Cap'n Refsmmat

No, there are package managers to let you install and uninstall packages easily. Generally you use the terminal if you need advanced configuration of adjustment of features, but Linux is getting better about making things accessible through the graphical interface.

Just FYI: making the same post 25 times in a row is not an acceptable way to get enough posts to participate in the Religion forum. Please stop.

If you do want to use open wireless networks, use Tor or a VPN service. VPN services route your traffic through another server, and all traffic between you and the server is encrypted. The VPN service provider could hypothetically track you (just as your Internet Service Provider could), but nobody in the Internet cafe could intercept your password.

I suppose you could create your own version of shorthand, since it's not based on letters but on words or sounds. It'd still be breakable by someone knowledgeable, but at casual glance they'd just go "huh?"

Simple rules to security: Stay up-to-date. Use Windows Update regularly. Update your web browser whenever there's a new version. Make sure your plugins are up-to-date. Make sure Adobe Reader is up-to-date. Keep regular backups. Use an antivirus program like Microsoft Security Essentials and have it update itself regularly. If you're browsing the Internet and visit a web page claiming you have tons of viruses and demanding you download some antivirus software, it's a scam. Don't do it. Don't install or run software unless you've checked its source and know it to be reputable. Use good passwords and use different passwords for each service, or use a password manager like LastPass. Don't give out the password to your email account, and make sure it's a good one -- if anyone gets it, they just have to press the "reset my password" button on any other website you use, and they'll get your new password emailed right to them. If you're on a public wireless network (in a coffee shop or something), do not log into any sites if the login page is not secure (https). Someone on the network can easily intercept your password otherwise. To surf the web anonymously, you need to use Tor. Unfortunately it makes browsing rather slow. Use it sparingly.

Letter frequency is the easiest way. If you have a large sample of text (a couple pages), you just look for the most common symbol. That's probably E, R, or S. (Or something like that -- there are tables for this.) Now the second most common. Then you find common groups of symbols in small words -- like the same three symbols repeated -- which probably mean something like "the." Before long you can crack the code. Here's a thorough explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_analysis

As explained in the religion forum rules, users must have 30 posts before they can post in the Religion forum. We've had problems in the past with bad behavior there (it's a controversial topic, after all), so we had to limit participation.

The problem with simple letter substitution is that it's easy to decode. Newspapers often have "cryptograms" with famous quotes printed in a substitution cipher, and it takes just ten or twenty minutes to figure out the code.

Just how impenetrable does the secret language need to be? Are you thinking "unreadable at a glance" or "unreadable to someone with significant spare time and some knowledge"?

Well, that's influenced by other factors, like anonymity: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/3/19/ That's exactly the issue in question. This point needs to be supported by the research on rape's motivations to prove either that rape is about sex or that it's about assault; so far, the available evidence points to assault, and the burden of proof is on Marat.

I'm talking about the concerns of physicists, not the concerns of ontologists. The issue of, say, feminist interpretation of literature is not about to go away, but it has nothing to do with physics. If what spacetime "is" is not experimentally testable, but only the behavior of the gravity which morphs "it", then what spacetime "is" is not of concern to scientists. In science, understanding "what is happening in nature" means being able to predict what will happen when you manipulate something or perform an experiment. This is a false dichotomy, as I've explained previously. The Earth does not deform. When viewed from another reference frame, it is a different shape. It has always been that shape and it always will be, in that reference frame. That is why Earth's rigidity does not enter into it.

And Marat's point is that if everyone had sex all the time, they wouldn't see sex as something worth weaponizing. Just like you'd never think "I hate that bastard so much, I'll go tie him down and talk to him about the weather!" If sex is just something you do all the time, like any other human activity, there's no reason it should be singled out to be used as a weapon. While I can see this has some credence, I think the necessary levels of intimacy and trust required for sex (i.e. it's very easy to make it into an unpleasant experience) make it weaponizable even if it were commonplace. You can't poke a hole in your condom when you're talking about the weather.

I think Marat's point is that society's best method to fight rapes is to encourage voluntary promiscuity. His proposal is controversial because it essentially blames women for causing rapes, and suggests they make changes in their own behavior to solve the problem, rather than suggesting that perhaps rapists are motivated by other problems. His proposal also begs the question, "Why should women have to act to satisfy men's every desire, rather than men having to adapt to reality?" It's essentially the doctrine of appeasement, whereby women must make concessions to stop the violence of men, rather than men making adaptations to stop their own violent acts.

The answer to my question (yes or no) is the same as the answer to the question "is this a legitimate study of physics?" The universe is complicated. Mathematics provides levels of abstraction which make the details much easier to work with. It is a tool.

Is it a subject that can be tested empirically? Can I experimentally determine why gravity requires spacetime?

I have asked for references for your key points and have again received none. Again, certain of your core assumptions must be supported for the entire argument to be convincing; you claim that statements of an "interpretation of human experience" do not require additional support -- but statements of what purport to be fact must be established as such. If you wish to convince us of your "interpretations" you must show they can be tested and validated. First is the allegation that sexual deprivation leads to a number of physiological and psychological problems. In post #34, you listed a number of specific issues -- anorgasmia, mental illness, "hurtful" self-discipline -- purportedly caused by involuntary sexual restraint. I asked specifically whether you have evidence that any of these problems are specifically caused by sexual deprivation, and you have responded with an analogy to elephants. This is not a matter of interpretation or widespread experience: you made a very specific claim with testable consequences. Whether deprivation leads to anorgasmia is not a matter of interpretation. I might also point out that sexual behavior varies widely between animals; look at any animal apart from apes, monkeys and dolphins and you will find evidence that deprivation of recreational sex is not harmful at all -- because none of those species desire it. (You might recall that humans are one of only a few species which have sex for purposes other than procreation.) Human sexual behavior is sufficiently complicated and distinct that it must be examined on its own, not by analogy with other animals. I do not find your analogy to be convincing. Another statement of fact you present without factual evidence is also interesting: "many pregnancies ascribed to birth control failure arise in fact from subconscious misuse of them to achieve pregnancy." This is, again, not a matter of interpretation; one could analyze birth control failures and categorize them to determine the cause. Regarding STDs, I might point out that nationwide herpes prevalence remains around 15%, and it is not "easily treatable," as you allege most STDs are. Furthermore, condoms only reduce the risk of transmission by 30%, due to the reasons I pointed out in post #36. You claim to make arguments based on new interpretations of common human experience. However, your arguments rest on questions of fact, and you frequently make factual assertions which are not borne out by evidence. This is a science forum, not an unfounded interpretation forum. Back up your facts.

Is there research on this subject? I'd expect there to be plenty, but I'm not familiar with it.

But is it a legitimate study of physics? Is it a subject which can be tested empirically? No, I do not; however, I do not see its relevance, as I have explained repeatedly that length contraction does not involve a physical force applied to Earth, and so Earth's rigidity is entirely irrelevant.

Indeed. I like that we've started citing references. However, there's a number of issues I would like to see your references for; in particular: You have not, as yet, presented any evidence that sexual alienation leads to anorgasmia, that male and female self-discipline is hurtful, that sexual "starvation" is painful (although "starvation" is a wonderfully suggestive term to use), and that mental illness arises from sexual frustration. Perhaps you know of some articles which specify the causes of anorgasmia or list the mental illnesses associated with sexual frustration. ("Female hysteria" is one that I know of, but it went out of favor some time ago.) Here lies one of the central premises underlying your argument: that sex is in short supply for men. One finds, however, that less than half of both men and women desire more sex than they currently experience, totaling only a third of all adults. What supply would you find to be adequate? Here you imply another central premise: that the reason for withholding sex is the risk of bearing children. Do you suppose there may be other interests of women in withholding sex? For example, the prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases implies that sex is not a risk-free activity, even with widespread education on safe sex. Let us consider your proposal that sex be as commonplace "as a willing ear to discuss the day's weather." The adult female population of the United States is roughly 100 million, and we might suppose that in a casual-sex society some two-thirds of that group is sexually active, for around 66 million sexually active adult women. Now, condoms are the only form of birth control which serve to ward off STDs as well; applying the 15%-per-year typical pregnancy rate for women whose partners use condoms, we get roughly ten million unwanted pregnancies yearly. This is more than twice the United States' annual birth rate. Consider also that condoms are not perfectly effective in stopping the spread of sexually transmitted disease -- particularly for oral sex, kissing, and other contact, for which the use of protective devices is not widespread or likely to be so -- and one winds up with a pregnant and purulent nation. Apart from practicality, however, there are deeper issues to consider; an argument from practicality is not satisfactory. Your fundamental argument goes like this: A shortage of female sexual partners leads to objectification of women and sex-deprived men. Objectification of women and sexual deprivation leads to rapes. There are four points which need to be substantiated for this argument to be sound, however: There is a significant and widespread shortage of female sexual partners. Statistics would suggest otherwise, as I have mentioned. Lack of sexual partners causes objectification. This is not at all clear without empirical evidence; one can concoct a just-so story to explain how it happens, but likewise I could say "as men get more female sexual partners, they learn to associate women with sex, and objectify women further." The point can't be settled without evidence. Objectification and sexual deprivation leads to rape. This is again not clear, given the studies on the motivating factors for rape linked to by other thread participants; one would also expect to find that rapists tend to have fewer sexual partners and higher sexual frustration, but studies have shown that rapists tend to have a large number of sexual partners ("Like physical sexual aggression, verbal coercion was associated with a large number of sexual partners," and a sexually assaultive group had an average of 14 partners per person, well above the population average in the study I linked to earlier on sex deprivation). Similarly, "The strongest risk indicators for sexual coercion were psychopathy [...] and an extensive history of uncommitted sexual relationships." That the obvious solution is increased female sexual promiscuity. There are in fact other possible solutions; for example, suppose women were to cease their so-called objectifying behavior, such as their obsession with fashion, makeup, dieting, and so on, hence forfeiting their positions as "governor of the sex economy," but did not accordingly increase their promiscuity. Unless you can establish through conclusive evidence that male sexual deprivation will lead to further rapes, what one would expect in your model is a decrease in objectification and hence a decrease in rapes. I hope I've explained these points adequately. I am particularly interested in how you explain the fact that rapists tend to have a large number of sexual partners -- rather than obvious sexual deprivation -- despite your claims in post #14 that "deprived people steal."

That's a rather large exception, since any violent sexual assault would seem to imply a tinge of sadism.

Rule 4 explicitly bans the use of logical fallacies; however, simply being wrong is not against the rules.

You can also use \mbox{} for the m/s. Click on the equation to see the code used to make it: [math]625,900 \, \mbox{m/s}[/math]

I'm not sure I follow how devaluations are essentially defaults. A default, by definition, requires that the government be unable to pay back its debts; a devaluation is simply a way for the government to create a "discount" while it pays back said debts. A default is an order of magnitude more serious than a devaluation. And Greece could afford to pay higher interest rates on its debt without substantial welfare cuts and government restructuring?

Do you propose that this is an intentional move by women?

I see four points here which are implied but not stated. Are these indeed what you are arguing for, or have I misunderstood you? Men need sex with women. Men deserve sex with women as a matter of social justice. Men who rape do so because they cannot get sex any other way; i.e. women consistently reject them or otherwise make it difficult for them. Women would be fulfilled and happy if they gave in and had more sexual partners. If you could simply verify that these are indeed implied by your argument, that would be great; I'd like to understand your points before I respond to them.