Sisyphus

Seriously, what is the deal with mispronouncing "nuclear?" What is the rationale? It has to be intentional, right? I mean, Bush does the same thing, and at this point it must be intentional, so why, goddamnit, why?

Of course there would. It's still a significant archeological site (possibly very important), and I don't think anyone is denying that. The issue is with calling these hills "pyramids," which to me, frankly, seems quite ridiculous. It would be one of the most extraordinary claims ever made in archeology, and there doesn't seem to be any evidence for it whatsoever. It seems to me that the only real difference between this guy and a typical crank is that he's better at getting publicity.

My earliest realizations about synesthesia involved days of the week. I remember being about two or three years old and asking my father why Wednesday was green. He of course had no idea what I was talking about, and I couldn't understand why not. It wasn't until years later that I even realized that not everybody thought that way.

That's not really how it works. It's an involuntary association. And more than just an association, really, the letters and numbers are those colors. In some cases it moves beyond visual and spatial into other senses, as well, wherein different sounds have different shapes, colors, textures, even tastes. I've heard of severe synesthetes who have to eat in silence, since every sound has its own taste, which naturally causes chaos if you're trying to eat a meal.

I also have quite strong synesthesia of the same type. Lots of things have both color and spatial orientation* associated with them, not just letters/numbers/days of the week but almost any ordered system. The traditional ones have the strongest associations. Seems like most people have the colors all wrong, though! *For example, the months are arranged in a wide, flattened ring inclined about 30 degrees from horizontal, with the summer at the high end. Throughout the year "my" perspective changes so as to be at the appropriate month. Similarly, doing mental math involves a lot of whizzing around mental "space" as well as overlaying colors in different ways for different operations. It sounds chaotic, but it makes perfect sense to me, and I'm pretty sure it actually helps things become intuitive. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised at all if synesthesia was correlated with high spatial intelligence, either as cause or effect.

What a tedious argument. Okay, so in summary: religion was allegedly brought up, people were offended, arguments started, fun happened, people were put on ignore lists. Sounds to me like the original problem has been solved. Unless there are any other important issues I've missed, let's just let this thread die.

As long as we're already doing silly tangents, I feel I must object to this. The article in that link represents a common misunderstanding of the proverb resulting from ambiguity in the English language. The problem arises not in comparing Malus domestica with Citrus sinensis ("apples" and "oranges" taken as wholes), it's comparing individuals of each species. The problem being that the criteria for good apples and the criteria for good oranges are different, so judging one by the other's standards is fallacious. Obviously the former comparison is quite easy, and would never be proverbially impossible.

I don't think I would call it a vendetta. They try to make all politicians look ridiculous. Sarah Palin just happens to be unusually ridiculous on her own. Hence the Couric interview sketch, where Tina Fey just repeated what Palin said verbatim, and only Couric's reactions were exaggerated. There have been funnier sketches, obviously, but I do think it is pretty hilarious that they could do that and have it be passable.

Awesome.

You should probably throw in some geothermal, maybe some exercise bikes.

True, and it might actually be impossible to perfectly simulate one's own universe. But that still wouldn't really affect us, since a "mistake" in the simulator wouldn't be a "mistake" to beings within it, it would just be the way things are. The only thing that might matter would be changing the rules midgame, as you say, but there's no indication that's happened, and actually a few good reasons it wouldn't. If you're running a universe simulation and you find a glitch, why fix it for part of the timeline and not all of it? In other words, why not fix it retroactively, so from our perspective, it always was correct? Depending on why you're running a simulation, it might be pointless to continue a sim already contaminated by flawed starting conditions. It would be sloppy science, in any case...

I currently live in New York City, which for a major metropolis is actually extremely safe (excepting a few bad areas). I have also lived in Baltimore, where the violent crime rate is literally many times higher, and it's amazing what a difference it makes. When people are scared it really destroys a city and the neighborhoods within it, which in turn allows and encourages more crime. It's hard to say what originally causes it, but it's clear that poverty, corruption, and even poor urban planning play roles. I can only imagine what it must be like in Rio, where it sounds like things are really out of control.

It's funny, because it makes sense, but it also doesn't matter. Whether we're a simulation or "real" is completely untestable and doesn't seem to affect us in any way, and there's no reason it should alter our behavior. If you consider what difference is between a simulated universe and the universe that generated it, there isn't necessarily any at all. It's a system that follows rules, and in which it is evidently possible for intelligent beings to arise. If "they" really are simulating their own existence, then I posit that there is no difference at all, that we are equal and identical with our simulators and our eventual simulations, and that we necessarily exist in an infinite regression of simulation within simulation, turtles all the way down.

Wouldn't it be easier just to put them on the ground? I mean, sure, it would work, but you can't put solar panels on every surface of everything, so you put them where they're cheapest and most effective.

Hey, check this out: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/09/mccain_wins_debate.html Apparently the McCain campaign had ads on the Wall Street Journal website that said "McCain wins debate!" and a quote from campaign manager Rick Davis saying, "McCain won the debate, hands down." Eerily similar, no? Maybe John McCain and the Chinese space program have the same publicist.

That's incorrect. Pressure has nothing to do with it. Also, do not think of the air as having an "upward" force, because that is not correct, either. Everything has a downward force due to gravity, it's just a matter of how much. In other words, it's just a simple of density. Water has more mass per unit volume than a bubble of air, hence there is a stronger force of gravity acting on it, hence it is forced down and pushes the air up and out of the way. The net result is the bubble of air being forced upwards. The amount of force with which is moves upwards is dependent on the difference in mass between the bubble of air and an equal volume of water. This happens whenever you have anything in any fluid, including air. Helium is less dense than air, so a helium balloon is pushed up and out of the way as gravity pulls the air around it down more. In a vacuum, the helium balloon would fall exactly as fast as a big ball of lead. Another good example is a human being, which has a density quite close to that of water. If you're swimming and you fill your lungs with air, you become slightly less dense than water and you float. If you empty your lungs, you become slightly more dense and sink. Submarines do something similar by filling and emptying internal tanks with water, making the overall ship more or less dense than water in order to sink or rise. Also, fat is less dense than water, and muscle is denser. That's why fat people have an easier time floating than thin people.

I agree with everything else you say, so I'm reluctant to nitpick, but, well, not that reluctant. That's not really being fair to humans, since we evolved in tropical environments, where we can survive just fine walking around naked. I'm pretty sure most tropical animals would freeze to death if you plopped them down in the middle of the Canadian wilderness. Not to say that we aren't quite vulnerable even by those standards, but we're not unique - even in our vulnerability.

No, that isn't it. Believe me, he's a regular. He talks about very complex subjects and uses correct grammar and such, so it's easy to be fooled if you don't know any better. He doesn't represent accepted science. He has his own ideas about things which he believes are more logical than accepted theories, but which are usually just based in misunderstanding existing science. If he were really a secret genius on the verge of revolutionizing physics, he would at least be able to demonstrate that he understands existing physics. Well, luckily here we have math confirmed by observation, which is generally how these things go.

Or the United States.

You should use it to look for people with breast implants.

I think that's about right, yes, although a few things come to mind. First, I'm not sure how the absorption/reflection works with different materials. Probably if you painted them all the same color it would mitigate it. Second, we're ignoring rate of re-radiation into the air, here, which I think is closely related to thermal conductivity. As in, leaving the plates outside all day won't give you nearly as dramatic a temperature difference as the numbers suggest, since they're giving off heat the whole time. If you give them all an instantaneous burst of energy, however, their temperatures would be exactly inversely proportional to their heat capacities (I think). Also, it seems like you have to consider heat capacity and conductivity together. For example, copper is more conductive, but aluminum at the same temperature would have more heat to conduct. So if you put one hand on each plate, the copper one will burn faster at first, but will be "used up" quicker. EDIT: And the densities! (Thanks Skeptic.) That does complicate things. 1 gram of aluminum is a lot bigger than 1 gram of lead, so it's going to be intercepting a lot more radiation, and the heat has to be conducted farther to reach your had. Oy. You know what? Somebody should just test it...

No, it's a mathematical consequence of wave/particle duality. Where do you come up with this stuff?

I think there are at least three factors at work: 1) The metal absorbs radiation very readily, so a lot of heat builds up. 2) It has a very low specific heat capacity (the amount of energy needed to raise a given mass a given temperature), so it gets to a very high temperature from relatively little absorbed radiation. To contrast, water might absorb as much energy, but it takes ten times as much energy to raise the temperature the same amount. It also stores energy very well, which is why deserts have extreme temperature fluctuations, and islands have moderate climates. 3) It conducts heat very well. As Mr. Skeptic and SwansonT mention, you're helping a large piece of metal reach equilibrium by absorbing a great deal of heat. A good insulator probably wouldn't burn you, even if it was very hot, because you're only absorbing heat from the immediate point of contact.

You haven't really defined "free will," so there's not much to say about that. Don't feel bad, though, most discussions of "free will" don't end up actually saying anything meaningful. The options are predestination (the dominos) or random chance, and it's amazing how many people have a problem with one or the other because they think it "violates" free will, without noticing that the other does too, or clearly thinking about what free will actually is. It's actually pretty straightforward. The bigger the sample size, the more often you're going to have long, improbable runs. Flipping a coin and getting 10 heads in a row has 1/1024 chance of happening. Flip a coin a million times and long strings will likely happen thousands of times.

Chemistry is not really my thing, but I'm sure there are any number of things you might find in a lab that would kill you if you ingested them or breathed them in (pure sodium, chlorine gas, maybe mercury), but I think most of them are probably pretty horrible deaths and not nearly as quick and relatively painless as cyanide. He could just pump methane into a face mask and breathe it in. It's not toxic, but you will suffocate, and it might (I'm hardly an expert) just be like falling asleep. I guess that wouldn't be as "cool" as some exotic poison, though.