John Cuthber

Here's the paper http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs11434-012-5603-3

Like farting in a lift, that post is wrong on may levels. Trying to do maths with infinities is always dangerous. The assertion is unsupported and gives no evidence and, perhaps most significantly, it's clearly wrong because, as cited in the previous post, the speed of gravity has been measured and it's c. John, why did you clutter up the board with that posting?

There is some excellent thinking here: but not from the OP. For example, the OP asserts "There is only one force that governs everything, Balance." If that were true then there would be exactly as much matter in the universe as antimatter. There isn't, because the universe is not actually balanced. OK, that's it now. This idea dead in the water (remember, it only takes one counter-example to kill a theory and this idea was never even a theory to begin with). There are, of course, some important results to be derived from looking at symmetries, probably the best known are these http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noether's_theorem which are very powerful and useful,and nearly a hundred years old.

Let's just have a quick look at one small part of this cobblers. "since coming here from great distances involves technology much more advanced than ours, it follows that their religion is much more advanced and closer to the truth about everything here than our terrestrial religions are". The whole point of religion is to pretend that you already have all the answers by "revealed truth" so you don't need to change them. that's why, even in the 21st C the Bible still says bats are birds and the God squad still think it's true. Religion doesn't develop in the same way that technology does. So an advanced alien's religion would be stuck in the bronze age, just like our our world's religions are. If it wasn't, then it would be because they had changed their beliefs in the light of the discoveries they made. If you do that, it's not a religion any more, it's science.

Tell them you are a devout Catholic: that usually gets rid of them. OK, it's dishonest, but they keep trying to convince you that the book full of errors is the word of God, so they were the first to start saying things that are not true.

People who appreciate good food. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steak_tartare http://xkcd.com/285/

I look forward to an explanation of why you think any of that is important.

OK, I will take the bet. You said "Allah says in the Qur'an that and of everything have we created pairs…of opposite variability." So, there must be a pair of creator Gods. But that's at odds with the same dogma. Which one are you wrong about? Are there two Allahs or were you wrong about the pairings. Now, to me that logical problem was obvious. To be strictly honest it made me smile a bit, rather than laugh out loud, but that's legitimat hyperbole.

I found this bit particularly informative "Like most gun owners, I understand the ethical importance of guns and cannot honestly wish for a world without them"

My personal opinion is that they are a bunch of **** for whom the best use might well be as fertiliser. (and for the record, I rather liked the vid in the OP) But that's not the point. The W B C are a recognisable group of people and, according to our rules we are not permitted to display any prejudice against them. How do we choose what groups are so abhorrent that they don't deserve the protection afforded by rule 1 ( c )?

Have you tried doing the maths? It can be very informative. The earth gets about 10^22 J per day from the sun. It varies a lot; in the US typical energy consumption is about 10KW Let's assume that everyone on the planet uses much as the average for China which is about 2.5KW That's about 2* 10^8 J per day each or with 7 bn of us, 1.5*10^18 Watts So we use about 0.00015 times as much energy as the sun provides us with. of course, a fair bit of that energy is from renewable sources so it should be subtracted off, but it's not going to affect things much. The energy that we release into the environment is very small compared to how much we get from the sun. Our energy use is about half the energy released by radioactive decay of natural uranium and thorium etc. in the earth. I still don't understand why this topic is controversial. We know that carbon dioxide blocks outgoing IR from the earth. We know that the earth's surface is warming We know that there is more CO2 than there used to be We know that it's from our use of fossil fuels. It's like saying "I know that we put another blanket on the bed, and I know that I'm now warmer. But I don't know if I'm warmer because I put another blanket on."

Just in case there was any doubt about the sickening nature of fox hunting with hounds... http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/blooding As Wilde put it, "The English country gentleman galloping after a fox - the unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible."

Hang on! " Slurs or prejudice against any group of people (or person) are prohibited." The video in the OP probably ticks that box (at least from the point of view of the Westboro Baptists). It is, for example, unlikely that they all have a conspicuous unfamiliarity with hair conditioner. Not all of them are polygamous yokels (OK,. I'm guessing there, but it's a safe bet ). If I say that I consider a political group to be "self serving" am I in danger of being hauled over the coals for a breach of rule 1© because I have not offered evidence that it is true for each and every member of that group? On the other hand, I'm not suggesting a "free for all" where people can say what they like about whom they choose. How do we draw that line? This issue has been looked at before. The same tension exists in other forms of publication. There's a potential issue with choosing whose legal system we choose to follow, but libel laws and free speech are both well recognised concepts. I wonder if the site rules might take their lead from the established rule of law.

It seems to me that nobody has yet pointed out the real difference between man-made and natural chemicals. Mankind has in its stupidity, made deliberate attempts to make really nasty toxic chemicals. The nerve gases are probably the best known of them and sarin is a fairly typical example. Assuming it's roughly as toxic to people as it is to rats, it would take about a hundredth of a gram to kill a person. Now let's look at what nature can do. Botulinum toxin is rather better at its job. It takes about a million times less to kill someone. So the answer to the question "What's the difference between industrial chemicals and chemicals found directly in nature?" is that some natural chemicals are a million times more toxic than some of the best poisons we can come up with. Of course, most man-made chemicals are nothing like that nasty- they couldn't be because, if they were the lawyers would have a field day, In the UK there has been a legal requirement (since 1988 IIRC) to use the least toxic chemicals that can be (reasonably) used to do the job. Nature doesn't have to follow those rules.

But you can change the constitution, so, while it might slow down changes, the constitution does not prevent anything.

LOL especially "I've made one assumption that eye witness testimonies generally are truthful"

I speculate that they will speculate.

10 minutes till what, and in what time zone?

It would be very silly for this to turn into a US vs UK argument. The US and UK governments are much more similar than you seem to realise. For example, the (roughly) equivalent crimes in the US would be intimidation or harassment. I guess they are deemed to be constitutional . I do live in the UK and I know roughly the circumstances to which the law applies. It doesn't apply to general conversations etc. If you are going to say "the exact wording is" then you should use the exact wording or you look a bit silly. The government didn't lock up Nick Griffin. For the record, the courts didn't either. I guess he may have been detained while the investigations took place. He is entitled to give his views. He is not entitled to incite murder or terrorism. At least we didn't send him to Guantanamo indefinitely. It's a difference of detail. Any government which enacts any law is restricting freedom. It's just that some are more open about admitting it than others. US law, for example, restricts the freedom to commit murder. The 18th amendment was related to drug restrictions (and not a lot else). However it's not relevant. As I pointed out, all laws disadvantage someone. There are laws which parliament can't enact due to things like the human rights act. It could get round them by opting out of the EU legal system in much the same way that the US could change the constitution. Exactly which legal body makes the decision and how long it would take are just details. Perhaps the most important thing for you to realise is that we voted for those laws (and we have the right in court to ignore them anyway "Once all the prosecution evidence has been given, the jury may at any time, of its own motion, decide to acquit the defendant." from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juries_in_England_and_Wales#Jury.27s_right_to_stop_the_trial ) The law is not what the government(s) do to us- it is what we do through our governments.

You just won the "best typo of the day" award with " help in selecting a god hash function" Nice date for it too.

Is there any evidence that this treatment actually works?

I suspect that the 2006 project is well and truly over by now but anyway. That carboxylation can be as efficient as it likes, but it gives the wrong product. The nitrosation ( rather than nitration) is an interesting variation.

If you can't tell a subjective judge from an objective one then I'm not the only one who won't get to the truth. The point (which you missed) is that you actually need an objective judge- not to mention double blind conditions etc to get a reliable measurement of what you are looking at. but I pointed that out ages ago and you ignored it.

Where did they think water came from? It's all recycled, and it always has been.