Cap'n Refsmmat

doubleclick.net serves some of our Google ads. I don't know about the rest. Google Analytics is designed to load only after the rest of the page has loaded; it waits for your browser to finish loading the page, and then does its work. The only script that can be causing trouble is Google Adsense (googleads.doubleclick.net would correspond with your observations) and that is how we pay the bills. For the moment, I've put you and moontanman in a usergroup that shouldn't see any ads. Let me know if it works.

Hmm. We have three external programs that your browser gets on each page: Google Adsense Google Analytics, which gives us audience statistics, number of visits, and so on Quantcast, which does demographics I just removed Quantcast because it hasn't been very useful anyway. Google Adsense has always been a part of SFN (well, at least for the last several years), but perhaps its location on the page means it blocks anything else from loading until it does. I will investigate if there's anything I can do. Also, a note: tracking cookies that your virus program finds can't cause any slowness you observe, and I wouldn't worry too much about them. Tracking cookies are not programs that can run and slow down your computer, nor do they slow down page loading. The primary reason virus programs remove them is privacy concerns; cookies are small bits of text your browser stores for certain sites, and those sites can use the text as an identifier when you visit. Some advertisements or analytics programs used on many sites can use the cookie to follow you across all your sites and store statistics about what sites you visit. SFN uses a few cookies to keep you logged in. Whatever your symptoms are, tracking cookies aren't the cause. If you have to reboot your computer, rather than just closing your browser and reopening it, I think there's something very wrong as well. I will, however, investigate what else I can do to speed up page loads and make SFN a better experience for everyone.

Yeah, IPB loves using profile pictures. I'll see if I can swap that. Dunno about the notifications though. I'm afraid I have no idea how to fix that one.

Hmm, I've missed a few good ones: The Scientists, by John Gribbin. A history of science done by looking at the scientists making key discoveries. You learn very interesting (and surprising!) things about the scientists you've heard about all your lives. A great biographical compilation. When Prophecy Fails, by Stanley Schachter, Leon Festinger and Henry Riecken. This book advances the psychological theory of cognitive dissonance, which explains how humans respond when their expectations are violated, by infiltrating a 1960s UFO cult and observing what happens when they aren't taken off the planet to safety as predicted. Excellent reporting -- and non-fiction! -- but perhaps not as fun as it could have been, because the authors focused on their psychological theory instead of just telling a good story. Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, by Mary Roach. Well... have a guess at what this one's about...

Let's start a list of the popular (and unpopular) science books you recommend. Perhaps we can all get some worthwhile reading material out of this. I'll start: Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene: good intro to modern physics Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker: a look at modern psychopharmacology and the effects of psychiatric medicine. Well-written and researched. Why People Believe Weird Things, by Michael Shermer. Engaging, amusing, and enlightening. The Last Man on the Moon, by Gene Cernan. Cernan landed on the Moon on Apollo 17, and this book is his memoir of the entire Gemini, Mercury and Apollo programs. Great if you like space exploration. What are your choices?

If you have continuing problems with the forum being slow and locking up your computer, I suggest scrolling to the bottom left to the style selector drop-down (it currently says "SFN") and selecting IP.Board Mobile. It's a layout designed for mobile phones that have trouble with loads of graphics and huge pages. If you do try it, a hint: the button in the upper-right (to the right of "Science Forums") is actually a drop-down menu with search and a few other things. If there's anything specific you find clumsy ("the button to do x is hard to find"), let me know. I'll be adjusting, tweaking and redesigning as time goes on.

Could you be more specific? The contrast between text and background is nearly the same as it used to be.

Hmm. Could you characterize this slowness? Does it take forever for anything to happen, or does the page start slowly appearing on your screen one line at a time, or is it just unusable for a while as images and other things load? I'll look into what speed improvements could be made, but I'd like to get a handle on where the bottleneck is. Whoops. There was a stuck PHP process using most of our CPU for a while there. Perhaps that was part of it.

So. If you were in charge, what would you change about the new ScienceForums.Net?

It's stickied here and people with no posts get a banner at the top of the page linking to this thread. Can't think of any other ways to make it obvious.

Hi! Nice to see a chemist about -- we seem to be swamped with physicists. I hope you enjoy SFN.

No, there's a limit on edit time. You can certainly make a new post though.

Here's where I'm working this semester. There's a lot more to the lab, but I don't yet have any good pictures of it. (Click for a big version.)

Now that's a wind instrument to remember.

Never fear, I'm not a sea captain either. And I've never used a refsmmat.

vuquta has been suspended for a few days for persistently hijacking threads to advance his own theories.

Nice to see you guys here. I hope you enjoy SFN! You may want to go over to our Chemistry section and do a search. There have been many threads on this subject.

In the six other threads in this forum so far, none discuss the topic of whether God exists. The question of faith hasn't yet entered into it. I understand your position. But I still believe it is possible to have good discussions about religion in this forum, and I'm going to do everything I can to let that happen. If you're not interested in participating, or don't believe it can work, you're free to ignore this part of the forum.

You forget that many theologians have attempted to prove the existence of god using logic alone. (The link is just one example, though one that is still debated to this day.) There's certainly logic to discuss. Also, not every question in our Religion forum will be a question of whether or not God exists. We can, in fact, discuss aspects of religion without arguing about faith. And we can use tact when doing so.

If you're talking to an astrologer and you tell them they're not playing with a full deck, that counts as flaming under the regular SFN rules.

You also added: We're just trying to preempt trouble by posting in threads. That's all.

So far, none of the threads in the religion forum boil down to existence. Sure, you could reduce them to "but God doesn't exist!" if you wanted to, but that's not their point. Criticism of beliefs is not offensive. I can say "ah, but that doesn't take into account fact x," and I'd be perfectly tactful. But if I say "you're not taking into account fact x, so clearly you're hiding evidence to cover up for your shameful ignorance," I'm being offensive. And I'm making even less of a contribution to the discussion than the alternative. You can talk about religion even if you don't believe it's true.

What is posted in Religion necessarily consists of opinions. There are no objective facts about God or Zeus. Comparing it to science is a bad analogy. If you insist on attacking others' beliefs, this forum will turn into what the previous forum was: a cesspool, where many threads end up closed and many members end up with infractions. Perhaps you believe that it's possible to run a forum where members freely call each other idiots and everyone is happy and enjoys participation. But I have the benefit of several years of experience watching the previous forum, and I know it won't work. Now. You know it's possible to explain to someone the error in their argument without telling them they're a moron. The personal attack adds nothing to the argument. (Does it help your point to accuse someone of stupidity?) So if you want to discuss, do it without the attack. If you insist on continuing with personal attacks, you will no longer be allowed to post in the religion forum. That goes for everyone, though fortunately nobody has resorted to personal attacks so far.

No, you can argue your side. You just can't call the other side stupid while you do it. I certainly want people to discuss their views until they come to an agreement. But I know that saying "this is nonsense" or "you must be stupid" does not help achieve that.

And we require tact. Civility is a condition to the continuing existence of this part of SFN, and your continuing participation in it.