The Lounge

Any fans here? I'm an ardent evangelist of the glorious Onion. Really brilliant satire.

My knee jerk response is of course not. But why do some people dislike some vegetables so vehemently? Surely, it is one of those childhood things that just develops and, in most cases, wanes as people get older.

I'm not ordinarily a fan of Dilbert, but I found this hilarious: http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20071031.html

Ok, I don't mind saying I'm just freaking frustrated as hell here. I don't understand why I can't seem to find a book on the story of our constitution. Seems real damn simple to me. But I find books, and I mean hundreds, on everything about that period, or each individual person, or the military conquests and blah blah blah, except for the basic story of the birth of our government. WTF? You know...the federalist papers...continental congresses...the articles of confederation...the debates...and finally the constitution - the basic story of this process and the events that drove it. How obvious is that? Do I have to buy an american history textbook for 100 h…

Perhaps the universe is deterministic. But does that mean we have no Free Will? Yes and No. Yes, if you cling to the vague romanticized version of Free Will which basically amounts to one being able to choose any possible choice. No, if we modify our concept of Free Will to be more realistic. Free Will isn't at odds with determinism. In fact, Free Will depends on at least some level of determinism. Think for a moment about what "you" are. What is consciousness? Who am I? For now, science hasn't come very close to giving us conclusive answers. Yet, perhaps the black box method can help us philosophically. Now, consciousness is like an impenetrable black box; we're not…

Have any of you done any Castorboarding? Castorboards are like skateboards, but completely different. They are really two boards connected by a spring-loaded torsion bar. Instead of having four wheels on trucks, it has one castor(makes you wonder where the name came from, eh?) on each board. So, it looks like a two wheeled skateboard with shopping cart wheels. I thought it would be really hard to use and would seriously injure me, but it was pretty easy. Once I got on(that's really the hardest part), it was pretty easy. I've never snowboarded or skateboarded, but I hear that it is more similar to snowboarding than skateboarding. I have a Ripstik. The only other brand…

Artistic title, no? ANYWAY... I've noticed that this forum is severly lacking any musical discussion or tradings. This is a sin, you all need to repent in order to have salvation. Music is everywhere. Your heartbeat is the bass of your life, your words are the guitar, and your ideas are the lyrics. Listen well, and savor such a glorious thing that has been passed down for literally thousands of years. Now, how about a list to start off? Here are my top ten favorite songs of all freaking time. I would love to see a list of at least five of your favorite songs, I love to see how different people feel about music. 1) Hotel California - The Eagles 2) Sta…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBVmfIUR1DA Angry German kid, fully translated. He is trying to play a video game.....

This was something I was discussing with friends last night, and was prompted by the clip Sisyphus posted recently in GD. I realize this is hardly a new observation, and could possibly be regarded as a stereotype, but this isn't a 'I've noticed Americans do this', but 'what in American culture prompted this behaviour.' That is, a large number of individuals in an audience, on American chat shows, quiz shows, comedy programmes, feel it necessary to shout 'wooooo, yeah' over, well, pretty much anything. I remember this trend spread to the UK in the early 80's (maybe before), I specifically remember my Dad commenting on an audience 'woo-ing' on a game show, this was…

I'm trying to find a magnet that is a spherical shape and has one pole on the outside surface and the other pole on the core. If anyone has found something like this please provide link.

So, i was in my plasticts engineering lecture this morning(10 am) and the lecturer was explaining viscoelasticity to us(fun stuff:rolleyes:) most of the class was a tad hungover(though strangely i wasn't) and i heard the weirdest analogy ever. 'viscoelasticity is like fisting an oversided baked bean tin full of syrup' . naturally it took a bit of time to sink in and ask 'did he really just say that? and it turns out he did. its not normal 10am discussion that. i mean the only real scenarios where that should come up is either if you're high or have some outlandish fetishes. but here i am making a thread of it. what other weird and wacky things have you hear…

A new interview with evolutionist/atheist Mano Singham can be found here. To quote him: "Once you concede the idea of a god, you have ceased to think rationally in that area of your life, and are prey to those who preach extreme forms of religion. Of course, most people do not go so far, but that is because most people are not really that religious, though they say and act like they are. In the TV show House, someone asks the title character whether he is an atheist and he replies "Only on Christmas and Easter. The rest of the time it doesn't seem to matter." I think he is right. Most people are just nominally religious and unlikely to go off the deep end. It is the …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzrUD-5hf1A I know conspiracy wackos are a hobby of some people here, so I thought I'd share. These particular wackos apparently consider this a victory of some kind.

hey - i'm trying to find sci-fi novels to read that portray a future that doesn't break CURRENT known laws of science, or at least comes as close to that ideal as possible (i.e. not star trek or star wars). does anyone know any good titles/series? thank you in advance

Yeah I was born in 1990 but whatever, I love 80s music and new wave! My favorite band is Duran Duran.

Comment: I've seen apostrophes being used all over the place, in newspapers, in web posts, in letters. So I thought I'd give everyone in this for'm th' "101" on 'em: Apostrophes are a part of a linguistic feature (of English) called contraction. Contraction is what happens when two words are joined together (generally this happened first in spoken, then in written English). Examples are words like can and not, which become cannot, then can't, or we and are, (which might have been we-are) becomes we're. An apostrophe is always used (as in both examples) to signify the elision of one or more characters from such a compounded, or contracted word. This contraction-eli…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7055625.stm I wonder which one was Caesar? Seriously though, how do you think the government of Delhi and cities that face similar crises should respond? Is it slaughtering the monkeys worth it? As urban sprawl grows, these problems are just going to increase.

WHEREAS, recognizing that the animal subspecies Canis lupus familiaris has, since time immemorial, demonstrated a unique capacity for loyalty, devotion, love, friendship, compassion, and service to humankind, and have earned the colloquial sobriquet of “Man’s Best Friend” ORLANDO COUNTY ORDNANCE 2006

:eek: You think that is for real?

In charta-murus mensis scribere: T.V. is usually my daily equivalent of a background “moving and speaking” wallpaper. I leave it turned on, even swiveling it round so I can “see” it if I'm sitting at my PC. Perhaps it is my muse of sorts. It forms a sort of background to my daily “conscious space”, and often my nightly “unconscious space” (I fall asleep with it left on). We have, down in “Godzone country”, as I'm sure many reading this also have in theirs, a “resurgent” Christian evangelism, wherein the lost and downtrodden, the misunderstood and the socially impaired, are “oferd a noo salivation”, often from a brand-new pulpit, wearing what looks like a brand-new…

Just out of curiosity, has anybody viewed you as some sort of snob because of your intellectual skills? Just this week, my parents called me some sort of intellectual snob! Well, it isn't my fault that their arguments are usually riddled with logical fallacies (usually the appeal to emotion or hasty generalizations/conclusions), or that most people use (or even worse, teach) inaccurate information. The thanks I get for trying to enlighten them...

Why did the pregnant moose approach the road? To give birth away from hungry grizzly bears, according to researchers who say expectant moose have learned that roads provide a relative safe-haven for their new-born calves. Joel Berger of the US Wildlife Conservation Society says his team's findings demonstrate how protected nature reserves can alter animal behaviour in unexpected ways. For 10 years, starting in 1995, Berger and colleagues tracked female moose in and around Grand Teton National Park in north-west Wyoming, US. Each year, the team put radio transmitters on between 18 and 25 female moose, about three quarters of which were usually pregnant. They al…

Anyone catch that Nova this week on epigenetics? Pretty fascinating stuff.

As some of you are already aware, Cap'n and I have recently set up a website to tackle pseudoscience, and poor scientific journalism http://www.dbunked.com. Being responsible for the latter, if anybody here finds good examples of bad scientific journalism (current articles please) that warrants a correction i.e we'll get in contact with the publisher, then please take a look at the links below. It's still early stages, but we've decided to get things going and it will be great to have some solid examples to scrutinize, research and debunk. Introduction to how we'll tackle the problem... http://forum.dbunked.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=5 Details on submittin…

I've started work on a film depciting "a year in the life of scientists". I'm trying to capture the reality of science - not just the "big breakthroughs" which usually receive attention. Throughout the production, I'm posting raw video footage, short films and other material on my "production blog" website. I'd encourage anyone to have a look and get in touch if they'd like to make suggestions. http://www.test-tube.org.uk/ All ideas and feedback more than welcome. You can also subscribe to videos on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/nottinghamscience Or joining "Nottingham Science Appreciation Society" on Facebook. Cheers