User talk:JS Leitch

What is going on? World Blogs Clogs Elections The Bar (talk) (talk) (talk) (talk) (hic) Welcome to RationalWiki, JS Leitch! Check out our guide for newcomers and our community standards! Tell us how you found RationalWiki here! If you are interested in contributing: Read what our articles are intended to be Check out the to-do list See our help page and Wikipedia's formatting cheatsheet If writing a new article, consider writing up a draft And most importantly: Pull up a goat and have some fun!

--The Emperor _{Kneel before Zod!} 00:19, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Sysoppery

You've been here for three days and not done anything bad / useful, so you're now a sysop! Here's ya guide, and if you can't be bothered reading it all like most of us, the basics are you can block other sysops if they're pissing you off or you're bored, for vandals (IP addresses and user accounts a like) use the vandal brake. The rest of the time, you don't leave red marks all over the recent changes page. Enjoy and abuse Just enjoy your power!!! SJ ^Debaser 15:00, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Forgotten password

Ask Trent or Nx to reset it. Cubic drug Hoover! 15:54, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I should've done something like that, but... too late now. JS Leitch 15:56, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

No, not really. You can retain all of your contribs, as well, which is better than your current situation. Cubic drug Hoover! 15:58, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Is it possible to merge two accounts? ListenerX^TalkerX 16:02, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

It is on RWW, but not here. Cubic drug Hoover! 16:03, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Ehh, I didn't contribute much anyway. I really don't care. JS Leitch 16:08, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

MICHIGAN!!!!

GO BLUE!!GO BLUE!!GO BLUE!!GO BLUE!!GO BLUE!!GO BLUE!!GO BLUE!!GO BLUE!!GO BLUE!!GO BLUE!!GO BLUE!!GO BLUE!!GO BLUE!!GO BLUE!!GO BLUE!!GO BLUE!!GO BLUE!!GO BLUE!!GO BLUE!!GO BLUE!!GO BLUE!!GO BLUE!!GO BLUE!!GO BLUE!!GO BLUE!!GO BLUE!!GO BLUE!!GO BLUE!!GO BLUE!!GO BLUE!!GO BLUE!!GO BLUE!!GO BLUE!!GO BLUE!!GO BLUE!!TheoryOfPractice 16:01, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Fuckin' A!

(I can't be too biased, though: MSU gave my sister a full ride)

(Insert tasteless joke about how everybody gave your sister one of those)TheoryOfPractice 16:08, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

eww.. hehe

As long as you beat Penn State, I'm a fan...Aboriginal Noise ^{Theist, barely hanging by a nail} 02:48, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Tuning...

Are you familiar with the 90s rock and or roll group the Presidents of the United States? Also, Stephen Stills uses an EEEEBE tuning for "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes." Almost as cool as yours. TheoryOfPractice 16:03, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Did the Presidents use tunings like that? I was inspired mostly by Sonic Youth's arsenal of broken guitars; it was only discovering my tuning that I found out it's the same one used by Ricky Wilson of the B-52s. JS Leitch 16:12, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

They didn't quite use that kind of tunung, but they did play guitars-with-strings-removed-and-tuned-in-unstandard ways...like so...TheoryOfPractice 16:17, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, POTUSA used 3 string guitars and 2 string bass. Another band that minimized the clutter was Morphine, who also used a 2 string bass, or a guitar with 2 guitar strings and 1 bass string (called a tritar). Me, I use a 6 string right-handed guitar, but I play it upside down and backwards left-handed. So I'm a bit different as well. Aboriginal Noise ^{Theist, barely hanging by a nail} 02:53, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I think that's the Jimi Hendrix setup. JS Leitch 14:36, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Embedding videos

Is there a way to embed youtube videos in my userpage? JS Leitch 16:29, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Help:Video Cubic drug Hoover! 16:33, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Unexplained Optical Phenomenon

This concerns a bizarre optical phenomenon I witnessed when I was a teenager, about ten years ago. It was about midnight, and the moon was setting over Lake Superior; the water was fairly calm and the sky was clear. The moon's reflection on the waves made the familiar upside-down "V" shape, but the V didn't point at the moon, but 10-15 degrees to the right! It looked like this:

C

---

      /\
     /  \
    /    \

I've never heard of *anything* like this, and I think I have a pretty decent layman's understanding of optics. I could dismiss it as a dream or false memory, but my dad remembers it too. How could this be possible?

If I understand it correctly, then water reflects light in a different manner than say, glass. For example, when you put a pencil behind a glass of water, you get this:

   _
   ||
 __||__ 
 \||  /
  ||  |
  ||  |
  V   |
  |   |
  |___|

and the pencil will appear to be in a different place than it is. Perhaps this is a derivation of that phenomena? --The Emperor _{Kneel before Zod!} 00:24, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Taking your memory at face value, here's a WAG: ASCII art shows the scene from above your head, looking down

     C        (moon, far away)

/////////////'//'
////////////'//'/     (long series of parallel waves, moving obliquely to the right)
///////////'//'//
//////////'//'///
/////////'//'////
////////'//'/////
--------------       (shoreline)
     oo              (observers)

In this scenario the water is not a flat mirror, but a ridged or grooved semi-reflective surface. The faces and tops of the waves may also be more turbulent/foamy than their backs, so the best reflections would be from the relatively smooth backs of the waves. Since the wave troughs are angled to the right, and the backs of the waves are tilted such that they slope up from left to right, the reflected light runs to the right of the moon. I marked the wave trough/back that is at the correct angle to bounce a moonbeam directly to the observers.--Martin Arrowsmith 01:42, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I am impressed by your use of ASCII art to both describe and then explain complex optical phenomena. I would never attempt such a thing, despite having been brought up to believe no graphics ever would be as good as those on the Commodore 64. That is all. DogP^{Marmite Patrol} 01:45, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

What you're describing is pretty much impossible. The reflections need to line up perpendicular with the reflective surface - refraction, as described above should make no difference to surface reflection unless your reflective surface is underwater, in which case you'd see two reflections rather than just one odd one.

However, if the surface is slanted (or you're slanted and don't realise it) it won't appear "lined-up". It will be lined up, but you won't think it is because you're at an angle. This is possible if the background and foreground conspire to make an optical illusion where you think "up" is actually slightly to the side. So in your initial diagram, the reality would be that the water level is tilted a little. This sort of thing isn't unheard of, particularly if it's dark you can be very unaware of your surroundings and there are cases where it looks like you're going downhill when you're actually going up hill and vice versa. ^sshole 08:11, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I could see the horizon fairly well; we were way up north, away from civilization; the sky was thick with stars and I could see where they were cutting off. And if I was viewing the horizon at an angle, wouldn't the "v" still point towards the moon? It was offset about 10-15 degrees, pointing toward the zenith. Arrowsmith's explanation seems to make the most sense (after mass hallucination, of course, but that was before my party days...)JS Leitch 12:22, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Is teh ebil guvhernmunts rund-eurth moon projectur phailing!!!1! ĵ₳¥ášÇ♠ʘ hrugh raaarrrgh schfraaggh murgh rurgh! 12:30, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Waves don't have different values of reflection on different sides, though. Unless they were really quite intense and the fresnel effect meant that you only observed a reflection on one side. I might try and simulate in with a rendering engine later. ^sshole 12:42, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

The waves were extemely small - quite unusual for Lake Superior, I remember. Is there any way small, uniform waves could do this? Or is government-projector fail the best explanation? Somebody alert JP Skipper...JS Leitch 13:31, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

This perhaps? I'm not sure what it is exactly. I've looked at pretty much every sun/moon reflection picture on the internet and can't find anything remotely like it. The odds are I doubt you were seeing what you thought you were seeing, and possibly your memory might have exaggerated what was in actuallity a very small effect. ^sshole 13:02, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Kind of like that, but a more or less uniform "V" shape, instead of discrete reflections. It's possible my memory exaggerates the degree of offset, but I know it was quite obvious. My dad noticed it first, called me out of the tent, and I noticed it before he told me what to look for. Maybe not 10-15 degrees, but more like 5? Still weird. What's the fresnel effect?JS Leitch 13:31, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

The fresnel effect is just where you get a more intense reflection at a sharper angle to the reflective surface. Hence if you look at a pond you see it reflect as if it were a perfect mirror lying on the ground, but if you raise your head up a bit and try to look directly down, the reflection is much less intense, and if it was perfectly still water you'd be likely to see no reflection and look straight through it. I brought it up because the intensity of reflections will change as the waves roll, some will cause there to be a sharp angle, some less sharp. There's also this one which could look odd if you were at a strange angle. ^sshole 14:39, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

That's a bit more like what I remember seeing... but not quite. It was really striking. I'm thinking it was a combination of the effect Martin Arroway described, and my own memory exaggerting what I actually saw. It was a strange night - I've never seen such a large body of water so calm, almost dead. Maybe the strangeness of my surroundings, combined with the late-night eerieness, made the event seem more consequential... I'm gonna have to say this is one of those "I don't have a fuckin' clue" situations. Thanks, by the way, for taking an interest and actually helping, like a good skeptic. I probably would have just flamed me and called me a crazy-ass, false-rememberin', ghost-believin' fool. JS Leitch 15:21, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

EDIT: Upon closer examination, that picture doesn't show the phenomenon I witnessed; it's just a stretched-out crescent with the bottom cut off. JS Leitch 16:47, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Rock Music

I must agree, rock music is in a terrible state these days. Whenever I hear Kings of Leon I have an urge to plug my ears with my own testicles. Ace McWicked^{Currently Lurking.....} 00:52, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Oog. And they couldn't even come up with a name that isn't ridiculous! JS Leitch 01:09, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Kings of Leon are fucking awful, and rock is in a bad place right now. Basically everything that's popular is fucking terrible, as douchy as it sounds to say that. On another note, your band is pretty good, I dig the dirty production. On an even further note, I'm going to see the Butthole Surfers tomorrow night. Be jealous.--PitchBlackMind ^{Do or drown in torpor} 01:22, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Dirty is good. Off to see The Buzzcocks in November. Should be alright I think. Ace McWicked^{Currently Lurking.....} 01:25, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Butthole Surfers! Shit! Where?

BTW, Corrosive Kids' first album, Horse Maneuvers, is coming out October 10. JS Leitch 01:39, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

At the HOB in New Orleans. I'm pretty excited about it. Strangely enough, I had never seen them before last year, and this is going to be my third time seeing them since then. Glad they're touring a lot lately. Put up a link in the Saloon Bar when your album comes out, I'll check it out and others probably will too.--الملعب الاسود العقل ^{There's no love in fear} 05:21, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Gaia hypothesis

I hated undoing that edit, because you were obviously trying to make it better, but it seemed - to me at least - like you were getting off track. It's been a tough article to write, Goonie and I spent years arguing over parts of it, or so it seems. I hope you don't take my reversion personally, and perhaps some of your edits (always available in the "history") can get worked in. Thanks for your valuable time, ħuman 05:53, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, on re-reading I see what you mean... I'm trying to get across the point that Gaians think that evolution was directed toward a certain purpose, instead of reacting to changing conditions. I think the paragraph reads too much like a straightforward timeline, and doesn't emphasize Gaians' reversal of cause-and-effect. I'll try again when I'm not so tired. JS Leitch 06:00, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Maybe you could express those ideas in a new section? One thing about that is you aren't fighting with anyone else's text, and it's easier to present your ideas. Maybe. Anyway, thanks for understanding - and trying. ħuman 06:02, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you...

Your correction to the Holydaze/0930 template showed that bastardization of WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) to WWMD (What Would Mohammed Do?), also provides an acronym suitable for What Weapons of Mass Destruction? Hah!
P.S.- Are you playing any MI locations in December? I need a place to take the wife for our annual date night when we go home on leave. I'll buy you a beer. The Foxhole Atheist 18:01, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

If we have any I'll let you know. Usually we don't plan very far in advance. JS Leitch 18:07, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Sig

A sig (Stuart Sewer don't wanna kill my china pig) that forces people to figure out who you are might not be very friendly. Not that we have rules against it, just sayin' is all. ħuman 03:17, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm figuring that out. I like this better: ^{Stu the Foo'} 11:16, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I saw that, yup, it's pretty cool. Thanks! ħuman 23:37, 7 October 2009 (UTC)