Phi for All

On a commercial scale, the savings are even bigger, since businesses tend to use more peak power from the utilities, so saving more energy during the day pays off bigger. I encourage commercial clients to stay away from LEDs that mimic old Edison technology (screw-ins) and fluorescent tube tech (although the 4' LED equivalents aren't bad), and opt instead for more integrated fixtures that take advantage of what solid-state technology offers. There are some nifty kits that replace the bottom part of a 2' x 4' fluorescent tube troffer (so many of those in the US!), which usually has 3-4 fluorescent tubes, with an integrated LED array and a better optical panel. The top half stays, connected to the existing power supplies and switches, the ballast is removed, and the new bottom panel is hooked up and snaps in place like the old bottom panel. This gives an integrated LED array for about 50 watts, as opposed to about 72 watts for LED tubes, or 128 watts for fluorescent tubes. The light levels are about equal. The kits are about $95 each.

What's in the male sneeze that isn't in the female sneeze, and why would it warrant murder? I'm assuming it's something lethally toxic, and that you're going with the self-defense plea. Also, unless someone gives you obvious clues (which the OP rules out with his description of the event), how would you know (or even suspect) that they're using an actual sneeze maliciously? The scenario sounds highly unlikely. You're frustrated by your boss at work, so you wait till the bus ride home to sneeze on a stranger? It sounds ludicrous to think there wouldn't be any consequences.

Everything people fear about these encounters is already against the law. It really boils down to using the restrooms for the use for which they were intended. Do people really think access is what's stopping people from being sexually assaulted in restrooms? Urinals are a bit of a monkey wrench. They're designed for only half the public, but they seem to serve a long-range purpose (men's room lines are almost always shorter at a stadium because of the extra facilities). Perhaps in the future we could design stall-only unisex bathrooms, plus a urinal-only choice for express service?

! Moderator Note It's been mentioned that your habit of breaking up your sentences so often with additional lines is difficult to follow. If the above is true, perhaps you could use normal paragraphs, which are much easier to follow and requires less scrolling. Do you want people to read, or do you want them to scroll? You're losing valuable attention which is one of your most important assets here. And seriously, why can't you tell us what's wrong instead of just claiming it's wrong? So far you're just waving your hands. It's one big Argument from Incredulity, and not very rational.

I think there's a danger in dismissing anything because it may have been motivated by concern for the way it comes across to people. Too often, a defensive atmosphere created by insensitivity could have been easily avoided by a better turn of phrase. I look at this as the good side of "spin". It's manipulative, but with good intentions. It seems clear in this case that the new term is more accurately descriptive, while also encompassing more types of conditions. A better, more reality-based explanation than we had before, the goal of science.

Oddly enough though, I've found that when I use reason and sound scientific methodology to reach a conclusion, it's fairly easy for me to change what I trust if evidence shows more support for a better conclusion. I was committed to the first conclusion until the second showed itself to be superior. And conversely, when I reach a conclusion using a more emotional, or faith/hope/wishful thinking approach, it's very difficult to convince me I might be wrong. Evidence to the contrary falls on deaf ears, and even confirms that my emotional assessment is correct. It forms a conviction, strongly held and impervious to reason, and self-reinforced because we tell ourselves that faith is a good thing. I think there is a danger in using faith if it might make you change the course of your life based on those convictions.

Trefil's stance on AGW doesn't do anything to encourage me. I haven't read this book, but I find his position at odds with evidence, and his deviance from the consilience isn't well explained.

! Moderator Note Sorry, it's against our rules to require members to watch videos before discussing a topic. We aren't here to promote your channel. SFN is a discussion forum, so please use this medium to give us an overview of what you want to discuss. We can read and reread your prose, and respond to select portions of it easily. Nobody wants to watch your video over and over to get the quotes right. I hope you'll respect the wishes of the site owners. No need to respond to this note in the thread. If you feel it's unfair, use the Report Post feature.

Good catch, +1. And it's something else the glass bowl probably blocks, along with the air currents. I'm also curious why he needs to put his hands so close if he's using his mind to move the wheel? Do the psi powers come through his brain and out his fingers? Surely if this was a mental ability, his hands would be unnecessary.

There's a difference though. Science promises the knowledge is there for you to explore if you suddenly feel the need to verify it. I think there's a difference between faith and trust, and this is a big part of that difference. You can trust science because you could check the evidence and methodology yourself, as many many skeptics before you have. Trust isn't blind the way faith is. Trust wears fine-print spectacles.

I don't accept your word on this. You need to rule out that it's your breath or your hands or any other outside influence moving the wheel, since the wheel is designed to move via air currents, not "psi" forces that can't be measured. Have you figured out why you can't affect a feather, or a needle, both of which are lighter than your aluminum wheel? What kind of force moves heavier objects like the wheel but can't move a feather? So far, I think you have nothing new. So I don't think this thread is going to be allowed. You just don't understand why we need evidence to support such an extraordinary claim, and for some reason you can't grasp why your videos are worthless.

You were offered several ways to set up experiments that would tell you something meaningful in your last thread, so I'm not buying the "simple-minded" bs. You choose not to be more scientific with this, and I think your "academy" is going to ignore you and your claims because of it. If you went to them with results of experiments, you'd be taken more seriously. As it is, you're asking busy scientists to seriously consider that your hands or your breath aren't affecting your stupid wheel that's designed to take advantage of both.

This sounds exactly like your last thread on this. No attempt to eliminate outside causes, no attempt at setting up experiments that more accurately measure, no attempt to be more rigorous at all. If you aren't going to do anything differently, if you aren't going to apply some science to your assertions, why are you opening this thread (again)?

I don't believe in Thor, or Santa Claus, or unicorns, despite all the huge amounts of writings concerning them. I also don't collect stamps, but I don't think it's a secular belief that keeps me from doing so. I just don't see the value, and I'm not at all interested. Same thing for god(s). I'm not against them, I just don't see any evidence to support their existence. It's a lack of belief, so how can it be a secular belief?

This is all very good, accepting people for themselves and trying not to judge. But the real question here is if atheists are using their belief system (or faith) with regard to their perspectives on religion. I say it's not a belief if you DON'T believe in it. Atheism is about a lack of belief in god(s), so it's not a religion or a religious belief. Atheism is NOT a faith-based belief.

! Moderator Note It's against our rules to use words that disparage any group of people. There are retarded people in the world, and we'd prefer they don't have to fight more battles because of discrimination. Please don't call anyone a "retard" here.

This is like saying pawns are worthless in chess because of their limited movement. A good punter can help the defense by kicking the ball as close to the goal line as possible, leaving less room to work with and a lot of yardage to cover for the opposing offense. Also, if they don't do their job well, they can have their punt blocked. Iirc, if you can get in the way of the ball, you can crash into the punter without penalty. They do occasionally take some shots. It can't be easy to keep your cool as a kicker when you're so extended and worried about getting blocked or flattened.

Discredited maybe. Undermined definitely. Disproven? Not in a scientific sense.

! Moderator Note Speaking of dumb, you were just warned about not coming back with this uncivil attitude. Yet you did it anyway. That's not ignorance; it's not something you can unlearn. That's a character flaw you might want to work on before you lie and agree to the rules of a discussion forum. You need some positive work done on how you communicate in a discussion. Right now, it's like you sat down at the table and started insulting everyone. You come off like a complete asshat. I'm sure that's not what you were going for, or I hope not. Either way, you better step up your game and start acting like a grownup. Be civil, it's our number one rule. We don't need you if you continue to act this way.

Apparently, it's some kind of barometer for success in business, since so many tout him as a smart businessman who isn't fettered by any experience in elected office. He seems to run his businesses with the idea that he can bet big, and simply fold if he loses. So if he bankrupts the country, he can always just default on the national debt. No cause for worry there.

This is a real and imminent fear, not one of the imagined ones conservatives like to trump up.

! Moderator Note Please stay gone unless you can contribute without the horrible attitude. Civility is required by the rules you agreed to when you joined.

Conservative prerogative. They're all about emotions, with as little reason as possible. They hate facts, and the horrid intellectuals that keep bringing them up.

I'm stating that we've learned more about many areas of science in the 10 years since An Inconvenient Truth aired, more than we would have if we hadn't gotten that wake-up call. We're better at tracking extremes in weather, like hurricanes. Katrina happened a year prior to the movie, Sandy 6 years later. The learning curve there improved partly because we were more aware after AIT. We understand ocean currents better because of the movie. We understand the relationship between droughts and local conflicts. We understand more about the polar caps, and how we're affecting them, as the movie warned. We're studying sea levels, and extreme temperatures more because they made a movie that raised public awareness. I suppose, in the end, we care more about where our grandchildren will be after we're gone than conservatives do. I think climate AGW deniers are only interested in what they have NOW, and don't think about how they're killing their kid's kids. Everything is short-term returns for them. I don't want to leave those kids in a bind that a consilience of scientists have been warning me about ever since I saw An Inconvenient Truth.

I see this so often it must be an official conservative tactic with a fancy name. You take your argument, isolate those things that need to be true in order to make it sound good, and then just assume they're true. Misrepresent it, lie about it if you have to, but assume they're true. Assume it so hard you're willing to make fun of anyone who disagrees. Sure, some of your words will sound really bogus and shaky, but that's when you double-down on the ignorance and start claiming something else so bizarre it makes everyone forget the other thing.