RationalWiki:Saloon bar/Archive58

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, (new)(back)

Bastards

Connecticut bishops fight sex abuse bill ^{Hat tip yummy} &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)} 12:03, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG. Fuckers. There is just something so wrong in this whole story that broke ten years ago. Gee, just what might it be? ħuman 12:56, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

we need article if we don't already. that cited site is just insane ħuman 12:58, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

"Under current Connecticut law, sexual abuse victims have 30 years past their 18th birthday to file a lawsuit. The proposed change to the law would rescind that statute of limitations.

The proposed change to the law would put "all Church institutions, including your parish, at risk," says the letter, which was signed by Connecticut's three Roman Catholic bishops." WTF? ħuman 12:59, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado ... founder of the Legion of Christ...

...was the greatest fundraiser of the modern Roman Catholic church ...

...was a notorious pedophile, and a man who fathered several children by different women.

...was a morphine addict who sexually abused at least 20 Legion seminarians from the 1940s to the '60s

More here ^{Hat tip yummy} &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)} 16:25, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

On this side of the pond, the Archbish of Canterbury gave a big sermon a couple of weeks ago saying (basically) that too many people in the Roman Catholic heirarchy still haven't got the message and their continued attempts to bury the truth is destroying the credibility of their own church. He got shot down for interfering in other churches' affairs but IMO he was dead right. As this story from Connetcictu (spelling?) demonstrates. The Real James Brown (talk) 23:02, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah "[the law would put] all Church institutions, including your parish, at risk," - basically that's the least subtle admission of guilt ever. Although even if they were innocent, I imagine the vogue for child abuse by priests, combined with the fact that you can easily manipulate someone into thinking they were abused as a child when they weren't, means that a lot of innocent people will be accused and dragged through shit because of it. I hope that's what they were getting at. As much as I'd like to see the entire church hauled for this, we have to remember that these people are still human, the abusers are still the exception rather than the rule, and the law must protect the innocent just as much as it should punish the guilty. But as the bill, from what the report says, appears to have various clauses that require a lot more proof and a few other hurdles from older claims it should be enough to prevent frivolous suits - meaning that the bishops in question either didn't read it, in which case they're idiots trying to spread fear and paranoia, or they're guilty of abuse and want to cover their own arses. ^bomination 11:14, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

"These people are still human, the abusers are still the exception rather than the rule, and the law must protect the innocent just as much as it should punish the guilty": As I understand it, that's what the AB of C was getting at. Taking responsibility for what went wrong and trying seriously to make sure it doesn't happen again is what the Church needs to start restoring its shattered credibility. i.e. a rational approach to rebuilding a deeply damaged organisation. The Real James Brown (talk) 12:17, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry to wax lyrical on the subject, but I think Alligheri stated it best:

He who usurps upon the earth my place,

  My place, my place, which vacant has become
  Before the presence of the Son of God, 

Has of my cemetery made a sewer

  Of blood and stench, whereby the Perverse One,
  Who fell from here, below there is appeased!" 

Of course, at the time it was a refutation of Pope Boniface, who screwed Dante over something good. But I say it still stands to this day. The papal throne is vacant, and has lost its way. -- CodyH (talk) 15:11, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Private Eye

Bit of a random topic, but I guess that is what this area is for. What are people's opinions on the Private Eye magazine? On the one hand, it can be funny and is certainly an entertaining read, but on the other hand it sometimes smacks of conspiracy theories. I know that they seriously messed up on the coverage of the MMR vaccine, which is reason enough to take what they say with a pinch of salt, and I also know of a NHS 'scare' a few years back that my dad was involved in, and was a complete and total fabrication on the part of the newspapers who reported the story, among them Private Eye. --Grey (talk) 13:47, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I love PE. Obviously I have been rather disappointed with the MMR coverage, but on the whole I think they do a good job. They're often the only ones to bring up a point or are at least first to do so. ^yummy &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)} 14:46, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

The Eye is absolutely outstanding. Yeah, the fucked up with the MMR bullshit, but generally speaking they stick their necks where others refuse to tread. DeltaStar_{Senior Sysop}^{Speciationspeed!} 14:55, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

For every time they fuck up with something like MMR they can point to a massive success like Paul Foot's work on Pam Am Flight 103, where PE was just about the only place you could read about the utter insanity of Al Megrahi's trial. Plus it's genuinely laugh-out-loud funny sometimes. –SuspectedReplicant retire me 17:15, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Good paper.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 17:24, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong, I often end up hanging around at a train station and the only paper I'm willing to buy is the Private Eye, and I've got no doubt that they report stories that would not perhaps be reported elsewhere. What I'm saying is that if they can mess up with something as obviously wrong as the Wakefield paper, what else can they get wrong? Do you trust what they report anymore than other newspapers? --Grey (talk) 17:43, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

And sometimes they report on stories and finish with a 'isn't it interesting that...' or 'that's what they say anyway...', seemingly looking for a conspiracy where there is none. --Grey (talk) 17:46, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry. I'm not trying to stir anything up here, I just wanted to see if anyone else thought the same way. Two wrong stories, one even affecting my dad's job, I'm gonna end up a bit bias! --Grey (talk) 17:50, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I hear you brother, and I'm certainly not trying to play down their part in the MMR fiasco - but you have to remember that they are journalists, not scientists. (Read Ben Goldacre's book to find out just how bad science reporting is) I read it as they are very good at revealing just how bent our noble politicians, councillors and civil-servants actually are. (And I like the cartoons) DeltaStar_{Senior Sysop}^{Speciationspeed!} 18:02, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I won't say PE is perfect, but it's very good. On the MMR story, they recently had their medical writer "M.D." review the coverage and point out where it went wrong. The result was a detailed criticism along with suggestions for the future. Hopefully they'll take those suggestions on board. –SuspectedReplicant retire me 20:13, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Printing their crossword sucks. Also, I don't know what a "fortnight" is. ħuman 06:30, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I like it, but since it often delves deep into bits of politics that I literally couldn't care any less about I find it waivers too much between essential reading and essential toilet paper to take out a subscription myself. I often get the annuals, which sticks purely to the funny stuff. ^bomination 17:59, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Need a short description of RationalWiki

that doesn't start with "A wiki about...". It's for mediawikiwiki:Sites using MediaWiki/en. -- Nx / talk 15:41, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Conservapedia's answer to the outright irrational wikipedia bias in conservapedia DeltaStar_{Senior Sysop}^{Speciationspeed!} 15:47, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

"A colossal waste of time". --Kels (talk) 15:45, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

"Vell, it's just zis site you know" (in a Gag Halfrunt voice) ^yummy &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)} 15:57, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Lol, serves me right for asking a serious question from a bunch of drunks in a bar. -- Nx / talk 15:58, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

"RationalWiki is a community working together to explore and provide information about a range of topics centered around science, skepticism, and critical thinking." If it's good enough for the RationalWiki article..? alt (talk) 16:10, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh, look, what a coincidence: [1] -- Nx / talk 16:14, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Heee! Nice to know someone else is reading here. ^yummy &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)} 16:20, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

"The thinking man's conservapedia." TKEtoolshed^{Frag Out!} 20:45, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Preferably one that has nothing to do with that shitty blog. -- Nx / talk 20:46, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

'A skeptical take on science and politics.' I tried to take our mission statement and make it sound less puffy. Mei (talk) 20:58, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

"A critical look at pseudoscience, bad logic and authoritarianism, but with extra punk, dinner photos and goats." Totnesmartin (talk) 22:28, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Pretty good - David Gerard (talk) 23:31, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

'Goat, lol, facepalm, facepalm, facepalm, goat, TangoKilo shit-stirring, Rob-the-Nob (or as he is known to his friends Роб-Pучка) discovering that the Reds covered up the Roswell Greys, very large seabreeze, goat curry?'-- ^{Spirit of the Cherry Blossom} 00:09, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Origninally a reaction to wingnut philosophy that, over time, gained a form and shape conducive to rallying against the pseudoscience movement. Or, for those living in a bats**t insane reality: a microevolution of the Trustworhty Encyclopedia, which doesn't prove macroevolution, that shows obvious harmful mutations [proving that no beneficial mutations exist] and goes against the teachings of our Lord and Savior 10 lbs. 8 oz. Baby Jesus. -- CodyH (talk) 18:35, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Naughty

Transubstantiation! ^{Hat tip yummy} &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)} 17:15, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Is it wrong that I now want steak and chips? ^bomination 18:07, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Communion teaching people to be cannibals again?--Thanatos (talk) 00:54, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

TheAmazingAtheist (local youtube star)

Is he a RW member? Waronstupidity (talk) 03:28, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Not that I know of. - π 03:58, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

No, but he does have an article. ^bomination 17:53, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

User:Mustex is though. He always offers high-quality videos at competitive internets. SJ ^Debaser 17:56, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

How come no one has pointed out that...

Moved to Talk_WIGO:CP

23:55, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Bob Dean speaking of aliens, bases on mars and moon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKqRwirdsV4&feature=related 199.242.176.85 (talk) 20:48, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

help with mathematics - catenery - hyperbolic cosine curve

I am trying to write a script to drape a chain in a 3d program and was using parabola. I am told a chain is actually a catenery, a hyperbolic cosine curve. y = cosh(x) esentially. The problem is calculating the curve if the endpoints are known and different heights. Anyone know enough about this to suggest a solution ?
Oh, anyone know of a band called Aerosmith , song Dream On , my niece sent me a download she payed for herself. She thinks its from the 1970s. :) Hamster (talk) 03:29, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Actually ignore idiot Pi, it help to write it out as $\cosh x={\tfrac {1}{2}}\left(e^{x}+e^{-x}\right)$. The smallest value it ever obtains is 1/2, so adding and subtracting a constant will effect the final height. The slope can be effected by scaling x. - π 03:56, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, and I do, and they are. Good song. Google the "toxic twins". And the "Gateway Arch". ħuman 04:10, 14 April 2010 (UTC) PS and "catenary", I think. ħuman 04:12, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I think Pi was about right the first time around. Up to translation a catenary is defined by $y=a\cosh(x/a)$. So the general form for a catenary, scaled and shifted to the right place, depends on three parameters $a,b,c$ (just like the case of a parabola):

$y=a\cosh \left({\frac {x-b}{a}}\right)+c$.

Say you want it to go through the points $(0,0)$ and $(E,F)$. You need to find the values of the parameters to make it so. When $x=0$, you want $y=0$, so

$0=a\cosh \left({\frac {0-b}{a}}\right)+c$,

so $c=-a\cosh(b/a)$. To get $(E,F)$ you need

$F=a\cosh \left({\frac {E-b}{a}}\right)-a\cosh \left({\frac {b}{a}}\right)$.

But that gives use two equations in three variables. You need one more relation to uniquely pin down the parameters -- the length of the chain between the points! Otherwise it's not determined. This is just like how there are many parabolas through, say, (-1,0) and (1,0), given by $y=c(x^{2}-1)$ -- you have to specify the length to figure out $c$. The length of our catenary is given by the arc-length integral

$\ell =\int _{0}^{E}{\sqrt {1+\left({\frac {d}{dx}}\left(a\cosh \left({\frac {x-b}{a}}\right)+c\right)\right)^{2}}}\,dx=\int _{0}^{E}{\sqrt {1+\sinh ^{2}\left({\frac {x-b}{a}}\right)}}\,dx=a\sinh \left({\frac {b}{a}}\right)+a\sinh \left({\frac {E-b}{a}}\right)$.

Now you need to solve for a and b given these two equations. Probably you'll want to use some numerical method to do that, I doubt it's possible to find an exact solution. Maybe it's easy to just find good way to numerically approximate the parameters directly. Or just use a parabola, who can tell the difference really. --MarkGall (talk) 04:33, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I now feel dumb for struggling with the substitution rule for definite integrals. TKEtoolshed^{Frag Out!} 05:13, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I now feel dumb for struggling with the conversion of waffle ingredients to a British measuring system. Then I read CP and realise I'm not as dumb as some.-- ^{Spirit of the Cherry Blossom} 12:56, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

ok, thanks for the replies. The code is to be written in python which is very fast, it may be possible to just try a range of values. Hamster (talk) 21:29, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Obama... now i dont agree with you.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/yahoocanada/100414/canada/the_finger_wag_that_launched_a_thousand_blog_posts He scolded Canada Prime minister! Waronstupidity (talk) 05:21, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

What, because of a single still image that appears as though he is condemning the Canadian Prime Minister? Even reading the article it says that the image is completely out of context. Grow up. - π 05:35, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

shut the fuck up moron i was SARCASTIC, damn......i think its you who need to grow the fuck up.Waronstupidity (talk) 05:39, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, it is hard to tell when INTERNET IS SERIOUS BUSINESS or not. - π 05:41, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

i used the word SCOLDED that doesn't really fit in a serious political post, with his big finger he looked like a angry father scolding his son.Waronstupidity (talk) 05:43, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Maybe not in Francish, but it makes perfect sense in Englich. - π 05:46, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

also swearing make me COOL! its on mah RWW article. Waronstupidity (talk) 05:58, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Alright for those that have RWW articles, obviously I need to up the n00bishness Tweety^{let's have buttsecks} 15:20, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

That picture is so full of win. Canada is our bitch. Someone needs to make a witty image macro out of that. Canada - NOW YOU LISTEN HERE ^{— Sincerely, Neveruse / Talk / Block} 15:23, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Agreed that the pic is full of win. Harper is an ass, and he's been ruining our rep around the world. The kind of guy who gets on just fine with a scumbag like Bush Jr., and would be only too happy to turn a perfectly good country into Jesusland North. He deserves all the scolding he can get. --Kels (talk) 16:49, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

On the move

Hooray! My application to live in somewher bigger than a red and white stripy workmens' hut has succeeded! I'll be moving in two or three weeks, and will therefore be offline for a bit from then, until I can afford teh innertubes. Totnesmartin (talk) 12:45, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Cool! Where are you moving to? Tetronian ^{you're clueless} 15:18, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

About half a mile up the road, so I don't have to chnage my username. Totnesmartin (talk) 17:38, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Must be the gypsy in you. Gawd help your username if you ever move to Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. --PsyGremlinSnakk! 17:42, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

If I moved there my username would be the last of my worries. What if I got lost and had to ask the way? Totnesmartin (talk) 18:51, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

testing my sig

Tweety^{let's have buttsecks} 15:15, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

It works! Tweety^{let's have buttsecks} 15:16, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Feel free to also test it in your sandbox or on your talkpage. SJ ^Debaser 16:58, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

This guy makes you look like a pro, SJ. ^{— Sincerely, Neveruse / Talk / Block} 17:12, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I know. And Waron. SJ ^Debaser 17:25, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Testing my sig too:DickTurpis (talk) 22:23, 15 April 2010 (UTC). Yep. That's it alright. Still workin' fine. DickTurpis (talk) 22:23, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

{:User:Nutty Roux/sig|}}}{:User:Nutty Roux/sig|}}}

Funny Godwin

I dunno how many of you keep up with politics down here, but here's a funny video on the whole Julius Malema / Eugene Terre'Blance mess, having a go at that stupid right-wing fucktard of a newspaper (Daily Star?) and their 'machete race war' crap. I'm sure you know Hitler's XBox... same clip, diff subs. --PsyGremlinHable! 18:32, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Live slap-o-meter

http://www.slapometer.com/ Watch the UK Election debate and slap your leader in the face. Live. ^bomination 20:05, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

James the Preacher vs. Westboro Baptist Church

Who do you think is more insane? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlOj6DCXZ40 --Mustex (talk) 22:07, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

An interesting poll on U.S. taxes

http://www.aei.org/docLib/AEIPublicOpinionTaxes2010April.pdf Where's the Teabagger's God now?Ryantherebel (talk) 19:09, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

That's a TL;DR if ever I saw one. Know of any blogs interpreting the document and providing charts? 194.6.79.200 (talk) 11:56, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Fascinating. Especially as it is provided by AEI, a conservative stink tank. ħuman 04:47, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Aimchair psychologie?

WTF is it? can someone give me an explanation since i am officially the village idiot of this wiki. Waronstupidity (talk) 23:43, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Let me Google that for you... Tetronian ^{you're clueless} 23:48, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

(ec - google's results are not good enough for a lmgtf) http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=armchair%20psychologist -- Nx / talk 23:49, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

thanks. Waronstupidity (talk) 23:50, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

(EC) @Nx: Damn, I was hoping to trap him into going to TVTropes, which was the first result. I never visit there anymore, since it's once you start it's impossible to stop. Tetronian ^{you're clueless} 23:51, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

On a completely unrelated topic, Firefox has a built in spell checker ^Me!Sheesh!_Mine! 01:32, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Premusably he(?)'s using a French Canadian version though. ^yummy &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)} 01:47, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

His spelling is passable, but he has a very poor grasp on English grammar. Word harmonic Hoover! 07:23, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

You WILL listen to this...

...in its entirety. Then you will click this link and skip to 1:45 and listen until the end of the song (crucial that you listen to the very end of it, startig at 5:10). And then you will come back and comment how awesome they both are. Capiche? --The Emperor _{Kneel before Zod!} 01:07, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Meh, nice, but tl;dl. ħuman 08:50, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Guess what some schools in Mississippi are still doing

It's 2010!--Thanatos (talk) 01:56, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm, frankly, not surprised. Just because de jure segregation is illegal doesn't mean de facto segregation doesn't exist. Especially in the Deep South. AnarchoGoon ^{Swatting Assflys is how I earn my living} 02:04, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Makes me think of the old jokes about rejected state mottos:

Mississippi: Come feel better about your state.

Alabama: At least we're not Mississippi...

I mean hell, look at the prom incident a few weeks back. --Ravenhull (talk) 12:18, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Good Rational Podcasts?

Anybody know good rational/skeptic/etc podcasts that are worth downloading. I work by myself on a midnight shift, so I've found podcasts something that help pass the time. I have found a few decent ones, such as The Reality Check by the Ottawa Skeptics and such. This would also seem to be a good article fodder for RW, for alongside the YouTube list. --Ravenhull (talk) 03:09, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I've been enjoying The Atheist Experience podcast, which is just the audio of the weekly TV broadcast, for a long time. You can get it off iTunes or elsewhere. 04:52, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Ja, Atheist Experience is pretty good. Non-Prophets Radio is also worth a look. A Christian and an Atheist is interesting, if only to learn a bit more about modrate Christianity. Point of Inquiry has some interesting guests, but I find it to be very hit or miss. ^{Ask me about your mother} 09:10, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

have a look here. The Skeptics' Guide to the universe archives. --PsyGremlinKhuluma! 09:27, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Looking over my iPhone, I currently have episodes of The Conspiracy Skeptic, Rationally Speaking, The Reality Check, Skepticality, The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, Skeptoid, and Token Skeptic. Definately a wide variety of styles and content. I will say that I've enjoyed Reality Check because they present a rather fun atmosphere. Overall, I've found good in all of these that I've heard. --Ravenhull (talk) 09:55, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

You could try righteous indignation for some good stuff. On an associated point the BBC has a good selection of science and nature podcasts. Sticking with the BBC and a little off topic the daily "Friday" vote now podcast making fun of the British election is hilarious. --Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 10:13, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

OK, I have created Rational podcasts. Please link to your favourites.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 14:22, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, The Skeptic's Guide is very good. Nature also has some great podcasts. Corry (talk) 04:08, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Help! Help, HELP!

I have had Wu-Tang Clan's "Bring Da Ruckus" from Enter the Wu-Tang: The 36 Chambers stuck in my head for at least three days. Normally, this wouldn't be a bad thing, but I'm waking up in the middle of the night muttering "Bring Da motherfuckin' ruckus" over and over again. I don't know if I can keep this level of intensity up much longer and I find it HIGHLY inappropriate to be bobbing my head to the tune while changing my son's diaper. The Foxhole Atheist (talk) 18:32, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Try this song - [2] Javasca₧ graaaah bruagh bruragh brah yaaarrgh! 18:45, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

"This video contains content from Vevo, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds." Bloody Australia.  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 02:47, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I had this beat stuck in my head for a few days...maybe we can switch them? ^{— Sincerely, Neveruse / Talk / Block} 18:49, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Apparently this is the best song to sing to get another song outta ones head. SJ ^Debaser 19:04, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

You are all bastards. Now I have some weird mishmash of four songs, all of which I hate (well, strongly dislike), and shant be sleeping tonight because of it. Aboriginal Noise ^{What the ...} 20:40, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

But, here. Get this out of yer headz. Aboriginal Noise ^{What the ...} 20:43, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

only cure , not "achy breaky heart" cause you not in a coma, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwTZ2xpQwpA 199.242.176.85 (talk) 21:22, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

What a waste of a great voice. ħuman 03:27, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

None of you can complain. I have had the hold music from a hospital stuck in my head for days. Corry (talk) 04:11, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

three years ago i looked up the words to I've Got A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts, and that's been my earworm ever since. This might explain a lot actually... Totnesmartin (talk) 11:49, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I've always found the opening line from Aga do do do to be the most effective mental flypaper. --PsyGremlin話しなさい 11:59, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Ah, shaddap you face. Real first name and last initial (talk) 12:11, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

The evil one's come to sort us out (?)

The Iceland volcano by radar. Now that's really pareidolia. ^yummy &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)} 23:24, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

If skulls could have hairlips, that would be the image I'm seeing. Aboriginal Noise ^{What the ...} 02:38, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm seeing the rabbit from Donnie Darko. ^bomination 11:25, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Really? How did you meet? Totnesmartin (talk) 17:02, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Misfortune

I went into the bathroom, stubbed my (bare) toes on the bath (who put that there?) hopped around, fell over, grabbed towel rail, towel rail detached from wall bringing plaster dust onto floor, flailed about, hit head on cabinet next to wash basin, mirror broke, cabinet door came off, Contents of cabinet spread themselves around room. Think I might go to bed. ^yummy &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)} 16:22, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

That sounds like an average afternoon for me. I ran headfirst into a wall when I was something like 9 years old and I've never been on the same level since. Now I stay out of reality, as aforementioned. SJ ^Debaser 17:24, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

OUCH hope you are ok. Is your girlfriend at least tending your wounds? I would fix your bathroom fixtures, but, yeah I am too far away. ħuman 18:13, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Sounds funny, but also sounds painful. Yes, go to bed - you'll be safer there.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 18:46, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

O bet you used little screws to hold your towel rail , thats usually fine , but it doesnt make a grab bar. Grab bar and lag bolts is what you want ;) Hope you arent hurt , hopping on broken mirrors is bad luck. Hamster (talk) 20:00, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Did Ace hack Toast's account?  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 01:32, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Was stone cold sober @ the time. Which is why the toe stub hurt so much I suppose. Am now slightly intoxicated, having drunk 5 bottles of Klassïek "Genuine Dutch Beer" and a couple of measures of Ardbeg. Drinking alone is not a good idea - I'm getting morose! ^yummy &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)} 01:41, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Vandalism

It seems that both RW and CP are undergoing lots of vandalism lately, is the culprit the same person/people? Opinions? Tweety^{let's have buttsecks} 19:10, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Both Conservapedia vandals seem to be the same person. That's pretty much all that is obvious to me so far. Rodlen (talk) 19:14, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

It's possibly connected. However, we have it under control because while we have no gun control (handing out guns left and right) CP has very strict gun laws, and only awards them to a few of the most trusted acolytes. EddyP (talk) 19:17, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Haha! That was good :P Tweety^{let's have buttsecks} 19:18, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Nice one. Also of note: the return of DuncanB. Rodlen (talk) 19:31, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

A user named Cheerleader has registered at CP, they seem to be the same Tweety^{let's have buttsecks} 20:30, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Vandals vs Parodists, round 9001. EddyP (talk) 20:31, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Fuck conservapedia. rational ghey (talk) 20:34, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Just don't let Human know that they've been breaking his Wiki. It'd make him cry. The Goonie Punk ^{Can't sleep, clowns will eat me!} 21:08, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Of course what they just love is to see people talking about them and speculating about them. So perhaps we should just ignore them.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 21:12, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Bob M is right, as usual, of course. Why should we even acknowledge these stupid idiots here? The Goonie 1 ^{What's this button do? Uh oh....} 21:21, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Also, talking about RW getting wandalized by the same person as is wandalizing CP doesn't serve TK's purpose, so there's another reason not to talk about it. Wouldn't want to do anything to undermine his authority for stating that RW is the "vandal site" would we? 21:13, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Another update: So, they had another vandal, Ramsey, warned by JulieWeis to stop vandalizing. However, JulieWeis turned out to be a sock of Cheerleader. Whoa. Rodlen (talk) 21:15, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Lifehacker on getting around Internet blocks and other slow-downs...

Article P-Foster (talk) 19:32, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Good youtube lovesongs?

Ok, basically I've thought of a kinda cool idea for a stunt to win me some youtube subscribers (hopefully). Basically, I make videos to "ship" youtubers (they can be creationists, anti-creationists, ect, whatever I think is funny), but I want to do them as music videos, and I don't want them getting pulled, so I want songs that are available on audioswap. Sadly, the only two love songs I know on audioswap are Every Time We Touch (which I'm a bit reluctant to use, because its SO overused), and Time After Time (which, I intend to check the version they have, and if its good will be used for my shipping video of James the Preacher and Thunderf00t). Can anyone recommend any other good audioswap love songs?--Mustex (talk) 23:43, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Scratch Time After Time, it appears they had a different song of the same name.--Mustex (talk) 23:47, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Icelandic ash

Bloody hell. First they fuck our economony, and now they're buggering up our flight schedules as well! What gives? _{Disclaimer: joke. Not blaming anything on the people of Iceland} Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 08:05, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Just on that - without wanting to sound all conspiracy thingy - is it just me, but have there been an awful lot of big earthquakes this year? --PsyGremlinSermā! 17:29, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I've been thinking that too, and I'm surprised there haven't been conspiracy theories about it (that I've seen, at least). Tetronian ^{you're clueless} 18:17, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

i saw one on a youtube comment, blaming it all on HAARP, but that's fairly standard for YT. Where's David Icke when we need him? Hiding in his secret base with his infrasonic earthquake device, that's where! Totnesmartin (talk) 18:53, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

And last year, remember the big tsunami was caused by a big earthquake, right? Or was that late '08? Either way, yeah. It's probably just a fluke though, but they could be related geologically. ħuman 21:41, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

2004 you mean? Boxing Day? Missed it by a day - left Phi Phi to have Xmas on the mainland. --PsyGremlin말하십시오 13:26, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Hey! a plane just flew overhead. Admittedly a small single engined thing, but the skies are open? ^yummy &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)} 15:43, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

IIRC it only affects stuff at the sort of altitudes jet engines fly at: low-flying planes aren't affected. Word harmonic Hoover! 13:29, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Just been out photographing the setting sun: big bright orange ball. ^yummy &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)} 19:15, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it's just the altitude, I think the type of engine is also relevant as jets suck in enormous amounts of air. But I'm just a simple girly so what do I know? Wait, I know just the person to ask!  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 10:35, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Did I really just see that?

While I don't like to add to the PeeZed liveblogging, please to be watching the video in this post and then telling me if that's actually real fox "news" programming or satire? I can't tell. Its hilarious, either way. --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 15:12, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I think it is, indeed, real. I found it painful and had to stop watching, though. ħuman 11:03, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Power out

I just had a power outage that effed up my file system (or some such arcane^{[nice word]} thing) I did something called "fsck"^(?) 'cause that's what it told me to do & now it's all back. But now my file browser just locks up. Help? (Ubuntu) ^yummy &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)} 15:21, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

What does the terminal do? Try using ls, and see what that reports. Word harmonic Hoover! 15:30, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Also, try running "nautilus", and check what it says. Word harmonic Hoover! 15:39, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

EC) I can leap around in the terminal: many files are duplicated i.e. "Ed" and "Ed~" but there doesn't seem to be any hang up. In applications (e.g. gedit) I can move around directories & stuff, it's just file browser. ^yummy &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)} 15:41, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

The files ending in ~ are backups made by gedit. -- Nx / talk 15:43, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

What error messages does Nautilus spit out? Word harmonic Hoover! 15:44, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

(nautilus:3733): Eel-CRITICAL **: eel_preferences_get_boolean: assertion `preferences_is_initialized ()' failed

• • (nautilus:3733): WARNING **: No marshaller for signature of signal 'UploadFinished'

• • (nautilus:3733): WARNING **: No marshaller for signature of signal 'DownloadFinished'

• • (nautilus:3733): WARNING **: No marshaller for signature of signal 'ShareCreateError'

Initializing nautilus-gdu extension

Nautilus-Share-Message: Called "net usershare info" but it failed: 'net usershare' returned error 255: net usershare: cannot open usershare directory /var/lib/samba/usershares. Error No such file or directory(nautilus:3733): Eel-CRITICAL **: eel_preferences_get_boolean: assertion `preferences_is_initialized ()' failed

• • (nautilus:3733): WARNING **: No marshaller for signature of signal 'UploadFinished'

• • (nautilus:3733): WARNING **: No marshaller for signature of signal 'DownloadFinished'

• • (nautilus:3733): WARNING **: No marshaller for signature of signal 'ShareCreateError'

Initializing nautilus-gdu extension

Nautilus-Share-Message: Called "net usershare info" but it failed: 'net usershare' returned error 255: net usershare: cannot open usershare directory /var/lib/samba/usershares. Error No such file or directory

Please ask your system administrator to enable user sharing.

^yummy &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)} 15:46, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

My guess it your .gconf directory got corrupted. Happened to me once when someone shut down a computer I was connected to using remote desktop -- Nx / talk 15:49, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

What did you do? Word harmonic Hoover! 16:43, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Delete .gconf IIRC -- Nx / talk 17:20, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Think I'll wait for next Ubuntu (due this month I believe). ^yummy &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)} 17:27, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

And wipe your homedir? -- Nx / talk 17:51, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Alternately, you can just use the command "mv ~/.gconf ~/.gconf.corrupted", which will back it up. Word harmonic Hoover! 18:06, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I hate to be a real jerk here, but Toastie darling, you've been on something like seventy machines since we met ya. Why do they all keep breaking? I understand the early days, you writing the help files on a handheld thingie while flooded out, but why don't you have a stable machine these days? Just asking, really, and curious. ħuman 16:14, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Twasn't the machine: my power went down. This is the fourth (4^th) machine in the last 4 years including 2 hand-held (or 'phones as some call them) ^yummy &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)} 16:22, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Like I said, I didn't want to be the asshole here. And I remember you building the fricking help pages on RW on like a handset. But why is now your big machine dying? You are really computer savvy, far more than me. ħuman 18:10, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Her machine isn't dying, there was a powercut which caused the filesystem (that's the arrangement of files on the physical disc, not the disc itself) to become corrupted. The computer instructed Toast to run a program to fix the filesystem, which it duly did, but some of the configuration files for the file browser were left corrupted, causing the file browser to fail. Word harmonic Hoover! 18:39, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

dunno where you live but consider a small UPS. they arent expensive and you only need like 5 minutes for an orderly shutdown. Hamster (talk) 20:18, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

That's why I love laptops, they have a built-in UPS (aka battery). Just ignore the recommendation to remove the battery when connected to mains power. --⁠ (talk) 20:48, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Great advice if you only want your lithium battery to last a bout a year. The main factor in shortening Li-ion battery life is heat. All Li-ion batteries start the road to death as soon as they are made. Keeping a three-quarter charged battery in a zip-lock bag in the fridge (not freezer) will extend its life. Use a proper UPS with cheap lead-acid gel batteries rather than leaving your laptop plugged in and warm all the time.  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 22:02, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Guess it depends on the quality of the battery and/or heat flow of the computer. My machine is now some 3 years old, uptime around 8h/day on average. So far, the battery (never removed) still has more than 75% of its original capacity. --⁠ (talk) 23:04, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Interesting point about the heat issue. The power's gone off a couple times while using this flappie, and it's almost spooky - everything around me turns off except the glowing screen. Of course, I lose the 'net due to the modem and router going down. ħuman 10:25, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

That's where a real UPS comes in handy. But don't you have a genset?  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 10:44, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but it's not automated. ħuman 11:03, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

First Contact?

Sorry if it's a repost--What to do if you meet E.T. P-Foster (talk) 19:32, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

How useful!--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 21:20, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

That's awesome. I'd hate to read the faith based one, which would probably be something along the lines of "before attempting to show a basic grasp of mathematics, tell them about Jeezus" ^bomination 07:58, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, great piece, but ow, the formatting! ħuman 11:22, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

It's probably meant to be a poster rather than an easy on the eyes article, but isn't really punchy enough for one. It'd make a good one, though. ^bomination 11:26, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

That volcano again

So who is going to be buying a mask to survive?--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 21:23, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Remember to duck and cover under a blanket or newspaper--Thanatos (talk) 00:49, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Photos of sunset 17/04/10 Not very good, but it was oranger than usual ^yummy &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)} 02:32, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm so glad I live south of that big ol' middle line thingy. Just as Hollywood predicted - all the crap happens up north. Just waiting for the ice storms and alien landings now. (PS When aliens land here, we stick 'em in ghettoes. It's true, I saw a documentary). --PsyGremlinZungumza! 09:30, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

It's obvious that God did this to punish Europe for tolerating fags and fag enablers. SJ ^Debaser 19:41, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

someone trying to hack my rationalwiki account.....

using the "forget password" feature.......damn..i keep receiving email saying someone asked a password change for my account O_O Waronstupidity (talk) 23:17, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

That happened to another two users recently. User talk:74.63.112.137. Rodlen (talk) 23:18, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

what should i do ? Waronstupidity (talk) 23:19, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Nothing. The email comes only to you. It's just a handy way for idiots to troll registered users of a Mediawiki installation. As well as a password recovery tool - David Gerard (talk) 23:21, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

(EC!!!) You can't keep receiving it because you can only receive one per 24 hours. And don't worry, it's just an annoyance, they can't break into your account. You don't have to use the temporary password, your existing password will continue to work, and the temporary one will expire in a day. -- Nx / talk 23:19, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Maybe you forgot your password, and the you forgot that you forgot it. --⁠ (talk) 23:20, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

This is actually the most likely explanation - David Gerard (talk) 23:21, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

well thank guy. but if you see me acting suspicious! it will be because CP hacked my account.Waronstupidity (talk) 23:24, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Based on your edit history I can only assume you account was hacked at registration . . . I kid . . . ^Me!Sheesh!_Mine! 00:02, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

It could also be a legit, but poorly thought out hack attempt - possibly a bot. I've had it done to my Neopets account, and I wasn't even active there at the time; it could also be someone who doesn't know that "Forgot password" is usually paired to an e-mail, and someone who doesn't know that the IP address is included in said e-mail. --86.122.128.125 (talk) 04:27, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't accuse CP of doing it, I mean, yeah, Schlafly and TK are both total c**ts but this isn't really their thing. It could just be a bot trying it as anyone wanting to "hack" RW would go after Nx or Trent's accounts surely. ^bomination 07:35, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Unset your email address for a few weeks until they get bored. Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 13:24, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

This also seems to be an ample time to mention I received that email at... *checks email* 11:45 last night GMT. SJ ^Debaser 14:03, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Mine was at 6:24 EST. And as far as "doing" anything about, once one understands the situation there's nothing at all that needs doing (I copied my "new" pword, but discovered I was logged in just fine, so didn't care). ħuman 14:13, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Hai Guys?

What if, instead of a Zombie Apocalypse, they rise up, infect a majority of the population, and elect a zombie as president or prime minister or whatever? ĴάΛäšςǍ₰ hi there! 01:56, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Interesting question. There are more dead people than alive ones, so theoretically they would form the largest voting block if they could vote. - π

I thought there were as many people alive as have died (roughly) ^yummy &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)} 02:01, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I actually think the total human population, including the dead, was about 80 billion. Dunno where I got that from, and take it with a grain of salt because it could be wrong. Javasca₧ wasn't me! 02:14, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

106,000,000,000 is the only number I can find. The US census bureau has estimates. - π 02:20, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Some say this happened in 2000. Boom-tish! - David Gerard (talk) 02:12, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Aside: Dead people voting is a classic ballot box stuffing technique. - π 02:16, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps this will be ACORN's next strategy? Tetronian ^{you're clueless} 14:14, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

just wondering...

When does an account have "autoconfirmed" status on RW? ex- Wikipedia is 10 edits + 4 days. rational ghey (talk) 06:05, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm thinking about two days. TKEtoolshed^{Frag Out!} 07:15, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

How to look like a funky monk

Can't afford a table? Smurf out!

"Perfect For Night Time Pub Crawls" - Can we expect these wearable sleeved blankets to be snapped up by RationalWikians?  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 14:41, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, if you want to get harassed and humiliated the moment you walk into a public place. Tetronian ^{you're clueless} 15:26, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Good garb for rationalwiccans?--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 15:32, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

On the other hand, it might be fun to walk around all day in one of these and pretend nothing unusual is going on. Tetronian ^{you're clueless} 17:32, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

It's a cult. Damn good one as well. Anyone making fun of you can be arrested and dealt with rather harshly, at least in Ireland.--^{Ask me about your mother} 18:15, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I can't say anything. I've got the full Sith robe…-- ^{Spirit of the Cherry Blossom} 21:44, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

King James Only Missionaries?

Hey, I know that when Muslims try to convert people they teach Arabic so people can read the Qur'an, but I was wondering: do King James Only people teach English? Or, do they even have missionaries?--Mustex (talk) 16:27, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Mmmm. I spent a few minutes trying to find something on this without getting any clear result. I did however come to this page which may have something on it. Unfortunately, the page really should get some kind of award for bad design and all the blinking words gave me a headache.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 17:56, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

So I have this friend...

...who likes to leave his lights on all day just to help global warming, which is strongly believes is a hoax. I don't think I wanna be friends with him. Thoughts? rational ghey (talk) 18:51, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

if he thinks "global warming" is a haox, how can he "help" something that doesn't exist for him? But really, the amount of electricity consumed by household lighting is pretty small compated to what we use runninbg street lights or traffic light for long stretches, or airconditioning/heating/lighting the average factory or shopping mall. P-Foster (talk) 18:59, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I would suggest that he leaves his tumble-drier on 24/7 as that would make a lot more difference.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 19:03, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Excellent point P Foster. I think he does just to waste electricity and piss anyone slightly more liberal than rush limpballs off. I think. Idk he's an idiot. rational ghey (talk) 19:19, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Does this friend pay his own electric bill?^Me!Sheesh!_Mine! 19:27, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

He could up the stakes a bit by burning car tyres in his garden. He'd also irritate the the big government crowd by exercising his right as an individual to throw himself off of a bridge, and ultimately that's one of those rare win-win situations. --^{Ask me about your mother} 19:32, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

What an absolute cock. What I would agree with Bob's suggestion that he really make his point by leaving all his high-consumption appliances on all the time, that'd stick it to those environmentalist loonies! DeltaStar_{Senior Sysop}^{Speciationspeed!} 19:37, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

No he gets his electric bill paid by the university housing. Nice Delta star. haha.. rational ghey (talk) 19:38, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

So he's a double dick. ħuman 19:45, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Well he's never gotten laid and he's from a small town in northern NJ (ha, where the assfly lives, how ironic?). He permanently has a limp on one leg, forgot why. I used to feel bad. rational ghey (talk) 19:52, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

None of that stuff is relevant to the issue at hand. SJ ^Debaser 19:53, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh calm down. Just sayin. He texted me when earth day was... so he could burn a forest. rational ghey (talk) 19:59, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Obviously I lied. Sigh. rational ghey (talk) 20:01, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I AM CALM!!!!!!!!!!!11!!!1!!!ONE!!! SJ ^Debaser 20:09, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

No you're not!!!one!!!eleven!!!!one-hundred-and-one!!!! rational ghey (talk) 20:13, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

It sounds like he is simply a contrarian empowered by the fact that his actions don't have any direct or meaningful consequence on him. ^Me!Sheesh!_Mine! 21:28, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I like John Hughes

Try to refute that, so called "rational" wiki. Mei (talk) 01:22, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

You know who else liked John Hughes? HITLER!@!@!11!!1!212!!! --The Emperor _{Kneel before Zod!} 02:13, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

AND STALIN! AND DARWIN IS CONNECTED TO BOTH! Rodlen (talk) 02:18, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

It is on now, "Theemperor". Mei (talk) 02:17, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

"mei" (you're not credible, liberal), I've responded to your concerns and answered your questions and you claim that faith isn't an uniquely Christian concept, so there's a 95% chance you're here to do harm to family values. You also clearly deny that going to church stops abortion. The answer to your silly question is this: the military is 60-40 Republican-Democrat. Obama only gets about 50% of Democratic votes, so that leaves him with only about 20% military support. Pathetic. I'll be lenient and block you for only a day but please don't return unless you want to contribute to this encyclopedia in a substantive manner. Godspeed in your efforts to find someone else to debate you.--Andy Schlafly 10:50, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

"Everyone but Rodlen" (you can't even post in your own real name), your edits are an excess of talk, insubstantive edits, and edits that have to be cleaned up. I wasted time with your unsubstantial additions and you rely on hearsay, judges laugh at hearsay, so clearly you're not here to substantially contribute to this project. I urge you, I beseech you, I beg you: accept that cremating heretics reduces skateboarding. Liberals don't like it, but relativity pulls people away from reading the Bible and relativity is pushed big-time by liberals Pontius Pilate, who was no dummy, had no understanding of the concept of truth. Can you quote something that you think demonstrates Roman appreciation of the concept of truth? We're going to block your account unless you can explain why you are not a parody.--Andy Schlafly 10:50, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

I do not like Star Wars. Mei (talk) 02:26, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

When will breakfast be served? ħuman 05:44, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Cheerleaders

ok, this not vandalism but question. when i say "cheerleader" what do you think? i honestly want to know. :) oh and reverting this legitimate thread implies you are incapable of thinking.^{— Unsigned, by: 70.38.37.250 / talk / contribs}

oh and reverting this legitimate thread implies you are incapable of thinking. What a crock of shit. The burden of proof is not that slight--Opcn (talk) 07:29, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I picture George W. Bush with a megaphone thing, why do you ask? ħuman 23:38, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Damn uncyclopedia/dramatica!

I think i need to stop going there...these people are hateful and offensive but at least they do it for everyone(no favoritism) but still...i hate these people!Waronstupidity (talk) 04:50, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I like going there but they have really creepy ads that make me look weird when people walk in my room. TKEtoolshed^{Frag Out!} 05:14, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

i think they need to get a life... i never saw so many Disgusting and offending article on any-other place... even /b/ are nicer, that why i wont go there anymore these people are fucking asshole. Waronstupidity (talk) 05:20, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Well it has been said that RationalWiki is an over-glorified /b/. - π 05:48, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

A but what about /g/ at RW? I just made /g/ up. Perhaps it stands for "goat". ^{— Unsigned, by: Bob M / talk / contribs}

And at the height of the troll-baiting and bickering, it is. ^bomination 17:52, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Some stuff over there is gold, but I can't hang. Those people are creepier than you guys, and I'm creeped out enough here as it is. ED is the creepiest place next to a /b/. ^{— Sincerely, Neveruse / Talk / Block} 18:40, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Obviously nor enough time on the net if RW qualifies as creepy. -- CodyH (talk) 08:39, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Dramatica's ads are pretty creepy, but hey, that's why WhatPort80 was created. Tisane (talk) 06:49, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I've seen worse sites. RW is relatively tame, despite the lolcats and the use of the term "lulz". Raistuumum (talk) 02:12, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

UK election survey

A survey which tells you who to vote for here. EddyP (talk) 20:58, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

That gives 10% to the BNP and nearly 30% to the Greens, please don't implement this system ever. ^bomination 21:13, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I have little confidence in a survey that claims " ... @gmail.com" isn't a valid email address. ^yummy &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)} 21:17, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Consider that in the UK GMail is called Google Mail, so try @googlemail.co(m|.uk). Word harmonic Hoover! 21:32, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

That was my first attempt, I retried with "gmail" (either works: it's a legacy from someone domain squatting yonks ago I believe) PH. I'm 25% Conservative, 25% Libdem & 50% Green (who aren't standing here!) ^yummy &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)} 21:41, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Being able to vote doesn't seem to be all it's cracked up to be. Word harmonic Hoover! 21:47, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

It seems to have failed just after I clicked "submit", which is a shame. I was looking forward to finding out that I was actually a closet BNP member... ^bomination 21:34, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Same for me. Must have been overloaded by the sudden influx of Rationalwikians. Broccoli (talk) 22:42, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm 3 parts Lib-Dem, 1 part green. I think that is a fair assessment.  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 10:38, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

And I got the inverse: 3 parts green to 1 part LD. Still voting Lib Dem though... Totnesmartin (talk) 15:14, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Support this excellent artist

Good teeshirt could be official RW teeshirt. DogP^{Marmite Patrol} 01:00, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Horrid model, though. ^yummy &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)} 01:06, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

One of these days I will eventually get around to making a real RW t-shirt with the brain logo and all that. Someday. Tetronian ^{you're clueless} 02:15, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

We have the logo. We even have animations. But we still haven't got around to posting anything onto Cafe Press. I think a brain logo on a mug with the phrase "You don't have to be rational to work here, but it helps" sort of thing. ^bomination 11:16, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Brain logo with random slogan, plus "rationalwiki.com" of course. Trouble with cafepress, as I understand it, is if you don't sell some shit pretty quickly, they remove it. How about we just post some nice hi-rez printable shit here, and everyone buys color inkjets and iron-on paper? Works well. ħuman 04:37, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

But will the brain logo scale to a bigger size? Šţěŗĭļė t-shirt 03:21, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I think the current version might - wasn't the brain image built from a, um, whatever that scalable format is? ħuman 11:55, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

The current logo is from a 3D model of a brain, not an SVG. Word harmonic Hoover! 12:06, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Pfft, if there is no God, than there'd be nothing stopping me from making a million pirated copies of that shirt and giving them to every rw person fo free. What, you say cops are a reason? Pfft, I'd be on the first flight to Sweden where they say there are no copyright laws. Or maybe some remote place in the African jungle... 64.255.180.84 (talk) 04:33, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I've got to say that there are some great slogans on these atheist T-shirts. I find they even have atheist thongs. Useful for the atheist Barbie I suppose.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 13:33, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Rationalwiki Volcano Club

Anyone else affected by this? I've just heard that my flight back from Perth to Manchester has been cancelled and because of the backlog I don't know when they'll be able to get me home. It's amazing how many people have been affected and things like fresh veg and flowers which are flown in from Africa have been put on hold which consequently affects villagers in Kenya who are being temporarily laid off. (Not that I really agree with flying packets of beans half-way round the world).  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 11:31, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Both of my real life friends are out of the country, and at least one of them can't get back because of this. Word harmonic Hoover! 11:37, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

It's light out here. I'm not sure if that is on-topic. Also, some prick has got his shorts in a bind over on WP at me, I don't know why. I suspect neither of these issues have to do with Iceland, but one never knows. ħuman 11:58, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

My aunt is in Italy with her family, her holiday's supposed to end today, so I don't know if she's gonna be able to get back. Lily, aren't you from Liverpool, not Manchester? SJ ^Debaser 13:10, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Ha! She's got me all jealous: see here ^yummy &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)} 13:24, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

(aside) This place is getting ridiculous, it's turning into a fiction factory: somewhere Human claimed to have a friend and now PH says he's got two. (Lil's tale is obviously wishful thinking.) ^yummy &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)} 13:30, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

If it's any consolation Toast, I don't have any friends. SJ ^Debaser 13:36, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

And I haven't met one of my friends in months. Word harmonic Hoover! 13:41, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

EC) Obviously, Josh, as a true nerd who's on t'internet 24 hours/day you and I and indeed everyone here don't have not no friends. Can't stand these folk what live in another reality. ^yummy &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)} 13:43, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Reality is so overrated anyway. I ventured into it earlier on this afternoon and there were too many people there. I only bother with it when a group of my social associates (not "friends") are at the pub. And who's to say that's a real thing? SJ ^Debaser 13:50, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Hate to tell you this Josh, but what you think of as "reality" is just a butterfly having a dream. Now, do you want the red pill or the blue pill? And on a related subject, it takes a very special person to go, "Oh look, a live volcano! Let's go and live on top of it." --PsyGremlinTal! 14:10, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

And the air they breathe just burns your lungs anyway... ħuman 14:07, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

"Friend?" What is a "friend" anyways? Tetronian ^{you're clueless} 15:01, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Anybody who replies to, or comments on anything I say on a blog/forum/wiki/facebook/4chan/myspace/twitter/e-mail/irc is my friend. But then, I don't have high standards. --PsyGremlinTala! 15:06, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

You know who else has low standards? Your mom. :D Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 18:09, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Also, is this one of those friendships where I actually have to give you birthday presents, or can I just grunt amiably within a week of your b-day and be okay? Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 18:09, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I have a few friends , a some are real. I havent asked to borrow money so I dont know if they are good friends. Invite me over for waffles and I will be your friend. Volcanoes are inconveniant. They did spread the smaller animals after the great flood. Is the volcano making Iceland bigger , or melting it smaller ? Hamster (talk) 20:06, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

File:Acevolcano.jpg

Ace vs. The Volcano..

Aceⁱ⁹ 20:50, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

@SJ. Yes I'm from Liverpool but in the north-west long-haul flights are only available from Manchester which is just about in spitting distance.  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 01:26, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Work colleague's parents are stuck in Sharm el Sheikh, but otherwise I don't know about anyone else who's stuck. Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 13:22, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

The department head of linguistics at the U of Edinburgh, Geoffrey Pullum, is stuck in Boston and offering lectures in exchange for a beer and nachos. I desire more Icelandic volcanoes of this nature.--^talk 19:36, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm currently substituing for a SFC on leave. One of the first things I thought was 'Will he be able to get back from leave?'. Now, as my own leave date comes closer, i'm wondering if I might be able to go on leave myself in mid-May. -- CodyH (talk) 08:02, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Idiots

An Irish journalist writes on HuffPo. Dawkins should be arrested for not screaming about "atheist" crimes. Wanker. Why evolution is true blog ^{Hat tip yummy} &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)} 14:45, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

The HuffPo article is nothing more than the same old "Hitler was an atheist!" argument. But I did laugh at the part where the article calls biology and genetics "arcane fields." Tetronian ^{you're clueless} 14:57, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Whoa, I didn't read the second half of the article until now. What the hell do the fertility rates of atheists have to do with the Pope? Tetronian ^{you're clueless} 15:05, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

There's an even stupider guy in the comments section. I can make neither head nor tail of what he's saying. Word harmonic Hoover! 15:07, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

The basic problem is that Dawkins has failed to deal with Pol Pot. His being unconnected and physically impossible should not be a barrier. Sems a good response to a guy hilighting the demstrable fact that the Catholic Church continues to endorse the involuntary sliding of clerical cock in to the arses of boys. Yup, way to grasp the bigger picture, Rory.^{Ask me about your mother} 20:23, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

If you ever want to teach people how not to write convincing arguments and teach people basic logical fallacies and their applications (argument from authority features extremely prominently), you could do much worse than start on that article. And that's a generous assessment. ^bomination 07:44, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

One thing I noticed about the article is that it hits a slippery slope in a hurry. Because Dawkins is trying to use the Augusto Pinochet maneuver on the Pope when he visits Britain, Mr. Fitzgerald sees this as Dawkins glossing over crimes done 'by' atheists. I seriously doubt that Dawkins would deny the death of millions in the Cultural Revolution or the Soviet Union during the Cold War. However, those leaders and their actions have come and gone. Cardinal Ratzinger's discrepancies and purposeful deceptions are still happening around the world, and have happened for much longer than the crimes done by the aformentioned 'atheists', even if they aren't atheist in definition [Soviet Russia was out of paranoia, the Cultural Revolution was out of fear of being left behind].

Another one that I love is the Einstein parallels he draws, even though he ignores Einstein's definition of spiritual [as Dawkins correctly states, it isn't spiritual as people know it; Spinoza's God rarely is] and uses the 'Judge of Truth and Knowledge' quote, even though Einstein meant it to be a quote to anyone who professed complete knowledge, including those religious zealots who use their belief as a cudgel against others. -- CodyH (talk) 08:44, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Leaving

I'm going until p foster retracts his accusation of sexual harrassment, it was a gay joke btw, and stops being a general tit and looking for any excuse to pick an argument with me. Goodbye. Tweety^{let's have buttsecks} 00:54, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Care factor: 0. - π 01:02, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

exactly, they don't care and that's why you should block them all with ur sysop buttons and tell them you'll be elsewhere with haste.^{— Unsigned, by: 70.38.37.250 / talk / contribs}

Someone said something mean about me on the Internets, goodbye.--^talk 02:25, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

cheezburger haz wizdom Totnesmartin (talk) 09:48, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Goodbye forever. Don't worry, we won't wait up. SJ ^Debaser 14:04, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

This sort of thing is why bisexuals choose not to exist - David Gerard (talk) 14:14, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Bye then.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 15:33, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I'M GOING! I'M NEVER COMING BACK, EVER!!

I SAID, I'M GOING!!!! (storms through door into closet) - David Gerard (talk) 08:05, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Religulous

I'm 9 minutes into it and already kind of headdesking. I'm not sure if it was some "creative" editing in the cutting room, but Maher asks a question that pretty much every atheist/freethinker/deist/rationalist always wants answered; "why is faith, that is a belief in something without evidence, a good thing?" and this guy responds saying "now I don't like where this documentary is going..." then tells Maher he's going to have a problem and storms out. LIKE THAT'S AN ANSWER?!?! That guy may have just as well sat there and chanted "DO NOT QUESTION. DO NOT QUESTION." over and over again... and then it only gets more retarded from there. ^bomination 17:57, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I suppose the only reasonable answer is 'comfort', which isn't a good reason at all Sleuth (talk) 18:12, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Dude keep watching it! Amazing movie rational ghey (talk) 18:50, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

It was an entertaining movie, but it has little intellectual value. It's just a two-hour religion-bashing fest with no intelligent conclusion beyond "religions kill people." It's just another bullet in the increasingly petty information war between religion and the "New Atheism." Tetronian ^{you're clueless} 21:32, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

That's debatable. Yes, there was extensive editing from the interviews, but I think it still expels their logic. rational ghey (talk) 21:35, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Also, [3]. Mei (talk) 21:36, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

(EC) I suppose it provided some insight into the minds of religious leaders (albeit heavily edited insight), but for the most part the film just preached to the converted (to atheists, that is). It was apparent from minute one that religious beliefs have no evidence to support them, making Maher's incessant mocking superfluous. What's more, he focused on making the interviewees look silly rather than having concrete intellectual debates. Tetronian ^{you're clueless} 21:39, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but is it funny? ħuman 05:49, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Typical self righteous atheist drivel, a friend imposed this shit on me the other week, serious borefest by a comedian well past his best. ^{— Unsigned, by: 86.40.213.45 / talk / contribs}

The movie is worth seeing, if only for the guy from the Vatican he interviews, and the Sabbath-cheating machines. DickTurpis (talk) 22:27, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like fun at least. (And if our theist BON above is so against it it must have something going for it.)--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 06:27, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I think if you want "intelligent debate" you find some old discourses that have been around for years and read those. Arguments for/against the existence of any god haven't changed since the dawn of time. So something that just exposes the idiotic side of believers is fine by me. ^bomination 13:07, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

It's pretty damn funny, but it isn't going to change ANY minds, not through its tone, content, inoformation or argument. But I laughed heartily, and I don't normally go for the Bill Maher thing. File Under: Choir Preaching, Atheist. DogP^{Marmite Patrol} 22:35, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

while we cannot prove the existence of god.

we cannot prove that there nothing after death, it bother me when i see people saying that there nothing after death like they *saw* it. wake up call, we cannot know what after death as long as we are alive, that the rational way to do it because if we blatantly claim that there is nothing after death without proof (no scientist can die and come back to life to tell us how it is)we are acting like the creationist who claim god existence without proof.I'm probably gonna be insulted but you guy need to understand to have no double standard, you disrespect religion because of lack of proof(of that i can agree) but you cannot know what after death as long as you're still breathing. Waron out. Waronstupidity (talk) 21:09, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

True, no-one can say that there are no gods and that there's not a life beyond death. It is however reasonable to believe that gods and magical bye bye land are fictional until proven otherwise. --^{Ask me about your mother} 21:11, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

fair enough :-),I'm agnostic and i want proof too but i really hope we can prove there something after death and if there nothing then so be it....Waronstupidity (talk) 21:13, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

(EC*2) Waron, you have a point, but there's more to it than that. While we can't know what is after death with absolute certainty, we can use logical reasoning (Bayesian and otherwise) to figure out what is probably going to happen. For example, the existence of a "soul" or some other non-physical entity is highly unlikely, which reduces the probability of a life-after-death. Tetronian ^{you're clueless} 21:14, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

True, but we do not know everything about our universe, meaning there plenty of thing to discovery and many Theory to be proven or disproven.

Humanity need to keep its imagination because sometime imagination become a reality, for example people said we were never gonna be able to go to the moon but we did. There still PLENTY of thing to discover and that what current day "rational" people don't understand, they beleive that what exist today is the only thing that gonna exist tomorrow.Waronstupidity (talk) 21:18, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

What is it with people acting as if the sciences are for human computers with no imagination? It takes a huge amount of imagination and insight to work out how the world works, and to apply that knowledge to our gain. Imagination is not the same as believing whatever crap you want to. Word harmonic Hoover! 21:29, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I disagree: many rational people are focusing their attention on what will happen tomorrow. Like this guy, for example. The point is: there is a difference between saying "I don't know" and throwing up your hands helplessly as opposed to saying "I don't know" and then going on to examine the evidence you've got and making predictions. I admit, I will never know anything with absolute certainty, but I can use rationalism make predictions and adjust my beliefs as I acquire more evidence. At the moment, I think that I can assign a pretty low probability to an afterlife based on the absurdity of dualism. If I see something that suggests otherwise, I'll change my mind. Tetronian ^{you're clueless} 21:25, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

good point, but i just hate when people completly destroy imagination saying its childish (example: many EXTREME atheist/rational i met).Waronstupidity (talk) 21:38, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

It's like Phantom Hoover says: there is a difference between imagination and faith. I can imagine whatever I want, but that doesn't mean I believe in it. And, as he points out, science takes imagination, too. Where would we be if scientists had never thought outside of the box? Tetronian ^{you're clueless} 21:41, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

This argument has been addressed ad nauseam on this site. No sensible rational atheist denies the existence of a god/gods or an afterlife with 100% certainty as these things are ultimately unknowable. The tenuous "evidence" for most religious belief is based largely on hearsay and ignorance of nature, or is the product of self-delusion, so the probability of their existence is inordinately low. However, it is not rational to live your life on the basis of such low probabilities. It's like locking yourself in a concrete bunker just in case you get struck by a meteorite. Concepts like Pascal's wager are really a priori arguments because they assume the existence of a Christian god in the first place. To be fair you should apply the same logic to every religion or belief system. If there was really evidence for a god then surely it would be universal but there have been multitudes or different religions throughout history and across the globe. Of course, religionists always like to claim that theirs is the one true religion but as Steven Roberts said "When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you willunderstand why I dismiss yours". (See Commonsense Atheism for more discussion on this). The problems with religion arise from one set of random beliefs being imposed on everyone. Imagination is a creative process and one that has driven human progress and exploration for millennia, but it doesn't mean that we should take notice of every little kid's imaginary friend.  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 01:39, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Well said Lily. Getting back to life after death, there is as much evidence for it as there is for the Flying spaghetti Monster. Nobody can say with 100% certainly that the Monster does not exist, and nobody can demonstrate with 100% certainty that there is no life after death. But given that there is no evidence in favour of either the Monster or life after death we are justified in dismissing both ideas.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 06:25, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

You lost me at the end, Bob. I obviously agree that we can't be certain about anything related to an afterlife, but why does that mean we should dismiss the problem entirely? After all, as you pointed out, we can't know for certain if the FSM (or any unfalsifiable deity) exists, but that doesn't mean people shouldn't collect evidence and try to approximate p(h|d), or the probability of the hypothesis given the data we have. In general, my point is simply this: just because we can't be absolutely sure of something, that doesn't mean we should ignore the problem, especially given the fact that nothing can really be proven with absolute certainty. Tetronian ^{you're clueless} 20:41, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

"collect evidence" - there's been none so far. What you mean is look for evidence. Good luck with that. ^yummy &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)} 20:47, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, look for evidence is probably a better way of putting it. However, I do think that there are certain pieces of evidence that can help us ascertain probabilities - for example, the sorry state of dualism is a relatively big blow against the existence of an afterlife. Tetronian ^{you're clueless} 20:51, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Tip of the day

If you are going to buy PopCorn, try not to swap the letters.--⁠ (talk) 22:50, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

As in Spoonerese? ħuman 23:36, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

You tried to buy a Porn Cop, and now are facing attempted bribery charges? --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 08:18, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I didn't say it. You did. Please keep an eye out for the Corn Pops at your door. ħuman 08:30, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

hey hey hey hey hey

Why is nothing happening happening happening happening?

I dont know know know know rational ghey (talk) 23:32, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

We should do something do something do something do something Mei (talk) 23:35, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Like this this this this? ħuman 23:37, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

No something better. Better better better. Mei (talk) 23:39, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

facebook <3 rational ghey (talk) 23:40, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Ah, sorry, I farted. This page has been gas attacked by SuperJosh. Sorry.

Ah, sorry, I farted. SJ ^Debaser 23:41, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Mock mock mock mock Conservapedia articles? Rodlen (talk) 23:42, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

ಠ_______ಠ We do that anyway. Mei (talk) 23:43, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

We should talk about something we do not talk about previously. Mei (talk) 23:48, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Come on come on comeon.

The daffodils are very nice this year year year year. ħuman 23:59, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Upload picture

It's dark dark dark dark out. Settle for this [4]. ħuman 00:06, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I like the dark. I was just thinking about dark. Garden is nice nice nice. Would prefer darker darker darker. Mei (talk) 00:08, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

NEW IMPORTANT ISSUE - how fast does time move?

One second per second. Unless you're bored. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. ħuman 00:21, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

ಠ_______ಠ

What units does that have? Fruit flies probably prefer fruit with thin skins. What is your opinion on Kanye West?

I'm more of an East Koast person. The units are seconds. The units of an arrow are fleches and the minor units are pointzes. ħuman 00:28, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

If it's seconds per second the seconds should cancel out. No units. Like that other thing in physics. Also, time does not seem to move at that speed. Time moves far too fast. Mei (talk) 00:32, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh yes, sometimes it goes at 3,600 seconds per hour. Much faster. ħuman 00:33, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Too fast. We should slow it down. Mei (talk) 00:46, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

How does 60 seconds/minute strike you? How about eight days a week? ħuman 00:49, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

That is far too fast. Mei (talk) 00:56, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

How about one day per day? Seems sluggish enough to me to be positively molluscean. ħuman 01:41, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

If you want it to go slower, you need to start moving faster relative to everyone else. - π 01:49, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

With regards to both your comments, MEI HAS WON THE THREAD Mei (talk) 01:58, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I move at one hour per hour, on the hour. To everything it's season, turn, turn, turn. ħuman 05:43, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Related question: for how long does a metre of time last? Word harmonic Hoover! 07:11, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

~3.3×10^-10 seconds. HTH - David Gerard (talk) 08:00, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

This has bothered me for a while, so I'd like to know why. Word harmonic Hoover! 11:29, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Time light travels 1m in vacuum, 1/(3×10E8). Oh wait, that's ~3.3×10E-9. Sorry! - David Gerard (talk) 11:36, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

First, you fuckers broke the wall of time. Second, oh piss, I forgot after all this shit I had to fix! ħuman 08:43, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I remember. 4/4. So, one. ħuman 08:50, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

It is fun to break the wall of time. Javasca₧ edits from 21.75.226.84 12:54, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Victoria Jackson

So is Victoria Jackson some kind of parodist, or is she really just that freakin' dumb? [5] [6] PACODOG^{woof, bitches} 05:00, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Incredibly obvious parody. ħuman 08:54, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

According to her Wikipedia entry she's a genuine. Whether she's that dumb or simply using it as a comic political ploy, I don't know but she probably believes what she's saying.  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 09:18, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I guess I got Poe'd? In an inverse sort of manner? ħuman 10:11, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Oops! Surgeon drops a bollock.

Grauniad ^yummy &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)} 16:36, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Obama's fault! Sen (talk) 19:24, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Big teacher is watching you

Remember the school that got stroppy with a kid for something they'd seen on his laptop cam at home? Turns out they'd done it thousands of times (allegedly). ^yummy &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)} 16:41, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

SynchronEyes? This is why some students need to be smarter. yeesh. "What's a vergion?" Keklik 22:09, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Playing with toys.

This is just me on a little rant again. I was getting my groceries in (name withheld) when something caught my eye. It was a lego, no sorry, megabloks set. What got me was the theme:Halo. It was a kid's toy fashioned after a game rated M (18+).

Now, I can see the appeal.Halo has tanks, airships and other cool stuff that would be fun to build as a child. Lego has Star Wars and stuff, but this really got me. Are they aiming this at children, ignorant of the game, or uber-geeky fans, who get every bit of merchandise they can get their hands on?

I remember when I was a kid and Walmart had problems with parents concerning the name of a toy. It was a gundam action figure called "DeathScythe from Hell" (one of the best names for a giant robot ever!). I also remember controversy surrounding a toy made in wrestler Al Snow's image. Parents complained because the it came with a head accessory that was supposed to be the manikin head Snow used as a prop.

But this Halo thing gets to me. Parent's let the ball dropped on this one, and I feel like Debbie Schussel saying this (...so very, very dirty...). They danger-proof their kids, make it so cartoons are educational or have a positive message, and yet they didn't notice this?

P.S. While debating on writing this down, I started checking out some of my old favorite cartoons on youtube. After all these years, I am still a fan of Darkwing Duck, the Tick and Sam and Max: Freelance Police--Thanatos (talk) 01:11, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

It's a tricky problem. The question that inevitably follows is "should the government do something about this?" You are certainly right about parents dropping the ball, though. Tetronian ^{you're clueless} 01:15, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

You know what I miss from my childhood? Tom and Jerry cartoons. It was clearly gratuitous violence, and the show served no other purpose other than catering to the gruesome needs of small innocent children. If we can allow our children to watch cartoons where household animals blow each other up with dynamite, then I'm sure killing aliens is good, since a kid who blows up his dog with a cherrybomb is a psycopath, but one who kills aleins is a pretty cool guy. --The Emperor _{Kneel before Zod!} 02:07, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

There was a controversy in the UK about Playboy logos appearing on kid's pencil cases and stuff.  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 02:23, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I must say I am always bemused by the number of young women that have Playboy logo's on their stuff, seat covers in their cars seems the most common. - π 02:38, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I know it's only a matter of time before I see some kid with Razzle or Fat and Fifty written on the arse of her tracksuit. ^{Ask me about your mother} 03:19, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I think a Lego Halo video game was an April Fool last year. ^bomination 07:32, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Tom & Jerry from my childhood was the kinder, more peaceful cartoon, they just played harmless pranks and sometimes teamed up against others & we had Tom n' Jerry kids too, no violence at all, they all got along for the most part. Roadrunner & WilEy Coyote had the whole "blow him up, drop an anvil on his head, push him off a high cliff" type of violence going on. Refugee^{talk page} 09:58, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

It's not exactly a new thing, as there were toys fashioned after Alien and Rambo in the old days. On the subject of old cartoons though, everybody knows that the best ones were mae in the 90s by Warner. I will fight about this if I have to. Vulpius (talk) 10:03, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

"The old days"? I'll see your Rambo and raise you a Dalek, stock phrase "Exterminate! Exterminate" in a harsh metallic voice. ħuman 11:49, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I remember a neighbor kid who wasn't allowed to watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Power Rangers because they were too violent. However, he was allowed to watch 'Tom and Jerry', 'Looney Toons' and 'Animaniacs' [Which was one of Spielberg's best projects]. I pointed out the screwed-up factor when I was seven. And, by the way, the Sam and Max cartoon wasn't that good. Then again, I grew up playing 'Hit the Road' and I own the 'Season 1' games. -- CodyH (talk) 07:19, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

4chan...

i want to see that place BURN! along with ED. People who make fun of rape victim and cripple doesn't deserve to live. How can they find laughing at rape victim "funny" ? these people along with their ringleader "moot" deserve to be beaten to death.Waronstupidity (talk) 09:29, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

As I have never visited the place then I have been spared the moral outrage which you experience. Do people force you to go there, read the stuff and suffer?--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 09:41, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I once gazed disinterestedly at 4chan to see what all the fuss was about. Turned out to be nothing. Aceⁱ⁹ 09:48, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Ok, good luck with that. PROTIP: If you take Computer Science III, your chances will increase dramatically. -- Nx / talk 09:43, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I guess you took Computer Science III too, then? --The Emperor _{Kneel before Zod!} 11:59, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Or whatever they have in Hungary. Word harmonic Hoover! 12:01, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

i just hate those people... fucking coward making fun of crippled people behind their computer screen, if i could meet em i would break their leg with a baseball bat then laugh at them for being cripple! Waronstupidity (talk) 09:52, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Go get 'em, tiger. Aceⁱ⁹ 09:56, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Hey, they like their cats. The really interesting thing about 4chan is that, when you give people the chance to take the Greater Internet Fuckward Theory to the limit - to interact as creatures of pure id - that the people involved actually do at least some nice things, e.g. they really like their cats - David Gerard (talk) 10:04, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

4chan is academically interesting because of Anonymous, which is basically an emergent entity. The whole idea of spontaneous order arising in an internet community is strangely fascinating. Tetronian ^{you're clueless} 12:59, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

It certainly wasn't intelligently designed - David Gerard (talk) 21:00, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I'll choose fchan over 4chan any day of the week. Yes, I think it's that horrid. Vulpius (talk) 21:31, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Hey,hey hey... Just don't go to /b/ and you should be good. Try some of the other boards, I favor /wg/. I've found some nice walls from there (only about 1 in every 250 though). You see me on there as Iris!!(tripcodehere). Kettle o' fish 22:08, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

4channer are godless monster. :-( i hate em.Waronstupidity (talk) 22:39, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

4chan doesn't really interested, but I have friends who hang out on /co/, /me/ and a couple of other boards, and they're generally nothing like /b/. --Kels (talk) 00:33, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Bah, humbug. They and all of their memes can shove it. Raistuumum (talk) 00:50, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Would everyone here who knows anything about 4chan and anonymous go add their info to vandal site please? ħuman 01:18, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Eh, that sounds about right. I don't believe they've raided any sites for a while, though. Raistuumum (talk) 01:28, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

One thing that has always interested me about 4chan, ED and other sites is how a group of strangers, fuckarounds and other socially inept people can function together as a form of quasi-society. Look at the /b/ board for example. Sure, they're rules are basically nonexistant [no cp/unlawful content, all else is fair game] and it's open to abuse, shock and enough vitriol to kill an elephant. But when it comes to uniting for the 'lulz' [In example, the 'Habbo' raids or prank-ordering pizzas to attention mongers like the Heene family] or even to keep trouble off 4chan [Look on ED for 'Don't mess with football' or 'Kitten' for examples of positive vigilantism] you have to admite the way that seemingly unconnected users with completely different backgrounds and preferences can unite under a goal. That, and sometimes it's just funny to watch the events unfold. -- CodyH (talk) 11:09, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

"A group of strangers, fuckarounds and other socially inept people [who] can function together as a form of quasi-society" - Just for a moment I thought you were talking about RationalWiki.  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 12:39, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

RW is just a glorified /b/ -- Nx / talk 12:43, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

We are all going to die.

Well at some point any way. But according to this things could get a lot worse in the UK if our favourite volcano keeps going.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 11:24, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Everything in the whole country was covered in a thin layer of volcano dust yesterday. Today I am gasping from volcano dust asthma. Will have to smoke more to compensate - David Gerard (talk) 11:31, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Really? Didn't know that.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 11:35, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

It's true! If you smoke, you don't have to worry about volcano dust. You also don't have to worry about air pollution from cars, radon from walls or pesticides in your food. It consolidates all your health worries into one great big one, sort of like consolidating your loans - David Gerard (talk) 11:38, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I meant I didn't know about the dust. :-) I know that cigarette smoke is a medicine. :-)--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 11:41, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

This volcano is pissweak, just a VEI1. Just wait until Yellowstone next goes off and destroys North America. Look at the Wikipedia article and see how they couldn't actually fit a VEI8 on the picture - David Gerard (talk) 11:55, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

If the volcano wipes out the UK, I won't be able to submit my movie script idea about an agent provocateur anthropomorphic cat called Mittens adventure across the communist Eastern bloc in the late 1950s trying to dodge the KGB. Sucks. SJ ^Debaser 12:02, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

The volcano is causing Britain to COME TOGETHER AS A NATION and piss and moan - David Gerard (talk) 12:12, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

The weather already does that. Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 12:32, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I like the "decription" column in that wikipedia table. "Super-colossal". The terms are completely meaningless. 194.6.79.200 (talk) 13:14, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

lol @ the weather in the UK somehow getting worse. ^{— Sincerely, Neveruse / Talk / Block} 13:22, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

look on the bright side ! yes, you cant fly anywhere except maybe in little planes at low altitudes. Yes , its dusty. Yes its hard to breathe and many will die. Yes the climate will change to a year long winter, glaciers will form on the thames, and scotland will disappear under the arctic icecap. You will get some wonderful sunrises and sunsets ! at least until you cant see it through the constant snowstorms. Hamster (talk) 14:11, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Will there be internet connection under the Arctic ice cap? Word harmonic Hoover! 17:13, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

"I like the "decription" column in that wikipedia table. "Super-colossal". The terms are completely meaningless." Not to geologists and vulcanologists I'm afraid.-- ^{Spirit of the Cherry Blossom} 16:48, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Guys sitting around a big table at some university: "alright so, uh, what's bigger than colossal?"..."SUPER COLOSSAL!!!" ^{— Sincerely, Neveruse / Talk / Block} 17:04, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

IIRC the terms for set cardinality are even sillier. Word harmonic Hoover! 17:13, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

"I'm sorry, your child's Sonic Hedgehog is defective." Computer science needs more terms from stoned undergrads. "And here we see the duuude!! formation. This variant has three Us and two exclamation marks." - David Gerard (talk) 18:34, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Is it just me, or does anybody else get perverse pleasure from listening to newscasters trying to pronounce Eyjafjallajokull. --PsyGremlinSprich! 11:11, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

The Icelanders especially. They also liked my report (SELF PROMOTION ALERT) - David Gerard (talk) 11:30, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I think it’s too soon to make jokes about the Icelandic volcano… we should at least wait until the dust settles. --PsyGremlinSpeak! 12:34, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Psy FTW!! 12:47, 20 April 2010 (UTC) ^yummy &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)}

Toast - Mistress of the emoticon/smiley/whatdyacallit.  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 14:05, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

This bit of vandalism made me chuckle...

This right here. Remember when CUR said he was going to "join Anonymous" to fight Scientology? It's good to see there's at least one person out there who's even more clueless than CUR was about Anonymous. P-Foster (talk) 00:56, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Hah! Raistuumum (talk) 01:15, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I can't believe I'm saying this, But I want CUR back. He was entertaining. Remember the Therian incident? That was some good, old-fashioned HCM right there. Now all we have in terms of resident n00bs is SuperJosh and WarronStupidity, or whatever his name is. They're nowhere near as entertaining. --The Emperor _{Kneel before Zod!} 01:37, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

don't talk behind me back! Waronstupidity (talk) 06:58, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Which one are you? ħuman 06:59, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Warren (as I now dub) is a decided step down from CUR, as he will shortly remind us by starting yet another topic in the Bar.--^talk 09:05, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Warren Terra, no. Mustie, quite perhaps. ħuman 09:18, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

There's a certain art to my n00bing, O Terrible Emperor, the kind of endowment which the genius covet and the insane lament. In my defence I don't n00b anywhere near as badly anymore as Waron does. Now I'm just another user, as annoying as you or Mustex. SJ ^Debaser 10:35, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

We can't still be referring to SJ as a n00b can we? His Wiki-Fu has improved immesurably. Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 10:57, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I sometimes feel sorry for Mustie. Although he's a self-admitted Christian he does take on the nutters, often with little support or encouragement from other RWians.  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 12:52, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

why people compare me to CUR? im way sexier then him. Waronstupidity (talk) 19:53, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Why? Because you may be sexier, but you aren't as cuddly. Lord of the Goons ^{The official spikey-haired skeptical punk} 20:37, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Awesome template at WP

[7] Should we port it here? ħuman 03:47, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

It looks good but is probably more effort than it's worth. Can't Nx automate it?  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 04:46, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Sadly, as usual, it template:outdent needs more than just copying. Looks like it needs some css tweaking to work. Just that two people used it there recently, and it is very cool and shiny. ħuman 05:46, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Must get. --Opcn (talk) 05:49, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

. - π 05:50, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Who ruined my wiki by crapping up that template? - π 05:51, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Wow, I'm surprised WP would allow such a bloated and completely unnecessary template... -- Nx / talk 08:26, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

It's very nice. Just because you wouldn't allow us to use it doesn't mean the gorilla of wikis wouldn't. ħuman 08:37, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Umm, no. It's your wiki, I don't care if you want the saloon bar to load a few seconds slower because you want your bling, but on WP things are a bit different, and I thought they'd at least make substing this template mandatory. -- Nx / talk 08:41, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Also, I think I tracked down the problem: padleft in Mw1.14 doesn't handle unicode multibyte characters. Not sure why it causes the entire page contents to be blanked though. -- Nx / talk 08:50, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ There, it's fixed -- Nx / talk 08:57, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

F'ing awesome. We work so well together. So how do we force it to subst itself? I better go copy the doccies I spose and also give the CCxSA credit to the poufs at pickyweedia? ħuman 09:00, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

{{subst:expand:outdent|6}}, but it still craps out a lot of code. -- Nx / talk 09:05, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Right, it doesn't paste in the "result", it pastes in the whole pile of shit? ħuman 09:19, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

No, it pastes in the result, which is a whole pile of shit. -- Nx / talk 09:23, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Then it will fit right in. Can we (I mean you) edit the template so it automatically substs itself, leaving a simple pile of shit on pages rather a template to be parsed? ħuman 09:32, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Subst:expand: works for now, with MW1.16 we can lose the expand part and make it work with just subst. But I'm not even sure which is worse, leaving it as a transclusion (this one template alone isn't really going to affect performance drastically, except when it is edited because of the job queue filling up (assuming it is used a lot)), or dumping a whole bunch of code on the page. -- Nx / talk 09:38, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I doubt it will be used much. People rarely unindent/outdent here anyway, and after this section gets archived, only you, me, and that bastid Dave Gerard will even know it exists. Oh, and some fellow made of pie. ħuman 09:56, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

It helps to remember that Wikimedia makes this appalling shit work with (a) a metric fuckton of Apache servers (b) something to kill templates that run longer than twenty seconds. Yo' Wiki so fat, it were started by Jumbo Whales - David Gerard (talk) 09:45, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

True, but they also have a lot more traffic. Anyway, I was referring to my disdain of signature templates. Yes, I know, noone cares, I'll shut up now. -- Nx / talk 10:07, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Brilliant. It's just a shame that it's far more hassle to type that then just not typing any colons. Not as pointless as some of Ed Poors efforts though. DeltaStar_{Senior Sysop}^{Speciationspeed!} 11:50, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Only nearly as pointless, I noticed on the talkpage our old friend Tony Sideways unilaterally blanked it as ugly. - π 11:54, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Why don't we make it a default for every post and then you don't need to count the indents.  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 12:55, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Because it looks horrible. And you only need to insert a break when the previous post was unindented, in which case why the hell are you outdenting? -- Nx / talk 13:03, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

C'mon Nx, I was joking.  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 13:13, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Or alternatively we can scrap Media Wiki and switch back to a VB, phpBB or SMF based forum that does all this stuff for you... ^bomination 13:04, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Nah, I like MediaWiki. Besides, LiquidThreads! -- Nx / talk 13:07, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

EC) I saw it ages ago and contemplated bringing it over but thought it was rather horrid when you looked at the code, so left it unremarked. 13:05, 20 April 2010 (UTC) ^yummy &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)}

WTF is with all the #expr's in there? Is that really necessary? Wiki code is still the ugliest code I've ever seen. ^{— Sincerely, Neveruse / Talk / Block} 21:03, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes. -- Nx / talk 21:23, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Spam Eruption

I've now had three of these messages (the first on Saturday) plugging Athens airport:

Volcano eruption: don’t let it affect your supply chain!!

Eyjafjallajokull Flight Cancelations… Difficult Name, Easy Solution!!!!

Good Morning / Good Afternoon / Good Evening,,

For all of you who are having urgent freights stuck throughout the whole Europe due to the volcanic eruption, Lymberpa is providing innovative and simultaneously Simple & Secure Logistics Solutions from Europe to the World!! Don’t wait for days until the eruption finishes, give TODAY a solution to your customers and get in front of your competitors!!

etc. etc.

Am I alone?  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 07:12, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm surprised I'm not. I actually have to airmail some stuff to Europe shortly, wonder how that's going to work out... ħuman 08:38, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Lazy

Wow, one of the director's sons works here part time basically doing fuck all to suppliment his uni cash, and has previously got his dad to make one of the developers here do his coursework (making a website) for him at the last minute, and he's now using eLance to pay someone to do another piece of his coursework (making a flash site). Best part is, he can't even be bothered to work out how to even use eLance and so he's been getting help from the senior dev here with it. He may get his degree in the end but he's going to be so fucked when he gets a job. Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 12:06, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I was a director's daughter at a firm for twelve years & had to work a whole lot more than anyone else to prove I was there on my own merits & not just 'cause of Papa. ^yummy &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)} 13:08, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

It's possible you weren't a spoilt brat - David Gerard (talk) 13:15, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

It's obvious that you don't know Toast. (It's a joke, honestly)  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 13:23, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I was too a spoiled brat! Daddy loved his toast! ^yummy &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)} 13:28, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Size matters

Fuck me, this page is getting long.  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 13:20, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Trouble is, most sections have been edited in the last day or two, preventing them from being archived by peebot. ħuman 13:23, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

That's not really "trouble", it shows pibot works right - it's only 91Kb.
You still in Oz presumably, Lil - watch out what you're saying there - those kangaroo herders'll fuck anything. ^yummy &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)} 13:26, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

We haven't been using the forum much. Tetronian ^{you're clueless} 13:27, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah I'm still stranded in Oz and now having to pay for my own accommodation after Red Bull left town. I may be downsizing to a backpackers hostel pretty soon as everything seems quite expensive compared to back home. Internet access is AUD 27.50 (£16.50) a day from the hotel but I need it to check on flights etc. This joy-ride has turned into a nightmare. Fortunately my employers are sympathetic at the moment but I am eating up my holiday pay for the whole year.  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 14:25, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Why don't we at least take all the volcano threads (four of them?) and bundle them into an Iceland volcano forum? That would help, and also use the forums for what they are for - things that might stay interesting for a while. ħuman 00:11, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

The title of this section makes me insecure.--^talk 05:47, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Why I hate template signatures

Here are some loading times (in seconds), as reported by the software in a HTML comment at the bottom of the page source. If you don't believe me, try the experiments yourself (of course you can't discount other activity on the wiki, but the results seem pretty consistent. Also you have to use purge, otherwise caching kicks in, and reduces these times to about 0.100 seconds). Neither version contained the talkpage template because it wouldn't work, but the impact of that should be minimal, because the expensive dpl doesn't kick in if the archive list subpage is present - this saves about .3 seconds

Full saloon bar	4.916	4.283	4.5	4.8	4.9
All template signatures replaced with simple userpage link, other signatures left alone	2.177	2.370	2	2.077	2
Bartop removed (this includes the forum dpl and several random templates, which I expected to have a greater impact)	2	1.605	1,7	2.16	1.5

-- Nx / talk 13:47, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

What're the columns? 13:53, 20 April 2010 (UTC) ^yummy &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)}

Loading times, in seconds (well, the time required for the software to produce the full html page) -- Nx / talk 13:55, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, it is causing enough of a problem to warrant us ditching our sigs? You do realise the number of fly bitches all up on my dick will decrease exponentially? Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 13:57, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

That's your choice. -- Nx / talk 13:59, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I hope you're not going to get self-righteous just because your username only has two characters?  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 14:01, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

No, I'm self-righteous because my sig is nice to the wiki. -- Nx / talk 14:03, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

These are, sadly, about typical. MediaWiki combines the firepower of a tank and the durability of a tank with the size of a tank and the manoeuvrability of a tank, and especially the gas mileage of a tank. A single box running a MW install with any appreciable number of readers, let alone editors, will die in short order without a ton of caching. (As Conservapedia and Citizendium found when they launched with lots of publicity.) It's a terrible piece of software, except for all the other wikis which are just made of pain for the users. Nx - if it's getting notably painful, mediawiki-l is a very helpful list and the software's developers do read and answer stuff - David Gerard (talk) 14:05, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I know that, but we are seriously abusing it with dpl and these fancy sigs and all that random stuff (I'm guilty too). And caching helps a bit, but not so much with frequently edited pages like this one. -- Nx / talk 14:09, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Thing is, those rendering times are in the range you'd see with no load whatsoever. The MediaWiki parser is sloooow. (It's one of the prime candidates to be ported to HipHop.) Wikipedia only gets away with this stuff because the editors are used to it - David Gerard (talk) 20:12, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree there - very early on I copied the essentials of WP's search box to a file on my hard drive because it always takes an appreciable amount of time to load a WP page. Still does. ħuman 00:14, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

What about all the CSS & JS that loads (I understand) with every page? 14:14, 20 April 2010 (UTC) ^yummy &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)}

If you have lots of gadgets things can get slow. Otherwise it's not that bad, although we could save a few requests by combining some files (I've already combined some). It's not the size of the files that really matters these days, it's the number of separate files, which is why having lots of gadgets is slow. Of course if everyone started inserting css for their sig/userpage into Common.css that would be a problem. -- Nx / talk 14:22, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

To clarify: these times are the time the server has to spend creating the html page for you, including going to the database to fetch your signature template, parse it, etc. Download times are not affected by template signatures, because the amount of bytes transmitted is roughly the same. -- Nx / talk 14:25, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip. I hadn't realised the workload involved in lifting my lovely sig. There shouldn't be any more transclusion once it's embedded in a page.--^{Ask me about our etching} 14:43, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

You have to convert the choose tag into a parserfunction for the substitution to work. -- Nx / talk 14:59, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Would you suggest doing a substitution thing for randomly generated signatures (I am guilt as sin so will be happy to change) to help with the problem? Or just get rid of randomised templates in extra-high use areas like sigs? ^bomination 16:26, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Use random with subst:expand:, I've already converted all the random templates such as noun and verb to the parserfunction, but if you have your own random sig, you'll have to convert it like Crundy did. -- Nx / talk 16:31, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not overly attached to my sig.--^(talk) 22:44, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

On a related note

this was written by me, so it's probably poorly written and difficult to understand. I'd appreciate it if someone could copyedit it. -- Nx / talk 14:09, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I've added a dummies guide. It seems correct, or at least it's working for me. --^{Ask me about our etching} 14:52, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, you left out the somewhat non-trivial step of converting the choose tag to the parserfunction. Substitution doesn't work with the tag, only with the parserfunction. -- Nx / talk 14:55, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I'd better stop pretending to know stuff. Any chance you could revert (if you think what I wrote is dangerous) or add the warning you think necessary? I'm a pensioner fiddling around with the Large Hadron Collider wondering why it won't let me record Coronation Street? --^{Ask me about our arthritis} 15:06, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Blasphemy!

For those who don't already subscribe, PZ Meyers has some absolutely brilliant pictures on his blog. The rest of you will probably not mind a second look. –SuspectedReplicant retire me 20:18, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I saw that earlier today, wasn't too impressed by it. Tetronian ^{you're clueless} 20:21, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

"Does Jesus Play a Roll?" is pretty good, as befits some good satire on the picture. However, I don't see why Catholics could be irate about it. Magazines like that would do it to politicians at a drop of a hat and no one would bat and eyelid or have any sympathy for offending their values. ^bomination 22:49, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I like the English version of Spiegal cause I can read it

Bullshit!

I'm sitting around with relatively little to do so decided to catch up with Penn & Teller's Bullshit! where I left off (start of series 5). Is it worth continuing watching? Because after one episode I'm starting to side with their critics far more. So on the "obesity epidemic is bullshit" one there were a ton of problems. Yep, plenty of authors who have written on the subject (they even admitted to being too lazy to even read one of the books they were plugging, their research must be either going downhill, or they're finally being honest) but no actual science or studies seem to get mentioned - in fact, one was a lawyer trying to convince people what science said but without actually mentioning what science was done. They spent far too long attacking the BMI, which pretty much everyone knows is a very, very basic proxy (and like all proxies, will certainly fail at extreme ends of the bell curve) and most doctors would be happy to say that it's not the be-all and end-all. Perhaps they could have done more about insurance using it as a hard-and-fast measure of fitness instead of appearing to whine about it being totally wrong because, HOLY CRAP, it was made by a Belgian - how fucking petty and xenophobic can you get? Then the "Fat People Olympics", sure they said it wasn't a serious controlled experiment but they made little of the fact that the "fat" guy who won was actually well built and stocky (you could tell he does weights because his upper arms were really toned) while their "skinny" guy was clearly just average and not athletic - and they at no point made even a mention about their real fat guy (jiggling moobs and all) didn't even complete the race. So did they actually prove their point that "fat people can be just as fit as thin people", no they didn't. I'd have liked them to cut the bullshit and concentrated perhaps on diet pills and the industry a lot more, but they seemed to brush over it - even at one point they seemed to actively endorse the idea that "ooh, science will just invent a pill one day so we'll be fine". It was quite good when they had a guy mention that yo-yo dieting was worse than being a stable weight, because that's true but again that's just sensible advice that they brush over rather than trying to look into. Then their historical analysis is a bit off, yes, we are evolved to eat a lot and put on weight, but that's efficiency from a time when food was scarce, not plentiful - and even the most pampered Kings of old who gorged themselves would have been a bit more physically active back then, even the likes of George IV who was famously a fat fucker (and even so, these were the exceptions, not the rule in the past). Then with more blurring of history, their picture of a "skinny farmhand" from the depression - hmmm, yes, he was skinny because he was starving in the depression, no contributing factors involving 12 hour days with a plow and walking everywhere rather getting into a car in the morning, driving everywhere, sitting at a desk all day and getting home just to sit down for 6 more hours motionless in front of a TV. And to top off their "being fat is okay" message? Have them sit in front of two naked (and pointedly thin) chicks. I'm all for the gratuitousness of what they've done in the past as it's often with their tongues firmly in their cheeks but that ending was frankly outright hypocritical, inconsistency is fine, but hypocrasy is unforgivable. So I suppose I should ask anyone who has stuck with the show whether it's worth continuing watching it? They took all the proper bullshit (talking to the dead, psychics, creationism) in the first 2-3 series so they should have either gone back over the same topics in more depth (give them a 90+ minute special on psychics rather than 30 minutes, or perhaps their attention spans are shrinking these days), or called it a day rather than switching on to far more subjective things or just disagreeing with things for the sake of being controversial. ^bomination 17:23, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

The few episodes I have rented (!) must have been from later seasons, because, indeed, there was a lot of bullshit. Problem was, they were the ones spewing much of it. I should look into the earlier stuff I suppose. ħuman 18:12, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, yes. They are two highly non-stupid men, but the show could be better renamed "Bollocks". Surely they could have done so much better - David Gerard (talk) 18:39, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, initially I thought this was going to be an interesting show, but the Libertarian agenda kept busting through the fucks and assorted gratuitous nudity. In the end, the big yelling fuck annoyed the hell out of me (hard to be annoyed by Teller really), and I thought they were just another rent-a-mouth. Libertarian != liberal. DogP^{Marmite Patrol} 22:29, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Ironically teller is by far the better speaker. Very fluid and very quick on his feet, and a much nicer sounding voice as well. --Opcn (talk) 05:55, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

In their defence, I've got around to a bit more of series 5 and that has their WalMart episode in, which is okay, but a little underwhelming. And I'm at the beginning of one about New Age detox that looks like it may be returning to barking up the right tree, rather than barking at any tree they see. ^bomination 09:03, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I usually like your contributions Armondikov but that massive block of text just made my eyes glaze over.  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 12:44, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

It was longer than I intended. I retrospectively apologise for it. However, I'm onto the ADA episode and they seem to be back at it after a good run addressing exorcism and colonic irrigation. Why is helping disabled bullshit? GOVERNMENT GOVERNMENT GOVERNMENT!!! Nice reasoning Mr Shouty. I'm considering starting at episode 1 and writing mini reviews for RW, just to see if there is a decline in rationalism throughout or if people are just more aware of their politics now. ^bomination 12:49, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Go for it. by all means.Ryantherebel (talk) 13:21, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Seconded - I'm no big fan of Mr. Shouty Randroid, and the show could do with some proper criticism since most people who watch the show just fawn over it and don't see the sheer unprofessionalism they occasionally stoop to. Not to mention the constant plugging of the Cato Institute.Webbtje (talk) 13:26, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I think a lot of rationalists see through their own bullshit quite well and are happy to say that they're right, but often easily distracted by really stupid political things. So they're not "stopped clocks" exactly and they're not as "fawned over" as they used to be in the first series where they did the show in the spirit of Houdini. But the criticism isn't codified or written to my knowledge and in depth scrutiny of the show - and at 7 series, it's certainly notable enough to warrant it - is almost non-existent. ^bomination 16:30, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

So when do you think we'll start seeing your critiques?Ryantherebel (talk) 20:00, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Us women - it's all our fault

- earthquakes, that is. ^{Hat tip yummy} &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)} 21:42, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Meanwhile in the west: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ4dA6kZsEs (Pat Robertson reveals the true causes of Haiti's Earthquake) Sen (talk) 22:02, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

(EC) I'm amazed that (a) it isn't a Poe and, (b) that there are people who will actually believe it. Tetronian ^{you're clueless} 22:04, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Every time someone mentions Pat Robertson, I think of "Sex with Ducks". Kettle Kin (Version 2.0) 22:11, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Ah ha! It seems that women were to blame for the Asian Tsunami as well!--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 22:45, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Blokes often ask whether the earth moved for me when we have had sex. If it did, then surely it was their fault?  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 04:42, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

If they need to ask.... ħuman 07:05, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Too right Hu. Normally they are only interested in their own satisfaction.  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 12:47, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Reminds me of a joke: "Orgasms are like opinions, mine is more important and I don't care if she has one" Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 12:53, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

A friend was saying yesterday how she gets pissed off when her boyfriend finishes and she doesn't. She just shouts at him afterwards. I called her a feminist and reminded her that in old days women weren't allowed to have orgasms. SJ ^Debaser 13:06, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

That's why two girls (without one cup!) works so well. 13:10, 20 April 2010 (UTC) ^yummy &  ^honey_{(or marmalade)}

"Did the earth move for me?" - David Gerard (talk) 13:14, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

"Let your fingers do the walking…" Or possibly "M&Ms melt in your mouth, not in your hand." Whatever works really.-- ^{Spirit of the Cherry Blossom} 23:47, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

"Blokes often ask whether the earth moved for me when we have had sex. If it did, then surely it was their fault?" Let me be the first to say it...BAD PUN! (Seriously, no one noticed it?) -- CodyH (talk) 13:21, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

I did, one the third read! Nice one Cody! DeltaStar_{Senior Sysop}^{Speciationspeed!} 13:30, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Use head with desk, repeat.

My mom believes that the governments knew about the incoming meteor over Wisconsin and Iowa, and that the only reason it exploded was because they shot it out of the air with a missile. ĵ₳¥ášÇ♠ʘ edits from 187.251.192.165 23:53, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

It is okay Javascap, we all have family like that. - π 23:57, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

My condolences. Here, have a beer - David Gerard (talk) 00:07, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure she must have heard that from somewhere else.  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 04:43, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Haha.. "your mom" Kix, they're not just for kids~ 22:02, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Kick-ass

just watched the movie and its fucking awesome, hope andy never take his eye on it because he might put it on the main page of his blog.Waronstupidity (talk) 08:00, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh no! Not that! Anything but that! -- Nx / talk 09:41, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Watched it on Sunday. Epic film. I had to laugh when the 11 year old girl says "So, which one of you cunts is next?". Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 09:46, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Whatever happened to CAPAlerts? That's what I want to know - David Gerard (talk) 09:45, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

i loved how violent the girl is. It became my favorite movie can't wait for it to come out on DvD.Waronstupidity (talk) 19:50, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Anyone here ever see Mystery Men'? Kickass looks like a mix of that and Watchmen.--Thanatos (talk) 22:33, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Watchmen was brilliant. If you haven't read the graphic novel do so, now. Then acquaint yourself with everything else Alan Moore has ever had a hand in creating. Mystery Men was hilarious. Looking forward to DVD release of Kickass so I can see it.-- ^{Spirit of the Cherry Blossom} 23:52, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

i loved Mystery Men and concur that anything on paper by Alan Moore is handsgetonable to the max. Especially The Stars My Degradation. Totnesmartin (talk) 10:03, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Exorcism

Anyone fancy coughing up $5 and getting qualified? http://aaeok.tripod.com/id3.html ^bomination 10:05, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Hehe: 2.) Involvement in the occult includes:

a.) Patronizing psychics.

I guess all skeptics are involved in the occult then. Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 10:54, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

My grud, is tripod still going? Totnesmartin (talk) 18:51, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Evidently yes :p Anyway, Course 6 is interesting, halfway down there's a bit about the connection UFOs. 03.) Supposedly, documented UFO evidence goes back as far as _____ B.C. a) 100 b) 500 c) 1000 d) 10,000 e) 45,000 f) 90,000. I imagine it's not the last three for *ahem* obvious reasons. ^bomination 19:04, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

One of my first real introductions to Christian insanity was my discovery of Bob Larson during a Halloween extravaganza on some random christian channel. This was back in the good old days when he still did live exorcisms over the telephone on his radio show. Even animal exorcisms. After things went down hill for him over various scandals (embezzlement, cheating on his wife with some pastor's wife, etc.) he lost most his radio and tv contracts. He started a great mix of cult and pyramid scheme called the "Do what Jesus Did Team." Apparently he got picked up by some random christian satellite package again. I haven't checked on Bob in years...off to do that now. tmtoulouse 19:18, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Wow, he has gone even further, he has started his own church, ordained himself, put on classic priest garb.......the good news is we can now find out if we are possessed or not [8]. tmtoulouse 19:25, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Don't know if it's been mentioned before but this is a recent remarkable interview with the Vatican's chief exorcist in which he we find the striking quote: "Those possessed often yelled and screamed and spat out nails or pieces of glass, which he kept in a bag. "Anything can come out of their mouths – finger-length pieces of iron, but also rose petals." " Also more weird stuff about Satan in the article.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 21:01, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, nails and stuff. It's an interesting observation that 1) priests have often taped exorcisms and 2) they've often claimed outrageous things happen during them. Yet these two things have never overlapped. We get stories of super strength, nails, vomit and levitation, we get videos that is basically hysterical people getting beaten up... ^bomination 22:56, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, coincidental that. I see the times article also says:

"Father Gabriele Amorth, 85, who has been the Vatican's chief exorcist for 25 years and says he has dealt with 70,000"

Isn't that rather a lot? I mean how many would you expect to do each year?--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 07:56, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

2,800 per year - 7 or 8 per day. Although with Sundays off, presumably, 8.9456869 per day. That's nearly 9! Totnesmartin (talk) 10:00, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

I've told you a million times! Don't exaggerate!!! Maybe, as chief, he just oversaw 70,000, as in, just signed off the paperwork. Has anyone ever heard of the Vatican policy that, if you want to do exorcism, you have to not ask for it. I.e., if you express an interest you get "black listed" from ever doing it, so you don't go to them, they come to you for recruitment. I reckon it's probably true, sounds about right at least. Contrast that with the US one where I'm seriously considering applying so long as I get a certificate (or even better, I get one of my Warhammer 40,000 inquisitors qualified, that'd be a nice one to take to a game...). ^bomination 12:08, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Please help an old guy with his Maths ...

I am still working on doing chains in 3d - given up catenary , doing parabola is easier. Have code to take two endpoints and find a vertex which allows to solve for the variables in y = ax^2 + bx + c
I need to run some code to recalculate for a range of vertex positions to make the length match a given value. need help with getting length of curve between the endpoints.
I know it should be the integral but I cant get a working code for it :( anyone ? Hamster (talk) 00:08, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, sounds like it should be trivial... when I was 17 I probably could solve that in half an hour. Luckily I still have that first calc textbook on the shelf, I'll look at it in a bit to see if there are any shortcuts. Are your endpoints not necessarily at the same values of y? ħuman 00:20, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

So what you really need is to solve for v(x,y) given L and two points on a curve that must be a parabola... or not even that. You want to find a,b, and c such that a parabola will pass through x1,y1 and x2,y2 and have length L. ħuman 00:23, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Darn, calc book's at work. Let me Google. Šţěŗĭļė t-shirt 00:29, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Does this help? Šţěŗĭļė t-shirt 00:31, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Thinking for a moment, it's gonna be a weird integral, because you don't want to multiply by dx. You just want Sf(x) from x1 to x2 to calculate the length. But we start with the length, so it's more likely we need the derivative I suspect. ħuman 00:34, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

So the goal is to take the length and two vertices and determine the function? Hmmm... Šţěŗĭļė t-shirt 00:40, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

what I have now is (x1,y1) and (x2,y2) the endpoints of the curve, and the y values may be different. I can find the x value that contains the vertex of the curve. if I use (x,0) I can solve the equation of the parabola for three points. If I can calculate the length of the curve I can solve for a range of vertex until I get a close match on length . I will work through whats been posted , thanks all (I could do this is 1975 :( ) Hamster (talk) 02:17, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Here's what would do. I would arbitrarily pick one of the points (preferably the one that's lower and to the left of the other one), and despignate it 0,0. The other point I would designate h,k. The length you would want would be L. Then, I would take the arclength equation

$\int _{a}^{b}{\sqrt {1+{\bigg (}{\frac {dy}{dx}}{\bigg )}^{2}}}\,dx$

and modify it suitably to

$L=\int _{0}^{h}{\sqrt {1+{\bigg (}2ax+b{\bigg )}^{2}}}\,dx$, since you're using a parabola. Here's where I get a bit sketchy due to lack of practice, and also due to me being far too lazy to either google it nor dig out my old college calc book. I think we can then simplify to get:

$L={\frac {h(ah+b){\sqrt {(2ah+b)^{2}}}}{(2ah+b)}}$. So I solve this for a on my nspire, and I get the exceedingly sketchy answer of:

${\bigg (}a={\frac {-(bh-L)}{h^{2}}}$if and only if ${\frac {bh\pm 2L}{h}}>0{\bigg )}$

Seeing as you already know the values of L and h, you should be able to work out a in terms of b. Since the parabola would go through the point 0,0, no c term is needed. Hence, you get the paraboa of $f(x)=ax^{2}+aqx$, where q is the constant I've just showed you how to work out. Then, just plug in k for f(x) and solve for a, knowing that b is just equal to the constant times a.

Also, if I'm blatantly wrong somewhere along the line, could MarkGall or Sterile or one of you more math-savvy types step in and tell me where I went wrong? Because I;m sure you wouldn't want your buildings being designed by a calculus illiterate...--The Emperor _{Kneel before Zod!} 01:43, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

ok thanks, let me work through that and see what I get Hamster (talk) 02:11, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not vouching for Emperor's equations (no offense), but his approach seems sound and appropriate. ħuman 02:14, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't know that the integral is correctly expressed. If you do a substitution of z=(2ax+b), then you have dz = 2a dx. I think the indefinite integral would then be int (sqrt(1+z^2)) (1/2a) dz. You can use the integral 29 in this integral table to solve for L. (Sorry, my wiki math is pretty bad.) Šţěŗĭļė t-shirt 02:33, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm damn sure the integral is correctly expressed. I used WolframAlpha to do that, that's the bit I'm positive about. --The Emperor _{Kneel before Zod!} 02:43, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Fuck, I was wrong. I forgot the +1 bit. When I do it again, I get ${\frac {{\sqrt {(2ax+b)^{2}+1}}(2ax+b)+sinh^{-1}(2ax+b)}{4a}}$. Give me a second to fix up my equation...--The Emperor _{Kneel before Zod!} 02:48, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

I think that makes more sense, since an inverse hyperbolic sine is in the equation for arc length of a parabolic segment up above. Šţěŗĭļė t-shirt 03:01, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Gotta go to bed, and got distracted; I think this is on the right track.... Šţěŗĭļė t-shirt 03:15, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Right, the nspire has been solving for the past fifteen minutes. I'll leave it running and come back in the morning if I can. --The Emperor _{Kneel before Zod!} 03:19, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

it should be illegal to do this kind of stuff. It sends some of us (well, me anyway) into a terrible depression as we (I) contemplate our (my) total inability to comprehend what this is or does. Refugee^{talk page} 05:42, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

$L=\int _{0}^{h}{\sqrt {1+{\bigg (}2ax+b{\bigg )}^{2}}}\,dx$

Substitute t = 2ax+b, which gives dt=2a dx.

Then, $L={\frac {1}{2a}}\int _{b}^{2ah+b}{\sqrt {1+t^{2}}}\,dt$

If I'm reading the integral table correctly, the indefinite integral is ${\frac {1}{2}}t{\sqrt {t^{2}+1}}+{\frac {1}{2}}\ln \left|t+{\sqrt {t^{2}+1}}\right|+C$

Substituting, one obtains $L={\frac {1}{4a}}(2ah+b){\sqrt {(2ah+b)^{2}+1}}+{\frac {1}{4a}}\ln \left|(2ah+b)+{\sqrt {(2ah+b)^{2}+1}}\right|-({\frac {1}{4a}}b{\sqrt {b^{2}+1}}+{\frac {1}{4a}}\ln \left|b+{\sqrt {b^{2}+1}}\right|)$

I think. Actually, looking at the definition of inverse hyperbolic sine, I think these are the same answer. Šţěŗĭļė t-shirt 17:37, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and Refugee: Imagine taking a rope that is 1 foot or 1 meter long. What is the shape that it takes as you move it around in space? What is the mathematical function that represents that shape? I think that is the question! Šţěŗĭļė t-shirt 19:24, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Do any of you want to do my calc quiz next week? Fuzzy =^_^=

When I look at this problem now that I'm awake, the nature of the hyperbolic cosine makes it a lot easier to use the actual formula instead of cheating to do a parabola, which is a lot harder. Look, let's take on axiom the fact that the rope never falls below 0,0, the lowest point. This may not be the case, but if it is, then we can use the following equation:

$L=\int _{0}^{h}{\sqrt {1+f'(cosh({\frac {x}{a}})a-a)^{2}}}\,dx$. The first derivative of a cosh(x/a)-a equals sinh (x/a), so that's easy as hell. Then, the square root of one plus sinh (x/a) squared is equal to exactly cosh(x/a)! (not factorial, I'm just excited.) Then, the integral will give us the equation $k=cosh{\bigg (}{\frac {h}{a}}{\bigg )}$. From there, we can work out a value, and plug it into the final equation a*cosh(x/a)-a. I'll work out a sample problem for L=3.77365, h=3, and k=2.025. Check my work:

$3.77365=\int _{0}^{3}{\sqrt {1+f'(cosh({\frac {x}{a}})a-a)^{2}}}\,dx$

$3.77365=\int _{0}^{3}{\sqrt {1+sinh({\frac {x}{a}})^{2}}}\,dx$

$3.77365=\int _{0}^{3}\cosh {\bigg (}{\frac {x}{a}}{\bigg )}\,dx$

$3.77365=sinh{\bigg (}{\frac {3}{a}}{\bigg )}a$

$a={\bigg (}2.50001{\bigg )}$

giving you the final equation for this example of:

$y=cosh{\bigg (}{\frac {x}{2.5}}{\bigg )}2.5-2.5$

Checking your work confirmes that both the points 0,0 and 3, 2.025 are on the curve. Voila! Now, let's generalize:

In order to get the equation for a catenary going through the points 0,0 and h,k of length L given that 0,0 is the lowest point on the curve, simply solve the equation$L=sinh{\bigg (}{\frac {h}{a}}{\bigg )}a$for a, and plug your result into the final equation $f(x)=cosh{\bigg (}{\frac {x}{a}}{\bigg )}a-a$. Then, check your work to insure that h,k and 0,0 are points on that curve. I think we're done here. --The Emperor _{Kneel before Zod!} 22:52, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Segments of catenaries of the same length with the ends of the same height. That is, moving a rope around.

I like it, it's certainly more elegant and impressive than the parabola solution. I don't think that you can pick any values of (h,k), however, since the equation constrains (0,0) as a minimum of the catenary. (I tried (2,2) as a point with L = 3.77365, and I don't think there's a value that will work.) Šţěŗĭļė t-shirt 00:25, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Adding on a bit: If you have catenary segment with ends at the same height (that is, with (h,k), (-h,k), and (0,0) as points) and length L, then you could do the same thing where you solved L = 2a sinh (h/a) for a, and then used y = a cosh(h/a) - a as a function for the catenary. But the constraint of having the same height seriously simplifies the problem, just as (0,0) as a point and minimum does. What's harder is if you have different heights. Šţěŗĭļė t-shirt 01:08, 22 April 2010 (UTC)