Phi for All

Bob goes out and buys a parrot. The first day, he teaches the bird to say, "Who is it?" whenever the apartment doorbell rings. He's so pleased, he tells the bird he's going to go back to the pet store and get the bird a nice treat. While Bob is gone, the bird hears the doorbell ring and says, "Who is it?" A voice from the other side of the door says, "It's the plumber. The landlord said your faucets were leaking and I'm here to fix them." The bird repeats, "Who is it?" "IT'S THE PLUMBER! I'm here to fix the leaks!" the man insists. "Who is it?" The man begins screaming. "IT'S THE PLUMBER! YOU CALLED TO HAVE YOUR LEAKY FAUCETS FIXED AND I'M HERE! PLEASE LET ME IN!" Predictably, the bird asks, "Who is it?" The plumber loses his cool and starts jumping up and down. "FOR CHRIST'S SAKE, I'VE TOLD YOU THREE GODDAMN TIMES, IT'S THE PLUMBER!!!" Suddenly, the man grabs his chest and keels over right there in the hall. When Bob gets back, he sees the dead stranger in front of his apartment door. He drops his bags and kneels down, exclaiming, "Oh my God, who is it?" From inside the apartment, he hears the bird say, "IT'S THE PLUMBER!"

I would object but I'm reminded of all the shallow outrage that's generated by our politicians whenever socialism or communism are mentioned. They adamantly state that Communism will never happen here, and indeed the public seems confident they won't allow it to. Perfect way to set the stage for a fait accompli we'll never see coming.

The skirt helps contain and increase the air pressure, focusing it downward only, so it lifts the whole craft a bit higher, including the skirt which is attached. That's the way I read it.

Slippery Slope, like many logical fallacies, is not wrong in and of itself. It's only a fallacy when it's used to make general assumptions ("If you start eating sweets, you'll never stop until it kills you"). In certain cases, like burning books, it can actually be a very real concern. As with most fallacies, you err when you use them to automatically conclude something based solely on the fallacy. Each instance needs evaluation, especially if lives are involved. And not to nitpick, but assuming someone is going to be the next Hitler just because of something they said, and then "silencing them" for it sounds like Fascism at its best.

! Moderator Note I checked into this, for all concerned. The vast majority of negative rep points for everyone in this thread seems to be for condescending personal remarks rather than simple disagreement. Yet another piece of evidence that sniping and uncivil behavior don't help anyone or anything, and often cause further problems. EVERYONE needs to stop it.

Very disappointing for an administration that preaches change. I think iNow's toothpaste analogy is appropriate, but I'm not really sure there's a good way to brush with this kind of toothpaste. Which is more insidious, a terrorist attack that might kill hundreds, or the crushing bondage of knowing that your rights are being compromised yet again by the government who's supposed to represent you, and the millions it affects? I'm no longer convinced that good people have nothing to fear from tactics like this. This is a net that's sure to grab more dolphins than barracudas. We've allowed a wall to be built separating us from our representative government, and each time this kind of thing happens, effective democracy and those it hopes to represent are pushed farther apart. Because it's the NSA making the calls. The cruise is to Guantanamo.

Personal appearance marketing really isn't aimed at making you feel substandard, although it can easily look that way. It's really aimed at forming a perception that the products being marketed are capable of solving your beauty problems. You don't have to be ugly to want to look better. Branding attempts to manage gaps in perception between what the company wants as its image and how the customers perceive that image. It doesn't help them to make you feel bad. What they assume is that you already perceive a need to look better, so they show you what could be possible. If an advertisement makes you feel inferior, you are NOT going to do business with that company. In other words, your feelings of being substandard are not created by the advertisers, they existed before that and are simply being manipulated by the marketing. I'm not trying to defend modern marketing, I find it deceptively influential, underestimated in its effect by the majority and detrimental in many ways. But I wanted to correct this concept of "these quite expensive images are meant to make us feel substandard so that we go out and by the eyeliner, or the clothing, or the shampoo, or whatever". You already feel a certain way, already have a certain ideal of beauty, already have a perception about the various companies trying to get you to use them. Managing your perceptions is what they want, and they can't be effective if they're the ones who made you feel bad about your looks in the first place.

We're very sorry for the lapse in our spam filter coverage. We've been banning them on sight but they are relentless. Thanks for everyone's help in reporting them, and again, we're sorry for any inconvenience and hope to have the problem remedied shortly. The relevant Admin is being prodded with a bovine taser as we speak.

From my experience, douchebaggery is often used successfully to make other people look bad by annoying them to the point of flipping out. It's like the kid in school who flicked your ear and caused YOU to make a huge scene while he looks on innocently shrugging. It could be a very efficient way to expend a little energy to get an enemy/opponent/rival to expend a LOT of energy in retaliation. I'm reminded of the 9/11 attacks and the global military response (after the initial attack, a few video tapes kept alive a multi-trillion dollar retaliation). Maybe it's a holdover from pack hunting tactics, nipping at hamstrings while your opponent has to wheel and charge you to get you to stop. Wears him out with minimal effort from you.

Oort Cloud. An orc cloud is what signals an attack from invading RPG armies.

! Moderator Note Duplicate thread locked.

You have to take them to a university to be tested. AFAIK, there have never been any lunar meteorite finds in North America. Every state in the US has a moon rock sample from the Apollo missions to compare, iirc, and Houston has the Lyndon B Johnson Space Center where most of the moon rocks are stored.

We can help you solve it, but don't give solutions as a general rule. What have you got so far?

How would you steer a car that was levitating? Aren't you talking about a lot of retrofit controls for a vehicle that was meant for friction-based maneuvering? They have a motorcycle that turns into a helicopter that sells for about $280K. Flying cars sounds interesting but I always think of them in terms of I'm-the-only-person-that-has-one. I say goodbye to the sluggish traffic, fire up my VTOL and wave at all the envious, angry commuters beneath me. But can you imagine what the skies would be like if there were as many flying cars as ground cars?

! Moderator Note Duplicate of this thread in Homework Help. I'm closing this one to avoid confusion.

jelowry87, are you talking about 195° Fahrenheit or Celsius?

Since you know so much about what God has done, can you tell me if he's omnipotent? Can he circumvent the physical laws you claim he created?

Make sure you're logged in. Guests don't get the rep buttons.

! Moderator Note Let's remember to attack only the ideas here, and not the people who have them. Moronic ideas are not the sole property of morons. Civility, please.

I would love to see the size and political influence of corporations shrink. Imo, a large part of what is wrong with US capitalism is that the biggest corporations are skewing the system by sheltering themselves unfairly from natural market pressures using taxpayer dollars and special interest legislation.

If everyone worked a bit harder on making sure their words emphasize only an attack on an idea and not the person who has the idea, and if everyone worked equally hard at separating their ideas from themselves, discussions would be much more efficient. We spend a lot of time dealing with insults, both implied and inferred. Attack the idea, not the person. If people are neither good nor bad, but prone to good or bad actions, then people are neither wrong nor right. It's the ideas that can be wrong or right, and that's what we should be discussing, always.

I think some religions love using the word "baffled" when talking about science. They use the alternate definition though, to restrict the free flow (of reason?) and prevent it from spreading. They hope science is baffled because they spend a lot of their time baffling it.

It was this guy: And actually, he was more perpleXed than baffled. He couldn't figure out why this was being taken seriously.

Thanks for sharing this, condolences for those lost and best wishes for a speedy recovery for your area. This was a really bad one. Glad you're safe.

! Moderator Note The request for embedding has been denied on this video. Also, please refrain from posting nothing but an embedded video, since this is a discussion forum and you're giving us no reference point for discussion. Thread closed.