bascule

Why is it that we hear innumerable "Such and such metaphysical channel gave me information for which there is no other explanation" anecdotes but when someone like James Randi offers a multimillion dollar prize if you can demonstrate the presence of such a metaphysical channel under controlled conditions, nobody can cut the mustard?

Actually it does talk about crystals, among other things. Check it out.

Sharks are highly sensitive to electricity in the water. Systems have been developed which periodically put out electrical pulses to repel sharks: http://www.shark.co.za/repel.htm

I guess I met Bill Nye the Science Guy at the National Science Bowl circa 1999 or 2000. We got our ass handed to us.

For those of you who have seen it James Burke covered both Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler quite extensively in his original Connections series for the BBC. He's quite the fascinating man (as was Brahe, but in very, very different ways) It wasn't until that show that I realized that Kepler derived his laws of planetary motion from Brahe's data.

Just post it here. If anyone tries to steal it, these forums serve as a record. You can point here and go "I came up with it first"

Here's the math behind Timewave Zero for anyone interested: http://www.hermetic.ch/misc/math_twz.htm It's already been examined extensively (and discredited) by mathematicians. You may want to see: Autopsy for a Mathematical Hallucination? Ultimately it's a numerological theory, and not a fractal at all but a piecewise linear function. I think many of Terrence McKenna's philosophical ideas, even the ones behind Timewave Zero, had a great deal of truth to them, but from a mathematical perspective Timewave Zero is numerological bunk. If you're still interested in the underlying points about accelerating change that McKenna was trying to make, you may want to see: Kurzweil's Law of Accelerating Returns

No wonder you're so obsessed with "CRYSTALS"

The most famous people I have met are: Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill of ZZ Top Alice Cooper That's about it, I guess

Brain computer interfaces are going to be insane

Like what? Bascule knows all and sees all.

Bascule is a character from the Iain Banks novel Feersum Endjinn (who writes completely phonetically, owing his spelling problems to the massive amounts of wetware which have been packed into his brain). I picked it when I read the novel circa 1995, and well, it just stuck. It's also the name for counterweighted bridges: The avatar? I just changed that, mostly to spite revprez, but this one is a caricature of me.

Yes Already done (extensively) here: http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?t=9484

Pyrofusion is not energy efficient, nor do its creators expect it to be in the near future. It may pave the way to the next generation of scanning devices, but as a solution for the world's energy problems, it just isn't there yet.

Yeah, he took my photo and ran it through what appears to be Photoshop's "Glowing Edges" filter (and applied the "mirror" effect)

While the term "troll" is typically likened to a mythological beast, perhaps residing under a bridge and threatening to club anyone who comes across it, I prefer to think of it more as a fisherman who is trolling his line looking for "bites". If I were to guess, I would say his personality leads him to argue for sport, never minding that in the process he ends up mucking with the emotions of the participants, and his complete irreverance towards anyone's feelings is what has lead him to be banned. In the case of revprez, he is a self-avowed atheist, who, for whatever reason, seeks out fellow atheists and proceeds to argue from the exact opposite perspective from his self-avowed beliefs. He has not only been banned from here (only to sign up again under a different name), but other forums as well: http://atheists.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=23913#23908 And here's another forum he's been banned from, if you're still curious

Congratulations pcs, I just took you off ignore. And LOL @ your avatar

Well, I'll admit Zogby has a rather spotty past in terms of his previous pollings, especially when he called the presidential race for Kerry from his exit polls...

Okay, I suggest we withdraw the (self-)nomination for "Poster of the Year" and instead I nominate pcs for "Most Improved Poster of the Year" as while he has been banned in four incarnation, revprez's fifth incarnation has managed to reach a point of civility where none have found the need to ban him. Perhaps he learned something from the first four bannings. Oh, by the way, do I win "Best Singularitarian" by default?

You actually do anything with Rails yet?

Oh boy, looks like we have another sunspot on our hands

The problem with FLAC is that the algorithm is too complex for the (<=4G) iPod to play on the iPod's CPU architecture. Apple's algorithm was designed to be decodeable in realtime on the iPod's CPU. The Nano and iPod video feature a newer, faster CPU based on a brand new architecture.

They're priced highly because they're a stylish Apple product. You do get quite a bit of value out of it though: - Arguably the best interface for a digital music player - The best video codec available to date (H.264) in your pocket, woot! - All sorts of advanced features like metadata querying via Smart Playlists unavailable on other players - The ease of iTunes integration for populating the thing with content Apple has their own (proprietary) lossless codec which plays on the iPod

I'd nominate her for "most knowledgable in the area of moral philosophy" Seconded. Well, I keep him on ignore, although I click view post from time to time to see what he has to say about certain issues. He's a smart guy; it's just a shame he wastes his time being an Internet troll, especially when he trolls people he claims to share views with.