bascule

It's all about the vinyl

This is a scientific poll. You should be looking for problems with his methodology, not with his character. It's no different from me saying that Jim Hansen is wrong because he's a global warming alarmist. He's biased, therefore that bias should be evident in his research, right? No, ad hominem.

Someone like you of course Martin, but they seem to be few and far between. I miss Mokele too, whatever happened to him?

It's certainly an ad hominem to argue the results of a poll are biased solely on the basis of who conducted the poll and how he was funded. Congratulations, you found something beyond an argument against the person conducting the poll as a basis for bias.

pcs is revprez. His original account got banned.

Impressive... most impressive... And the Z Machine rocks:

Divination is... ...numerology. Although I like a lot of what Taoism has to say.

- HIV is not a mutated form of SIV. It was created by the government to simultaneously attack the black and gay population of the country. Courtesy of Steven Segal

Do I detect an ad hominem? I thought this was interesting:

If you think that's bad you should've seen the last thread he started on this crap where he attributed the Coriolis force to the Earth's "fusion core" (Ed: Oh wait, I guess you did see that)

If there's one thing I hate more than global warming alarmism, it's ignoring climate vulnerability and impacts. The changing climate can and will have dramatic impacts on natural resource availability, particularly in regards to water. You've constructed a large strawman argument against what you perceive are potential vulnerabilities. There's quite a volume of information out there on the subject of climate vulnerabilities and global warming impacts. I suggest you read those rather than making stuff up or regurgitating the distorted view you get through the press: http://www.pewclimate.org/global-warming-in-depth/all_reports/observedimpacts/index.cfm http://yosemite.epa.gov/OAR/globalwarming.nsf/content/Impacts.html

Here's how the numbers break down: 29% of the respondents said the U.S. should leave Iraq “immediately” 22% said they should leave in the next six months 21% said troops should be out between six and 12 months 23% said they should stay “as long as they are needed” 29% + 22% + 21% = 72% 44% of the troops (21% + 23%) do not want to leave until at least 6-12 months from now. I don't think this qualifies as "rapid withdrawl"

http://zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1075 Kind of puts a different spin on the whole "Support the Troops" thing, doesn't it?

Here's some more really annoying ones, all rooted in a stupid conspiracy theory: - A Mannlicher Carcano rifle cannot be aimed and fired three times in 8.5 seconds - The "magic bullet" could not have broken Kennedy's rib, Conolly's wrist and exited with enough force to penetrate his thigh without becoming deformed - Lee Harvey Oswald could not descend 6 flights of stairs in the Texas Schoolbook Depository in 45 seconds and not appear winded when confronted with a cop very soon afterward (in reality land, it only takes 30 seconds to walk down the six flights of stairs)

Some more: - The average person swallows eight spiders a year... wtf? - You can derail a train with a penny, or kill someone by throwing one off of a skyscraper - Swimming less than an hour after you eat will cause stomach cramps - Ring around the Rosie is about the black plague

Yay: http://thefinaltheory.com/pages/2/index.htm Evidence of this guy's idiocy: A single picture refutation, courtesy NASA: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast12jan_1.htm

As soon as you shoot down one interpretation they keep coming up with others. That myth is just plain wrong and should be treated as such.

I think one of the oldest debates in the book is that of the Fortran/Algol-derived imperative languages vs. the Lisp-derived functional languages. In the end I think most people agree that functional languages are, overall, better, while imperative languages are more practical because they're easier to learn. That said, we're finally starting to see something of a fusion of the two in languages like Ruby and Python.

It's really not. There is absolutely no way that statement can be remotely justified. Here's some that haven't been listed yet: - A dog's mouth is cleaner than a human's: I'm supposed to believe this when I see dogs eat shit? - Daddy Long Legs is the most poisonous spider in the world (but has fangs so small it can't bite you!). Sorry, I believe that distinction goes to the funnel web spider or the brown recluse - The Great Wall of China is the only structure visible from the moon/space. Well it's certainly not visible from the moon, and when you're close enough that you can see it from space, you can also see the pyramids and many other large structures. - The Coriolis Force affects the water drains in toilets, sinks, etc: Damn you Simpsons for spreading this myth.

An elephant and a rhino, duh. What would you call it? Elephino (try saying it out loud if you don't get the joke)

Martin, you are far and away the best physicist on this board as far as helping me find what I'm looking for in terms of other scientists and papers related to LQG. The stuff you've posted on Lee Smolin is absolutely awesome and I've become quite a layman enthusiast of his work because of you. You also pointed me at Seth Lloyd before I started reading extensive elaborations on his ideas by Kurzweil, and well, he's awesome too. Yay, glad to see I got quasi-props from someone

It's been cold and snowing here recently

December 21st, 2012 marks the end of the 13th baktun...

End? No. But who knows, maybe the Singularity will occur...