Cap'n Refsmmat

You could probably do that sort of thing in JavaScript with Canvas, but I don't know how fast it would be. That'd be dependent on your JS technique and the JS engine. Here's some examples of JS graphics used for games: http://www.webresourcesdepot.com/25-amazing-javascript-games-some-fun-and-inspiration/ http://www.benjoffe.com/code/demos/canvascape/textures Or, just play with WebGL and demand that people have modern browsers: http://www.khronos.org/webgl/

I've been reading Karl Popper's The Logic of Scientific Discovery, which covers this quite well. (If you're up for a bit of a trudge through heavy reasoning, check it out, since it's essentially the book on the philosophy of science.) Science indeed cannot conclusively prove any theory of the natural world to be 100% correct. It can, however, quite easily prove any theory to be incorrect, and thus the requirement is that theories be falsifiable, not verifiable. Science doesn't rely on induction. The correct way to go about things is not to say "well, I've seen it work this way for a long time, thus it must be true," because there is no principle of induction that lets us reach that conclusion -- no logical principle that lets us conclude that things will work the same way in the future. Instead, science generates hypotheses making specific predictions. If the predictions are found to contradict reality, that is empirical proof that the hypothesis is wrong. If they are not found to contradict reality, well, that's it; we cannot use induction to prove that they must accurately represent reality, but we also know that in no case has the hypothesis been incorrect. I may be missing some of the details; Popper analyzes this much more extensively than I did. Moles are certainly part of the body. Now, if you're talking "structure," are you talking about bones, muscles, arteries, or what? Because even in structure, many people have scoliosis, making their spines asymmetrical. That's about as fundamental as you can get. If not everyone's symmetrical, then you were wrong that you have 100% proof that every human is symmetrical, as you claimed earlier.

Simply by choosing to represent different things in the creation story with different symbols -- for example, by placing points for animals, plants, and man and woman when they're created, then drawing connecting lines -- I'm fairly certain I could, say, end up with a picture of an octopus, and thus prove that God loves octopus. I could also develop a symbology for, say, the book of Job, and end up with a frowny face, thus proving that Job was sad. Is this meaningful?

You'd end up duplicating the efforts of the browser-makers implementing WebGL, and your code wouldn't be as widely distributed as theirs. You're better off waiting or using Canvas and SVG.

Take a look at this for some perspective on forum software: http://area51.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=75&t=33027 WebGL is also not well-implemented yet in browsers. I'd advise using Canvas in JavaScript (there are a few JS libraries to make it easier) or trying SVG with SMIL animations.

This seems arbitrary. The first line could just as easily be horizontal, or vertical, or at whatever angle you choose; the second step's instructions could easily be inverted, or have the lines going in different directions; the third step's line could be going in any direction; and so on. Basically, the same reasoning could result in a vastly different image. I could also, of course, make up completely different reasoning and a completely different image but still have it follow Genesis, just by having the lines represent different things. Also, I don't see an obvious fish or cross, unless you think two lines intersecting makes an excellent cross. (You'd get two lines intersecting no matter what when you start drawing lines, so I'm not surprised.)

Hmm, okay. I'm not sure I see what gains we'd get out of this, though. We've been trying to improve relations with Russia recently, not damage them. Perhaps if there were some issue we needed leverage on -- some issue where saying "ah, but you spied on us!" would help get them to cooperate with us. I don't know what that would be. What do we stand to gain?

Exactly. In the New Deal, the percentage of GDP was spent yearly for far more years. So more was spent.

Gosh, more excessively sarcastic attacks on Pangloss instead of argumentation? I'm shocked and awed! This is such a completely unexpected development from you. I mean, if I had noticed it before, I would have warned you against it, but this just came out of nowhere! I always assumed you knew better than to make personal attacks while complaining about personal attacks.

By "subterfuge," are you suggesting that the FBI fabricated the evidence against these individuals, or that their arrest was carefully timed and used for political purposes?

Is anyone in Congress actually calling for austerity? I thought this thread was about Congress refusing to increase the deficit, rather than taking sharp measures to eliminate it entirely. Maintaining the current level of spending is hardly "austerity."

Here are the court documents: http://documents.nytimes.com/criminal-complaints-from-the-justice-department?ref=europe I skimmed through, and it looks like the FBI has a solid case. Intercepted messages, surveillance, audio recordings of incriminating conversations, etc.

Ideally. IPS has fixed two of our major bugs and is working on the third. They intend to release an update to the converter packages tomorrow afternoon. I fixed another bug I found in BBCode conversion myself, and submitted a patch. For sanity's sake I'll probably run another test conversion with the new package to make sure it works.

A ball bearing would have a north and south pole as well. Let me explain a bit. Magnetic fields arise from charged particles (like electrons, the stuff of electricity) moving. If you hold a compass near a wire carrying a strong current, the needle will move because of the wire's magnetic field. Now, in a material like iron, there are many electrons orbiting around the iron atoms. These electrons are moving. Because they're moving, they make tiny magnetic fields. A normal lump of iron, though, isn't much of a magnet, because all those tiny magnetic fields are pointing in different directions and they just cancel each other out. When you hold a big magnet next to the lump, though, you line up all those electrons to make them orbit the same way, and all their magnetic fields point the same way. They add together. They make a magnet. Because the magnetic field comes from tiny magnetic fields from individual atoms, the shape of the chunk of metal doesn't matter. It could be a horseshoe, a donut, a ball, a mushroom, or a miniature Christmas tree. It doesn't matter, because all those tiny magnetic fields from the electrons have north and south poles. Now, this is a bit of a simplification, of course -- quantum effects mean electrons aren't actually going around in nice simple orbits, but it doesn't really matter.

If you truly wanted to keep discussion civil and non-spun, you'd have replied "No, I actually agree with you there," rather than going into all-out Attack Pangloss mode. "Fight fire with fire" only works for Bugs Bunny. Now, instead of arguing about each other's arguments, can we perhaps bring up some relevant evidence about global economics, or return to discussing the implications of Congress' refusal to keep throwing money at things?

Looking around, the best option I see is FreeDOS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeDOS However, FreeDOS doesn't support USB, although apparently some motherboards provide "legacy" support that FreeDOS can use. Why DOS in particular? You might consider using a minimal Linux system, as Linux will have more information available online and more actively-developed software.

I don't think you can really trace out gravitational field lines like you can with magnetic field lines. Field lines are a conceptual thing, resulting from how we describe magnetism and gravity as "fields;" they just indicate the direction of the force on something in that field. In magnetism, those conceptual lines must go from one pole to another. In gravity, there aren't "poles", and the field lines just go straight in to the mass. Field lines are just a result of how we look at gravity and magnetism mathematically.

I think there's some confusion here about the term "monopole" and how it can apply to gravitation, magnetism, and electrical fields. "Monopole" doesn't just mean "magnetic monopole," where there's just a North pole sitting there. (You know how the magnetic field of a bar magnet goes out one end and around to the other? The magnetic field of a monopole just goes out. Or in.) "Monopole" could also refer to a gravitational field. For example, here's the gravitational field of the Earth: Gravity acts like a field like magnetism acts like a field. You can draw field lines for gravity just as you can for a bar magnet. So there are gravitational monopoles and electrical monopoles. But there aren't magnetic ones.

Homeopathy is fun.

After taxes, you'd probably be below the poverty line with that kind of income.

Computer modeling of relativistic events is an application of relativity, but not necessarily an experiment. "Application" means you apply it to something, but that something does not have to be an experiment. It could be a spreadsheet.

It could be perfectly 3D but not have a discontinuity at its boundary. I'm not entirely sure how one visualizes that though.

What sort of pleasure-seeking behavior do you refer to? I don't see how one would reach that conclusion regarding women.

What led to this?

That seems to fix the problems.