Phi for All

A beautiful woman who loved to work in her vegetable garden couldn’t get her tomatoes to ripen. Admiring her neighbor’s garden, which had beautiful bright red tomatoes, she went over one day and asked him his secret. “It’s really quite simple,” the man explained. “Twice each day in the morning and in the evening I expose myself in front of the tomaotes and they turn red with embarrassment.” Desperate for the perfect garden, she tried his advice and exposed herself to her plants twice daily. Two weeks passed and her neighbor stopped by to check her progress. “So,” he asked, “Any luck with your tomatoes?” “No,” she replied excitedly, “but you should see the size of my cucumbers!!”

According to informed sources, Gerber baby food didn't sell well at first in Africa. Gerber used the same label with a smiling baby on it and in Africa, where many people can't read, the convention is to put a picture of what's inside on the label. Frank Perdue’s chicken slogan, “It takes a strong man to make a tender chicken” was translated into Spanish as, “It takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate”. The Dairy Association’s huge success with the campaign “Got Milk?” prompted them to expand advertising to Mexico. It was soon brought to their attention the Spanish translation read, “Are you lactating?”

A woman decided to have her portrait painted. She told the artist, “Please paint me with diamond rings, a diamond necklace, emerald bracelets, a ruby broach, and a gold Rolex.” “But you are not wearing any of those things,” he replied. “I know,” she said. “If I die before my husband and he remarries right away, I want his new wife to go crazy looking for the jewelry.”

I did have that backwards. It's also easier to go smaller since going bigger might cause a tire to bind in a wheel well if you changed by more than a couple of inches. The trade-off here is that you may not get a speeding ticket but your odometer is going to show more mileage if your tires are undersized. Less value when you go to sell.

I know a policeman who sent each of his kids off to college with a new set of tires on their car. They were oversized so his kids never realized they were going 5-10 mph slower than what the speedometer read. The kids never figured it out and they never got a speeding ticket either.

Great point. In science, a theory is not just an idea, the way most people use the term theory. An idea or thesis must move through a very rigorous process and must predict outcomes which others can duplicate through experimentation. Even when an idea has passed through this process and can at least admit the possibility of being considered false (if a giraffe gives natural birth to a poodle then evolution may be wrong), it is still considered only a theory, not a fact. In science a theory is the best you can get. Here's a great link to check out on what makes a new theory. I'll sticky this in Speculations.

Please don't be offended by being put in the Speculations forum. EVERYBODY who starts a thread to lay out their "new theory" is put here. If it isn't part of accepted, peer-reviewed scientific theory, it is speculation. It may prove to be a valid theory but not if all you're going to do is complain that it's not speculation. I hope you can see that new ideas *must* undergo the trial by fire that makes the scientific method so effective. This forum was created to act as an early step in running your theses past some very knowledgeable people including scientific professionals

I doubt we'll ever find out. Ku likes to start threads but rarely participates in them (out of 188 posts, 93 are thread starters). He's started some extremely interesting topics, don't get me wrong, but I like it when the OP participates a lot more. More substance, less speculation. How about it Ku, will you answer any of the questions your thread has raised?

I used to pour my views but I had to stop drinking. Happy New Year though, and stay safe if you're partying. I'm tired of you guys calling me from jail. Use those big brains everyone and don't drive if you pour.

People always get in trouble taking the Bible literally. Especially those old Mosaic laws. I think there were over 600 of them and they all had their purpose at the time. But nowadays its hard to see a reason why people should be stoned to death for blending fabrics like linen and wool. Severian's point was that this should not have come as a shock to someone who marreid and had a child with someone. The fact that it is a religious difference rather than political or otherwise is irrelevant. If this is Ku's natural daughter by his wife then a minimum of three or four years has gone by and it seems odd that her refusal to weaqr jewelry is coming up for the first time. What if your beliefs are that religion is bad, or that playing in the street is dangerous, should you not force those beliefs on your child? Children get many of their beliefs from their parents. I would be willing to bet that when you have children, you will try to force them away from any religious beliefs. How is that different? So any reason that *you* approve of is OK for *her* child? The OP may be questioning this behavior from a religious perspective, but Severian's post seemed to just ask why this behavior should come as a shock to Ku. Didn't he notice that she never wears jewelry? Didn't he ever try to buy her a necklace?

If you won't eat cows you won't get your bovine growth hormone....

I would grab the one closest to the train, figuring that at least I'd be giving the other child a tiny bit more time to get saved some other way. Edit: I was assuming one set of tracks, one train coming. You are by the side of the tracks and the children are on the tracks. You could absolutely save one just as easily as the other but absolutely not both. There shouldn't be any other assumptions, like you know one of them or one might be more dangerous for you.

This question seems loaded. There is nothing in it that could allow you to defend an answer of "no". If the child was in the path of falling rocks you could at least argue that it was natural, or God's will or something. A child on the train tracks is the result of negligence and I think most would consider it their unspoken duty to, whenever possible, protect any child that has escaped the vigilance of it's guardians from a lethal situation. What if there were two children on the tracks, one black and one white, both equidistant from where you are standing, and you can save one child but not both. Which one do you save?

Writing is communicating and it must be appropriate to the situation and be able to convey your meaning to your audience. If your whole audience is going to understand you if use text speak then it's probably appropriate. If it's for school or work you have to be a accurate as possible and that's where proper spelling insures that the most people will understand what you're writing. When you lower the bandwidth of your communication by writing something down instead of speaking directly you've got to do everyth8ing you can to make sure it's understood. They're *your* ideas so you should be interested in making sure as many people as possible *get it*.

I should have said "larger" when I said "large". I just think a person with a high tolerance for a substance has a higher chance of becoming addicted to it. This is opinion and I have no studies to back it up. Are we defining addiction as an habitual use or a compulsive use? Is two beers every night (without being inebriated) an addiction because of it's regularity? Or is an addict more of a gotta-have-it buzz seeker who has to exceed his tolerance levels regularly or become ill from withdrawl?

Part of it is a tolerance level issue. People who tend to get addicted to something have a large tolerance for it. Someone who takes one drag off a cigarette and doesn't want any more is hardly likely to become a daily smoker. The person who can't finish half a beer with out getting a woozy buzz probably won't keep drinking long enough to gain a tolerance for 10 times that much. Someone who *can* drink a fifth of scotch in an evening is more likely to become addicted. People who can tolerate a large amount of a certain poison will tend to ingest a large amount of that poison in order to maintain it's affect, furthering the addiction.

You have a great understanding of the way English is put together and you write well. Communicating this well will really help you learn at a faster pace. Don't try to learn it all at once. Knowledge is best in chunks you can take in and figure out how they fit with the rest of what you know. Picking something that interests you will insure that you stick with it and find a lot of practical uses for your knowledge. These days it's not *what you know* as much as *how you apply what you know* that counts. Ask questions and poke around with our Search function. Have fun, be welcome. Lebanon, right?

What is it? When the concept first came to into widespread use it was a sincere attempt to engender some respect and sensitivity and that's what it should continue to mean. It morphed as people started finding more ways to promote it. Eventually "PC" started being measured and we joked about how bad it could eventually get if taken to the nth degree. Then we went and took it to the nth degree and it's no joke.

This is still about an additive that goes into your food to enhance shelf life. It's not like they're saying you can't eat green fuit anymore and arguing that it will probably lead to banning ALL fruit. I don't see the slippery slope here. It's something we thought would be good but it's not working out. Again, I equate this more to correcting the effects of an experiment gone bad rather than the government regulating our eating habits. If we were talking about cyanide instead of transfats I doubt there would be this same argument. And I mean that as an analogy, not the strawman you might be tempted to think. We are exposed to cyanide in flavoring ingredients but at acceptable levels. You don't want the government to stop regulating *that*, would you? "Folks, cyanide in these quantities is very bad for you in the long run. Because of that FREEDOM thing, we have to allow these restauranteurs to put it in your foods, and you have the inalienable right to eat it but we think you should know it's been hospitalizing and killing a lot of people." Huh-uh, I want the government to have some teeth to prevent someone from poisoning me and I shouldn't have to read the fine print on the menu when dining out. Transfats were a bad idea and I'm glad NYC is taking the first step.

You don't see being forced to overcome racial tensions, planning genetically beyond your own lifetime and getting the entire planet to buy into the program as curve balls? It would be a good justification for all the moral stories and religious doctrine we have, wouldn't it? Figure out how to live in peace and harmony and the result is eventual racial and social evolution on a tremendous scale with longevity and immunity to disease thrown in as icing on the cake.

Who was the science fiction author that had the human race completely homogenized (cause to become equal by mixing)? The result was no more disease, higher brain function and a beautiful golden skin tone, among other things. The idea was that the blend completed the human race as a whole and allowed it to become significantly more than it's ethnic splinters. The story didn't really center on that fact, it was more of a piece of exposition, but that's what I really remembered from the work.

It would be... illogical.

The problem with this is that you're not the reason schools have uniform policies. Your "ideal" is probably within reason, but uniforms control the extremes. What's wrong with people liking each other more? You seem to contradict yourself with that sentence. I don't get why people who like each other more are automatically going to manipulate each other. And I don't agree that hating each other is the best default. At least if manipulation is going on you have a choice. Hate turns confrontation into conflict. I think removing clothing (!) as an issue for disparity could be a good thing. Most of today's conflicts occur because people remain aloof and don't talk to each other as equals. Until you start talking the other person is a senior or a black chick or a science geek or an Asian jock or whatever clique you've seen them with. Start talking, get to know them and they become Bob or Aliesha or David, a person like you. School uniforms seems like oppression and the Western world is almost hard-wired to resist anything looks like it's going to impinge on our inalienable rights, but clothing has become such an issue these days because of marketing campaigns that target people as losers if they don't buy the right stuff. I think it's a real root cause for many problems we have, especially in the US. "You're less than acceptable if you don't buy me" has replaced, "Buy me because I'm a great product" for many advertisers and it's got to have a profound impact when this message is hammered home 48 times an hour when watching TV. Why do people in high school object to uniforms but not to the more subtle oppression from marketers who are calling them losers? At least the schools are trying to help you even if it seems to help them as well.

Can't understand anybody who don't cotton to such a shiny show. Breaks the heart.

In the beginning of course they will. They *have* to. Such a move would be viewed as sleeping with the enemy. It can only be hoped that Turkey would eventually (sooner rather than later) become an example of a Muslim nation allied with the infidels that still retained it's heritage and integrity. The fact that it enjoys a better relationship with the rest of the globe through association would hopefully spark others to follow in the pioneer's footsteps. There would be many stumbling blocks to overcome but if the proof outweighs the shouting I think many could come to see it as a way to compromise without losing face. Turkey must have a plan to accept admission without becoming a western nation copycat. Surely there is a way they can join the EU without giving up their culture completely.