Phi for All

I sympathize with the Tea Party movement as a conceptual attempt by Americans to voice their concerns over what they perceive to be wrong with this country. I just feel like many of those concerns have been tossed onto the original "pile" and get unvalidated acceptance simply because they were voiced by a like-minded entity. It's obvious that many of their concerns have no merit, like not wanting more "czars" who wield unbalanced power over our lives. Many of these concerns are just snow that the ball picked up on its way downhill. Each of these needs to be carefully removed through education, which can't happen if you condemn the movement as a whole, or vow not to take them seriously as a group. Some of their concerns are legitimate, like how the government is bailing out Wall Street bankers. These deals weren't done with the eye towards profit that the auto bailouts were. This is actually one area where the Tea Party could turn against the Republicans if the Reps continue to defend the likes of Goldman Sachs and CitiCorp. And some of the stuff they are against is just partisan grumbling. Blaming Obama for things done under Bush, objecting to proposals originally raised by Republicans but now somehow tainted by Democrat support, these things may never be addressed properly. Get both the left and the right to support third and fourth parties and we may gain some ground there. So I would say yes, there are reasons to take them seriously. Acknowledge their legitimate concerns while pointing out that some of those concerns are just hand-waving designed to either inflame the movement or discredit it. I've been impressed by some of the stances that seemed to cut across party lines, like the banking concerns. The Tea Party has its merits, but like any mob action, it can be mislead by those who know how to spin things their way.

It's too universal. Talk about painting with broad strokes!

What makes you happy?

franknguyen, I moved your post here to the physics section, where it will get the attention you need.

Outsourcing neuron allocation! Why didn't *I* think of that?

Here you go: Just scale it up a bit, print it, cut it out and staple it to the shirt you're wearing.

To me, the integral has too many elements, although it's a good direction to go for further attempts (pare down, lose the brackets, separate some of the elements, etc). The biohazard, while cool, is ultimately not very friendly or inviting to a discussion forum. I love the supernova for its animation and simplicity (difficult to get both), and if a static version can be done for the T-shirts that still implies the orbital motion, that would be my vote. AFAIK, the brain itself isn't proportioned according to the golden mean, but they have done some MRI scans of brains viewing images using various proportions and the ones with those close to the golden mean drew more positive responses.

Hello. I would be willing to bet, since you say that you still have urges when you watch attractive females on TV, that this is a simple self-esteem issue, a lack of confidence in dealing with women. It is NOT some kind of evolutionary corrective measure. What's probably happening is that your fear of failure is overriding your attraction to these women. That's why it seems like there's no motivation. The cure is simple. You start out small, just start saying hello more often, ask people how they are (men and women), just be more attentive to others in general. Listen to the answers. Smile. When you are getting more smiles in return, you might get asked to join a mixed group going to lunch. Eventually, you could ask a woman from work if she would help you pick out some clothes at a nearby store right after work ("Can I borrow your taste in clothes sometime, maybe after work? I'm going for a sort of Brad Pitt/Johnny Depp look and I need help!"). Don't try to pick her up or ask her out on a date unless things go that way naturally. If she agrees though, it's the perfect way to set up a one-on-one coffee or dinner date.

In an architectural office I did some work for, they had a toilet like that, with a sink on top of the tank. It was a big space-saver for them, and if your hands do get anything on them while you're using the loo, it's nice to have the sink right there instead of buttoning your clothes up with dirty hands to walk over to a standard sink.

Too often, the ones who become terrorists started out in a small village that had no school of any kind. When you get older, if you're a boy, you travel to the nearest town that has a madrassah school, funded by extremists with lots of oil money, where most of your education is religious, and fills your head with anti-western sentiment. The governments fund (or are supposed to fund) the few schools that teach the basics like reading/writing, maths, science and history, the only schools that teach boys *and* girls. In villages where girls have gone to government schools, the infant mortality rate is cut in half. So my point is, much of the Middle East is populated by people who don't have the basic education that allows most of us to think for ourselves. This is where we can fight terrorism most effectively, by helping to educate the young people instead of waiting until they grow up to have their daughters shot and their reasons to live dwindle until suicide with a bomb starts to look like a smart thing to do. Many Islamic scholars point out that the Quran encourages education.

Five settings of water pressure! I don't think you could trust American teenagers with that kind of opportunity for abuse (unless there is some kind of assensory device that can tell there's actually someone sitting there). It seems to be a very good solution. The more I think about the use of paper alone, the more sense a bidet makes. I didn't see any settings for the blowdryer so it must be automated. What's with the "flushing sound" with volume control? Will it play music instead (for some reason, I think "Lady of Spain" on the accordion would be particularly appropriate)? Or is that to cover up the sound of the blowdryer? Or perhaps to cover up the sound of some pre-spray flatulence?

I thought the same about the vehicle in the beginning, the one that came to rescue the others. They drove kind of slowly, they didn't look hurried. I thought, man, I would be hunkered down as much as possible, moving quickly when I could. Then I thought, yeah, that's exactly what the army guys are targeting, the furtive movements and the guys who look like they're helping terrorists. I did too. Are you talking about the teens who were with the armed guys in the beginning? Something about the whole procedure tells me that there is some few seconds delay between acquiring a target and firing, and then a few more seconds before the missile hits. Perhaps it was all the radio chatter, the request for permission to fire, the firing from a moving position, etc. And again, this guy may be a pedestrian or he may be someone who has learned not to look like a terrorist. I have to wonder how obvious this gunship was in this area that had been sustaining fire for the last half hour. I'm not sure how many "pedestrians" could be oblivious to the potential for danger there. It seems clear that there is definitely activity to investigate here. I don't think it's clear there were any monsters involved, and I don't think it's an open and shut case either way. And I'm not a supporter of this type of war in any way. I think terrorists need to be fought by giving people knowledge before they can become terrorists, not by letting them remain ignorant and then trying to wipe them out with conventional weapons and warfare.

Can you explain this process in more detail? Is it a thin jet, a spray, or more of a fountain? Is it like a automated car wash, using soapy and rinse cycles before blowdrying? Could the force needed be uncomfortable to some? I think many consider a bidet to be for women only. It could be that there is a male aversion to using something like this. I agree with you though, paper alone is a stupid way to clean yourself from what most would consider one of the worst substances to get on you. And the resource waste is horrible, with the costs climbing higher all the time. Eventually, it could wipe us out.

I don't know how fast those missiles go, but there's only 5 seconds between when the obvious pedestrian enters the picture and the missile hits. It could be that it was fired before they knew he was there.

I think it was determined that Janus' logo was so awesomely cool that no one would ever read any posts, instead spending their entire day watching the logo. Also, the T-shirts would cost $100.

Die your search lead you to this thread on the subject? If not, have a read and add to our knowledge if you like.

I think if any non-nuclear country devised an unprecedented bio weapon and officially used it to attack and kill hundreds of thousands of Americans, no one is going to hold President Obama to his promise not to retaliate with nukes. It would be like someone vowing not to use a gun on an unarmed opponent, only to find out that the opponent is a mixed-martial arts grand master. You point and pull the trigger.

Because your shoes may fall off if you don't.

I'm curious, what's stopping you? Looking at our logs, we get a lot of new joiners who post a few questions and then sort of drift off. I can understand that, you have a question that gets answered and you go back to normal life. But we get quite a lot of people who join, post an intro, then never (or rarely) post again, and I was just wondering if there is something we can do about those folks. It can't be our breath. Is it just that you aren't in the habit yet? Do you post in other forums? Don't you hate people who ask a bunch of questions?

Part of the problem is lumping chemicals like sarin gas in with nukes and calling them all WMDs. Sarin, and most area-denial agents like it, are only lethal if you can use it on a contained population with no ventilation or means of egress.

How is this even relevant? Obama simply stated he wouldn't use nukes on countries without nukes. Rather than giving up a valuable tool, he has brilliantly maneuvered the US into a strong but compassionate stance. In a single stroke, he not only lets much of the world breathe a sigh of relief, he also warns smaller countries not to pursue nuclear weapon technology.

You can make intellectual choices based on experience, but they can't totally override who you're basically attracted to. Young blond women just out of their teens will always hold a fascination for me, even though my experience has told me that the slightly older brunettes in my life have been better lovers. My redheads always had the best wit and sense of humor, another thing that attracts me. My experiences with young blonds were always the worst, so if I really had any choice in the matter, would my thoughts of lust always turn to them first, despite my knowledge that brunettes were a better sexual match?

Because it builds character.

Portugal has obviously compromised in a way that favors the individual who holds only enough drugs for personal use, but leaves the laws in place to prosecute dealers and manufacturers. This keeps prison populations free of drugs-only inmates but still leaves the criminal element in charge of distribution. I don't see a way to take the criminal element away without making all drugs legal, which inevitably leads to commercialization. I think open distribution and marketing techniques would increase the usage of many drugs, but liability issues and regulations would make them safer, if not less addictive. Perhaps drugs could be treated like fireworks. It's OK to make them and sell them, without advertising (other than signs on your place of business), but if you're caught with them in a non-designated usage area you'll be heavily fined. If you can't pay the fine, you join a work detail that fixes up damages done by drug-users.

Spam's not allowed here, bitch.