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I’m okay with that. Tho please note that I reject the underlying premise that my advocacy for accepting trans women as women and trans men as men “demeans the very idea of diversity.” Lol Your use of the word “if” here is the sticking point for me. I agree with your basic logic, but I’m not seeing that approach in obvious display here. Instead, we seem to have lots of preconceived conclusions about trans women having advantages in sport which then go in search of data supporting those conclusions (or don’t seek that data at all, in fact). That’s different than having uncertainty on a topic then neutrally searching for data which can clarify it… with no bias toward any specific outcome. Summarized: The sense of unfairness is being assumed as a starting premise, not left as a mere hypothesis or possibility seeking rejection or reinforcement. And I know these guys with whom I’m interacting in this thread. They’re good people and it’s not my intent to besmirch their character. We’ve argued and agreed scores of times through the years. I am, however, highlighting these possible biases in their thinking and even gave them the benefit of the doubt by calling these potential biases unconscious. If that’s enough to warrant all of the neg reps, then so be it. You’ll always know where you stand with me, even if you don’t like where that is.

This new learning amazes me. Explain again how sheep's bladders can be employed to prevent earthquakes. Anyway, here’s the punchline from the article (note: it’s OK, and in fact preferred, to include a relevant excerpt from a link)

I don't see anyone attacking transgender people, so not sure where you get that impression. I see folk arguing the "possibility" that transgender women athletes may hold a natural advantage over cis-gender women athletes. I think this is a fair argument to have, at least until it is proven one way or another whether it holds true. MigL pointed this out quite clearly when he stated the development of young males during puberty and how their bodies develop specifically for increased strength and endurance. Which stems back 100's of thousands of years in evolution, likely due to the males going out to do the hunting etc, while the females nurtured and protected the young. So it was natural that their respective bodies require different attributes for survival. Now we have sports this difference, especially at the elite level, becomes quite obvious and depending on the discipline there can be a large advantage/disadvantage between cis gender sexes. Which is why there is a male and female category and rules within the categories, all in an attempt to give everyone a fair and equal opportunity to compete. There will always be cheaters and there will always be dominate competitors, this is a given. The argument is not whether transgender people are cheating. Cheating implies a clear intention to gain an advantage over others by breaking the rules of competition. The argument is whether a transgender woman has a significant "natural" evolutionary advantage over cis-gender women that could result in unfair competition. This doesn't mean that transgender people should be discriminated against, on the contrary. It means that "if" its a problem (I'm not advocating it is since I'm not a performance biology expert)then it should be addressed so that no one is left at an unfair disadvantage or discriminated against for an advantage. Some are arguing there is most likely an advantage over cis gender females, others are arguing there isn't anything conclusive to prove this to be the case. This is a fair discussion and argument, its not an attack on the sexes and identities of people. Oh, then you have the odd one who argues it all doesn't matter and it should just be a free for all. Well then we may as well just scrap competition altogether. Which would be a step backwards in my opinion! Competition (especially sporting competition) is a great way to control natural aggression, its good for mental wellbeing, as well as for physical well being. It teaches discipline and structure and gives people a goal to strive towards and a purpose, all positive things for humanity.

Yes, FOB, CIF, and so forth. A lot is to do with who insures the cargo, who arranges the freight, etc. I’ve forgotten most of it.

As far as I can tell, Amazon is "trying it on". If I buy something from them They choose and pay the carrier. So they have a contract with the carrier. I don't; I don't necessarily even know who the carrier is. So, I have no claim against the carrier if the item does not arrive. But I do have a contract with Amazon- they included delivery in their price. They are liable if it doesn't turn up. I invite you to consider what would happen if Amazon really was allowed to write that clause into their contract and have it stand up in court. I would offer to be Amazon's sole carrier for all their goods- not a company; just me. Amazon would pay me a lot of money and pass responsibility to me for delivering the goods, and I wouldn't even take a van round to their warehouse. Amazon would be legally "exempt" because of their contract. I'd have enough money to point out in court that the buyers didn't have a claim against me (see above). After a while Amazon would realise that they didn't need to stock goods. There aren't many ways to make amazon more profitable, but this would be one of them However... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unfair_Contract_Terms_Act_1977

Hmm, interesting. I found this from Which, which refers to another piece of legislation, the Consumer Rights Act 2015, which seems to support your contention: https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/regulation/consumer-rights-act-aKJYx8n5KiSl So, indeed, I don't know how this is reconciled with the earlier Act, e.g. whether it repeals the relevant provisions of it, or how it can be reconciled, if at all, with Amazon's T&Cs. It looks as if you may need to find a lawyer specialising in consumer rights law, to get to the bottom of it.

Unfortunately you should expect nothing else but negative feed back on a science forum like this, when you assert unfounded ideas that are based on pseudo science. If you are serious about considering your ideas then you should at least read up on what the mainstream has to say about it first. Then if you feel you have a counter argument then come back with some evidence to back up your claims. This is the only way you will be taken seriously, and even then to challenge the mainstream can be a difficult journey to undertake. We can all have a bit of fun and play around with ideas, this can be exciting, but assertions require evidence to back them up.

I do not understand what is 'transphobic' in acknowledging, recognizing and accepting differences as part of a shared human identity. As if equality is something that does not exist while diversity is recognized, so that a recognition of our shared Humanity can be achieved only if we blind ourselves to it, or mask it by altering our language to so its unable to express diversity.

My first in depth knowledge on Richard Feynman came from reading the best book I have ever read, "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes. Everything you have mentioned, certainly would have [and did] put him in the spotlight to anyone with a passing interest in science. The book itself is probably more a history of late 19th century/20th century physics and science, from Bequeral, Rhotegen, Curie, through to Zsillard, Rhuterford, Fermi and Einstein, up to the likes of Feynman and Oppenheimer and company...fantastic read, giving a great rundown on the achievements and personalities of those great scientists among others.

If you had an elite biologically female athlete that transgendered to male you could give them an X metre distance stationary head start in a race against cis gender males. X might be the distance Flo-Jo was from the finish line after 9.49 seconds (9.49 seconds being Usain Bolts WR) during her 10.49 second WR run, after allowing that she didn't plan her race to finish at that point. That might not be a satisfactory way to include them, but would be much more accurate and objective than anything based on the allowance or encouragement of unnatural use of performance enhancing or de-enhancing drugs and trying to judge what the effects might be, or what the motivation might be for using more or less of them. It might not be satisfactory...in part because it might threaten male sports, slight as it may be in comparison to the current threat to female sports (from the current rule makers).

Why would I be ? They are not making the compettion unfair for everyone else in that catagory. Granted it is unfair to themselves because of their situation, but it is not their 'right' to infringe on the 'rights' of others. I certainly would not demand that my tennis opponent has to wear a patch over one eye, just because I lost vision in one of mine.

Hence the need for rules, to preserve fairness.

I know that feeling ... You of all people should know that hormones have cumulative effects. A male who goes through puberty with male testosterone levels will have a deeper ribcage, enabling higher lung capacity and endurance. They will have wider shoulders and narrower hips, enabling faster running and better leverage for pressing/pushing motions. They will have different body fat levels ( to lean muscle mass ), and body areas where it is deposited. They will have different amounts, and placement, of 'fast twitch' and 'slow twitch' muscle fibers ( like red and white chicken meat ) optimizing for different levels of explosive strength vs. endurance. And many others. Hormone therapy ( estrogen and androgen blockers ) will not change these 'structural' features, later on in life. That's one possible scenario. Another is that they take their medication as prescribed, but before a competition, increase their testosterone levels ( through the use of HGH ) to the maximum allowed by the sport's regulating body, so that they come in on the extreme end of the bell curve, and are 'legal'. Other cis women don't have that option because any HGH levels will be identified as cheating and call for disqualification. Again, I am considering males who transition to female only, as that is the unfair situation faced by cis women.

Yes. The volume is defined by the box

If it’s nonexistent, there is no quantity. Like I said, absurd

Philosophy annoys me, at least the type of pseudo philosophy we generally see here at SFN. We’re too close to absurdism already for my taste. Define what you mean by “nothing” then work from that. Until then, we’ll spin endlessly in circles, especially since in a physics sense there’s ALWAYS something in that box, even if just probabilistically.

Temperature is a measure of movement. If there’s nothing in the box, then nothing is moving, and if nothing is moving there is no temperature by definition.

It might also be irrelevant since this issue reeks of unconscious transphobia and sounds absolutely nothing like warriors striving for athletic fairness.

I examined the articles and videos about 'the tin can phone'. I concluded that all the articles and youtube videos about it are fake. But now let's understand why the tin can phone articles are bullshit. Let's examine wikipedias article en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_can_telephone Basically they begin their article saying it works, without providing any technical prove. The whole article is anti-scientific bullshit. They say: "When the string is pulled taut and someone speaks into one of the cans, its bottom acts as a diaphragm, converting the sound waves into longitudinal mechanical vibrations which vary the tension of the string. " . In this quote, they deliberately and criminally omit what the material the string is made of, nor they point out the shape of the "cans". The waves on the string are not longitudinal. They insolently lie that the sound from those cans can travel by a ... textile rope. They lie that it can travel if that textile rope is twisted. Absolutely idiotic. Horrifying! Also, the sound waves reflect off the solid surfaces! To confirm this, i read some articles and found the formula. It is called Reflection coefficient. (there is also the transmission coefficient formula but I think it is not needed here). You cannot simply transmit sound from air to metal because of impedance mismatch. R=reflection coefficient and it is supposed to show how much sound reflects. [formula image] where p=density c=speed of sound z=impedance since z=p*c, then R=(z2-z1)/(z1+z2) where z is impedance for longitudinal. z=density * speed Zair=1.29 kg/m3 * 343 m/s = 442 Zsteel(the tin cans are made of steel)=7800 kg/m3 * 5790 m/s=45162000 Zwater=1000 kg/m3 * 1493 m/s=1493000 [airwater] Reflection coefficient , water and air = 99.9% of sound is reflected. [steelair] Reflection coefficient, steel and air= 99.9% of sound is reflected. There are 2 problems with this formula. When water flows in my copper pipes, the metal pipes make noise, we hear it, which means that the sound from the metal is transmitted into the air. Maybe the sound simply travels on the surface of solid objects? I did many tests. and conclusions are. The string should not be coated in varnish nor in paint, should not be stranded and it should be made of metal. It should be clean and stretched very tight. The string should not touch anything even a light touch stops the transverse wave on it. An observation is that when the sound wave travels on (or in?) a very thick metallic object such as a big thick industrial nail, a pipe, etc. the sound does not stop when something touches the object. This means that if we want the string to turn , let's say a 90 degrees turn, we must connect it to a ticker piece of metal , lets say a thick metallic rod, nailed to a wooden beam. And even in this case there might be losses. The resonator box. Of course my first tests were with the tin can and did not work. What worked was this shape. Only this shape [resonatorboximage] of the resonator box, made of juice box, converts longitudinal waves in the air to transverse waves in the string , transmits them from air in the solid string. I think, the walls of this resonator tremble probably because of the property of elasticity. The shape is similar to to the shape of the guitar. The sound on the other end of the string , mine was 10 meters long, was of bad quality, with an echo. The shape of the resonator chambers of the phonographs is horn, and men who own them should try this shape. Actually the text above barely matters, because this radiator can transmit sound into metal! This is probably because of resonance property. although it contradicts to the formula. Those 7.3 cm wide metal plates vibrate when I clap my hands. The sound travels in the pipes. [radiator] Either way the article on the wikipedia should be corrected, and the one who wrote it should be banned, fired and disenfranchised. A few comments about media. Video titled The WORLD's LONGEST TIN CAN PHONE! they kinda admitted their phone is non functional.

My theory is that we live in a hyperspace, where stars and black holes are connected throughout the dispersal of timespace. Our star, the Sun, is an aggregate of light created by the light a singularity is creating at another locale (or universe altogether.) There it is witnessed as a black hole, sucking in light. Here the singularity still has pull, gravity, creating nuclear fusion. Space is not curved, but warped. That is, the Sun pinches space in all around it, in every direction. The Earth has some pinch, too, but is within the sphere of the sun's warping. Time is 4D, all times coexisting simultaneously, and Dark Matter is simply past and future states of matter we can't see in the present, like a book opened to the middle. The Universe is like a vinyl record that is being played on a record player, a world of sound and movement, and a world of matter. I have more thoughts, and I just signed up for this forum, so... Everyone just ignores me. Maybe you guys won't be mean to me. Revenge of the Nerds! -- Andrew James van Berkum Welp, nevermind. Already got a negative reaction. See ya, all around, was hoping for a positive, optimistic, enlightening, imaginative experience, but the Darkness is everywhere. For inquiring minds, I'm easily found. Check ya later! PEACE...oooouuutttt.