The Lounge

Read an article this morning citing a CDC report stating that fertility rates in the U.S. currently are not high enough to sustain population levels without immigration. Nations throughout Europe are in a similarly position, Link. I personally see this as a good thing. I think the the planet is over populated. However within our economic models a declining population would stifle growth. So there are economic concerns. In the long run I see a decline in industrial production as a good thing because I think we over consume. Of course not everyone sees this issue as I do. Is there an inherent good to reproducing at rates high enough to sustain population growth? Wh…

In my country you choose study programs in high school, you have computer science programs, economics/business programs, programs for hair dressers etc. I went through an economics/business program and I don't know how to list it in my CV. What do I call my degree/title in English? If I were to translate the title given in my country, it would be "economics technician". What do you guys think of that? It sounds kind of goofy to me. Any ideas?

Goodbye everyone, Science forum has closed my topic and sighted soap-boxing as the reason, honestly i never read ahead of the post I was replying to. What I was doing was giving a full and considered answer to every question in the order they were asked and this takes time, obviously taking the time to answer properly is the problem here. I would like to continue answering every single question that was asked but I am at a loss how this could be done with this group, I am so sorry but it is out of my hands. If you believe time is only a construct then the moment now, that you experience, is an illusion. You can't compare things that are only measurements li…

Hello everyone! It has been a while since I was active in the forum. Sure, I post a song here and there, but I just can't participate like I used to. I'm still having problems with my left hip even though I had a hip replacement back in April, 2017. Since then, I lost my job and medical insurance because I simply can't sit and write code for hours on end due to the extreme pain in my left hip. I lost my job as a software engineer in the middle of being treated by my doctor and they want a $500 deposit to continue treating me. Unfortunately, I don't have any income, I'm unable to work, and I've blown through my savings on living expenses and doctor bills. Most likely, I …

We will be switching from a 43” 720p Pioneer plasma PDP436XDE. The TV is too small for our new place and its only 720p. I payed a small fortune for that damn thing in 2007, time to move on. Looking at getting 65” for under 2K USD. We need to use it primarilly for Netflix, movies from the PC and MS Office work, would like to get a screen which will be less prone to pixel burn than our current Pionneer Plasma. I was looking at the Samsung UE65NU8042 but maybe I could do better? Any siggestions from someone up to date on these things are welcome.

I know nothing about music, so I don't understand stereotypes around genres of music. Someone described someone to me recently as seeming like the kind of guy who listens to indie rock. What does that mean? What does a guy who listens to indie rock look like and what IS he like?

Depending on where you have lived, you may not have heard a qanun up to now... The kind of zither is common from Armenia and Turkey to Iran and Syria and beyond. Music on Youtube: NplUDKSwvQU, "The Seven Gates of Damascus" xL1QRZ1nfro "Syrian Dreams" e351z9H5MB8 audition for a graduation Allegedly the instrument was formerly played by men only... Maya Youssef is a fabulous composer, and to my untrained ear she plays very well too. Explanations about the instrument: h81283r_cJ8 including the piece "Breakthrough" wikipedia Enjoy!

Happy Australia Day to all the Aussies out there!!! https://www.australiaday.org.au/about-australia-day/history/ Before 1770 Aboriginal peoples had been living for more than 60 000 yearson the continent we now know as Australia. At least 1600 generations of these peoples had lived and died here. Europeans from the thirteenth century became interested in details from Asia about this land to the south. From the sixteenth century European cartographers and navigators gave the continent various names, including Terra Australis (Southern Land) and New Holland. 1770 Captain James Cook raised the Uni…

I was reading an article and this bit was in there: I don't think I've ever read such a think piece and I'm not familiar with what exactly these arguments are. Could someone link to such an article, if you happen to remember one, or give me a bit more details on what the criticisms are?

I don't know who Christopher Hitchens was, but I came across this quotation from him, that would be a good "mission statement" for the forum: Any better suggestions?

I'm looking at a job advertisement from the Indian embassy and the pay is listed like this: Salary (Per month): - Pay Scale (In Euro) - 1225-50-1975-65-2625-3375 - Basic Salary at the Minimum of Scale: Euro 1225 Does anyone have any idea what the heck "1225-50-1975-65-2625-3375" means??? Also, do you suppose this is gross or net? EDIT: Found another ad of theirs and apparently this is something to do with annual increments and max pay.

This thread is inspired by an old thread I made about whether or not it is wrong to step on bugs, but with a different subject. There is an episode of the Twilight Zone called the Little People where a couple astronauts get stranded on a distant planet and while repairing their ship, they stumble upon a race of tiny humans a who are sophisticated enough to build houses, boats, trucks, cities, and appear in all aspects to be identical to the humans in every way except their size. You can probably guess what happens next. An alien version of Conrad's Heart of Darkness. One of the astronauts decides he's going to be their God and begins to dominate the little peopl…

Can anyone recommend any online mags that cover exclusively or primarily math and physics? Something like Quanta. Not exclusively math and physics, but heavy emphasis.

I'm curious to this sophisticated question as to...... Was Rudolph's nose really red? Comments questions concerns serious answers only.

What does it say? If you the right person for the job? How does test score say if you the right person for the job? Some jobs have the Wonderlic test and other jobs do not? The so called Wonderlic Cognitive Ability Test they call it.

However, not intentionally, but this is how it happened. Our new dog was about 8 months old, a 15-pound Chihuahua-mix. She rarely barks but I heard her barking in the back yard. She was excited that a mouse was stuck in muddy water in a 2-foot by 2-foot planter that I was planning to transplant into. After a rain the soil was like quicksand and the mouse was trapped in it. I scooped the mouse out of the mud with a smaller plastic pot and dropped it on the dry concrete. It was shivering as though close to hyperthermia from being stuck in the cold, muddy water for I don't know how long, maybe many hours. I closed her doggie door and we stayed inside until I checked o…

Atheism is just Team B in Team A versus B of God debate. Where as I do not understand the question, so I am smarter than them both. Good is beneficence; "He is a good Tennis player" - he is skilled with a Tennis Racket, where 'skilled' is what's beneficent. "He is a good man" - he exists more so beneficently than maleficently. (This is science, it's analysis of a real, consistent pattern where people are more or less beneficent across, per say, all sports, in the first example.) Morality is thereore alignment with regard to policing, or self control of evil (malefience), or the nature of good and evil phenomenon.…

for describing the invariance of light. As well as I understand (which is poorly) when the invariance of light was discovered (by MM) there were existing geometries that were able to cope with it(sitting there more or less waiting for their relevance to be noticed) Suppose they had not been around are there any other methods that could be used to put down on paper what was being observed (in a predictive way)? Did anyone make any rudimentary attempts before Minkowski spacetime blew them out of the water,so to speak? I don't have any suggestions myself as I am very unskilled in the first place....

I heard two science journalists say that he supposedly was. I was kind of surprised, because I remember reading something he'd written where he talked about, if I remember correctly, being in a frat where there was a dynamic of jocks helping the intellectuals with girls and the intellectuals helping the jocks with school and he was receiving help with girls. Is anything known on this important topic?

I think some of you have heard of this weird-haired clownish science dude, called Einstein? No, that' was not the question, no. Einstein had a few remarkable things to say about intuition. And not just Einstein! Yet, when you say something that you intuitively feel is right, it gets questioned, ridiculed, or otherwise badly reacted upon. Why is that, I wonder...?

I am an Indian science student diagnosed with early onset schizophrenia. I turned eighteen last 21st December. I was deeply fascinated by science ever since it was introduced to us. Let's just say I got almost perfect grades -- I wasn't from a top-tier school, but still I almost always topped the class up till my psychosis became extreme and started affecting my cognition -- And now, my schizophrenia has become obvious. That means although I am a teenager, I am not enjoying life like my peers do. I am not saying "Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh my life's ruined" because, well, no girl talks to me -- which is quite embarrassing -- I find pleasure in mundane things like getting dec…

Hello, This is just an open discussion, I have some money (5K$) aside (I know it's not much but I'm 27 so it's a miracle that I even saved that) and I am curious what would you guys invest in or do to maybe increase it. I am not a fan of stock exchange so maybe nothing in that direction. (e-currency is also in that category) I want to do something productive but I have 0 inspiration. Feel free to share ideas on this topic even if they don't apply to me.

What is the basis or guidelines for whoever designs or prepares an I.Q. test ? Who typically designs or prepares such, from what profession or expertise ? Philosophists or other ? Is it designed different if aimed to an age group, social class, gender, instruction level, other ? Is someone with a lower IQ score capable of designing a meaningful test ? Do scores change by studying something or is it some mysterious digging into a testee's common sense or some other obscure skills ? I have taken only one test in my life, at school about age 15. -Please move this subject to a proper place if deserved-

Greetings all: Before anything, when I say "humans are hopeless idiots" I do not point at any individual. My thoughts are about the general population of Earth, and their idiocies. When I think of humans, before anything, the picture of a locust pops up, where the locust symbolizes the "perfect parasite". Indeed, if we take the definition of parasite, and we see this from an unbiased, objective point of view, this very definition applies to us. In my own words, the definition of a parasite is: The parasite invades a host: (Well, this does not apply to us in the "invasion" type of way, we evolved here from an ape type, still...). The parasite robs th…

Hi, i'm a high school dropout (regret it now) looking to one day get a higher degree of study and join a scientific field (still torn between which), what kinda places do you think are good places to start learning, places to read papers, good forums and the like