Mr Skeptic

Kind of, but I think that Slashdot took it a bit too far with having (visible) scores for each post. I have recently switched from Slashdot to here, and I like the atmosphere here much more. Slashdot has waaaaay more groupthink than here, and I think that is due to their moderation system. Or they reached critical mass, or something. Don't turn SFN into Slashdot! What I do like about Slashdot is their use of hiding bad posts instead of deleting them. Their use of subthreads also makes it easier to carry on conversations, but likewise increases the conversation:discussion ratio. OTOH, user moderation would make it possible to have things like the religion forum without overworking the moderators. Anyhow, there are good aspects and bad aspects, and some of these may go together.

Some people are hard to understand. For example, the sentence "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" is a meaningful, grammatically correct sentence, but most people can't understand it. Of course, there's also plenty of people who are completely crazy all over the internet, and they are very annoying. Sometimes I try to make a very narrow, specific point, and then people read a whole lot more into what I said than what I actually said, and that too is annoying. Or maybe they translated their post using Babelfish from English to Dutch to French to German and back to English, like I just did with your post.

bombus, I think you may be inadvertantly attacking a strawman. If you are defining "habitat" differently than Lomborg, then you are putting words into his mouth. As for your argument from authority, well, no further comment is necessary. Edit: is there a distinction between species-habitat and ecosystem-habitat?

For the purposes of this thread, assume that global warming is happening, or at the very least, is likely. If you want to debate whether global warming is actually is happening, there are already threads here, here, and here. Since threads about whether global warming is happening or not tend to get quite heated, I would rather this one keep only about what to do about global warming given that you accept it is happening. There have been several ideas about what to do about global warming. For example: Reduce waste (ie, efficiency) Reduce our carbon output (ie, stop burning fossil fuels) Increase carbon uptake (ie, grow more plants) Sequester carbon dioxide (ie, keep burning fossil fuels, but put the carbon dioxide underground or underwater) Reduce solar irradiation (ie, big space umbrella, or lots of dust) Deal with it later with future technology (ie, in 50 years when we have fusion power ) Let global warming happen, and adapt to it (ie, Wait for California to move to me in my old age rather than the other way around ) Of course, these are not mutually exclusive, and you could do a little bit of each of the above. More important than the general idea is the specific methods that we could do, keeping in mind the cost of each method (we would want the cheapest method, I presume). Some specific examples: Fertilize the ocean with iron, increasing algae growth (algae in some parts of the ocean are restricted by the amount of iron) Pumping CO2 into old gas wells. Putting charcoal into the soil (terra preta), which would also help with fertility. Growing forests. Carbon taxes/credits/trading (a socio-economic meta-solution, with the actual implementation left up to the free market) Biofuels. Big space umbrella for the earth. There's countless methods we could reduce CO2. Which do you think are the best?

That would be an interesting idea, and much more technologically feasible. It would have an advantage in maximum bullet speed, fine control over the pressure, and might leave no trace from where it were fired (would need no shells and would leave only water vapor).

I wasn't saying evolution is wrong, only that belief in evolution might reduce people's evolutionary fitness, as compared to belief in a religion. Consider, for example, your average evolutionist vs your average Catholic: Who is more likely to use birth control? Who is more likely to have an abortion? Who is more likely to get married? Who is more likely to commit suicide? Who is more likely to receive assistance if they have important (eg food, health) problems? Hence, who is more likely to have more kids, and therefore a higher evolutionary fitness?

Just to make clarify, should that be a cube root, or 3 times a square root?

This is acceptable to me. However, many people are overdoing it, and claiming that we know for sure that the unregulated trend human-produced CO2 will bring a catastrophe. I understand the desire to phrase things that way, as it is much easier to convince people to change their ways with such statements, but I disagree with it. I think it is important to do a cost-benefit analysis with respect to our CO2 output, keeping in mind that earlier action will be extra effective, but that we will also have better technology in the future. I think that the possibility of adapting should also be considered. I'm not convinced that immediate and drastic action needs to be taken, but consider it a possibility as well. Perhaps we should start a new thread about immediate and drastic action wrt CO2?

I think you are thinking of fusion, as fission would be related to heavy elements like plutonium and uranium, not the hydrogen in water. If you have a gun-sized fusion device, you would probably be better off using the thing as an energy weapon, an ion/plasma gun, as trying to accelerate a bullet with that would require insane strengthening that would make the gun unliftable even if it were even possible. The nice thing about energy weapons is that they do not need to lead, hence very high accuracy even at large distances.

I would suggest you merge some of your objectives, for one thing. Look for an introduction to biology (text)book, and it will give you a decent grounding in many of the things on your list, for example. After reading the intro to biology, expand into the areas that piqued your interest, or that you feel were not sufficiently described. Likewise for some of the other subjects, look for an intro to [general subject], then go for the specifics.

I think that the belief in evolution is evolutionarily harmful to individuals (less likely to expend effort), whereas the belief that there is a purpose to life and work is benefitial (more likely to expend effort). Since a belief in heaven requires a belief in a purpose for life, it would generally be benefitial. Sometimes you can be too smart for your own good, you know.

On that note, does freezing something (reversibly) count as "killing" it? Most definitions of "alive" require something to be active.

Cause it came out of the blue.

It seems wikipedia is launching a search engine, which would make it a competitor to google. At the moment, they seem to have an alliance, with wikipedia very frequently showing up as the top google search result for most subjects. Might this change anything? Links: http://technology.newscientist.com/article/mg19626345.500-wikipedia-founders-google-rival-to-launch.html From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikia#Search_Wikia: It occurs to me that if they gain control of internet searching, they will be insanely powerful (and will increase their rate of growth.) On the other hand, google might be competing with wikipedia as well Whatever happens, this may be an interesting turn of events in the web world.

He was more annoying because his posts got replies rather than deletions. --- Recommendation: some less harsh controls, for example the ability to set specific posts to hidden for others, instead of deleting them. Likewise, maybe putting people on a global ignore list. This way, they can still speak, but people know that they don't need to reply to them. --- Re user requests for banning someone, they could be weighted by the reputation, join date, and/or number of posts. More "important" people would need more votes against them to be suspended, and more "important" people would have more say. If they could be added to a global ignore list instead, that may be better as well (to help prevent abuse)

According to newscientist, the rate of human evolution has increased

Stupid and/or annoying people. They seem to be a worldwide problem, though, so there's probably not much that can be done about them. He certainly got more responses to his trolling than did atomikpsycho, and wasn't nearly as amusing, so in that sense we're the losers.

Definitions of Oriental on the Web: * a member of an Oriental race; the term is regarded as offensive by Asians (especially by Asian Americans) * Asian: denoting or characteristic of the biogeographic region including southern Asia and the Malay Archipelago as far as the Philippines and Borneo and Java; "Oriental politeness"; "for people of South and East Asian ancestry the term `Asian' is preferred to `Oriental'"; "Asian ancestry" wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn They're not rugs, they are people who are probably insulted by the term I used.

I've recently become interested in Go, but haven't had much chance to learn how to play. I can't find many players. It does seem interesting that it hasn't been mastered by computers yet even though the rules are so simple.

Thanks YT2095 and John Cuthber. I see why you'd want to avoid making that stuff.

Very good, iNow. I shall take this as sufficient evidence that the effects of warming on the carbon cycle have been accounted for. What about all the other points I made?

I am. I'm a fairly good player, and have played in a few competitions. Compared to the average person, its pretty ridiculous

In addition to what Cap'n Refsmmat said, the paper cup would be to hold the egg, and the paper could make a parachute. The parachute, apart from slowing the fall, should ensure that it lands right side up. Alternately, you could crumple the paper as an additional shock absorber.

Just out of curiosity, how nasty is COCl2?

The president's role is to be a powerful leader. There are limits to what he may do, but if he weren't very respected, there would be little point to having him.