RationalWiki:Saloon bar/Archive147

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, (new)(back)

Embyology help!

I'm pretty sure most of us have seen the 21-day, day-by-day calendar of a chick developing in its egg. (If you haven't, please view here for an example.) Well, does anybody happen to know if there's something similar for humans that isn't targeted at expectant women? Preferably free. I could use some help for my essay, which (in case you are wondering) I will continue working on tomorrow (I put a sticky note on my desktop and everything). Thanks in advance. The Heidelberg Kid (talk) 04:27, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I love when science people commentate on movies

in astronomy class, we watched a scene from deep impact, and well, a scientist commenting on a bad science movie is hilarious--il'Dictator Mikal 00:18, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

It's awesome. I haven't yet finished listening to this, but it's similarly great. Peter ^{Monomorium antarcticum} 03:09, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Or just as bad, history people commenting on historical fiction, emphasis on the fiction. Is massively guilty of both --> Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 04:12, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

In our house we have some types of shows that are "banned" or at least that you know "you'll get a lecture". virtually anything with native americans, most things that involve laywers, and science shows that seem to suggest it's real science. (we never whine about sci-fi cause it's supposed to be surreal, but shows like "Bones" where they are using bs 3-d facial reconstruction in the modern world). But I have to say, I'd kill to watch stuff with real scientists. just to see how long they last before going "oh, get teh hell off my tv!" GodotGrow a vagina 06:41, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I find that Deep Impact probably has more glaring errors than Armageddon. At least the latter knows what it is, and isn't ashamed of it. ^gnostic 11:46, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I remember the opening sequence of the A-Team movie where Murdock turns off the helicopter engine at about 10'000 feet, restarts it as it falls to the ground, realigns the chopper and flies the A-Team to safety. An aerospace engineer I was watching it with was not amused. SJ ^Debaser 12:32, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Can't say much about science, but as a (foreign) culture guy it just pisses me off beyond "supension of disbelief" when languages are messed up. It's not even that they hinder the story if done correctly, it's only that some ignorrant fuck of an assistant was too lazy to research something properly. There's the supposedly Korean family that speaks a tonal language at home (KOREAN IS NOT A TONAL LANGUAGE FFS), or the supposedly Iranians that supposedly speak Persian but use so many ḥ sounds that it's pretty clear that somebody just made up something sounding like Arabic. Or — and this is a favorite of mine — German. Ok, I get that it's hard to pronounce, but seriously if you need a guy to only speak German, why don't you just fucking hire a German! Ohh and accents: so you have story about a highly educated foreigner coming to America — If that person speaks so fluently as to argue with you, THEY ARE NOT GOING TO HAVE AN ACCENT! I'm going to stop now before I bash my head against the wall for the rest of the day... --★uːʤɱ libertarian 12:38, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Er, what? Why wouldn't they have an accent? Ajkgordon (talk) 01:37, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I has accent. D:--Dumpling (talk) 04:53, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it matters how educated you are, it is very rare for a German (as an example) not to have a German accent when speaking English. There are exceptions, usually people who have been brought up in the "target country", but it's still rare. So I'm not sure what UHM is getting at here. Ajkgordon (talk) 11:04, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

All I can say is that I know more Germans with an American or British accent than with a German accent. Probably something to do with what one studies and knows; that an engineer doesn't really care if he/she speaks correctly I would accept — same thing goes for everybody over 40. --★uːʤɱ netlabelist 13:28, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I find that very difficult to believe. I don't know any Germans who can speak English without a German accent. Perhaps because you're German you can't hear it? Otherwise, I'm confused. Ajkgordon (talk) 13:33, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, I don't have a German accent (I was told that by Germans and Brits — I lost it 7 years ago), I actually have an American accent. The same thing I can say for most people I went to school with, even those who didn't really care all that much about English just lost it after a while (I even know some that through an exchange year or au pair placements got other, relatively rare accents). And no, I very much hear a German accent, mostly because it is like nails on a chalkboard for me (arghh, make this awful sounds go away). I don't know what you do for a living, but if it has something to do with technology or economics, chances are you only encountered older Germans, whose English isn't exactly taken care of like a puppy. I don't know if this equally correlates to other countries, but I find it hard to belief that the 20 year old exchange student in a twenty-something drama that speaks fluent English has an accent so thick you can built a house with it. An example of this gruesome habit at the moment would be Gossip Girl in which a Monegasque royal family has unbelievably thick French accents. This whole business done right one can see in NCIS, in which an Israeli agent doesn't have an accent, but messes up grammar and phrases from time to time. --★uːʤɱ socialist 16:18, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Many years ago I was told that my German had an Austrian accent (Jo for Ja etc) 'cuase I stayed there for a couple of months on an exchange. Me & Arnie both! Scream!! (talk) 16:26, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, UHM, but I'm really struggling with this. I grew up in Germany and have lived on and off in France for the last 22 years. I also deal with lots of foreigners in London. I have never met either a German or a Frenchman who could speak English without an accent*. A neuro-linguist will tell you it's almost impossible to completely lose an accent without very intensive voice coaching. For example, the French actress Eva Green played an English character in Bond film Casino Royale. It was remarked at the time how good her English accent was, i.e. her lack of French accent when speaking English in the film, as it's so unusual. But even then, with her Anglo-centric education and lots of her late formative years spent in the UK, her accent was still detectable. And she's exceptional. It's even recognised how difficult it is for English speaking actors to get accents right if, say, they are Americans playing English or Australians playing Americans. Again there are some exceptions, with Hugh Laurie in House, Christian Bale in The Fighter, and Rene Zellweger in Bridget Jones' Diary some of the more more obvious examples. And again, most native speakers will still detect their accents. And these are professionals who do it for a living in the same language.

So while I hate to question your claim about not having a German accent, I must remain respectively sceptical that you know lots of Germans who can speak English with no German accent.

^{*I don't include foreigners who are brought up in the "target country". E.g. my daughter (Anglo-French so no accent in either language) has a good British friend (i.e. both parents are English) who moved to France quite early at around 6 and now at 16 has no detectable English accent when speaking French.} Ajkgordon (talk) 19:53, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

AJKG, I agree with you. I work with lots of non-native English speakers (including Germans and French) where English is the common tongue but I've not come across anyone who could really pass for a native Brit despite them having excellent command of the language. Even someone like Matt Frei on the BBC has impeccable English but you can hear that there's something not quite right. As a Brit I couldn't even say that an American accent was genuine but given the amount of immigration it's probably hard to say what a genuine US accent is nowadays. A Swedish friend who has lived in the UK for forty years, married to an English woman and who admits to dreaming in English rather than Swedish still has a sloght Swedish accent. When I hear some of the Financial news on the BBC they often have commentary from German bankers who may have ecellent British or American accents but underlying that is a slight hint of Germanic influence which gives the game away. As you said, it takes usually dedicated voice coaching for someone to come up with a passable accent. I remember an excellent series on BBC radio about 15 years ago which examined accents with a professional dialogue coach who could analyse what it was about a particular accent that made it identifiable. Now I don't dispute that some people have the ability to pick up on accent and pass off as native speaker but I think that they are in the minority rather than being the rule for modern foreign language speakers. Генгис^{Gum disease} 20:41, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, as I don't get a boner when I hear the word "expert", an accent for me is lost when native speakers (not the trained ones) can't tell anymore. And god please make a differentiation between "accent of a non-native" and "accent of specific region of that language", specifically in English is impossible not to have an accent of some sort. What I mean is the former, not the latter. And if you don't believe me that I don't have an accent, I won't hold it against you. I certainly trained my ass off not to have it, like many other do to. And thick accents in films will still annoy me. --★uːʤɱ netlabelist 21:34, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

If you read what I wrote I was differentiating between the two. I was using the example of accents within the same language being difficult enough to change as a demonstration of how much harder it is between different languages.

But let me ask you something else. How many foreigners from non-German speaking countries do you know who, when speaking German, don't have a detectable foreign accent? Americans, British, or Italians. Not thick, just detectable. Ajkgordon (talk) 22:07, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

The differentiation comment wasn't targeted at you, mainly just in general. A few people come to mind. A Kyrgyzstani girl that lived in my dorm floor upon a few months ago had no accent at all, although I don't know if she had some sort of special relation to Germany (ethnically she was Kyrgyz) though her parents of something, but she was "just" an exchange student. I remember that quite distinctly because I actually thought she had grown up in Germany, until she told me otherwise. As I grew up in small town I didn't exactly meet many foreigners, so everything else is questionable what exact line you draw when you say you don't count people that grew up in that country. If we set the bar so low that they pretty much have command over their first language and then learning German as second language the number would be six or seven (although that also should be the number of Germans that actually speak Standard German in their daily lives that I know). Then again, I'm not exactly the guy that asks for a personal live story when I meet people (Mostly because I really don't give a damn. Yeah, I'm an ass, but a happy ass.), so the number might be much higher. But keep in mind that German isn't the lingua franca English is, most people that learn German do it either because they study German or because they live here and need it in their daily lifes, so it's not like many people learn German in school and then travel the country, most people are either born here or brought here at an early age. --★uːʤɱ secularist 23:14, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

OK, well we'll have to agree to differ. But here's an interesting one for you. My eldest son (Anglo-French again) is 23 and a marine biology masters student. For the last three years he has been speaking English almost exclusively with people who only speak English as a foreign language, English being the lingua-franca of science generally. His subject matter is dominated by the US so a lot of the audio and AV material he works with is in American English. He's now in French Polynesia and has just come back from a month on a Kiwi research ship. His accent is all over the place! Ajkgordon (talk) 23:26, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

In Back To The Future, the Libyans don't actually speak a language at all, they just make random noises. ^pathetic 12:59, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ There was a car commercial that ran during the late Eighties, I think. It featured the car being advertised in a wind tunnel, and an announcer with a Very Serious Sounding Voice intoning, "it has been scientifically proven that the more aerodynamically styled a car is, the better it slices through the wind." At which point I would yell, "that's not scientifically proven, that's by definition!" And don't get me started about news reports that use the phrase "volts of electric current." MDB (talk) 13:03, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Epicentre, epicentre, epicentre. No, no, no! Генгис^{Gum disease} 13:50, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that one does sound like "All [mortal, featherless bipeds] are mortal, Socrates is a [mortal, featherless biped], therefore Socrates is mortal" kind of thing. ^narchist 13:33, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

For all you "House" fans, may I suggest this site. Jack Hughes (talk) 14:35, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

dumb science question - but i don't know where to start

So I was curious, if it takes light 8 minutes to get from the sun to us, how long does it take light to get to the outter planets? I'm just reading some things (oddly, about the planet that is supposed to hit us in june), adn trying to get a grasp on how far away things in space really are from eachother. any idea where I start and how complex the math has to be? GodotGrow a vagina 17:08, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Find the distance in AU and multiply by 8. ^theist 17:11, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

See here. Генгис^{Gum disease} 17:12, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

(EC) wp:Astronomical_unit#Examples has a few things other than just planets on it too. And wp:Light-second gives some examples for the major light-time units. ^pathetic 17:14, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Neptune 4.16 light-hours - I really don't know why people need god. Macro and micro universe are so fucking mind blowing on their own. Facebook has a quote from A. Clark about "dont' try to challenge their religion, just give them reality" type thing. Cause we like our minds being blown... just knowing in our own tiny solar system it takes 4 hours for light to get to the outer planet... it's mind boggling. thanks again! GodotGrow a vagina 17:15, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

"Outer planet"... you made Pluto cry. or rather, you will in a few hours' time Sophie^{because liberals} 17:22, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

BTW I have just received a massive 12" Newtonian telescope as an early birthday present to myself (wife has even suggested getting a proper observatory dome) so am hoping for some clear nights. Генгис^{Gum disease} 17:21, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Ooooh, wants one. Jealous! Scream!! (talk) 17:29, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

You have a massive, twelve-inch telescope? Isn't this how all porn stories start? Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 01:47, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

(ec)I seem to remember as a kid, and long before the innertubes went public so I spent most of time bored, working out that to draw our solar system with the sun as a circle with a radius of 14 cm, then you would need a piece of paper about 12 km long to fit Pluto (at Pluto's average distance from the sun) onto your scale drawing. To reach the beginning of the edge of the solar system you would need a piece of paper aboutish, sortish, near enough 15000km long. Of course, that was 20 odd years ago, so I might not be remembering the numbers right.-- ^{Spirit of the Cherry Blossom} 17:33, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

My calcs say it's 600m away if the sun is 14 cm across. ^sshole 17:43, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Radius = 14cm, diameter = 28cm.-- ^{Spirit of the Cherry Blossom} 17:49, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Which after a brief bit of calculation puts Pluto about 1.2km away, so my memory must drift by an order of magnitude every 20 years. Not bad.-- ^{Spirit of the Cherry Blossom} 17:54, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I just have to say, in the age of Wikipedia "I don't know where to start" should be a sentence rarely uttered. Turpis 3:16 (talk) 18:15, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Actually it's a hugly valid question. I know how to find answers when I understand the questions I'm asking. but talking about size of space, planck time, distance of "space" in an atom, i need better search terms than "how long does light take". Once you have a place to start, and a way to frame your question, you are off and running. but something that is very new, is very big and daunting and rather cumbersome to "start". GodotGrow a vagina 18:34, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

They teach keyword searching in schools these days. They should have started a long time ago. Peter ^{Monomorium antarcticum} 01:49, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I was under the impression that the question was quite straightforward: "how long does it take light to reach the outer planets?" All you need to know to answer that is the distance each planet is from the sun, and the speed of light (both of which are very easy to find, if not on Wikipedia then in many other places). The rest is basic math. I had the same question myself a few weeks back; a quick check of wp:Neptune, a bit of math, and verifying the answer with further math and another cite was all it took. Turpis 3:16 (talk) 18:44, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Okay, that makes more sense as it would put the sun at about the size of a basketball. Which is convenient... and makes Pluto about 0.2 mm across. ^narchist 18:33, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

And on this model light would be wandering around at a paltry 0.3 kph. Which is... pretty slow. This is fun. ^theist 18:37, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

If that's fun, then here is another one. In one of the BBC shows on the micro world, it talked about atoms being similar in "space" to solar systems. That the neucleus of an atom, if a tennis ball, would mean that the electrons orbit 100 feet or more away. Does that sound about right? GodotGrow a vagina 18:43, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, something like that. Although to be honest because of the way electron shells are shaped, the fact that they're probability distributions and the fact that atomic radii have quite a bit of variability, I don't find those kind of analogies as useful as in space. For instance, although the nucleus can be considered very small, like a grain of sand in St Paul's Cathedral, you would still feel its strong positive force from a long way away. Imagine it more like a burning matchstick in a football stadium, except you can feel blistering heat from this matchstick even in the back row and it just stops you getting any closer. Our instinctive ideas of what constitutes "solid" and "empty" don't mean as much. They are nice analogies, but I find them to be slightly misleading compared to applying such things to the macro world. ^pathetic 18:54, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm still trying to get my head around the idea that what we think of as "solid" is force, not physical? If that's even remotely correct.GodotGrow a vagina 19:07, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

In point of fact if the Solar System were really like an atom then the planets wouldn't really have positions, just, more or less, probable locations.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 19:30, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I was thinking along similar lines the other day, Armo. Listening to someone, Cox I think, describing solid material we're familiar with as almost entirely empty space. Well, yes, but the reason we can't simply pass through tables or walls or cliffs or Volkswagens is because atoms are essentially constructed of forces, not little electron balls spinning around a bigger nucleus ball in the middle. You're right - these analogies can be useful to conceptualise relative sizes but fall over when thinking about what the very small is "made of". Ajkgordon (talk) 20:07, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it's all effectively repelling forces. In the case of what we think of as "solid", then the atoms of the molecules are chemically bonded or bound by stronger inter-molecular bonds, in gases they're not and are free molecules. The free molecules of a fluid can get out of out way as we move through them, so they have fluid properties (but we can still feel the resistance they cause because they exhibit these fields) solid objects can't get out of our way, so we treat them as solid. At the molecular and atomic level such a distinction is effectively non-existent - because the idea of these things moving freely to get out of our way doesn't apply in exactly the same way. So the distinction between "solid" and "empty" space, as we perceive them, don't quite work out. What we see, however, is based on whether light will scatter off them or not, and that's actually wavelength dependent, and you can't see something (via refraction) with light if the light has a longer wavelength, the interaction to cause such scattering just doesn't happen. Which is why you can't see beyond a certain range with visible light, but you can image individual molecules with x-rays because they have a far smaller wavelength. Light is still absorbed, though, which is why gases can sometimes have obvious colour and pick up on spectrometers. This is also why people who say "but you can't see atoms with your own eyes, so it's indirect and Only A Theory" just simply don't know what they're talking about. ^theist 20:50, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

"This is also why people who say "but you can't see atoms with your own eyes, so it's indirect and Only A Theory" just simply don't know what they're talking about." Is this some kind of "atomic denialism" I've never heard about? Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 21:03, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

There was up until about WW2 IIRC, but I can't recall any currently. Тy^{communications wire} 21:30, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Not so much outright denialism, more like "scientific method woo". It's about saying that our instruments and our measurements of the world are just "observations" and therefore aren't really "truth" but just interpretation, and of course somehow viewing things with our own eyes is magically better. Often its a stepping stone for other bits of denialism, though. Say, in support of evolution being "just a theory". So it begins with "ah, but no one has ever seen an atom directly, have they?", but actually, I look at them every damn day. ^bomination 03:09, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I've heard the atoms thing used with religion. As in: "You've never seen an atom but you are happy to take scientists' word they exist. It's the same with God - you've never seen him but you must take the word of (religion X) that he exists."--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 07:29, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

We need more cover articles

It's been a fair while since the last one. And Citizendium just came out with another approved article, we need to get to work. Which of these strike you as just that close to gold-brain status? - David Gerard (talk) 23:36, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

It feels to me you are asking a backwards question. It shoudn't be "what is closest", but rather "what should we focus our criticism on." It seems to me our article on Creation Ministries International should be gold (it's not even rated), creationism in general should be gold, intelligent design and academic freedom should be gold, Discovery instutite should be gold. I think we as a community, should work to get high googled articles up to quality and get them out there in the lime light. just my two cents.GodotGrow a vagina 01:57, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Hey, I contributed a good chunk to the Creation Ministries International article. Now I feel happy.

Though I did kind of get some of it wrong -- a while back, the author emailed me, giving some explanation:

Dear Mr Spencer / Dear Kristopher,

Thanks for commenting.

You are correct that Aldous Huxley did not advocate the society he described in Brave New World. It was a parody on utopian ideas, such as in HG Wells’ Men Like Gods. I did not mention Brave New World in my editorial and my comments did not relate to that.

My comment relates to his much later novel Island, which inspired the psychedelic/hippie culture of the 1960s. Perhaps my use of the word “utopia” gave rise to this misunderstanding.

Kind regards,

Don Batten

...Which, while it does make it a bit less stupid in one sense, is still very stupid, for reasons I shall elaborate on in this next sentence you are about to read right here:

1) Why didn't he mention which work he was referring to?

2) I'm pretty fucking sure Huxley wasn't an atheist

3) "[...] which inspired the psychedelic/hippie culture of the 1960s" -- this seems very dubious

4) The quote he gave to justify what he said about Huxley seems very, very likely to have been quote-mined, especially given that it was in a work written in 1937, while Island was written in 1962

5) And, of course, the PRATT about atheists hating their god.

I should probably add this stuff to the article. Stupid Troll Guy (talk) 02:12, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Also "answers" research journal - it's currently silver. it would be an amazing source, along with the work done by (primarily one of) our editors to refute each of the "journals". I see this crap out there all the time. GodotGrow a vagina 02:16, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Who's Don Batten? Peter ^{Monomorium antarcticum} 02:23, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Some editor at CMI. Nihilist (talk) 02:39, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

This is also a good take down of yet another CMI piece of shit. Nihilist (talk) 02:42, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Godot's overall perspective is sound with regard to focusing on high-impact articles. As well as the CMI and other creationist topics I'd like to suggest we also focus on alt med. Andrew Weil has a big megaphone and does a lot of damage in the real world, so we ought to have a nice takedown on him. Trent recently suggested that we work on NaturalNews as a high-profile alt med article. Others? Doctor Dark (talk) 03:14, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Anything except Slovenia please. Sophie^{because liberals} 16:38, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

God help me, I find myself wanting to give Ben Stein an 'attaboy!'

For his comments here on CNN about gas prices, not for any of his many, many, many batshit claims in other areas. Even a stopped clock, etc. etc.--Martin Arrowsmith (talk) 03:30, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Ben Stein says something worth listening to now and then. Like his famous "Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?" quote. The rest, though, is usually pure madness. The Symphony of Punk ^{Can't sleep, clowns will eat me!} 13:54, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Dave Mustaine, of Megadeth, Supports Mr. Frothy

[1] Jesus. I mean, signs were there before, but... fuck. This is a sad day for heavy metal music. Stupid Troll Guy (talk) 06:05, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Doesn't surprise me all that much. Didn't he become a born-again wingnut about 15 years back or so? Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 06:11, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Not that i ever had any respect for real metal (vs. hair bands, which of course, "rock" grins), but this really scares me. Nugent, fine. but a heavy metal singler? saying he wants women to stop having sex?????????GodotGrow a vagina 06:14, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Luckily, most heavy metal fronters aren't conservative Christians -- they have way more ma-cheese-moe than that.

@Neb: I don't usually really lookup anything on the bands I listen to, but I do know some things about good ol' Megadeth, and yeah, he 'reformed' and became a good ol' Christian. I recall that he refused to play on stage with 'Satantic' bands because they're evulz, and some of his lyrics are suspect (in this song one of the railing points against the UN is that they didn't join the American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which I don't think I can really blame them for). I mean, I'm not really even that big of a Megadeth fan anymore, but it saddens me that the guy who made Rust in Peace is now supporting this fuckwad. An American Nihilist (talk) 06:22, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Not to rag on you incessantly, Teen Nihilist, but when you meet a self-proclaimed nihilist who likes a band called Megadeth, you can't help but smirk a little. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 06:55, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I've always thought the name was stupid, but it follows extreme metal naming conventions pretty well. Fallacy² (talk) 07:25, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Is there a heavy metal band called "Aluminum"? :-) Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 07:29, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

They tried, stabby, but they ran out of umlauts. Sophie^{because liberals} 10:12, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

This is bad as one of the Velvet Underground joining the tea party. Sophie^{because liberals} 10:15, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Meh, could've been worse. In my opinion, Megadeth were never that awesome to begin with. Although, it would be interesting to see a Santorum ad with Megadeth playing in the background. The Symphony of Punk ^{Can't sleep, clowns will eat me!} 13:49, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

So it's not just me that thinks Megadeth just isn't that good. I mean, yeah, it's okay, but hardly a cure for AIDS. It's like Metallica got too damn popular for the cool kids, so they just took to worshipping the Tesco Own Brand version instead. ^gnostic 19:54, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Pretty much the only great thing Megadeth has ever produced is Rust in Peace. The rest varies in quality wildly. But even Rust in Peace sounds kind of juvenile now that I listen to technical death metal. TheAmazingAtheist (talk) 20:06, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

What genra of metal would they be. And I couldn't ever stand them, but did like Queensryche. metalica and megadeath just seemed like bands for 12 year old boys. GodotGrow a vagina 20:16, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Thrash. An American Nihilist (talk) 20:26, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

And yeah, Megadeth and Metallica are some of the most mainstream thrash bands, and everyone knows mainstream = juvenile and horrible, but they have put out good albums, especially in their earlier years. Nihilist (talk) 20:30, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Jeb

Didn't know whether to put this here or in WIGOCP: Jeb for POTUS? Scream!! (talk) 16:13, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

You know, the more I watch the Clown Car of Candidates career around the US, the more I have a feeling that this could be the plan all along. Right at the end, they wheel Jeb out and everybody - including a lot of fence-sitters who might have voted for Obama otherwise - go, "Oh thank God, somebody sane" (for a given value of sane) and like North Korea, the US becomes a family-run business. The really scary bit is that it means Andy was in on the soopah seekrit plan all along... --PsyGremlinParlez! 16:30, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Hope not. There seems to be some knocking at Mitch Daniels's door about this. Sophie^{because liberals} 16:40, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

most republicans i know arent really in the mood for another Bush. --il'Dictator Mikal 16:49, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

So primaries don't actually mean anything? they are just a show? gotta love politics. GodotGrow a vagina 16:56, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I remember in 2008 when Mike Huckabee won the LA primary and so the delegates went to McCain. ArchieGoodwin (talk) 16:58, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, that was funny. Them trying to justify it was even funnier. Тy^YAUA 17:02, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Though I might suggest (and this is not my original idea, it's something i read somewhere on some blog) that the repblicans understand that the president is virtually immaterial to running the country. You get the house, the senate and most of the state legistlatures and there you go. presidents "enforce" the law. they don't make it. GodotGrow a vagina 16:57, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

The election itself means fuck all; the EC just isnt stupid enough to not vote for who the people voted for. as for the idea you have, thats how it is supposed to work; president isnt supposed to lead, congress is. --il'Dictator Mikal 16:59, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

So it would make no difference if George Bush or Obama were running the country? The president mush make some difference surely?--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 21:12, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

No, the president has in no way any influence on anything. Nihilist (talk) 21:20, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

(ec)That all depends on your interpretation of unitary executive theory, which is now de facto the strong version esp. since Reagan. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 21:23, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

"The job of the President is not to wield power but to distract attention away from it." Sophie^{because liberals} 21:32, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

So if Obama had been in power the Iraq invasion and the torture would still have happened?--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 21:37, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

The President's strongest powers lay in setting foreign policy. How wars are actually carried out (viz the Iraq War debacle), Obama's technically-illegal-but-actually-no-one-cared-that-much bombing of Libya, not to mention simply visiting other countries to talk with foreign leaders are all important powers.

And when it comes to domestic authority, the enforcement of law is no small power. The Bush administration was unspeakably incompetent in tracking and safeguarding the bailout money, while Obama has been strikingly capable in administering it. Furthermore, Bush chose to largely ignore violations of environmental law, while Obama has not (at least, not to the same degree). Enforcing laws is a tremendous power in itself. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 01:42, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

This will almost certainly not happen. It's past the filing deadline for too many of the states for him to actually be the nominee by vote, and if the delegates at convention switched to him, it would give the appearance of massive disenfranchisement - he would be the "nominee for whom no one voted." It would also be a terrible choice outright, since it would give Obama the most absurdly good attack material; the Democrats would love nothing more than to run against another Bush. And finally, he's not interested.--^talk 08:40, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

And he has a funny name. In my language "Jeb" means "Fuck" (but it's pronounced differently). --Tweenk (talk) 23:37, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Help a developer out?

Anyone here used to play the ship? The developer has made a new game (which is likewise awesome) but it's struggling for sales and I don't have people to kill online!

It's only a couple of quid. Check it out: PC / XBox (free trial on XBox). Help a good game developer survive! Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 23:09, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I want to make an RPG/text game adventure. That is all. Stupid Troll Guy (talk) 18:05, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

the electric univers

anyone? a new explination of the universe! GodotGrow a vagina 00:27, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Knock yourself out. Тy^Complaints 03:24, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

electric (plasma) universe is fairly old and seemed to get a lot of attention in Russia. Hamster (talk) 04:55, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

There is a kind of Pseudoscience that presents alternative explanations of fact, such as the universe being inside the earth, with explanations of how it could appear to be the reverse. Examining alternative explanations, different models, is not a pseudoscientific activity in itself, if one is seeking models that better predict experiment and observation than accepted models. As a scientific activity, though, this is not purely armchair science, it will start with observed anomaly that then leads to the new ideas, and it will propose experimental or observational confirmation, based on predictive difference with established theory. It will not merely focus on the alleged weaknesses of standard theory, but will compare weaknesses of all theories. A sign that it's become pseudoscience would be that the alternative model is presented as overturning standard science, and as if this is bloomin' obvious, but without presenting more than misleading arguments, while, all the while, ignoring the weaknesses of the new theory. I looked through sources and found nothing to encourage me to investigate this "science." If it's valid, it certainly has some incompetent promoters. --Abd (talk) 20:03, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Currency unions

I heard an interesting piece on Radio 4 this morning about the history of currency unions. It's also available as a transcript.  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 10:02, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

currency unions are a good idea when economies are good but collapse terribly when things turn south--il'Dictator Mikal 14:42, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Good cite, specially about Walter Bagehot. And I thought Toynbee's repeated references to Bagehot was outdated scholarship. [2] nobs^{We Are the 91.6% (still employed)!!!!(88.6% with a realistic Laborforce Participation rate)} 18:44, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Vote: Is Rob the new Ken?

This discussion was moved to Conservapedia talk:What is going on at CP?.

Archive time-stamp. ArchieGoodwin (talk) 17:47, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

WIGOCP

The presence of nobhead on CPWIGO talk does more than any boycott to deter me from it. Scream!! (talk) 19:15, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

So, he's good for the site? Stupid Troll Guy (talk) 19:17, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Actually I'm very happy he's here - too often we just end up preaching to the choir, and there's no interest in every thread just being "yeah I agree!". Having him around - and engaged in debate-is great fun. DogP (talk) 18:16, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Debate is a .... strange word to describe any conversation with rob. --il'Dictator Mikal 18:21, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I think he acts too stupid to have a serious conservation with, even if you're just using him as a way to perfect your own arguments and beliefs, but whatever. Stupid Troll Guy (talk) 18:22, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

View me as a mirror; say something stupid about Andy (as PsyGremlin just did in the Kennedy fiasco) and I'll tell you how stupid it is. nobs^{We Are the 91.6% (still employed)!!!!(88.6% with a realistic Laborforce Participation rate)} 18:40, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes but my mirror rarely spouts random bullshit about communism and why everywhere but america is shit--il'Dictator Mikal 18:48, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, my mirror is a liberal. An American Nihilist (talk) 18:49, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Look, pointing out Joe, Jack, and Bobby Kennedy were conservative anti-communists is not random. And I hear Costa Rica is a great place to live. nobs^{We Are the 91.6% (still employed)!!!!(88.6% with a realistic Laborforce Participation rate)} 18:55, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Dude...Rob's crazy. Occasionaluse (talk) 14:36, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Teach the Controversy: Heartland Edition

From the Department of the Bleeding Obvious: Heartland admits to plans to push denialism in schools. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 23:52, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Science is too liberal, global warming is fake, smoking is good, yada yada. Osaka Sun (talk) 04:24, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

What's obvious to me is that there is a set of beliefs that are considered "Rational Skepticism," that are held to about as firmly, by some, as woo is by the afflicted. And then everything is interpreted through the lens of these accepted beliefs. What is obvious to me about this isn't about these beliefs being "right" or "wrong," it's about Confirmation bias. It leads the naive into many traps. So, for example, Heartland, a libertarian think tank, supports teaching controversy. which is then equated to claiming that "smoking is good," which I very much doubt they promote. I'd expect them to promote the idea of personal choice and freedom from government interference. They might, however, get involved with exaggeration in the "good cause" of discouraging smoking, if that exaggeration is common. And a tobacco company or someone else funds them for it. Shocking? To whom?

I was banned from Wikipedia, ultimately, because, even though I accept AGW (anthropogenic global warming) as likely, based on preponderance of the evidence, I opposed misrepresentation of the evidence in ways that exaggerated the level of consensus on this. (The IPCC report was very precise about the meaning of terms used, but this information was excluded from the article because the popular meanings of the words made the conclusions seem stronger than they were.) And I opposed blocking and banning editors merely because they disagreed with a pro-AGW administrator, and I was effective in this, it was noticed, and there were consequences.

Heartland is a libertarian political organization, it's not at all surprising that they promote their political goals, and that they might favor positions held by their donors. (Though the reality might be that the cause is their position, and the donations follow from that.) They are not a scientific organization, they are not run by scientists -- though they support a few -- and have no obligation to follow scientific protocols. The activity of Heartland is "shocking" to those who are believers in the immediate danger and who are intolerant of true scientific debate, which takes lots of time. Prudent public policy will examine evidence on all sides, and will consider, as well, the nature and depth of the risks of inaction. And, frankly, even though I've read a great deal about this topic, I don't consider myself competent to make a final judgment on that. This is why we want political institutions to consult experts. All the experts, not just those on one side of an issue. The screaming voices on all sides don't help. --Abd (talk) 19:36, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Abd, you obscure your position with long winded and sometimes contradictory qualifications. This way you can always claim a misunderstanding when your bullshit is exposed. Heartland is "not a scientific organization" and has "no obligation to follow scientific protocols", yet people who are critical of them are "intolerant of true scientific debate"? So which is it exactly? And are you claiming that you can lie all you want as long as you don't describe it as "science"? --Tweenk (talk) 23:25, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

More "teach the controversy". cept just like evo, there is no scientific controversy.GodotGrow a vagina 01:09, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

The real controversy to be taught is that there are people who claim to be experts who simultaneously deny reality and domination the national conversation. That's something all students at any grade level need to realize. -- Seth Peck (talk) 18:03, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

The International Churches Of Christ (Boston Movement)

Please help me develop the article on The International Churches Of Christ (Boston Movement), I'm badly behind with other Internet work. There isn't enough time in the day to fight all the evil one comes across on the Internet and have a reasonable life offline as well. I've given plenty of links so tracking down information should be easy. Proxima Centauri (talk) 08:26, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Rick Santorum and female voters

According to The Daily Beast, Santorum is "Surging With Women Voters." I'm going to qualify this terrible piece of journalism with a hypothesis: Rick Santorum is only popular with women who were going to vote Republican anyways, for whom the only choices were Santorum, a cretinous asshole, and a robot from the future sent to kill us all. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 08:40, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

(It should be noted that the The Daily Beast deals in only the highest-quality idiotic speculation.) Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 08:40, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Cognitive psychology loses one of its big names

Ulric Neisser is probably an obscure figure to anyone outside of the field, but he wrote one of the early, seminal texts of cognitive psychology (appropriately titled Cognitive Psychology), published work on false memories, and chaired the APA task force in response to The Bell Curve. He died on 2/17. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 03:21, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Anyone who fights The Bell Curve is good in my book. Godotoi, putain, genial, merci 04:20, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

2012 election predictions

Santorum becomes nominee. Paul runs as a third party, desperate because he forgot to run again for the House. Because Paul can suck up as much of 20% of the vote (mostly taken from Santorum), Obama wins by a landslide.

Unfortunately, things don't go so well in Congress. Democrats lose the Senate, and Republicans maintain a stronger hold in the House. Obama won't get to do much until 2014. Mr. Anon (talk) 01:00, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

How well obama does also depends on how things go worldwide between now and the election. if things suddenly go a turn for the worse, obama gets blamed. even if heres nothing he could have humanly done. but santorum ccant win anyways;. romneys the only republican who could match obama--il'Dictator Mikal 01:03, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Paul won't run as a third party candidate. He's seen first hand how well that works. It still looks like it did a year ago, Romney is the slight favorite to get the nomination. He'll lose, because no one really likes him. Turpis 3:16 (talk) 01:13, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

But some people never learn DickTurpis. Ron Paul has gotten a lot more publicity this election, and he'll be much more confident to win if he runs as a third party. Though I'm no fan of Paul, it would be cool to see a third party win a state or two. Fun Fact: Ross Perot for a while was leading in polls in 1992, and he only lost because he stopped campaigning a few months before the election, and even then he got some 20% of the vote. Mr. Anon (talk) 01:18, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

(EC)I've already made my prediction, but it's basically the same as Dick's. Santorum would make a funny nomminee though. Peter ^{Monomorium antarcticum} 01:21, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Best case scenario: Greek default's on German loans dragging Germany & EU into recession; US exports to EU plummet, dragging US into recession; Iran attacks US warships in Hormuz & Obama diddle's himself ala Jimmy Carter. Gas hits $6 per gal, unemployment rises, Obama approval takes a dump, and the ticket of Romney/Santorum (or, if you prefer Santorum/Romney) kick's ass in November. nobs^{We Are the 91.6% (still employed)!!!!(88.6% with a realistic Laborforce Participation rate)} 01:53, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Rob, you never cease to keep me laughing. Osaka Sun (talk) 02:27, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Aliens invade. Mr. T is elected dictator-for-life. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 01:58, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Mr. T makes mistreating your mother a felony. Nihilist (talk) 02:09, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Paul is certainly not going to run as a third party candidate. He's the chairman of a fairly influential subcommittee that lets him rant about the Fed, and doesn't want to lose that. He is also aware that running as a third-party candidate would hurt the GOP's chances, and doesn't want to be blamed for a loss, as he would be if he ran.--^talk 02:02, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Like I said before: crazification factor will be one of the top words in the blogosphere this year. Osaka Sun (talk) 02:27, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Big related news to 2012 predictions: Olympia Snowe (R-ME), a Republican in a very blue state, has announced she won't seek re-election. This seat leans Democrat in almost every view, so this improves the odds of maintaining the Democratic Senate or at least keeping near parity in what's going to be a tough season.--^talk 00:41, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

41 megapixel camera

On a phone! Генгис^{Gum disease} 17:58, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

When someone says things like "41 megapixel lens", it feels like they kick me in the gut.--ZooGuard (talk) 18:41, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

"The chromatic aberration suggests you bought your camera because it had 'the most megapixels'." Occasionaluse (talk) 18:52, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

(EC)Ugh there's a reason you don't usually see megapixels that high: the lens is the restrictive element past a certain point. Most good SLR cameras with an excellent lens have about 18 at most. Yeah go ahead and take a 41 megapixel photo with that shitty lens and blow it up. It'll look like garbage, and it'll be a gigantic file. In TIFF file format, it'll be 247.5MB and if you print it in photo quality, it will be 4'2" by 3'. Cow...Hammer^time! 18:54, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Sigh. Alas. I wrote software that runs on that phone, but its one of the last of its kind. The last of a dying breed of people who knew how to do interesting things with phone hardware and software. Now every phone company is 3 engineers. One hardware guy, one software guy and one QA engineer slapping together off the shelf shit, sticking an off the shelf operating system on it and shoving it out the door. The rest of the many thousands of people who work at the company are marketeers of one sort or another. The smartphone has entered the beige box phase of existence, a tedious commodity that everyone owns but no one finds fascinating just like the IBM PC. I think I should go sell booze or something. --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 20:13, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

CS Miller (talk) 21:25, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Actually, that's quite a shitty post. Reminds me of a Linus quote: "Do you pine for the nice days of minix-1.1, when men were men and wrote their own device drivers?" Get with the program. Occasionaluse (talk) 21:31, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

No. Enjoy your choice of smartphone. You can have any colour you want as long as it's red. --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 21:41, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Hey Jeeves, your software sounds super cool, send it over. Should run on my phone, right? Occasionaluse (talk) 21:44, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Dude, I wrote bits of the operating system. So yes, it will run on your phone. You're a real man who knows how to write your own hardware abstraction, right? --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 21:48, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, because that's totally the point. Keep shining that one-off turd. Occasionaluse (talk) 21:50, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I think a quarter billion shipped doesn't really constitute "one-off". But whatever makes you happy. --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 21:52, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not the one pining for the old days, so it's your happiness you should be concerned with. And good luck, because they're soon to be long gone. You're like a techno hipster. You did it way back when. Cool. No one gives a fuck. Occasionaluse (talk) 21:55, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

As long as you continue not giving a fuck, then people are going to sell you shit and you're going to have to like it. You've got to be happy paying 400 quid for a phone where the battery doesn't last out the day, because the company that makes them can't do a fucking thing about optimising the power management. They weren't involved in any of the design work. But hey, at least they can jack themselves off with how many gigahertz and cores it has. Because that's the important part. --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 22:00, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

It's the same problem I have with the interchangeable parts on all these guns I have! They're not ideal. Sometimes I'm not sure winning the war was worth it... Occasionaluse (talk) 22:02, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Only imagine that the equipment chosen for your troops wasn't chosen by people who were invested in winning the war, but rather by people invested in getting the biggest circulation for their newspaper. People who in fact had no real understanding of how a war should be fought and no particular interest in finding out. People who are mostly interested in flash,n rather than bang. That's exactly where we are in a google dominated smartphone industry. They don't give a shit about how your phone works. They're just interested in getting gmail in front of your eyes. So we're doomed to an application core where the google fluff happens and a comms core where the actual work happens, and the whole beast sucks way more power than it ever really should. And there's only one or two companies that can sell you the hardware to run it, so it costs out the arse too. By now we really should have been paying less than 100 quid retail for the most expensive consumer smartphone, but that's all out the window now. We'll be paying 400 quid forever and begging for the beatings to continue. --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 22:19, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

"Only imagine that the equipment chosen for your troops wasn't chosen by people who were invested in winning the war, but rather by people invested in getting [re-elected]. People who in fact had no real understanding of how a war should be fought and no particular interest in finding out. People who are mostly interested in flash,n rather than bang." reading it that way should make us both lol a little. Occasionaluse (talk) 22:23, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

But srsly, I think we both understand there needs to be a balance between our idealized positions. Occasionaluse (talk) 22:24, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Fundamentally, I don't think so. The vision of old was that while we were pioneering the smartphone as a rich boy's toy, we were continuing to drive the "smart" features down market by keeping the system requirements increases modest and enabling many generations of device on the same silicon. It was working to, you really could see a point in the very near future where the idea of a "mid-range" phone was extinct. There would be basic, 20 dollar phones sold to the absolute most developing of the developing world, and there would be smartphones. The margins would be thin, but there's such incredible volume in that market that nobody cared. Now we've got to the point where phone makers' margins are incredibly thin, but they're still making rich boys' toys. The margins are thin because the phone maker isn't really involved in stage of the production pipeline other than finally assembly. A Dell can do it just as well as a Samsung or a Nokia, with all the same problems that Dell has in the PC market. So we're getting phone makers divesting themselves of their parts that understand telecoms, and consequently of the parts capable of producing mid-market phones. Sony no long needs an Ericsson to help them make phones, for example. Moto-google no longer has the capability or desire to produce a mid-market phone. You can't build a mid-market phone on the hardware Android requires, and the hardware requirements are increasing way faster than Moore's law can keep the price and power budget down, and battery energy density increases aren't going to save us unless something radical happens. --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 23:01, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

In that case, I'm glad you're a dying bread. I can only imagine the nightmare of every manufacturer having a team of Jeeves'. Sure, we'd get occasionally get new and exciting developments in the process, but at business costs I'm not sure you really understand. At least in the world we actually live in, you've still got a high horse to sit on, even if you can't afford the phone you're slapping software on. Occasionaluse (talk) 23:28, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm confused. What is it exactly you think is good about an industry where no one is making money, and no one is innovating? There's a reason why every damn PC maker in the world is in the hole up to their eyeballs. They have no value add at all. They're assemblers. In the phone industry we're heading in the same direction, with the signal exception of price. The complexity of making a phone hasn't disappeared, there's just only a handful of people willing to tackle the complexity. You want to build a smartphone then you pay the Qualcomm tax. There's just no way you can threaten them with buying a core from TI or Freescale or whatever like you could five years ago to keep the price down, because those people don't have the expertise and neither do you any more. Really, I think you've got no clue what you're talking about, you're just picking a fight because... well... I don't know why. --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 23:38, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, you did stay at a holiday in last night write a piece of some shitty phone os that will soon be lost to history, so you obviously know what you're talking about. Fucking nerds like you give the rest of us a bad name. Go be bitter and work on a pet project. Let the rest of us live in the real world you self-righteous douche. Or more realistically, stay in academia. Occasionaluse (talk) 15:13, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

OMFG will you two shut the fuck up or get a room? Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 15:55, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Motherfuckers like this piss me off. Mostly because I've hired (and subsequently fired) a few. Idealist punks who can't see past their own sandbox. Yeah, you're smart, yeah, you know what you're talking about, yeah, you're fired. Occasionaluse (talk) 16:03, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

So you bitch and moan about nothing, then boast about how much of a strong man you are with your firing people. Great. That says so much about you. Most managers in tech go their whole careers without having to fire people, because they hire competent people in the first place. You on the other hand seem to take great pride in your incompetence and mediocrity. Great, you've fired people a whole lot smarter than you are. You also like to bitch about subjects you know fuck all about. Good for you. Your "real world" is just some power trip you have going in you head. --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 18:02, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

"Get a real job"

so i looked at yahoo while checking my email... and i see this story... --il'Dictator Mikal 23:43, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, definitely the message rich people should be sending out in these times. Osaka Sun (talk) 23:50, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Updated to point out the blatant rounding error made by the banker in question, which is amusing to me. Every time I read one of these stories (like the one about the hair stylist who refused to cut a conservative congresswoman's hair for her views on homosexuality), I think of Tyler Durden's lines from Fight Club re: "We prepare your food, we take your calls, we protect you while you sleep"...etc. -- Seth Peck (talk) 00:07, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Except in our world, that speech ends: "you can fuck with us all you want, because you own us." Dude's even kind of right, except that his advice applies to him as well. How are we ever going to make any money when the only jobs we have are service industry jobs? --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 01:14, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

As much as I'd love to jump all over this story, it doth appear to be a hoax. The Symphony of Punk ^{Can't sleep, clowns will eat me!} 10:45, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Yep, shopped. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 20:22, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Not the worst 'shopping job in history, though. In fact, pretty good by standards. At least they blatantly didn't just copy-paste letters from elsewhere, some thought actually went into it. Though looking at it closely the pen lines are suspiciously different to the signature. ^theist 01:32, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

When "legal reality" and "what's best" conflict.

I just found out that we mis-read a provision in the Colorado election code, and have two (probably) Directors of a water district who should not have run last year. (it's a term limit issue - and how long yo have to sit out). The problem is, this was brought to our attention by someone who wants to run for office. Someone who has not paid his water bill and taxes in 5 years, or his local taxes in 3 years. He and his wife have both submit nomitations for the new election. He believes water should be free, and that no one should have to pay for it. The consequences of having him and his wife on the board, is dangerous. There is legally nothing we can do to prevent them from running, they run every year. It's just that this year, due to the f'up in how long you must sit while out of office, there would be 4 open seats. FARD FARD FRAD n'hell. GodotGrow a vagina 23:57, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

In case you aren't from Colorado, water rights are a HUGE issue here, being one of the major conversation points for representatives at all levels of government. -- Seth Peck (talk) 00:10, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Let them. Everyone has the right to run for a position of responsibility and to fuck it up in their own, unique way and on their own terms. ^{d hominem} 00:42, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, cept we are already a struggling firm (i'm the last paralegal out of 4 just 5 years ago), and i can easily see this guy firing us and the District's administrator cause he has said as much. sighs. and no small part of this is that I'm upset I made such a gross mistake. I am better than that, i should have looked at the 3 different sections, and not just assumed that "must wait one term" meant what i thought it did. god the mountains have some strange reclusive types.--GodotGrow a vagina 00:47, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Seth, did you know that by the letter of the law, you are not allowed to collect rainwater to water your garden, or do any kind of recycling of water? Colorado has a "One owner one use" law, which pretty much all cities in teh metro area blatently violate, cause recycling is more environmental and cost effective. GodotGrow a vagina 00:49, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Water is a fundamental human right, but there isnt unlimited water either; same as food and shelter--il'Dictator Mikal 00:58, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like a good platform. I'm going to just not pay my taxes as well and start a political party. Call it the GOP: Grover's Own Party. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 07:25, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, there's plenty of water. It's chemically oxidised hydroden so pretty stable and not likely to go anywhere, and is the product of respiration and most biological processes. It's about as close to an "unlimited" resource as it's possible to get. Now, purifying it and getting it to where it's needed, on the other hand, is a different story. Anyway, that's just personal pedantry over people talking about wasting water, when they really mean wasting the electricity used to pump it around the place. That sort of thing costs a fuck-ton. ^moral 09:48, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

The bone of contention largely deals with irrigation rights and treatment responsibilities. If a brewery in central Colorado takes water for beer, there may not be enough water appropriate enough for irrigation in farms downstream...and if a large corporate farm takes water for irrigation it is removed from the watershed and becomes unavailable for other farms downstream...etc. The result is some pretty interesting arrangements—for example, the Coors brewery in Golden is responsible for the treatment of all the water that enters and leaves Golden. -- Seth Peck (talk) 16:46, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Ya, there's plenty of water just as there is plenty of food and shelter. It's just not distributed in a way that means everyone who needs it gets some. If population doesn't top out (somewhere around 10 billion is my guess for where we'll end up) then we do eventually run into fundamental limits, but we're not in sight of them now. The results meanwhile are often simultaneously wasteful and unfair. The situation in the UK is that you have to pay for public drinking water (new properties are metered, old ones pay a fixed fee unless they opt for a meter) but it's exceptionally rare to cut off water to a domestic residence because you have to prove that it won't cause hardship. Also you actually spend more on drainage and waste treatment than on supply. Turning 100m³ of river water into drinking water is way cheaper than moving 100m³ of sewage to a treatment plant and turning it into something you can safely pour into the sea. That's probably less true in parts of the US with lax pollution rules.

Anyway, I feel for you Godot, luckily when my fuckups happen my boss is understanding, but I'd have lost my job years ago if he wasn't. 82.69.171.94 (talk) 13:01, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I keep forgetting sewage also comes under water. The extortionate price the local water company charged me after forgetting to send me a bill for 3 years makes much more sense now. ^sshole 13:13, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't remember where I saw it, but it was to the line of "there isnt enough food for 7 billion people, if we all got the same, nobody would be healthy"--il'Dictator Mikal 14:22, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

That's interesting, cause the reason this guy has gotten away with not paying his water bill or taxes and had no interruption in service, is that it is our policy not to deny drinking water and waste removal to any residence. We have a lien on his house, but it's a health risk to take away clean drinking water. As for "enough water", out here, water is as valuable as gold. partially cause we have to send X number of gallons down the Colorado to New mexico, AZ, Ca, and technically Mexico, but CA has reneged on the Mexico US water pact for the last 40 years or more. The problem, (this starts to get really crazy) that TY might understand is that Colorado sits on the divide, so we are taking water that SHOULD go down the Colorado (to CA) and diverting it to Denver, then dumping it into the tributaries that feed the Mississippi, which has helped cause flooding in St. Louis and the mississipi, since those water ways were not "designed" (naturally or man made) to handle the water Denver sends their way. Godotoi, putain, genial, merci 17:17, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

So, that's one big collective fuck up there. ^moral 01:26, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Santorum's "phony theology"

Pushing for a half-assed failure of a cap-and-trade bill means you're an enviro-weenie who worships the false goddess of Mama Gaia. According to RLick Santorum at least. And all this time I thought Obama was a crypto-Muslim. (See also here for more Green Dragon fun.) Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 06:46, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I am puzzled why right wingers who are at odds with the environmental movement invariably venture into climate change denial. If they instead picked a fight over e.g. genetic modification, they would at least have a lot of real science behind them. Maybe it's because the concept of improving God's supposedly perfect creation is blasphemous. --Tweenk (talk) 08:28, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

The lengths these people go to to just not invest a thousandth of the money they've invested in campaigning against investing a thousandth into making their factories more eco-friendly is amazing. Now environmentalism is a religion — and "phony religion" at that —, tomorrow every thought that goes against the exploitation of Earth by men will be evil or "anti-American" because it goes against one line in a book of not even 2000 years and a business interest. If the Santorums of the world had their will you'd all be burned like witches. "Its practically tradition / witch-hunts, McCarthyism" --★uːʤɱ pirate 09:08, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Santorum's claims are basically a gigantic straw man. Note that UHM's presentation is also a bit of a straw man as Santorum does not seem to propose unrestrained exploitation, but stewardship - protecting the environment for the benefit of humans, based on simple self-interest. This is actually a position which is defensible, and there is a legitimate debate to be had between stewardship (environment has value because it is useful / pleasing to humanity) and conservation (environment has intrinsic value). Unfortunately, all this is just window dressing intended to make his anti-science, pro-fossil agenda more palatable to moderates. --Tweenk (talk) 10:30, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Real life Goldeneye 64

For you retro gamers [3] Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 15:56, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I remember when Goldeneye 64 was cutting edge, not retro. Stop making me feel old. AMassiveGay (talk) 18:20, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

They remade it. There is also a steam/half life 2 mod that is FREE and tries to emulate the late and great 64 version. TheCheat^{I run on alcohol} 18:45, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

NPR Journalistic Standard

NPR announced some a revision to it's journalistic standards.

In short, "our goal isn't 'balance'; our goal is the truth."

I have two words for that: bra vo.

MDB (talk) 17:17, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

That's why I like NPR. Abd (talk) 00:47, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

repblicans feasting on women's rights

I'm not sure if it's one group pushing all of this, or if it's every state's women hating men saying "oh, look what that state did", but 4 more states are now in the race to see who can write teh most obscene, insulting "informed consent" laws possible. (if you don't know, informed conscent is the way they are legislating ultra sounds, on teh grounds that 'women as patients have the legal right to know and understand what procedures they are going to undergo and what it will do to thier bodies. that is medically important, right? everyone should be informed!) that's 10 states (if i'm counting right) since december.Godotoi, putain, genial, merci 01:20, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Feeling left out? Get model legislation for your state to go! Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 01:28, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Remember that for many of these people "informed consent" means marrying someone because you were told premarital sex will kill you with cancer-AIDS and that condoms only work 1% of the time. ^moral 01:40, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Neb, that page is sick. Look at this title "Women’s Health Defense Act (Late-term Abortion Ban)" women's HEALTH DEFENSE. ummm.... what the fuck?????? I want to read these bills.Godotoi, putain, genial, merci 01:55, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Fuck me. "late term abortion harms women, mentally and phsyically". (yeah, and having a kid die inside your womb, or having yourself die of cancer, or knwoing your child has no brain is sooooo fucking much more healthy" http://www.aul.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/NEW-Late-Term-Abortion-Ban.pdf we need an article on these people, if we dn't have one.Godotoi, putain, genial, merci 01:57, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Mother of god, taht bill is real. actually in effect in nebraska. Godotoi, putain, genial, merci 02:03, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Sic 'em. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 02:11, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

A heartwrenching pro-choice story, for Godot and everyone else. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 06:14, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Pseudoscience vs falsified science

1. Do scientific hypotheses become pseudoscience when they are falsified?
2. Does a very biased analysis to support a predetermined conclusion constitute pseudoscience, propaganda or both?

I ask because I don't know how to describe things such as second event theory and the Leeuwen and Smith analyses which make falsifiable claims, have been falsified, and yet are intensively promoted as true. --Tweenk (talk) 10:07, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

1) Emphatically not, although anyone continuing to push those theories in the face of evidence would constitute pseudoscience (consider the luminiferous aether). 2) I never considered the comparison, but both I think. ^pathetic 10:13, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Though to expand on point 1, a "falsified theory/hypothesis" is not necessarily one that is batshit crazy, has no predictive power or has no basis in reality. Compare a simple force-based model for gravity versus general relativity, then compare Newton's laws of motion with special relativity. The non-relativistic models explain only a sub-set of observations, and this sub-set is extensive enough for the (simpler) theories to be useful on occasion. Yet, the simpler concepts of gravity and motion have been well and truly falsified by observations at high speed and high mass/density. So there's a greater distinction in "falsified" and "not useful for making predictive statements". To further compound it, we already know that quantum mechanics is effectively falsified because it doesn't model gravity at all, yet gravity is very much observed. Hence the development of string theory to incorporate it - and string theory itself is problematic because to call it pseudoscience would be a tremendous disservice to the legitimate physics and mathematics underpinning it, even though it's yet to produce observable predictions (the keyword there being "yet", although that state of affairs can't continue indefinitely before either the theory needs reworked or abandoned). So the distinction between pseudoscience and protoscience can be subtle, but can be made based on looking at our current understanding and how good those ideas are at doing their job. If they're later shown to be useless, then they're just left on the scrapheap of "interesting ideas that didn't work out", they wouldn't be pseudoscientific until someone starts pushing for them again even though they've been very clearly shown not to help predict anything of value where it matters. ^bomination 10:23, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

To me, it would also depend greatly on how much scientific debate there is surrounding the falsifiability and testing of the hypothesis. Why was the hypothesis incorrect? Is the hypothesis completely and utterly out of the ballpark wrong to the point where it can't be adjusted somewhat to reach the conclusions expected, or can tweaking of the expectations of the hypothesis produce results which are more in tune with the claim. For example, if I claim that X + X = Y, and then an experiment is performed and it is proven that X + X = Y when it's 80 degrees Fahrenheit, but that X + X = Z when it's 60 degrees Fahrenheit, that wouldn't completely dismiss the claim that 2X = Y, just that it doesn't always equal Y, depending on the variables. SO if someone goes around claiming that 2X = Y, then, while misleading, I wouldn't exactly say it's pseudoscience. Moreover, if the methods for testing a hypothesis are still under development and/or the results of the testing itself is still being debated by the scientific community, then I don't know if I would call that pseudoscience per se, so long the distinction is made that the hypothesis is just that, and that it hasn't been proven. The Symphony of Punk ^{Can't sleep, clowns will eat me!} 13:39, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

That's the thing, you never really "throw out" an old theory or hypothesis if it's been shown to work somewhere. You simply show under what conditions it's true and under what conditions it doesn't quite work. But usually if any well-formed scientific statement gets to the point where you can bring up this subtle distinction about it, there is no way can it be labeled as pseudoscience. Indeed, such things are part of the definition and the process of science. ^postate 14:33, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

To this spanner monkey, Armond has summed it up in his last sentence (in his first post): It's only pseudoscience if it's never ever been tested or is untestable by definition (prove to me there's no magic man in the sky) or relies completely on a hypothesis that's been falsified. DeltaStar_{Senior Sysop}^{Speciationspeed!} 00:30, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

If the claims are still being promoted after being falsified, that's usually pseudoscience territory. See also demarcation problem. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 00:36, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

But hasn't Newtonian mechanics more or less been totally falsified? Yet open any A-Level mechanics text book and there it is! Why are they teaching such pseudoscience to our children‽‽ ^pathetic 01:23, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Damn, you're right! Question Gravity! Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 01:30, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Um, isn't this all about one of those basic philosophy of science things? Like, is the purpose of science to explain how the world actually works, or just to provide us with a model that we can use get stuff done, without claiming to be in some sense "true" ? I seem to remember that the same problem crops up in mathematics, about whether it matters that if you have one pebble and get another pebble you have two pebbles, ie is mathematics first and foremost a bunch of claims about our world, or does it exist independently and we're just seeing an instantiation of something more fundamental that would be in some sense "true" even if our universe didn't exist... 82.69.171.94 (talk) 02:54, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Some weird arguments here. Pseudoscience is reasonably well-defined, though not necessarily by our article, and a theory itself isn't pseudoscience, it's just a theory, but how it is used might be pseudoscience, if it meets the criteria. "Falsified" can include a lost performative. Falsified by whom, how, and by what standards? "Pseudoscience" was properly applied to so-called "sciences" that aren't falsifiable, but that pretended to be science. I've seen the term used -- sloppily -- for ideas that make no pretense of being science, like the idea of ghosts. But when someone purports to use scientific methods to investigate ghosts, whether or not it's pseudoscience would depend on how they use the methods. It's not necessarily pseudoscience unless the scientific method is not being followed, which includes serious effort at falsification of theory. All theories.

Experimental scientists report their results. The interpretation of the results can be pseudoscientific, not the investigation and the results in themselves. So looking for, say, electromagnetic effects when supposedly ghosts are present is not "pseudoscience," in itself. It depends on how it's done and what interpretations are made. "The field strength meter pegged, therefore there was a ghost present." By itself, that conclusion would be pseudoscience, unless a massive foundation were first laid. Strictly speaking, that would simply be an anomaly, possibly unexplained, and it might never be explained but still could mean nothing about ghosts.

The issue about "Newtonian mechanics" is highly misleading. That body of physics was very well-established, and is highly useful and accurate in its realm of application. It's only when we try to claim that it's absolute and of totally general application that it could become part of some pseudoscientific theory. The same would be true of quantum mechanics. So, it doesn't predict gravity. So? It's still astonishingly successful in its proper realm, the realm wherein it has been verified, and not falsified.

One of the characteristics of science is careful and accurate observation and reporting, and it is here that RationalWiki can fall on its face. RW has an agenda, and one of the characteristics of pseudoscience is that it is generally agenda-driven. Yes, it's ironic, but skepticism that fails to be skeptical of itself, as well as of the ideas of others, is not true skepticism. --Abd (talk) 02:30, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

ADK, Newtonian mechanics is a bit special. It is a limit for large distances and low speeds. Essentially it is a simplification that was discovered before its parent theory. In the same way, the linear no-threshold model is a simplification that extrapolates high radiation dose behavior to all doses, but the real dose response for low doses remains a subject of some debate. When QM was discovered, Newtonian mechanics was not really falsified, it merely lost its status as the 'most correct' theory.

I would say that promoting a falsified theory could be called pseudoscience. We do not regard homeopathy as pseudoscience because it can't possibly work based on what we know about chemistry, we regard it as such because it was repeatedly shown not to work once the placebo effect is eliminated. Therefore second event theory would qualify as pseudoscience. I'm still not sure about the analyses made by Leeuwen and Smith. --Tweenk (talk) 02:39, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Arizona/Michigan Primaries

I hereby declare this space to discuss the results of today's primaries, as they will start coming in in the next few hours. Let's all cross our fingers for a big Santorum surge in Michigan to draw out this crazy-fest for a few more months! Cow...Hammer^time! 21:01, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

My head already hurts. Godotoi, putain, genial, merci 21:03, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

You lost me at "santorum surge" --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 21:49, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Let it continue to be hilarious! -- Seth Peck (talk) 22:00, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Frothy, stop leaking already. Osaka Sun (talk) 22:54, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

It is all for naught. Don't you know The Mighty Jeb is entering the race and saving the nation? Aboriginal Noise ^{What the ...} 23:00, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Romney will win both.--^talk 00:53, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

The opposite. For the lulz.

Edit: I'm trying to put Santorum winning the Republican nomination here, but I'm having trouble with the coding. Osaka Sun (talk) 01:19, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Do you actually think he will? How?--^talk 01:53, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I think we can call Michigan for Mitt now. Bummer. Damo^Hi 02:37, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Hey, it was pretty close. Osaka Sun (talk) 02:40, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I predict it will blow out as more urban booths are counted. (At least that is the way it works here - the smaller rural, conservative booths get counted earlier than the bigger urban liberal booths.) Damo^Hi 02:43, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not actually much of a fan of the idea that liberals should support/root for Santorum or Gingrich in the hopes of a longer and more contested primary. A lot of things can go wrong in a race. Romney's limo might accidentally hit a child, for example, as unlikely as that might be. If liberals artificially sustain Santorum, he seriously might win the nomination. And again, because crazy things can happen in a race, he might even win the general. It's unlikely, but if the Eurozone crashes and we have a very bad double-dip recession, it's very possible. In fact, an Obama loss to Santorum is actually more likely than a Romney loss to Santorum. And so at that point, even though it might have been done to be funny, liberals will have actually helped Santorum or Gingrich win the Presidency of the United States. Given that at least one, and probably two, Supreme Court Justices will be picked this upcoming term, that would be a very very bad thing.

I'm sympathetic to the idea of lulz and DailyKos' Operation Hilarity. But as Lovecraft wrote, "do not call up what you cannot put down."--^talk 02:50, 29 February 2012 (UTC)-

I'm not sure if that was directed at me, but I was operating on the assumption that the more moderate or liberal voters will vote for Romney, not Santorum. And for the record, I would vote Santorum. Sure its a risk, but everything fun has a price. Damo^Hi 02:56, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Moderate Republicans in Michigan voted for Romney, sure. But Democrats were being urged to vote Santorum (Michigan has an open primary, so Dems can vote in it).--^talk 05:16, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Um, yeah, I realise that ^{(I didn't come down in the last shower you know)}. I would like to see the figures on How Democrats voted. I suspect that if they did vote overwhelmingly for Santorum it was not because of Romney's pro-choice stance!. Damo^Hi 05:28, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

The Onion call it again: "Romney Thanks State He Was Born And Raised In For Just Barely Giving Him Enough Votes To Beat Total Maniac" --PsyGremlinSermā! 15:48, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Arizona is at it again!

This time they are after poor kids, by making a new law that all students must pay a minimum of $2,000 bucks tuition, no matter how many scholarships, grants or aid they get; no matter what their background or financial situation. here (bet football players are exempt).--Godotoi, putain, genial, merci 04:31, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

SUBSECTION A OF THIS SECTION DOES NOT APPLY TO STUDENTS WHO EITHER: 1. ARE AWARDED AN ATHLETIC SCHOLARSHIP AND REMAIN IN GOOD STANDING WITH THE NATIONAL ORGANIZATION THAT OVERSEES COLLEGIATE ATHLETICS.
2. RECEIVE A GRANT, AWARD OR SCHOLARSHIP THAT IS BASED SOLELY ON ACADEMIC MERIT OR SOLELY ON A SPECIAL APTITUDE, TALENT OR ABILITY FROM A COMPETITIVE NATIONAL PROGRAM. THIS EXCEPTION SHALL BE LIMITED TO NO MORE THAN FIVE PER CENT OF THE STUDENTS WHO ENROLL FOR THE FIRST TIME AS UNDERGRADUATES AT EACH UNIVERSITY. [4]

You appear to be correct. :D Peter ^{Monomorium antarcticum} 04:38, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

What the heck. why make a % limite? I mean if you have a world class physicist at the Arizona U, and 100 of the world's top kids in the country decide to go there, and they are all so smart they are on academic scholarship, not all of them could go, cause it would be "too many scholarships?" and this makes sense why? and why not the same 5% on teh atheletes? As I said on facebook, we were poor, cause my father was a minster, but my dad and mom both had masters, so education was important to us. I spent my senior year in HS applying to every grant, aid, scholarship I could find. I got 50 bucks from some "women in science" and 200 bucks from "children of dead mothers" and another 50 bucks from "scuba divers living in deserts" etc., till I had enough to pay my way. It wasn't SOLEY academic, of course, casue some of it was based on being a woman, being a child from a single father, or being a child from a methodist background. but so what? if people want to help kids get into school, why does teh school care. IT GETS PAID EITHER WAY!!!!! This really has rings of anti minority tones, cause they are so precise that it's "merrit based" only.Godotoi, putain, genial, merci 04:45, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Oh, they could go alright, but they couldn't use their scholarship money to pay the $2000. Why do I get the impression that ~5% of the university population is made up by people with a 'talent' for football but which don't 'remain in good standing with the national organisation that oversees collegiate athletics'? Peter ^{Monomorium antarcticum} 04:55, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

The fuck? That's not even targeting a minority anymore, that's just targeting the majority to help the minority stay in power. Hey fucktards, how about we make this thing fair and take, hm, let's say, 15% of everything the parents own for a semester? What you don't like that because rich people have to pay more than poor people? "Welcome to life."

But seriously now, this might be a good chance for other states and countries to entice the good and not so rich students from Arizona to come to them. You could run an "Arizona talent scholarship" or something like that. --★uːʤɱ atheist 14:08, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Damn it, Arizona! Just when I think there's a respite from the complete insanity (which I guess was about a week or so this time), you bring this kind of crap out. I got nothing this time. Fuck, the people running shit in this state are idiots. Cow...Hammer^time! 15:36, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Ugh. Way to keep the masses uneducated. In this context, it seems unbelievable that in my country, daytime undergraduate programs at public universities are prohibited from charging tuition. (There are weekend and evening programs at public universities that are paid-for.) In fact, thanks to two scholarships, I make good money just by learning. I hope it stays that way. --Tweenk (talk) 03:03, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

What makes a podcast?

I have some podcasts which are downloaded from the iTunes store and some which are mp3s. If I set the 'media kind' to Podcast then the mp3s show up on the list of podcasts but despite being from the same source and having the same title/artist they are not grouped together. Anybody know what the difference is and whether they can be made the same? Pongo^{Orangutans are sceptical} 11:59, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Don't use iTunes? Proxima Centauri (talk) 14:33, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Check if the metadata in all the files is the same (album, album artist etc). Not so experienced podcasters like to mess this stuff up. But even if you do so it might still happen (I haven't discovered any solution for that yet); seems to be a bug or something. If you really don't like it that way change the media kind to audiobooks and write the metadata new, the only thing missing will be the blue dots telling you if you allready listened to it, also depending on how you set your device you might have to manually control what is sync'ed with it. --★uːʤɱ secularist 14:56, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

In the iTunes Advanced menu there is a command to convert a podcast to an mp3, but I suspect that you want to do it the other way round. Генгис^{Gum disease} 16:37, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Apple always sorts your media based on how much money they made off it, it's a fact! TheCheat^{I run on alcohol} 16:43, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Download MP3Tag and edit the extended tags adding PODCAST, PODCASTDESC, PODCASTID, PODCASTURL to match the others as appropriate. Delete any unnecessary tags that the podcasts don't use. Then delete all the files from iTunes and reimport the folder. Steven Kavanagh (talk) 18:01, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

That works, thnx. Pongo^{Orangutans are sceptical} 19:02, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Nebraska is the best state ever

Ontop of the fun republicanism this state has... Severe storms and tornado watches yesterday, 32 and windy today, and 60 tomorrow! go interior weather patterns! --il'Dictator Mikal 16:44, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Just when you thought the world had turned to total shit

Davey Jones had the good taste to die. [5] --MtD^{Pinko Scum} 19:31, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

That's okay, he'll be back to captain the Flying Dutchman. -- Seth Peck (talk) 19:48, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I know. It's knowing that what keeps me going on in these dark days. That and paint thinner. --MtD^{Pinko Scum} 19:58, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Comics Category/Navbar?

Just a thought, possibly as a sub of Media, considering the number of articles we have on it as well as the number of things we could expand upon. I think some topics will speak highly for points #3 and #4 in our Mission, and I think deserves as much attention as any of the other media topics we have that have their own category (such as Pundits).

Maybe consider "Comics and Cartoons", given some of the overlap that might occur.

Articles we have

• Alan Moore
• Castillo v. Texas
• Comics Code Authority
• Mallard Fillmore
• Jesus and Mo
• Promethea
• V for Vendetta
• xkcd

Articles that would be appropriate

• Berkeley Breathed (political but old)
• Doonesbury (duh)
• Aaron McGruder or possibly just The Boondocks (High fructose corn syrup!)
• Far Left Side (This should be a pretty balanced article, given that the artist is both a liberal and a truther)
• Frank Miller (regarding views on chauvinism, OWS)
• From Hell (conspiracy theory to the max)
• Watchmen (conspiracies, plus parallels to the "inside-job" 9/11 theory as well as the critical value of moving the goalposts when determining a winner for the Hugo award)
• Dave Sim/Cerebus the Aardvark (brilliant political and religious satirist, then went nuts)

(Feel free to turn this into a separate forum and/or edit my list directly in case I missed something) -- Seth Peck (talk) 19:36, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

You forgot SMBC, Calamities of Nature, and Sci-ence for things we need. Should probably make the content before the category before the navbar, in the circumstances. Peter ^{Monomorium antarcticum} 19:48, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I could've sworn we had an article on Billy the Heretic. Vulpius (talk) 20:58, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I realise I don't exactly edit much here, so feel free to ignore, but I'm not sure that all of these titles really need individual pages. I can only really comment on the Alan moore stuff, as that is all I am familiar with, but except maybe for 'V for Vendetta', his titles could probably dealt with more effectively on Alan Moore's page. Maybe expand that. Promethea certainly doesn't, to my mind, and neither do 'From Hell' or 'Watchmen'. Great titles, but I don't think there is enough there to be considered 'on mission'. Conspiracy theories in comic books are, lets face it, a staple. Besides. Alan Moores best work is 'the Ballad of Halo Jones' and I wouldn't suggest an article for that AMassiveGay (talk) 22:45, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

+1. SMBC and Calamities of Nature are far more on mission; they often have skeptical or atheist themes and reach a wide audience. --Tweenk (talk) 23:19, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I can't forget about things I've never heard of :) I agree that many of these don't need an article, I was just looking at existing red links in the current articles. And there are many that I didn't mention that wouldn't appropriate at all...Road to Perdition, for example, while interesting would be lacking. I think an article on Air Pirates would be a good examination on copyright law, but I don't know how much we could add to it that WP doesn't already. -- Seth Peck (talk) 23:28, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I've been a comics fan since the late Seventies and could contribute a lot here, I think. I already have contributed a lot to Comics Code Authority. My knowledge is mostly focused on Marvel and DC, and I'm also pretty knowledgeable about comic strips. MDB (talk) 13:06, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I am aware of several titles focusing on 9/11 (Spiderman springs to mind). I wonder if the comic book's treatment of the tragedy deserves a look? I'm sure Frank Miller's 'Holy Terror' would warrent a mention. AMassiveGay (talk) 18:15, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I wonder if Moral Orel and God, The Devil, and Bob are worthy in a similar vein (though technically cartoons). -- Seth Peck (talk) 19:52, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

You missed out Jack Chick, and you could perhaps include Phil Phillips, one of the more prominent anti-cartoon crusaders. I've considered an article on A. Wyatt Mann (creator of various neo-Nazi cartoons - I'm sure you've all seen them at some point) and David Dees, whose work could be considered political cartoons. Other articles could be Truth for Youth and Diversity Lane...Balaam (talk) 10:22, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Intrade

Anyone here use intrade? I just signed up for an account, but putting money into it is ridiculously hard. If you want to use a credit card you need a minimum of $25 (I was thinking of doing closer to $10) as well as a card issued by a non-American bank, apparently. My wire transfer didn't go through, so that just leaves a personal check, mailed to Ireland and needing to be cleared (ie the election will be over before I actually get funds in my account). Why no paypal? Anyway, I thought I'd take Andy's advice and buy a few shares of Jeb at 33 cents each, as well as a buck's worth of Daniels at 7. Andy should totally buy the "none of the above" option for President (which would include Jeb), for $150 he stands to make almost 10 grand. He would also win with McCotter, Rubio, Rand Paul, West, DeMint, Cuccinelli, or Jindal, all of whom are in his top 20. Anyway, anyone here using this? If so, what are you buying? Turpis 3:16 (talk) 18:14, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

The only gambling I do is on the NYSE or NASDAQ. I would of figured Andy would be against gambling... TheCheat^{I run on alcohol} 18:39, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

It's not gambling if you're sure to win! Turpis 3:16 (talk) 19:01, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I think I remember having to buy some $50 visa gift cards at walgreens in order to deposit cash for online poker, you may be able to do the same with intrade. I am thinking about shorting all the non romney / santorum republican nominee bets, seems like an easy ~5% ROI. TheCheat^{I run on alcohol} 20:25, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I use it. Don't buy Jeb or Daniels, you're just throwing away your money. I have bought Romney for the primary and Obama for the general. I've actually been holding for a long time, and while I'm down on the former, I'm up on the latter.--^talk 22:39, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

The smart money is on Fishoutofwater in the 4:55 at Bangor. DeltaStar_{Senior Sysop}^{Speciationspeed!} 00:35, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, but then you're just betting on the favorites, which gets you, what, $10 on a $8 bet? A dollar gets you 14 shares of Daniels, so you're losing basically nothing, and on the remote chance he does get the nomination, you're looking at $140. Probably throwing a tiny bit of money away, but still. Also, longshots are a lot more fun. Turpis 3:16 (talk) 00:39, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Longshots are more fun and more lucrative, but they're also longshots for a reason. And these are very longshots that are, if anything, at too short of odds right now. To me it would seem like a dollar bet on Jeb or Daniels is a dollar you might as well just burn.

Of course, I'm not really much of a gambler, to be honest. I bet on InTrade solely to make money, and then not even that much capital. I just don't know much about stocks or mutual funds or the like, so this is one area where I can actually utilize my level of information to make money. If I could bet on literature, I would.--^talk 00:57, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I'd rank Daniels or Jeb ahead of Gingrich or Paul. Only 2 guys stand any chance of getting enough delegates to win outright: Romney or Santorum. The chance of it going to the convention is small, but larger than it's been in living memory. If that happens, and if one of the above two can't secure the nom, we're looking at Jeb, Daniels, Christie, or a handful of others. I reckon that's better odds than he's currently selling for. Romney's certainly the most likely, but he's not a sure thing (though looking better after tonight, meaning his odds will improve and they payoff will be less). I'd throw down a dollar on Daniels, fully expecting to lose, but doing quite well if he does get the nomination. Turpis 3:16 (talk) 04:10, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

If it goes to the convention, which is unlikely, then what will happen is that the other guys will broker with Romney for concessions in exchange for delegates. The nomination of a guy who has not been vetted, not had to debate, has no campaign structure, has gotten zero votes, and has no money, would take them from a small chance of victory to almost certain and massive defeat. The odds are, in my opinion, about ten thousand to one against Daniels, and a hundred thousand to one against Jeb. If you're right, you'll be able to really rub this in my face, but any bet on either figure at any worse rate of return is just throwing away money.--^talk 05:12, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Against their winning the election, or just becoming the nominee? Peter ^{Monomorium antarcticum} 06:03, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Winning the election, although odds for the nomination aren't much better.--^talk 06:12, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm talking about winning the nomination. The odds of Daniels becoming President are much smaller (shares probably cost a few cents per $10 payoff, but I can't tell for sure right now as the site seems to be down; you can't even buy odds on Jeb, you have to go with none of the above). And sure, you're right, AD, the chances are small that it will go to the convention, and if it does Romney will probably secure the nomination after a few rounds of voting. But, on the other hand, if his campaign stumbles further, and he can't win over the conservative wing he hasn't yet been able to secure, well, something very strange could happen. I admit his wins tonight further establish his frontrunner status, but this has been a very odd election cycle thus far, and it's clear there is still some hunger for anyone but these dickheads. Just because something hasn't happened doesn't mean it won't. And these guys have been vetted, not quite at the Presidential level, but a race for governor of a major state is about as close as it gets (Jeb Bush in particular should have few unknowns). Yeah, I wouldn't put real money on anyone but Romney, but a dollar is something I simply wouldn't miss. Also, if somehow Jeb does get the nomination, 80 odd bucks or whatever would make Andy's gloating a little more tolerable. Turpis 3:16 (talk) 06:21, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for sucking all the fun out of gambling. This is like hearing the stock report. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 06:17, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Fishoutofwater came In second, just in case anyone was interested. Генгис^{Gum disease} 21:25, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

A certain somebody we'd rather forget

Has gotten even weirder. Even by his own standards. The Symphony of Punk ^{Can't sleep, clowns will eat me!} 15:14, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Holy fuck, Batman! -- Seth Peck (talk) 15:42, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Giving Gene Ray a run for his money. ^narchist 15:44, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

..what the hell?--il'Dictator Mikal 16:42, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I always took him for a Poe, but this strongly suggests that he really is as mad as a clown's cock. Good for him. ^_^ --MtD^{Pinko Scum} 19:23, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't get it. His pages just stress the conservative vs liberal views on issues and doesn't state where his "religion" stands on the issues. Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 10:07, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

It's 'cuz it'd be easier to box him in on his illogic, and he's terrified of that. The Symphony of Punk ^{Can't sleep, clowns will eat me!} 15:13, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Conservation success story - well, almost

this is great. Seems these guy rescued a dying population of walking sticks. Now all they have to do is convince locals that walking sticks are cute and cuddly, so the locals help kill the rats which almost wiped out the Sticks. :-) --Godotoi, putain, genial, merci 16:53, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I would prefer such things just die. They make my skin crawl. AMassiveGay (talk) 18:19, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I feel that way about humans sometimes. TheCheat^{I run on alcohol} 18:31, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

They're cyyyuuuuuuuuuuutttte Sophie^{because liberals} 18:36, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

If we got rid of everything that we considered "icky," the world would be totally fucked ecologically speaking. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 02:28, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

But Mitt would have a clear run in the primaries. Sophie^{because liberals} 11:32, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

It gets worse

If you're Rick Santorum.

spreadingsantorum.com is no longer the number one Google result for his last name.

The new result is even worse. MDB (talk) 19:42, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I know I've started using it in fairly common parlance. ^moral 11:22, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

What we already know

Study shows that the powerful and privileged are more likely to lie, cheat and steal. Pongo^{Orangutans are sceptical} 10:04, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Or possibly, those who lie, cheat and steal are more likely to become powerful and privileged. --94.192.127.84 (talk) 14:38, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Sherrif Joe weighs in on eligibility

I've been waiting for this for a long time! Face, meet palm. Occasionaluse (talk) 20:02, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I can't take someone whose nickname is 'Sheriff Joe' seriously on issues like whether our mulatto Kenyan Muslim president is eligible to run the country. An American Fallacy ^{(super crazy fun time!)} 20:05, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't think WND was technologically ready for live streaming... :( Occasionaluse (talk) 20:07, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

So this jackass of a sherrif that thinks he is above federal law (cause somehow sheriffs are the stalwart and only constructional police or something) is going to tells us why he thinks obama isn't president? These people just make me so tired. Godotoi, putain, genial, merci 20:12, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

ITS A FORGERY!!!! YEAH!!!! (surprize surprize)Godotoi, putain, genial, merci 21:57, 1 March 2012 (UTC)http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57388911-503544/sheriff-joe-arpaio-suggests-obamas-birth-certificate-is-a-forgery/

I absolutely love that he's spending my tax dollars on this crap. It's like he's having a contest to see how much he can fuck up and still get reelected by xenophobic morons. Cow...Hammer^time! 22:09, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

How is it this guy isn't already fired for misusing state resources for a partisan political witch hunt? It's bad enough that there are enough racist, frothing nutjobs in Arizona without them having access to taxpayer funds to prosecute their racism. --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 23:20, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Money. Not the money Joe has protecting him, the money he makes for Democrats and issues groups every time he opens his mouth on a topic. If he says something's bad, the pro side have a ready made ad campaign. -- Iscariot ^{Andy Schlafly for Congress 2012!} 03:26, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

He wasn't spending taxpayers money. He had group of voluntary idiots read WND do an in depth investigation using money he has fleeced out of other idiots through some 503(c) he runs for some inexplicable reason. - π 05:04, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

On Dieting

You know, I'd really like someone to give a rational review to the documentary Fat Head, which (supposedly) refutes Super Size Me and claims that carbs are bad, fat is good, meat is good, etc. -- you know, an article that examines the major arguments set forth by it. Anyone else seen it? MarcusCicero (talk) 22:47, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Diet woo is one of the areas where it's virtually impossible for the public to get reliable accessible non-partisan information. I came up against this when I was working on the MSG article. There are a ton of websites & other sources saying "MSG is evil", plus quite a lot saying "don't believe the hype; it's harmless". Both are pretty low on checkable facts, & there's just nothing out there that presents the research clearly & lets the readers decide for themselves. Ŵêâŝêîôîď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 23:36, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, right now I don't know what to believe about carbs and fat and meat and all that delicious goodness. I think I'll just eat McDonalds every day and ignore the consequences. CowHammer (talk) 23:39, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

MSG is a salt of an amino acid. Every human has a LOT of glutamic acid in his body. Anything that occurs in substantial quantities in every living organism is very, very unlikely to be harmful. (Note: substantial, so e.g. hormones and hormone-mimicking substances are not in this category.) --Tweenk (talk) 02:07, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Most of the woo-meisters play on the fact that glutamate can act as an excitotoxin in the brain, though. The catch is, though, that you need a seriously weakened blood-brain barrier (BBB) for that to make a difference. Quite a bit of neurological quackery seems to prey on the fact that the lay person doesn't know that the BBB exists. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 02:24, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Eat McDonalds if you're hungry. Don't eat anything if you're not. Note that "bored" is not a synonym for "hungry" and nor are "lonely", "sad" or any other emotional states. Congratulations your diet is now far healthier than that of most Americans living in the 21st century. 82.69.171.94 (talk) 00:42, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Better idea: eat the chicken sandwich, the nuggets or the chicken salad, order tea instead of the soda, and skip fries. It will still be high sodium, but not nearly as shitty as the standard fare. I don't give the brand names because there is in fact quite a bit of regional variability. For example in these parts there is a sandwich called "WieśMac" that has a beef burger, lettuce, onions, tomato and mayo-mustard sauce. --Tweenk (talk) 02:07, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I doubt that. 72.38.27.39 (talk) 00:48, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

or BON makes one of the fundamental problems of people who are skinny looking at those of us who are fat. One of the reasons diet woo, and true nutrition advice is so hard is because we do not fully understand the entire problem. people who are thin "eat when they are hungry", or like my husband, over eat when they are hungry, and stay thin. People like me can eat lettuce all day, or eat a well rounded meal, and not lose. I get looked at when i get a normal protion of food, and get a desert, just like every other person at the table, cause i'm "eating too much". yeah... right... The book Fat Head is very very losely based on, goes at lenght to show that regardless of what does work, traditional diets do not work, cause they leave people always feeling hungry. But hey, thanks for playing, dear BON.Godotoi, putain, genial, merci 01:21, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

By the way, Cow, the issue with carbs is not that complex or problamatic. LowER carbs, and healthy carbs (vs., white rice, sugar, white flour) is a fine way to live. the trouble is that many of the popular low carb diets are also HIGH SATURATED FAT. they hand wave to blow this off, but it is a very real deal. Also, high protien diets are not really good for your body long term, 6 months or more, due to the work your liver and kidneys have to do. (Atkins is the single worst of these, as there is rarely any consideration to the types of meats and fats you are consuming) Godotoi, putain, genial, merci 01:25, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Fucking Nihilist. I hate that sig. 'Twasn't me. Cow...Hammer^time! 15:53, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

For the most part, people with "I just can't lose weight!" attitudes are stupid, lazy, or, rarely, have glandular problems. It's comes down to a simple equation. Find your basal metabolic rate, adjust for your activity and calculate an approximation of your caloric needs. Eat less than that and you're basically guaranteed to lose weight because weight loss is not fucking magic. Occasionaluse (talk) 13:58, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

When people say that they overweight because of a glandular problem, it's usually the salivary glands. Steven Kavanagh (talk) 15:36, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

And people with 'I just can't stop smoking!' attitudes are stupid and lazy, and people with 'I can't stop being shy!' attitudes are stupid and lazy, and people with 'I just can't stop gambling!' are stupid and lazy, et al. So, obviously, anyone with a problem or addiction that they haven't yet solved must be stupid or lazy -- otherwise, they would have solved their problem or addiction.

I want to strangle people like you. TheAmazingAtheist (talk) 15:41, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Aww, you lack willpower. That must be horrible. Poor you. That's not lazy or stupid, it's... well. And good luck strangling me...I'm almost certainly in much better shape than you are. Occasionaluse (talk) 18:19, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I dont' know if you are joking or not, dear OC, (i can never tell) but trust me, losing weight is extremly hard to do, especially once you are over weight. Not only is your body and mind now used to eating more than you should, you likely are less active because you are overwight, which means your metabolism is lower, which means you are buring the cals you do burn far slower. You generally have bad knees, making too much athletics hard, and frankly, you try to live on 1200 cals and figure out how to do that without feeling like you are starving every day. Your body holds fat when you start to diet, cause of the proven "stavation mode" where it thinks you are going into winter, and frankly, a woman's body is designed to hold fat so we can protect our unborn and newly born with large stores of fat in reserves. When I was 22, I was very atheltic, professional scuba diver, sailed, climbed mountains, etc., then I had my thryoid removed, and put on 60 lb in one year. I've never been able to lose it. I was 110 then and am nearly 200 now. I can "lose" 5 or 10" here and there, but it just goes back on the minute I stop cutting every bit of pleasure out of my diet. And my story is not unique. Godotoi, putain, genial, merci 19:12, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Trust me, losing weight is actually easy, it's just not fun. I lost 90lbs in 9 months 10 years ago. I "worked" my way back up to 235 and lost 60 over the last 4 months. Cooking broccoli and putting it in your mouth is easy, and I don't even like broccoli. Not ordering a pizza is also really easy. Fun? Hell no. Easy, yeah. Occasionaluse (talk) 19:18, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Trust me, it really isn't. :-) I probably now know more about nutrition than nutirionist. (heh, not really, but you knwo what I mean). I cook my own food, i eat "the right things", etc. But it's really not possible, the way most people think it is. At 1200 cals per week, I was losing .5 lb every two weeks on my weigh in. (well, after the first ten, but teh doc said "sorry, that's water weight", ok). In 6 months I'd lost about 17 lbs total. I was writing every thing I was eating. 6 months, not eating any white pasta, or any bread, or any cake (most all my sugar came from fruit, which yes, i measured. ;-) Now, that i tell you i have no thyroid, and because i put so much weight on in one year, might be something to consider. but i do just think it's not as easy as eveyone says. but I'm really amazed you did it, and have kept it off! congrats) (and who knew I'd be talking diets on RW...)Godotoi, putain, genial, merci 19:34, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

The thyroid problem will fuck your shit up. A broscience-y rule of thumb is a 7,000 calorie deficit to lose a pound. At 1,200 a day, you might be in the hole as little as 400-600 (depending on activity or lack thereof), so your weight loss actually sounds good to me. You're right, though, you're definitely in a much tougher spot than I ever was. Occasionaluse (talk) 19:39, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, because anyone who doesn't find it as easy as you did is stupid, lazy, and lacks willpower.

I hope you're trolling me. An American Fallacy ^{(super crazy fun time!)} 19:43, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Not putting cake in your mouth is easy. It takes, like, zero muscles. Is it fun? No. I never said it was fun. In fact, it sucks dick. Occasionaluse (talk) 19:48, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

And not taking that next puff of smoke is also easy. An American Fallacy ^{(super crazy fun time!)} 20:08, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

See, Fat Head made the argument that saturated fat is good for you, or at the very least isn't bad. SuperJosh (talk) 01:37, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

The deniers crack me up. The one at work got all the way through the sentence "Haven't had anything all day except one sandwich" before she remembered that two of the people listening to her had been offered slices of the chocolate and walnut cake she'd eaten that morning. I'm sure in her head that cake didn't count. And probably nor does most of the food she eats. But sadly your metabolism is not in on the joke, all the food that goes in the stomach gets digested and used as fuel regardless of whether it "counts" or not. 82.69.171.94 (talk) 11:15, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Referring to argumentum ad tl;dr perhaps? ^gnostic 11:17, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I am not used to using a wiki so if I entirely muck up this page I apologize more than I can possibly say, but I am a lurker coming out of hiding to say this: I am fat. I have two medical conditions that cause me to gain weight around my midsection. However, the problem still boils down to--not my laziness, as I am very active--but my lack of willpower. The point at which this can be defined as an "addiction" is irrelevant. I can and have lost weight and kept it off by modifying my diet to accommodate these medical conditions. They can be managed largely through the foods I eat, supplemented with drugs (not weight loss drugs, drugs for the actual conditions). Unfortunately one of the drugs I take is ALSO known to cause weight gain.

I know, rationally, that I can be thin. And stay that way. But until you are put into a position where every meal out and every get-together with friends is an endless test of your willpower--where everyone around you is saying things like "how can a tortilla chip possibly hurt you?"--you cannot understand what it is like.

I compare it frequently to having a food allergy, except that I am lucky enough that instead of dying if I eat certain things, I merely get fat and tired instead. It is a very large category of things. Most of the things are the things that constitute cheap groceries, as well, so in addition to the mental and emotional strain, I am pairing it with a mild but noticeable financial strain, and I am on a tight budget as it is.

But I don't say all this to make excuses for the fact that I am fat. I have no one to blame but myself for the fact that I am fat. This is entirely a personality flaw and a personal shortcoming, and I am acutely aware of this. While other people may throw this up as the screen behind which they can loudly proclaim, "NOT MY FAULT," I am not one of them. I spent a year being in excellent shape, rigidly monitoring my intake, entirely avoiding sources of temptation, and reading labels every time I went shopping. I was smokin' hot and I felt great about myself. And then I decided I liked eating a baked potato for dinner more than I liked being thin.

So please--while some people will sit here and deny that they are the cause of their own weight gain (and indeed may possibly be telling the truth in some cases) please do not ascribe to me the same motives as these people. I won't sit here and lie about why I'm fat. I know perfectly well why I'm fat. I'm fat because I lack the willpower to be militant about my food choices and accommodate my "food allergy" properly. I'm fat because I want to eat "just like everyone else" and sometimes, I admit, far worse than everyone else.

Not all of us are totally unwilling to take responsibility.^{— Unsigned, by: 12.34.246.72 / talk / contribs}

When you say "how can a tortilla chip possibly hurt you" may I suggest that you really mean a wafer-thin mint. Генгис^{Gum disease} 19:05, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I hear you BON, and I think I do understand what it's like. I'm living it. I weighed 265 and went down to 175. Took about nine months. That was 10 years ago. Once you're on the other side, once you've proved to yourself that you can be in control, you can have a sort of "controlled chaos". The whole point is that you are in control of your good choices and bad choices. You still get to make both. It gets a lot easier. Occasionaluse (talk) 19:06, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't get easier. Or at least it didn't for me. I was a year in and I was still wanting to cry with frustration every time I was presented with potato salad or a piece of cake or a bowl of chips at a restaurant. I was not willing to wait longer than a year to stop wanting things that were bad for me, and I decided to just go ahead and make bad decisions. Again, perhaps a personal shortcoming, but I will not sit here listening to someone tell me that my cravings are just going to disappear. Mine never did (exception: cake. I still don't like cake even years later). My doctor has suggested that this, too, may be a perverse symptom of my disorder. Also I knew Mr. Creosote would be lurking behind that link and yet I clicked anyway! ^{— Unsigned, by: 12.34.246.72 / talk / contribs}

You have to make bad choices or you go insane. I was short on calories this afternoon so I decided to have some oreos. I crave shit all the time, but not putting something in your mouth is extremely easy, it's just not fun. Occasionaluse (talk) 19:21, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Raspberry Pi

Goddamnit. I've been following the Raspberry Pi project for almost a year now, waiting for my chance to get a slice. Then they announce two days ago that they will be on sale at 06:00GMT this morning. So I get up at 05:30 and sit there F5ing the fuck out of the site when eventually it gets announced. Links to the two supplers who you can buy them from! So I try both, and both have instantly been killed by literally millions of geeks like me the world over trying to buy one. Within minutes people were saying they've finally managed to get onto the site(s) and they've sold out. Amusingly, not only was #raspberrypi the top worldwide trend on twitter, but also the story was top of the BBC News most read articles, with the iPad article at #4.

Now I know what it's like to be an Apple fanboy :-\ Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 12:19, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I expect that most of those interested are not the intended market - i.e. schoolkids. I've been following this thing too and even suggested to HK that it might be something for his talents. Given the size of the thing I expect lots of miniature devices to appear which can be used for automation. Currently I have an old EeePC netbook which I use as a permanent airprint server for my iPad and hub for a Linksys cordless Skype phone. I don't have an internet-enabled TV but one of those and a bit of velcro would probably do the job quite nicely. Генгис^{Gum disease} 12:35, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm wanting to make a kitchen pi by plugging in a touchscreen and having shopping lists (syncable to my android phone), recipe searches, timers, and then plug in a USB relay which is wired to the mains and to a rice / slow cooker to make a sous vide controller. Fuck the schoolkids, I need my kitchen computer :D Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 12:59, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Here's a demo of it playing Quake3. I already have a home network with 8 port gigabyte switch and ethernet over mains to my outbuildings for wifi in my greenhouse. I can imagine having to upgrade my switch capacity if I got a few of these babies, especially if I get round to building an observatory. Генгис^{Gum disease} 13:35, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Why not just buy a Beagleboard, or any other single board computer? Other than having to shell out a little more, I'm not sure I really see the difference. --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 15:38, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I have read this section, I have read that webpage, I still have no fucking clue what it is. ^{d hominem} 15:44, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Tiny computer! Cow...Hammer^time! 15:46, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I see what the fuss is about now. ^bomination 15:47, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Tiny computer that comes without any i/o devices or long-term data storage. :) --ZooGuard (talk) 15:49, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

It's an exceptionally cheap ArmV6 development board, intended to teach kids about programming. Think of it like the BBC Micro of the modern era, they're clearly going for that nostalgia factor with their model A and B stuff. --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 15:50, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

So, you still have to buy a box and a monitor and everything? And with no I/O how do the kids save their work? --PsyGremlinKhuluma! 16:05, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

It has an SD card slot. Presumably you just go down to tescos and plunk your 5 quid down for a 2GB card or something. As for a box, are you a wimp or something? You just put it down on its antistatic bag when you aren't holding it :D --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 16:07, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

The 'B' model has ethernet ports so you can save stuff over a network, and you can use a TV as a monitor. I would imagine that someone smart will put a package together of a plastic case, power supply, assorted cables, small USB keyboard and mouse for ~£20. Генгис^{Gum disease} 16:20, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Cases are overrated. Someone I know has been running a perfectly fine PC made up of loose components wired together and put in a desk draw. ^moral 16:25, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Also, the thing you "can buy" (read: can't actually buy because as usual production estimates from the Far East were bullshit) today isn't what the kids will be seeing in schools. Schools will get roughly the same basic computer, but with a case, and supplied with more software, and probably instruction manuals and stuff for teachers, after the summer. RasberryPi correctly guessed that if you ship the "for kids" product first, millions of nerds stampede to obtain one, on the grey market if necessary, and the kids don't get a chance. Sell them to nerds up front half-finished and the nerds help you polish things, build up interest, and hand you piles of money you can use on the educational side later.

They've managed the enthusiasm fairly well, now they just need to hope that their Far Eastern manufacturing partners don't push the "3-4 week" estimate too much beyond the 8 weeks it has taken so far. I'd guess that in a week's time if none are arriving you'll start to see a backlash. 82.69.171.94 (talk) 17:45, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I'll give you 8:3 that the geeks and nerds forgot it takes a boat (customs to customs) 5 weeks to cross the Pacific. And that's without tsunamis. ħuman 04:40, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

To the wimp who suggested an antistatic bag; no, no, no, no, no. For that true nostalgic feeling it has be an old chopping board, preferably wood. That's how you do computing old school. And cases just get in the way of critical air cooling features, like blowing on it when necessary.-- ^{Spirit of the Cherry Blossom} 21:23, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

That's a good plan, really. You can always count on the nerds for cheap/free troubleshooting labour. ^pathetic 11:26, 1 March 2012 (UTC)