tomgwyther

O.K. I admit it, I lost! As I am an abject loser, what is the point of the game? Is it - as it would seem - an irresistable bait for the inquisitive, scientific mind? Is the person who's idea it was trying to understand something about the human prepensity to enquire into the unknown?

I haven't lost yet, I have mearly enquired about the use of English in the original post (You lost VS You've lost)!!! Since 'The game' requires a fore-knowledge of it's existence; I have there-fore not thought about the game. knowledge of perceived existence is prerequiset to thought on supposed existence. Thus I have no thoughts on a game (or any other notion) which I am unaware of. Conclusion: the game does not exist. therefore it cannot be perceived. p.s I've given this some thought! and did not click the link- honest!!!

"You just lost the game." what exactly does that mean? Should it not be "You've just lost the game"? In either case, which game is one supposed to have lost?

Does anyone on here live in the California/nevada area. I'm coming over from England to work as a stage manager/technician in South Tahoe NV. It's only a five day event, afterwards I plan to hire a car and go on a mini adventure across the wild-wild-west. Money is tight, thus does anyone have a spare couch suitable for a weary traveller to sleep on? Would love to actually speak face to face with people on this site, as opposed to reading/posting. I've been a fan of SFN for years and log on everyday. Thanks in advance Tom

Abolish the fed; use PayPal instead! This is a little quip I came up with while reading this post. Originally meant as a bit of a joke, but it actually turns out to be quite enlightening. I personally think fractional reserve banking is a bad thing and that making money from simply having money is the act of a parasite. The real purpose of money should be to fascillitate the transaction of goods and services; an alternative to walking into Wal-Mart and exchanging two chickens and a goat in order to purchase your weekly groceries. You simply trade a piece of paper which represents the chickens and the goat (or any other commodity for that matter.) for the groceries. With regards to the federal reserve system, it's almost stomach churning to know that the issuance and control of a nations money supply is so heavily influenced by unelected private banks. As Rockerfeller said "Give me control over a nations money supply and I care not who makes its laws." Now that America has no money, now would be a good time to make some radical changes to the federal reserve system, if not outlaw the practice all together. Using Paypal merely as an example The Paypal VS Fractional reserve federal banking system goes something like this. PayPal (Or other similar system) is rather like a global L.E.T.S system whereby all money in that system has its roots in actual goods and services. The gross amount of money is potentially unlimited but it's creation is dependant on real wealth. paypal money is merely the the medium by which goods and services are traded. Money becomes the servant of the people, and not people the servant of money. If a government were to adopt such a scheme, it would no longer be subservient to a money supply outside of it's control. The government and only the government would have exclusive power to create money within the system which it could then spend into the economy on bridges, schools, hospitals, welfare etc, this government created money could then be collected back in the form of tax, to restore the financial balance, and no interest would have to be paid to anyone. Under the current system, nearly all money in existence is created by private banks as debt. Here in Britain for example, for every pound I have in my pocket, 97pence of it is someones debt (%97 fractional reserve) and this figure is increasing exponentially. When the government wants to spend money, it has to be borrowed - at interest - from a bank, this loan must be re-paid at interest, thus most of the income tax which I pay is actually the interest repayment on loans the government took out years ago. The government recently borrowed several billion, the interest alone on this is about £1,000,000 per day. A governments ability to issue and control it's own money supply is vital to the prosperity of it's people, people like George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Payne were all to aware of this, hence it was the main reason for the war of independence; Independence from European banks who were against the American colonies issuing there own money. That's why the Federal reserve system should go. p.s this is just a brief overview of two economic systems an current economic states.

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins does mention a Darwinian approach to the propagation of religion via genetic and memetic selection. Have a read from page 170 of the book.

"Don't let it end like this, tell them I said something." Pancho Villa, Mexican revolutionary bandit. after he was fatally wounded

Excellent skateboarding dog! I suppose a dog is better equipped to use a skateboard than a human, as it has four legs with which to control it's balance and weight-shift. Coupled with having evolved a brain to use four legs to best advantage. A great example of intelligent animals comes from monkeys. Whilst filming a documentary on monkeys in the wild; John Cleese (Of monty python fame) noticed that the alpha male monkey - whom would lead the pack through the jungle in single file - had a distinct limp. One of the other monkeys further down the line (an of lower rank) would imitate the limp of the older, more senior monkey. At first this was though of as 'monkey social climbing'. Except, when the head alpha monkey turned around to check on the others, the monkey with the fake limp would stop, walk normally, and only continue the fake limp if the alpha male couldn't see him, but so as his other lower-ranking peers could. It would appear that... "Here is an animal which has the ability to 'poke fun' at his superiors; a sarcastic monkey. It has evolved to 'take the piss!' ".

It's $0.59 per Lb. on the commodities market, having fallen considerably over the past year. It peaked in 2008 at $1.20. ($0.59 per pound is about $0.26 per Kg)

G parted doesn't pick it up. It is as if the drive has died, but the little red light is on and you can hear/feel it spinning and also hear the arm move etc. It may well have died in a way I've not yet figured out, I'm gonna try taking the case appart and putting it back together again. Bearing in mind, it has no file system on it, is there another program that could be used (Either windows or linux)

I have an external hard drive, which neither Ubuntu or Windows will recognize. I was originally a hard drive in and old lap-top which I removed, put into a case and connected to my computer via USB 2.0 It worked fine for a few months, now when I plug it in, it's as if it doesn't exist, I just doesn't show up. The problem occured when I was re-formating it, halfway through the process the partition editor said the drive was un-allocated. Since then I've been unable to mount it, access it or do anything with it Any suggestions?

I remember a few years ago, there was a guy who wanted to know how to commit the perfect murder.

You certainly do have tinnitus. I have it perminantly (Having worked in the music entertainment industry all my life) It's caused when the tiny hairs with the cochlea are destroyed by loud noise, thus sending false signals to the brain, the frequency of the noise is usually high pitched because the high pitched receivers in the inner ear are more easily damaged. Unfortunately, once the damage is done, it cannot really be un-done, but the brain copes with this by filtering out unnecessary noise, so as you don't notice the ringing in your ears sensation throughout the day. It only becomes more noticeable when you're in a quiet environment. My tinnitus is quite advanced; it has several different frequencies including a low-end rumble sound. The 'tooooo' sound you mentioned suggests damage to mid-range hearing, moreover, you've had the condition from an early age which suggest it wasn't caused by prolonged exposure to loud music or other noise. Definately go to a doctor or auroligist to get it checked out, and definaately avoid loud music. I carry attenuated ear plugs with me everywhere, just in case.

It is capable of long distance space flight (Because we helped design it) although for long space journeys it needs 'Negative-reality-inversion hyper-dimentional-drip-tray' behind it to catch all the 'Exceptional beer' exhaust which Insane Alien mentioned!!!

The Bermuda triangle has been posted here a few times before, to no avail. Sisyphus is right, it is just an urban legend. Moreover, it's one of the cheapest shipping lanes to insure freight/cargo and merchant vessels, as nothing much ever happens there

By 'Soul'... Do you refer to an intangible aspect of being self-aware. or An immutable sentience which will exist after death or both.

The machine was built by one person, toiling over many years; But with advice from SFN

In short, the molecular bonds of the solute (Nestle) are broken by the solvent (milk) Heating of the solvent hastens this.

As well as discussing what exactly one means by 'God', it is also necessary to understand or define what one means by 'Believe' e.g. I 'Believe' I live in Portsmouth, England I 'Believe' I have a dental appointment tomorrow. I 'Believe' in democracy I 'Believe' in free speech, are all employable uses of the word 'Believe'. As for 'Do I believe in God' it's somewhat of a false dichotomy. I don't so much dis-believe in god; I'm convinced it/he/she/them do not exist, in the same way I am convinced London is not in China.

Here's a very helpful link to 'MIND' it's a charity for mental health. It also mentions specifically that panic attacks can be triggered by certain foods or intolerance thereof. thus causing an excess of adrenaline (A main contributor to an attack) in the bloodstream. http://www.mind.org.uk/Information/Booklets/How+to/How+to+cope+with+panic+attacks.htm

Phew! My hope that it was a joke has been realised. Wouldn't surprise me if the sky-god clan thought this stuff was viable.

Has anyone had a look at their web site? (re-discovery.org) I thought it was a joke at first, I still rather hope it is. If you ever wanted to have your jaw drop at something, have a read of http://www.re-discovery.org Their opening statements says it all. If it were possible to put everything that's wrong in the world in to one piece of HTML code, this is it. Happy (Dismayed) reading!!!!

All ways nice to have a new member. Like you, I have had no formal education in science (I did work in the electrical engineering faculty of my local university where I picked up a bit.) Since leaving school some 15 years ago I have spent most of my life educating myself so would be glad to help you with the basics in Quantum mechanics, General and special relativity etc. I'm also studying economics and psychology at the moment. I tend not to post very much, because most of the people on here have far more expertise than I do in specialist fields and when a question is posed, it's usually covered very comprehensively. I derive a great deal of pleasure from this site, simply by reading what others have to say, and I hope you do too.

I think you've pretty much hit the nail on the head with your post, and enforced my point. Thank you

My brother, whist studying at university did his final project on a system just like this. He had bike stolen a few times. It was a device which fitted inside the bike frame, under the saddle pole, which sounded and alarm if the bike was moved (Significantly) while the alarm was set. The end result was a similar system mounted in a car. If the car was stolen, it would text you to say "Your car's be stolen" then you could phone the police and give them the plate number. He never thought to market it though. It's certainly a better method than a simple alarm (Which most people ignore). I'd like to know if someone was stealing my property via text message, then I could run out in my pyjamas wielding a cricket bat!!