Phi for All

When I was 10, I could take my bike pretty much anywhere I wanted to within about a 1 mile radius, even alone. Three years ago, when my daughter was 10, I wouldn't dream of allowing her to go roaming the neighborhood like I did unless she was with at least three other friends, or an adult I trusted could keep an eye on them. While I might believe she could handle herself, society today would crucify me if anything happened to her under such obviously inferior and uncaring supervision. And after all the warnings and admonitions, I'd probably crucify myself first. There aren't as many parks nearby, since most folks with kids have playsets with swings and slides and rings right in their back yards. The kids rooms are built bigger to accommodate TVs and computers. There are more basements with home entertainment centers. The home has become a compound you don't have to leave to get your entertainment. Home security systems are more the norm nowadays than the rarities they were when I grew up. Fear rules our lives more these days, since we hear about every attack on 24/7 news. It's hard to tell if there are more maniacs out there threatening our families or if we're simply hearing about every single one of them now. I'm sure the reality is different in small towns where you tend to know most people, but even rural social structures have changed since I was a kid. There's more drugs, and more crime due to drugs and unemployment. I'd like to hear you make a case for why the War on Drugs has lasted so long with such backwards results, results that would have scrapped any private project that failed so badly. To me, it's a prime case of political and corporate abuse of the system. I think the only thing the War on Drugs has helped is the companies who profit from it. So yeah, I think our country's social structure has been changed already, and for the worse. Wars that help the enemy grow defeat their primary objective.

The other areas of a hospital aren't usually racing against the clock the way an ER does. If there was going to be any lapse in hygienic protocols, I would imagine it would be more likely to happen in an area that is more concerned with stabilizing the patients first. Surgery would probably be the only other area where time concerns are almost as important as in an emergency, but the hygienic protocols observed in an OR are most likely the best you'll find anywhere.

Take some video as well. I want to see the reaction when John tells his friends they're angels.

It shouldn't have to affect businesses that aren't abusing the system. As far as the country's social structure, this abuse by corporations and politicians has affected it much more than any regulations have. Fear of communism, fear of gangs, fear of terrorists and fear of losing your job have literally changed the way most people behave within their communities in the last fifty years. It's changed the way we build our homes and how we raise our children. I don't remember seeing this film. As I said, I don't automatically like everything he does. If I may butcher things with another analogy, capitalism is like a familiar game I enjoy playing. If it's played right, most people enjoy it and do well with it. When some of the players start changing the rules in their favor, we either need to stop playing or go back to the rules that made the game fair and equitable. The big corporations often have facilities in small towns. That's what makes it so devastating when they suddenly pull up stakes and move overseas for a little more profit. As for them trying to retaliate if we regulate them more, that's what the market is for. Try to start charging fees for debit card use and maybe we move our money out of your bank. But we're on the same page here, Justin. Anything that is done to correct our political system and the mega-corporations hold over it should be surgical and swift. I didn't mean everyone gets an equal part of the pie. I meant that we need better guidelines to ensure that unfair advantages aren't part of a company's freedom to grow.

! Moderator Note I'm shutting this thread down. This looks like an attempt to drive traffic to websites. That's inconsistent with our purpose here.

I agree with this. And I think corporations are a big part of the picture as well. It's just that free market capitalism (which isn't so free, I know) is unfairly affected when those corporations can skew the laws to favor themselves over other businesses. You can't tell me that the guy who wrote the above isn't bothered when he hears about things like no-bid contracts or mega-corporations that get all the benefits of doing business in the US as a US company but more than half their workers are overseas and they pay no taxes to help maintain the federal infrastructure they use to make money. The reason you're annoyed is that you obviously misunderstand the movement. It's not about changing to anything other than capitalism, it's about replacing the restrictions that the corporations have so meticulously unraveled since charters were allowed at the beginning of our country, and holding those businesses accountable for their actions. The relentless chipping away of the restrictions has resulted in most of the mess we're in right now. Socialism? Michael Moore?! Why is it socialistic to speak out against closing plants that are the lifeblood of cities and towns all over the US? It wasn't just union wages that started such a mass exodus of US companies. And you're right, rhetoric / persuasion is used by both sides. So why point fingers at one side only? When any pundit mentions the other side's rhetoric, it should be a signal to ignore him or her. I define the American Dream as hard-working people making their companies strong and taking pride in the fact that their products are sought after as the best. Those people buy products because they're paid well and everyone contributes to help the economy. Business owners really mean it when they say that their companies are all about their people, and they make sure their workers are happy and healthy. So when I see what's happening today, with all the lobbying and the pension thefts and the Enron behavior and the tax exemptions and subsidies for healthy companies and the erosion of worker benefits, while the corporations continue to encourage citizens to play their part in the economy, yes, I think the American Dream is over. If you want it back, we simply need to rein in the abuses of the system, replace the restrictions and regulations, and make those who are most capable of it pay their fair share of the taxes that keep us strong and functioning. That, and we need to bring back a healthy middle class so we can continue to buy what we make. We're still better than many of the other choices, imo, and I think that's why people immigrate here. And again, capitalism isn't the problem, it's the way some people are exploiting capitalism. Capitalism is a tool, and tools can be misused. Don't make the mistake of thinking that I'm against knives because I complain about that big guy who is cutting our piece of the pie thinner and thinner in order to make his piece bigger and bigger. We don't need to take his knife away, but I think we need to get one of those cutting guides that restaurants use to make sure the pieces are fair and even.

! Moderator Note This post WAS reported, and does indeed have an element of personal attack in it. Calling a person childish is quite different from calling their argument childish. Please refrain from impugning the character of a member, and focus instead on the content of their arguments (which, in this case, seem clearly to be seeking clarification). Let me add as well that the only post iNow listed as being similar to what got him suspended was the "Don't be a total ass!" comment. Had this post been reported, it would most assuredly have been dealt with as a rules violation. I apologize for missing it at the time. It should be obvious what constitutes a personal attack. Name-calling is at the top of the list. We should be better than that.

! Moderator Note As md65536 has pointed out, the thread has now become about someone who isn't here to defend herself anymore, so I'm going to close it. The topic can be raised again, without the personal references.

Clearly your friends are angels. A word of advice: start holding your drink in your left hand so it doesn't slosh when they enter your body from your right shoulder.

Are you able to click on the number in the rep points box to see who voted which way?

She'll probably never know it, or believe it if she found out, but these are all the reasons she wasn't banned earlier. The staff knows how hard it is for someone with real language trouble. But even attempts to explain misunderstandings met with rude accusations and threats of punitive action. If there was any bias at all, honestly it was probably because of the combination of multiple accounts (which a LOT of people try to get away with) and the, as you put it, "sometimes flawed use of English" [emphasis mine], and the plagiarism. It really seemed like two people or more people were writing those posts, they were so different in style and ability. And who can reach an MD level of study and NOT KNOW that you can't copy the work of others without citation? By that point referencing should be second nature. And I don't think any of the staff treats anyone as "scum until proven worthy". We're pretty careful about that, and have passed over some really knowledgeable people who definitely qualify as experts but lack the courtesy we need to keep people excited about what they can learn instead of depressed about everything they don't know.

Exactly. I can make my thermometer read 1 degree higher just by gripping it more tightly (probably more skin surface area against the glass). I'm sure there are other things I could do to increase it more, like spending some time outdoors in the cold to draw blood away from my extremities before measuring hand temp, then measuring it again in 10 minutes. Without knowing the details of the experiment, we can't review anything meaningful.

This statement at least makes it clear that this is your opinion. Your opening post was more of an assertion of fact. Your choice of words (and the loudness/all caps with which you used them) caused part of the reaction you received. What evidence supports your assertion? What makes it nearer to right than anything else?

I'm guessing it was the "my car's better than your car" attitude. But I agree, taken by itself it's a good puzzle. I'm sure the neg rep came from someone who followed this member's other posts.

Let's not go there, guys. We have plenty of threads arguing existence. This is a chance to use science to address the issues raised. I remember doing exercises where we were asked to envision a ball of warm white light moving around our bodies and affecting the different parts in various ways. It was amazing how you could actually feel it working. And of course it was psychosomatic, the mind convincing itself that what we were imagining was real. I think it's really no different than distracting yourself from the bitter cold by imagining you're laying on a beach being baked by the hot sun. But hey, it's been four days now, Logical, how about some answers to the questions that have been asked?

! Moderator Note Dank, please don't hijack someone else's thread (even one this old) to promote your (as yet) unfounded hypotheses. This is against the rules you agreed to when you joined. You are free to post your ideas to a new thread in our Speculations section. Please read the rules there regarding speculative material.

I think CaptainPanic was very close earlier when he said: Perhaps "few agree" would have been more accurate (except wow, +7, I think that's the rep record), but this is the essence of what goes wrong in these situations. We can tell when a person isn't interested in listening as well as speaking, giving us the respect that productive discussion demands. It's irritating and we don't respond well. And on a forum like this, soapboxing causes others to become too aggressive and hostile, and it becomes a cycle of bad behavior causing bad attitudes causing more bad behavior. Moins Juicy has been banned as a sockpuppet of another account. Il est bon de pratiquer mon français.

What is American capitalism to you? Is it mega-corporations who reap 1000% returns on their investments in lobbying to gain tax exemptions or lessen the regulations that keep consumers safe, or is it more about workers and executives taking pride in the companies they work together for and the products and services they sell? And you should look up what rhetoric means. Right-wing pundits have blurred its meaning quite a bit, mostly because they abuse it regularly.

! Moderator Note I'm moving this from The Lounge to Computer Help. If you don't get the help you need, I'll move it back. Good luck.

Divagating the Future, aka Queen of Wands, aka First Cause, has been banned for continued plagiarism, soapboxing and trolling, despite being suspended for these things recently. We've rarely had so many posts reported by the membership.

You made that up yourself? Excellent job. I've done a lot of writing in my life but I don't think I've ever made up a riddle. If I did I guess it wasn't worth remembering. Kudos to you, md65536. A little tip, though. It demeans your creative efforts to give out too many hints. If someone gives up, it's not necessarily because your riddle is too hard. And feel free to bump a thread if you think people have forgotten it.

Got the answer from reading just the OP (well, and the nuclear fission reactor answer ). I missed this when it was posted in August.

Please describe how you performed this experiment. How did you measure the temperature of your hands at the beginning of the experiment, and how did you measure the temperature at the end? How long did it take to increase by 6 degrees? Did you lay the thermometer on the palm of your hand or did you grip it in your fist?

Great point Randi makes about the patients buying into the scam. I remember reading once that fraud is actually many times more prevalent in our society than we think because so many cases go unreported (it was an article about scamming the elderly, iirc). It's difficult for most people to admit to being that gullible, and the elderly can be especially reticent out of fear their families will think them incompetent to live on their own.

I was informed in one of the staff sections that they are photos of a teen porn star, cropped to show just the head. Out of place here. I didn't explain it well. The misdirection is when it says that each guy paid $9 for the room, plus $2 tip. They don't. They pay a total of $25.00 (I shouldn't have messed with dividing this number among the 3 guys) plus the $2 tip, and the bellboy returns the remaining $3. There IS a real answer and it lies in the earlier misdirection.