RationalWiki:Saloon bar/Archive226

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, (new)(back)

Street View Game

There's a game I found out about on Tumblr recently involving a site called MapCrunch which specializes in random Google Street Views. The rules are pretty simple, just go into options and turn on Stealth so you don't see the location, and hit Go. This is where you've been mysteriously teleported to. Now your goal is to find an airport so you can get home. Hardcore mode forbids you to use outside information like maps or search engines to figure out where you are. Usually I don't bother with that since it's challenging enough even figuring out what country I'm in at times, although I did manage to do it once. In any case, it's a great excuse for wandering around interesting places without a travel budget or passport.

Interesting things I've learned:

• They drive on the left in South Africa.
• The city of Odessa has more advertising signs than I've seen anywhere.
• Yamaguchi province in Japan is pretty much exactly what I expected it to be like.
• Iceland is a lot flatter than I expected.
• The countryside in Estonia is surprisingly similar to New Brunswick, but less hilly.
• There are some seriously gorgeous views in the northern Czech Republic, near the border with Germany. Národní park to be specific.
• Street signs on every intersection seems to be a rarity in much of the world.
• Dying villages in Turkey have a sort of sad grace about them, and contain a surprising number of horse carts.

What surprises me most is how addictive this all is. A good way to waste a few hours, for sure. --Kels (talk) 16:45, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

+1 Scream!! (talk) 11:10, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

*trying to guess what country I've landed in by barn architecture* Sophie^Wilder 11:31, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Pretty cool, but I don't have the patience for the bit about finding my way to an airport. Going along roads between towns a little bit at a time is too tedious; a pity that's no way of skipping ahead on long stretches. But it's fun to amble around for a few minutes till I can sortof guess approximately where in the world I am, before jumping to somewhere else. Wèàšèìòìď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 11:35, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

The only thing you took from SA is that we drive on the left?? squints at Kels PsyGremlin^Prata! 11:49, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Did you notice that MapCrunch is an anagram of CrapMunch? --93.71.84.221 (talk) 11:57, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, keep in mind that I spent most of my time on the roads and didn't spend much time in the cities (I ended up some distance east of George) so how folks drive comes up pretty naturally. Other than that...the fertile valleys between the mountains were pretty cool, although not very many settlements there. I got more of a feel for the local life in Sao Paolo, Brazil, since I got dropped in one of the poorer districts (not a slum, just an "unfashionable" urban area). --Kels (talk) 12:37, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Go to Antarctica and you can see the Google Man's shadow as he walks along. Sophie^Wilder 12:56, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

The 'tour' & 'auto' features are a cool way of looking around. Select one country with tour & auto set to 10 seconds for a series of 360 views in different locations there. Or leave it with all countries selected, stealth on & auto set to 1 minute. You now have 1 minute to move around & guess which country you're in (reveal by unselecting stealth) before you're teleported to the next location. Wéáśéĺóíď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 13:11, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Okay, here's a game variation:

• Select 'stealth' and 'tour' (optional), leave all countries unselected, and hit 'go' for your starting location. Your objective is to find your way home.
• When you see any signage, you can google search for info.
• When you meet people (i.e. pedestrians in the foreground, not in vehicles or way off in the distance), they can tell you where you are, so turn off 'stealth' temporarily to check your location. Turn it back on as you move on.
• When you find a bus station or bus stop, you can choose to catch a bus. Select the country you're in and hit 'go' for a new random location in the same country.
• The same with train stations, but you can also select 'urban' to get a new city location.
• When you reach a seaport, select one or more nearby countries that have a coastline and hit 'go' for your next location.
• When you reach an airport, you can select your home country (or other countries for more random travelling) and hit 'go' for your next location.
• Once in your home country, try to find your way home. You can keep using buses & trains as above.
• Add any other rules or options you think up.

₩€₳$€£ΘĪÐ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 15:06, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

I find that even with Googling street signs and such it can still be a challenge to find out exactly where you are. When I was "in" Odessa, I wasn't even sure what city I was in until after I found the airport. Doing a run in Japan, it took me well over an hour to pin down what province I was in, given how hard it is to Google kanji using an english keyboard. --Kels (talk) 19:05, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Is it cheating if you hitch a lift in the google car? Sophie^Wilder 09:53, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Not really, given that you're the one setting the rules. Personally I've given up on the game to take a cross-Canada virtual road trip using Street View. I'm almost to New Brunswick after taking some detours to places I lived and the farm I grew up on. --Kels (talk) 14:47, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Ha! Typical: get everyone hooked & then bugger off to another drug occupation. :-) Scream!! (talk) 15:01, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

There's a similar thing called 'Geoguessr' which is actually set up as a challenge. It shows you a streetview and you click on the map where you think it is - you score more points the closer you are. The normal one is here and there's a beta which also allows you to select a particular region - so you can just play in the UK or USA etc. here. Enormously addictive. But some lessons I have learned.

• Brazil is huge. Turns up way more than you expect.
• A lot of Russia and most of the east has not been mapped.
• Some towns really need to work on their signage
• America needs less roads. Playing in the UK means if I find a road number I can quickly get to within a few miles. In the US it takes me half an hour just to find that road, and it might not even be the right one because numbers seem to get reused.

Worm (talk) 15:03, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

"What? Why the Hell is there a Parthenon in Nashville?"

" A lot of Russia and most of the east has not been mapped." On the other hand, would anybody with the slightest hint of sanity enter Siberia? --|₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{Flipping out the buttered fuck crumpets} 20:17, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

One important lesson from playing these map games is that all roads do not, in fact, lead to you. --Kels (talk) 01:03, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Both MapCrunch and Geoguessr are amazingly addictive and fun. What kind of scores are people getting with Geoguessr? I'm proud of the ~17,000 I managed to get, without using internet searches, helped largely by a guess within 5km on the outskirts of Hong Kong. --Marlow (talk) 18:43, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Some light reading with your tequila?

We're all going to hell.^img --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 00:20, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

And that's why Jack Chick knows to never give money to homeless people--"Shut up, Brx." 00:25, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I always knew the secret behind alcohol was a devil inside the bottle. --|₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{Flipping out the buttered fuck crumpets} 02:23, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

That's no worm! --Kels (talk) 02:46, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I wonder if Chick ever read those parts of the Bible where Jesus drank wine. The one where he miracles up the equivalent of multiple kegs for a party is pretty well-known. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 04:29, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Would it be legal for an on duty police officer to start preaching like that? Spud (talk) 05:34, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Way to infringe on Christians' right to use government resources and authority to be preachy assholes.--"Shut up, Brx." 06:41, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

BoN, some teetotal (or at least supposedly so) Christian sects assert that Jesus was drinking a non-alcoholic grape beverage which has been mistranslated as wine. "Re-translating" the Bible so that it doesn't say things you disagree with is a long tradition among Christians. Tialaramex (talk) 08:11, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Chick is a KJV only guy--"Shut up, Brx." 14:24, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

If you really squint , they have kind of a point. Wine as understood in around 35 BCE has little to do with modern wine (it would be a liqueur rather than liquor if Jesus-era wine were made today). But yes, it was still alcoholic. --|₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{Flipping out the buttered fuck crumpets} 15:19, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Eh? I don't think that's right. Sure, a wine made two thousand years ago in Palestine will be somewhat different to a 2001 Chateauneuf du Pape. But if anything, it's likely to be more vinegary rather than a sweet liqueur. And wine was certainly alcoholic and it was fashionable to dilute it. Ajkgordon (talk) 18:24, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, the liqueur was the wrong thing to compare it from. Also, Sauternes is best wine, you Chauteauneuf heretic. --|₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{Flipping out the buttered fuck crumpets} 19:28, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

What a boring webcomic. Why would anyone read that. --93.71.84.221 (talk) 18:02, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

It's classic! Also, this marks the first time I'm aware of that Chick has spoken out against alcohol in and of itself. It's quite the ideological shift. And we here have quite an interest in people like Jack Chick and their beliefs. I suppose it's not interesting to everybody--"Shut up, Brx." 18:41, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

It's not an ideological shift at all. He's been having a pop at alcohol for years. Typical of his sort of evangelical puritanical baptism. Ajkgordon (talk) 19:33, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

For every bottle of wine he won't drink, I'll drink three. --|₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{Flipping out the buttered fuck crumpets} 20:03, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Huh. I've read a ton of Chick tracts. I've never noticed anything particular about alcohol. My bad. I still find it interesting.--"Shut up, Brx." 21:07, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I think that the fashion of the time was to dilute 'wine' with water, vinegar and perhaps some honey. As others have pointed out the wine was more alcoholic than modern wine due to their inability to properly control the fermentation process. Beer would have been quite rare in Roman occupied Arabia as it was associated with the barbarian Germanic tribes and was consequently quite unfashionable. The dilution of wine could be as high as 2 parts water 1 parts wine - which, in my opinion, makes the water to wine miracle much easier to understand. All old mate had to do was duck into the kitchen where the half empty jugs of water were sitting.

Furthermore I have some highly scientific facts about wine: Sauternes are good but overpriced and outmatched by the average Barsac (yes, including the infamous d'Yquem). Champagnes from France are very drinkable; and well-aged Vouvray / young Chablis can be mouth-meltingly good. Everything else the French do is basically pig-swill. Fact.Tielec01 (talk) 05:05, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Trolololol! Champagnes from France indeed! Ajkgordon (talk) 09:01, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Fine, sparkling wine from Champagne is drinkable; I do appreciate some good pedantry. Tielec01 (talk) 09:06, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

It ain't pedantry. It's just champagne. I had some amazing Gaillac sparkling wine the other day. Other regions used to be able to call their wines "methode champagnoise" but not any more. It was very very good. Bit like some of the lowland Cavas. Ajkgordon (talk) 09:33, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Shill shill shill

So, say hello to the multiplayer freeware space shooter rts, Gate 88 made by the creators of Sound Shapes. I've been playing a bit and it's quite fun. TL:DR, play it.--Madman (talk) 22:13, 6 May 2014 (UTC)The Madman

Browser-based game thread? Try Solarmax. Osaka Sun (talk) 22:43, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Obligatory runescape plug was posted here--Mikal | lakiM 01:18, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm in the wrong place. I came here to see what somebody was saying "Shit! shit! shit!" about. Spud (talk) 07:00, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Tequila Day

According to the Holydaze template, it's Tequila Day tomorrow. Can anyone corroborate this? National Tequila Day (in the USA) appears to be sometime in July. Cinco de Mayo is tomorrow but doesn't seem to be especially associated with Tequila from what I can tell.

Shouldn't there be some May the Fourth thing for the high concentration of Star Wars nerds here too? ωεαşεζøίɗ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 16:19, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

With regrets expressed to the long-standing editor who made the template that way, that was racist. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 16:55, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Wha-wha? An aging white guy living in rural New Hampshire who thinks gentrification is awesome is racist? Heaven forfend! Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 02:46, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Never said he is racist. Choosing distilled fermented agave juice to be a synecdoche for all of Mexico is, how shall I say, a bit sketchy. I don't think we should call it "muchacho sitting leaning against a wall snoozing the afternoon away with his sombrero down over his face" day, either. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 13:36, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Reminds me of the recent American Atheists misstep on Twitter regarding Cinquo de Mayo. Need to be a bit more attentive to stuff like this overall. --Kels (talk) 18:27, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

A Mexican friend of mine refers to the fifth of May as Gringo de Mayo, because more often than not, it's used as an excuse by white people to party and drink tequila.--"Shut up, Brx." 17:50, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, I am mexican, and I find America's obsession with political correctness outstanding. The American Atheists "gaffe" is not to be offended by, but to be made (slightly) fun of. I don't think any mexican (who grew up in mexican culture) would be offended by it, merely laugh at it a bit. Also, we don't get offended by sterotypes, such as someone choosing tequila to represent all Mexico, or someone who thinks we all ride donkeys in our sombreros. I remember a year or two ago, some sorority hosted a mexican party and took a picture of themselves with sarapes and sombreros and it was a scandal... well, no one I know thought it was even slightly offensive. After all, when we host theme parties, we dress like that sterotype. We in fact make fun of everything, from something innocuous to social stereotypes to tragedies... I remember one Halloween when someone went disguised as the Twin Towers being hit, and I myself last year went disguised as a catholic priest with a little male doll by my side. When I worked in Los Angeles as a software developer, there were a lot of Indians and Canadians, and it was usual for my friends and I to give each other a hard time... I would say something like "really? You need a passport to go to Canada?", and they would say "well, at least we can drink the water". Growing up, the darkest kid in the classroom would be "el negro" (blackie), the whitest would be "güero" (blondie), the shortest was the midget, the tallest the giraffe, the one with spiked hair would be "el pelos", and so on and so forth. Oh, as for the original question, Cinco de Mayo is a national holiday in Mexico because when the French invaded us in the 19th century, the only resistance we managed to put was on The Battle of Puebla, precisely on May 5th. I know from personal experience that a lot of americans think it is our independence day, and apparently some think it is also Tequila Day :P ... Salud!! Danoso (talk) 15:20, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't know what is the prevailing thought, but there are some people of Mexican ethnicity who get offended by a fictional Mexican character being a luchador who uses moves called "Fajita Buster", "Quesadilla Bomb" or "Guacamole Leg Throw". Then again, there are some who aren't offended and just find it funny or stupid. Attitudes are never consistent. Nullahnung (talk) 15:46, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Danoso, for that eloquent clarification. You might be able to help out at Template_talk:Holydaze/0916. Sometimes we do take things too seriously for our own good. One place where I used to work had a lot of central and south Americans on the roster... the one they called Negra was in fact Peruvian with chocolate-colored skin; el moreno was a Puerto Rican guy, and so on. The only Mexican was named Dionicio, which is exactly what we called him, because he was a bulky jovial guy with the body type of a born celebrator. My reading of this whole thing goes along with with the difficulty of targeting humor at an internet audience of unknown composition. What works live and in person doesn't always come across well in a text presentation. Be well! Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 16:03, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

We should probably trim some of the Holydaze templates rather than adding to them. Генгис^{You have the right to be offended; and I have the right to offend you.} 16:43, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, fuck, welcome to the real world

Hail Satan

Hey, if you want freedom of expression, speech and religious proclamation then you have to accept the consequences. I'd rather neither but fuck, if you have one then you must accept the other outcome. Aceⁱ⁹ 08:15, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Exposing that double standard has been the motivation behind this campaign from the beginning. It's a very entertaining piece of "Satanist" trolling. Bismarck (talk) 10:22, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Needs more goat. Wëäŝëïöïď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 11:06, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

These, by the way, are the "satanists" that fundies join and then pretend is equivalent with atheism, when they "reconvert". They never develop the maturity to recognize that people might make religious statements facetiously, and it leads to a lot of the stereotypes the rest of us have to put up with. Ikanreed (talk) 13:35, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

^{[citation needed]} Wéáśéĺóíď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 14:54, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

If they actually install such a statue, that upraised hand needs to be built on a titanium armature, wth a reparable finish. So many marble busts from antiquity, so few noses left. It would be shocking (shocking, I say) if some passing vandal were to take a swing at it with anything like a hammer. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 15:23, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Shouldn't the hand be making this gesture anyway? Weaseloid^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 15:27, 5 May 2014 (UTC) ---------->

Would be a nice venue for some death metal. Raysenn ^{The roses! The rose! It's in my eyes!} --17:25, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

What you're seeing isn't the finished thing. The actual statue is going to be made of bronze, not stone, and as Greaves says "I wouldn’t expect these outraged and nearly insensible reactionaries to actually know how to assault a bronze monument without severely hurting themselves in the process." Compro01 (talk) 17:06, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

In keeping with the 10 Commandments theme, they should deal with it like Moses did the Golden Calf (Exodus 32:20). Wëäŝëïöïď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 17:21, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

If that picture showed the hand from the other side it would be the answer to "how does a driller order four beers?" Генгис^evolving 16:47, 8 May 2014 (UTC)Ή

So riddled with bullshit my eyes bled and my pancreas fucked off to the pub

So I tried (and for some reason, continue to) watch this pile of horse shit. 47 minutes in, which actually took over 2 hours due to watch to frequent WTF? pauses, and my body is rejecting the entire spectrum of dishonesty. Bleeding eyes, no fucking pancreas, failing kidneys, enlarged heart and an upset coccyx. I am but a husk - watch at your leisure. Aceⁱ⁹ 08:47, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I had the same feeling watching the Zeitgeist film. Bismarck (talk) 08:52, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree with you on Zeitgeist but this beast is much worse. It's an intellectually challenged minotaur being unable to find you in a straight corridor of its own design. Bold statements such as "There are several known cures to cancer but Big Phara raped Shiva at Bretton Woods and produced the Nazi blood-line which is coursing through the veins of the elite" cause muscle spams at the thought of people I know taking such things seriously, making me wonder why I'd be friends with them. This is a problem of monumental importance. Anyway I lied about the quote but the 'producer' did say "There are several known cures to cancer but big pharma...etc". I listened intently to this, wanting to know what magic ingredient he might have on offer was but apparently it was cannabis. It seems doctors are in league with the NWO and the cancer medication actually hastens and abets cancer, however this plan appears to have back-fired. Aceⁱ⁹ 09:05, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

My phone won't let me watch it. I'm not sure whether I should be disappointed or relieved. DØØM MĖSSIÅH ^{Take that, motherfucker!} 12:26, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

You should fix your signature. Bismarck (talk) 12:44, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

What's wrong with it? DØØM MĖSSIÅH ^{Take that, motherfucker!} 12:45, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Since this is a youtube link (as in I can't view it from here), can you tell me what sort of nonsense they're spewing? Zero (talk) 12:48, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

It's about a guy on the Internet asking someone to watch and describe a video to him. Weird, right? 14:04, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘*Gives Nutty a Noogie* Oh come on you. Zero (talk) 14:35, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

At 59:40 There's a | book called "Psychotropic drugs in the year 2000; use by normal humans," that's not a scary name. Probably could have picked a better name. "Based on papers and a panel discussion originally presented at a meeting of the Study Group for the Effects of Psychotropic Drugs on Normal Humans which was held during the annual meeting of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology in Puerto Rico, 1967." Skinnytony1 (talk) 14:53, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Can't watch youtube at work, but if I had to guess, we're all pawns in the NWO's scheme, and each of us is designed as a tool to control the others. The Hobbesian in me actually finds that an intellectually appealing construction for society. Ikanreed (talk) 15:24, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Unlike some of you, I am able to watch it. I just choose not to. How do you like them apples? ΨΣΔξΣΓΩΙÐ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 17:02, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

You have saved yourself from the pain of seven lifetimes. ---|₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{Flipping out the buttered fuck crumpets} 19:55, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Need help at the Cato Institute

He's off his rocker. I can't follow his argument or anything here apart from desiring to take a drink. Please help. Zero (talk) 18:43, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Burkean needs to calm the fuck down, but "supports the right of North Korea to invade the ROK" sounds like Neocon codswallop ("If you're not with us..."), not snark. --TheLateGatsby (The end of the dock ) 19:11, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't know what's going on, but I suspect someone messed up with reading comprehension (could be me). (or I could blame it on the article writer for not writing clearly) Nullahnung (talk) 19:46, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Check the differences -my mistake for talking about it here instead of on the talk page. --TheLateGatsby (The end of the dock ) 19:59, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

RationalMedia Foundation Website

This has been mentioned in passing a few times but I want to make the official announcement in a more prominent way. The RationalMedia Foundation owns RationalWiki and oversees the management of our infrastructure and support. During our initial stages of incorporation we used the wiki as our primary means of communication and publication, but as the Foundation has grown we have decided to start a website just for it.

This offers a coherent location to catch all Foundation related documentation and relevant publications. It also offers some potential avenues to extend the Foundation beyond just this project. RationalWiki is our flag ship project and always will be but we have several communities all ready that are separate from just the wiki. These include our social media groups such as Twitter and Facebook, our management of the evowiki website, as well as our multi-language projects which just has Russian at the moment but there is discussion of expanding this. There are also other potential projects as we move forward. As the community extends in different directions a centralized location for the Foundation makes a lot of sense.

So moving forward we will be fishbowling the existing Foundation material on RationalWiki proper and moving over relevant portions to the website, and new publications will come out from the website.

I would encourage everyone to check it out. I would particularly like to highlight our report on the 2014 Fundraiser. Below are links:

• RationalMedia Foundation main page
• 2014 Fundraiser Report

We also be using this for publishing agenda and minutes from board meetings, monthly financial reports, tax documentation, and other general publications related to the RMF and our role. Please feel free to offer suggestions as well and thanks for checking us out! tmtoulouse 16:56, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Props to whoever designed the site. Raysenn ^{Bisexual Jewish mixed-race Caribbean Latino, get my oppression points} --17:30, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

I guess, as long as it keeps the wiki up to date it';s a good thing. The color is a bit off, but not -bad-/ --Mikal | lakiM 19:05, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

I just want a picture of the meetings. I heard Trent does the most crazy-ass parties. --|₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{Flipping out the buttered fuck crumpets} 21:29, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Imagine a Google hangout with six white guys crossing 8(?) timezones. ^talk 17:15, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

How many different accents are present? --|₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan!} 22:19, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

It's UK and US. ^talk 00:02, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I sounds like a hillbilly though. 03:34, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Really though, who doesn't sound like a hillbilly? - Grant (talk) 05:57, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I sound like a weird cross between an Australian and English accent, with traces of Portuguese, Italian and German. DØØM MĖSSIÅH ^{Take that, motherfucker!} 06:24, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Fascinating. Tell me more. Nutty Roux (talk) 15:24, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Sorry. I'm doing it again, aren't I? Look, I'll try to work on it. DØØM MĖSSIÅH ^{Take that, motherfucker!} 21:23, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I really like that website! Whoever designed it did a good job. I like the simplicity, readability, and I like the color. I don't know how it looked when others commented on color, perhaps it has changed, but now it has a burgundy border (background) with white foreground, and it looks great. The only thing is I couldn't get the "Donate" button to work. The main Donate button goes to a new screen, but after that, although I can see options (paypal, etc.) but no way to actually donate. However, as I type this, what do I see? A prominent golden "Donate" button right to the left of this page, and, it works! lol. :) Refugee^{talk page} 17:21, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

True for me too. Second donate button doesn't work. (Firefox v29, IE11, Chrome v34 all running on Win 8.1). Ajkgordon (talk) 14:29, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I haven't checked yet, but I've been told the button is fixed. Feel free to click! ^talk 20:28, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Look at Me

and my cool new sig. Fonzie (talk) 19:08, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Wěǎšěǐǒǐď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 19:13, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

--|₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{Flipping out the buttered fuck crumpets} 00:00, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

n00b. DØØM MĖSSIÅH ^{Take that, motherfucker!} 06:55, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Use terminology like "N00b" again and I'll remove your spleen in an unpleasant fashion. Aceⁱ⁹ 08:48, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I like the red colour. Bismarck (talk) 08:50, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Ace, capitalizing the "n" in "n00b" is improper and offensive. --Kels (talk) 14:12, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

There's a pleasant fashion of removing spleens? Sophie^Wilder 18:52, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

There is, but THEY don't want you to know it. --|₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{Flipping out the buttered fuck crumpets} 21:41, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

In this case, ignorance is bliss. Sophie^Wilder 22:08, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Spleens are a reptoid NWO conspiracy. --|₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{Flipping out the buttered fuck crumpets} 01:26, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, you can remove a spleen using GA, without seriously endangering one's life. I mean, sure, it's not, like, orgasmic or anything, but it wouldn't be that bad. Until afterwards, but yeah. DØØM MĖSSIÅH ^{Take that, motherfucker!} 05:37, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Ugh, the splenectomy aftermath. I had more fun with renal colic than the immunological system clusterfuck caused by having no spleen. --|₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{There should be more pornos that take place on buses.} 16:26, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Category navbox and icon for pseudohistory

I think we need a pseudohistory navbox and hence icon. Anyone want to put one together? Books and clouds and magic wands, maybe, though that sounds a bit crowded for 135px diameter - David Gerard (talk) 13:30, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Although it's Americentric, how about a (cherry) tree and an axe? --TheLateGatsby (The end of the dock ) 13:37, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Let's see what I can cough up. --Raysenn ^{Get the paddles, he's having a cancer!} 14:14, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

'ere, have a look. I decided to disregard the Cherry Tree thing and went for a burning the evidence thing. --Raysenn ^{Get the paddles, he's having a cancer!} 18:11, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Not working. --GastonRabbit (talk) 18:17, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

That's very good. I love butter on my toast. 19:30, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Personally, I'm not a big fan of toast (or butter for that matter). - Grant (talk) 20:54, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Far away from obvious and "iconic". Also, the background is blending with the border.

What about the Grail? Stick figure whitewashing a swastika?--ZooGuard (talk) 21:09, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

It works now. Upgrade problem, perhaps? --GastonRabbit (talk) 21:55, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

A Holy Grail isn't exactly the most obvious thing. And the second one is just plain what. I was thinking of the Ancient Aliens thing, but the Aliens Navbox already retroactively stole my idea.

A quick glance at reveals that this topic isn't exactly easy to illustrate. I thought of something like someone striking out portions of a text (historical revisionism), but that's hard to illustrate in a small space. --Raysenn ^{Get the paddles, he's having a cancer!} 21:59, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Looks like bar of soap on fire. How about sumthin' simple: [1] Leuders (talk) 20:05, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

@Nutty Roux: Fuck you, you made me die of laughter. --Raysenn ^{Get the paddles, he's having a cancer!} 21:59, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

I aim to move and touch you. 22:57, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Horned viking helmet, perhaps? Or a half wiped out Nikolai Yezhov if you want to go with historical revisionism. Vulpius (talk) 23:21, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Since you mentioned the Yez, I could just stick these two bad boys on top of each other and call it a day. Or go with the whole "Yez half vanishing" thing. I'll see what I shit this time. --Raysenn ^{Get the paddles, he's having a cancer!} 01:36, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

I think we should follow on with what ZooGuard said about the swastika- after all, Holocaust Denial is the most obvious pseudohistory example of which I can think. Also, the disappearing Yez thing is probably more suited to something about propaganda than pseudohistory, in my opinion. But whatever works. DØØM MĖSSIÅH ^{Take that, motherfucker!} 11:00, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps an image of a swastika fading along a gradient or being painted over? I might try to work something up along those lines, but I don't speak SVG. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 04:08, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Here is the idea I ultimately came up with. (A swastika imperfectly covered by a smiley face.) - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 00:37, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Your icon is bad & you should feel bad. Wéáśéĺóíď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 01:38, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Can't say that I do. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 04:31, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

At any rate, here's yet another; this one's supposed to be a swastika, again, faded out and eclipsed. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 04:43, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

The first one could sorta work. The second one isn't clear enough. DØØM MĖSSIÅH ^{Take that, motherfucker!} 05:45, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Seriously, guys, do you really want to decorate a load of articles with swastikas when they mostly have nothing to do with Naziism at all? Wėąṣėḷőįď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 23:03, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm a fan of something to do with books.

We could do a pen and a book and some sparkles/stars like we have in other "pseudo-" nav icons. (Like in alt med or pseudoscience or creationism, etc., they all have these stars that imply "magic". In this case it'd be magicking up some stuff that never happened, or magicking away stuff that did happen.)

Or book burning, like someone above suggested.

Something to do with books. Nullahnung (talk) 23:24, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

You might just be on to something there! DØØM MĖSSIÅH ^{Take that, motherfucker!} 07:34, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Aaaaand here's yet another attempt, now with 100% less swastikas, featuring a book and stylized fire. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 16:13, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

It's of a noticeably different graphical style to most of the other nav icons, which may look out of place, but I like it. Nullahnung (talk) 17:50, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I like it. I would like it even better if it showed more clearly what kind of book is being burned. Is it about history, political philosophy, religion, or heretical fiction? Perhaps a yellowed sheet of parchment, with tattered, rolled-over edges? As long as the icon is always accompanied by a "pseudohistory" text label, I suppose the unidentified book will do nicely. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 13:07, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't think that book-burning is representative of much of pseudohistory. Indeed, most pseudo-historians don't want to burn books but to write them. So... a (sc)roll of toilet paper? Certain brown substance instead of flames? A book combined with File:Icon bullshit.svg? (That one is used mostly on a template that needs to be retired.)--ZooGuard (talk) 14:18, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ It may not be ideal. My next attempt is an entirely original creation, which is supposed to represent Atlantis sinking beneath the waves. Trying to come up with something iconic that gets the point across is difficult. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 19:49, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Nah, not working. To take from Nullah's idea, why don't we try, like the magic wand book thing? I don't know how to do these graphic things, but yeah. DØØM MĖSSIÅH ^{Take that, motherfucker!} 07:17, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I like the Atlantis idea, but that icon does fail to convey "sinking". Perhaps a huge wave sweeping away the temple? And someone needs to do it in proper vectors. I'll try, but I have very limited experience with Inkscape.--ZooGuard (talk) 09:36, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Since we're on this subject, can we also discus an icon for Template:Podcast? I was thinking just a mic would be all that's needed. Zero (talk) 20:53, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

I think that that particular navbox is unnecessary. Podcasts featured on RW should be generally relevant to some of the core topics, i.e. the stuff for which there are already templates.--ZooGuard (talk) 20:58, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

I'd help out, but I have my ethics to think of. Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 00:30, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Is there a place to disagree with you about this and try and get you to come around to my way of thinking, or should I just let it be? Browsing is what wikis are all about. Ikanreed (talk) 18:11, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

You can try my talkpage if you like, but you better be ready for a good debate. Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 09:27, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Anyone able to recommend a telescope?

Hi there. A friend of mine is looking to buy a telescope online (in the US). In her words, "I want a good amateur telescope, nothing too fancy. I just wanna be able to see nebulae. If I could take photographs with one, that’d be amazing". Problem is, while she's always been fascinated by the stars and things like that, she has no idea where to start in terms of telescopes, and I'm not sure how useful Amazon's own reviews/search ranking e.t.c. are going to be. Anyone have a telescope of their own they'd be able to recommend, or know something that would suit her? The figure she gave was not more than $200. Dreaded Walrus ^{t c} 17:02, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

The only advice I have is probably kinda useless: you want reflecting and not refracting. Ikanreed (talk) 17:08, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Start with binoculars. Seriously. And for $200 you'll get a far better pair of bins than telescope. Placeholder (talk) 17:13, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

She's said she has shaky hands, so she's hesitant to go down the binocular route. The reflecting vs. refracting tip is genuinely useful though, considering that the two top search results on Amazon are reflecting and refracting (respectively), both with the same star rating, but the refracting telescope has more reviews total. She probably knows more than me, but I personally would have had no idea which was preferable out of the two types. Dreaded Walrus ^{t c} 18:00, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Walrus, your friend should look in her area for amateur astronomy clubs. She will get oodles of advice from experienced people, and they will let her look through their equipment at their next star party. Also, she must realize that nebulae are fairly faint, and she will need dark skies and a fairly big light bucket -- maybe 8 inches for a reflector? -- to see them by eye. The spectacular nebula photos in the magazines and books are long-exposure photos, gathering more light than the human eye can. Finally, $200 is kind of low-end for a decent scope of reasonable size. Nowhere Man (talk) 18:14, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

second what Nowhere Man said on astronomy cliubs. If you are in a largish town the light pollution will ruin viewing of faint objects. An astronomy club might have some sources for used gear that people have upgraded from. You need an equatorial mount and autotracking for photography due to long exposure times. Look at the Celestron range or shop for kits. Don't try grinding your own lenses or mirrors. Hamster (talk) 20:09, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

@Walrus: There are tripod mounts for binoculars if she's willing to shell out a little extra. --|₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{The rose! The rose! It's in my eyes!} 21:48, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

There are also cheap binocular adapters for photo/video camera tripods. Just make sure that the tripod is able to point upwards. :)--ZooGuard (talk) 07:55, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

For binoculars a good reclining chair is what you need, and you should be able to hold them reasonably steady. If you want to see nebulae then go for a reflector as most of them need more light gathering than magnification and large quality mirrors are cheaper than lenses. If she wants to take photos of anything other than other than wideskies then we're talking about autotracking mounts and that seriously ups the cost although you can use smartphones to capture through the eyepiece if she's interested in the moon or planets. It does depend a lot on how much she knows about the stars because it can be bit frustrating trying to find things. Good astro photos require a lot of patience and skill to acquire. If she could up her budget to about $300 then the Meade ETX-80 refractor offers tracking and go-to but with an alt-azimuth mount. Local astroclubs or even individual astronomers will be a great help though, most love to share their hobby and offer advice. Генгис^{You have the right to be offended; and I have the right to offend you.} 14:41, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I myself have a Meade 6 inch reflector, with automatic go-to and a little motor to keep track of the movement of the sky objects. However, even being a small amateur telescope, it went for 900 I think. And while it's been fantastic for me, it is still quite small, considering you can buy monster 15 inch aperture scopes. So it is kind of expensive, plus you probably have to buy extra lenses and filters. Also, and I don't think this is very well known, it is pretty much useless to try to see nebulae and galaxies using one of these "amateurs" scopes. You will never see , for example, the spiral arms of the Andromeda Galaxy, or any other one, and you will only see a kind of blurry cloud. The only way to really see them is to take long-exposure photographs, and that is true of even larger scopes. Having said all that, it's been fantastic watching the planets, the moon, star-clusters and binary stars. I remember my family being blown away by Saturn. Also, to my great delight, after watching Jupiter for over an hour, I realized that one of the moons had moved location. I mean, of course they orbit around Jupiter, but when you see them in the scope everything is kind of static so you forget about the "cosmic ballet", and then suddenly you go "holy shit! that moon is moving!". TL;DR, to watch nebulaes and galaxies, your friend needs to take pictures and to take pictures she needs and auto-tracking scope... she can go to www.meade.com to look for their cheaper options. Danoso (talk) 15:57, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Thank you all very much for your advice. I passed it on to her, and she had this to say: "I was most excited about the Orion nebula, however I'm excited to see planets and star clusters and stars too. I'm going to check out the local astronomy club and get their advice before buying anything. This has all been super helpful!"

Thanks again, you all helped a great deal. :) Dreaded Walrus ^{t c} 18:52, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Late to the party (sorry) See here. For under £/$200 this looks magic. Incidentally I'm told (local "expert") to avoid motor drives & computer controls like the plague until I know what I'm doing and if I'm going to want to carry on with it. Scream!! (talk) 19:16, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

A word of warning, there is no natural upper limit for spending on astronomy/astrophotography. If you want the easy way then you could just move to Arizona. Генгис^{You have the right to be offended; and I have the right to offend you.} 14:36, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Excellent stuff! I'll send this on to her next time I get the chance (We email while she's at work, and she has the weekend off). She's found the existing advice very helpful already, so this will be icing on the cake. Dreaded Walrus ^{t c} 02:41, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I turn 21 sunday

I don't know what to do about this Rationalwiki. Sadly i have to work on my birthday but, meh. hopefully mothers day people keep me from having to work to hard (Sundays in a dishroom, apparently nobody wants to go to church and instead wants to eat at a in store restaurant). But, how do i handle being legally fully an adult, i guess. besides healthcare. --Mikal | lakiM 03:28, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you! 172.218.56.70 (talk) 04:22, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Congratulations on not dying this year. --Kels (talk) 04:27, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

[www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOi_R6DO_u8] Hamster (talk) 04:29, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Wishing you the happiest of Birthdays :-) Hope something good and/or fun happens or someone surprises you with a gift you like or you win on a lottery ticket or a big group decides to tip the bus staff as well as the wait staff or some relatives slide a little cash your way.. or something good happens anyway. Happy Birthday! :-) Refugee^{talk page} 04:37, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

#drink? 07:20, 10 May 2014 (UTC) C®ackeЯ

My birthday on Sunday too. I'm 49 years older than you, Mikal. Happy birthday, you! ^{— Unsigned, by: Scream!! / talk / contribs}

Happy birthday, Mikal. I'm only a few years older than you, but grown-up-hood kinda sucks the big one, although I guess it's nice be independent and stuff. Also, what's the drinking age where you live? DØØM MĖSSIÅH ^{Take that, motherfucker!} 13:55, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

You too, Scream. I hope you have have a great day doing birthday stuff. DØØM MĖSSIÅH ^{Take that, motherfucker!} 13:57, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I spent my 21st birthday in bed until about 2:00 pm as I had done a 56 mile walk from Lancaster to Manchester (The Bogle Stroll) the previous day. Генгис^{Our ignorance is God; what we know is science.} 14:44, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I usually spend my birthday with friends, considering it nothing but a chance to be with them and move blithely from one year to the next. This year was a milestone like yours. I had a party with great food and fancy cocktails, but the part I loved most was sitting quietly for several hours considering where I've been and where I wish to be. It was uplifting to remind myself how much control I have over shaping my destiny and how, for all the roadblocks I've faced, whether of my own making, I'm largely pretty happy about how things are turning out. I did the same thing when I turned 30, and then again before I made the mistake of going to law school. I think milestones are a great time to make more powerful resolutions than we ignore on New Years Eve. Perhaps do what I did and spend some time self-reflecting in a way that we are usually afraid of or don't freely give ourselves permission to do. Most of us are pretty alright. Some are irredeemable shits, but you're not. You're just a goofy kid on your way to being someone else. We always are. You alone get to decide who that's going to be! Nutty Roux (talk) 15:27, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Grab the chair boys we got another bucket kicker! Zero (talk) 15:04, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Moar people smearing RW

In this case, it sounds to me like Kendoll. Look, he even copied our domain name! --|₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{I'm a survivor, keep on survivin'} 16:43, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

No, that's Kevin Martin. He linked to it on the talk page a few days ago. --Marlow (talk) 16:45, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Someone is trying to smear PalMD and the Foundation on RipoffReport

...by associating him with RW: http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/peter-a-lipson-md/southfield-michigan-48034/peter-a-lipson-md-dr-peter-lipson-palmd-premiere-internists-rationalwiki-this-prof-1143353 Note that the "web" field points to his RW user page, not his actual blog. --ZooGuard (talk) 11:04, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

The same "RationalWiki Exposed" person has also posted a report about the RMF: http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/the-rationalwiki-foundation/albuquerque-new-mexico-87106/the-rationalwiki-foundation-rationalwiki-rational-wiki-rw-rationalwikiorg-rationalwi-1143383 Is this Kevin Martin again?--ZooGuard (talk) 11:11, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

For some reason I can't access RoR, but yeah, my guess is it's Martin. Interesting thing is, depending on what he's said, he's opened himself up to a libel suit...

Has anybody let PalMD know, not sure how active he is here anymore? --PsyGremlin^Prata! 11:45, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Does Ripoff Report merit a RationalWiki article? Proxima Centauri (talk) 11:54, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

a) In what possible way is it on mission? and b) I've let Pal know via a FB pm. PsyGremlin^Prata! 12:04, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Ripoff Report is an American website, I was hoping Americans would have some idea whether an article would be on mission. I don't know one way or the other. Both the report on PalMD and on RationalWiki are biased, they write everything bad they can dredge up and ignore the good we do. If biased reporting is typical of the site it may merit an article, I'm asking Americans who know the site. Perhaps we should research it. Proxima Centauri (talk) 12:12, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

It's not Kevin Martin. Whoever wrote those reports knows quite a lot about RationalWiki, and KM knows fuck all. PalMD hasn't been regularly active here for a long time, and the RationalWiki Foundation report refers to MarcusCicero, Fall Down, and Alyssa Bryant, trolls from a long time back. Wèàšèìòìď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 12:17, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, the author has a lot of knowledge about the site. Far more than some Johnny-come-lately would have. It's also not written in the same quasi-ranting physically-threatening style which we have come to expect from some of our more recent antagonists. As far as the foundation one is concerned, I'm not even sure what the complaint is.--Bob^{"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that."} 12:28, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Still a fun read, though. DØØM MĖSSIÅH ^{Take that, motherfucker!} 12:30, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

We could try checking this out I don't know which site is truthful. There's also a Wikipedia article, Ripoff Report which Wikipedia tagged as possibly unreliable. Proxima Centauri (talk) 12:55, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Proxima, kindly stay away from the conversation.--ZooGuard (talk) 13:13, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't think that this level of knowledge is unattainable by a "Johny-come-lately". The text seems to be assembled by Googleable sources, such as RW's own pages on itself (including user essays), WikiIndex, RWW (via the Internet Archive or a certain sitebanned user's attempts at wiki necromancy) and Conservapedia's page on Wikipedia. The last one is notable for citing the infamous LATimes article that mentions PalMD and Conservapedia vandalism. So, everything one needs is obsessive ill-will and enough time and patience to Google for "dirt".

Note that the "report" about the RMF mentions Human's contribution to the discussion of Kevin Martin's legal threats. That's what makes me suspect that KM's responsible - it makes sense that he'll be following that particular discussion here, he's the last one pissed off at RW in a major way, there are already two precedents of him trying to poison RW's reputation. (Have you seen rational-wiki.org?)--ZooGuard (talk) 13:13, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

I doubt it. Kevin Martin hasn't posted anywhere except on the Kevin Martin article talkpage & a couple of user talk pages which would have been linked from there when other people commented. He hasn't seemed aware of the discussions about him at Saloon Bar or elsewhere. My perception is that he's just watching/checking the article about him & its talkpage, & that he doesn't look at the Saloon Bar or recent changes. ₩€₳$€£ΘĪÐ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 13:43, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Hm, maybe it is a former disgruntled user, ie. IE. I stumbled upon This. Unfortunately the actual messages are not viewable by the public. Ehrenstein and his friends were quite obsessed about what happened on RW. I would not think it impossible, that someone who exposed pictures of RW members on his own wiki would go to ripoffreport.--Th. Bernhard_{Das Leben ist ein Prozeß, den man verliert, was man auch tut und wer man auch ist.} 13:50, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

It could also be old Ken Demyer. Or Karajou. Or any number of people. My point being that we're not going to be able to deal with it by guessing who is behind it. A good rebuttal has already been posted on that website. Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 18:02, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

“” (...) Rational Wiki Foundation searches out people to harass them. (...) The owner is Trent Toulouse, a known scammer. Trent Toulouse created Rational Wiki to make some money off talking about others. (...) it has nothing but defamation and libel written all over it. If you encounter RationalWiki or Rational Wiki Foundation, nothing on it is anywhere near true.

— From [rational-wiki.org]

I think RationalWiki Foundation and Trent could both sue for this misrepresentation. Proxima Centauri (talk) 14:03, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

I doubt it. & The recent obsession with suing is becoming very silly. Щєазєюіδ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 14:13, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

@TH. Bernhard: I doubt it's IE. The man has a very peculiar style and tone when writing- namely the rambling yet dry style and bizarrely antagonistic tone with liberal amounts of Godwinning. --14:23, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Could be DMorris, of Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services fame. Sophie^Wilder 14:28, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Who's DMorris? --Raysenn ^{Get the paddles, he's having a cancer!} 14:39, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

CP mini-sysop, who if i remember right, once threatened to report us to whatever the hell the florida department of to long a name is--Mikal | lakiM 14:42, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Not saying that I like the guy but DMorris is a CP defender and unlikely to do anything malicious unless he felt aggrieved about something related to CP. Генгис^{Our ignorance is God; what we know is science.} 16:23, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Ripoff report is not especially credible. We've been up there for a while, I think, too.--"Shut up, Brx." 14:46, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

This doesn't pack quite the same punch, does it?--ZooGuard (talk) 14:57, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

It seems the site is based in Tempe. Here's a very long article from a local newspaper I think is reliable. I've only read the first page (it's as long as I am impatient), but the portrayal of the founder is interesting--"Shut up, Brx." 14:55, 4 May 2014 (UTC)´ç

What article? --Raysenn ^{Get the paddles, he's having a cancer!} 15:00, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

I hate it when I do that. Here you go--"Shut up, Brx." 15:13, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

One: Who's to say this doctor is in fact PalMD? 2)WTF is Proxima Centauri? B) It's no secret that back in the days before Linus Mixon shaved, TK was still alive and harassing me (Ceiling Cat rest his soul), and Andrew's band of homophobic Dominionist thugs were spreading hate on the internet, many of us edited his open, freely usable wiki, mostly to try to counter some of his unhealthier lies (such as the "connection" between breast cancer and abortion)(Hint: they both affect more women than men)). The LA Times article, IIRC, did not specifically accuse me or report that I had engaged in any particular crimes. I'm not much of a public figure, but if the RoR thing is actually making false statements of fact about my skills as a physician or my non-existent legal or tort history, that would be defamatory. If it is simply the senseless opinionated ramblings of some misanthrope living in his mom's basement, I really don't care. --PalMD

BTW, googling me generally gets my medical affiliations and my writings. --PalMD

This page may or may not be related to the above issue. 162.248.164.16 (talk) 20:16, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

That sounds like Inquisitor Ehrenstein--"Shut up, Brx." 20:48, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

It's his shithead pal Dondrekhan. I'm not sure if he ever posted anything at RW directly, but he was active on Sasha's blogs & wikis encouraging him to troll RW harder than he already was, as well as posting hateful essays about Sophie and others. Wèàšèìòìď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 21:04, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Dondrekhan seems even worse than Ehrenstein. --Raysenn ^{Get the paddles, he's having a cancer!} 22:03, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

They aren't the same person?--"Shut up, Brx." 22:36, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

I like to think that Dondrekhan is a split personality of Ehrenstein. There can't be two people that bad, can it? --Raysenn ^{Get the paddles, he's having a cancer!} 02:33, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

That is a super weird coincidence. I occasionally try to check up on Ehrenstein, because I kind of find his (or her?) particular brand of crazy strangely amusing. I stumbled upon a forum post by him and now that forum post is suddenly by Dondrekhan. You might actually be on to something. --Th. Bernhard_{Das Leben ist ein Prozeß, den man verliert, was man auch tut und wer man auch ist.} 12:44, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Raysenn: accidental psychiatrist.

Or maybe one of them is actually a sockpuppet. I wouldn't say Ehrenstein is above that. --Raysenn ^{Get the paddles, he's having a cancer!} 14:44, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

The weird little bastard was banned from Wikipedia for exactly that. Robledo (talk) 22:41, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Not only is he a sockpuppeteer, he's terrible at it. --|₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{Flipping out the buttered fuck crumpets} 16:36, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

It's par for the course with people who have some personality disorder or mental health issues. They cannot hide their underlying character. We see it all the time with Kendoll's oh-so-obvious sockpuppets. Генгис^{Our ignorance is God; what we know is science.} 16:38, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Ehrenstein deserves sympathy... kind of... and professional help... definitely. But he lacks the self-awareness needed to seek professional help. --|₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{Like my hand on a Sunday afternoon: beats the shit out of me!} 22:16, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I stumbled across this since I still like to read RW on occasion, and though I no longer plan to continue regularly contributing here, I want to make a few things clear. IE and Dondrekhan are, to my knowledge, separate people. The latter asked me if I wanted to be part of his plans to spread libel about RW and its members, and I refused, telling him his plans were illegal and foolish and that he should abandon them. I am not in regular contact with either party anymore, but as far as I know, this was Dondrekhan's idea (apparently, even IE tried to talk him out of it), and not only do I have no desire to be party to any illegal acts, I condemn his attempts to do so and will report any further information I have on further attempts to the RW administration. I do not know if he had anything to do with that Ripoff Report article, but I doubt it was him. Arcane (talk) 22:14, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Holy mother of fuck. Dondre is either an A-Class twattercake or pants-on-head retarded. Or both. --|₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{So you see, we have to kill animals, or else they'll die.} 02:24, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Hypothetical Question

Say that you were given the power to change one major thing on RationalWiki with no questions asked. What would it be? DØØM MĖSSIÅH ^{Take that, motherfucker!} 21:21, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Does this include changes to the people who edit it, or just policies/rules/articles?--ZooGuard (talk) 21:29, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, what I had in mind was policies and stuff, but either or. DØØM MĖSSIÅH ^{Take that, motherfucker!} 21:34, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

The whole wiki would consist of peace and love and anybody who came here would be struck deeply by such an exemplary place and try to work out their differences in opinion through constructive and meticulous dialogue. Nullahnung (talk) 21:37, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I'd install reference space/attic space. Sophie^Wilder 21:38, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Attic space? DØØM MĖSSIÅH ^{Take that, motherfucker!} 22:12, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

For articles that don't belong in mainspace/funspace/cpspace but some people don't want deleted. Sophie^Wilder 19:44, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

About three times as many content contributors - David Gerard (talk) 22:20, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

How about tolerance toward those contributors instead of bullying and single-minded snarkiness? nobs^{Jesus loves you and I love you, but nobody else does.} 03:12, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

April Fool's will consist of us pretending to be a)Conspiracy theorists b)Fundamentalists c)Neocons d)MRAs or e)all of the above. --|₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan!} 01:55, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

There would be no fighting and we would have great articles that fully explore the depth of rationality and irrationality. . A subpart is we would have a working and useful conflict resolution system that isn't "ignore it til it either explodes/stops mattering or block war til we are done"--Mikal | lakiM 03:31, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

B-b-but that's the best part of RW! HERESY! EXTRA HERESY! --|₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{I'm a survivor, keep on survivin'} 15:48, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Extra heresy? As opposed to Heresy Lite™? DØØM MĖSSIÅH ^{Take that, motherfucker!} 11:52, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

For when someone said something really, really heretical (I guess you aren't a fa/tg/uy). --|₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{Never got enough hugs as a kid} 14:02, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I assume not. DØØM MĖSSIÅH ^{Take that, motherfucker!} 05:47, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Site only works with RationalWiki's ActiveX control and Internet Explorer 6. Fonzie (talk) 23:21, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I'd set up a restricted editing period for periods when most of the admins are offline; this would be during the hours of darkness. Sophie^Wilder 18:18, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Why is computer color RGB and not RGV?

Maybe someone around here can enlighten me: why are the primary colors of a computer screen RED - GREEN - BLUE and not RED - GREEN - VIOLET? I mean, it seems to me that with RGB it should be impossible to represent a true violet color, since it's "out of range" with respect to the avalable primary colors. Am I mistaken? --93.71.73.163 (talk) 12:22, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, you are mistaken. Wèàšèìòìď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 12:27, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

The violet colour you see from a computer screen isn't actually violet. It's a mix of red and blue light which looks exactly the same to your eye. Look up additive colour or primary colours on Wikipedia. Ajkgordon (talk) 12:36, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, but spectral violet should trigger (almost) only the "blue" receptors of the eye, since it's on the far end of the spectrum, right? How come then that we perceive a similar color by stimulating both the "blue" and "red" receptors of the eye? I think this is the piece of the puzzle I'm missing... --93.71.73.163 (talk) 12:52, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Your question just became more interesting. I was going to say "because we have RGB eyes" but now I find myself scratching various anatomical features more or less directly connected to my head. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 12:58, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, the cones in the eye's retina aren't exactly red, blue and green receptors. They each respond to a range of wavelengths rather than just pure red or blue or green. Ajkgordon (talk) 13:05, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, each type of cone has a distributed profile of color sensitivity, but now I'm wondering if the closure of the color wheel isn't a perceptual or cognitive artifact, or a way for the mind to distinguish cooler blues or violets as "not having so much green" as warmer blues. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 13:08, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

(EC) In terms of colour models, "violet" is really a bit of a misnomer that we're stuck with for historical reasons. Every child learns the seven-colour conception of the spectrum as red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, because that's how the spectrum was first identified (I think by Isaac Newton), but the workable models of primary and secondary colours all involve a six-colour configuration instead. The traditional RYB colour model (which is actually more limited than RGB or CMYK colouration, but is more intuitive for people manually mixing paints and dyes) has primary colours of red, yellow and blue, with secondary colours of orange, green and purple between them on the spectrum (purple taking the place of indigo+violet, which are both transitional shades rather than practical secondary colours). The RGB model (used for light mixing) has red, green and blue as primary colours, with yellow, cyan and magenta as secondary colours, while CMYK (used for printing) reverses this, using cyan, magenta and yellow as primary colours with red, green and blue as secondary. You can observe any of these colours on the visible spectrum, as well as less helpful ones such as indigo, crimson and lime. So whether you see the far end of the spectrum as violet, purple or magenta is really a matter of perception, but it's a secondary colour (at least in relation to red and blue) rather than a primary. Weaseloid^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 13:09, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, all of this is very clear. Let's leave color names aside for the moment. Take a light source with a wave length at the far end of the visible spectrum, around 390nm if I'm not mistaken. In my certainly way too rudimentary understanding, the cones in our eyes should translate this to an "RGB signal" close to (0%, 0%, 100%), is that correct? Why would then a combination of "red" and "blue", which should yield an "RGB signal" more like (100%, 0%, 100%), be perceived as a similar color? That's what I don't understand, presumably because I'm missing some essential component of how our brains process color information. --93.71.73.163 (talk) 13:32, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

The human eye is receptive to only three main colour bands (red, green, and blue). Each of these bands peaks at a different frequency, and when monochromatic light impacts on the cones in the retina, the brain interprets that signal depending both on which bands the light falls into, and which bands are more sensitive. As an example of this, the eye's green band is notoriously insensitive compared to red (which, in turn, is less sensitive than blue). As a result, we see yellow when we look at the Sun, despite the fact that the peak of the Sun's spectral distribution actually trends closer to green. - Grant (talk) 14:33, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Addendum: There's more going on in the Sun example, in that the spectrum is also shifted by the atmosphere. However, the truth remains the same: we perceive the Sun as a different colour. It's also worth noting that polychromatic light is largely dealt with the same way as monochromatic light. It just happens to be that mixing certain quantities of red and blue creates a spectrum that is interpreted the same way as monochromatic purple by our eyes. - Grant (talk) 14:36, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Apparently, many women have a fourth color receptor which gives them extended color perception. Which probably explains why they get so exasperated with many men's sense of color. Генгис^{Our ignorance is God; what we know is science.} 14:54, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Although it's more of a rare occurence than a common one. --|₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{Never got enough hugs as a kid} 15:37, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

All of the budgerigars in the room where I now sit are tetrachromats, as are the rest of their kind. I read that they need full sunlight to make use of that feature. We don't discuss subtleties of color, though. Most of our interaction involves them waddling away from my offered finger, or taking wing, being reluctant to step up on it. They also buzz close to my head when they think I'm not paying attention. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 15:48, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Sorry Sprocket, but budgerigars don't count as people. Cats, on the other hand... --|₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{Get the paddles, he's having a cancer!} 15:50, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Do fictional characters count as people? There was one in The Stars My Destination who "saw" beyond the infrared and into the short-wave radio spectrum, if memory serves. Figures, it was a female character.

I am still curious about the original question— how come we grok "purple" as a secondary color going between primary red and primary blue on the color wheel? It seems as if there should be a cognitive discontinuity between red and purple, when using that circle schema. In a rational world it should be so, and now I'm off to see if there's a drink to be had in the fridge. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 16:08, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't think there need be a cognitive discontinuity there. Our eyes happen to pick up that combination as purple, so that's how it's viewed. The colours we see don't correspond precisely to the electromagnetic spectrum because the sensitivity distribution of the human eye across the spectrum isn't uniform. You might as well ask why we don't find it weird that we can't see into the UV or infrared portions of the spectrum.

At the end of the day, we see what we see due to the way our eyes interact with light, and man-made constructions like the colour wheel represent that. Obviously the electromagnetic spectrum itself has no concept of primary or secondary colours, and the concept of "colours" itself is entirely a reflection of the structure of our eyes. It's just a bunch of electromagnetic radiation bouncing around, and we've just attached the concept of "colour" to bring things in line with the way our eyes and brain process that radiation. - Grant (talk) 16:44, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

And yet, we see violet as somehow related to reddish blue, when in fact red and violet sit at opposite ends of the visible spectrum. How does the human mind wrap that long-to-short wavelength domain into a conceptual circle? The circle works very well for the subtractive color theory of paint mixing, and there are additive RGB versions to be seen as well. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 16:59, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Well colour itself is just a construction, and it gets far more complicated when we're talking about polychromatic light. We can look at the electromagnetic spectrum and roughly say "this is what 550 nm light looks like to our eyes," but can we do the same for a mixture of 550 nm and 620 nm? We can't even talk about what polychromatic light "looks like" without making some assumptions about how our eyes and brain process light.

For me, I accepted a long time ago that we see polychromatic light in a certain fashion because our eyes and brain work that way. I accept that colour is an abstract construct, and that various colour wheel constructions provide a good way to construct various colours within that framework. I also understand that the only physically meaningful information is the frequency distribution of the light in question, and that speculating on what some polychromatic combination looks like is best left until after I've had a beer or three. - Grant (talk) 17:05, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

More addenda: It's worth noting that if you really wanted to, you could sit down and work out exactly what colour you would see for any polychromatic distribution of light. It would require a lot of comparisons between that distribution and the sensitivity of the various cones in your retinas, but you could do it. It wouldn't be a very intuitive mapping, but it would end up looking like the colour wheel. What I find far more difficult to wrap my head around is the concept that by all accounts, the Sun is actually more green than yellow. We just can't see that, given the human eye's relatively poor sensitivity towards that set of wavelengths. - Grant (talk) 17:14, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Aye to a beer or three. On waking, I often see a greenish cast to my surroundings that quickly fades. I assume that is one set of cones coming into their usual daylight balance of bleaching and recovering rhodopsin.

One of the starting points of the investigation of cognitive linguistics was color vocabulary. In an article on some other wiki (which looks like a work in progress, but still points in some interesting directions, IMO) the following color vocabulary list appears:

1. All languages contain terms for black and white.

2. If a language contains three terms, then it contains a term for red.

3. If a language contains four terms, then it contains a term for either green or yellow (but not both).

4. If a language contains five terms, then it contains terms for both green and yellow.

5. If a language contains six terms, then it contains a term for blue.

6. If a language contains seven terms, then it contains a term for brown.

7. If a language contains eight or more terms, then it contains a term for purple, pink, orange, and/or gray.

I do not find it easy to dismiss color as "just" a construction. Like our perception of the harmonic series in acoustics, it comes from somewhere deeply tangled with our conscious physiological being, and wasn't just made up one day by some bored Renaissance artist. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 17:29, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

That colour vocabulary list is quite interesting. Most of it makes sense to me, but I wonder a bit about points three and four. Of course, given that our eyes are so insensitive to green, I suppose it shouldn't be terribly surprising that yellow sneaks in to supplant it now and again.

I suppose I should be careful about my use of the word "construction." Some portion of our brain is wired to interpret light that falls within the visible spectrum using a roughly consistent visual scheme. I'm not sure it really has anything to do with our conscious being, though I'm not sure we could ever find that answer. We're only able to observe the world through the mechanisms we have available, so trying to figure out how some arbitrary creature perceives a given wavelength is likely outside our realm of possibility. We can make loose analogies to what we already know, but not much beyond that. - Grant (talk) 17:43, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I need to be equally careful about using the word "tangled" when talking to a physicist. I was thinking of neural topology and sensitivity, not subatomic particles. Perhaps "consciousness" was not apt, since a lot of processing happens without being noticed. Speculating about arbitrary creatures could be fun, but here we have our hands full with the marvelous particulars of how the average run of humans deal with the world as we in fact experience it. There are some consistencies across all of humanity, regarding how our cognitive apparatus processes color. The empirical particulars of how a human mind wraps violet around to red, if they are even available, are the kind of thing I find fascinating. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 17:56, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Fair point. I mostly keep my areas of interest restricted to things that are nice and neat like particle physics and quantum mechanics. All of that messy biological stuff can just be approximated as a spherical cow, and then life is good again. - Grant (talk) 18:11, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

From a mathematical point of view, color vision could be modeled as a projection from an infinite-dimensional space (frequency distributions on the visible spectrum) to a three-dimensional space (intensities of the stimuli to the three cone types) by means of an integral over the visible spectrum with a three-dimensional weight function (the response curves of the three cone types). If negative intensities existed, one could choose any three linearly independent vectors in this three-dimensional space as the basis. But since this is not possible, we are limited to the positive span of the chosen primaries, which hence need to be selected in such a way as to cover as much as possible of the entire color space. Looking at the response curves of the cones, my best guess is that RGB is actually subobtimal, and that an optimal choice from this point of view would put the primaries in areas of insufficient sensitivity of the cones for practical purposes. But I'm really just guessing here... I'd sure love to have a light source capable of emitting monochromatic light at arbitrary frequencies to experiment with... --93.71.73.163 (talk) 18:28, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Don't forget that the retinal response curves are time-varying, or more precisely dependent on recent history of exposure. There might be room in the analysis for some impulse response convolution. I will not be able to help with the math, which I count as a blessing, because I suspect complete accurate modeling will get hairy beyond much hope of tractability. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 19:26, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

There are actually different RGB color spaces, in addition to completely different color models with different gamuts. Since human vision doesn't exactly match any, a color system that can cover most of human vision can typically produce colors outside of human perception, and the color system is usually chosen for the needs of the task at hand. E.g. on a hardware level, an RGB display uses a color gamut that exactly covers its possible outputs. But anyway, regarding "closing the circle" of human color perception, that seems to be an effect of the brain's mapping of sense information to a conceptual space. Experiments indicate that the brain is built to readily integrate sensed patterns into the sensorium, and this is presumably how the usual senses are integrated during development. There is no indication of a principle by which subjective colors are assigned to receptor inputs, so in all likelihood we each have our own color maps. Since maps are generated using similar methods, we can communicate with each other and agree that the sky is blue or apples are red, and that purplish shades form a bridge between red and blue independent of the green-yellow-orange bridge. The reason for that spectrum-jumping bridge probably has to do with how the brain interprets the dimensionality of sense information, and to my knowledge is not understood to a meaningful degree. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 21:09, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Indeed. We all receive the same sensory information, and there's some broad generalized "human" method of mapping that to stimuli the brain can actually understand and use. However, choose a shade of blue infused with enough red, and you'll see Person A claim it's blue and Person B claim it's purple. In that case, it isn't necessarily a disagreement over what constitutes "purple", but instead a difference in the way each person's brain maps that colour. I ran some anecdotal experiments with a friend quite some time ago, and we found that given the right colour, I would see something definitively blue, while he would see something definitively purple. It's interesting stuff, but as you say, poorly understood (much like many of the underlying mechanics in the brain). - Grant (talk) 21:16, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Somewhere in the annals of recent art history, one leading light, the maestro of a well-regarded atelier, went so far as to assert that only people of Czech heritage could see color properly. Guess where his eyes came from. Having watched classically trained artists at work, I can testify that they pay attention to how they use their eyes, including how long they look at their model before making decisions about how to render it. For critical color judgements, they limit themselves to a quick glance. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 21:29, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Indeed. Many people - myself included - also see colours slightly differently from eye to eye. The human body is a complex system with quite a few oddities to it. - Grant (talk) 22:36, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I wonder if color blind people would benefit if monitors had 'R' and 'G' further apart than they do? This suggests avoiding intermediate wavelengths helps a lot. --Someon (talk) 03:34, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

About the languages' names thing: how does "either green or yellow" apply to languages that (like Japanese) historically didn't distinguish between blue and green? I'm guessing that having one word applying to both counts as having a word for green, maybe... Wehpudicabok [話] [変] [留] 00:51, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I do not know. Some indigenous languages of the southwest US are famous for having the blue/green ambiguity as well. The interesting thing about people whose languages show a sparsity of color terms is that, given something like a bag of marbles, all different colors, they have no problem sorting them into finer distinctions than their language might suggest. They see the colors just fine; they just don't talk about them fitting into so many categories. Compare that with someone from a place like Botswana, whose language is rich in the number of compact terms for describing the color of a cow. I'll just be off in a corner, trying to unboggle... Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 12:19, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Hey! Any Libertarians here?

You know, the libertarians are right. You really should read up on the basic libertarian texts. I went to mises.org the other day and read some Murray N. Rothbard. He told me about how anarchocapitalists would deal with an invasion of vampire Martians. I am not making this up.

(and oy, the writing style. I now SEE where they all GOT it from.) - David Gerard (talk) 18:39, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Arkady mentioned you showed her Rothbard. He's gloriously loony, ain't he? Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 19:00, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

I LIKE TO IMAGINE that he shouts the first four words in each section before reverting to normal voice. Vulpius (talk) 20:06, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Vampire Martians are notorious commies. That's why ListenerX wrecked the place. --Raysenn ^{Get the paddles, he's having a cancer!} 20:40, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Vampire martians? That's nothing. There's this one medium who talked to a Dead Psychic Christian Martian Ghost.--Кřěĵ (ṫåɬк) 01:25, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Is ListenerX a libertarian? I thought he just really hates pinkos--"Shut up, Brx." 23:12, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

What else would they be coming from the REDREDREDRED planet? Compro01 (talk) 21:21, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Mr. Rothbard also told me about the wonders of free baby markets. But if you want to read another truly informative text, you ought to check out Walter Block's Defending the Undefendable. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 22:48, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

There are folks in the world you don't have to like (all of them, for instance). But the empirics on the matter side with Block's defense of e.g. the pimp (Venkatesh's research as described in Levitt & Dubner's Superfreakonomics). The situation in prostitution may be suboptimal, but situations are always suboptimal. Don't get involved just because you think you know better; 'tis too much prov'd that with benevolence's visage and helpful action you do sugar o'er the devil himself.Frostbyte (talk) 16:23, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

My only introduction to Libertarianism needed is Wealth of Nations.--Madman (talk) 23:38, 30 April 2014 (UTC)The Madman

What about the substantially insane Atlas Shrugged? ħuman 04:36, 1 May 2014 (UTC) (PS "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations")

You do realize that Ayn Rand bashed libertarians all the time, right? And she was a rabid israel supporter and supported bombing other countries overseas. Yes some people who are libertarian admire some of her ideas but much of what she said was explicitly not libertarian. Burkean (talk) 21:16, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Is it supposed to be read? I thought it was just a fancy heavy-duty paperweight. --Raysenn ^{Get the paddles, he's having a cancer!} 16:00, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

I've always thought of it as a reality fanfic that plays pretty fast and loose with the canon Ikanreed (talk) 18:59, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 19:11, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

ħuman 00:40, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Come to think of it, why doesn't rationalwiki attract all the internet libertarians? They certainly love to think of themselves as "rational", it's coterminous with the philosophy. Is it just the liberal component of being created as a response to conservapedia? Is there some deeper philosophical disconnect between our two groups? Ikanreed (talk) 20:28, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

The internet, particularly the techie/science/politics parts, is full of libertarians. I don't think rationalwiki attracts anymore than anywhere else. I've written my theories as to why the internet is inhabited by a disproportionately vocal group of libertarians before, but my general idea is that the conditions of being a basement dwelling internet user, the kind of person who comments a lot on the internet, are conducive to a particular brand of paranoid right wing ideology. --Marlow (talk) 21:53, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

A lot of philosophies that don't work will work "on the Internet". Big practical problems with some philosophies don't exist, so long as your whole world is "the Internet" and your whole population is "people I talk to on the Internet. That population is disproportionately English speaking, wealthy and white, though I suspect no longer significantly more male than the real world's population. That world is one where scarcity is artificial, your identity is very fluid, and geography is largely irrelevant, while the real world is full of all-too-real scarcity, our identities are very static and largely defined by others and geography dominates everything.

I actually like the results of this, on the Internet. I've said before here that I even find 4chan's /b/ gives me hope for the world. But that's because /b/ is on the Internet. If it was a building on the street where I live I'd probably want it closed down ASAP. The video game Rust is a useful metaphor here too. Inside that video game I find Yahtzee's observation that people are very polite to each other when they both have guns to be optimistic. In the context of a video game that doesn't impose or even suggest such a rule, a MAD-like uneasy truce between powerful opponents feels like an endorsement of the general concept of civilisation. But out here in the real world you don't respawn when somebody breaks the social norms, so we need to set the bar higher. Tialaramex (talk) 23:06, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Wehpudicabok [話] [変] [留] 23:10, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Seriously, that was awesome, Tialaramex. Amazing/10. DØØM MĖSSIÅH ^{Take that, motherfucker!} 00:57, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Speaking as a Konkinite, you display all the understanding of libertarian thought (and even the particular argument you're criticizing) that Doctor Dino displays of evolution (though this problem is non-unique here; every critic here seems to understand as little as you do). Get past the bad presentation of the hypothetical and consider the argument actually being advanced: the continued existence of humans and the according of rights to beings whose existence is mutually exclusive with that of human beings are mutually exclusive. Sapience is irrelevant to the situation except to the extent that this mutually exclusivity and its implications could be explained. We don't and can't afford rights to anopheles gambiae, dracuncula medinensis or yersinia pestis, and we couldn't afford them to a species that could only survive through the use of vacuuming systems adequate to drain the human body of blood in 8.6 seconds. If communication is impossible, so is coexistence. Frostbyte (talk) 16:23, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

You assume I care - David Gerard (talk) 10:58, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

You should. Criticizing an argument on the basis that you don't understand the presentation is like objecting to Christianity because it worships Dionysus. Frostbyte (talk) 03:34, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps it's a hasty generalization. More like objecting to Christianity because Catholics believe they're eating the flesh of God. I'm not interested in an explanation of how Calvinist beliefs are less absurd. --TheLateGatsby (The end of the dock ) 14:19, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

@Frostbyte: It's not even a matter of the logic. Rothbard's argument is not even factually correct:

Rothbard: "No other animals or beings possess this ability to reason, to make conscious choices..." See animal cognition.

"...to transform their environment in order to prosper..." See niche construction.

"...or to collaborate consciously in society and the division of labor..." See ants, bees, or termites. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 16:52, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Always refreshing when a voice of reason shows up. It might be more convincing to mention mammalian examples of conscious collaboration, though. I believe such behavior exists with cetaceans, and with quadrupeds who hunt in packs. Eusocial hymenoptera, not so much about consciousness. A honeybee colony might be modeled as aggregate of rigid little state machines, with remarkably flexible emergent group responses to seasonal cues and other environmental influences. Also, they smell nice. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 17:14, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

True, the word "consciously" is a sticking point there. You could still pick any number of social mammals such as elephants, dolphins, or social primates, though. Or, if we go even further back, other members of the genus Homo. In any case, Rothbard's argument is based on uninformed human exceptionalism. That said, I would still choose human life over vampiric Martians. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 18:00, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

All of the species you refer to can be communicated with in some fashion (we can put down insect repellents, for example, which limits the impact of the fact that we can't communicate with them in other ways). Beekeeping is a mutualistic or at least commensal relationship, and we have some limited understanding of the pheromones by which they communicate. He certainly overgeneralizes in this sense, but the issue of communicability, properly understood, is entirely legitimate. Rothbard's Martians would be a pretty solid example of what Card termed varelse. Frostbyte (talk) 20:12, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

My only response is "So what?" Rothbard's vampire Martians, as you admit, are not equivalent to actual animals. It is a non-sequitur in regards to his argument against animals rights. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 06:11, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

The central argument being advanced is that human ethics can't afford rights to entities we can't communicate with. The various species of animals have different degrees of communicability, and the extent to which it matters is situation-depenent. A pit viper rearing to strike is in an entirely different class from a housecat. Clearly the animals that we form long-term social relationships with are different from the ones with which we don't/can't. Michael Vick pitting dogs against each other is in a different ethical league from deployed soldiers gambling on scorpions, no? Frostbyte (talk) 17:17, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

If you can, by applying the principle of charity to nearly the point of synthesis, extract anything resembling a sane point from his disconnected hypercaffeinated rantings, that doesn't make his actual example unworthy of ridicule in itself. Which it remains. If he's that fucking terrible a writer, you're trying way too hard for him - David Gerard (talk) 12:31, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Latest cover of reason

Feast your eyes on this shit. I just cannot get over how bad this is.

The scantily clad woman in the background, who exists solely so Reason has an excuse to put tits on the cover, and for the man to disregard as he stares in blank disinterest at his video game.

And the libertarian touchstones arrayed around him. A bong! A 3D-printed gun! A self-referential copy of the same magazine!

But, that’s not all! This is a libertarian magazine trying desperately to appeal to young video gamers. Hence the shitty low-rise bed, the can of Four Loko (young people chug entire fucking cans of shitty alcohol while pwning n00bs, right?) and (again) the disapproving woman in the background, because parents, amiright?

Hey Reason, if you want to appeal to young hip people, you might have better luck opening a food bank, because a huge number of college students have trouble affording food. I don’t think your "Pull yerselves up by your own bootstraps! FREEDOM POT 3D GUNS NO TAXES!" ideas are going to sell well outside of your existing market of assholes in suits posing for magazine covers. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 05:34, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Hate to burst your little bubble of moral outrage there but it is clearly a reference to GTA V. Aceⁱ⁹ 10:03, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Just saw the Beavis and Butthead video you linked to. Hilarious. "They'll be SLOTS everywhere". "Hey, Butthead, this chick seems pretty cool". LOL! Burkean (talk) 10:13, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

The GTA connection was pointed out yesterday - look below the large chunk of text.--ZooGuard (talk) 10:19, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, but you still seem to think the bogus moral outrage from this radioactive fucktard is legit. Burkean (talk) 11:28, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I'll do no such thing, thank you kindly. Aceⁱ⁹ 10:22, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

"Sctantily clad...tits on the cover", thanks for the fusion between moral hectoring and ultra non-sex positive feminism, Elmer Susan Sontag Gantry. And a woman getting after either a son or spouse or significant other for laying around and playing video games too much...Yeah, that never happens in real life...please grow the fuck up and take your moral allergy to T and A where it belongs, like over on conservapedia for instance. We've had enough of both the feminist and the christian war on porn in this country to last us a fucking lifetime, thank you very much. "Stares in blank disinterest". Right, because liberal comedians have never joked about men ignoring women while watching the game/gaming. And such humor ought to be frowned upon in this day and age. It's not like the noble puritans of rationalwiki ever employ off color humor. Let us have a public burning of all the old copies of Mad magazine and National Lampoon, who did cartoons like this all the time.

In fact much of what is sexual humor, much of what is comedy central and off color humor would have to go. Interesting how you show utter contempt for the tastes and preferences of many young, and not just young people (shitty low rise bed, stupid cheap beer, I hate this trash and what they like. They are impure and have been corrupted by sin and the brainwashing of the corporations!), then turn the corner with "if they really cared about young people". I didn't realize how many college students were experiencing famine these days (I live in a college town, look pretty well fed to me. Some a little too much). Incidentally, the idea that only liberals open up food banks (or that reason magazine hates charity because they're somehow pure-blooded Randroids) is refuted by the fact that according to census data (and we all know how much liberals love that) conservatives (even poor conservatives) often, though not always, actually give MORE to charity than liberals (even rich liberals). Please explain how some fun sex/drugs humor in a funny drawn cartoon is an argument against a food bank.

You might also remember that most of the food banks in this country are private and run purely through donations, which is the kind of thing both conservatives and libertarians have championed and encouraged in many articles in order to move away from corrupt inefficient governments doing the charity. In any case, most of the college kids today are at the very least middle class, the number of hungry in America has dropped sharply over the decades, just as world poverty has halved from what it was 50 years ago. Apparently, you're allergic to both facts and boobs (Oh, I'm so sorry, breasts. Hope I haven't offended you). Bottom line, the reason people far at the bottom are further away from everyone else is because so many people have moved out of that group, making them as a group smaller and therefore poorer statistically but not materially. Regardless, let's have more food banks, I'm all for it.

While we're on the subject of college kids and food, one of the reasons restaurants are so busy in our town on sunday and wednesday is that the dorms don't serve meals on those days. Did the capitalists make them do that? Maybe if we really "care about the young people", we should be addressing the fact colleges take in vast amounts of money from both public funds and private donors, turn around and spend it on themselves (fancy facilities that have nothing to do with education), dubious research projects which help teachers avoid teaching, rewarding their heavily tenured unaccountable staff, and general other ridiculous fare that actually has nothing to do with reading or learning, and then claim they have to keep raising tuition. The so-called private colleges in this country are mostly welfare bums. This is part of the problem with people who say we shouldn't have for profit schools. Nevermind that many if not most of them actually have higher graduation rates, or sport more graduates who go on to be successful in professional career. More and more of the most successful people out there are coming from for profit schools. But hey, they're really all just "diploma mills". Bottom line, if you don't keep feeding the beast that is higher education and you don't have the credentialed snobbery which treats for profit schools as illegitimate (which will begin to change as the results from "prestigious" continue to wane) and the ridiculous rules surrounding accrediting schools, those who refuse to focus their resources on actual education and charge ridiculous tuition will die the death they so richly need to.

In any case, the prestige associated with having a degree has succumb to the law of diminishing returns. As colleges abandon traditional rigorous standards in curriculum, more and more students churned out of the college machine know less and less than before. Certainly the abandoning of academic standards and genuine inquiry (in the name of enforced dogma about culture history and the west) has had the effect of creating uniformity and ignorance in areas of study such as history, culture, gender, race, politics and economics. But now, the loss of such standards is even effecting the knowledge and quality of grads in the tech fields and so forth. Moreover, a stagnant and controlled economy in which no one wants to hire merely exacerbates the failure to launch/college debt problem. Perhaps if they weren't in an economy where the dollar has lost so much value, where regulation exacerbates the price of basic goods, where entry level folks are essentially priced out of the market through wage controls, and where they can't get a job because no one's hiring in the taxation/regulation environment we have. You might want to think about that (since you care about the kids so much) instead of ranting about boobs in a cartoon, or complaining about how young techy nerd/libertarian types like porn (sexual expression), or weed (relaxation, creativity, medicine), or 3-d guns (enjoyment from shooting so long as not harming others, self defense) or because someone who made a funny cartoon doesn't have the proper enlightened views about women. I guess H.L. Mencken was right. There really isn't much difference between the progressive and the puritan. Burkean (talk) 07:39, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Just for the record, all guns are "3D", unless you are trying to shoot people with cardboard cutouts. :) The fixation with 3D-printed guns is motivated more by anti-gun-control sentiment than by love of target shooting. Also, the spelling error in the sentence bemoaning the loss of quality in tech education is highly amusing.--ZooGuard (talk) 09:32, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

"But now, the loss of such standards is even effecting the knowledge and quality of grads in the tech fields and so forth". Where's the error? I'm using the correct effect (as opposed to affect). In any case, I never claimed to be a master of punctuation. That's what clicking edit is for. Nice deflection from the fact that the idiot above thinks boobs in a cartoon are sinister and ties it to opening a food bank. The point was not that I thought people could be shot with cardboard guns, rather that it's hardly an indictment or a statement on the awfulness of society for guns to be in existence. And that gun control doesn't prevent crime and the statistics are there and look it up your own fucking self. Cheap beer also apparently offends his sensibilities. As for this crap about "suits", all sorts of liberals, musicians, and artists are interviewed. Lewis Lapham and the proudly gay democrat Colorado politician Jared Polis, who doesn't seem to think libertarians are idiots. Not to mention standing with liberals against the unjust murder of a homeless man in Los Angeles, encouraging acceptance for the ICP community, and celebrating marijuana legalization at an outdoor festival. Yes, they believe in the free market. No, they aren't just a bunch of suits. Whine about that instead of being a dick and pretending the "hilarious" spelling error is more important. I'd say the puritanical morality that makes him sound like he just came out of a William Jennings Bryan revival is quite a bit more pathetic and laughable, but whatever. The idea that you've exposed some idiocy just shows how in denial you are concerning the idiocy of "this cartoon has boobs and I'm pissed." Burkean (talk) 09:40, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

My post wasn't intended to be a refutation of your wordwall. I'll leave engaging with that to Stabby. And please have a look at http://www.thefreedictionary.com/effect--ZooGuard (talk) 09:57, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Effecting, as in having an effect on the amount of knowledge and quality of grads we're seeing in the tech fields. Affect would be used in the context of something like affectation. So no, I didn't get it wrong. But the point is irrelevant anyway. In any case, why on earth you would find such a trivial error hilarious when one looks at what the idiot I was responding to said is beyond me (I guess because it proves I'm uneducated). As for my "wordwall", Ace thinks his comments were fucking moronic as well. See above "Bubble of moral outrage". Right on, Ace. Couldn't have said it better myself. I only wish I could see radioactive's ego deflate. Burkean (talk) 10:04, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

You are either unable to admit a mistake, or you just didn't click the link I provided. Here's another one: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/affect --ZooGuard (talk) 10:19, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Okay, I confused affect with effect and I now realize I used the incorrect word. How does this validate ridiculous condemnation of large breasted cartoons and psychotic ranting about cheap beer, guns, and a food pantry? Doesn't rationalwiki have some page about the need to distinguish between different levels of wrong? Why was my mistake what drew your attention as opposed to radioactive's idiocy? Further down this page (while bashing Ron Paul) someone here says against when they mean again. So it happens. I guess I thought it was less important than lunacy about cheap beer, suits, bongs, boob cartoons, etc. Guess I was wrong. Or maybe you just focused on the molehill to deflect from the mountain. Yeah, I'm thinking that's it Burkean (talk) 11:32, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Four Loko isn't a beer. Ŵêâŝêîôîď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 12:26, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Oh, what the fuck ever, alcoholic beverage. The point was the guy was acting like a lunatic about a cartoon with boobs and cheap "alcohol". He's acting like a fucking loon but everyone seems more concerned about me accidentally using the wrong letter (effect with an e vs. affect with an a) and mistaking an alcoholic drink for beer. Priorities, anyone? Burkean (talk) 20:52, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't see anyone acting like a fucking loon here except you. ₩€₳$€£ΘĪÐ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 11:47, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Ace also thought he was being a complete idiot. "Reason magazine with their boobs, pro-gunness, bongs and such. Clearly just trying to manipulate the young. I'm outraged! Why don't they go be good little boys and girls, stop wearing suits and open a food bank?". But I'm the loon? Whatevs. Talking about suits when reason talks to liberals and stands up for liberal causes all the time. What the fuck? Burkean (talk) 12:35, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Against my better judgement I made an account just to say: To Burkean: Your text wall is intimidating but your whole section about schools bothers me, the private graduates thing. You say about private schools "many if not most of them actually have higher graduation rates, or sport more graduates who go on to be successful in professional career". The problem with basing your view of private/public schooling off that is that the very nature of the two kinds of schools biases the results, private schools, because they receive less public money, generally cost students more, therefore their students are better off financially than the students of public schools and of course a good predictor of higher academic success is, you guessed it, higher economic status. The same applies to being successful in a professional career, in America (and I assume we are talking about America) social mobility is relatively low so students who can afford to graduate from private schools are more likely to remain part of the upper-middle or upper class (have a professional career) than students who can't afford private schools. In this way the graduation and success of private school students doesn't nessisarily relate to private schools being more effective than publics or not, just to the class of people that private schools have for students. And before you say anything me disagreeing with you does not mean I endorse the views of the OP. SolPyre (talk) 04:11, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

I didn't actually notice most of that stuff 'til you pointed it out. But now that you've mentioned it, it is kinda stupid, but what else is one to expect from a magazine like Reason? DØØM MĖSSIÅH ^{Take that, motherfucker!} 05:44, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Who is the artist? Because the "meta" use of the magazine copy requires some knowledge of the Droste effect and postmodernism.

And more irony: I'd argue that invoking GTA like this hurts, rather than helps, the video game industry considering the ever-present basement stereotypes... Osaka Sun (talk) 06:32, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Wait, what kind of person plays video games in their bedroom in a business suit?--ZooGuard (talk) 08:11, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

It's actually based on a (promo?) picture from GTA V: http://www.playm.de/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/v_jimmy_1920x1200.jpg - Bismarck (talk) 08:35, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I think this is actually a good cover, as it subtly points out everything wrong with the magazine. --|₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{The devil found it objectionable, so he banished it to Dollarama} 10:53, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Let's model this after a character who mooches off his parents and has no intention of moving out or getting a job. Sure, why not. Seems like the artist was indeed more clever than his employers. Vulpius (talk) 12:54, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Is it just me, or does the gamer bear an uncanny resemblance to a young Al Gore? - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 16:17, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Nah, it's definitely Bill Clinton. --|₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{Browser of shitty tumblr blogs and 4chan shitposts} 16:37, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Chris Christie on a diet. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 18:30, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I dunno. Might attract some of the grade 12/first-year college set. I went through a "Hey, this Ron Paul guy sounds pretty neat" phase around then. My brain then started functioning against sometime in 2nd year. Compro01 (talk) 17:14, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Burkean, I have skimmed your wall of text to get the gist of your point and I must say I am shocked and appalled that you want to ban food jokes and sex banks and gas the Jews. Fonzie (talk) 22:52, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

That was my plan all along. I thought I would be able to conceal my true intentions but you were just too cleaver for me, Henry Winkler. Burkean (talk) 02:11, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Shitfuckingdammit Burkean, learn how to indent.

By the way, I agree on you on the porn stuff, kind of. --|₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{All you need is some monkey magic, and all will be alright} 00:59, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, nice to get a little positive energy from someone on here. I'll work on the indenting :) Burkean (talk) 20:14, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

you might want to mask the name and address on the label Hamster (talk) 03:55, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Uh, why? It's a columnist's name at her magazine's office. I can only assume that Katha Politt or another Nation writer posted the image online. Why would anyone want to conceal this? Щєазєюіδ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 07:15, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Oscar Pistorius

The trial of Oscar Pistorius, the South African athlete accused of killing his girlfriend is due to come to a conclusion soon. I was wondering what people think about it. If you know, and care, about this trial, how would you vote? 1) Guilty of pre-meditated murder; 2) guilty of accidentally killing her; or 3) not guilty (thought it was an intruder in the bathroom stall, not girlfriend). Refugee^{talk page} 18:23, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I've no idea. I've seen virtually none of the evidence. Ajkgordon (talk) 18:31, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I wouldn't find him not guilty and I wouldn't want him to leave the courtroom as a completely free man for the following reason. If his story of believing that there was an intruder in his bathroom is true, that still means that he was taking a "shoot first, ask questions later" attitude and didn't care about taking the life of another human being. I'm not convinced that he planned to murder Reeva Steenkamp but there seems to be no denying that he was a gun nut. Spud (talk) 04:58, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Hell, even ignoring that, he's taking a "shoot first, ask questions later" attitude in a house he shares with his girlfriend, without checking where his girlfriend is. So even if his account of what happened is 100% true he's still, quite literally, lethally stupid and therefore dangerous. X Stickman (talk) 12:17, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

But he doesn't appear much different from millions of average Americans. Генгис^{Is the Pope a Catholic?} 14:39, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

From what I understand it's even worse than you've portrayed it. Pistorius claims the gun was fired several times accidentally. In his account he doesn't fire a gun at anyone, whether a non-existent intruder he thinks he hears in his bathroom or Reeva, because either way that makes him guilty of a serious crime in South Africa. He says he was just holding the gun, because he was scared, and then it accidentally discharged repeatedly. This is part of a pattern for Pistorius in which guns "go off by accident" and then he has to go to great lengths to ensure everybody understands that he's a responsible gun owner who has terrible luck and definitely not a gun nut with emotional problems. Tialaramex (talk) 16:40, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I think that would be one of the times that's he changed his story, obviously after the prosecutor pointed out to him that you can't just go blasting away at people who break into your house either. So far, the prosecution have failed to persuade me that he had a motive for murdering Reeva Steenkamp. There's been no talk of a will or a life insurance policy or another lover. I also believe he genuinely regrets having killed her now. But, with his claims of his gun accidentally going off. if nothing else, he's guilty of perjury now, and it definitely looks to me like him being allowed to own firearms was an accident waiting to happen. Spud (talk) 07:54, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

From the bits and pieces I've picked up, it seems the prosecution's case is that he deliberately killed her in a crime-of-passion situation, not for any pre-planned gain. They had an argument, she stormed off to the bathroom (for whatever reason, to pack, make a call, he chased her there, whatever), then he's all "man fuck you" and fired through the door (whether he actually intended to hit her or whether he was just firing in random anger at the room she was in is another point of debate I guess). His own defence doesn't really make sense considering he claims he ran/hobbled (whether he had his legs on or not is another sticking point) around the house for a bit shouting because he thought there was an intruder, and somehow she didn't once shout back "dude I'm in here". Like I said before though, my view on the case since day one has been regardless of the exact sequence of events, he still shot his girlfriend through a door. If it's on purpose, he's an asshole. If it was an accident, he's dangerous. Either way he needs some kind of rehab. X Stickman (talk) 10:04, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I think we're pretty much in agreement there. As I see it, there's no way that the judge can say that he didn't mean to do anything wrong and there's no way that she can allow him to leave without imposing some kind of sentence on him. Spud (talk) 12:11, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I believe he's guilty, however it is over-reported and people should STFU about it already. People get murdered every day. IWantAFuckingUsename (talk) 11:22, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Dissent

Get it off the news. Seriously. We need to stop publicizing and overblowing trials like this one in favor of other news that could be more informative. Zero (talk) 13:10, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm torn on this argument -- for the most part, I don't pay much attention to high-profile criminal trials, be they playing out in local, national, or international media. That said, the Pistorius case is closely tied to some of my pet politcal causes -- citizen access to firearms, violence against women -- and its outcome will say a lot about those issues, so there's something to be said, if not for following the trial, for following the way the trial gets covered and the debates and conversations that emerge from the trial. In a similar vein, I was not really too interested in the question of whether or not OJ simpson killed his wife. I was very interested in what that case said about domestic violence and race and the justice system in America. TeenageWasteland (talk) 13:21, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

LBJ

“” I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office--the Presidency of your country. Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.

—Lyndon B. Johnson

LBJ

^{— Unsigned, by: 109.155.124.172 / talk / contribs}

Here is a better picture, complete with Pinocchio nose. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 19:31, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Huh. Something tells me you don't like LBJ. --|₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{The best part about Reddit is the drama} 19:41, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

He was OK, I guess. Earthy and fun-loving beats pious and hypocritical any day, in my book. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 19:55, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

What year was the quote though? '64 or '68? Wehpudicabok [話] [変] [留] 21:01, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

'68 Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 21:11, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Then whence the nose pic? Or is that just about Vietnam and not about his political career? Wehpudicabok [話] [変] [留] 00:52, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Never trust a man who goes to war against a country he can't even pronounce (VEET-nam). nobs^{Jesus loves you and I love you, but nobody else does.} 03:14, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

The country of Washragstan is hereby declared safe from trustworthy Texans in perpetuity. User:PsychoGecko, 05:28, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Wehpudicabok, if you look at the cartoon rendering of his gall bladder surgery scar, you will see it resembles the map of a certain southeast Asian country. The nose is just for lagniappe. Rob, I didn't know you spoke Vietnamese. Are you fluent in Saigon, Hue, or Hanoi dialect? Also, LBJ didn't "go to war" in VN, he presided over continuing hostilities that started before his term began. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 12:05, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

In general, I don't care one way or another about LBJ, even though he was my Commander-in-Chief for a while, before Tricky Dick from Yorba Linda took over. Never met the man, and now he's history. I did see Eisenhower's gleaming dome from a great distance one time when he visited Ankara. If BoN 109 cares to explain the obsession with LBJ, this is as good a place as any for it. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 12:53, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

No, I got that. I just don't understand the overall point you're trying to make. But don't mind me, I'm tired and rambling. Wehpudicabok [話] [変] [留] 21:19, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Some random BoN using a Dorset or Berkshire address keeps plonking the same LBJ stuff here and there, and I figured another presidential image was just as relevant. BoN doesn't seem to want to make a coherent point, so I've lost interest. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 21:30, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

The current LBJ obsession is over the latest attempt to rehab his reputation. A PBS series tried to do it a few years ago as well. The consensus narrative seems to be, other than being an incompetent idiot, he was a well-intentioned asshole. nobs^{Jesus loves you and I love you, but nobody else does.} 19:44, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

well intentioned arsehole is the best any president/prime minister/head of state can hope for. AMassiveGay (talk) 17:06, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Sci-fi advocates shake in horror

Ridley "George Lucas" Scott is planning Prometheus 2 (with more awful writers) and a potential Blade Runner sequel. Osaka Sun (talk) 03:56, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Ehhh. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 04:29, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

From what I've heard, the writing wasn't so bad. They originally accounted for several key points of stupidity in the movie, but then parts were changed or left out when it came time to shoot the thing. Still, that doesn't likely bode well for the sequel. They might have better luck making it "Airplane III!" User:PsychoGecko 05:24, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Prometheus was a good movie. I liked it because it created a deep, detailed setting with amazing aesthetics, punctuated with excellent characters. Honestly, 90% of the hate this movie gets is bandwagon hate more than anything (on the Something Awful and Reddit anyway). --|₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{Flipping out the buttered fuck crumpets} 13:59, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

A quick peek in the crystal ball tells me Alien vs Bladerunner: the post mortem cut will actually be surprisingly good. As a tribute to The Other Scott the film stars Tom Cruise as a maverick bladerunner on a runaway space-train. And there's an alien queen on board. But it's a synthetic alien queen because who can afford a real one? Fonzie (talk) 17:46, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Why isn't Will Smith involved with this project? --Kels (talk) 20:26, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

You know how well that went last time. --|₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{Some men just want to watch RW burn} 23:44, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Bull. Critics made a big deal about it as well. Osaka Sun (talk) 21:11, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

It seems that the original script for Prometheus would have made a lot more sense, but somebody thought it would be a good idea to have one of the guys from Lost to re-write it [2][3]--"Shut up, Brx." 01:30, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

The idea Lindelof had was to make Prometheus deliberately ambiguous regarding... Well, everything. Whether this was well done is another matter. --|₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{Flipping out the buttered fuck crumpets} 02:30, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, I never thought Lost was any good. And to me, plot holes and non-sequitur additions couldn't possibly make a movie good.--"Shut up, Brx." 04:10, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Heretic. DØØM MĖSSIÅH ^{Take that, motherfucker!} 05:37, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Prometheus is kinda like Lost on a spaceship. But Lost's style kind of doesn't translate well to film for some. But whatever, I stand by it. --|₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{We exist in different epistemological paradigms, fuckpants!} 11:43, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

+1. DØØM MĖSSIÅH ^{Take that, motherfucker!} 11:48, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

If you guys are cringing over this, just wait until I tell you about the Die Hard and Fantastic Four reboots... PsyGremlin^Prata! 12:29, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Lost on a spaceship? I've seen that claim, apparently made because it was written by a Lost writer, but it's silly in my opinion. Lost was a meandering ad hoc development of a new universe that I found particularly interesting. Until they started getting into vaguely christian weirdness, it I was actually riveted by supernatural phenomena I'd never even considered. Neat! Alien is an established universe with a number of inflexible rules. There will be aliens that burst out of people's chests. There will be egg pods hatching, with juvenile fry shocking us by aggressively shoving gross things down people's throats. There will be psychotic robots. The script, such as it was, meandered so far from the Alien universe that it was incomprehensible. It most certainly did not have excellent characters. Their motivations were impossible to discern. Why were the mercenaries such assholes? Why weren't they either elated or scared shitless at accompanying one of the most historic missions ever, even if it was motivated by greed. In fact, why didn't any of us know what the actual purpose of the mission was? What was David actually doing, how did he appear to engineer such an unlikely event. And why did he bother if he didn't really need the crew anyway? WTF WTF? Who were these tall guys and why did they want to destroy something they seeded? Why did they appear to want to poison it from the word go? What was the black goo. Were the tall guys also vulnerable to it just as their identical genetic brothers were? The movie may have contain a detailed setting, but it also may as well have been a ride on public transportation. When it's over, you sort of wonder what just happened. Why did that train smell like piss and feet? Who was that hot hipster with hairy armpits and why was she getting off in a yuppy neighborhood? Oh god I hated Prometheus and I hate Ridley Scott. Nutty Roux (talk) 15:30, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Oh. Word Osaka Sun's links. Bingo. Nutty Roux (talk) 15:31, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Osaka's link is great, thanks so much. But one thing it doesn't explain, and one of the biggest plot holes in my book, is why Shaw (the female lead) took the captain's speculation about the nature of the alien facility as gospel. Suddenly this minor secondary character, who plays the accordion, figures the whole thing out without ever leaving the ship and with only the sketchiest of evidence. The next thing you know everyone is sacrificing their lives based on a half-baked shot in the dark. It's really too bad that this thing got such a terrible script treatment from the atrocious Lindelhof, whose main talent appear to be creating a wafer thing illusion of symbolic or textual. Lindelhof's involvement is what creates such a huge contrast between Alien and Prometheus. Alien was a simple movie, superficially just a slasher movie with the haunted house swapped for a spaceship, but it had great symbolic depth and artfully played on deep seated subconscious fears about sexuality. Prometheus on the other hand is superficially a philosophical exploration about the origins of humanity and the nature of god and faith, but in reality these themes are just window dressing on a big budget action movie and in essence just boil down to "ancient astronaut" hand waving no more complex than when the same conceit was used in the original Alien vs. Predator.

It's all so disappointing because the film really had all the bones of something that would resurrect a completely dead (Anybody remember Aliens vs Predator: Requiem?), but nonetheless beloved franchise. It looked great, with some of the best production design in recent memory and it took great advantage of 3D technology without turning into a long form theme park ride as is the common trap. You do have to hand it to Scott for his ability to work with production design people to create a cohesive believable world which he's done time and time again. It's just that this time, unlike the original Alien or Blade Runner, he didn't have a good script--Marlow (talk) 19:38, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Maybe that last part is why I liked Prometheus so much—Sci Fi is, in my opinion, all about creating a cohesive, believable world. Prometheus did the job with flying colors. --|₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{Has not clipped his nail in nearly a year} 20:20, 12 May 2014 (UTC)