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Nothing's gonna change my world... in General
Warrior
Member # 4590
Profile #23
quote:
Originally written by Jumpin' Salmon:

Yes. But as far as relative quote trees goes, the damage done by 1 Advil/day is far less than 1/50th of a lethal dose of radiation per day.
That isn't a valid comparison. If you look at average dose / day, something like advil will be MORE lethal than radiation. That is, if you take a year's worth of advil in a day, you'll definitely die. If you take a year's worth of radiation (including what you get from x-rays at the doctor's office, etc) in a day, you probably won't even get sick.

Not to mention that the point I was trying to get across is that "radiation" is just light (there are also alpha and beta particles, sometimes also called radiation, but it's very difficult to die from them unless you eat them or something). Light isn't dangerous. Saying "radiation" is dangerous is just as stupid as those people who say "chemicals" are dangerous.

There are also radioactive particles, but those occur everywhere... A significant fraction of the carbon (and other atoms) in your body is radioactive. Certain types of tests a doctor will do to you involve injecting your body with radioactive particles.

"Radiation" is not a catch phrase. It has an actual well-defined meaning, and has nothing to do with what the damn anti-nuclear hippies will have you believe!

Everything is dangerous. Nuclear power is no more dangerous than anything else. You're less likely to be injured from a well-run nuclear power plant than from a well-run chemical plant. Nuclear power is only dangerous when people are stupid--just like with everything else in the world.

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I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
- George Bernard Shaw
Posts: 103 | Registered: Sunday, June 20 2004 07:00
Nothing's gonna change my world... in General
Warrior
Member # 4590
Profile #21
quote:
Originally written by Drew:

Exposure to radioactive materials generally isn't a good thing though. My grandpa died from cancer owing to exposure to uranium in one of the diffusion(?) plants that were operating after WW2.
Taking 50 advil will kill you, too, but that doesn't make them "bad." And radiation is a lot more than evil cancer-rays...

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I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
- George Bernard Shaw
Posts: 103 | Registered: Sunday, June 20 2004 07:00
Nothing's gonna change my world... in General
Warrior
Member # 4590
Profile #19
quote:
Originally written by *i:

This bias stems from an irrational and exaggerated fear of radiation compared to other things that are far more hazardous.
Yes, let's not forget that "radiation" is evil, and no one actually knows what that word means. It's just magical evil, will kill you, and it comes from bad things, like nuclear power, cell phones, and republicans.

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I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
- George Bernard Shaw
Posts: 103 | Registered: Sunday, June 20 2004 07:00
Nothing's gonna change my world... in General
Warrior
Member # 4590
Profile #12
quote:
Originally written by Jumpin' Salmon:

I have to take issue with the idea that the environment is out of control, as stated by the OP. Nothing could be further from the truth. For example, I know there are proven causal relationships between atmospheric conditions and the results I see materialize. Why, just today I happened to notice that it was very humid and fairly cold. Quite quickly it began to mist, and then snow, and then more mist. I didn't have my trust weather balloon handy, but past experience indicates that what happened was that it was winter. Luckily this episode is typically followed by a period of notexactlywinter, followed by three weeks of summer sometime in late July.

Honestly, it seems to be in control. Do you live someplace that has cultural expectations of the elements that differ from mine?

That's true, and most real, non-politician-paid scientists would be very hesitant to say there're any significant man-made changes in the environment. We can certainly observe local and recent changes, but we lack any sufficiently good historical data to tell us if what we see is unusual (and the people who claim our historical data is good enough to claim we've seen a ~1 degree change in temperatures need to be beaten to death with a statistics book).

We also lack any good physical/numerical models to give us quantitative answers. We can get qualitative answers pretty easily, "if we add more CO2 it tends to get hotter," but we've been able to do that for like 100 years. Making exact statements from that is much harder. Especially since incomplete model + poorly understood physics + unknown initial conditions + huge numerical instabilities = bad.

Of course, most people who talk about the climate won't let pesky things like physics get in the way of their claims... I mean, no one's saying pollution and relying on people who hate us for fuel is a good thing, but that's really a whole 'nother argument than climate change (a subtlety that seems to escape many people who debate this).

[ Saturday, February 02, 2008 04:01: Message edited by: cfgauss ]

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I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
- George Bernard Shaw
Posts: 103 | Registered: Sunday, June 20 2004 07:00
Nothing's gonna change my world... in General
Warrior
Member # 4590
Profile #7
I hate to get into these discussions, but as a scientist, I can't help myself when I see totally wrong statements...

quote:
Originally written by The Ratt:

Quite simply, the most realistic method to stop adding carbon stored in fossil fuels into the atmosphere is biodiesel. You grow corn, or soybeans, or any vegatable oil (like used stuff from McDonalds) and you turn it into biodeisel that can run in any deisel vehicle. No conversion needed. It recycles carbon and boosts local economies.
In order to replace all the carbon based fuel we use, we'd be using most of the farmable land on the planet. How much exactly depends on various efficiencies and so forth... But we definitely can't have both biofuels and food at the same time. This is not a solution.

quote:
Originally written by Goldenking:

quote:
Originally written by Excalibur:

If the government needs to do something about it, I say build more nuclear power plants. (They're really quite harmless)
Yes, but there's a certain cultural stigma associated with nuclear power plants. The UK has proposed building one, and the Britons are giving them a fair bit of grief over it. The only reason I'm against nuclear power plants per se is that they aren't actually renewable. They produce far too much waste.

Once again, I say that wind wheels, tidal farms, geothermal plants, biomass plants, and whatever else they come up with, these are the energy sources of the future. Nuclear, coal, and oil will be filling in the gaps, instead of how it is now.

Nuclear power can supply all of our power needs pretty easily. And the supply of fuel, with modern reactors will last more than 1000 years, IIRC.

Modern reactor designs (past 10 or so years) also produce almost no waste, and are impossible to have an accident with without horrible horrible negligence.

Wind can't come close to filling anyone's needs, ever. It can provide a bonus, but that's all. I don't know about tidal farms, but I suspect they're on the same footing as wind, but they will be very hard to maintain with all the corrosion problems you'll have to deal with.

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I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
- George Bernard Shaw
Posts: 103 | Registered: Sunday, June 20 2004 07:00
Avernum 5, June Update in Avernum 4
Warrior
Member # 4590
Profile #74
One of the things I liked about the older games was being able to play almost entirely with the keyboard. I think it would be really nice if you were able to do that again, because I still find myself pressing "l" while playing Avernum 4 and being annoyed that nothing happens!

The only other complaints I have about Avernum are the lack of PC graphics. It would be nice if there was a system like in some older games where you could pick combinations of heads/bodies, so you can have more possible characters with fewer total graphics.

Also, the "color shifting" the graphics and pretending they're new is totally lame.

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I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
- George Bernard Shaw
Posts: 103 | Registered: Sunday, June 20 2004 07:00
Karma and Bush, and also the WTC in General
Warrior
Member # 4590
Profile #102
quote:
If Saddam was actually defying U.N. inspections so badly that a war was necessary, why was it not deemed possible to get a U.N. resolution to that effect? France, Germany, and the other European countries were part of the inspections process as well, and few of them agreed with U.S. policy.
As I mentioned before, Clinton did attack them. The UN agreed then, and nothing had gotten better by the time Bush was in office (mainly, because lobbing a few cruise missiles doesn't have much of an affect when you have learned to burry your stuff under the sand!) The UN, as far as I can tell, went completely insane as soon as Bush went in office, and plenty of times have refused continue to do for Bush what they did for Clinton. I find this fairly disturbing.

quote:
It should be noted, incidentally, that you're using the Blair argument, not the Bush argument. Blair has consistently cited 1441 and violations in the weapons inspections as justification for the war; Bush has rarely done so.
I remember him mentioning it plenty of times, but that may have been because I knew about it in advance, so he didn't have to more than mention it in passing for me to know what he was refering to.

quote:
I find your unthinking blanket opposition to genocide disturbing. When conducted in a sympathetic manner, government-mediated mass killing is one of the most fast-acting, efficient and humane forms of population control. After all, people can't just expect to keep breeding forever without consequences, and being shot in the head sure beats starving to death.
I will remember this the next time I am hungry.

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I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
- George Bernard Shaw
Posts: 103 | Registered: Sunday, June 20 2004 07:00
Karma and Bush, and also the WTC in General
Warrior
Member # 4590
Profile #101
quote:
And this doesn't seem like a weakness in the law to you?
That's not the point, though, there's nothing illegal about it. And even in theory, there's nothing you can do about it, because even if they represent the people exactly, the people can still think whatever crazy things they want to, and some people will always not voice their oppinions. Also, people are in general, not knowledgable enough about most topics to be able to make a decision, for example, if someone wants to make a freeway through a certian area, you can't expect the public to understand how things like earthquake hazards or flooding or every other issue in the area affect it. Where, in theory, politicians can hire teams of scientists to report on these kinds of things, and the politician can make an informed decision (no matter how hard you try, you can't inform all, or even most, of the people about issues).

quote:
Official police policy is against killing rioters. I wouldn't be so sure about the police themselves. In any case, whoever dies is just as dead whether they were killed intentionally or not.
True. And that's why there need to be serious precautions against those kind of things happening. And it's why things like tear gas are only supposed to be used as a last resort, when people are getting violent and could start to cause deaths anyway.

quote:
On the other hand, when half your population is too fat to ride one...
Well, they won't be for long, will they? :)

quote:
Trains can run on electricity, which can be generated by non-fossil-fuel means. The US may be overly reliant on trucks for shipping, but that doesn't mean every country is.
The US has plenty of trains, thank you. We use trucks more because we are much bigger than places like Japan, and we can't afford to have rail roads going everywhere like that. Not to mention, the enviornmentalists would never let us make that many tracks through through forests and mountians!

Moving on to the next person,
quote:
This is absolutely hilarious to me. I may be way off base here, but my suspicion is that cfgauss is a conservative.
Yes, I mentioned not too long ago that I'm a republican, and atheist. So I'm mostly conservative, but not about everything.

quote:
And I agree totally. We should have another completely effective and foolproof government agency devoted solely to the treatment of alcoholism. In fact, I think all diseases should have there own special government agency that provides prompt and effective treatment. That is a fantastic idea, so well thought out and easily implemented.
Yes, I was purely speaking theoretically :P . If it can reasonably happen, or is affordable, thankfuly, is not the topic of this, uhh, topic. But yeah, things don't work perfectly, and that's why we end up with things not working out to make sense all the time.

And smoked salmon is awesome, it's one of my favorite things to eat.

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I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
- George Bernard Shaw
Posts: 103 | Registered: Sunday, June 20 2004 07:00
Karma and Bush, and also the WTC in General
Warrior
Member # 4590
Profile #98
quote:
And what of it if someone wanted to search for WMDs in the Pentagon, and also demanded entry into a slew of places? Even Bush admits that there were no weapons there. Why you feel compelled to argue that Saddam did not comply with the UN command to disarm on the basis that he didn't let nose-pokers go everywhere is beyond me. But I suppose we poked explosive noses all over, so phooey with that...
International law, that Saddam personally agreed to said he was required to let them search! What's so hard to underestand about this? And YES, if the UN comes over here and says something like "we have evidance you're developing biological weapons" then, YES, we have to let them search, and if they don't, YES, it would be a breach of international law, and YES they can attack us for it!

quote:
So essentially, I don't have to be praying, but at 6 AM, Noon, 6 PM, et cetera, I had better kneel to Mecca for five minutes as per government mandate? Saying "the thoughts are free" can justify virtually anything up to and including concentration camps. (PS- Have we forgotten about the Nazi Rule from the book of fallacies, people?) So yeah- don't believe in a god. But our government will avowedly espouse its principles, make confining legislation based on its commandments, and force that religion in everything except for name on you.
Again, what the hell? Did you read what I said? Let me say it again: they can BASE their decisions on whatever ideology they want, they can't FORCE you to follow one. You can complain all you want about him believing in God, and basing decisions on religious thoughts, but that is not illegal! Find me one law that says it is! He cannot say "you have to believe the same thing I do," he can't institute "national pray to Jesus day" and he hasn't done anything like that! He can base decisions and policies on Star Trek if he wants to, as long as he doesn't require all Americans to watch it at 9:00 every night!

quote:
Oh yeah- and just out of curiosity, what makes democracy inherently good? (Not that we live in one, but nevertheless.)
Democracys are not inherently good, that question doesn't make sense. Any democracy can be made bad, by definition of a democracy!

quote:
Are you stupid or something? The WTC attack only barely killed 3,000 people. The Iraqi war has cost easily over 20,000 in Iraqi civilians.
WFT? "Barely killed?!" You try telling that to someone who lost a loved one and see if you are still physically cabable of making an argument against it after that!

quote:
Are you telling me that an American life is worth over 6 Iraqi ones? Hmm. For some reason, "imperialism" is wrestling within my mind.
That doesn't mean anything!!!!!!!! That's totally insane!! That's like saying that in World War 2, there were 61 million casualties, but not nearly that many were killed by Germans! That is INSANE!! You want to try to get moral on us? What matters here is that every weak in Iraq, they uncover another mass grave with hundreds of men, women, and CHILDREN, who were tied up and shot in the head!! Yes, call me crazy, but I don't have a problem with some army guys being killed to save CHILDREN FROM BEING SHOT IN THE HEAD!!! In fact, of all the things a soldier could die from, I think the best is to stop children from being killed! If I had to die, but a few hundred children wouldn't have their parents executed in front of them and tossed into a hole full of bodies before being shot and thrown in themselves, I would feel pretty damned good about it being me dying!!
(*special note, sometimes, they ran out of bullets, so they would tie people together, shoot one, and then throw them all in. The logic behind this in many ways escapes me. They also took notes from other mass murders like the Nazis and tried to do things like save ammo by trying to have the bullet go through more than one person, as well as other things...)

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I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
- George Bernard Shaw
Posts: 103 | Registered: Sunday, June 20 2004 07:00
Karma and Bush, and also the WTC in General
Warrior
Member # 4590
Profile #95
quote:
If another alcohol diversion program doesn't exist, the government should create one (which is exactly what many countries do). It shouldn't throw its lot in with unregulated and unaccountable private organisations.
That's absolutely right, they should, and if people would stop wasting their time arguing against vague, unspecified, religious issues, and focus on specific issues like this, it would happen!

quote:
Well, yes. Governments can do whatever they like. Some of the things they do are even legal. But if we're going to get into the issue of what a political system ought to be and do, there's no avoiding ideology.
Yes, but I mean to say that there is absolutely nothing in the laws that says anything about the particular ideology someone has to use. It's perfectly legal for a politician to reach his decisions thought process he wants, Bible, random guessing, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, it doesn't matter.

quote:
the fact that one tends to have a higher rate of long-term harmful effects is merely a quantitative matter, not a qualitative one.
It's also not the point. The point is, again, the intent. Police don't intend to kill rioters.

quote:
If pollution isn't causing the world any severe harm, the issue of whether first-world or third-world countries pollute more is irrelevant, and you would have had no reason to mention it.
Because, again, people keep talking like the US is personally, single handedly going to pollute the world to death. And even though I believe there's not enough polluting going on to do that, I'm going to continue to refute people's arguments with that!

quote:
Bicycles. There are plenty of places in developed nations where most people don't own cars and don't need them. Most of those places are outside the US.
First of all, seriously, that just makes me laugh. For one, it's not like we don't know that bicycles are in the US, or are suffering from some kind of bicycle drought. Second, if all the oil in the world *did* suddelny run out one day, your first thought isn't gonna be "****, how will I get to work?!" And I laugh to think of giant trucks of grain being pulled by hundreds of people on bikes :) . Not that this matters anyway, because by the time we run out, we'll be more than prepared. Like I said, there's a reason literally every university is working on alternatives to gas-powered cars.

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I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
- George Bernard Shaw
Posts: 103 | Registered: Sunday, June 20 2004 07:00
Karma and Bush, and also the WTC in General
Warrior
Member # 4590
Profile #92
quote:
We went to war for unclear purposes that have been retroactively redeclared several times. I will reiterate, however, that Saddam Hussein was not the terrorist threat to us that you seem to believe. He was a threat to his own people, but we haven't let that drag us into war elsewhere.

Uhhh.... No, actually, it was pretty clear... You'd know this is you actually would read reports by the administration. But no, those are just part of the Evil Conspiricy, isn't it?

Let me put this another way,
-You get pulled over by the cops for something
-The cop looks into your vw van, at your beard, and then into your bloodshot, hippie eyes.
-The cop asks if you will give him permission to search your vehicle for drugs
-You, with your infinite knowledge of the law, know he can't search you without probable cause, so you tell him no, he can't search your van, maannn. (Or, you say, "sure, you can search it... uhh, just don't look in the glove box... or under the seat...")
-He tells you to step out of your vehicle, because, oops, you've just given him probable cause.

Now, let's look at what happened in Iraq.
-The UN walks up to Saddam's country and asks to search it.
-No, you can't search it!
-We'll be nice and ley you off with a warning this time.
(later)
-Ok, now we need to search your country, under the laws you, personally, agreed to.
-No, this is all part of the Western conspiricy against my people!
-Ok, but we'll be back later.
(repeat for a few years)
-Ok, we need to search your country.
-No, you have no right to be here! This is my country!
-You agreed to allow yourselves to be searched...
-No, this is all part of the Western conspiricy against me!!!
-Our friend Clinton here has a few cruise missiles pointed at you....
(some stuff gets blown up)
-Ok, let us search your country
-Alright, as long as you don't search in these places (hands them a map with every building in Iraq circled)
-No, we have to search everywhere...
-CONSPIRICY!!!
(more stuff gets blown up)
and this goes on for a few more years...
-Hey, we need to search your country or our friend Bush here is gonna kick your ass.

And then you know what happened. Under the laws Saddam personally agreed to, under international law, according to what the UN said (!!!), the invasion of Iraq was legal, justified, and a number of years later than it should have been. Nothing was done before hand because, well, the UN is not known for action. They ask nicely. Individual countries have to do most of the dity work themselves.

quote:
It isn't, but the processes of a coal power plant release more radiation into the environs than a nuclear power plant's processes.
What?!? I have never heard this before. There is nothing radioactive in anything they use that I am aware of. Cite a source here.

[ Monday, May 30, 2005 19:22: Message edited by: cfgauss ]

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I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
- George Bernard Shaw
Posts: 103 | Registered: Sunday, June 20 2004 07:00
Global Warming or Global Cooling in General
Warrior
Member # 4590
Profile #17
quote:
Fun fact: no matter where you live, global warming will ruin your life. Raising temperatures 2-3 degrees will cause massive crop failures, reduce the food supply well below demand, and so forth.

quote:

Global warming will cause methane clathrates to melt, and more methane in the athmosphere means more warmth which means more methane will be freed means more warmth which means...

Fun fact: When dinosaurs were around, global tempratures were way the hell more than 3 degrees hotter! :) IIRC, something >10 degrees, even. The world was also a very nice, tropical paradise :cool: . Maybe not the whole world, but it was nice out. The continents were also all much closer to the equator, then, too.

quote:
As far as radiation increase from nuclear power, um, under normal operation a coal plant emits more radioactivity into the environment than a nuclear plant does. Although high level radioactive waste is produced, the volume is quite small and is easily contained and kept out of the environment.

Even with nuclear weapons testing, the natural background on average has increased less than 1%. For scale, no negative health effects have been observed below about 200 times natural background. In fact, people in slightly higher radiation zones appear to be healthier on average than those in lower radiation zones.

Yes, exactly!!!

quote:
I disagree 4.808 x 10^3, Bush will not give funding to technology advances. Reminder: Bush is 'in' with the oil companies (drilling in Alaska!) He doesn't want to risk losing any money from the oil companies by developing new technologies that wll replace them.
Oh, yes, 'in' with them, he's in an evil plot to destroy us all, blah, blah, blah... grow up. The world is way more complicated than that! In this country, and in every other first world one, no one can stop someone from developing some new amazing technology that can replace oil, there's a reason literally every university in the world who can is working on this!!!

--------------------
I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
- George Bernard Shaw
Posts: 103 | Registered: Sunday, June 20 2004 07:00
Karma and Bush, and also the WTC in General
Warrior
Member # 4590
Profile #90
quote:
Then you've never had a court order you into an alcohol treatment program. Alcoholics Anonymous is a cult and there's no two ways about it.
Lmao, I have never heard that before! Alcoholics need some kind of help, they're a danger to the public (that's a fact, not an oppinion). And unless you can find another program, AA is pretty much it. And AA is not a religious program, though that's not to say people in it aren't. If they are they are making you do religious things, that's a problem, though they can suggest them.

quote:
Once elected to public office, for public purposes you are no longer a person -- you are the holder of that office. Your job is to base policy on the consensus of your constituents, not your own opinions.
Not according to my political science books and teachers! They can spin around and randomly point to ideas if they want to. For certian, some political ideologies / theories say they should represent the public exactly, but it is definately not required that they do that!

quote:
I suppose that means the US has never used tear gas against rioters? Under international law, that's classified as a chemical weapon, and people have died from being exposed to it.
Yes, but a) they only are supposed to do that when they become a danger to other people, and b) the point of tear gas is not to kill people! Big difference there!! In fact, that's the opposite of the point of it! Now, if they were using mustard gas or cyanide on them, that would be a problem!

quote:
So the citizens of third world countries don't count as "people"? How telling.
You know that's not what my sentance was saying. A semicolon sepperates things in a list (or as a cool-looking substitute for a period), it does not mean I'm elaborating on a topic! To clarify:
quote:
And again, I'll say, again: there's no poof for increasing tempratures being caused by people--and as an entirely sepperate thing I was saying, but will say again, which is on the same topic--3rd world countries pollute way more than us!!!
-----
(Edit: To seperate from other posts, because quotes don't seem to like spaces between them)

quote:
Let me remind all of you republicans: IN 6 MONTHS to 20 YEARS, OUR OIL WILL RUN OUT! Guess what happens then. Every country in the world will pass us in the technological race. The US will be thrown into the dark ages because we wern't prepared for an oil shortage. That means that the US will sink to the bottom of the economics graph and the US will no linger be a super power.
Errrr.... first of all, no one here has said "everything else but oil is evil, and anyone who supports other power should be executed, and have their property given to the oil companies." If you would read the rest of the thread, you'd see several of us support things like nuclear power, and in another thread, you can even see that I said compressed-air powered cars are a "cool idea."

Second of all, we have much more than 20 years' worth of oil, according to the geologists.

Third of all, if everyone runs out of oil, the USA still kicks everyone else's ass, because we not only have the biggest economy, we have one of the most robust. The countries who will really be in trouble are the small ones who would be no longer able to import the food they need, and don't produce enough for themselves.

quote:
Instead, there will be the EU and Japan running the world instead of us! (*gasp*). Remember what happened in th '70s? Oil Shortage!
Errr... the rest of the world was running on magical-care-bare-powered cars? Fusion powered cars? Fuel cell powered cars? I don't think so. They all rely on oil exactly as much as we do.

[ Monday, May 30, 2005 18:29: Message edited by: cfgauss ]

--------------------
I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
- George Bernard Shaw
Posts: 103 | Registered: Sunday, June 20 2004 07:00
Who are you? and What's your IQ? in General
Warrior
Member # 4590
Profile #39
My name is Jeremy. I am approximately the smartest person in the world. I'm majoring in math and physics, both of which are very awesome, and plan to do research in quantum gravity. I also am interested in lots of computer stuff, and program for fun sometimes. I almost was a CS major, but decided I hate computers too much to be one. I am one of 12 republican atheists in the world. I like the Lord of the Rings books, and Harry Potter, just like everyone else here. I also like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books, but haven't gotten around to reading all of them yet. I am an alien-human hybrid, who plans to one day take over the Earth. I started playing Exile since not too long before it came out. I have also been playing Geneforge 3 on the pc for months, when my time traveling self from the future brought me a copy. You won't believe what happens in Avernum 4.

[ Monday, May 30, 2005 14:09: Message edited by: cfgauss ]

--------------------
I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
- George Bernard Shaw
Posts: 103 | Registered: Sunday, June 20 2004 07:00
A Car For the Future in General
Warrior
Member # 4590
Profile #13
I remember reading about a car that used compressed air being developed at some university a number of years ago. IIRC, the problem with it was that it was inefficent, and even if it worked at it's best efficency, it couldn't provide enough power for a full-sized car to reach reasonable speeds. The idea was pretty cool, though. It would be a great idea to power a kid's toy car that they could ride like that.

--------------------
I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
- George Bernard Shaw
Posts: 103 | Registered: Sunday, June 20 2004 07:00
Karma and Bush, and also the WTC in General
Warrior
Member # 4590
Profile #82
quote:
He had that capacity, as evidenced by his chemical trucks and actions of Chemical Ali. He didn't use that capacity, as evidenced by the pervasive lack of WMDs. He actually followed the commands of the world when asked- unlike a certain American president who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty.
What crack are you smoking?!?! www.un.org, search for how many times saddam kicked out inspectors, or refused to let them inspect some places. He NEVER let them go where they wanted and do what they wanted. I've done research on this, search the UN records like I have.

quote:

That is a theocracy. What does "freedom" mean? It means, "the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action." I wonder what anonymous tenet will be violated by pushing religious values onto a person's life?

I am an atheist, I have never EVER felt any kind of religious pressure of any kind by the government at all. People are allowed to have their beliefs, if Bush, or anyone else in the gov't wants to say "God bless you," "God bless America," or "God damn it," he can. There is no law that has ever been written that prevents any leader from doing that. Any leader in this country can base his decisions and ideology on whatever they want, they can base their policies on their own ideas, the Bible, the Koran, Mein Kapmf, the Necronomicon, or the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, it doesn't matter. That's the whole point of our ENTIRE SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT!!! What they can't do is force us to believe, act, or think, the same things as him, or coerce us to believe, act, or think the same way. If you don't like the way he does things, don't vote for him! That's how a democracy works!!!

quote:
Most of Western Europe has the capacity to make weapons of mass destruction. We don't invade Western Europe. The potential to commit a crime is not itself a crime.
First, international law says no one can make any new nuclear weapons. Not that any country listens to international law. It's just there to justify what some countrys like to do.

Second, Western Eurpoe isn't gassing its own people!! There's a big difference there! The second they do start doing that, I hope someone goes over and blows their country back to the stone age, too! And yes--it is against international law to kill your own people!!!!

Edit:
And GLOBAL WARMING IS NOT KILLING PEOPLE!!!!! look at global satellite maps!! Things look much greener than they did 20 years ago! Forests have actually been flourishing and expanding! Why? Global increase in tempratures? Oops, there goes that theory! And again, I'll say, again: there's no poof for increasing tempratures being caused by people; 3rd world countries pollute way more than us!!!

[ Monday, May 30, 2005 13:37: Message edited by: cfgauss ]

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I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
- George Bernard Shaw
Posts: 103 | Registered: Sunday, June 20 2004 07:00
Are You Stupid? in General
Warrior
Member # 4590
Profile #24
quote:
Please explain clearly, succinctly, and in terms that can be understood without an extensive background in physics, Einstein's General Theory of Relativity.
As succinct as you can get:
G_mu,nu = 8 pi T_mu,nu
G_mu,nu = R_mu,nu - 1/2 g_mu,nu R
:cool:

quote:

People trying to make a career out of this, please stay away. Thuryl, please stay away also. We know that you can not only explain it but probably point out all the misunderstandings we are likely to commit.
Well, you won't get the right answer from them! The sci.physics FAQ explains lots of this kind of stuff, and a lot more.

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I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
- George Bernard Shaw
Posts: 103 | Registered: Sunday, June 20 2004 07:00
Karma and Bush, and also the WTC in General
Warrior
Member # 4590
Profile #66
quote:
Bad Karma happens when you do things like rip into the free press for mistakes like the Koran in the toilet controversy, but never mention or apologize for the war when no weapons of mass destruction or scuds or chemical/biologicals were found.
I should point out that Saddam did actually use chemical weapons on his own people, there's absolutely no question about that. Also, I remember reading a story from the BBC of all places, talking about German intelligence estimates that he'd have nuclear weapons in 2 years. I read a lot of stuff about this, in fact, doing a research report on Iraq (which I did long before the war). It's actually a little bit disturbing to me that countries all of the sudden change their minds when we want to do something. Our inel reports were, in fact, based partly off of reports from British intel, German intel, and French intel (probably others, too, but can't recall offhand).

I should also point out, that, in case we've forgotten, Iraq is a big pile of sand, and Saddam likes to burry things. Our soldiers over there are constantly finding things like buried fighter jets out in the middle of nowhere. That kind of stuff is done to hide them from satellite and aircraft recon. The only reason we find the planes is because they hurried, and didn't burry them deep enough, and we see things like wings and tails sticking out of the sand! It would be very easy to hide missiles under the sand out in the middle of nowhere where no one would ever find them. He has done this in the past, too.

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I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
- George Bernard Shaw
Posts: 103 | Registered: Sunday, June 20 2004 07:00
Karma and Bush, and also the WTC in General
Warrior
Member # 4590
Profile #64
quote:
I would be interested how you think that you know this. Polling attempts over there have generally failed.
Yes, they tend to not work too well in places like that. But talking to the troops who are helping in reconstruction and working with the Iraqi police is a pretty good indicator of what's really going on. But they don't show this stuff on the news much, because no one's interested in hearing nice stories (in general, not just about this), but people only want to hear about stuff blowing up and people getting killed.

PoD person- I don't like the religious stuff they're doing, but other than that what they're doing isn't all that different than things everyone else does/did. There are whole political theories that say the same things always happen regardless of who is in office, unless you get someone totally inept in a crisis, or something like that, anyway.

[ Saturday, May 28, 2005 14:11: Message edited by: cfgauss ]

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I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
- George Bernard Shaw
Posts: 103 | Registered: Sunday, June 20 2004 07:00
Karma and Bush, and also the WTC in General
Warrior
Member # 4590
Profile #60
quote:
It started with British occupation, followed by numerous rebellions until 1932 when it went through various dictatorships, until now where once again the country is occupied by the British and us for various geopolitical reasons.
First of all, "we" aren't the British. Second, we now know of oil in plenty of places around the world, and in fact, don't get most of our oil from the Middle East anymore. Third, we aren't occupying Iraq!!! I hate it when people try to say that we are. People have totally forgotten what an occupation is, for one. And no one actually bothers to talk to Iraqis what they think about it, either. They sure as hell don't think it's on occupation, and they don't want us to leave. There are naturally some who think the opposite, but overall they don't. There's a reason they aren't running out of new recruits for Iraqi police despite their high casualty rate. In many places they have way more people who want to join than they have available spots! Not that you’ll hear about this on the news, of course, because things like that don’t make good stories. Though if you talk to soldiers in some of these cities you can hear plenty of great stories about these kinds of things.

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I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
- George Bernard Shaw
Posts: 103 | Registered: Sunday, June 20 2004 07:00
Karma and Bush, and also the WTC in General
Warrior
Member # 4590
Profile #59
I just thought of a good example for what I was saying about climate variations. Imagine the stock market. Over periods of decades and longer, you see a large scale overall increase. However, on a period of years, or months, it has very violent changes in value with significant deviations from what you'd expect from a resolution of decades. So, if you only knew of the data over a period of decades, you'd think something was horribly wrong when values are like 5,000% off, but in reality, things are behaving exactly like you'd expect.

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I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
- George Bernard Shaw
Posts: 103 | Registered: Sunday, June 20 2004 07:00
Global Warming or Global Cooling in General
Warrior
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Profile #5
quote:
I'm probably mistaken, but wouldn't severe global warming trigger another ice age?

More proof that that movie needs to be scoured from history.

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I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
- George Bernard Shaw
Posts: 103 | Registered: Sunday, June 20 2004 07:00
Global Warming or Global Cooling in General
Warrior
Member # 4590
Profile #3
Considering we have to wait on the scales of tens or hundreds of thousands of years for anythinig too significant to happen, I sure hope we will have learned how to alter the climate to stop those kinds of things by then! :cool:

At any rate, by then my cyborg body will be living in a massive battle station ready to destroy the puny Earthlings anyway, so it won't really matter.

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I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
- George Bernard Shaw
Posts: 103 | Registered: Sunday, June 20 2004 07:00
Karma and Bush, and also the WTC in General
Warrior
Member # 4590
Profile #56
First of all, as a scientist, I can say that nuclear power is completely safe when politicians and "interest" groups keep themselves out of it. When people do things like say "nooo, anything with the word NUCLEAR in it is EVIL!!!!" then things all go to hell, money gets taken away from programs, and we get stuck with nuclear waste and no money to deal with it, and we have to change all of our NMR machines to MRIs! The only reason nuclear power isn't supported is because it has the word nuclear in it, if it was called "happy magical unicorn power" no one would have a problem with it.

If you want to talk about pollution, look at third world countries that pollute insane amounts, due to absolutely no regulations on anything they do. And yes, international laws do not apply when you live in a crappy 3rd world country no one cares (or knows) about.

If you want to talk about global warming, let me mention this. Watch the local weather on TV, and write down how accurate they are. Now remember that they're only that accurate because of statistics, not because they are bad-ass weather modelers. If they just relied on dynamical computer simulations, trying to numerically solve equations, we could not predict the weather two days in advance. In fact, we don't even *understand* the dynamical equations that describe these things. If you ever talk to someone who claims we do, tell him to collect his million dollars.

Also, consider how climate varies in general, ice age->warmer->warmer->really hot. We just got out of an ice age. It isn't as hot now as it has been at some points in the past. Connect the dots. And don't try to tell me it's getting too hot too fast for that to be true, because we do not have climatological records over millions of years with a resolution of months. That would be insane.

As to people claiming we’re in Iraq for oil, come on. Just admit you are wrong. That’s what people have been claiming since we first mentioned Iraq. Have we set up American companies to give us all the oil? No. Have we set up puppet corporations to do it? No. The Iraqis are in charge of their oil, and they can do what they want with it. That’s what a democracy does! And please, if we really wanted oil, it would be so much easier for us to go up into Alaska and get the billions of barrels of oil there, or to go to Russia and nicely ask if our companies can help them out with drilling in Siberia in exchange for x% of the oil they get.

And another thing about Iraq, why do people expect it to magically instantly become a perfect country? Has anyone ever taken a history class? After World War 2, did Japan instantly become the world’s favorite manufacturer of electronics? No! It took 40 years for that to happen! And Japan had an existing infrastructure to build off of! Iraq doesn’t! How anyone expects Iraq to magically become a model state in a matter of months is totally beyond me!

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I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
- George Bernard Shaw
Posts: 103 | Registered: Sunday, June 20 2004 07:00
SEGA Genesis in General
Warrior
Member # 4590
Profile #16
Ohh, I really liked Super Mario RPG, too, that was really good. So was Zelda, too. But I still think Chrono Trigger is easily the best. If you don't think so, you either haven't played it, or didn't underestand it's complicated plot. And I do mean complicated, you can find tons of info about the plot on webpages even now, years after the game was made! And evidantly, years after people have known what an SNES actually is! :eek:

Sonic was pretty cool on Sega, too, but it was cool like Super Mario, not cool like Chrono Trigger or Zelda.

[ Saturday, May 28, 2005 12:01: Message edited by: cfgauss ]

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I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
- George Bernard Shaw
Posts: 103 | Registered: Sunday, June 20 2004 07:00

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