Phi for All

Actually, this is where the Bible is quite lacking. Very few other texts verify or confirm many of the events written about, and some (a supposed eclipse event leaps to mind) are flat out untrue. Where is the corroboration for the Great Flood from other civilizations around the world? The parting of the Red Sea should have also had a mention in chronicles other than the Bible, but we don't see that.

Maybe it's that new senile implant you were telling me about?

Welcome back!

It's more of a placeholder for the staff. We keep notes on all reported posts, and infractions we levy on our own. We have members who've tested lots of rules and gotten many points but are still here. On the other hand, if you keep breaking the same rule over and over, we're going to assume that will always be a problem for you, and you'll be banned. We normally suspend before we ban, to show the consequences of poor behavior. But we don't have a rigid system, and try to take context into account. Discussions lose their meaning if they aren't done right. The rules were designed to keep discussions interesting, meaningful, and civil.

I've got some gorgeous winding mountain drives near me as well, and I can understand the sentiment. The locals want to get in and out, but we just want to enjoy the drive and the scenery. But most of the time, I don't want to go slow. I'd rather go faster, but I don't need to get pulled over for a ticket either. In the battle between the tailgaters and the cops, I choose my cruise control.

Sorry, I assumed the OP was trying to wrap his head around spatial dimensions. I obviously didn't help.

So 1 dimension is a line measured by length. Move 90 degrees away from every point on the line and you have a 2 dimensional plane measured by length and width. Now move 90 degrees away from every point in that plane and you have a 3 dimensional cube, measured also now by height. Move 90 degrees away from every point in that cube and you have a 4 dimensional hypercube. Beyond that, lather, rinse, repeat? That's where my brain curls into a fetal manifold position.

Holy crap, Airbrush, I was on mostly deserted roads where there'd likely be no witnesses, and I wasn't afraid the guy would pull a gun! If you aren't the kind of person who enjoys aggravating people, the chances of you provoking someone to murder, even in the US, are pretty low. I don't enable tailgaters by making it easy for them to bully their way on the roads, but as I said, waving usually calms things down. If the guy had done this a couple miles back, on a stretch barren of intersections, I would have moved a bit more to the right, indicating he can pass me if it's so important, but I would have left my cruise control on at the speed limit. This is overly provocative for the US, and dangerous anywhere. To me, this is as bad as tailgating. You're interfering with the smooth flow of traffic, which I was taught was Road Rule Numero Uno. Honestly, the more I think about it, I think it was my goofy wave that he might have misinterpreted. He couldn't know that my cruise control was on, and may have thought I was paying too much attention to him and not enough to driving. It works in most situations, but obviously not all. In non-science threads, I often miss the mark with MigL when explaining my positions. I love him, but I think he often uses a liberal caricature of me in his replies. I love you too, bro.

This cake was supposed to be pink on the inside and blue on the outside. Again, nothing in the design would be considered objectionable on a birthday cake. This is bigotry at its worst, and I don't think this businessman deserves a license to do business with the public.

! Moderator Note Moved to Speculations. Please read the special rules for this section. Support your arguments with evidence.

This is my driving philosophy in a nutshell. Keep your distance, it's respectful, it's less stressful, it allows for better traffic flow, and it let's you make the best choices when you encounter someone whose driving is a problem. I can usually do this right at or just under the speed limit. As I said, I know there are plenty of jerks out there, and I'm prepared for inane behavior on their part. I wanted to see how others felt about this, whether they saw the incident as me putting people at risk by taking a hand off the wheel and unnecessarily splitting my attention while driving, or if it's more of a judgement call by the driver at the time whether it's safe to sip and drive, based on current conditions. I had the experience on the Bundesstrasse where it was frowned upon, so I thought I'd check with a more international crowd and see just how bad this behavior is considered elsewhere. As far as being impacted is concerned, it just struck me as bizarrely inappropriate, like yelling "Be QUIET!" at the library, or like a right-to-life activist killing an abortion doctor. It seemed absurd at the time, so much so that I wanted a reality check to make sure I wasn't missing something. I'm heavily biased when it comes to good coffee.

If it balances out, it's worth it. Those who need something like this the most are protected from such warnings by a thin layer of aluminum. You lost those folks at "analogies".

Oh, that way madness lies! This is what I'm most afraid of, that he felt it was justified to risk both our lives trying to tell me how dangerous I am. If I was doing 90 in the 40 zone, would he hero up next to me and motion me to slow down?!

And this is where the popular science dilemma begins. There is a need to encourage new scientists to study mainstream theories, but the pop-sci sources, in order to tap that wider audience, have to either dumb the article down or sensationalize some of the aspects to keep the reader interested. Do popular-science articles cause more interest or more misunderstandings?

You know, I see the point of staying focused when you're operating a heavy machine at speed, I really do. Distractions can compound the danger in a situation where something else goes wrong with your drive. Hot coffee can be quite the distraction if it leaves the confines of its mug, and I'll risk a bit of a swerve if it looks like I can save a rabbit from going under my wheels. There are many reasons not to allow it. Being stopped at a light, though, that's not driving to me, not until the light changes again. I've seen people change drivers at a red light, and I've seen people change clothes at a red light (take off a coat or sweater). It's the only time to take both hands from the wheel. I don't care if you want to take that time to dash off a text, or go over the speech you have to give, or put your makeup on. The only special thing required of you when you're stopped at the light is that you don't linger when the light changes. Stay on top of that and you can have your apple, AFAIC.

You know, it's funny, but if the guy would have flipped me off, or yelled something unintelligible, it wouldn't have bothered me nearly as much. Assholes abound, and you have to learn to live with them, or work your way around them somehow. But when people do inexplicably stupid, irrational things, that's when I think, "Ah, this is what 'seeing red' means! This is the pre-postal phase!"

Maybe I should chalk it up to hypocrisy instead of irrational behavior. "I'm going to drive a car length behind you to let you know you're doing something I consider dangerous!" I'm waiting for the US car makers to start putting Kuerig machines in the cars where the glove box is now (because who wears gloves to drink coffee?).

It's illegal in the UK? Is it frowned upon in other European countries (as I said, I'm pretty sure Germany won't allow it)?

I hadn't considered that as support for the practice, but it's a great point. It also doesn't have to take much attention away from the road. Switching radio stations takes more focus away, imo.

You understand irrationality, I can see that, but what is the objection? Why is it worse to drink coffee while driving than it is to tailgate someone to express your objection to drinking coffee while driving?

The average user doesn't know what temperature to use for any given type of cloth, so it's much easier to mark the temperature dial on an iron with "wool" or "cotton". The label tells you what the clothing is made from, and the irons match that. You're suggesting an extra layer of learning that doesn't do much extra for the consumer. Why would it help me to set a specific temperature for my linen clothes when the iron can be set to "linen"?

Long story long: Weekday morning, about quarter of seven, sun's up, I'm driving back roads to get to my destination, very light traffic, beautiful weather. I have the radio on, I have a coffee in the cup holder, and I'm using cruise control to keep me at the speed limit of 40 mph as I sip my coffee and enjoy the drive. The roads I'm on are mostly straight shots, with very few curves. It's not a difficult drive. There's nobody in front of me, and the car behind me is pretty far behind me, and seems to also be doing the speed limit since he isn't getting any closer. Perfect! I'm in a nice zone and all is well. Eventually I get to stop light that's red. I stop and the guy that was behind me catches up. When the light turns green, I take off, get up to speed and resume my cruise control at the same speed limit. Now, however, the guy behind me is tailgating me pretty bad. It seems irrational. He was OK with the speed limit before, so I don't get it. So I do what I always do with tailgaters. I waved at him. Sort of a goofy fast wave, like "You're so close it's like we're friends!" Normally, folks either back right off, or do so after a few seconds when they see I'm not speeding up. But I can see this guy is angry and yelling through the windshield! There's nobody but us on the road, I'm doing the speed limit, and I can't figure it out. I do an exaggerated shrug and put my right hand palm up, like "What's going on?" About that time, he signals to turn right into an office park ahead. There's a turn lane for it, so he moves over and speeds up. I'm still on cruise control, and I realize he wants me to know why he's mad! He's going to speed up alongside me before he has to do a hard brake to make his turn, probably to flip me off, or yell so I can hear him. I'm kind of glad because I can't figure this one out, and kind of amused that he thinks it's this important for me to know. I made sure the intersection was clear all around, then I looked back over my shoulder at this guy to see what his beef was. You know what he did? He mimicked me drinking coffee from a mug. It was so unexpected, I had no response. I drove the rest of the way to my destination shaking my head. If I was on the highway, with multiple lanes and higher speeds, I wouldn't be eating or drinking anything because of the extra need to focus. But this was single lanes through a suburban/office park area in very light traffic, very early. It seemed completely irrational to me that he would object to that, put us both at risk for that, so of course my mind is trying to make sense of it. It's such a common practice in the US to sip coffee on your morning commute. We have drive-up Starbucks everywhere. Cars aren't sold without cup holders. I've wondered if he objected to me using my own bright red latte mug instead of a paper cup, but again that seems bizarre. Briefly, I wondered if he thought I was drinking booze, but it was so early in the morning, I wasn't swerving or driving erratically, and even in his mimicry he mimed drinking from a mug, not a bottle. Then I remembered driving in Germany with a relative who was concerned about anything that took your hand off the wheel, and I wondered if it could be something like that, some sort of cultural difference that annoyed this guy so much. I also found out that New Jersey is considering banning drinking or eating while driving. What do you think? Is it never OK to drink and drive, if it's just coffee or soda?

It sounds a bit like a confirmation bias. The bank rep thought he knew what you needed, his brain provided the script for dealing with you, and the things you tried to say didn't fit with the pattern he'd chosen. Really good salespeople train to speak as little as possible, and when they do say something it's to ask a question that encourages the client to speak. They know who's the important person in that conversation. Often with customer service, the rep hears what he/she thinks is the problem, and their mind starts working to fix it, which means they miss it when you state the real problem. It doesn't help when their employer times their calls for efficiency, since it pressures them to leap out of the starting gate too soon, as it were. But in general, I've noticed some people will sort of zone out soon after you start speaking to them. You can usually see their eyes lose focus on you. They've jumped on something you first said, and are formulating a response to it in their heads instead of listening to all of what you said. I don't think folks like this trust themselves to think on their feet, so they develop ways to gain more time to think, so the conversation goes smoothly, without too many pauses. Another trick like that is using filler words like "um" and "well". Some folks think silence is uncomfortable. Also, phone conversations are always a bit different from talking IRL. Without seeing people's faces to accompany the words, a lot of context is lost. IRL, the rep would have seen your face, would have seen you trying interrupt, would have seen you shaking your head, and hopefully would have shut up and let you speak much sooner.

! Moderator Note This is not prejudice, it's acceptable skepticism to question extraordinary claims without evidence. We will NOT be ruling this out. This is a science discussion forum. Please present evidence here, do NOT direct people to other sites. Please support your claims as much as you can. And just to be clear, this is NOT about "opinion". If you claim to know extraterrestrial life exists, that's something you're going to have to support here. Nobody is going to let you get away with these claims as "opinion". If you have "abounding" evidence, you need to show it here.

This is where the thread falls apart for me (and others, it seems). You seem to ASSERT that 1) Jesus was obviously a real person, and 2) may have been a woman. The next page is devoted to WTF?, to which you toss out bits of flippancy that further obfuscate the point you're trying to make.