Mr Skeptic

If the skin's interior was appropriately insulated from electrical discharge, could it be filled with a small number of highly like-charged particles to equalize the pressure through the repulsive effect, while only trivially increasing mass?

This seems like it might have a better chance of working, especially if leaking some of the electric charge would be acceptable, though to keep with the spirit of the post it could be used on the surface of the balloon instead of as a gas. But then the weight of the insulator would become an issue.

Yeah, especially if we then have to worry about edited quotes.

i think there should be a syntax help subject for people that are trying to learn some basic programing to ask what the error is in their syntax

People should know how to figure that out from the error message their compiler gives, and that should be far quicker too. Having a whole forum for asking about syntax errors is like begging for people to let us do their work for them. There might be an occasional syntax error that might be worthy of being discussed on a forum, but really most are quite trivial.

I think that

A) Some of our text-only lists need fixing, specifically the second item using capital letters, and

B) This smiley has to go.

There can only be one Cap'n

Our new Statue of Liberty:

dumb [duhm]

adjective, -er, -est, verb

–adjective

5. disagreeing with a politician on one or more issues. Depending on the circumstances, slightly more polite words might be used instead, or the accusation done only indirectly such as contained within a joke.

7. mute, silent

-verb

3. To attempt to mute or silence by calling a person dumb.

Well there's the "active content", all the latest posts of the day. Hard to find though, it is way at the bottom. Or, you can log out, click view new content, and then log in or bookmark the page.

Yes, we do need better lists of our content.

http://www.hol.com/~mikesch/tetzel.htm

After Tetzel had received a substantial amount of money at Leipzig, a nobleman asked him if it were possible to receive a letter of indulgence for a future sin. Tetzel quickly answered in the affirmative, insisting, however, that the payment had to made at once. This the nobleman did, receiving thereupon letter and seal from Tetzel. When Tetzel left Leipzig the nobleman attacked him along the way, gave him a thorough beating, and sent him back empty-handed to Leipzig with the comment that this was the future sin which he had in mind. Duke George at first was quite furious about this incident, but when he heard the whole story he let it go without punishing the nobleman.

Source: Luthers Schriften, herausg. von Walch. XV, 446.

@TheTheoreticianI have a new theory. It is an incommensurable, irreducible, catholic, unfalsifiable, empirically validated, testable, complete and consistent theory of everything. I have been working on it for ~5 years.

The bolded parts contradict themselves. Something is unfalsifiable if and only if it makes no real predictions, which precludes it being tested or empirically validated. In any case, I too have a theory of everything but it does not fit in the 140 chara

Various DNA similarities can only be explained by having the creatures be modified copies, unless you are a believer in absurdly unlikely coincidences.

From this it is obvious that the theory that ERVs represent 'junk DNA' and are residues left by unknown viral infections, is pure nonsense.

 

If the ERVs have such extensive functions, then it is clear that they must have been there from the beginning

Yes, from well before we were human. This is why the same pattern is seen in other species, as unlikely as that would be to happen were they not modified copies.

I would suggest mixing hydrogen peroxide with toilet bowl cleaner. That will make lots of chlorine. I think.

I would suggest not breathing chlorine since it can and will kill you.

You can always rinse the stuff off the eggs, no? Rinse and centrifuge? I don't think any of those you listed will affect the DNA, and the other parts you need to remove anyways.

This simplistic split is not realistic. Even ignoring the dollar value inherent in moving up the executive ladder, one of those three odd numbered executives may reject exec #1's proposal on grounds of fairness. So they lose a buck; exec #1's proposal is not fair. We humans (and other animals) appear to have some kind of built-in fairness mechanism. Google "Ultimatum game" for more.

A good point, and one of the many reasons that we are not rational (or at least sometimes appear not to be). In part this is because the game of life has multiple rounds. If this one game was all there were, rejecting a proposal on the basis of unfairness might not be rational. But in a multi-round game you can make it clear that you reject "unfair" proposals, logic be damned. In the end, this sense of fairness can benefit you, as others fear to offer you an unfair proposal.

I agree that it's unanswerable without more info. You've got two commodities (money and reduced competition) without an "exchange rate," and a situation where the utility of each might well be different depending on where you are on the list and/or how many remain. It could well be that eliminating competitors is more important than money for everyone, in which case the guaranteed result is #6 getting a million, #7 getting nothing, and everybody else getting fired.

Not quite. I think that if keeping one's job is the primary motivation, then the top exec will want to bribe the lower execs, since all the top execs are afraid to lose their job. While #2 might like to fire #1, doing so puts him on the chopping block. If you assume superrationality (that everyone reaches the same conclusions), then #2 considers that because a majority would want to get rid of #1, a very similar majority would want to get rid of him as well.

In this case, (let's assume that the money is essentially worthless), #6 and #7 are guaranteed their jobs. #5 can't reject #4's proposal because of that, since #6 and #7 will kick him out. So #5 is fairly secure in his job, as are all the others below him. I guess that means that these four will have the majority and outvote the others.

Let's keep score. The fraction indicates a n-way split but not necessarily evenly.

Let's suppose it goes all the way down to #6. #6's proposal is easy: Everything goes to #6. #6 will vote for this proposal, garnering the needed 50%. Exec #7 will be screwed if it gets down to #6.

Score:

Exec #1: loss of job

Exec #2: loss of job

Exec #3: loss of job

Exec #4: loss of job

Exec #5: loss of job

Exec #6: 1 mill, -5 competitors

Exec #7: -5 competitors

Before it gets down to #6, #5's proposal needs to be sunk. Unlike #6, #5 needs 1 cohort to go along with his proposal. #7 will go along with anything #5 proposes so long as it is better than nothing. Exec #6 will be screwed if it gets down to #5.

Score:

Exec #1: loss of job

Exec #2: loss of job

Exec #3: loss of job

Exec #4: loss of job

Exec #5: 1/2 mil, -4 competitors

Exec #6: -4 competitors

Exec #7: 1/2 mil, -4 competitors

Before it gets down to #5, #4's proposal needs to be sunk. #4 also needs 1 cohort to garner 50%, the obvious target being #6. Execs #5 and #7 will be screwed by #4's proposal.

Score:

Exec #1: loss of job

Exec #2: loss of job

Exec #3: loss of job

Exec #4: 1/2 mil, -3 competitors

Exec #5: -3 competitors

Exec #6: 1/2 mil, -3 competitors

Exec #7: -3 competitors

Before it gets down to #4, #3's proposal needs to be sunk. #3 needs two cohorts, the two who would be screwed by #5's proposal. #3 offers a three-way split between himself, #5, and #7. Execs #4 and #6 will be

Score:

Exec #1: loss of job

Exec #2: loss of job

Exec #3: 1/3 mil, -2 competitors

Exec #4: -2 competitors

Exec #5: 1/3 mil, -2 competitors

Exec #6: -2 competitors

Exec #7: 1/3 mil, -2 competitors

Before it gets down to #3, #2's proposal needs to be sunk. #2 also needs two cohorts to get 50%, and these are execs #4 and #6. Execs #3, #5, and #7 will be screwed if it gets down to #2.

Score:

Exec #1: loss of job

Exec #2: 1/3 mil, -1 competitor

Exec #3: -1 competitor

Exec #4: 1/3 mil, -1 competitor

Exec #5: -1 competitor

Exec #6: 1/3 mil, -1 competitor

Exec #7: -1 competitor

Before it gets down to #2, #1's proposal needs to be sunk. #1 needs three cohorts: Execs #3, #5, and #7. Exec #1 should offer a four-way split amongst himself and execs #3, #5, and #7.

Exec #1: 1/4 mil

Exec #2:

Exec #3: 1/4 mil

Exec #4:

Exec #5: 1/4 mil

Exec #6:

Exec #7: 1/4 mil

If -1 competitor is worth 1/4 mil, then this proposal will be rejected by #7.

I think it depends on how much value there is to removing competition, and how much value to losing one's job (although that last bit may not matter if you assume pure rationality).

The trouble is there are multiple possible interpretations for that. For example, it could mean that the atmosphere is protected from being damaged, so that we can't pollute it. It could mean that we can't "climb" the atmosphere, ie fly. If someone says something vague enough then there is almost certainly an interpretation that happens to be true. The Nostradamus folks do this all the time; fortune tellers do it professionally.

"If my dad ever finds out what I've been up to he's gonna crucify me" -- Jesus's character, in Hamlet 2

The above was an entirely secular post. Please consider it from a philosophical or scientific perspective.

The idea that science is based on belief is simply not true, while I might not personally be able to confirm all of science there are parts of it I can indeed confirm.

But can you confirm one of the very few premises that science has? For example, can you confirm that the world is objective? Or consistent? Or do you take this on faith?

If I publish a paper describing an experimental setup and the results, and it is interesting so a few people repeat it but get different, boring results, then will they not claim that I made a mistake? This is because they assume the world is consistent and objective. If I claim my experiment was correct and evidence that the world is inconsistent, or subjective, they will laugh at me.

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As to the respect issue, one of the big pluses for having our own religion forum is that we can be different than other religion forums, in adhering to higher standards for discussion, and also a different perspective.

(If the above has copyright issues, a link to the website is here: http://www.cartoonistgroup.com/store/add.php?iid=44382)

I do love how I've now been called childish and how it's been implied that I'm acting like a kindergartner, and how this has been done by the very people talking about how important it is not to be mean and not to be rude to posters. It's sort of a pot meet kettle moment, but whatever.

We get more delicious irony in that now we get the person who wants to go around insulting people, complaining about implied insults to himself. Pots and kettles everywhere!

Religious belief is worthy of rejection because it is all based on faith, and often that belief is held in direct opposition to evidence due to the fact that faith is prioritized over evidence.

Scientific belief is worthy of rejection because it is all based on faith in materialistic explanations, and often that belief is held in direct opposition to Biblical evidence due to the fact that faith is prioritized over evidence.

In logic class, unless we are proving a theorem, we always always always have to start with premises. There really is no proper way to tell what the correct premises are, so they have to be assumed. Starting with different premises usually leads to different conclusions. If your best argument against some position boils down to "my premises are better than yours", fine, but do remember that your premises are all assumed as well.

If faith is so critical, and so important, why then do they reject faith when it is presented as argument from others with differing beliefs? Why is it good enough to support their personal beliefs, but not good enough to support the validity of beliefs held by others which differ from them?

They have different premises. Given as evidence arguments from different premises and reaching different conclusions, theists and atheists alike remain unconvinced of each others arguments. Each thinks to themselves that they have proven their case, while each thinks the other has not.

Either ALL claims of faith are equally valid, or none are. Theists everywhere have only thus far managed to offer personal faith as their argumentative foundation; faith alone as the reason for their beliefs. Since they have nothing more than faith alone their assertions and beliefs can be safely dismissed as vacuous and without utility.

But then you wouldn't take it very well if the few premises you held, and therefore everything based on those premise, was dismissed simply because you take those premises on faith. So the double standard definitely goes both ways.

Or did you think you can get anywhere without starting from certain premises?

Do we need to be just as nice to astrology as we do to religion? Can I say astrology is bullshit or that anyone who believes in astrology is not playing with a full deck? Astrology is no better than religion nor is it any worse.

There are two notable differences between astrology and religion:

1) Belief in astrology is weaker; hardly any people base large parts of their lives on it. For comparison, people often base their morality on their religion, are willing to die for it, etc.

2) Astrology is much clearer; it is current and continuous rather than largely historical. This makes it much more amenable to the scientific method, and so it can also that much more easily be dismissed. Religions such as Christianity rely on a holy book thousands of years old, and each individual may have their own interpretation of it, and it does not make day to day predictions here and now, other than some vague something or other about god's plan.