Phi for All

Unwrapped heads lead to jerking knees.

Hi Greg, I merged your thread with out Introduce Yourself thread. Welcome and enjoy.

Thanks for letting us know, but next time you cut and paste, reference the source in the same post, OK? Otherwise it's plagiarism.

I see your point, and I agree. You are *not* a reluctant nitpicker. I do see what you are saying. I was trying to point out that "highest form" should be applied to a situation, and not all situations favor humans as the epitome of development.

It's not simply the tone. The fact that you're equating belief in purple unicorns, a decidedly small worship group, with God, who, despite your personal beliefs, has a rather enormous following, puts you on a fallacious foundation. It's rather easy to knock down belief in purple unicorns in a sentence or two, and much more difficult to do the same with God. Even without the organized belief system, the literature alone shows that belief in God can't be equated with a belief in purple unicorns, no matter how much you see them as the same intellectually.

Excuse me? What's a sales pitch, the number itself or the spokesperson saying the number is arbitrary? I can tell you that neither is a good sales pitch (I know you didn't claim it was good). Mentioning price up front is never a good idea, and admitting your numbers are arbitrary erodes trust. If they really wanted to sell it to me, they should start out telling me how much this will help the economy, then tell me how much interest the taxpayers are going to earn from this "loan". Then tell me what the duration of the loan will be, and only then tell me it's just a mere $700B. I might be impressed with such a plan.

I'll bet it includes provisions to hold you without warrant at Guantanamo Bay if you miss a mortgage payment. Looks like it will pass: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080925/ap_on_bi_ge/financial_meltdown

iNow, I'm not sure if anyone else has pointed this out, but I've been meaning to for a long time. Whenever someone professes a belief in God, you jump to the fore with the "purple unicorn" strawman. While I agree that unobservable phenomenon have little significance to scientific discussions, you equate the sum of interest in God to the sum of interest in fairy tales, and I highly disagree with that. It not only is a blatant strawman, due to the differing natures of worship/religion and folklore, but it ALWAYS causes friction in threads where it's mentioned. It's belittling, it's supercilious and it's unnecessary. Science doesn't have to ridicule religious beliefs to get the point across that it is not designed to deal with the supernatural. In this case, I think it's an intellectual high ground you're bulldozing flat with your equations. This approach creates an automatic defensive posture. Even people who are on the fence will leap to oppose you. In politics and religion, even more so.

Wow, that stinks. It stinks so bad, I don't think the air is where they pulled that number from.

This picture is worth three words (that's my niece) and a tremendously long "awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww". Cute baby Eloise.

I saw blike on line looking at this thread last night and I was hoping he'd post a med student's POV. Maybe he can crack loose some time before the weekend is out.

As much as I objected to a lot of the deregulation Bill Clinton didn't veto, I think it made a big difference having a scholar as president. I think people around the world respected him for his brains and insight. I doubt it makes anyone but Americans happy to have so much power in the hands of "mavericks" and "ordinary guys". And I like what Clinton had to say about the bailout needing to earn interest for the taxpayers. This shouldn't be a free ride for wealth.

Can you order online? They aren't very expensive since they are usually the first casualty in a crash. The blades are the most important part of a helicopter, and involve the most danger if they aren't done right. Do you have any of the rest of the helicopter built?

Just like the Patriot Act, another enormous piece of legislation that few read before voting on, redefined the dynamics of our national security. And we're letting the most unpopular president and Congress in history shove these things down our throats. Perhaps we should rethink our desire to elect "Joe Blow Guy I Can Relate To And Have A Beer With" and put someone in office with an elite mind that can not only read but read between the lines.

Isn't this one of the things that prolonged the Great Depression? Besides the wealthfare angle, I'm most concerned that the people who know most about these assets are the people who got them in trouble in the first place. If oversight isn't rigorous, those are going to be the very people put in charge of the bailout.

Which is completely worthless as a definition since God, by His choice, is unavailable for comparison. This may be a more ethical than strictly scientific discussion, but claiming God looks like us because we were made in His image is a tautology, and quite illogical. "Highest form" is a nebulous concept. We have vast intelligence but no real instincts. We can form large societies with individual freedoms and flexible strictures that guide our development but we also wage war on each other for pretty abstract reasons. We can build and operate complex machinery but without training and materials we freeze to death in weather that any animal with fur could easily survive. As a definition, "highest form" is too subjective.

Moral high card?! According to this AP article, Obama called McCain and offered to work together for a bipartisan solution. McCain called back a few hours later and agreed to the joint announcement, and suggested suspending the debate. Minutes after getting off the phone about this joint statement, McCain held a press conference by himself and announced it alone. I think McCain's moral high card is a deuce of diamonds. I did like Obama's answer though: "It's my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who, in approximately 40 days, will be responsible for dealing with this mess," Obama said at a news conference in Clearwater, Fla. "It's going to be part of the president's job to deal with more than one thing at once." I get the feeling McCain is a little afraid of debating the economy. I also can't wait till Biden gets Palin on stage to ask her about Fannie and Freddy and why she thinks they've "gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers" when they're private entities.

Quitting is a successful remedy, a theory that's not only falsifiable but has over 16 years of my own personal observation and experimentation. More political than moral, I would say. But morality plays a part. It's beside the point, but I disagree. Taking full responsibility for your problem and not relying on the crutch of having a "disease" is crucial, imo, to a successful recovery. I agree with Greenburg that there is a problem with some of the classifications. I'd call substance abuse a self-imposed disorder. Your normal functions are disturbed and you are the one causing the disturbance. It has an organic cause but it's not one that insinuates itself. It needs cognizant help.

I swear I've seen this before somewhere. The back of my mind is telling me it's a heat seamer for joining two pieces of material, like carpet. The front of my mind is laughing at the back and insisting that those aren't electrical leads, but are more for mounting the device to something else.

I disagree. If I were the press, I would give equal time to all candidates, and then spend most of Palin's coverage telling the people how little access you're getting. "Sarah Palin shook hands with the Afghan president today while the press watched, but we're unsure if she was allowed to say anything besides hello because we were ushered out after less than half a minute. In fact, the McCain campaign has blocked press access to their running mate and will not allow us to ask her any questions." Perhaps they should replace the photos of Palin with photos of bewildered reporters. That would be hilarious. Every Palin story would be about lack of press access and speculation about why so much fear and secrecy.

That's it, if Obama and Biden don't absolutely slaughter McCain and Palin in the debates, I'm voting for Jed Bartlett.

Could Sayo steal this image for his avatar? Or in other words...can a banana glom a llama?

I used to prefer desktops for all those reasons, but you just can't beat portability for all the other reasons mentioned. In fact, when my last desktop fried on me (one month after the warranty expired), I took the extra monitor and now have it configured as an extended desktop for my laptop when I'm at my desk. Now I have work on one screen and SFN on the other.

Here's a link for you. It looks like it varies. Where are you located, where do you want to go to college, and where do you want to work?

jdurg has a good point about tarnishing. Tungsten carbide is the one they use for jewelry and it's not supposed to scratch or tarnish ever (diamonds will scratch it, of course). They also do inlays with the rose gold hermanntrude mentioned, and I agree that it's quite lovely. If your fiance is prone to fits of temper, a heavy ring will hurt more when she hurls it at you. For drama queens, I suggest aluminum.