Phi for All

This is one of the biggest mistakes you will EVER make, period. It seems like such a cool thing to say, makes you seem so smart. In reality, you may as well be saying, "I've never played poker before, but I'll bet I can beat a professional player, because I don't have all that relevant experience and knowledge to trip me up and hold me back." It will haunt you when you're older, and realize that you can't think outside of something you don't already know well. What you're doing isn't thinking outside the box, it's peeing all over the outside of the toilet, simply because it's too much work to aim at the insides.

There's a tiny bit of mercury in every fluorescent lamp. They don't emit it, it's just a tiny bit inside the vacuum tube that gets atomized to react with the phosphor coating the inside of the lamp. Mercury itself does give off mercury vapor, which is toxic, but the amount in a CFL is negligible in terms of the vapor produced. Here's a PDF on cleanup if you break a CFL. What a CFL emits is UV radiation. The phosphor blocks most of it, but CFL tubing is very tiny and tight compared to a fluorescent tube. The phosphor doesn't always coat all the inside, especially on the tighter twists, so UV will leak out.

Neither nature nor dog breeders are trying to produce a new species, but the dog breeders are probably more interested in the traits that would keep a dog a dog, within the same breed. They go out of their way to enhance dog qualities. Nature, on the other hand, doesn't consider any of those traits unless they make the dog more successful at passing his genes along. Actually, most ideas come from observation, and I really wouldn't call that preconceived or biased. This is just labeling, and is an important part of the process. We have to worry about biases, limited knowledge, and preconceptions after we've labeled something. We labeled the Earth "flat" because that's what we observed. Then our observations got better, and we realized it wasn't flat after all. We didn't change our definition of flat, we didn't let our flat bias influence us once we realized what we were seeing.

Obviously, the people who are making XP so popular are only using it for specific, low-level tasks. I know people who haven't updated their system in a decade, but they only use it for one thing, like email, or to play games. Nobody who is seriously* using a computer for general business or studies is surfing or running spreadsheets on an XP machine. * As defined by me.

It's hardly rigorous to ask you questions about your idea. You made a claim about star brightness, and that claim showed the rest of us that you were assuming brightness was the only measurement used. It's not. So we ask why you think it's wrong, because we know it's not, and we hope that when you explain, we can find out where the misunderstanding is. Because there really HAS to be a misunderstanding on your part. The Big Bang Theory is our current best explanation of how the universe developed from an incredibly hot, dense state into the way it is currently. Evolution is seen every day, and has a serious mountain of evidence to support it, and nothing, NOTHING, to refute it. I don't know who you've been listening to, but this whole "milking public funds" angle is ludicrous. You need political persuasiveness to milk public funds, and scientists have only evidence to persuade the public.

False dilemma. These aren't the only two solutions. I think we have to agree that neither of these outcomes are truly preferable, and one only becomes grudgingly so when contrasted with the other. If we know the DP isn't effective, we shouldn't use it, period. We don't steal from thieves to show them how bad it is, we don't beat muggers unconscious. I've been conflicted about the treatment of the more violent members of our society. It's easy to say they're incorrigible, and we should just get rid of them by the cheapest means possible. I think it would make the problem even worse if we did. If we executed the worst 5% of violent criminals, how long would it take the the next worst folks to realize they're now the worst?

If I copy a document on my printer, I know I'm not getting an exact duplicate. But for my purposes, sharing/recording the information contained in that document, I think I can safely claim that my copy is exactly like the original. No information was changed, and any differences between the two have no real distinction in this context.

I agree with Greg H, Windows XP and Windows 7 work, with a minimum of fuss. And they're used by so many other people that it makes things go smoother. Unlike Vista, ME, or a few other crap OSs Microsoft forced on us. I put up with Windows 8 because I can make it work more like Windows 7, and ignore the other junk. If I had a touch-screen, it might be different. Yeah, I did this with my latest laptop, reformatted my Windows 8 HD with my Windows 7 disks. I wouldn't do this again, I'd just by a new HD with 7 on it and swap it out.

This is, of course, applicable to emerging industries as well. We more or less assume that a new technology, such as solar energy or solid-state lighting, will eventually take the place of older, more limited technologies. It's practically a given with efficiency and sustainability as an ongoing focus. The problem is which companies to invest in. Having a great product alone doesn't make a business, and even with high-powered backing, there's no guarantee you'll be as successful as the tech you're making. I'm hopeful that electric cars will become the norm within a decade, but I'm not sure I could tell you if Tesla is a better investment than General Motors in the long run. Chevy's coming out with the new 200-mile-range Bolt, but Forbes says buy Tesla while gas is at an all-time low. And that may be a partial answer for you. Don't invest in oil companies if you don't like the way they do business, but instead invest in an automobile company that's at least trying to push hybrid cars instead of gas-guzzlers. If you can't pick up the boulder and set it down where you want it to go, just get it rolling and start nudging it in the right direction.

This just sounds like forcing a specific interpretation of "unique" to fit your idea. A distinction without a difference. Why is it meaningful that replication might not be exact?

! Moderator Note This thread is the epitome of soapboxing and preaching, which is against our rules. You even titled it, "The Answer". This leaves zero room for discussion, which is what this site is all about. Please save this type of post for other forums, or a blog. Moved to Trash.

Definitely not like this. It's confusing and jumbled. Most people who don't work with maths have a misunderstanding of what logic is. These days, far too many people treat logic as "this makes sense to me". But common sense fails us often. It seems logical that spacecraft entering our atmosphere should be aerodynamically designed to cut right through the air in the most efficient manner, but the opposite is true. Blunt designed modules and capsules provide better heat shielding. You should read up on critical thinking instead of logic. That's really what you're talking about here.

Can you give us a specific example of something you had trouble using your hands to deconstruct, and where you ran into problems?

If you're investing to make the highest return possible, you're doing it the right way. If your aim is to invest in industries and markets you'd like to see flourish, so they can take the place of older, inefficient, yet established industries, then you're doing it wrong. For the emerging industry/technology/market it's two strikes, since you're helping the old stay strong while denying investment in the new. As far as the athlete analogy goes, I think it's a spirit vs letter-of-the-law type of thing. You didn't say you were doing this to make the most ROI possible while still obeying the law, you said, "In the past I have invested in solar and wind turbine industries. Things I was hopeful about for the future." In spirit, it sounds like you wanted to use the stock market as a way to help businesses you believed in, in hopes of supporting a better future. I think you just need to decide why you're investing. Maybe splitting your investments between old and new, in a non-conflicting way, is the answer?

Calling out ignorance of a specific subject is honest, at least. Nobody called you ignorant of everything. I'm ignorant on many subjects, myself. And there is a difference between calling you a dick, and Strange saying, "You are now behaving like a total dick. I don't know why." You can see that, yes? If not, you're taking it too personally, too emotionally. You are much greater than this idea, whether it's wrong or right, and most ideas in science are wrong.

It sounds like you're starting to really take this personally. Nobody is attacking you, but your behavior is deteriorating, so they're saying you're acting (not are) less than your normal civil self. For what it's worth, deep breaths can be refreshing.

This seems to be saying, "I really make sense to me!" Am I missing the importance?

We've really tried to remove as much judgement from overall moderation as is possible, so that all we're doing is enforcing the rules the site owners have approved. So the times when you've been "told off" for breaking the rules should be pretty easy to figure out. That about covers my staff contribution. The other bits I've noticed as a member are mostly logical fallacies. It's usually the membership that point these out as weak arguments, and it normally stops there because everyone can see the fallacies once they're pointed out. But when someone uses fallacious logic a LOT, and continues to use it even after someone mentions it, well, we have rules against that. imatfaal gave you a really good description of the ad hominem fallacy this morning, which you've used a lot. I can't count the number of times you used the Argument from Incredulity fallacy in the Global Warming Skeptic thread. That one was explained as well, so we begin to see a pattern here. You ask for explanations, they're given to you, and you then promptly ignore them, dismiss them, or perhaps don't read them. This thread seems to be the same thing. "I can't believe I've got so many tellins off here at SFN". Incredulity is not evidence, it's not a good argument. The other big one you use is Strawman, but you're not alone there, it's a common fallacy. You're told that a 2 degree rise in temperature in a specific area will cause more deaths, but instead of refuting that, you point to a completely different area that's already 2 degrees hotter and argue that they have fewer deaths due to heat. You should be capable of seeing why those are two completely different circumstances and context, but you don't post that way, continuing to aim at a different target and claiming you hit the bullseye. The upshot is, trying to discuss things with someone who seems to be ignoring your best points is pretty frustrating. And when you do present an argument, a lot of times it's based on some faulty critical thinking. You keep telling people you're a skeptic, but few of your positions reflect that accurately. True skeptics are waiting to be shown how data was gathered, and how the interpretations of that data were performed, how they led to any conclusions. When they get that confirmation, that sound methodology was used, they're no longer skeptical, they accept the evidence for what it shows them. You've been given all this, yet claim to still be skeptical. That's just denialism, not skepticism. Which makes it seem like you have an agenda that's impervious to any external voice of reason. I'm sure you're a very honest person, but your arguments make ME skeptical. Nothing personal, sorry if this wasn't what you were after.

Excuse me, but it seems you're arguing that democracies should allow bribes because we can't ever make the situation better, and other forms of government are worse so that makes it even more OK. Is this what you meant?

I'm sure one of our chemists will chime in, but I did notice that Lysol makes wipes that have H2O2 in them instead of benzyl ammonium chloride. That's not to say that they don't mix well, though. It could just mean both would be redundant, since only one active microbial is needed.

These phrases are nothing more than Begging the Question fallacies, imo. To tell someone you don't suffer fools gladly, or that you call a spade a spade, assumes automatically that your judgment is true. I'm just calling them as I see them, which seems to mean I have every right to do so, and also assumes I'm being honest in my observations. Put the straw down! I was very specific which "little sayings" I objected to, and why. And I don't think I ever accused you of stifling the discussion, either. Are you trying to make me suffer? Should I do it gladly?

Well, you have to torture your definition of "truth" to get it to fit science, so it's not a good definition. Theories are NOT truth, they're the best explanations for various phenomena we have to date. One of the strongest aspects of the scientific method is that it never looks for proof or truth, but rather for the preponderance of evidence. In this way, we never stop looking for the best explanations possible. If we told ourselves we've "proven" something, or we've found some kind of "Truth", we'd stop looking for a better answer. It's not just semantics that science doesn't look for Truth. It would make science worthless if we stopped gathering evidence and just assumed something was "true". It took a long time for me to see the myth around the whole "thinking outside the box" garbage. It sounds so great, so intuitively correct, but in reality you're asking yourself to start from square one, assume everything in the box is useless to you even though EVERY BIT OF IT WORKS, and derive what observations you can based on complete ignorance of what you're supposed to be thinking outside the box about. Experts can "think outside the box" ONLY because they understand the box so well. How can you even know you're thinking outside when you don't truly know where the box begins and ends? Do you just assume that if an expert knows something, it must be from the box and therefore worthless to you? I've seen far too many smart young people come through here trashing mainstream science, claiming it's hidebound, close-minded, and incapable of recognizing new ideas. They all seem to have one thing in common: they got pissed off at school and decided science was too much work the way it was presented to them, so they decide they already know enough, they stop reading the texts and start reading crap science because it seems much more intuitive to their creative minds. In most cases, they base their current studies on misinformation, misunderstood and inconsistent definitions, and fallacious logic. All while dancing around outside the box, as if that made any sense.

So, you can only make your location safe by making it secret?

Apply your process to any other field. "I'm only interested in NEW engineering designs, I don't want to study what's worked in the past, that's worthless to me." "I don't need to study how to draw, because I'm only interested in NEW art concepts, and I don't need to know how other artists have worked." It's frankly ridiculous. The box is called the box because it's filled with all kinds of great things, accumulated knowledge passed down over centuries. If you study what's in the box, you may eventually get to a point where it's advantageous to think outside it, but you need to know the box first. To think you don't need it is hubris of a very dangerous kind. Who's truth are you talking about, mine or yours or somebody else's? Not really. Truth is too subjective for science. Changes with every person, and there are no absolute universal truths we know about.

I think this is antithetical to free speech. If you go into hiding, I'm going to assume you're going to be safe from attacks like this, and my involvement will most likely end. But if you stand by your right to free speech in the democracy in which you live, if you refuse to give in to terrorism's fear tactics, I'm going to stand with you. I'm going to help you defend your rights. Because I don't want to have to hide either, ever, from those who want to shut me up because what I have to say threatens their extremist religious beliefs. Je vais commencer l'apprentissage du français.