Phi for All

5 minutes ago, Bufofrog said:

It doesn't seem difficult to me either, unfortunately the SC ruled in 2008 that the 2nd amendment says that gun ownership is the right of every citizen.  So now I hope I never accidently cut off someone in traffic or heaven forbid that I get lost and have to turn around in someone's driveway.

"Arms" in the constitutional sense were never supposed to be handguns. Militias and armies don't rely on them, they rely on rifles (you get in big trouble calling your rifle a "gun" in the army, I'm told). 

We could follow the letter of the law and issue a government-manufactured carbine (something like the M1) to every citizen over a certain age. That's all you're allowed to own (unless you have a special permit for collecting, hunting, or other hobbying), and you're not allowed to modify it in any way (15 round clip only). It's to fulfill your duty as part of a well-regulated militia. 

Maybe, just maybe, we could start to defund some military/police/prison operations and put those funds to work helping people avoid a life of crime and guns. Imagine if our society openly showed it cares more about our freedoms than it cares about putting us in jail!

22 minutes ago, ovidiu t said:

I thought it was generally accepted that nothing escapes from black holes, except for Hawking radiation.

From the Wikipedia article (bolding done by me):

Quote

 

Physical insight into the process may be gained by imagining that particle-antiparticle radiation is emitted from just beyond the event horizon. This radiation does not come directly from the black hole itself, but rather is a result of virtual particles being "boosted" by the black hole's gravitation into becoming real particles.[10] As the particle-antiparticle pair was produced by the black hole's gravitational energy, the escape of one of the particles lowers the mass of the black hole.[11]

An alternative view of the process is that vacuum fluctuations cause a particle-antiparticle pair to appear close to the event horizon of a black hole. One of the pair falls into the black hole while the other escapes. In order to preserve total energy, the particle that fell into the black hole must have had a negative energy (with respect to an observer far away from the black hole). This causes the black hole to lose mass, and, to an outside observer, it would appear that the black hole has just emitted a particle. In another model, the process is a quantum tunnelling effect, whereby particle-antiparticle pairs will form from the vacuum, and one will tunnel outside the event horizon.

 

So even Hawking radiation doesn't escape once it's past the EH.

41 minutes ago, Janus said:

The argument you so often hear is that gun regulations won't stop gun violence.  It's the all or nothing approach; that if a regulation doesn't prevent all gun deaths of innocents, it shouldn't be enacted.  Saving 10 lives a year isn't worth it, nor is saving 100 or, 1000...

Right?! And while the hobbyists are usually more responsible people, they still vote with/are members of/add their voice to groups that are defending the use of bump stocks, silencers, extended clips, printed firearms, and military-grade assault rifles, claiming the 2A is what keeps people off their hair triggers. You can't get any progress when so many are against ANY progress.

48 minutes ago, Bufofrog said:

Every time gun laws are struck down or not passed the law makers or judges throw up their hands and say there is nothing we can do because it would violate the 2nd amendment.  Clearly the second amendment is in need of a rewrite.  How many needless gun deaths are going to happen before we change the amendment, I shudder to think.

It doesn't seem that difficult to me. There is clearly an interpretation of the 2A that takes into account that we were a fledgling nation that took control away from a colonizing force, that private ownership of "arms" included even things like cannons so we could protect what we had accomplished. We needed a citizen militia in the early days because the whole country was too porous and indefensible otherwise.

Since that time, citizen militias have become unable to handle modern threats. All they've given us are civil wars, compound mentality, far right manifestos, and wastes of life like Ruby Ridge and Waco. Many modern militias are actively trying to overthrow our democracy. We should use this opportunity to rewrite the 2A and stop the erosion of our real rights, like voting, equality, clean air/water, and all the liberties that make life a pursuit of happiness.

28 minutes ago, zapatos said:

I on the other hand become more and more convinced that we will never do anything about it. It's a bit depressing.

Last year in Colorado, our state passed a law banning "ghost guns" that are 3D printed or sold as kits, which are untraceable. There's only one main reason somebody would want to own one of these: they don't want the gun traced back to them, so you'd think it's a no-brainer to ban them, right? Lawsuits have been filed against the state by gun lobbyists and shooting clubs who want the law struck down on principle. It's another "If we give you an inch, you'll take a mile" argument from inhumans who don't much care about mass murder and children dying in school.

What kind of responsible gun owner would want unregulated, untraceable firearms being manufactured by anyone with an inexpensive printer?

2 hours ago, Bufofrog said:

I think it is time to rewrite the 2A so that it is no longer a right to own guns.

I think this would change the entire country for the better. It seems obvious that fear is the #1 tool in the box of corporate America, and maintaining the balance between docility and outrage allows them to charge prices the markets normally don't allow. Fear related to guns makes folks do abnormal things, and we have to stop letting corporations cash in on their social manipulation. 

It would be a good first step in fixing our problems with capitalism too. It's also obvious that we want to be happy, but happy people don't spend money the way fearful, sad, depressed people do. 

3 hours ago, ohdearme said:

Phi, your comment about "an urgent need to change positions", is about right, there is a feeling of "Relief" once I have turned. It's not involuntary, nor a twitch. I am aware of it.

So you feel relief once you've turned, but you still think about it and eventually you need to change again, knowing you'll feel relief again, at least for a while.

You should still talk to your doctor about it, but it sounds like something you can overcome with the right mental approach. I'm the occasional victim of the inappropriate throat tickle, where if I know I can't get up for a drink of water my throat starts tickling. Funerals, lectures, movies, if I start thinking about it too much I feel like I have to do something about it. The simple answer is to stop thinking about it, but sometimes it's not easy.

22 minutes ago, Photon Guy said:

Im not sure about the legality of dynamite but I believe anybody with the money can get a tunnel-borer.

All dangerous tools are regulated to some extent, and their use is restricted to those who have business using them. 

26 minutes ago, Photon Guy said:

The 2A identifies the right to keep and bear arms, not the right to keep and bear other stuff such as dynamite and tunnel-borers and certain dangerous drugs. 

Because they had access to them when the Constitution, including the 2A was ratified. When the 2A which identifies the right to keep and bear arms, and that's exactly what it does as it doesn't grant the right it identifies it, muskets were the military/police grade guns back then and citizens had full access to them.

That's not a great argument. I could just as easily argue that you can have muskets because that was allowed by the Constitution, but that arms made after the document was ratified aren't covered. It's a much more sound argument than letting citizens have the latest and greatest military gear. That's insane, don't you think?

29 minutes ago, Photon Guy said:

That's exactly what they're needed for, or to put it more precisely, to protect themselves from the government should the government become oppressive. In the USA it's the citizens that are supposed to control the government, not the other way around. The USA was created for the people by the people. We've got many checks and balances in place but the right to keep and bear arms, as identified by the 2A, is a final check and balance. If all else fails the people can revolt against the government should the government become oppressive. 

I don't know what to say about this argument. You seem to be saying a citizen militia is what stands between us and misused military, when we've seen what the US military does to citizen militias all over the globe. Ignorant, normal people, the kind that stormed the US Capitol building in insurrection, that's the folks you want to have drones and tanks and RPGs? Which state do you vote in?

21 minutes ago, Photon Guy said:

The way I see it, any kind of gun that the police and military have access to citizens should also have access to. So if you want to ban certain guns from citizens, ban them from the police and military too. 

You must be assigning some kind of special importance to firearms here. As tools, the police need of a different version than a hunter does, or than a soldier does. 

I use tools too, but I sure wouldn't expect the experts to give up their dynamite or tunnel-borers just because they won't give me access to them. That's just crazy.

Why do you think a citizen should have access to military/police grade guns? Are you thinking they need them to protect themselves from the police and the military?

Which supplies can withstand human-squashing forces?

44 minutes ago, exchemist said:

But there is no theoretical way to move space itself.

I think they're referring to the Alcubierre metric, which doesn't actually move space but rather creates a configurable energy density field that can "push" something massive, assuming you can create a negative energy density somehow. 

2 hours ago, Otto Kretschmer said:

Any evidence that his parents' methods were non standard?

Is having a doctor and a maths/physics teacher as parents "standard" by the definition you're using?

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

Well I guess that's better than Continue the embalming whilst reminding myself that a moment of weakness doesn't make me a bad mortician.

It is, because the original was a double misdirection joke. The first head-fake is the mention of "autopsy", which leads one from having sex to having sex with the dead. The second misdirection doesn't come until the last word of the joke, clarifying who one is really having sex with. Brilliant!

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

In the US one issue seems to be the absence of electric kettles. When my late wife and I moved to Houston in 1999 for a couple of years we found it really hard to buy one, though we did manage in the end. Seems they heat a pan of water on the cooker if they want boiling water.

Saw my first electric kettle in Germany a few decades ago. I couldn't believe how much more efficient it was than a pan on the stovetop! Finally found them here in the US and haven't used anything else since. 

15 minutes ago, zapatos said:

I considered posting this anonymously lest I bring down the wrath of the British Empire, but I guess I'll proudly show my American roots; I like my tea iced, with a bit of lemon juice. I only drink hot tea when I am cold or under the weather.

For me, tea needs to either be icy cold or blisteringly hot, and I'll keep sipping as long as it stays at the extremes. And I prefer fresh mint to lemon juice, which is weird because the only other place I like mint is in toothpaste or breath mints. I love peppermint Altoids, but I'll turn down a peppermint candy cane at Christmas every time. And while I appreciate a little honey in tea sometimes, no sweetener ever touches my coffee. Bleh, just bleh!

14 minutes ago, Otto Kretschmer said:

Having support and tailor made education certainly helped him realize his potential. But it did not create it - he showed extreme math aptitude since age 2-3 so his brain somehow has to be wired differently... 

Or his parents inclinations and methods weren't standard and their child benefitted from the focus. I'm not saying the "wiring" aspect isn't correct, but it seems like it's arguing more for "nature" and less for "nurture", and it's almost certainly quite a bit of both.

13 hours ago, Moontanman said:

I've tried this with coffee but never tea... I prefer my Earl Grey hot with a pinch of butter and a teaspoon of honey!  

If your doctor is after you about the fats and sweets, the bergamot in Earl Grey tea pairs really, really well with lemon, and not just because the British say so. In this case, they are spot on.

3 hours ago, Otto Kretschmer said:

You're sure of that? 

Most people struggle with high school math. At the same time Terence Tao was already learning university level math by the time he was 9 years old and had a PhD at 21 and a professorship at 24. 

Those people simply are different from an average person.

But do you think Terrence Tao could have accomplished the same without the training and support he received at a young age? You claim he's different than average, but how much of that difference was because his father was a doctor and his mother was a maths and physics teacher?

3 hours ago, Zakher said:

I THINK THERE MUST BE something higher beyond all of this.

And this is why science and religion conflict. Science requires more than your incredulity and insistence. Evidence we can observe would be helpful.

5 hours ago, graybear13 said:

Maybe my hypothesis is a threat to your way of thinking.

See, this tells me you don't understand some of the fundamentals of science. If you posed an hypothesis that was sound, that you could support with evidence, that you could build a model upon to make successful predictions, AND that we could find no fault with, no flaws that falsify the explanation you've given, then it wouldn't be a threat to our way of thinking. It would BECOME our way of thinking, because it would be a well-supported explanation on its way to becoming a theory. Can't you see that? 

We've been pointing out mistakes, so how could your idea possibly be a threat?

1 hour ago, graybear13 said:

Instead of an explosion creating atomic matter,

Are you talking about the BB? It was NOT an explosion. If you're talking about stars forming from clouds of gas, what about that behavior do you find objectionable? 

1 hour ago, graybear13 said:

Sadly, I cannot mathematically prove mesotron ,but I can visualize it because I see it everywhere in NASA and other images of the universe i.e. spiral galaxies and quasars.

You can visualize it? Given the gaps in your science knowledge, I suspect your "visualization" is filling those gaps with whatever makes the most sense to you, which is no way to do science. 

16 minutes ago, Otto Kretschmer said:

Have any studies been done on individuals with very high ontelligence?

Yes. So many that you need to be more specific about what you're looking for.

18 minutes ago, Otto Kretschmer said:

Is it about brain size? Size of some brain areas? Some unusual synaptic properties? Whatever? 

From what I've read, size is only a small factor. The way the various regions are "wired", and the ways the regions communicate with each other is much more important.

I think graybear13 is channeling Emily Litella. "What is all this fuss I hear about the Supreme Court decision on a "deaf" penalty? It's terrible! Deaf people have enough problems as it is!"

1 hour ago, nec209 said:

And why only 1% have been found 

Don't be fooled by pop-sci vividness. Think about it. Why have you only built 1% of the things you could have built with your LEGO blocks? Because you built the 1% of things that made the most sense to you, that were of the most value, and that pleased you most. A great deal of the rest of what you could have built made no sense, had no value, and was just plain ugly.

One can easily imagine that there might be some useful chemical combinations we haven't discovered yet, but most likely there are an enormous amount of chemicals that aren't as good as the ones we know about.

2 hours ago, ohdearme said:

I have a regular uncontrollable desire to turnover in bed

Not an expert, but if this is an "uncontrollable desire" then a neurological source seems unlikely. Most movement disorders are described as "involuntary" and "abnormal" spasms and contractions. Would you describe your "desire" as more of an urgent need to change positions, or is it actually a physical twitch that moves you without conscious effort? 

Your physician should be able to distinguish between behaviors if you describe what you're going through, but it sounds to me like something similar to restless leg, where you feel uncomfortable until you turn over and change positions.