John Cuthber

Uncharacteristically, I find myself in total agreement with JohnB on this point.

Well, if these data are right http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Distribution_of_Annual_Household_Income_in_the_United_States.png then his choices of examples are above the household incomes of about 90% of the population. Assuming he's right (and it would be good if someone checked that) then he's scaremongering for about 10% of the electorate. Perhaps the other 90% will look at this video and thing "Great- maybe some of that tax money will get back to me somehow- better schools form my kids or better healthcare. I'm voting for Obama!" Seriously, he only gives examples of people with incomes roughly 5 times and 3 times the national median income. No mention of "normal" people. He also fails to say what that money will be used for. I'm leaning towards the idea that he's a right wing nut case- but it's possible that he genuinely doesn't know how most people live in which instance he's just very poorly educated.

That's OK, if the data are normally distributed you can calculate pi from the area under the probability distribution curve.

It would be quicker (and give the same result) if you missed out the sqrt function. Also, an equivalent experiment has been done. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffon's_needle#Estimating_.CF.80

You do know that's just a made up story don't you? As such, it's not terribly convincing evidence.

Come to think of it, can you "late harvest" apples? I thought they fell off the tree.

It is important to remember that, if there turns out to be some link however strong (or weak) then it won't in any way vindicate the original paper or Andrew Wakefield's actions.

No you can't. That is about something else entirely.

While the EU has had plenty of stupid rules, that particular one was a myth. My personal favourite is part of the REACH regs which bans the use of highly flammable and extremely flammable propellants for novelty products such as silly string, whoopee cushions and fake excrement. The punchline is the exemption (from these regs) for those materials marked as being "for professional use". I wonder if the cause of your disgruntlement at apples is that far too many of them are "golden delicious". I can only presume that, in French, the words respectively mean "snot coloured" and "bland".

"I didn't think I'd have to explain the difference between a factory fire and atmospheric re-entry heat. " Nor did I. This is from wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_reentry "An approximate rule-of-thumb used by heat shield designers for estimating peak shock layer temperature is to assume the air temperature in kelvins to be equal to the entry speed in meters per second — a mathematical coincidence. For example, a spacecraft entering the atmosphere at 7.8 km/s would experience a peak shock layer temperature of 7800 K. " 7800 K is hot enough to melt anything. Since Titanium is flammable it's odd that it survives re-entry in the vicinity of that superheated air. Brickwork and steelwork often survive factory fires because they are not all that hot. Obviously, if it's observably true that Ti survives re-entry then it does and so it should be phased out.

"Prohibitions on metals like titanium that don't burn up are also being pursued." Pardon?

Sorry, I thought it was obvious.

I understand that Dr Mann had a camera. Lack of objective evidence shouldn't be a problem here. (Thought I grant you that we have only seen one side here which is unfortunate.) That's the point of tracking the people down and bringing them to trial; you see both sides. Recording the level of service in a burger joint is not a threat to their business. If presenting the information about service to a wide audience adversely affects their business then it is their poor service that is a threat- not the act of recording it. "I thought motive was quite an important part of a prosecution." Not really, whatever their motivation was, their actions are apparently inexcusable. If the evidence shows that they attacked him then it's assault or whatever the relevant term is in France. If, for example, the security video showed that he started it then it's self defence. That may make a difference to the defence- but not to the prosecution. The motive may affect the sentencing, but that's another matter.

"Nice try on the bait and switch. I only used traitor in connection with one definition." Indeed. But since it isn't the one in the dictionary, it's not a lot of use. So I used the right definition when I answered. I haven't checked their data yet but if the NSA are calling people "traitors" because they redefine the word then I'm not going to waste my time doing so. I'm going to ask you (again) to name the people who actually harmed either the USA or its citizens. "Come on mate, you're a Pom. You seriously don't think that a group in say, 1941, that was recieving funding and direction from Berlin wouldn't be considered "Traitor"? " That would depend entirely on what they actually did. I might call them a resistance movement if they acted in support of the Jews in Germany at the time. (Incidentally I think a "who has the most useless politicians?" competition would be difficult to judge because we all have some staggering contenders, and it's off-topic anyway.)

No. It isn't nonsense. You just didn't understand it. Essentially, it's just a shorter version of the programme you gave. What you seem to have missed is that, in order to calculate arctan you need to calculate an infinite series so you might as well calculate one that gives pi directly. Calculating 3 series is going to be slower (in general) than just calculating 1 so your method, while mathematically amusing, isn't practical. Also, the series sums used in computers are carefully optimised to run quickly and converge well. For example they are more likely to use Chebychev polynomials or this sort of thing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CORDIC than Taylor series. However those series require a prior knowledge of the various constants. I strongly suspect that, at least for trig functions, one of those is pi. So, I think your method needs to know what pi is in order to calculate pi. My method does the same but is quicker. Incidentally, even setting that aside, statements of fact are not nonsense, so your first sentence is wrong anyway. As for "Anybody else who has something worthwhile to say about post #107, please do so" Well, since this is a discussion forum, if they had anything to say, they would have done so. So your second sentence is redundant. In future you might want to not bother with posts that are half wrong and half pointless.

Who cares what their motivation was? Hunt them down and prosecute them for assault and property damage.

Because this wouldn't work By analogy, a whole lot of "compass and straight edge " geometry wouldn't work.

Fundamentally I'm against student loans because there should be student grants. I guess it depends on what you think the selection criteria for university entry should be. Do you think the decision to go to university should depend on whether you have the mental ability to benefit from it, and go on to a more productive life or whether or not you (or more realistically your parents) are rich enough to fund it? From society's point of view, I think that's a no-brainer. There are people who have the potential to offer a lot to society if properly educated but don't have the cash to go to university. If you don't have some provision for state funding of those people then society misses out. Fundamentally, what is the difference between primary/secondary education which practically everyone accepts should be funded by the state and tertiary education which many people don't think about in the same way? There's no way I would have been able to afford to go to university if it were not for the grant system. Because I went to university I got a better job and paid more tax. I'm pretty sure I have already much more than repaid the investment which the state made by giving me a grant. They are now making a "profit".

Hang on. The fact that you are slowly dying painfully will indicate to you that you did something wrong. So you are no longer ignorant. You would be very much aware of it. So the lack of bliss in that circumstance is not an exception to the assertion in the title. Imagine that you are enjoying the sweet taste of the glycol when you are struck by lightning. Your blissful ignorance of the toxicity is never brought to a halt by the pain (and hence knowledge) of being poisoned.

It would be more difficult to draw hexagons.

What? No sketch?

"Can you name some? I expect that they do exist but I'd like to see some proof that right wing groups exist that take funding and direction from foreign powers. " Ooh! What happened there? did someone somehow redefine "traitor" as meaning those that "take funding and direction from foreign powers. "? Lets go back to the dictionary shall we? Traitor: a person who betrays another, a cause, or any trust. So, for example, that might mean anyone who says the health service is safe in their hands, but, having got into power, seeks to privatise it. How about the current Prime minister of the UK? He was, I think it's fair to say, involved in right wing groups as a student.

"i personally consider myself fairly close to the anarchist position. i often find myself critisizing government action." So do the party in opposition, but they are plainly not anarchists.

When you were a kid did you not see other kids wearing an eye patch for long periods? http://www.aucklandeye.co.nz/index.asp?pageID=2145837616 If the covered eye didn't return rapidly to normal this would be a pretty dumb treatment.

Surely the answer to the question "Why do we assimilate new accents?" is, for the same reason we got an accent in the first place. That in turn is essentially the same reason why this is a joke. First bloke "I'm sure as hell glad I wasn't born in Spain" Second bloke Why?" First bloke. "I don't speak the language"