padren

I believe the possibility that aliens are visiting us, but honestly it doesn't impact my day to day life very much, and I don't have first hand experiences so I don't draw conclusions. The problem I ran into a long time ago (when I was a teenager, I followed this stuff and many other things very heavily, which ultimately led me to my current coping mechanisms) is that, there are lots of possible scenarios in which very big things are happening that we know very little about. Are aliens visiting us? Are biblical end-times prophecies coming true? Are we really the souls of convicts tossed into volcanoes and blown up with nuclear bombs? Did the Mayans predict the end of the world? Was 911 a false flag operation? Did our own government assassinate JFK? They are all alarming possibilities of great importance, yet they come at us from every angle and, if you focus on them too much, they end up dominating your focus. In the end I finally came to the stance that I will evaluate things that occur as part of my direct personal experience more liberally and what comes at me from "the wide sea of information" more conservatively. If I see a UFO and an alien comes by for a chat I'll happily have that chat... but I won't be liable to post about it on a science forum because I'd have nothing to add there but an anecdote - and there are millions of anecdotes already. If I had a conversation with Clifford Stone personally, I may find his testimony compelling, but I haven't, so I don't know his bias, his beliefs or how he may have interpreted his experiences. Even if he has something true to say in one sentence, the very next may be due to personal bias, and I have no tools to evaluate either. I consider the odds of aliens visiting us right now to be rather unknowable, because the technology to get here opens up a ton of other factors: what ratio of worlds are worth visiting? How far is "civilization detection" technology advanced by the time you can achieve interstellar travel? Why would a secretive species have ships with visual spectrum lights? We are so primitive by comparison we cannot come close to determining these factors. The odds are somewhere between 1:1 and 0:1. So, without the issue crossing into my realm of personal experience, it's really a non-issue. If I see an alien or a copy of "alien cover-up review" on my congressman's desk when he steps out to use the restroom, I'll re-evaluate it then, but till then, I have more tangible interests to attend to.

In defense of the pomp, circumstance and the money that it takes... while I agree it's rather frivolous I think the intention is rally the mood of the nation. I suppose that could be called "propaganda" but it could also be called "restoring confidence" at the same time. While I think we all here put a lot more weight on what's said than how it's packaged up, it's worth noting the impact it probably had on a lot of people's state of mind. It'll take more than a lot of pomp and shouting "America's Back On Top!" to get there, but the tone has to be set for people to start going that way. If that wasn't a factor, your local college football team would do far better to spend all the money on equipment and drop the cheerleaders and mascot and all that right away. So, for the inauguration, I'll give this a pass myself, and reserve the criticisms for how the grunt work goes. As for the speech itself: I found it great. When I hear a great speech, I usually find it both moving and at the same time makes me very uneasy, in that "I don't want to get burned again" sorta way. When my family calls and happens to ask "Why do you still live in that country again, why was it that you are getting citizenship?" as cheesy as it sounds I honestly feel it's moments like this.

Chaos, just to give you a little friendly perspective: 1) There are theories involving a species of blue humans (or humanoids) living under Mount Shasta, and under the Gobi Desert. 2) There are theories involving "Lizard Men" impersonating humans and controlling world governments. 3) There are theories involving Nazi attempts at building a ship capable of reaching the planet "Alderbaren" (iirc) where apparently Aryan humans came from. 4) Theories involving Gray aliens being time traveling humans from the future. The proponents of each of these various theories (and dozens of derivations and many others) can throw tons of information out "supporting" their view but none of it scientific. There are always reasons why the scientific evidence is suppressed or otherwise unavailable, but the problem is simple: With so many people saying so many different things, what are you going to take "as fact" in general? Most of these theories are on about equal footing for evidence, yet are often contradictory to each other. So, considering all the "white noise" of theories out there, the best method honestly, is to pick out the important ones? The scientific method. It's worth noting too that the scientific method does not make the claim "if a theory cannot meet the standards of the scientific method, it is false" but rather "if a theory cannot meet the standards of the scientific method, it is not scientifically supported." It's a tool people use to aid information selection in a sea of conflicting information that gets bigger every year. It is relied on far less for very "close to home" information (no one requires a friend to "prove" they went and saw a movie before discussing it) because there is so much less conflicting and unreliable information within that scope. On the internet however, it's exceptionally helpful, and this site in particular tends to utilize it for the purposes stated above. These tests don't generally apply to philisophical discussions and philosophy boards, but this is a science forum, and I hope this helps you understand the sort of resistance you meet to the ideas you are advocating.

Most of them don't believe in Flat Earth (FE), but it also looks like a lot of them really enjoy just confounding people that don't realize how easy it is to counter argue - even against something as obvious as the fact that the Earth is round. It's not always through "high brow debating tactics" and honestly, my favorite thread I've ever read there was on plate tectonics, but devolved into "Dinosaurs could have built boats" where, I am pretty sure the debate ended when the proponent of "fossil records prove Pangaea" had to excuse himself to prevent an aneurism. The few threads that really challenge "Flat Earth Theory" in a simple, hard to "wiggle out of" way tend to get a little attention at first due to misconception by "FEers" and, then quickly die without any posts to challenge the "Round Earth" arguments.

Out of curiosity, wouldn't melting it in a vacuum result in some elements evaporating?

It appears Hamas has now issued their own ceasefire: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7836205.stm That sounds much more reasonable, allowing aid in and including all "Palestinian resistance factions" within the declaration. I also found this rather worth reading - some very different opinions from Palestinians.

I wonder if we could google out some modern astronaut resumes, just to see what it took for them to get accepted at the time.

Well another thread reminded me of this one, and I thought I read it here but after a search I guess not: A woman walks into a doctors office frantic "Doctor! you have to help me, I can't stop farting! They're silent and they don't smell, but I've already farted several times just in this conversation!" The doctor quickly hands her a week's worth of pills and tells her to come back in a week. A week later she returns even more frantic: "Doctor! I don't know what you gave me but I am still farting just as much - only now they smell horrible!" "Great," replied the doctor, "that takes care of your sinuses, now lets see what we can do about your hearing."

While I wouldn't say they ever don't smell pleasant, I've always wondered a bit because there seems to be a bit of a strange underlying positive/negative background evaluation that goes on. I always wondered if it was an evolutionary thing, where they smell worse if you eat things that distress your system or have some other factor compromise your digestive health. Some antibiotics cause mine to be "disturbing" despite not really being that different "odor" wise. But maybe iNow is right. Heck - maybe people became accustom to their own because the ones who didn't ran out of their caves and gotten eaten by saber tooth tigers.

I do wonder how much "piloting" will be a factor after the space shuttle is retired. I'd imagine docking in space would be a lot more like driving on very very slippery ice. When I was twelve this was my favorite book, though it covers very old tech, naturally. You can point him towards simulators, there are some pretty sophisticated flight sim games out there these days (far more sim than game), but I have no idea what would be cutting edge on the realistic space sim front anymore. I have to admit I don't have much in the way of good advice... if it was me I'd take him on lots of roller coasters that do all that heavy g force stuff, and make sure he emphasized athletics, perhaps swimming (lower chances of hope dashing injury). Extra curricular activities would be good, but I have no idea what to emphasize. I wouldn't even know what to recommend to get into Harvard, and there are far more new Harvard students each year than astronauts. However, who knows where things will be in the next decade or so - can't hurt to push for the edge and see what meets you when you get there.

I am not sure if I was unclear - that was my entire point about superstition - that it stunted scientific discovery, and reinforced stagnancy, thus being another reason why science took so long. The other points about superstition was simply to say that superstition, while having no scientific value, did serve a function in aiding ancient people's ability to survive, with an effectiveness only recently trumped by modern science. As beneficial as it was of course, it had no basis in any real understanding of the world in which we live.

Out of curiosity, when they describe the dimensions, I assume they only mean the heating component? You still need the water to cycle, and the turbines - how much more cost and volume/weight would these account for? Does the water require much space to cool before recycling?

I just want to bring up another factor, that I actually think may trump a lot of personal preferences: neediness. When a woman is interested in me and is really "nice" but, has an almost sycophant need to gain my approval I can honestly say my nose actually curls like I was smelling rotting garbage just to think about it - it's a very visceral, physical reaction. I try to be nice, be honest and let them down easily, may even try to be "friends" maybe because I feel guilty and they aren't really "doing" anything bad and are genuinely nice but it is such an unpleasant condition there is zero room to ever date someone like that. Now, maybe it's just my "social experience" which of course has no scientific value, but when I picture the average "nice guy" that finishes last, it's pretty much always tied to the qualities of "would do anything for" that girl, would make any sacrifice for her happiness, yadda yadda. Those are horrible qualities in a mate. Most women (and men) are looking for a partner, not a pet. If they get together and she really likes a house that just happens to be a horrible investment, she wants a mate that will critique her decision - not unquestioningly support her decision as yet more proof of his devotion. Now, a typical guy like that will become infatuated with a woman, and come across as insecure and needy, and she'll never have the time of day for him - who would blame her? Eventually, either he gets his self confidence up (probably never with the original woman), or he meets a woman that he finds interest in but is not intimidated by, and creates a genuine relationship that becomes more. Considering that most "bad boys" (the loudest of the self-confident men groups) do not generally exhibit those qualities, it could be that after you adjust for the "in-considerables" that any skew in the statistics is purely incidental.

Just to throw this in the mix as well: Superstition has been the strongest survival mechanism for a very long time, and while we started moving to science, it is still very strong in our society even today. By superstition, I mean an individual understands a set of procedures to achieve a result, and even if they have a story behind why it works, it works because of physical laws... but is discovered through trial and error and the true laws are not known. Consider the Inuit hunters (heard of this a decade or so ago) that, after a successful hunt, decided to forgo the usual "offering to the gods" ritual and go straight to processing the meat. They died, due to bacteria in the food. Upon investigation, it was discovered that the ritual just happened to include actions that prevented bacteria from becoming a problem. It was never intended to combat bacterial factors, and the rituals predated microbiology... probably by several thousand years. Myths of vengeful gods, sacred rituals requiring great concentration and detail undoubtedly safeguarded much knowledge that was passed down and discovered by trial and error. Breaking from, or even questioning traditional beliefs meant challenging the actions those belief's demanded. Even if 90% of a ritual is completely non-beneficial, that leads to a 1 in 10 chance that abandoning any given aspect of even one ritual could have detrimental impacts. All in all, I think science had to "ease in" to society in "safe ways" over time, and still had to overcome the general taboo regarding "sacred" traditions - it has been paramount to survival for a very long time, and the one's that could change the least had the best chances for survival. Once populations and language hit a level where ideas could be created in one group, and, if that group improved, others may copy it (often by force of conquerors) without risking the experimentation themselves I think science slowly became more viable.

I got a 12, which I find kind of odd because had I took the test earlier in life I know I'd have scored very high... I still consider "social graces" a second language but I've gotten very comfortable with it, which I guess kept it down.

I have a question on the ceasefire - can it really be called a ceasefire? It seems more like a "completion of operations" than a genuine ceasefire, which I always thought was generally considered an at least temporary truce. (I guess that's why it's called "unilateral" in this case.) While I am glad Israel feels it does not need to continue with those operations, it strikes me that it has more in common with when, during the Gulf War, the coalition forces stopped short of Baghdad - they did "cease" "fire" but it was because they were done with the scope of their operation. In this case, Hamas has not agreed to any terms whatsoever, so it's still exceptionally volatile. For a true ceasefire in my mind, there would have to be terms that Hamas agrees to, which if they break, may result in Israel breaking the ceasefire and engaging in new operations (going both ways of course). However, for Israel to simply stop operations (which is good - does mean fewer daily deaths) without any conditions to be met by either side means the situations could explode again at anytime again. For the first time, I've finally found a quote on a demand from Hamas that doesn't include the annihilation of Israel: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090117/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_palestinians Only problem - most of those issues are not even on the negotiations table, and no one seems to be sitting at it. I don't think Hamas could get Israel to agree to those terms without some serious concessions themselves, such as at least acknowledging Israel's right to exist, and proof (in terms of no attacks for some time) that they can police their own. This would be the perfect (well, least worst in recent memory) time for the international community to try to get this "ceasefire" into something more stable, and try to get both parties to work towards mutual coexistence. I am sure Israel would like to have open borders with a Gaza they can trust, that thrives and contributes to trade and the overall economy... but it would take a lot of work, and even more time, yet it would have to start somewhere. Unfortunately, I think the world has simply heard the word "ceasefire" uttered and now feels it can go back to it's normal distractions, since we've gotten desensitized to the "flare ups" in the region, and even more to the simmering pot when it's not actively boiling over.

I am sure confirmed to a high probability, but what about the other part - confirming they are an immediate threat to life? If they planted a bomb and are trying to kill you with it by not talking, to me that falls under self defense. However, just because they are confirmed as a combatant doesn't mean you can go on a little torturous fishing expedition.

The problem I think is you are taking a construct and applying absolutes that could only exist in it's most ideal form. In the absolute 'ideals' sense, if a person comes at you with a lethal weapon (or someone else), of course you can defend yourself (or them) and if needed take their life. If the only means you have to take their life happens to be "torturous" it's still entirely understandable. It's not that hard to extrapolate that if the person is attempting to kill you or others by not talking about a bomb they planted... the same justifications exist. So, in that absolute ideal case, the answer is "1 human" naturally. The problem is that absolute ideal case can never be confirmed to exist - there is no way to know if that is the case. So the question then becomes, about the treatment of suspected terrorists, not to mention suspected terrorist supporters that have no information to give up. That's the key problem, so please don't imply that raising that issue is somehow equivalent to protecting terrorists at the expense of innocent lives. Yes, in some circumstances it is possible that some terrorists may end up being protected from torture and that it could result in more innocent lives lost. Personally I don't think those circumstances are very probable, and on top of that I'd rather take my chances of being the victim of a terrorist attack than take my chances of being party to a government that tortures innocent people suspected of being terrorists.

Posting it here because it does seem to be a huge speculation. I read it and the series of conclusions seemed a little odd to me, and it does at least state clearly it's pretty speculative. Anyone have any thoughts - is this actually possible? http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126911.300-our-world-may-be-a-giant-hologram.html?full=true&print=true

It was worth over 400,000 American lives to stand up for our ideals during WWII. Considering we were prepared to fight as long as it took at whatever the cost, I think we should consider that the lowest possible number. But I still don't like how it's seen that our ideals are liabilities we have to work around. It was our commitment to our ideals that ensured the Soviets understood if they attacked a Nato ally, it would come to a nuclear war... and that really was a pretty big reason they didn't. It strikes me as dangerous to haggle their currency.

You bring up a really good point, because this issue, like most issues should be considered even if it makes us fearful that we may (out of fear) go to far. To not consider revisiting our policies would itself be to do so out of that fear, and can't help but to lead to stagnation. Whereas if we keep level heads and honestly look at it, we may come up with solutions we don't have and if we can't trust ourselves to do that we really have some larger issues in the mix. The whole of it is, while we ignore the issue and not want to get our hands dirty, we ship people off to countries that have no problem doing things we would not condone - as we have done for years. Do we not believe we can conceive of means we can both live with better, and would be more effective than outsourcing interrogations? I think it's worth trying to come up with that answer. Just a side note: I remember reading a book Influence: Science and Practice that had a really interesting section on POWs and Chinese methods of information gathering. Granted, not their "hard methods" for time sensitive results, but the general practice they used on POWs over time. They'd do things such as have Essay contests in the camps, whomever won would get something extra (food, cigarettes, etc) for their group, and they'd generally share somewhat with the other POWs, but the essays that won would commonly find fault with the war, or some part of the POWs' national ideology. The POWs knew the contests were skewed, and knew their peers knew they were writing just to "put on over on the Chinese" and didn't mean any of it, but it had a growing psychological impact. The winning essays would either be read over the PAs, or posted prominently for POWs to read (with the author's name attributed) and the winning authors would end up feeling ashamed deep down - even though they knew no one thought they meant a word of it. It simply hit them to know they had written it. From there, the interrogators had a huge increase in results in extracting information from them, because the inmate had psychologically set themselves up to feel like a traitor already, even though they still believed in their ideology and the value of their war efforts. It gets a little more complex, but it's a really fascinating idea. I am not saying it would work easily on Jihadists and of course not in "where's the nuke set to go off in an hour" situations, but just that if we applied the same level headed sort of thinking we put into so many other problems where we are able to innovate, we actually have a good chance of coming up with methods that are both superior and more humane than are currently available. As it stands, as a nation we don't want to torture ourselves, but we begrudgingly accept looking the other way while we ship prisoners to countries that do because ultimately, we don't feel like we can offer a viable alternative.

At the risk of drawing a straw man parallel what would have happened if there was an international demand for a ceasefire while US troops were trying to stabilize Basra in Iraq? It could never make it to the table, as long as insurgents were digging in with the ultimate goal of driving out US soldiers in body bags. It would be almost impossible to conceive that any temporary staving off of violence wouldn't be ultimately eclipsed by much larger violence after the inevitable collapse. If the Israelis have good reason to believe a ceasefire would just be used to stockpile more rockets, improve their capabilities, build more tunnels, and dig in deeper into Gaza - as Hamas still has the stated goal of the bloody, violent destruction of Israel - where is the faith it would spare lives, and not just postpone fighting until it can be larger and bloodier? For a ceasefire to be viable, there has to be at least the hope both sides will pursue it in good faith, and not just stock up on their ability to wage greater violence in the near future. For that to happen either A) Hamas has to give on their stated goal, or B) Palestinians have to marginalize Hamas. I want a ceasefire to come into effect immediately - that would be the very best thing that could happen - but it would have to be a real ceasefire, not just a stall to create greater death tolls a month from now.

I'd say there was a definite benefit of the ceasefire, but I don't know how well it "worked" overall. The purpose of a ceasefire is to move towards a general peace, allow heated views to cool, and get closer to a lasting stable coexistence. It appears during the ceasefire, at the very least Hamas was building a tunnel for the purpose of attacking Israel, and I think there is fair grounds to suspect they were stockpiling and preparing for a larger conflict. For a ceasefire to actually work, both sides have to be confident that the other side is not working towards undermining their side. If another ceasefire can be established, I'd like to see it include "milestones" that are observable and increase the level of cooperation between Palestinians and Israel. Israelis have tried to help with reconstruction in Gaza but have been fired on - I wonder if a reconstruction plan could work where it is Palestinian workers that carry out the actual construction efforts. If radicals want to shoot them for taking Israeli resources (branding them as collaborators or such) it would cause a divide within Palestinians, instead of just increase the animosity between Israel and Gaza. Restoring basic utilities and services would be paramount, and ensuring subsequent disruptions would be due to forces that are perceived as negative by the Palestinians. Just as important, Hamas would have to support the ceasefire and denounce any attacks that occurred during it, and make an effort to actually stop unsanctioned attacks. But the real problem is Hamas. If they truly just want to destroy Israel, there can be no real ceasefire - only strategic pauses in their struggle to destroy Israel. For that reason, I can understand Israel being skeptical regarding talks with Hamas. If Hamas can embrace a different cause, say the welfare of the Palestinian people, there can be room for talks and a potential ceasefire. But if they remain committed to the cause of destroying Israel, how do you negotiate in good faith with a group like that?

I was under the impression Hamas actually took credit for the rocket attacks during this period. I could be wrong of course, but personally, anything less than condemnation of those attacks would be the same in my mind as sanctioning them - regardless of whether or not they were directly the result of orders given by Hamas. Also, when you refer to the increase of the rocket attacks (that Hamas took credit for), do you mean immediately following the cease fire itself, or following the attack on the tunnel that was being constructed to bypass border checkpoints? Unless I am mistaken (and I could easily be) I thought that event and the subsequent increase in attacks happened during the tail end of the cease fire.

maybe offering just a slightly lighter shade of blue would be nice too