Phi for All

It's difficult to monitor. When someone spouts a bit of pseudoscience in the regular sub-fora we need to give others a chance to respond and set the record straight. If we prune too early we deny the poster the chance to see the error of his ways. We often mark threads meaning to come back and see where the discussion goes but then the world creeps in and takes time away from what's really important. And there is always that minuscule possibility that someone comes up with something that starts out as a Speculation and eventually gains some credibility. I agree though that we need to put our crackpot ass-kicking boots on a little quicker in most cases.

Actually you don't. There's a federal law that requires Airsoft and BB gun manufacturers to put an orange tip on the barrel of their guns to distinguish it from a real gun and it's also a federal offense to tamper with that tip by breaking it off or painting it. Google around and you'll see all the kids who've been killed by police officers who thought they were being threatened by these deadly-looking "contraptions". In many municipalities if you rob someone using one of the fakes it's treated as armed robbery. It's the device that can cause others to react as if it were real, including reacting with deadly force. Imagine it's your family being threatened by a deadly looking device/gun/whatever. If you use deadly force to protect them and later find the item was a fake are you going to blame yourself for being mistaken? Aren't you going to argue that it looked real and the perpetrator forced you to react in the way you did? Do you see the rights violation now?

And let's keep what facts we *do* know straight. He didn't call the whole Bible a myth: I completely agree that we don't know all the facts. It could very well be that this was the final straw on a whole camel full of other grievances.

I don't think I've ever moved a thread to Pseudoscience from General Maths before. I can see we need to get a bigger box of Oxy-Clean. I'll make this a formal call to all members (and Experts especially) to use that Report A Post button at the top right of each post to let us know when the jelly donut of Pseudoscience threatens to stain the pristine white lab coat of Science.

Are you forgetting the "plastique" she was carrying in her hand? This was my initial take when I heard about it. I heard about a breadboard with 9 LED lights, a battery and some MIT insider slogans written on it. Then I heard there was some putty on the breadboard. Then I heard (from the police spokesman) that she had a ball of Play-doh in her hand. That puts it in a whole new light for me. A flashy fashion accessory is one thing but deliberately making it look like a bomb with a visible explosive tells me she knew exactly what she was doing. Until you realize the precedence that would set. Do you want students across the country numbing the senses of security personnel with designer "bombs" displayed on their bodies? Suddenly it's no longer very cheap.

Borderline abuse, let's be careful here. I'm not much liking this new "topic nazi" approach you're taking lately, iNow. We have some leeway in an online forum and a bit of flexibility can reap big rewards. A little ramble can spark new thoughts in others. You're not the world's police you know. Save that for the neo-cons, 'kay?.

Thread closed pending Staff investigation. It may be reopened if any actual legitimacy is discovered.

As Kinsley's article says, the people most outraged by the MoveOn ad are the most secretly delighted. It gives them a chance to display their umbrage so they seem like true warriors for their side. They're so happy because when the public is bickering over crap they aren't turning their sights on their elected representatives.

Dictatorship?! What *are* you talking about? Are you attempting to build a reputation without all that tedious credibility? This is business and politics. A university (even a US university) would never have allowed this to happen, and would have realized a golden opportunity to market and improve their academic credibility. But this community college is in a Bible Belt community. If they piss off the Red Oak citizenry they would have to shut down the campus and they're not going to do that over a guy who's five years from retirement and teaches one class. That said, it's deplorable that a few extremist students have that much more clout than a member of the faculty, even a part-timer. Those smug creationists got a teacher fired two days after their threat. Imagine how they are crowing about how God got that awful man fired! It makes me sick to hear people ranting about fundamentalist Islamics while they are foisting their fundamentalist Christian perspective on us wherever they can. So sad that religion must be used in this counterproductive, hypocritical manner.

Good catch Glider. No more advertising for your bosses rey.

In the US they don't teach that till middle school, grade seven or eight. He'll get there eventually. Problem is he won't have as much time to waste conquering us. There's more homework in junior high school. Does he know one of the "friends" he bragged to sent us an email ratting out his name and home address?

I haven't had a Mac since OS 7 but I always swore by them. As swansont implied, the Mac's procedures are much friendlier and make more sense. Then again, I liked the BetaMax format over VHS for video. More practical, smaller tapes, better quality. Eventually VHS became the norm because of better marketing and eventually they went to four heads instead of two so quality improved, but we still had to use those big-ass VHS tapes. Remember that Windows tried to emulate the Mac platform but used the old Microsoft DOS shell underneath. Vista is an attempt to emulate Mac OS X (according to a Mac-master friend of mine). Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery in the computer world too. I'd love to go Mac again and I would in a heartbeat if I knew I could easily reconcile the problems interacting with PC users. The Mac will read PC stuff just fine, but the PCs often have trouble reading Mac. Vista may solve that problem, however.

You need a ticket to go through security. She was picking up her boyfriend and was actually outside the airport strolling around when they approached her. She had stopped by an information booth to inquire about the flight and got questioned about the device. Not a smart terrorist move but since they didn't shoot her I suppose it's a moot point. According to MA State Police Maj. Scott Pare, in addition to the device, Simpson (Star, not OJ) "... also had Play-Doh in her hands". Assuming Pare meant oil-based modeling clay and not the brightly colored flour/water based Play-doh, this tells me Simpson was definitely going for a "bomb" look in her art, not just a flashy LED light show on her hoodie. Who carries clay around in their hand?

Definitely NOT the same thing. While supposedly shy and reclusive, neither unicorns nor leprechauns *require* you to take them on faith. Find one and suddenly they exist for everyone. But none of the literature says they CAN'T be observed, in fact it usually says they are *rarely* observed. But the Abrahamic God chooses to remain unobservable because your faith in Him is *required*. At some point, according to the literature, He chose to stop interacting directly with humanity (no more burning bushes). It makes Him outside of science so if you choose to deal in any way with Him you must do so without benefit of proof. This particular deity is unique in this regard and you can't classify Him with other supernatural beings. People of faith like YDOAPS' family have spent much of their lives dangling on this tightrope. They know there is no proof (though some try) but they build their faith throughout their lives and treat their beliefs as sacred and unchanging. From their POV, when junior comes along and starts questioning the foundations of those beliefs they either a) maintain their faith and fear for junior's immortal soul or b) fear that he is right and they've wasted a lot of time. I still think the joking about his burning in hell is to deflect from how serious they really are. If they bug him so much about it they are afraid of something.

Since the question was brought up by the thread starter it won't be off-topic to pursue it. But rather than ask what a bomb *looks* like, lets start first with what it has to have to *be* a bomb. I'm assuming it requires some sort of explosive material and some sort of detonator. I'm not up on all the latest explosives but I assume it takes a certain amount to be an effective bomb. The detonator could be a timing device (fuse, chemicals, clock, etc.), or a mechanical device (radio remote, pressure switch, contact button, mercury switch, etc.). What else constitutes an effective bomb?

I was unaware that C-4 came in bright fluorescent colors. I was unaware that C-4 dries out and starts crumbling after a day or so in the open air. I thought it was more like modeling clay and usually gray and inconspicuous. I keep seeing discrepancies about the "Play-doh". Some accounts are saying there was some "putty" on the breadboard, some are saying she had a ball of Play-doh in her hand. To me this is the critical point. Having a device on your jacket that lights up and distinguishes you from the crowd is artistic. Stick some gray modeling clay (not bright pink Play-doh) and now you obviously want it to look like a bomb. I think security reacted correctly. Take her down and sort it out away from all the people. You apologize for being so harsh if it turns out she just forgot her jacket was airport-unfriendly. You put her in jail if she was stupid enough to put some clay on it that made it look like a bomb.

It's obviously frustration, not hatred, so lets not fan the Flames. No more of that please. As yourdadonapogos said, he believes in one less god than his family does. He has come a long way in the last year or so in the way he thinks about religion. I'm willing to bet that his family hasn't done nearly as much studying about their beliefs as he has about his. That may be causing some resentment on their part too. As far as the "atheism is a religion" thang, the Christian God is unobservable at His own request. He requires faith without proof so the best science can say is, "We can't measure that, so we'll remain skeptical". While I don't think atheism is a religion, it's still a belief about something unobservable. Since you can't use science to prove or disprove it, you just have to decide which way you believe. I wish everyone could adopt the convention that *any* statement about a deity is a statement of faith since it's unprovable. It would put an end to a lot of pointless posturing.

A family that cares about your immortal soul (at least from their POV) isn't as messed up as you think. Maybe they're hiding how seriously they feel about it so they don't spook you into digging in your heels permanently. I often approach my child that way (well, without the outright laughing; laughing at her would make her *entrenched*). I'm sure they see it as something you need that you've lost but will find again. I would choose to look at it from their perspective. They love you, they want what's best for you but they are projecting what they believe is best for *them*. You may believe in one less god than they do but you still believe it to be true. If they believe their god to be true then you're all on the same page (their copy of the page just has fancier writing than yours does). If I were you the next time they bring it up I'd just tell them, "I really respect your beliefs". Don't ask them to respect yours; let them come to that conclusion themselves. Just keep repeating that you really respect their beliefs until they either drop it or concede that they will respect your beliefs as well.

Great point. I don't watch commercial TV much and I didn't realize they weren't being advertised. Is this like the electric car, did they make something they really don't want us to buy?

This sounds really familiar but I don't remember where I heard it (maybe *that's* the final piece of knowledge; if your Dad and I remember what book it's from we're ALL dead ). The way I remember it though, is that the final piece of knowledge gave this guy the ability to communicate it to all humans simultaneously, so we all went, "Oh, how simple!" and then vanished. Sounds Asimovish. I'll check around 'cause it's gonna bug me now.

Too many people these days aren't taking the future into consideration on many levels. It's tough to think ahead when you're either spending at or above your income level. People tend to look at a CFL and think, "Wow, I could go to a movie for that price!" They don't think about the fact that they'll be able to see three movies next year if they switch just one bulb over to CFL today. For too many people it's all about here and now. Convenience is horribly inefficient but no one sees it that way. Our "on demand" world caters to those who don't plan ahead, but at too steep a price, imo.

To me this is a red flag that someone is making too much money to change. I don't know how it can be more profitable to be this sloppy with our energy but somehow it must be. I remember a study done on a hydroelectric dam the US really wanted to build in a third world country. The country really needed the power but the study showed that if the US spent 1/10 of the money on buying energy efficient refrigerators for every household in the country, they wouldn't need the dam. And everyone in the country would directly benefit by having some state of the art US appliances. But since Amana didn't have as good a lobby as the hydroelectric companies, they built the dam instead. With energy you'd think efficient would equal profitable but apparently that's not the case. Is it because of deregulation and all the money private companies spent buying and marketing the old utilities? Are they trying to recoup startup costs before investing in more efficient technology?

If you cut and paste from Wikipedia *please* give them a citation, otherwise you are plagiarizing.

One of the most complete untruths I have ever seen posted here at SFN. Just because it's not intuitive to you doesn't make it wrong. And you shouldn't feel stupid because you don't understand it, you should feel stupid for not making a better attempt to understand it before condemning it. As insane_alien said, this is spamvertising. No more Googly help for *you*. Thread closed.

But I don't. I see you as someone with a great deal of potential who needs experience forming arguments and conclusions that reflect your own intellect, not merely the opinions of those you agree with. I see you as someone who is convinced you are right and you see a need to enlighten the rest of us. I see you as someone who will eventually understand that you can draw your own conclusions and be pretty interesting. But for now I see you as a young person ranting loudly with both fingers in your ears. Pull them out and you'll be able to hear everyone encouraging you to think for yourself.