Phi for All

The language barrier may be too difficult to overcome. We acknowledge you've been speaking English a bit longer that we have, and that some pronunciations are actually favorable. Checking my "shed-jill" is far more posh than my "sked-jool" or "sked-joo-ul". "Boot" is mildly more fun to say than "trunk", and you win big with "lift" over the cumbersome "elevator" (I guess the four syllables gives us something to pass the time while waiting for our floor). You're going to have to change the way you say "vitamin" though. It's vital, right, so it should be "vyte-a-min". Same with "privacy". With a long I, it sounds like you're serious about being left alone to do something important, maybe clandestine. With a short I, it sounds like you don't want anyone to watch you tinkle. Definitely a deal-breaker.

I don't think the OP was ex pectin such a fruity bunch.

People looking for change are a target for populists. It's a shame all that energy isn't being better focused. What are they thinking of? If the government was taking control, would vaccination be voluntary? Do they not have vaccs for rubella and hepatitis and tetanus, that claim far fewer lives each year? We all want to know what's going on. We all want less corruption from those we trust to lead us. We all want more control of the events happening right around us. It's natural for us to want these things and we're not getting them, so we look for what's jamming the system up. And everyone has a different idea of what's causing the problems, but nowadays they seem to be more adamant that they're right and others are wrong. Poorly informed people can't focus their energy enough to affect anything.

Oh sure, you say that now, you gorgeous bastard! Then we let you move in, you force us to clean chicken without bleach, make us give up our cookies for biscuits, and before you know it we're all sleeping together on the wrong side of the road! OTOH, if we get British television series standards, I vote LEAVE. It's the rare US show I like, while it's rare for me to find a British show I don't like. You seem to look for actors who can act rather than actors with no physical flaws, and your writers write the way people talk.

Berry good! I plum forgot about those! Possibly the kiwi all need! That's radicchio.

You'll take a cut in celery for re-using a vegetable, but you've bean a good sprout, so we won't beet your gourd or squash your melon. Dads are rad! Or rad-ish....

Their lawyers claimed they're referring to "the cherries" they use in the "combination of five fruits". The amount of cherries you get is half of one. It's like Flip Wilson's All-You-Can-Drink-For-A-Dime Lemonade Stand. You already had a cup? Well, that's all you can drink for a dime! How corny! I'm sure there's a peas full resolution for those that carrot all. Lettuce stand together in hominy!

To be fair, my mom bought Del Monte fruit cocktail, and they showed you exactly what you were getting: One measly half of a maraschino cherry! And you're right, it was a prize and it NEVER went into the stupid Jello.

Not sure either of my folks would have allowed a meatless meal on their dining table. But mom did have a recipe for beef and barley soup that she must have gotten from the Depression. She'd shred a small part of a cooked roast and then MINCE the beef to slivers. Good soup with lots of veg, one of my favorites, but the beef was practically an illusion.

Dividing countries and making them vulnerable to internal strife and civil war helps those who thrive on chaos and uncertainty. Getting your enemies to decimate themselves before you invade is sound strategy, and it's worked for a long time, so long that it's part the narrative in many of our stories. We've all seen how division among the heroes makes them ineffective against the villains, and it's only when the good folks put aside their differences to work together that they can achieve victory. I truly believe most humans just want more stability and predictability, and the prosperity we sense is possible without so much chaos and misery. Extremism is exhausting and incredibly expensive, and we really don't deserve this kind of treatment from ourselves. Most people are far too awesome to be acting this way.

I normally enjoy pairing bitter and sweet, but I find nothing redeemable about this combo. It sounds absolutely vile. My mom used to put canned fruit cocktail (Depression-era folks LOVE canned food) in jello. Iirc, it had pineapple in it, so they must have done something to it in processing. I don't remember her having any trouble with the Jello setting up properly.

My mother used to make jelly this way and it was tasty as well as having a pleasing texture. But in between her limited canning seasons, she bought a store brand jelly that was so stiff it ripped the bread when you tried to spread it. It tasted of grapes and children's tears. Ah, I forgot about how teeth can break down Jello viscosity! The culprit is one of your school's second grade teachers! I remember my eighth grade English teacher drawing a couple of stick figures holding a circle with a dot in the middle of it between them. She asked me what it was, and when I couldn't guess she said it was "two men walking abreast". Of course, this calls for my only jelly joke. In the midst of the Y2K panic in 1999, the KY Jelly company announced it was Y2K compliant. They called it Y2KY Jelly, and it allowed you to put all four digits in your date....

I can't remember which aunt used to shred cabbage & carrots into an orange Jello mold for reunions, but she's dead now, so it's clearly something to avoid. I'm with you though, a Jello purist. You can get the fruit flavors many other places, but the texture of Jello was unique growing up. Even grapes or berries or pineapple meant you had to chew rather than reduce the gelated solid to a liquid using friction, heat, and pressure from your tongue. Proper Jello isn't eaten, it's sucked until you can drink it.

And the title is incorrect, btw. Jello in the USA has NOTHING to do with jellies, jams, or butters. It's a gelatin dessert eaten by itself with a spoon, sometimes with whole fruit or veg inside. It's stiffer/wigglier than any jelly, has less sugar, and you don't spread it on anything. OTOH, you can eat half a cup of it for about 80 calories.

Empathy is defined by its use. Do you know anyone who is especially empathic who doesn't use it? Do you know of any times when empathy isn't needed? I think your statement is meaningless in this context, something you felt compelled to write that seemed relevant at the time. Yes to sensing the weather, I don't know what you mean by "directions" (and how they can be heard and smelled), no to hearing and smelling people's expressions (if you mean the expression on their face). I envy your time spent with them, but I don't think you've observed them well, BASED ON WHAT YOU'VE WRITTEN. Then it's barometric pressure, or some other sensory process (although I still think your horse is hearing thunder that your ears haven't picked up yet). It isn't some magical "empathy" horses have. They have a remarkable sensory suite, but it's not supernatural. No effect on using an average smile per day metric. I don't understand why you bring it up, other than really wanting to have superpowers. No. Scientific theory represents our best supported explanations for various phenomena. Science "proves" nothing. Science can disprove, or falsify an explanation, but not prove it's true. Our best explanations are theories backed up by mathematical models and mountains of supportive evidence, and they're constantly updated with the latest information. Personal experience isn't interesting to science, since it's subjective and biased and untrustworthy. When enough people think they have supernatural mental powers, it gets tested, and none of the experiments show anything more than the normal ranges of human capabilities. And no matter what you may think, your brain/mind is very much part of the physical world. I'm sorry that your brain isn't special, but don't forget that you're human, and that already makes you part of the most intelligent species on the planet.

It's also not the brave stance many think, but just the opposite. It's a cowardly retreat from brave, innovative behaviors that gave us virtually everything good we have now. We KNOW how much we can accomplish by embracing others and joining their knowledge and efforts with our own. Tribal behavior no longer suits the intelligent, cooperative, communicative processes we've developed. Fear of change is powerful, and accelerated change on a global scale is daunting to many. But we need oversight more than we need tribal mentality pumping the brakes on our society. We can handle the advancement as long as we keep developing the right tools and rules to keep pace. I want to belong to the group that favors the traits that sets us apart as a species. We'll stay "pure" as long as our members react with their brains more than their brawn, and since the whole species is capable, you won't get ostracized as long as you're human. We are H.

! Moderator Note The goal HERE is to discuss science, HERE. Please post your ideas on site rather than trying to take the discussion somewhere else.

Who is? Any evidence for this? Science discussion forum, you know. What? Why don't we need empathy/intuition anymore? Do you have any evidence that "it's going away"? Do you have any evidence that empathy is not being selected as a favorable trait? You can't just make this up, you know. This isn't correct. A horse has better hearing and smell than humans, so it often seems like they sense danger before the rider can see it. Incorrect again. If there were ANYONE that could demonstrate supernatural ANYTHING with 90% accuracy, it would be more than luck, and it would be documented, and it would be part of science. What it is is bullshit, and NOBODY has ever been able to support these types of claims. If you understood evolution, you'd know that it wouldn't take very long for a benefit like that to sweep through a population. If being super empathic was a heritable trait, they would be more successful and spread it through populations over time. Oh yuck. That's like a vague horoscope scam. People smile 20-50 times a day.

We're getting our information from too many unvetted sources, so people aren't on the same page wrt what's happening in the world. There's no national narrative to guide folks away from unreasonable stances. Poorly informed people make poorly informed decisions. Part of the problem, imo, is using subjective terms like "reality" or "truth". Part of the problem is people defining reality however they feel like. Science is interested in the natural world, but whether that's "reality" or not I couldn't say. It should be enough that it's what we observe. Also, there are lots of folks who are basically human trolls, and they say outlandish or unreasonable things because it drives others crazy, and that's what they really want. For some, going viral is the only justification for anything.

This is a discussion site, and all you're doing is ranting. You aren't listening to anything else being posted, only yourself. This is supposed to be people talking around a table, and you've jumped up on top of it and started screaming about a long list of disconnected topics. You either need to go somewhere else and start a blog, or stay here and DISCUSS SCIENCE! Otherwise, we're going to get pretty tired of your ceaseless, meaningless, unfocused whining. Oh wait! Too late! What do you say, should you stay or should you go? We'd like you to stay but not if you're going to be this vague and unclear.

! Moderator Note Moved to Homework Help.

Kabutoo and Shijune have been banned as spammers, sockpuppets, and time-wasters, oh my.

A combination of reasons, as one would expect. Regulatory craziness is part of it, like how in the US you have to buy a car from a local dealership instead of a national chain or even direct from the manufacturer. Iirc, competition laws in Greece and Italy make forming large business groups difficult, so they don't benefit from economy of scale (such as small pharmacies that can't merge to form a CVS or Walgreen's). Then the small businesses have to employ a certain amount of people no matter what their industry is, and iirc more than half of Greeks work at small businesses. It's hard to make some efforts pay off if you have too many workers. They don't have a healthy mix of large and small business, imo. Unfortunately, corruption is worse usually in small business practices. Big corporations are more heavily watched and audited, and don't deal with as much cash. And corruption is what keeps many small businesses afloat that would otherwise have gone under. If you have a great business, it deserves to start small and grow on merit into a big business where it will be of more use to the economy, so the framework of small business tends to simultaneously give people a lot of potential to succeed and grow, as well as limiting their growth and making short cuts tempting. Plus the Greeks had borrowed heavily when they entered the EU (which they shouldn't have qualified for), and they suffered massive tax evasion from wealthy entrepreneurs so they had no revenue to pay back the loans. They also weren't as productive when using the new EU metrics, but still had access to all the borrowing power of an EU country.

Try not to think about a fog that swirls around you quickly before vanishing, leaving you unexpectedly covered in bugs! STOP!

This is a science discussion forum, so you should use a browser for questions like this. If you wish to discuss some science, you need to actually listen and respond as if you were having a conversation. Right now you look like a bad bot.