bascule

Oddly enough, I wrecked in front of the police station. Unfortunately, there was not a cop in sight. Oddly enough, I've had a number of good samaritans help me when I was in my car. However, when you're just a biker, I guess nobody cares. Fortunately, I was wearing a helmet, otherwise I'd probably have a brain injury or be dead at this point. Thanks to that, I was able to just pick up my bike, walk it back to my office where we had some first aid supplies, and ride home, stopping by our neighborhood pub first for some pain relievers (151) and some much needed sympathy.

So, was riding along a sidestreet today... one that's particularly narrow without any bike lanes, and a car came up behind me, hoking its horn as it came up right behind me. I was riding particularly fast and swerved to the right side of the road... clipped the edge of the pavement and lost control. I now have some pretty nasty scars on my right leg and arm, some on the side of my face, and I broke my glasses. And they didn't even have the courtesy to stop and ask if I was alright. Guess they were in a hurry. Hope you're happy! Asshole

Au contraire, ever watched Lexx?

I'm not saying that it's juvenile fiction, I'm just saying it's not particularly good fiction, and it's certainly one of the worst historical allegories I've ever read. Great works of philosophy are generally non-fiction. I don't have TV but I sure do like Joost. Joost is like TV, but on-demand with only one 15-30sec advertisement every 10-15 minutes. I don't think you can draw any conclusions about me from my disliking of television beyond that I hate ads and prefer my content delivered to me on my time rather than the network's.

(feel free to move this to another thread if you feel the need) It depends what you're looking for. When I read it (circa age 15) I loved it. I also loved Battlefield Earth. My philosophical/moral foundations as well as taste in literature have grown considerably since then. Rand asserts that one's own happiness is the moral purpose of his life. This is a diction error, but one that underlies all of Rand's writing: traditional ideas about morality are wrong, and morality should be redefined in a way that is the diametrical opposite of its traditional meaning (good/evil based exclusively around outcomes which affect one's self with others completely cut out of the picture) From the perspective of mainstream philosophy, Objectivists are amoral. This is because "morality" typically deals with how we relate with others, whereas in Objectivism morality is completely inwardly focused with no consideration for others (to the point that Dagny Taggart, one of the protagonists, murders a bit character who is incapable of making a snap decision, in a situation which is ostensibly justifiable under her philosophy) I've seen Objectivists try to argue that the philosophy is similar to Utilitarianism (both philosophies are based around maximizing desirable outcomes) with "what's best for myself" used in lieu of "what's best for everyone". That said, the philosophy advocates disregard for the well-being of others, and in that sense is devoid of anything mainstream philosophers would consider to be a moral code. "Every man for himself!" is not a moral philosophy. I've found it quite odd that Rand would use historical fiction as a soapbox for a moral philosophy. It's ingenious, in that people can be drawn towards her philosophy through her crappy prose and her wooden apotheosis-of-idealic-capitalist characters. It's a similar approach to that of most religious texts (e.g. the Bible) I've talked about this before, but my great falling out with Rand was when I discovered that Atlas Shrugged is a historical allegory, and began studying mid-19th century U.S. history, which included the majority of the "robber barons" Rands characters were based on (Dagny Taggart as Cornelius Vanderbilt, Hank Rearden as Andrew Carnegie, Midas Mulligan as J.P. Morgan) As far as historical allegories go, Atlas Shrugged is terrible. Rand draws nothing from the lessons of history, instead using a historical canvas to paint a distorted view of the world. Contrast this against an excellent historical allegory like Animal Farm, which is powerful, succinct, and beautifully written. Rand could certainly learn from Orwell's rules for writers. Namely: Never use a long word where a short one will do. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. Atlas Shrugged needn't be >1000 pages. I'd owe the length of the work to Ayn Rand's verbose and bombastic writing style, one I'd regard as similar to L. Ron Hubbard's. Both books make for fun, quick reads (despite their gargantuan length) because both writers spell out the exact intended interpretation and forego the traditional literary use of extensive symbolism. In this respect both books are quick reads compared to shorter but substantially more complex books (it took me an order of magnitude more time to read Gravity's Rainbow, which is approximately 3/4 the length of Atlas Shrugged) That said, I don't find it too coincidental that a reader poll taken at The Modern Library ranked 2 Ayn Rand works followed by an L. Ron Hubbard work on the top of their list. Both books are by authors with a somewhat fanatical following: http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html Contrast with the board's list, which provides more standard faire (Joyce, Nabokov, Faulkner, Huxley, Pynchon, Steinbeck, Orwell) and omits Rand and Hubbard's works entirely.

Yes, there's this alternative called "phased withdrawal" Misinformation? Stubbornness? Withdrawal would be an admission that the experiment was a failure. They're keeping our soldiers there to save face. Yes, the consequences are horrible. However, given present trends they're also inevitable. The future holds a progressively worsening situation in a country which is growing increasingly hostile to our presence in the region. It can either be bad now or worse later. I've heard the "civil war will spread throughout the region" argument trotted out by the same talking heads who say they'll follow us home. To what end? What are we trying to accomplish there, and how long will it take? What's the reasoning behind an indefinite commitment towards what after four years has been revealed to be an apparently insurmountable goal? What justifies the cost? The lives lost, both American and Iraqi? The tanking value of the US dollar in the international market? A nearly $9 trillion debt?

While I've kept Hillary as a potential albeit undesirable candidate for my vote, much like Jon Stewart interested in her healthcare proposal (watch the video), she's just lost my vote. Celine Dion? I have to vote for that? What the crap? Hint to Hillary: People already think you're a harpy. Thinking about liking you makes me feel dirty inside. I hate to think you'll get the Democratic nomination, because you will be so devisive. And now you're going to make me listen to Celine Dion while you're campaigning? The horror! I'd just like to say I pledge my support to a man who is a uniter, not a divider. Obama '08!

Yeah, that's cool... nobody cares. People are trying to argue about what's going on now. Bringing up what happened 67 years ago is a red herring. Unless it has some relevance to current trends, your point is moot.

The main problem I see with line item veto is that bills passed by Congress generally represent a great degree of compromise. With a line item veto, the president is free to obliterate that compromise and pass purely partisan legislation. Unless the altered bill is to be resubmitted to Congress (thereby defeating the point of a line item veto. A regular veto coupled with a list of complaints suffices to those ends) the President is free to selectively pass whatever he wishes into law, ignoring the compromise entirely. A line item veto is stupid and I'm glad SCOTUS declared it unconstitutional.

That's the Urban Heat Island effect, and certainly extends beyond being "near buildings".

There is no center of the universe. If you want to pick some point as the center, pick yourself. You are certainly the center of your universe. However "the universe" has no center.

This was an interesting blog: http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/weather_stations/ He finds weather stations which clearly give erroneous results. Some of them are quite humorous, such as this one: Here's a station positioned within approximately 5 feet of a barrel used by a janitor to burn trash. Having written the data collection software for a 50+ station network, I can certainly attest that such stations occur frequently. I've heard similar horror stories about some of the stations in the network. However, I'm guessing many of these photos were taken by network administrators who noticed anomalous readings. That's generally how all the "horror stories" in our network came about: the network administrator noticed an anomalous station, asked someone to check it out, and lo and behold there was some funny business going on. I'm guessing many of the pictures in this blog come from similar accounts. However, the blog is laced with anti-global warming rhetoric. It's using these particularly bad stations as part of a composition fallacy which argues that because some of the stations clearly have external influences affecting the temperatures they're recording that the entire dataset must be biased. Some of the stations aren't even questionable, such as the Edinburgh Royal Observatory: *cough*BULLSHIT*cough* I mean, yes, no doubt the air conditioners and fire barrel within 5 feet of a station will most certainly influence its readings. The Edinburgh station is completely fine, and it sounds as if this guy is completely unqualified to assess station placement. Furthermore, he doesn't mention which stations are in the Global Historical Climate Network. While I collected data for a 50 station network, none of our stations were in the GHCN. If our stations were placed poorly, that matters not for climate change research, because our data isn't used for that. All in all, this blog serves as an example of the typical fear, uncertainty, and distrust lodged against the climate science community, entirely based on specious reasoning.

Let's see... claims it's "molten steel"... because any molten metal must be steel... Referring to Steven Jones... who was fired over his position on the matter. There's some peer review for you. But wait... he found traces of thermite... or the apparent results of it... which would appear an awfully lot like what you'd expect from steel exposed to a high temperature fire. But who cares about the details... iron oxide == thermite == incendiary weapons == explosives! Correlation implies causation! DON'T QUESTION IT! Thermite isn't explosive, it's incendiary. These people don't know what they're talking about. These are pointed questions intended to frame the debate... with no basis but anecdotes. These aren't arguments, they're aimless speculation, lodged in as many forms as it can possibly exist in. Seriously, the conspiracists here: how many times have you been wrong so far, on this thread alone? Don't you think you should stop arguing at this point? Aren't you embarassed at being so wrong so often? Or will you continue morphing your arguments as you continually find they don't fit the evidence, trying to brute force some magic combination that actually stands up to scrutiny? The 9/11 conspiracy meme comes in so many forms it's impossible to debunk. Every time one form is debunked someone else tries another one; every time evidence is presented to the contrary someone comes back with an "as I see it" common sense take on the explanation, claiming it could not be so. Simple questions like "If explosives were planted, why is no authoritative first person witness stepping forward to testify that's the case?", a simple "as I see it" common sense take on the conspiracy gets the 9/11 conspiracy skeptics here nowhere. We're honestly trying to respond to the bullshit tornado you people keep unleashing upon the general public? How about one of you 9/11 conspiracy skeptics step up and answer the simple question? "If explosives were planted, why is no authoritative first person witness stepping forward to testify that's the case?" Where's somebody who planted these explosives? Where's somebody who saw these explosives being planted? Who planted them? Do you have any evidence said party planted them? Where precisely were they planted? Do you have any evidence explosives were planted at said location(s)? The answers to these questions are nobody, nobody, nobody, and nowhere. There's no evidence any of that ever happened. Zero evidence. None. Your argument is completely baseless. There is no evidence. Please cut the posturing and engage in an evidence-based debate. Otherwise you're just arrogant assholes spouting lies and perpetrating a campaign of mass-deception against the general public, the very thing you claim to be fighting against.

And not gone down the elevator shafts? Oh really? Why do you claim this? Did an engineer who scrutinized the available evidence claim it? I'm guessing this is an explanation you've made up yourself... I suggest you stop doing that and draw your conclusions from what engineers who have examined the available evidence have to say. They are knowledgeable about the matter and you are not. Also, please stop listening to those without a relevant academic background to scrutinize the available evidence, particular those who make prima facie "as I see it" conclusions about the situation based on visual evidence coupled with no relevant background in assessing the subject matter. These people are simply unqualified to come to conclusions about what happened.

I'm an emergent materialist, so you're preaching to the choir. I've been trying to play devil's advocate to the Kantians, in hopes I can actually understand their position. To try this again: It appears we're already hitting the limits of scientific knowability in the quantum realm. It seems like the only way modern physics can proceed is to create a model which predicts both the standard model and is able to make predictions which either confirm present cosmology or are testable in a high-power particle accelerator. However at present both of these seem like fleeting possibilities. I suggest you read Lee Smolin's book The Trouble With Physics. Smolin is desperately concerned about the testability of modern physics, specifically string theory. He argues we're enterting a "post-modern" age in regard to physics, and modern physical theory has grown so speculative as to become fundamentally untestable. He says this having worked both on string theory and various other theories of quantum gravity, most notably loop quantum gravity.

Notice none of that says the girders melted into molten metal. That's a red herring. I thought this whole discussion was about video of molten metal taken at 9/11. The above paragraph does not appear to describe a possible source for that. Molten aluminum from the plane's fuselage does.

Some (Kantians) would argue that it's impossible for science to explain consciousness, because consciousness occurs within the context of a first-person ontology and science explains things within the scope of the realist ontology.

So, again: Molten aluminum from the fuselage of the plane. Aluminum melts at 1220F, not 2750F. Jet fuel (alone), maximum burning temperature: 1796F. That's more than enough to produce molten aluminum, let alone the carpets, furniture, paper, computers, etc. in the building

Your point? If you're attempting to use this as the basis of an argument, that's appeal to authority. I can turn up similar lists of scientists who deny evolution or global warming. However, a big list of names isn't an argument. An argument is an argument.

I thought uncov's take on this was awesome: http://www.uncov.com/2007/6/12/safari-ajax-my-iphone

Wow, completely devoid of facts and heavy on baseless speculation. How exactly is this "debunking" Popular Mechanics? Do you have a better source, or are you just going to play the "If you Google for it you can probably find it" game

Generally Apple's ports to Windows have been massive failures. Having the OS X versions and Windows versions side-by-side, they simply do not compare.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html?page=4

The problem, like most defense contracts, is the pushing of a highly expensive, impractical system at the behest of a contractor, without proper performance benchmarks or addressing practical concerns. It's a boondoggle. The same thing is happening with the Future Combat System and Information Warrior projects. Did I mention the DoD has spent $3 trillion it can't even account for? I'm not saying that missile defense is an insurmountable challenge, but after some 25 years of research we have very little to show for it. I don't think interceptor missiles are a viable approach, due to the decoy problem. That's why in my previous approach I suggested the use of megawatt chemical lasers.

And guess what, no bombs required: http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/06/purdue_research.html You can view the animation here: http://www.cs.purdue.edu/cgvlab/papers/popescu/popescuWTCVIS07.mov The question is... will this change anything regarding the doubts of 9/11 conspiracy theorists regarding the collapse of the twin towers?