Sisyphus

I'm looking for good, cheap (or free) software for graphing functions, at a minimum roughly on par with the capabilities of a TI-83 or something. Any suggestions? Oh, and please don't say "write your own." My programming skills are limited to messing around with BASIC.

Is that a reference to North Korea? I haven't been following the other thread.

Once again, the UN is not supposed to "govern." It is a forum in which nations can discuss problems, and a framework under which nations can act, if necessary. And yes, it has prevented many conflicts, we just don't hear about them as often because it's not generally big news when a war doesn't happen. It probably was crucial in keeping the Cold War cold, for example. And leading to the unity and prosperity of Europe. And the very existence of South Korea.

Of course, none of that is technically true... The stone age is defined by being limited to found materials, which we're certainly not. Binary isn't Morse code, it just has in common the "on-off" aspect. And we're not "still" using it, we went through analog communication for a long time before moving into digital. Many forms of power generation use hot steam to turn turbines, but many don't, like hydroelectric dams or wind farms.

The UN is not really an independent organization. The point of it is more to act as a common forum where all nations can be in constant contact and collectively discuss problems and work together for solutions. "The UN" can't do anything, but the nations of the Security Council, for example, might all decide in the UN to collectively intervene somewhere.

Certainly we could defeat any military in the world in any conventional conflict. That said, I think you're right that Iraq is tying up most of our resources. If we had to fight a major conflict, we would have to pull out of Iraq in order to do so. That doesn't mean we have a weak military, it just means we have an EXPENSIVE military. Firefights in Iraq with insurgents pretty much always go heavily in our favor, but at what cost? Anyone could easily afford the primary weapons of your typical insurgent, militia member, or Al Qaeda grunt. Homemade bombs are easy. There are parts of the world where AK-47s act as currency (roughly equal a chicken in value). And we're lobbing multimillion dollar missles around, and maintaining multibillion dollar bombers. So we can win any fight easily, but the question is, can we win ten fights?

Alright, Martin, it's time to come clean. Are you Lee Smolin, or do you just have stock in his publisher?

Is that directed at me? If so, care to elaborate? That's not a leftist phenomenon. It's common to the low-brow elements of both left and right. If you don't believe me, watch the O'Reilly Factor, or see what happens when a liberal is foolish enough to call in to the Rush Limbaugh show.

Well, as long as we're wildly and cheerfully off-topic... D H, a few things: The first amendment says government can't restrict your speach. It doesn't say I can't restrict your speach by being obnoxious and immature. Hence what you describe isn't a first amendment issue. Campaign finance reform is about preserving democracy. What we see is politicians being elected with the help of a few entities, for whom the politician is then indebted to, and must unfairly help those entitities' interests at the expense of the nation as a whole, in the form of unfair laws, corrupt government contractors and pork-barrel spending, all of it paid for with my tax dollars at the expense of the economy and of democracy. The counter-argument, that money is speach and shouldn't be restricted, is easily shown to be paper thin when you look at the records at see every major corporation giving money to the campaigns of both main candidates. If money is speach, then what is being said? "You both need me. If I'm displeased with the decisions you make, I will withdraw my support for you and your party, and only support your opponents, who will not make the same mistake you did." Being anti-Walmart and anti-monopoly is anti-American? Hardly. Ideal capitalism doesn't exist in the real world, and in certain situations tends to destroy itself. If Walmart steamrolls over all other retail in most of America, what you're left with is de facto communism, where people have to work there because there's nowhere else to work, and they have to pay whatever is asked because there's nowhere else to go. And things like not providing health insurance are bad for the economy as well, because an unhealthy workforce is an unproductive workforce. In other words, the anti-Walmart movement is PRO-capitalism.

Gravity is stronger at the poles, because you are closer to the center of the Earth. You also weigh less at the tops of mountains for the same reason. The added mass of the mountain directly under you (incredibly miniscule compared with the Earth) is more than cancelled out by the fact that you're farther away. Note that that is at the surface, which changes in altitude. At a uniform altitude, like from a satellite, you will feel more pull when there is more stuff directly underneath.

In New York (that's where this was, right ecoli?), a first time DWI offense can have up to a year in prison, depending on mitigating circumstances. However, the bare minimum penalty is just a $500 fine and a 6 month license suspension. http://www.1800duilaws.com/states/ny.asp

"Freeze" would also technically be correct...

Not only would running an AC backwards use more energy than a plain heater, but it would barely work. The heat energy has to be pumped from outside, which means the AC has to be colder than the outside, which means it wouldn't work when it was needed most! Now, what you really want is Maxwell's Demon.

Instead of corporal punishment, I'm a fan of the old forced labor model. Give them stupid uniforms and send them to work (without pay, of course) for the janitorial staff. Effective, and useful. But maybe that's just the liberal in me...

No, I said you could disprove that Yahweh. Theoretically, that is, for reasons I thought I explained. I'm not in the business of hunting down evidence for or against every single human being's personal god. It "does not persist?" Maybe it doesn't persist in a form that is easy (or practically possible) to discover, but absolutely everything leaves traces. That is, unless the removal of those traces is itself another miracle. But the idea of a miracle which has no physical effects after it occurs seems odd to me. I didn't say those were the only two positions, I just picked those two because the difference between them is particularly obvious. But that is a curious argument you make, and, unless I'm mistaken, it amounts to "if they have the wrong interpretation, then they're not really worshipping the same God I am," which seems to be more or less what I was trying to say, the only difference being you call one right and the other wrong, and I merely say they're different. The point is, they do have a religion, and in that religion they worship a god called Yahweh. Whether or not it's the "real" Yahweh is irrelevant. Sir, I'm afraid you are the one tying them together. "God exists" has no meaning for me, therefore neither does the statement "God does not exist." I wouldn't say such a thing because I don't think the word "God" is clearly and universally defined enough to make general statements about. HOWEVER, if you say "my God exists," than that is a meaningful statement, because presumably you have something specific in mind. (This is really what is usually meant when someone says "God exists.") If part of the definition of "God," for you, is the being who performed such and such actions, and those actions demonstrably never occured, then that god doesn't exist. As for "Yahweh," that has almost as many problems as simply "God." Well, it's the Judeo-Christian god, you say. But then what's a Judeo-Christian? They don't all have identical beliefs. Far from it - "Yahweh" means millions of different things, some of which can be shown not to exist, and some of which can't. What Coulter is doing is trying to lump them all together into a single being, to say that arguing against a particular, new-Earth creationist god, is also arguing against all those that share the same name. You seem to be accusing me of this as well. However, it is NOT. It is merely arguing against those which include the falsified aspects. Well, first of all, it's absolutely crucial. Like I said above, "god exists" doesn't mean anything to me. "Disproving the existence of God" is a silly endeavor. The most one would accomplish would be to morph the word into meaning wildly different things. You might decide, after strenuous theological investigation that God is natural law, and the creative force of the universe, and logic. Or even simply "what exists." But then, why even both using the word any more? Especially given all the connotations that go with it. The only real reason one would would be to say, "See, we were right all along! God DOES exist! We were just wrong about all the details." But really, "God," in this example, has gone from the wrathful but loyal scourge of the Pharaohs to something utterly different. The association is merely one of comfort. (See, I can psychoanalyze, too.) Now presumably, the "Christian" gods have in common that they took the form of a man 2000 years ago who sacrificed himself in order to save mankind from a terrible afterlife and give him a wonderful one. You, as one of them, probably have more specific criteria regarding which differences among you are important and which not, who is worshipping the "same god" and who is not. If you assume your God is real, then naturally you don't think of it as your God, but everyone's God, about which different people who also talk about "God" speak with varying degrees of accuracy. But you have to understand that I don't feel equipped to make those distinctions. Try try TRY to see it from the point of view of one who does NOT believe in any particular god.

As a matter of fact... The above is from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Foley_scandal' date=' which has plenty of other information as well. Also,

Kind of a bizarre episode all around. If somebody made it up it wouldn't be believable. Mark Foley, popular moderate and champion of fighting internet predators, is revealed to be trying to seduce male teenage interns, and claims it has to do with being molested by clergy as a boy! I'm pretty much speachless.

I didn't make any claims about particular events. I merely said that miracles, as physical phenomena which leave physical traces, fall into the realm of science, and can potentially be disproven with as much rigor as a scientific theory. It doesn't have to be repeatable (as obviously, like you say, it wouldn't be), it merely has to leave behind physical traces. The example you use, the ressurection of Jesus, is not something that is ever likely to be proven or disproven, although it potentially could be, if events were reconstructed from current physical evidence. While it is possible that it might be part of the miracle to specifically not leave traces or even to leave contrary traces, this is essentially the same argument as "well God could have planted all the dinosaur bones at the appropriate sediment levels and decay rates when he made the world 6000 years ago." While that is true, it goes beyond the rigor possible in science generally, and so we say it is demonstrated that there are objects older than 6000 years, and hence the existence of a god which created the universe 6000 years ago is scientifically disproven. EDIT: Looking back, it seems like we have a deeper misunderstanding. The heart of your argument is distinguishing between the existence of God and the methods of God. I don't make that distinction. If person A believes every word in the Bible is literally true, and person B believes in a benevolent creator but doesn't believe there has ever been a miracle, can you really say they believe in the same God? I don't think so. Yet, from science, you could potentially go from one belief to the other, and so I say person A's god is "disproven," even though they both might be "Yahweh." I also said "God is a word that can mean almost anything," which is an important point. If what you think of as "God" changes so radically, but you still call it by the same word, the word loses it's meaning. If science is defined for you as "the investigation of God's methods," then "God" simply means "what is." That is to say, it doesn't mean anything at all.

Is the implied question whether or not this actually happens? If so, then yes, it happens all the time. A big part of the process of becoming a free thinker is learning to be suspicious when you may be around such a stop. It is also a simplified enunciation of much of the project of modern philosophy, and, I think, the only way real progress will be made in theoretical science. All the greatest pioneers of the latter were also philosophers, who found ways of thinking about reality itself in completely new ways.

"Yahweh" is not one thing, it is a name in common by the gods believed in by billions of people. For many, it means the god who parted the Red Sea and whatnot. This is a God who can be disproven scientifically. Indeed, it's gods like that most often raised up against (and struck down by) science. Some meanings of the word "God" have absolutely nothing to do with anything science is concerned with. (Or, at least, it is arguable that they don't.) But these seem to be in the minority - most people who hold religious beliefs involving something called "God" also believe in miracles, which certainly fall in the realm of science. I don't have any statistics on that, but I don't really think it's in dispute, anyway. Is it?

64 words, but it was all arguing! I'm not certain about anything. I don't subscribe to any religions for lack of evidence and for simpler explanations for their existence. In everyday life I choose to believe that what I perceive corresponds somehow to what is real. I'm a naturalist. Logic forbids absolute free will, but experience gives it subjective existence. As for the "biggest" questions, I say simply that they're the wrong questions, and as such have no answers.

I suppose those are all reasonable points, and I know he's been accused of manipulating elections and media and soforth. I really just meant what in particular is he guilty of, meaning what has he done that's so unusual. It was my understanding that as far as corruption and demagoguery go, he's about average for South American leaders. Not, of course, to use the "two wrongs" fallacy, but the point is we do tend to villify him more than others (hence the mention of highly questionable Saudi Arabia) and out of proportion to his actual crimes. (Wasn't Pat Robertson talking about assassinating him?) He's all buddy-buddy with Castro, which is certainly worrying, but not a crime in itself, I don't think. And he's got oil, which I suppose makes him uncomfortably powerful for one so antagonistic. But again, it just seems like "hurt feelings" might play a bigger role in conservative hatred for him than is generally admitted.

The fact is, one position disagreed with is more likely to cost a vote than one position agreed with is to gain one, so it's more effective to be as vague as possible on as many issues as possible, the more likely to offend fewer people than your opponent. So what's left to fill ad space? Why, smear campaigns, of course. Which WORK. You might be disappointed in the candidate for running a negative campaign, but you can't help also thinking about the negative things said about the opponent, as well. Sadly, the "I'm the lesser evil" tactic works most of the time. Also, caricatures are easier to convey in soundbite form than arguments.

Seems pretty silly to boycott Venezuallen when we happily buy Saudi Arabian, no? What in particular has Chavez done, beyond taunting American conservatives in hilariously hyberbolic and flabouyant style?

So you weren't a vegetarian before you worked out all your complex rationalizations for it?