Phi for All

You know, rigney, I really don't get your problem with this. If he meant that everyone who builds a business gets help from the American system that taxpayers help to fund, it's a true and very presidential thing to say. But you (and others for whom there is political capital to be gained) are choosing to misinterpret him purposely as saying people who built their businesses didn't really build them. One's very presidential and true, the other's very stupid and false. Do you honestly think a professional politician who got elected President of the United States by a solid majority meant the stupid, obviously false interpretation? I think it's more likely he thinks that wealth and success don't necessarily stem from hard work and being smart, because let's face it, a lot of smart and hard working Americans don't always succeed. It's more than smart and hard, it's more than luck. It's this fantastic system that's been added to and refined and improved ever since the country started. And no one person built THAT.

bellbottom25 has been banned as a sockpuppet account for the previously banned eric555. Not making sense is a poor disguise for not making sense.

Part of the instructions for the kettle you show says to let the boiling water "settle": Any kettle is going to have problems if you try to pour while the water is actively bubbling and boiling, trying to force the energetic liquid through the tight spout. This kettle/teapot double-boiler set up has a longer, narrower spout than most kettles I've seen. Pouring in room temp water may force boiling water up the spout, making it seem like it's all suddenly boiling. As far as the change in behavior since the "boil out" episode, are we absolutely sure it's not just your mom paying more attention to normal activity or looking for problems she might expect to find after accidentally mistreating the unit? I remember when a girlfriend of mine boiled out an aluminum tea kettle. When we realized we could smell the metal, she ran into the kitchen and took the kettle off the electric burner. The bottom stayed there, bright orange and practically molten. My point is, you have to stop looking for explanations outside of mainstream scientific knowledge. I'm sure there's a perfectly good reason for this phenomena, and you don't have to reach for magical "superheating" explanations that invoke supernatural Turkish herbal water deities. This is a science forum, you know.

Who mentions slavery and servitude these days? I think African American voters have many other reasons to be interested in progressive politics. The "boat" you say we're all in has comfier seats for some.

Are you sure it wasn't "Dear Mr. Big-Shot Science Forum Administrator Who Should Call His Mother More Often"? How about, "My Personal Army of Research Monkeys"? Which doesn't work well since the lid is right under your fingers gripping the kettle's handle as you pour. Does the kettle whistle? If so, it has a stopper for the spout that pops up when you pour. Curious Tea Sipper can open stopper and blow into the spout to clear the vapor block. It's not ideal but it saves cleaning up the hissing and burbling boiling water that shoots out.

I think it's probably a case of atmospheric pressure and a free surface area for air to flow into the kettle to replace the water going out, similar to why liquid pours in gulps. The water vapor in the kettle acts to narrow the opening even more, possibly causing a greater pressure differential. My kettle isn't very old and has no visible deposits. And that doesn't explain why the water comes out fine, then stops pouring, then starts coming out again "hissing and burbling". Your mother calls you "Captain of the Scientific Domain"?

I would also add that while most violence is due to conflicts, it's not always so. Some violence against people has nothing to do with conflicts against those people, like the recent cinema shootings.

My kettle does this quite often, and I tend to think of it as a kind of vapor lock. Right after boiling, the steam can block the spout causing just a trickle of water to get through, and when you tilt it to get more to come out, the pressure breaks through the steam barrier and boiling water comes gushing out if you aren't careful. I've found that blowing sharply into the spout releases the barrier so the hot water can pour normally, but the steam can easily build up again. I've always thought this was probably just a design flaw, even though this is a fairly popular kettle by a well-known manufacturer. Or it could be the altitude here in Denver. I wonder if Curious Tea Sipper didn't change the shape of his/her kettle just enough to cause these problems. I don't think it has anything to do with superheating the water.

I disagree, and that disagreement is conflict without violence. Some of our opinions conflict, but are doing so peaceably. And we can be conflicted on many things, and still be in harmony about many other things. I think this is the part much of the world forgets. I don't have to agree with your religion or politics to be in harmony with the fact that you and your people need clean drinking water and access to medicine.

I sacrificed a couple of embryonic chickens and part of a pig to them this morning and they've been helping me Google truck rental places and water sources in Myanmar. I'm singing two million praises to them right now. Once I get the permits, I can be there in 2 days, 11 hours, and guarantee more water to the farms with my method.

I think we're fully capable of doing more with each other around the planet and being in harmony on those things, while still being in conflict about other things. Often it's the focus on cultural or religious or melanin quantity differences that keep us from exploring those opportunities and finding common ground. I think dancing and laughing with each other helps change the focus to more meaningful concerns.

Conflict is inevitable, violence is not.

I understand Severian's point. If everything was fantastic we'd stop trying to make things better. But conflict is what you get when two or more humans get together, it's going to happen SOMEWHERE along the line. I think you can find harmony with people and still work to make things better, even though you'll never completely erase the conflict, and you'll never be in 100% harmony either. But you can dance together and realize you can disagree without hatred.

You should go through me. For €2M, I petition your gods, who show me where to buy tanker trucks and water, then I bring it to the farms that need it. My way solves both your religious and agricultural problems. Btw, you mention that your state is "going to spend more". Can you tell me how much more it's willing to $pend?

What type of work? Does it preclude wearing heavy work gloves? I used to work with sheet metal, so I know there's some type of work where it's better/safer to wear gloves, but losing the feel for what you're doing overrides the risks.

You're defining harmony as the opposite of conflict, and I disagree. To me, harmony simply means we find common ground (perhaps to dance upon?) before we work on progress and innovation. Harmony is dropping the baggage and realizing we CAN work together, even though there will always be conflict as long as there are more than one of us on the planet.

No, it's just hard to grasp sometimes, and many people find what they think is an inconsistency, throw their hands up and use that as a good excuse to stop studying it and start claiming it's wrong.

False. It's a very low probability, at best. Does this coincide with the world ending in December? Good question mark.

Proszę bardzo.

As long as you didn't lie about it afterward.

I mentioned it before, but you guys are ignoring the fact that the shooter was the only person there who knew he was doing this alone. If multiple conceal/carry heroes start firing in the dark with all that smoke, aren't they just as likely to assume everyone firing a gun is the enemy and start aiming at all the muzzle flashes? In that situation, I think it's the firing of the weapons and not the gear you are or aren't wearing that would determine who you turn your gun on. The only way that scenario gets any better is if there's only one other person with a gun besides the shooter.

A bargaining chip for religious hostages.

Whoa, two lies a day puts you in the red. The average person couldn't handle that, so imagine how many nuns were former politicians!

It MUST be subjective, determined by culture. Further, I think it's right that it is. Looking for universal right and wrong obviously led you to believe that religion must be the answer, and personally, I think trying to impose your religious views on others is wrong. To base morality on religious faith is to open yourself to tens of thousands of interpretations of that faith, so where is your morality now? And people have crises of faith all the time. Does this mean they can feel free to stop being moral when they stop having faith? And what kind of morality is something like the Bible really going to teach us? That it's OK to stone prostitutes? Or kill your teenager if he curses you? I much prefer morality modeled by the society I'm an active part of, at least that gives me the ability to move if I disagree that strongly with it.

My suggestion would be to first find some kind of mass media not controlled by those with vested interests in disharmony. If enough people know that they aren't alone, that harmony is sought by the vast majority of the world, it will give us all the courage, determination and spirit to stop letting the warmongers control everything.