John Cuthber

Talking to Putin about setting up a dictatorship.

They have been doing it for a while. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/texas-gop-rejects-critical-thinking-skills-really/2012/07/08/gJQAHNpFXW_blog.html

No, it's largely in retaliation for the US imposing stupid tariffs on cheese from the rest of the world to protect the dairy lobby there and this sort of thing https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/4272657/US-punishes-France-with-roquefort-tariff.html It's remarkable how the Capitalist proponents of "free trade" are so happy to slap tariffs on stuff. It's as if they don't believe in market forces.

OK, it's a real thing. But it's not a real thing in this thread.

"several tens of millivolts and several microamps per cm-2." So that's about 100 nW per cm^2 About a milliwatt per square metre. According to this page https://bee-health.extension.org/honey-bee-nutrition/ "A worker bee needs 11 mg of dry sugar each day" Sugar stores about 4 KCal per gram or 16KJ/g So 11 mg of sugar provides 176 J That's pretty close to 2 mW So they are producing energy at about the rate needed to keep a bee flying round a 2 square metre flowerbed. It may be technically interesting, but it's not going to save the world. Because it's not real.

Yes. How is that related to the question in the title? I think it's clear that it relates to the OP. Imagine to (identical) twins who are separated + go + live in different environments. Would they grow up looking the same? Well, clearly, not always. One might grow up in a place with more sun and get more skin damage + wrinkles. The other one might well think themselves lucky. The problem, as I see it, is working out what isn't "luck"? I guess you can choose to use sunscreen, but otherwise how you look isn't really your choice (or anyone else's).

"We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in "reality." And reality has a well-known liberal bias." https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert No great shock that the scientists who study reality tend to be Left wing.

No. It comes from the fact that science needs cooperation and critical thought which are both anathema to the republicans. is exactly what the previous system did. It forced them to publish in expensive journals which people couldn't afford to read. The current move to making everything available makes sense both from the perspective of the scientist who enjoys a large audience and from the taxpayers who paid for he work and are now better able to benefit from it. That unevinced assertion may be true, or it may no. However, it's stupid to imagine that the people who compiled the original survey did it at cocktail parties or bars. They will have taken the trouble to get a representative sample of scientists and they found that nearly all of them are more Left than Right.

You say "it is impossible." The rest of the western world says "We did it". Who is right?

If the urine and water are not consumed, the cough will go anyway.

Hopefully, one of them will explain to him that this is a dumb idea.

For a moment I wondered if you think it's names, English, or pronunciation that make no sense. Then I remembered, it's all three.

Fundamentally, in a world where we need to warn people that coffee is hot when you have heated it, I don't think we are going to succeed in getting people to calculate cooking times for their potatoes from a heat capacity and mass. I still want know what density Sensei assumes for air and potatoes.

Unless, of course, it isn't. Have you seen the pictures of the Amazon forest fires. Lots of yellow smoke, but I don't see any obvious source of lead.

I think it's fair to say , without knowing or caring who is right, that the strength of opposition between the views of just two people on opposite sides of the border is such that linking the two countries is probably a non-starter.

And then there's the other reason... It is unlikely that nuking an embryonic hurricane would actually stop it. But it is possible that you would alter the path. Now imagine that a "nuked" storm hits a city. It would have missed if you hadn't tried nuking it, so it is now your fault that the city got hit. You are now personally responsible for all the deaths, injury and damage. I hope you have a good lawyer.

OK, what about a conventional oven? It's common for that to be set well above 100C. So, if the food reached equilibrium, all the water would be boiled off and the food would be almost charcoal. Does that mean I should bake 4 spuds for 4 times longer than I bake 1?

The biggest single problem is that there's not much CO2 in the air. At 400 ppm (by volume), each tonne of air only contains about 600 grammes of CO2. So you need to shift huge volumes of air, and that takes a lot of energy.

They didn't. Trump is in power. That says something about America. (Albeit, not uniquely)

What if it is someone else's priest. My perspective is that I don't recognise the authority of their priest or of their God. So, from my point of view, they have "apologised" to some random person. Somehow they think that makes it OK. Now, the latter point has some validity. To say to yourself " bother! I shouldn't have done that and I will try to do better next time!" is fine . (though, if you happen to recognise me next week I'd still hope you would say sorry) If "confession" makes it less likely that you would apologize to me (if the occasion arose) then that confession has done harm. That would be... just one of those things. (If toe strapping is a game then there's nothing to apologise for, and I was talking about accidentally doing so.). I might still think you were a bit of an oaf, but I'd get over it. What does the priest add to the process? And look where it sometimes gets them.

If you get a chance to, and in an ideal world, yes; but there are a myriad reasons why you wouldn't or couldn't. And I think we can agree that I should feel some sort of "relief" at getting the chance to do so. Both of us will be happier if I apologise to you for stepping on your toe. Such behaviour is socially "useful". My point is that, if I (knowingly) apologise to some random stranger instead, I don't "deserve" that sense of satisfaction. Religious confession is where you wrong someone, apologise to your imaginary friend, and feel that you did something useful in doing so.

Close, bu no cigar. This post was the one I made when I got back from the pub. As for pointing out your glitch- better late than never. Incidentally, "sober" isn't usually a verb. "Sober up" is. So you should say " It's good to sober up prior to replying, don't you think?" But I think you are right about your 2nd PS. (and I think some might benefit from an "I'm stoned" warning too.)

If I accidentally step on your toe should I apologise to some random stranger at a later date, or should I apologise to you?

I can make the comparison quite easily. I go to the bank and explain that I want to put solar panels on my house to heat it (instead of using oil fired heating). I don't have the cash to pay for it, so I want a loan. And, as you say, the panels last about 25 years so I will take out a loan over that period. (In principle,I can then take out another loan for new panels when I need them. And the bank will be happy to tell me what the loan would cost- in terms of monthly repayments. I can then simply compare one set of monthly bills (oil + delivery etc) with the other (loan repayment etc.) (There are maintenance costs too but I can simply include them in my calculation) Now, it's not unreasonable for me to assume that the price of oil will rise- and it's possible that the interest rate will change. But, for now, I can compare the two options. Incidentally... "You can't predict price of oil" "It can, and will, go high," You just predicted it.

And the shameful thing is that the church says we are forgiven- by someone's invisible friend- but that "feeling better" is only legitimate when the forgiveness is from the one actually wronged. Nasty bastards, aren't they?