Phi for All

! Moderator Note You can't soapbox ANYWHERE on SFN, even in the Lounge. You haven't been discussing these subjects, you've been misusing their information and then rejecting all attempts to show where you're wrong. You misunderstand many aspects of physics, you don't take criticism on board when this is shown, and you keep insisting your explanations are more valid than those with far more evidence. You're preaching, soapboxing, and it's a toxic way to approach a discussion. It doesn't work for us, that's why it's against the rules. Please go start a blog somewhere if you want to ignore replies and comments.

I agree with bufofrog. Only those who know what's inside the box can think outside of it meaningfully. Challenging any kind of physics without mathematics skills is just crazy, like trying to tell an Olympic gymnast what they're doing wrong when you've only watched a few people doing gymnastics and have never participated yourself. Speculation built on a shaky foundation is worthless. The box helps insure your explanation is based on what we observe in nature. If the OP would care to reread what's been written, they'd see that you did more than call it out. You asked pertinent questions, especially after it was shown that much of the OP was based on flawed understandings (e.g., that a sphere was a platonic solid, or that entropy is a conserved quantity). I must have missed where the OP corrected for this, because we're on page 2 now and I can't figure out why this explanation (NOT a theory) is still being discussed as if it wasn't shown false in the first few posts?

! Moderator Note Thread closed.

It's flammable, and the vapors are denser than air. It will definitely deter or kill certain bugs if you use a lot of it, but higher concentrations pose higher risks of combustion. Don't use it around wood or leather. Keep it away from bleach. It's probably keeping some bugs away the way you're using it now. If you still have bug problems, you should look for a solution other than increasing the amount of alcohol you use.

! Moderator Note No, since this alternative has gone through 17 pages of you avoiding responses that disagree with you and ignoring the science presented. This is a science discussion forum, and we rely on both sides of an argument LISTENING to each other, otherwise you're just soapboxing, and nobody wants to hear THAT. I wish there was something in your posts that made me think you might have a Eureka! moment, especially given the patient and instructional replies you've gotten, but you've shown that you're going to continue to double down and ignore attempts to teach you something. Thread closed due to insufficient support, so please don't bring the topic up here again.

It's not very efficient as a pest deterrent, and can be very dangerous.

What do you call a joke that isn't funny? A sentence. Regardless of what we don't like, is it ever right to attach that dislike to whole groups of people? The joke referenced Israelis and Americans, not anti-Zionists and fascist US hardliners, that was how YOU took it. And criticising "Israel" as a state for its policies is different than labeling all Israelis as being one way or another. Honestly, comedy isn't an excuse we should use to throw decency out the window. I know there are a LOT of folks who think, as an art form, that it should have no restrictions, but I'll never be one of those. I've seen too many "comedians" vent their prejudices only to claim later "it was just a joke, can't you take a joke?"

Or there were 8 votes on that joke, with half being negative and the other half trying to undo the first half. Unless you truly thought it was funny, but Moontanman is the only one who said that. Part of why I didn't like the joke is that it was obviously copied and pasted here, with no attempt to clean up it's sloppy wording. mistermack is funnier that that normally, and his timing is much, much better. It seemed to me he was posting the joke for the politics involved and not the humor.

It's really not about a category. IMHO, it wasn't a worthy joke. It was poorly worded, inconsistent, and the punchline sucked pond water. IT WASN'T FUNNY, so I'm left with the conclusion that it was meant to disparage two large groups of people, Israelis and Americans. You can claim it was meant to "poke fun", but then you have to show me where this joke was funny in the first place. In point of fact, people were willing to assess that joke using the rep system until you decided to defend it with a post (which didn't contain ANY political humor), in which even you claimed the joke wasn't very good. I have to ask you too, do you really believe the author/teller of a joke is free from responsibility, that they can say whatever they want and the audience should just accept it? Why do we need an objective arbiter? Can't we just let the joke-teller know how we feel individually? I thought that's what I was doing when I downvoted mistermack's attempt at humor, but now you're saying he's protected from my criticism. You cancelled my downvote, which was based on the same parameters I use for any joke, but it sounds like you didn't do it because you thought the joke was funny. You did it because you thought we shouldn't be offended when we obviously were.

Do you know all the laws of physics? I have evidence that you don't, so how can you make this claim? You're not capable of making conclusions based on "the laws of physics". I find most of the threads you start suffer from misunderstandings right at the beginning, and then the rest of the members try to set you straight while you keep insisting your opening arguments are still valid. It's not interesting, and it's also not a very productive way to discuss anything, let alone science. Can you cut to the chase and explain why you think your brain is supernatural?

Oooh, I very much disagree with this! This is carte blanche for a diseased, hateful mind. This supports all kinds of victim blaming, stereotypes, and callous insensitivity. Why should humor be allowed to violate taboos we hold others accountable for? This sentiment allows me to say whatever I feel like saying, and to hell with how hurtful it is to some in the audience. It allows a hateful comic to become the victim of "snowflake sensitivity". Do you really believe the "author" of a joke should be forgiven for whatever they say?

! Moderator Note Titles to these threads are important. Some people only read titles, and can get the wrong impressions. If you don't know something for sure, please don't assert it in the title.

Not inspiring?! Did you see them doing the hokey-pokey?!

When you have advertisers to promote, you use familiar imagery. They aren't selling science. Iirc, the first time I saw a movie/TV show where the spaceship didn't make a roar or a whoosh moving through space was Firefly in 2002. It really caught everyone's attention for a second. It seemed like they made a technical error before you realize that's the way it would be, quiet even when the engines fire.

Without knowing their history I don't know how to respond to this argument. You claim regret, but obviously haven't thought it may have been vastly different without the nightmare they must have endured needing to lie to anyone about such a core part of themselves. I'm sure you know your friend much better than I, but are you sure you know the source of their unhappiness? I'm reminded of stories I've heard about children doing impulsive things because they felt their parents weren't listening to them. Most children have a stable sense of gender identity by the age of four. They've known for a couple of years what the physical differences between boys and girls are. By four they generally know whether they feel like a girl, a boy, a bit of both, or neither. They've begun now to feel the pressures of gender role behavior, and are deciding how they feel about the things boys are supposed to do and the things girls are supposed to do. I said children can figure out their own gender identities better without pressure from their parents, because I assumed that pressure is focused on making a typical choice. The children who make typical choices would still make them (which makes the parent's interference worthless), but the ones who feel differently will end up getting villified (which makes the parent's interference detrimental).

Is this the same study or a different one? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24343892/ These studies seem to indicate that the streamlining of connections in the brain reorganizes their functions to make them more efficient. Girls seem to mature faster than boys, probably because they're able to focus a bit better owing to reduced pathways leading to the information they need. It sounds like girls find the highways in their brains while boys are still driving around on back roads.

I think you conflate gender identity with sexual orientation quite a bit. You keep making references to waiting until children are adults, like it's akin to sexual consent. Your gender identity is defined as your innermost concept of self as male/female/blend/neither. Children can figure that part out better if they aren't corralled into what their parents want.

You got what you wanted to get.

Iirc, girls optimize connections in the brain a bit faster than boys, leading to earlier development in several areas.

It's sloppy journalism. A seal wouldn't make any noise in space. I think they're referring to the reverberation in their underwater recordings. Some people associate reverberating noises with something similar done in early sci-fi movies. Dr Who probably didn't help, since the opening theme to the show features a reverberating electronic tone while the Tardis flies through space. Hard to tell until you read them, and then it's too late. Think of it like eating a stew made with some things that are good for you, and some that aren't. Only digest the good bits, and spit the rest in the trash.

We see a lot more diverse tendencies in cultures that allow them, so it definitely appears to be learned. Male dominance is also a LOT more toxic and competition oriented than what women do. Men will jeer at a woman who wants to operate heavy machinery (like it requires testicles and muscles to work a backhoe), but have you ever heard of female nurses deriding male nurses? The job market is heavily influenced by the worst of male behavior, mostly because men are encouraged to look at everything as a competition, even when cooperation is more profitable. Except when you don't. Plenty of males take care of young among different species, like penguins, marmosets, foxes, frogs, and seahorses. I personally don't think our brains needed a lot of hardwired traits the way many animals do. I think our capacity for intelligence and learning lets us determine how to best adapt to any given situation, and would be hampered if we had too many rigid ways of thinking. We're not limited to fight or flight; humans can negotiate, bluff, or reason out even better ways to deal with our world.

Something tells me that gender identity is much more basic than that. Should we wait until they're adults to determine if they're right handed or left? Applying a one-size-fits-all solution seems like a big part of the problem.

And perhaps we're seeing a trend away from thinking generalizations about whole ethnic groups are funny. Personally, I think there are better sources of humor than outdated bigotry and persecution, or insulting groups based on the actions of some. And given that it was worded so poorly, the real joke is that anyone thought it was worth defending as humor. Ha ha!

! Moderator Note You need to STOP making this so personal. Have we reached the end of your ability to have a civil conversation? Do you need a vacation?

Maybe this is the real problem. Stop waiting and start studying. Knowledge doesn't drift past you while you're standing still. Get a shovel and dig, put your boots on and climb, and you'll find the progress you can't see when you yourself aren't progressing.