --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 23:08, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Maybe you should place your cat gently in its bed, on the floor. Unless you actually like having your cat sleep on your bed.........What breed is the cat?--Lefty (talk) 23:10, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

He's that famous breed the British moggy. --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 23:18, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Laptop or netbook?

That is the question. I am looking to spend between £150-200 on a computer - a second-hand lappy or a new or second-hand netbook. It will run Ubuntu and will only be used for surfing and messing around with scripts and BackTrack, so doesn't need to be a powerful machine. Does the small screen on a netbook get annoying after a while? I'm trying to think of any reason why I shouldn't get a lappy - ultra portability isn't really a big issue, and netbooks seem a bit gimicky to me... Thoughts please? DeltaStar_{Senior Sysop}^{Speciationspeed!} 21:46, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like you need a laptop then. All the netbooks I've seen are shit. The only advantage is the size, other than that they get annoying. Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 21:49, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

My experience is don't buy second hand laptops. They break more or less instantly upon purchase. If you can strech your budget to like 280 quid you can get a real, proper laptop. Even bottom of the range laptops these days have insane specs I could barely have imagined a decade ago, and you'll get decent screen real estate (widescreen even!) and a machine that should last 3 years or so. --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 21:51, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I have been banging away on a $160 Dell P4 that is the most powerful computer I own for a year now. One thing to keep in mind when going the used laptop route is to budget for a new battery if you plan on portability (I didn't care). ħuman 01:43, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I have a five year old Thinkpad that I was about to put on eBay if you're interested. Ajkgordon (talk) 21:59, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

If you're a good typist, I'd avoid a netbook like the plague. In my personal experience, and from a couple of friends, if you're used to just... typing... at the rate you think, then using a tiny little keyboard on a netbook, even though it doesn't look much smaller, is the most frustrating thing in the world. ^EXTERMINATE 22:09, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I'd second that, I tried a netbook for a few weeks and it annoyed the living shit out of me. I was always pressing the key two to the left or right of the one I wanted. --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 22:13, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Right, that's exactly what I was worried about re netbooks - that annoyance would escalate rapidly for me! Ajk - what spec (and screen size) is the Thinkpad? How much are you wanting for it? I've got my ebay eye on a Toshiba Tecra, if I don't get that I might just take you up on your offer... DeltaStar_{Senior Sysop}^{Speciationspeed!} 22:26, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Toshiba Tecras are generally pretty solid machines. My Thinkpad is a 2006 entry-level R60e. Original spec: 15", Duo 2300T (1.66MHz), 1GB RAM, 60GB HDD, DVD/RW, XP Pro. However, it's been upgraded since. I'll have to check but it's got a larger HDD (160GB I think) and maybe 2GB RAM. It's also got a Vista OEM licence. It's in pretty good nick. The original battery's probably got less than an hour's capacity now but you can pick up Chinese copies for around £35. I might even have one. Again I'd have to check if you're interested. £150. Ajkgordon (talk) 08:06, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I have a Toshiba NB205, and it is amazing. Best computer I've had in a long time. Keyboard is fine for typing, enough power to do anything I need, plenty of memory, and a netbook's smaller screen size and lack of a CD-ROM means that its battery lasts for five or six hours. Also, of course, it's lighter and smaller. Great machine, and I use it all day with no problem. Netbooks have won me over wholesale, and I won't be buying another laptop, for what it's worth.--^talk 05:25, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I've got a laptop and a netbook but I use them for different things. If I want to use a PC away from my desktop at home or if I'm going to be at one location for a while it's the laptop. But I also have to visit a number of clients and then it's the netbook all the time because of its extreme portability. I'm a full finger typist (well I was until last August) and, while the netbook keyboard is small I find it quite usable. But if portability isn't important then go for the laptop.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 05:56, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I have a netbook. It works well for surfing, email, programming, and just about everything... but it does not play games for any crap. Minecraft even runs really slow on it. So, it pretty much depends, if you're planning on doing any gaming, then don't get a Netbook. Oh, it also lags playing Farmville as well. (And I upgraded the RAM already to max.) --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 08:10, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Buggeration! I forgot to get a bid in in time for the Tecra, it only went for £160 in the end, bargain. So, I think I'll take AJK up on his offer - am I right in thinking (pardon the pun) that Thinkpads are good sturdy machines? I travel a lot so I do need something pretty well-built. DeltaStar_{Senior Sysop}^{Speciationspeed!} 20:35, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I have a Dell Mini 910. I love it so very much. Bit small to type on, I want to get a USB Unicomp Model M for it. Dell Mini 1012 is damn fine as a netbook. I hear the Mini 1018 is not bad either - David Gerard (talk) 19:33, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Get a craptop. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 19:37, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Was I promoted?

Why aren't I sysop anymoar? Rationalize (talk) 19:00, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Long story. I would re-sysop ye but I don't know how to use my new powers. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 19:04, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

It should be under my "User contributions" and user rights management or something like that. Rationalize (talk) 19:08, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, really long story... but I gave you sysops now. Sorry about the mess. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 19:11, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Todo está bien. Rationalize (talk) 19:12, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I got promoted in all this mess, too.. Quaru^{beach ball - You can't explain that!} 14:04, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

So hide your kids, hide your wife and hide your husbands 'cause they promotin' ERRY body up in here. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 14:39, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

3D movies suck

Went to see Thor last night. It was my first time watching a movie in 3D. My popcorn money went to getting those stupid glasses, most of the scenes didn't require 3D, and even with the glasses the film looked blurry. On top of that, the last half of the movie sucked. Maybe I should have bought old comics instead of seeing the movie? I know a place.--Thanatos (talk) 19:30, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

The thing I hate about some 3D movies is that they still blur backgrounds (or objects in the background) to give that 2D style of perspective, which is completely uneccesary with 3D. Your brain is thinking "I'm focusing on that object, why is it still out of focus?". Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 19:55, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Just you wait until the 3D versions of the Starwars prequels. Hollywood isn't done raping your childhood yet, laddie. --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 19:56, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I still haven't yet seen a movie in 3D. I thought I was going to see the last Harry Potter in 3D but it turned out to be a 2D screening even though it was at a 3D-compatible cinema. I'm intending to watch the new Pirates of the Caribbean in 3D this weekend. I was briefly an extra in that movie while they were filming scenes in London last autumn, so I've been filmed in a 3D movie even though I haven't yet seen one. Weaseloid^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 20:02, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I've seen Avatar in 3D, and it was probably the only 3D movie I've seen where the point of 3D wasn't "ooh, look, something's coming straight at you, isn't that SO FUCKING COOL!!!1!" Avatar used it to make the scenery porn even more amazing and immersive (which is good, because the plot and acting weren't that great), and is probably the only movie that's even come close to making me feel like I was actually somewhere else. Thunderkatz^Ho! 20:06, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Mostly agree with Thunderkatz. In my eyes, there are three types of 3D: (1) In-your-face 3D (a.k.a. shit flying straight at you), (2) subtle 3D (a.k.a. nice, but it also would've looked great in 2D) and (3) scenery porn 3D (a.k.a. Avatar). The first type is dumb and gimmicky, but I don't really mind the other two. --Sid (talk) 20:18, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I think we should have learned our lesson from Jaws 3D. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 20:30, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

The reason why Thor 3D was so terrible looking was because the 3D was added as an "after the fact" gimmick." The producers shot the movie in a regular way, and then used software to make it 3D. Meanwhile, Avatar was shot in 3D for ever scene. Personally, I liked the storyline of the Thor movie, but they killed the ending and drew out the middle portions.--Lefty (talk) 21:50, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

As soon as Thor's friends from Asgard came to Earth, the movie went from good to crap. Couldn't they have flashed forward a few months so that we can believe Thor has actually grown, living with humans for more than a few days?--Thanatos (talk) 01:02, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, but if they'd flashed-forward it would have seemed cheap. You can't just stick "three months later" in the middle of a movie. It would have looked like a horrid excuse to pretend to have character development without actually having to do it the hard way. Or they could have done a montage. But thats too cheesey!! So just having him turn into "WORTHY AWESOME THOR" in a day is the lesser of evils. 00:28, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Count me as a 3D skeptic. It's nice that the content creation tools aren't hard to find (even if the cameras are over a grand a piece) but the appeal seems very limited to me. As an occasional videographer, I wouldn't even bother to offer it as a service unless the client wanted to buy the equipment for me. EVDebs (talk) 07:09, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Scareware alert!

I accidentally clicked on an IP address while here and it downloaded a malicious program onto my Mac! It is called joyawpan virus scanner.--Lefty (talk) 11:45, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Where did you click it? ^{ONE / TALK} 12:04, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

The article "To Train Up a Child." I am almost sure that this is where it was!--Lefty (talk) 12:12, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I couldn't find anything untoward in the links on that page. ₩€₳$€£ΘĪÐ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 18:49, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Did it look like an IP address before you clicked it? Or did an IP address appear in your browser only after you clicked it? ^{ONE / TALK} 13:28, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Hmmmm... shit like this has been making the rounds recently... I think it may also be related to other fake malware scanners like "MacProtector" and "MacDefender". Check out here and here for potential starting points re: information and potential cleanup. If you can backtrack which link it was (or whether you're already infected by something that triggered something), that would be very helpful... --Sid (talk) 13:58, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

That's impossible, everyone knows there is no malware for macs! Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 21:40, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

False alert. The program only downloaded its installer, not the actual software. We probably need to find this. I found that the site is owned by a person, who lives in Texas. I even managed to find an email address.--Lefty (talk) 22:51, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Can you go through your browser's history to see what articles you had been reading before the bad site? Or check the download manager to see where it was downloaded from (Firefox at least lets you do that with its built-in manager)? --Sid (talk) 23:26, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

The evil people have been branching out from IE and Outlook into Mozilla and Apple products. Damn them. ħuman 03:34, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Malware writers traditionally didn't target apple & linux platforms (apart from when there is financial gain to be had) because you don't get any kudos for attacking the "good guys". Apple are starting to lose their "good guy" status now and so people have started targetting them. Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 09:51, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Is this people whipping up a storm over nothing?

I'm assuming this is a case of politicians abusing statistics here - i.e. ignoring Ken's point that 5 years is an average and so violent offenders - although they'll be able to get up to a half of their sentence off (they can already get a third off) for an early guilty plea - they'll still have a longer sentence that comes nowhere near the quoted 15 months. Am I right or am I missing something? ^{ONE / TALK} 13:28, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I got the impression that the furore was over Ken seemingly suggesting some rape is not as serious of others. Of the less serious variety I think he meant underage teenagers consensually getting it on. AMassiveGay (talk) 23:23, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

So, yeah, it's just a distraction. Politicians do not want to have a serious debate about the actual topic (increasing the tariff discount for admitting your guilt) so leaping on a turn of phrase is good for them. You can parrot "Rape is rape" and not have to offer an opinion about whether tariff discounts are effective or desirable.

But, Ken screwed up pretty badly, reminding us that a modern government minister doesn't always know his subject well and doesn't necessarily have the sense (or perhaps the time) to consult civil servants. "Statutory rape" in the form popularised by Hollywood doesn't exist in the UK. Basically in the UK if a 15 year old says in court they consented to have sex with you, the court isn't going to pretend that it knows better. So in practice for such scenarios the CPS will prosecute a different crime (not rape) in which they only have to establish that one partner was underage and the resulting sentence won't appear in rape statistics. 188.220.41.110 (talk) 15:02, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh yeah, and the classic teacher + school child thing isn't prosecuted as rape either. If the child would be underage anyway (ew!) then it's the same as above. If they're of age but still a minor, there's a separate crime prosecutable for adults who have sex with a minor (e.g 17 yo) to whom they have a duty of care. Both offences avoid needing to prove (absence of) consent which is what tends to make rape cases fall apart. 188.220.41.110 (talk) 15:29, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Bloody petty officials

I wanted to take a pony on the train and they refused! Isn't that what the guard's wagon is for? Генгис^{RationalWiki GOLD member} 20:01, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Meth is a hell of a drug. Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 21:42, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

See. This is why the rapture won't happen on Saturday And behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and they guy at the ticket counter said he couldn't go to Hollyhead. --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 21:48, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Alright I'm feeling left out now. Can someone post me some drugs please? Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 21:51, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

If you get enough bananas, you can make your own bananadine. It's the atheist's nightmare drug. --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 21:53, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Only in wales. lol 13:01, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

A notion espoused by several drug users at the time was that you can get a lot higher without drugs than with them. 1967... the great San Francisco acid wave... Jefferson Airplane... And there I was... Holy fuck. That's me. ... Three tabs of acid from the guy. He told me to only take one, but I ate all of them... I spilt half a tab on my red woollen shirt... And then... and the hippy... Behind every closed door of all his favourite bars... men in red woollen shirts would be getting incredible kicks... kicks off something which he'd never truly understand... And so from this sunny morning in Vegas... you can turn out and look west... and know that you were a part of something. SJ ^Debaser 15:41, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Rapture t-shirts

Does anyone know where I can get one of the official May 21st rapture t-shirts? Occasionaluse (talk) 13:20, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

You could probably pick one up half price on the 22nd. AMassiveGay (talk) 15:56, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I think that an original, fundie-worn May 21st rapture t-shirt (preferably stained with tears of disappointment) will be haute couture come May 22nd. Occasionaluse (talk) 16:31, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps you can ask whomever you purchase one from just what unchristian behaviour caused them to be left behind with the rest of us godless liberal gayers. AMassiveGay (talk) 00:46, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Sweet Fucking Holy Jesus Christ, What the Fuck is Wrong with Us?

So it seemed like everything was running, if not "smoothly," than "smoother." I left a dirty joke for human on Nutty's talk page. just like old times. Then I went to sleep. When I woke up, Recent Changes looked like this: ChickenCoopChickenCoopChickenCoopChickenCoopChickenCoopChickenCoopChickenCoopChickenCoopChickenCoopChicken CoopChickenCoopChickenCoopChickenCoopChickenCoopChickenCoopChickenCoopChickenCoopChickenCoop. Seriously. We are a very dysfunctional community right now. P-Foster (talk) 13:42, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

The CC at the moment is some BoN, maybe trolling, definately pissing me off. Its a hell of a lot better than it was a few days ago though. NDSP 13:47, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

This is serious business. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 14:15, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

The BoN is apparently Psygremlin. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 14:37, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Ah. oops. *ducks under desk*. NDSP 14:41, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

No need to hide... I didn't even know when I blocked the BoN... it wasn't until the mess of stuff going on in RWW about me that I even put two and two together. And even then it took awhile. I think it was like 15 mins before I even knew there was a coop (I read about it first on RWW) and at that point I think I managed to put it together, since Psygremlin started the coop but then the BoN kept up the Psygremlin side of the argument. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 14:47, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, 41 also responds as psygremlin on his talk page, so either someone is doing some really elaborate trolling, or he forgot to sign in. NDSP 14:49, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

It's simple. People in positions of trust abuse that trust and try to deny responsibility or treat it as a joke afterwards. Unacceptable behaviour for somebody elected to a position of authority on this wiki. Such people do not deserve to be a Trustee if they're going to shit on the wiki they're supposed to be looking after. --PsyGremlinSnakk! 14:52, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Trustees have no authority over the wiki content. ħuman 09:09, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

I look forward to your chicken coop to get Human removed as a Trustee. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 14:56, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I guess you missed his coop. --85.76.153.109 (talk) 16:04, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I think I'll just look at RC without the RW space. Much cleaner that way. sterile^talk 14:55, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't have the coop on my watchlist, and I usually don't watch RC at all unless I'm participating in an HCM. The problem come in, when someone drags you into the coop over something, and now you don't know about it, because you've not been watching it. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 14:57, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

People are supposed to tell someone if they raise a Coop case about them, but all too often they seem to forget or don't bother. Wẽãšẽĩõĩď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 17:41, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

No one told me (like on my talk page) and no one told Eira. Maybe we should write instructions at the top of the page for the obvious-challenged? ħuman 09:09, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

They're already there. Maybe they just need to be bolder & blunter. Wẽãšẽĩõĩď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 17:51, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

There's no fucking point telling you anything Human. You're so full of yourself that you ignore everybody else and remain convinced of your own infallibility. 85.210.8.29 (talk) 10:17, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

We need a project

We should find something constructive to do together as a wiki. Let's do one of our famous side-by-side refutations. What topic shall we look for? The creation/evolution stuff usually works pretty well, but we could also dig around in some conspiracy theories, medical topics, or general crazy woo. Tmtoulouse (talk) 15:23, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I know it's not "serious" but how about a good old-fashioned RW party on my talk page for the 4th animalversary? ħuman 09:04, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Yeah! Let's go on a camping trip! Or how about a military parade? --ǓḤṂ^³ 16:08, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Jerome Corsi? Too low? Occasionaluse (talk) 15:26, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I started an essay and never got around to finishing it, and I just recently asked for people to come in and help. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 15:28, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

In a similar vein, what are our general logic / logical fallacies articles like? NDSP 15:35, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I was trolling through the Rabett Run (climate blog) archives looking for something and saw this in the comments:(Quote's not working for some reason, so just ctrl f for cholesterol)

(From this post) Anyone know anything about this? Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 15:57, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Speaking as a newbie, wouldn't a more worthwhile project be to resolve the issues that seem to be going on here? There's clearly a problem that isn't going away. --OompaLoompa (talk) 16:01, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Maybe pick a general topic area to flesh out? For example our vaccination stuff is pretty good, and I think our homeopathy article is among the best I've ever seen -- better than Wikipedia's, for example. So building a cluster of really well-written articles on the general topic of CAM-woo could be a possibility. Just one man's opinion. Doctor Dark (talk) 16:03, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

What about something like Wikipedia's version one?? If RWs stuff is that good it might be cool. 17:09, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree on this. Our CAM-woo could totally use more work. I get in arguments on FB a few times with a friend who's one of those "doctors only make you sick" people, and it would be nice if I could just point her to webpages here, rather than debate every point she makes anew. (After I do research for her stuff though, I tend to bring it back here.) --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 16:05, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Speaking of CAM-woo, the journal Mashey refers to as the "dog astrology journal" in the post I put up (This one) looks like a gold mine for CAM-woo and every other sort of woo. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 16:09, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

We could improve our contents page/portal. A few more articles in some of the "best of" categories & a better layout would do it. Wèàšèìòìď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 19:52, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

We had the article-a-week club to focus us after the last megaHCM, perhaps this time and article improvement drive? Nominate a single article for improvement and we all get it cover status in a week. Real first name and last initial^{Talk, talk, talk skim my contributions} 21:07, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Natural news?

Over at NaturalNews we have started getting some search engine hits for it and some BON comments/vandalism. The place is a cesspit of craziness, and its a pretty popular website. Maybe we could pull out some of our favorite articles, pod casts, whatever and do little mini-reviews and link them to the main article? Tmtoulouse (talk) 17:51, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

The old Denialism blog had a category for Mike Adams and I know PZ Myers and some other skeptical blogs (probably Orac) have done fiskings, so it would have to be something other than what was covered in those. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 18:00, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

JSE

Journal of Scientific Exploration - Get to work, chumps. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 21:16, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

The To Do list

If someone want to distract themselves from the HCM with doing something productive, RW:TODO has a lot of red links. There's also the Article-a-Week Club.--ZooGuard (talk) 06:33, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

I'll Fucking Well Be Damned if I'm going to Patrol Edits on Long-Established Users.

Srsly, there are a lot of red exclamation points from folks who have no business leaving them here, which makes spotting questionable activity all the harder. Someone should, I dunno, convene a committee to do something about that. P-Foster (talk) 16:16, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Promote them to sysop when you see them. Uh... beyond that, I don't know what to tell you. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 16:18, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I'd demote some of them, but I don't know how to use my new magical demotion powers. Or if I still have them. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 16:25, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

@ Eira --> I'm not a 'crat anymore. P-Foster (talk) 16:28, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

TMT gave sysops demotion powers, but I don't know if that's still in effect. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 16:32, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, that odd feature seems to be gone what with the crats being back. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 16:51, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I think the word you're searching for is "change". --ǓḤṂ^³ 17:01, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, sure... When the red exclamations go away I don't have to worry about you watching me. What a pathetic attempt to try and get me to let my guard down so you can catch me in another compromising position that you can share with my friends and family. Go fuck yourself, P-Foster. It's not happening again. Occasionaluse (talk) 17:03, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

What happened between you two? Did you end up having sex and one didn't call the other? SJ ^Debaser 17:05, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Is Occasionaluse being sarcastic? Damn, it's impossible to tell online. Anyway, with all the crap going on right now, I'm going to have to give "abundance of red exclamation points" something like a 2.5 on the urgency scale. DickTurpis (talk) 17:07, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Occasional is still bitter about the time he walked in on me and his wife mother gerbil. THOSE are some pictures I'd like to get back P-Foster (talk) 18:42, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

You know you people can be REALLY weird 19:26, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

He'll never let you live that down, P-Foster. You have to know that. This is war. Nutty Roux (talk) 19:43, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

So, I have my crat bit back. Is it okay to demote people to sysop willy-nilly?

(I must add: I seriously consider it a strong community feature that people are sysopped on RW within days of telling if they're likely insane or not. It deftly avoids a lot of the sort of social gradation fuckery found on Wikipedia. And there is pretty much nothing a sysop can do on MediaWiki that can't be undone. This needs to be kept in mind.) - David Gerard (talk) 19:46, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

What he said. Wéáśéĺóíď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 19:55, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I have just reopped an entirely random selection of regulars who are not so crazy that they'd set fire to the place for fun. Any controversy over these particular changes, I welcome correction. Any controversy over the general notion, I warn you that I shall argue wiki philosophy with my large and diseased penis - David Gerard (talk) 20:33, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

How can I tell what kind of user/member/sysop/fuckwit/troll I am? Ajkgordon (talk) 20:58, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

n00b Occasionaluse (talk) 21:00, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Cunt. Ajkgordon (talk) 21:03, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

(EC)Do...does that mean that you'll use your large and diseased penis as an argument in your favour, or does it mean that you'll retire to a corner and start arguing with your penis? X Stickman (talk) 20:58, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

A sufficiently large and diseased penis is the universal refutation. This follows directly from physics - David Gerard (talk) 22:28, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm not a physics guy so I guess it's quite likely you're right. X Stickman (talk) 22:40, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

make a new class of established, trustworthy users. but don't give them rights. this is just so we don't get those exclamation points everyone's always bitching about.--Tiberius Gracchus (talk) 22:42, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Red exclamation points gone (at least dating back a week or so). Is it possible to patrol the Liquid Thread changes? If so, how? Aboriginal Noise ^{What the ...} 00:03, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

I have to say, I think every single post in this section made me laugh. RationalWiki is dead, long live RationalWiki! You all made my heart grow warmer. !!!! ħuman 09:01, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Speaking of Rapture...

Has anyone played Rapture Raptor? --Dumpling (talk) 20:15, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

No, but googling it now. NDSP 21:08, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Ah Google~Haha. Anyways, it's a pretty good way to waste time. --Dumpling (talk) 21:17, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

CONFIRMED

that the majority of Americans approve of gay marriage than those who do not. Suck on that!

This also plays in to Nate Silver's earlier prediction that gay marriage opponents are the minority as well. O PS, does anyone wanna join me for some post-rapture looting? Rationalize (talk) 20:55, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

-clapclapclap-Thanks Westboro church. Your contribution to this was lovely. ANYHOO---Post Rapture Looting?--Dumpling (talk) 21:00, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm looting a plane. Тy^Talk. 21:03, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

I figure we can loot for a while, since we have seven years to accept God. Will people that are afraid of heights be raptured?--User:Brxbrx/sig 21:05, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Height-Challenged. D: Anyhoo~ Looting a plane? Sounds like a remake of Snakes on a Plane, 'cept with Raptors.--Dumpling (talk) 21:14, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm flying to New York state, where I will promptly loot the state archives, and a car. Тy^Talk. 21:16, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Very nice! -clapclap- --Dumpling (talk) 21:18, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

how long to NY from where are you now? Rationalize (talk) 21:20, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

~1700 miles. Тy^Talk. 21:21, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

I wanna go streaking. And then rob a grocery store. Foodz. mmmm Rationalize (talk) 21:06, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Trying looking at that poll graph on Nate's prediction, through squinty eyes. 21:07, 20 May 2011 (UTC) C®ackeЯ

I say Picnic.--Dumpling (talk) 21:14, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Well according to some denominations, only small fractions of the population will be raptured. I wonder how Amazonian indigenes will figure out they're supposed to accept god if they're so isolated from the world? God is so eurocentric.--User:Brxbrx/sig 21:09, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Really? Only small fractions? >> Hahaha. Isn't he/she/it? --Dumpling (talk) 21:27, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Because gOD is a cunt and just plain hates darkies. He had to wait for the Chosen White Boys to appear before rapturing people. Nightwish (talk) 22:47, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Wow. Rationalize...I just logged into my Facebook for the first time tonight/morning, and there it was. An Invitation to the "Post-Rapture Looting" event. 800K and counting. --Dumpling (talk) 05:57, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Eggplant

Anybody know a good recipe for it? My only means of cooking is a rice cooker that doubles as a steamer. Every time I try making eggplant, I end up with a bland, sloppy mess that I have to drown in olive oil and bury in salt to consume pleasurably. Also, is everytime a word? My browser's spellchecker seems to think the two words must always be separate.---brxbrx 23:21, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Try ratatouille. Can be eaten hot or cold, on it's own or as an accompaniement to a meat dish. RagTop^{Gone sailing} 23:56, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

This looks piss easy, if all you can really do steam em. I have a similarly crap kitchen, but I would suggest you purchase a stand alone hob, health grill with hot plate or one those microwaves with an oven in them. Who the fuck came up with 'eggplant' as a name for aubergine anyways? AMassiveGay (talk) 00:56, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Americans. Actually, as a native French speaker whose food mostly came prepared in a French speaking household (albeit in the States), aubergine is more familiar to me also. Did you know, that after WWII, when the US offered France aid, France asked for corn, unaware that in the US corn means maize, not the wheat they desired? My grandparents said that because of that misunderstanding, they were stuck with corn bread for quite a while (they didn't know how to prepare it, so it was very hard and crumbly)---brxbrx 01:05, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

btw, thanks for the recipe---brxbrx 01:07, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Tis a pity you don't appear to equipped to make moussaka AMassiveGay (talk) 01:28, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

"they were stuck with corn bread for quite a while (they didn't know how to prepare it, so it was very hard and crumbly)" Being from an area where corn originated, and was highly used... that is how corn bread is... there really isn't a different way to do it. (Well, ok, tortillas, but those end up hard and crumbly as well.) --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 01:37, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

other corn bread, the stuff you eat for Thanksgiving, is soft and sweet. IDK how it's made.---brxbrx 01:39, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

I suppose you will always have trouble with food being called different things. In some parts of the UK swedes and turnips refer to rutabaga and turnips, in other parts it is the reverse. My point with eggplant vs aubergine was the eggplant is just a shit name. AMassiveGay (talk) 01:45, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Am I the only one who likes to eat his eggplant raw? ~SuperHamster Talk 03:12, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, probably. Alongside potatoes, it's one of more toxic of the edible nightshade plants, so neither of these are commonly eaten raw. Probably harmless, but most people just find it unpalatably bitter; some people may find raw aubergine indigestible or even get sick from it. Wèàšèìòìď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 12:25, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Hmm...I also like eating raw potatoes. I shall die a young man. ~SuperHamster Talk 12:35, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Are you a salt or sugar man? 03:18, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Neither. I eat my eggplant by taking it out of the fridge and eating it right there as is (after washing it, of course). ~SuperHamster Talk 03:36, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Parmigiana it. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 03:21, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

loads of things, although I do enjoy tempura which works well with aubergine. Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 07:57, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Well I'm going shopping today. I'll get an aubergine and see what I can do with it.--User:Brxbrx/sig 20:15, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Birthday

Seems the site has a birthday on Sunday, one day after the Rapture no less! I think with all the tension everywhere a party would be in order. Set differences aside and party it up wiki-style. I'll bring the drinks. Well, my drinks, anyway. I don't think they'll make it to the rest of you.

Anyone raptured on Saturday is excused. TrickyDickTurpis (talk) 05:46, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Party on Human's talk page! --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 05:49, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

a day after the rapture. The wiki of skepticism has its birthday a day after the rapture. That's just fucking perfect---brxbrx 06:08, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

5/20-21. I think we squeak in before the earthquakes, floods, tornados, volcanos, and tsunamis. Wait, that sounds so last year... ħuman 08:51, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Let's get drunk & abuse the hell out of our admin abilities while we still can, before the great wiki-rapture arrives. Wėąṣėḷőįď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 17:33, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

It's a bit cloudy where I am. Is this a sign of impending doom?  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 18:16, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Gosh, it's exciting.

Just 30 minutes to go until the rapture kicks off in the land of the rising sun. Perhaps our Kiwi reporters might look to the east and tell us if they can see anyone coming in the clouds with great power and glory? --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 03:32, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

I am feeling a bit lighter tonight. Would that be the rapture kicking in early , or perhaps the approach of Nebiru ? maybe Nebiru is powering the rapture? Hamster (talk) 03:49, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

It starts in 1 hour 50 mins at 6pm NZ time. Before Japan. Ace ^{of Spades} 04:08, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

MASSIVE EARTHQUAKES ON CHRISTMAS ISLAND, JUST HIT 6PM THERE Senator Harrison (talk) 04:18, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Hot damn I just got raptrolled. TrickyDickTurpis (talk) 05:21, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Chatham Islands, hello. --AmazingTechnicolorCheeseWedge (talk) 05:30, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Hahaha. Woooow. Anyways...I'm awaiting news from any family in the East.--Dumpling (talk) 05:52, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

New Zealand, hello. --AmazingTechnicolorCheeseWedge (talk) 06:02, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

In case anyone was wondering whether Ace would get his own tribulation for his special wickedness, apparently not. *pulls rubber mask off fake jesus* If it wasn't for those meddling kids I'da been able to pull off a rapture! Nutty Roux (talk) 06:40, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Vladivostok, hello. (can someone else pick this up? I need to go to sleep) --AmazingTechnicolorCheeseWedge (talk) 07:29, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

East coast of Australia here - 30 minutes to go. Dogs are howling and alarms are going off.......wait, that's just normal Saturday night. RagTop^{Gone sailing} 07:33, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Four hours past the rapture here and everything is quite. - π 12:33, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Cunting idiots. Where's your fucking messiah now? Not here. HA! Nightwish (talk) 13:52, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Well I've Made It. Here in Heaven looking down. It's really tough getting an Internet Connection though. --Tolerance (talk) 17:44, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

It's the end of the world as we know it. And I feel fine. Rapture happened an hour and 19 minutes ago here. Rodlen (talk) 02:19, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

God: Sorry, you all suck

DOOM, Spawn Camping, Saturday May 21st (The Word) — The Lord God, the Creator of the Universe, offered His commiserations to every soul in His Creation that they had failed to reach the standard of faith required for Rapturing today.

Thousands of dedicated Christians were not uplifted bodily to Heaven, in a wave of Rapture circling the globe at six o'clock in the evening local time.

"The Manual is extremely clear on these points," He said through his Voice, Metatron ("I keep telling you, I'm an angel, not a Transformer"). "You mix fibres, you eat shellfish, you defecate closer than a mile from the city, you sit on a chair that your wife has ever sat on when she was on her period. And you have completely ignored the detailed instructions in the first chapter of Leviticus on how the Lord likes His barbecue." It shook Its head in exasperation. "You've had the Book right there, for years!"

Atheists, originally revelling in snide and superior schadenfreude, were more than a little chagrined by the actual Voice of God quite unambiguously revealing its existence and telling the world what it had got wrong by direct communication into the soul of every human on Earth. Millions have now signed up for the Church of Reluctantly Admitting, All Right, I Have the Verifiable Proof I was Asking For, Just Don't Get Cocky About It, Okay.

"Never mind," sighed Metatron. "We'll give it another go next December, all right? Just please read the blessed Manual by then. It's not like it's hard to get a copy." - David Gerard (talk) 12:00, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Link. - π 12:50, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, knew I forgot something :-D - David Gerard (talk) 13:35, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

And then there's this asshole

Apparently Dr. Kanazawa is now under "investigation" (whatever that means). Oh joy! (And yes, whenever his name is mentioned, I do run outside, shake my fists at the sky, and yell "Kanazawaaaaaaaa!!!") Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 04:16, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

ConservaHitler

Hitler meme.  ;-)  205.189.194.208 (talk) 23:24, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Is that meme STILL going?? 23:34, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Well the vid is from 2 years ago. Ŵêâŝêîôîď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 23:41, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

lol. too bad it's ruined for our resident germans. they understand what Hitler's actually saying---brxbrx 23:37, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

HITLER FINDS OUT THE SUBTITLES ARE ALL WRONG - FUNNY.  ;-)  205.189.194.208 (talk) 23:55, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

...who's getting the money from those adverts playing at the start? X Stickman (talk) 00:03, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Google --85.76.153.109 (talk) 00:16, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

And the makers of Downfall. They should chill out.205.189.194.208 (talk) 00:21, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

I like how the comments have Andy's catchphrases down. This meme died when Hitler found out about it, though, and then again when he found out about himself finding out about it. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 03:25, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Brxbrx, we Germans have French Existential Star Wars to make up for understanding Hitler's rant (which to me actually makes the meme funnier in a weird way). --Sid (talk) 20:54, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

MOTHERFUCKER! I am French, and that looks really funny. Well, at least I have the Hitler bunker meme...--User:Brxbrx/sig 12:53, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Something that frustrates me with mediawiki

When I type something into the search box, it is not case sensitive. For example: I type in Conspiracy Theory, and I am led to the article on Conspiracy theory. However, internal linking is case-sensitive. See: Conspiracy Theory. (please note that this redlink was created solely to prove a point, and that its eradication would be a dumb idea). Is there any way to help this? Forgive me if the Saloon Bar is not the proper place for this discussion.-- 00:44, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you want to fix. Articles are case sensitive because "Conspiracy theory" the concept can be one article and "Conspiracy Theory" the movie or whatever can be another, which is actually useful. Searches aren't case sensitive for what should be somewhat obvious reasons. The only "solution" I know of is redirects. TrickyDickTurpis (talk) 01:09, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

It's not that it needs fixing, it's that it's annoying to have to go back and change the case of any internal links I make. Maybe the next version of the software will not have case sensitive internal links--. 01:14, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Preview is your friend. As is testing links to make sure they aren't redirects. Also, most links should make grammatical sense (no unneceassary caps), so it shouldn't be that hard if you what you are writing about. ħuman 04:28, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

User:Nx/Scripts/LinkSuggest.js is also your friend. -- Nx / talk 06:11, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

You should add that to the help pages, if you haven't already. ħuman 06:50, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry that this displeases you, please consider going to the mediawiki page and submitting a feature request. They would be fair to explain to you why they probably won't implement it. --Eira ^{OMTG! _{The Goat be Praised.}} 01:17, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

It's good to know I've a legitimate complaint for once. Anyways, I'll do that.--. 01:20, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

The default mediawiki search engine is case sensitive, which is one of the reasons (the other being internal linking) that we create lowercase redirects. The search engine we're using fixes that. It's not a bug, it's a feature. -- Nx / talk 03:57, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't like lowercase redirects as they clutter the autocomplete (or whatever it is) with basically identical options when typing in a such term. Ŵêâŝêîôîď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 11:22, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

These Catholics almost make Pat Robertson look sane!

http://www.mostholyfamilymonastery.com/

I ran across this website at random, it's an ultra-fundie traditionalist Catholic site (traditionalist Catholics believe that the post-Vatican II Catholic Church is too liberal, or even downright heretical). I was wondering if the site was a spoof like Landover Baptist at first, but it seems dead serious.

Here's some excerpts from the site:

---

On babies going to hell:

The teaching of the Catholic Church already cited shows that no one can be saved without the Sacrament of Baptism. Obviously, therefore, this means that children and infants also cannot get to Heaven without Baptism because they are conceived in a state of original sin, which cannot be removed without the Sacrament of Baptism. But this truth of the Catholic Church is denied by many people today. They look at the horrible tragedy of abortion – the millions of slaughtered children – and they conclude that these children must be headed to Heaven. But such a conclusion is heretical. The worst part of abortion is the fact that these children are barred from entrance into Heaven, not that they don’t get to live in this pagan world. Satan delights in abortion because he knows that these souls can never get to Heaven without the Sacrament of Baptism. If aborted children went straight to Heaven without the Sacrament of Baptism, as many today believe, then Satan wouldn’t be behind abortion.

The Church teaches that aborted children and infants who die without baptism descend immediately into Hell, but that they do not suffer the fires of Hell. They go to a place in Hell called the limbo of the children.

--

On masturbation:

Not only is masturbation a mortal sin, but it’s a mortal sin which is identified in three different places in Scripture as one which excludes from the Kingdom of God. It’s also classified by St. Thomas as one of the sins against nature, for it corrupts the order intended by God. That’s probably why it’s called “effeminacy.” Though it’s not the same as the abomination of Sodomy, it’s disordered and unnatural. We believe that this sin – since it’s contrary to nature and is classified as “effeminacy” and “the unnatural vice” – is the cause of some people being given over to unnatural lusts (homosexuality).

--

On homosexuals:

A commonly held false idea in our day is that God creates some people homosexual (or that homosexuality is a result of some sort of “psychological” problem). In fact, it is apparent from our contacts with people that most of those who consider themselves “traditional Catholics” believe that there is nothing wrong with the homosexual orientation, but only in homosexual acts. The truth is that God doesn’t create anyone with a homosexual orientation and that all those who are truly homosexuals (even those who are not engaging in homosexual acts) are homosexuals because of a demonic takeover and mortal sin. Those who scoff at this statement are simply faithless liberals who don’t want the truth and have no concept of the supernatural world.

--

On "natural family planning

Natural Family Planning (NFP) is the practice of deliberately restricting the marital act exclusively to those times when the wife is infertile so as to avoid the conception of a child. It is also called “the rhythm method.” NFP or rhythm is used for the same reasons that people use artificial contraception – to avoid the conception of a child while carrying out the marital act. NFP is evil because it is birth control; it is against conception. It is a refusal on the part of those who use it to be open to the children that God planned to send them. It is no different in its purpose than artificial contraception, and therefore it is a moral evil just like artificial contraception, which is a mortal sin.

--

On attending weddings and funerals of non-Catholic relatives:

Also, one definitely should not go to the wedding reception or the funeral events after the services. To do so is to give the non-Catholics the same false impression: that their marriage is pleasing to God or that people can be saved as non-Catholics. A true Catholic should completely shun all events associated with non-Catholic funerals and weddings, including the reception events afterward.

--

On the modern Catholic Church:

The Catholic Church is the one true Church founded by Jesus Christ upon St. Peter (Mt. 16:18-20; Jn. 21:15-17). This is proven by history, Scripture and tradition. But the post-Vatican II “Church” is actually a counterfeit “Catholic” sect with new teachings, new practices and a New Mass – which all contradict the Catholic Faith of all times and the teaching of the Catholic popes in history. Vatican II was a council which took place from 1962-1965; this council started a revolution against the Catholic Faith and gave birth to this new countefeit “Catholic” sect. This website proves in tremendous detail that this post-Vatican II sect is not Catholic, that its leaders are not Catholic, that its fruits and teachings are not Catholic and not holy, and that this counterfeit sect was predicted in Sacred Scripture and in Catholic prophecy to arise in the last days as part of the Devil’s final assault on mankind. The arrival of this post-Vatican II counterfeit “Catholic” sect in Rome in the last days actually proves, rather than disproves, the authenticity of the traditional Catholic Faith, as this website shows.

--

On geocentrism:

We’re often asked what we think about geocentrism, the view that the Earth is the fixed center of the universe around which the Sun revolves. Is geocentrism the infallible teaching of the Church and of Sacred Scripture? Was the view that the Sun is stationary and that the Earth revolves around it (heliocentrism) infallibly condemned when Galileo Galilei was condemned in the 17th century? Based on the Galileo affair, some argue that obstinate believers in heliocentrism are heretics, or at least in mortal sin for contradicting the official teaching of the Church. We have been contacted by a number of individuals who adhere to this position...All that being said, I am open to the possibility that those passages of Sacred Scripture referred to above do indeed teach the geocentric view of the universe. I simply don’t know one way or the other.

--

On the Holocaust:

The Holocaust is a propaganda hoax which has been so effectively used to cement Jewish power and influence in the world, and to silence any questioning of Jewish activities, support for Israel or a Jewish agenda. It’s illegal in at least 14 countries to deny the official “Holocaust” story. Holocaust denial is illegal in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Israel, Lichtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain and Switzerland. Think about that for a moment, and then ask yourself who is really in power. It’s illegal to question the official story of the “Holocaust,” even though it’s perfectly legal in those countries to deny the Divinity and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. That means that those countries are truly Jewish states, for their laws uphold and imprison those who deny beliefs dear to Jews, but not to people of other religions.

--

Literature you can buy from them:

Abortion, Rock Music and Freemasonry Exposed by Bro. Michael Dimond

The Conspiracy's Goal to Destroy the Catholic Church from within through Antipopes

The Communist and Masonic Infiltration of America and the Catholic Church by Dr. James Wardner

---

You can't make this stuff up. It's like these time-warped here from the Medieval area. I wonder how they even manage to have social lives and ever leave their room. They probably see "evil" everwhere they look.70.254.44.240 (talk) 11:53, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

We could probably do with an article on those guys. Wikipedia has one, according to which the monasteryb only has two members. Wéáśéĺóíď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 13:36, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

The comment about people who think in any way embrace or accept homosexuality as being "faithless liberals" screams CP... of course, I realize that some Catholics use the word to describe more modern Catholics, and since they're archaic traditional to a tee, maybe that's the meaning they're using here as well. άλφα^Talk 14:55, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm not very Catholic-tolerant but Holocaust denial is definitely not a mainstream RC tenet. These people are just loonies.  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 17:51, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Freemasonry -- damn, even their conspiracy theories are, um, "traditional." Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 17:55, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

I wish people would stop calling anyone but certain Calvinists fundies. Extremists, cultists. Whatever. Nutty Roux (talk) 17:56, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

I think Mel Gibson's church isn't so far from this. He is a WP:Traditionalist Catholic. --Damo^Hi 19:10, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't know about Mel, but I heard that Mel's dad was a really crazy traditionalist Catholic.09:46, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I really don't get their comment about homos. So they go beyond saying that gay sex is a sin, and say that even "feeling gay" is a sin. So if a gay dude sees a hot guy and feels a little stirring of the loins, he's somehow a "mortal sinner" for a natural reaction that he can't even control. And I like how they only say that about gays. What if a straight man sees a woman who he's not married to and feels a little horney - does that mean he's "mortally sinning" just by feeling horney? Jesus Christ...09:46, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Wait! There is still time!

a few hours yet. Tmtoulouse (talk) 18:53, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

So what happens if it doesn't come true, do they all become atheists?? 18:58, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Nah, when you're that deep in the crazy you just look for a new guru. Until one of them convinces you to kill yourself. --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 19:22, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Many atheists do the same thing, for example with stock market gurus. --79.50.102.22 (talk) 19:46, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

But have they taken into account that Israel is on daylight saving time?  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 19:51, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

[2]. Tmtoulouse (talk) 20:19, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

I can only assume that he's doing that to spite the atheists who set up post-rapture pet care. Генгис^{RationalWiki GOLD member} 12:25, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

With notably rare exceptions (today, for example), doomsday predictions have been accurate. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 20:35, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

I've read that some kind of weird psychology kicks in every time Jehovah's Witnesses are wrong around end-of-the-world prophecies. After a massive fail, their membership actually increases.

--UnicornTapestry (talk) 15:11, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

file types for images

I have a question for anyone computer savvy. Why are there so many kinds of file types for images? I understand that .gif is used for animation, or that some programs (Photoshop) have their own tailored types. But what I don't get is why we need .jpeg and .svg (among others whose names I can't recall). Thank you for your simple and easy to understand explanation.--User:Brxbrx/sig 20:14, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

WP:Image file formats. Read it. Тy^Talk. 20:16, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Traumatizing memories of programming my own GIF disassembler. GIF's aren't just there for animation though; the major use of them is for compressed images, making an image take up less memory on your hard drive without a loss of quality (unless you're going from a higher quality image format). JPEG's are used for compressed photographs, usually at a slight loss of quality. PNG's are like higher quality GIF's. BMP's are just monsters. It's the Windows image file format; they're uncompressed and take up a LOT of memory. They're only used so often because its a Windows standard. SVG is a vector image file format; vector images are useful because they can be resized without losing quality. You can image how this is useful for the Internet especially, so SVG's are meant to be an Internet standard image format. ~Ttony21^{(talk, contribs)} 20:30, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

BMPs are what you convert to when they complain they can't open your email attachment. --85.78.24.238 (talk) 12:56, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

thanks guise. that about settles it.--User:Brxbrx/sig 20:30, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

You need a dose of history to understand it all; you have to go back to the early days of home computing when it was monochrome text (often green or orange) on an 80x24 character screen. Colour monitors were prohibitively expensive, there was no digital photography and not only were there were many different types of operating system but many programs generated their own image file type because they were operating with 640k of RAM and needed to be efficient; we also only had 1200/300 baud acoustic modems so Compuserve's GIF format was one of the most compact ways of transferring a colour image and bitmaps were generally tiny and of limited colour-space so the inefficient file format was not really an issue - but you could always use RLE if you needed to save bits. They should teach this stuff in school.  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 22:41, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

They did, for all of 50 minutes, in an optional course. Тy^Talk. 22:45, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Ah, nostalgia ain't what it used to be. I started my computing on a PDP-8 the size of a large refrigerator wiht a teletype/paper-tape terminal for input and output. My first job in the seismic industry was processing on 4K and 8K mainframes replete with flashing lights and sound effects. Seismometers generate an AC current which is translated into a sinusoidal display (wiggle trace or WT); sometimes it helps if the positive values are shaded in, this is known as a variable area display or VAR/WIG if you combined it with the wiggle trace. On our plot display forms you could choose to have WT, VAR, VAR/WIG or variable density. I never understood why you would want variable density until I went on a course which dealt with the history of vibroseis - a technique for generating coded seismic waves using a truck-mounted hydraulic oscillator. When they needed to decode the returned signal they used correlation techniques but in the old analogue days this was done optically so that a copy of the coded signal was etched on a piece of smoked glass. The signal from the seismometer was etched on another piece of smoked glass and the two were overlaid. A light was then shone through the two glass plates onto photosensitive paper and the amplitude of of the correlation was proportional to the density of the image on the paper as the reference signal was moved along the recording. Thank goodness they went digital. Генгис^{RationalWiki GOLD member} 23:08, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

GIF is horrible. It's extremely limited in the amount of colors it can display. Animated PNG (for animations; plain PNG is good for everything else) is much better because it also has lossless compression (in contrast to JPEG's lossy compression, which ruins anything that isn't a photograph) without the poor color palette. --GastonRabbit (talk) 00:39, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

That's not strictly true. GIF as a file format isn't too bad for what it's designed for. The problem is that it's another one of those things MS IE really fucked up. All its pixels are defined in the 24 bit true colour space, but an image could only use up to 256 colours so you can compress a pixel down to one byte and save at least 2, and probable 3 bytes per pixel (because on most platforms, unaligned accesses are dog slow, and on some platforms they are in fact impossible.)

For the most part, 256 colours are pretty much good enough to display most images with exceptional fidelity, often including photos. However, IE fucked all that up by refusing to deal with GIFs that used colour palettes other than the "web safe" default colour palette. If you supply ye olde IE with GIFs that specify their own palette, it'd render them using the default palette and they'd look fucked up. Which basically meant nobody could ever use GIFs with other colour palettes, and to this day many GIF encoders don't bother to even try. So, in conclusion, fuck Microsoft. Fuck them in their collective arses. --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 03:37, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

GIF is excellent for circuit diagrams. 640 x 480 can be only a few k and still clear, sharp, and use 16 colors. GIF kisk ass - in its place. ħuman 06:45, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

santa vaca, I did not expect so many replies!--User:Brxbrx/sig 03:38, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Hah, you're lucky. I considered typing out the full technical explanation, going in to detail about time/space tradeoffs and implementation concerns, including the possibility of implementing a format in dedicated hardware. In the end I decided better of it, but it would have been about 3 pages :D --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 03:50, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Who knew image file formats had fanboys. But yeah, I went with a pretty low-tech explanation myself, even though I studied the GIF file format inside and out to the point of making me sick. ~Ttony21^{(talk, contribs)} 04:40, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Bring back the ASCII cows. Real first name and last initial^{Talk, talk, talk skim my contributions} 19:54, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Pfft ASCII. You youngsters don't know you're born. In my day we only had a few thousand bits, couldn't go wasting seven of them on a stupid letter. Hexadecimal was good enough for us, if a word had a letter other than A through F we'd just go without. A numbers! People these days will waste thirty-two whole bits for the number 7. You don't need eight bits for that let alone thirty-two! [ and so on ] 82.69.171.94 (talk) 20:25, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

All I know is that when I press "A" on my keyboard, I get an "A" on my computer screen, and I'm happy with that. ~SuperHamster Talk

Greetings from above

After talking to a devout street preacher, I had an epiphany earlier this morning. I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, just in time for the rapture. I am speaking to you from Heaven, where an angel has graciously lent me the use of his computer. I beseech you, REPENT! You've seven years until the world ends. By then it will be too late. The Lord has shown me the Lake of Fire, and I know what terrible fate awaits you heathens. I beg of you to accept Christ in your hearts before the AntiChrist skewers you with his rusty iron penis. You know not the horror of hell.
REPENT
from past the pearly gates, -User:Brxbrx/sig 00:50, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I just got the PS1 port of Duke Nukem 3D. Try selling your snake oil another time.--Thanatos (talk) 00:53, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

If you search for porn on an angel's computer, they get in big trouble. Just ask Lucifer. --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 01:00, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

If it is the catholic's god, I can only imagine the hard drives in heaven are loaded with kiddy porn AMassiveGay (talk) 01:03, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Porn on an angel's computer results in falling? The resulting fallen angels must have hard drives filled with the stuff if hell has computers as well. --GastonRabbit (talk) 01:05, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

All the porn in hell is 2 girls and a cup AMassiveGay (talk) 01:07, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Ok three nuns reach the pearly gates and St. Peter says "before you enter you must answer a bible quiz." All three say "No problem." First nun is asked, "Who is the first man God created?" Nun answers, "That's easy, Adam," and the gates open and she gets to go in. Next nun is asked, "Who is the first woman God created?" She says, "Oh, that's easy, Eve," so the gates open up and she gets to go in. Last nun steps up and St. Peter says, "What was the first thing Eve said to Adam?" Nun pauses, and says, "...geez that's a hard one...", so the gates open up and she gets to go in....^{— Unsigned, by: RobSmith / talk / contribs}

I chuckled at that. But you should still sign your comment. --GastonRabbit (talk) 01:23, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Christian porn. - π 01:30, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I got raptured okay fine. When I got to heaven I was told they had no pr0n, needless to say the parachute I carried with me came in handy. C®ackeЯ

I have heard it said that in Heaven, everything is fine. Wẽãšẽĩõĩď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 12:07, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Islamic young earth creationism

According to WP:Islamic views on evolution, "Young Earth creationism is wholly absent from the Muslim world".

Can anyone vouch for this? I know that denial of evolution is common in many Muslim cultures, but do they also deny that the Earth and universe are billions of years old? Wẽãšẽĩõĩď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 12:22, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Harun Yahya. - π 12:24, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

You beat me to it. Генгис^{RationalWiki GOLD member} 12:28, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Described in the first line of our article as an "old earth creationist". Please read my question again. Ŵêâŝêîôîď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 12:31, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

According to my Islamic lady-friend that is true. - π 12:47, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Does anyone have a Science subscription to view the supporting reference? CS Miller (talk) 12:51, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I've brought this up on talk:Young Earth creationism too. Our articles are muddling definitions & describing all rejection of evolutionary science as YEC. ΨΣΔξΣΓΩΙÐ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 13:31, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Seems to me I worked on a Wikipedia article (gasp!) that mentioned there are Muslim YECs. There are also a number of Hindu anti-evolutionists. I don't think any religion is safe from insanity. Oh, sorry I forgot whom I was talking to.

--UnicornTapestry (talk) 15:07, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

It seems like a fairly excusable mistake, if it's a mistake at all. I mean, if you believe in an interventionist god, then the short view of history makes a good deal of sense. This god creates people, gets gradually more pissed off with his creations and then decides he needs an intervention. Old earth creationism with an interventionist god is pretty inane. Your god uses a convoluted, iterative process with the express purpose of creating humans then ignores them for 99% of their existence and only lately decides to intervene in various ways. Harun Yahya as a old earth creationist makes his beliefs entirely nonsensical. God creates humans in their present form, but creates them maybe a half million years ago, when his created rock has existed for several billion years prior. It makes no sense at all, to the point where I can't believe those are his actual views. --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 16:16, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

We should be looking for factual evidence about what people believe, not making assumptions. It only took me a few seconds of searching his website to confirm that Harun Yahya believes in an old universe: "The findings in question confirmed the Big Bang theory, which states that the universe began from the explosion of a single point of zero volume and infinite density some 14 billion years ago. This theory has constantly been confirmed by tests consisting of decades of astronomical observations, and stands unrivalled on the most solid of foundations." link Wẽãšẽĩõĩď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 17:54, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

There is also the "vedic creationism" of characters like Michael Cremo. Talk origins has a list of creationism by culture. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 18:34, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Really quite depressed by the whole twitter/super injunction thing

I can well understand the issues of free speech and free press surrounding this whole thing, but story at the centre of it is hardly of national importance and is little more than just another celebrity X fucks celebrity y story. I'm all for a free press, but I can't muster any sympathy for falsely puritan tabloids who despise the idea of privacy. AMassiveGay (talk) 17:43, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

some background, please? a link, perhaps? thank you for indulging my ignorance--User:Brxbrx/sig 18:17, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Background P-Foster (talk) 18:52, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Hah, I think it's tremendous. There's a topic you aren't allowed to talk about, but we can't tell you what it is. Carry on talking until you accidentally talk about it, then we'll crush you! --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 19:17, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I think privacy trumps free speech in this case. Otherwise we'll willy-nilly be allowed to accomplish horrible deeds, like posting voyeur videos and snuff films and stuff.--User:Brxbrx/sig 19:22, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

I just had an awesome idea. If anyone knows any good sites I can harvest celebrity names from, I'd be much obliged. --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 20:19, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

How about simply harvesting celebrities? I used to wield a scythe, 'though can't say I was a dab hand and the humane folks might complain. Paris Hilton's purpose in life might be mulch. --UnicornTapestry (talk) 05:27, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

perezhilton.com, although since he joined in the It gets Better campaign, his site isn't what it used to be. He's too nice, now.--User:Brxbrx/sig 23:00, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Harold Camping, Again

Hey, Mob -- if anyone finds a post-no-Rapture statement from Camping or his people, could you post it here, please? Thanks! P-Foster (talk) 23:46, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

The only thing I have found is a statement from Tom Evans here, who is board member/spokesman for family radio. Saying they were waiting for Jerusalem midnight. Some interesting quotes about the board having a "serious discussion with camping". Tmtoulouse (talk) 23:57, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

No updates yet on WeCanKnow.com or May212011.com. It will be mildly interesting to see what happens to these sites over the next few days. Ŵêâŝêîôîď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 00:25, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

As I pointed out on Camping's page here, We Can Know's non-evil twin, We Can't Know, apparently was written by someone who failed Web page development class(es). Apparently we've got -1 day until the backpedaling happens. Anyone got a time machine? --GastonRabbit (talk) 00:29, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Some more reactions from staff and camping employees here. Tmtoulouse (talk) 03:15, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

The NY guy that did all the subway ads has a feature story here. Tmtoulouse (talk) 03:27, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

video Tmtoulouse (talk) 04:04, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Driving home, I saw an enormous electronic billboard someone had set up, still asking people to hold on until the rapture at midnight. Тy^Talk. 04:06, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

If they switch tracks to the Julian Calendar, I think they can milk this for almost another couple weeks. I think they've lost their credibility, though. Not that they ever had any. For all the publicity this thing had, I've seen evidence of very few people who believed it. As has been pointed out, even CP isn't that batshit insane. People crazier than Andy are rare indeed. TrickyDickTurpis (talk) 13:07, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

As close we have gotten to anything from Camping. Tmtoulouse (talk) 00:40, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for all the updates, Trent. You're a mensch. P-Foster (talk) 00:41, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Family Radio has removed all the claims from its front page. However, the old front page is still at http://www.familyradio.com/index2.html for your delight and delectation.

Supposedly Camping is going to talk about it on his show this evening. Its called "open forum" and can be listened to online. Should be 8pm eastern time here is the schedule. Tmtoulouse (talk) 16:56, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

That's pretty surprising. The whole event has been disappeared from their website. I thought they might be going for the "what prediction? we didn't make any predictions" defence. --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 18:18, 23 May 2011 (UTC)