Phi for All

Tell that to Cap'n Refsmmat. When I joined 8 years ago, he was very outspoken about many things, often wrong, often unnecessarily confrontational, and generally commented on EVERYTHING. There was definite brilliance there (I can always claim later that my cat actually typed this) but he was very scattered and seemed to post whatever flew into his head. Cap started making more and more sense as time went by, and he started putting less emotion and more rational thinking and research into his responses. His authority grew from the bulk of his work, not from any titles or degrees. He was very reticent about revealing much about his personal life. A few years later he confided to me privately that he was only 12 when he joined. I replied that, while I hadn't suspected it, I had to admit it really made no difference. And it didn't. Cap was asked later to be a Mod by the site owner, and eventually he was made Administrator. All that before he set foot inside college. So it really offends me when someone claims that this forum works on Appeal to Authority. I think we've shown that anyone can have ideas that work and ideas that don't. It's the ideas that are scrutinized, not the people.

! Moderator Note thislilpiggy, promoting your own threads in someone else's is considered hijacking, and is against the rules you agreed to when you joined. Please refrain from doing this in the future; there is no need to respond to this modnote.

You joined to make this your first post? Hilarious.

This is incorrect. There is a definite answer. As ydoaPs has told you, this riddle uses a trick to misdirect you from the money paid out by the three men to the money pocketed by the bellboy. It sets up one equation with addition and another with division and then incorrectly mixes the two answers. The division answer has a remainder that gets dropped in the addition answer. (10+10+10)-5=25 (so each man will pay $8.33...) $8.33... +$1=$9.33... (which is what each man actually pays after the bellboy reimburses them) ($9.33... *3)+$2=$30 (so the misdirection makes you forget the fractions of a dollar) First↔Cause ♀, please stop posting the superfluous photos of women. This is an unofficial request since I'm involved in this thread but if it continues there will be a more formal warning from a Moderator who isn't involved. It makes you look like a spammer and adds nothing to your posts. Thanks in advance for your understanding and compliance.

Yes, but less shiny.

I have to wonder though. Since the government is artificially keeping food prices down by using taxpayer dollars to give directly to food-producing businesses, how much would prices go up without the subsidies? Would it be more than we're paying in taxes? Since the subsidies aren't subject to the same kinds of market pressures that prices are adjusted by, it seems to me that we're paying more in taxes than we'd end up paying at the grocery store. I think subsidies should only be used to help emerging sustainable technologies gain a foothold in the market. The subsidies should be time-limited so all involved can prepare for their removal as well as use. Giving taxpayer dollars (from everyone, regardless of whether you use the products or not or how much) to already wealthy sectors (like oil) is just criminal in my opinion, made more so because so many of the companies that benefit are extremely outspoken about shrinking the federal government. They loves the handouts but hates the regulations. They basically want it all their way, with no balance to the greed. There are quite a bit of taxes on liquor, but I'm not sure if any of those go to pay for any of the consequences of alcohol abuse. http://microliquor.c...tilled-spirits/ It's interesting that they do it this way. The federal and state taxes must get built in so when you buy a $20 bottle of scotch you don't get rung up for $25. Probably the same people who would scream at that wouldn't blink at having the same scotch marked at $24 with just $1 in local taxes.

No, you're thinking of the Newt Gingrich biography.

Ditto. The title threw me off. It sounds like you're aghast that this happened and are calling for someone to put a stop to it. Just sayin'.

Sort of scary?! Movies can be "sort of" scary. Being a meter away from an unknown silverback in a chance encounter like that would have had me watering the foliage as I sat there.

SFN Blogs is stealing rep? I'll flag him as a spammer, that'll teach him!

! Moderator Note njaohnt, this is a recurring theme with your posts, taking wild guesses and then stating them as fact to use in your arguments. This thread is rife with examples of this. Up to this point, the membership has done an amazing job of staying on top of your poorly crafted arguments and lack of rigor in discussing this subject, and I felt that any staff remarks would be redundant. But I reread the thread and had to lend official support to what everyone here has been telling you. Your arguments are narrow-minded, lack even the barest support from observational evidence and show a complete lack of understanding of the difference between opinion and assertion. Clearly, no one is learning anything from reading your posts (except about you personally, which they have been good enough to refrain from commenting about), and you haven't learned anything from anyone here. You don't show even a little interest in research on what's being given to you (if Hitler was the only person you knew from Arete's list of people, why didn't you bother to look some of them up?). I think you should truly question whether you're spending your time at the right site. We're going to continue to discuss and learn, and it's obvious those items are NOT on your agenda.

Send him cash, I know he'd appreciate it.

! Moderator Note I removed your email tags since we want all discussion on our topics to occur here at the site. More knowledge for everyone that way.

They think this partly because they've been through so much media spin on the subject. Insurance companies have lied or at least skirted the truth about the single-payer systems in Canada and the UK and have paid a lot of money to plant these untruths vigorously (another reason why healthcare insurance should not be done for profit - they not only use your premiums to figure out ways to turn down your claims, they also use your money to make sure there's no government competition). How else do you explain the Harris poll that shows Americans are the least happy people among the top ten nations with their present healthcare system? After all the logic of NOT paying for private profit and the prospect of decreased costs, why do people still talk about a single-payer system as some kind of Communist plot they refuse to even listen to? In spite of the fact that the Veterans Health Administration, which is a true single-payer socialized medicine operation, was cited in a Rand Corp study on Comparison of Quality of Care for Patients in the Veterans Health Administration and Patients in a National Sample and was found to be of superior quality, Americans stop listening and start shaking their heads as soon as you say "socialized medicine". That's spin at work, imo.

I'm appalled that you could even begin to think that people should take your information as fact just because you do. This seems to suggest that you've misunderstood how scientific method works and don't appreciate the power it has to sift through bias and beliefs and get to actual supportive evidence for rational conclusions. Shall I link to your speculative threads where you were asked multiple times in each to provide supportive evidence? This will clearly show how you ignored requests and simply kept trying to restate your arguments with no maths, no predictions and no reason why your theses provided a better explanation than currently accepted theory. Again, your understanding of science seems partial. "Accepted science" isn't about factual correctness. That's why they're called theories rather than laws or facts. They represent the best explanation of various phenomena, not an etched-in-stone, unchanging concept. But make no mistake, these theories can be overturned but only by a better explanation, and that's something you've been asked to show a myriad of times and never, never have. Mainly because your writings fail to explain your revelations in a manner that the scientific methodology can accept. But if they don't work better than accepted science, if you can't make any testable predictions based on your information, why do you think they are "valid"?

You would probably see less problems on the inside of the turns, but it seems to me that rear steering would throw the rear end out wider so the outside of the turn is more dangerous. I'd rather clip a curb on a turn than clip another car. I haven't had any rear steering experience though. It's likely that once you were used to it turns wouldn't be a problem.

I told you what our definition of preaching is. Are you purposely misrepresenting it? You may have stated a personal experience, but you drew conclusions from it that were stated as fact. I didn't say you didn't have it. I said you're claiming that you have knowledge given to you by God, which you expect us to take as fact without any predictive, testable, repeatable scientific evidence. If you have it, you haven't shown it. I was mainly talking about all the things you claimed the Holy Spirit told you about, many of which you have speculated on here at SFN. None of those things turned out to be valid, yet you still talk about them as if they're accepted fact. But yes, when you use phrases like "I believe" you are clearly stating that your argument is opinion rather than fact. You antagonize people who have studied accepted science all their lives when you state conjecture or opinion as fact.

One of the big culprits is the disposable environment of US hospitals. They don't autoclave hardly anything anymore. I'm not sure if there is a solution to this. Risk of infection is reduced dramatically when they use single-patient supplies like gloves, syringes, gowns, scalpels and masks. The disposables are touted as cheap, but they aren't as cheap as a good quality scalpel that's sterilized after every use, not by a long shot. And what makes the disposables even more expensive is the actual disposal, which has to be done by licensed hazardous materials handlers. Of course, the doctors have to minimize risks to a ridiculous point so they aren't sued for malpractice, another big culprit in why hospital stays are so expensive. Add the fact that the rates for insured people are higher than non-insured, due to slow payment practices by the medical insurance companies. It's not crazy, it'$ in$ane.

There is only a certain amount of good you'll get from celery, so more than a certain amount isn't going to make you lose weight faster. We can't process the cellulose in celery; it's not the chewing that causes an overall negative net, it's the digestion. Too much celery and you'll find your body wanting to shut down and sleep in order to devote energy to digestion. Too much celery can also cause diarrhea. Overdo celery and you won't be in any condition to exercise. Personally, I would substitute some whole grain for your potatoes (not corn), but that's just me. When I'm trying to lose weight, I don't eat any veg that's buried, like potatoes, carrot, beets, turnips, radishes, etc. They're very starchy. Like tomgwyther, 520 calories a day seems very low to me. You could double that and still be lower than most diets a doctor would give you. And you don't mention exercise at all. Of course, you probably wouldn't have the energy to exercise if you're only eating 520 calories. You're MUCH better off and will lose weight faster if you increase your caloric intake and exercise as well.

I've always been struck by that. Omnipotent, perfect God can't kill off the bad parts of humanity without killing off most of the rest of the animals and plants?! He couldn't come up with an Evil Human blaster that only targeted the problem and nothing else? Does God have another set of rules that animals have to live by? Aren't they God's creatures too? Next week, when I take out the trash, I'm going to throw EVERYTHING in my house away. When the garbage men come, I'll rush out to the street and save the stuff I want to keep.

! Moderator Note Moved from Science News (since the discussion doesn't revolve around the news story mentioned) to Speculations (since this thesis is not part of accepted science). Spammy comments about how "pretty" and "funny" this thread is have been deleted. Those who made these comments are under review as spammers. I would also like to applaud the OP for trying to make some predictions with this thesis (not quite a "theory" until it's reviewed and tested very thoroughly). It's something very few people do to help support their ideas, and it lends a lot more credibility even if an idea doesn't pan out. Scientific Method Rules!

First off, unofficially (since I'm involved in this thread), this thread points up the difficulty of discussing religion. The beliefs are so sacred and wrapped up in personal trappings that any attack on the idea seems like a personal attack to the person who believes it. This kind of bias is what science is interested in minimizing or removing altogether if possible, because it affects rational judgment. I would caution everyone to take extra care to focus on the ideas and not the people who espouse them. Second, this is a science forum, so don't be surprised when citations are challenged and hard questions are asked. If there was a science textbook that someone was using as the basis of an argument, that book is subject to the same scrutiny as ANY other book used to support an idea. A scientist would receive the same treatment here if he tried to use his own book to support his ideas the way some use the Bible to support theirs. With this in mind, if you look back through the thread honestly, you'll easily see where actual discussion is taking place, and also where circular logic creates a vortex that pulls the discussion down. Our definition of preaching is more along the lines of stating opinion as fact, which automatically precludes honest discussion. You are definitely doing this. You are claiming, on a science forum, without any predictive, testable, repeatable scientific evidence, that you have knowledge given to you by God, which you expect us to take as fact. Preaching, definitely. If you had explained your stance as a belief, as the individual opinion of one follower, used phrases like, "I believe..." or "I think...", instead of preaching your beliefs as actual fact, you would have gotten a whole different response. When you start stating scripture to scientists as if it can't be questioned, you're provoking a trained response that science is conditioned to give. You are also starting unnecessary conflict, even though you acknowledge that God's existence can't be verified. Really?! "It's just the way things work"?! I've never heard of things working this way, ever. This is such a bizarre analogy for you to use to argue what Moontanman said about eternal punishment. I don't understand it at all. Are you saying that eternal punishment for not believing in God is equally as fair as falling off a building and being saved by an enormous, super-stretchy trampoline? Great example of preaching. "It is just the way things work outside our universe." Bald assertion, a flat statement made as if it's established fact that you actually know how things work outside our universe. You keep doing this and yet you still complain when people get frustrated with your approach to scientific discussion.

Do you have any evidence to support this assertion? I've seen some new members with questionable posting habits using the PM system lately. I just wanted to know if it was one of them.

I don't know enough about plasma filaments to tell you. It depends on how... enthusiastically the glass got broken, I suppose. Could you assemble, fill and reattach the filaments to a new vacuum chamber for a lot less than $50?

A private message here at SFN? This is your first post, and someone here is targeting you with creationist PMs? I'd like to know who the member is, since preaching and abuse of the PM system are against the rules.