Phi for All

Many years ago, I saw Joseph Newman on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. He claimed to have a motor that combined electromagnets and gyroscopes to make an EM field so big it could be used to feed electricity back into itself for not only perpetual motion, but extra free electricity besides. He was very persuasive and had everyone (except real physicists) fooled. No one but Joseph Newman could ever recreate one of his motors. That's the real test in science, predictions that can be reproduced by others.

So he was killed but his plans were left? Why would killing him stop production of a water fuel cell that worked? Believe me, many have tried to prove him right and they all failed, which is almost the same as being proved wrong. The only conspiracy theorists who still believe in this are people who never tried to duplicate the cells. They lack the knowledge to do so, but they remain convinced they are right. If the plans worked, don't you think someone would be making a lot of money with it, in spite of everything the oil companies could do? It's not like the plans require a fortune in start up capital.

Stan Meyer was found guilty of fraud. No one could ever duplicate what he claimed to be able to do, which should tell you something. There are no cheap methods of generating electricity. You could probably spend your time better buying a gasoline-powered generator and then figuring out how to make THAT more efficient.

Like most political manoeuvrings, this one has several goals, only one of which is "a great humanitarian effort". There is no pretense is that goal is achieved along with the others. Further, I think you've got your partisan blinders on. Your defense of the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq included the overthrow of Hussein for humanitarian purposes, iirc.

So... evil things happen to me, even if I'm good, because of... evil deeds I did in past lives... that I'm not even aware of, and can never know about?! Whose definition of "evil deeds" are we using? The Hindu version, the Christian version, the Budhist version? Does the religion matter or does it have to be one that believes in reincarnation? I have to tell you, I think the idea that we are paying for transgressions from a life we're not even aware we had sounds horrible. I mean, that's really a shockingly hideous thing to burden someone with. "Evil is going to fall on you no matter how good you are because you used to be bad in a previous life that you don't remember." Which religion is this from?

It would be more correct to say "God remains unobservable". This includes more senses than just the visual, and includes other ways of obtaining information. We don't have to get it only by visualizing it, therefore it's not a good example. There is a lot of evidence in favor of his existence, very little that might disprove it, and my theory that he existed is testable. Again, seeing something visually is different from scientific observation. If I think I have cockroaches in my kitchen but I never see any, I can test my theory by spreading flour near the baseboards. I still don't see the cockroaches but I can see where they have walked through the flour. This is a testable, repeatable observation (if I want to be truly rigorous, I would find some real cockroaches to make flour tracks and compare them to the ones in my kitchen). This makes God super (outside of the) natural. A lot of saints never knew bliss, many died screaming and none were recognized as saints while they lived. Completely wrong. Science studies what is natural, or in nature. God is supernatural, can't be observed in nature. Everything you attribute to God has naturalistic explanations.

! Moderator Note Advertisement-driven threads are not allowed on SFN, See Rules Section 2 Part 7, I removed the contact info in the OP, so feel free to discuss the ethical considerations of organ marketing. Do NOT discuss the actual personal commitment of anything illegal, per Rules Section 2 Part 3aii.

A comedian friend of mine has the answer!

If I were omnipotent and wanted humans to know The Truth, I wouldn't trust books and writing. My words would hang indelible and unchanging in the air over every continent, written in fiery letters that could be understood in all languages. That's how I'd do it. Observable, testable, predictable, yet unexplainable in any other way than, "Somebody omnipotent must have done THAT!"

I hope the testing continues to work well. This would be tremendously positive for stem cell research.

I don't think in terms of "God"; it seems clear to me that religious nomenclature has too many preconceptions attached to it. I think the Bible was written by men. It certainly isn't an inerrant text that should be taken literally, not to me. If there is a higher power, perhaps it's a being(s) who simply knows how to manipulate energy in ways we don't understand. Did this being "create" us? I don't even go there, don't need to. If this being(s) started life and the evolutionary process on this planet, I congratulate him/them on their patience and artistry. Magnificent!

Done. It might make sense to start with something designed to be amphibious from the start. On first look, the Aquada seems promising, but I found no prices. Must be expensive. And I don't think it's meant to be totally submerged.

I actually believe in a higher power, but not in omnipotence (so I guess the God of Abraham is right out). To me, faith isn't about blind belief, it's about reminding me their are many things I don't know, that humans don't know. Science is about removing as much doubt as possible about what we know. I have faith that consciousness lives on after the body dies, but I don't let that faith excuse me for not learning as much as I can about this 3-dimensionally-limited life I'm living now.

Done. Let me know if the new title is OK.

True omnipotence would render scientific laws and proofs meaningless. Observation would no longer be trustworthy. Is this the creationist god who makes the world seem billions of years old but really created it a few millennia ago? I would first ask why such a powerful entity felt the need to deceive before asking for our faith and worship. How I felt about It afterwards would depend on Its answer.

People in this 24/7 media/information-driven society may have more of a tendency to perceive unfair class distinctions (especially with sports/entertainment celebrities who seems to court the media more than the blueblood wealthy), but I think ecoli is right, it's mostly our tendencies towards some sort of bias. Sometimes we start thinking our fellow workers have it in for us and then that's all we think of, and we ignore anything that challenges what we believe is true in favor of any little thing that supports it.

There's already a Japanese Reactor thread open, so I'll respond to a different part of your OP. How do you ventilate a water-tight vehicle? I'm not sure a "Tsunami Mode" option to close off outside air/water would really be marketable. Sort of like trying to sell an optional parachute for cars that drive near cliffs and "might" drive off one someday. There's a line that has to be drawn somewhere when guarding against eventualities.

Then you must be punished. I shall recommend a good flensing.

But it should anger us, at the very least. I think a lot of corruption goes unpunished because we expect a certain amount of it as almost natural. Politicians can lie, bankers can steal, and big business can pollute. They all seem to count on our unwillingness to press for accountability. The one that kills me is how, in the US, we can't thoroughly investigate a president after he leaves office anymore, because it would disparage the office, wouldn't be good for the country, would make us look bad, etc. Convenientness, some would say. It's being stored under the rug where it was swept in the first place. But I agree, there's a lot more to be learned. I'll bet BoA is interviewing for "patsies" as we speak.

Welcome, welcome, to all the new members. I hope you've gone ahead and started posting and haven't been waiting for an acknowledgment here, not everyone reads this thread. We're all awfully glad you're here though, and we hope you have fun, learn lots and post often. Cheers!

Short answer: no, not really. Nothing that would work on most people in most situations and still be legal to carry AND completely non-lethal. And don't forget that if you do something really memorably obnoxious, like the stench thing, you make it more likely that someone will hold a grudge and come after you or stake out the area waiting for you to show up again. I understand how you feel though, you want to make them suffer for attacking you. Me, I'd try to find one of those musical greeting cards with Paris Hilton singing Feelings by Morris Albert. Whip that out and your attacker will either run screaming, double over puking or pee himself laughing. Btw, when you say you were attacked, do you mean you were mugged (held up for money at gun/knife-point), or some bully-type jumped you to beat on you with their fists/feet? The attacker's motivation might suggest ways to prepare yourself in the future.

This happened to me at Burger King the other day. The guy kept trying to give me the order of the lady standing next to me.

I think the warning systems need to be evaluated on a regular basis. It's the only way most things improve. That must mean our public school system is way more than good enough. Sweet!

Our uses and need for intact skin? Or are you talking about skin that has been removed from its host? Your choice of starting this thread in Amateur Science Equipment makes me ask.

I agree that our degree of materialism will have to taper off. How that will happen is going to be very interesting. Can we substitute the innovation that comes from market competition for something that doesn't mean eleventy-thousand brands of toasters, or laptops that can't share power cords? Will we eventually realize that convenience usually carries too high a price tag? That we can either have disposable products or disposable income but not both? I think we need a technological breakthrough like AI or really cheap energy if we're going to break our current cultural cycle. I think we can at least harness the energy available to us in our own solar system by the year 3000 if we can work as a planet.