Severian

I think you are right, agentchange. There is really no need for there to be a singularity in a black hole - all we know is that it is a sufficiently massive object that light can't escape the gravitational pull. And frankly that is all we will ever know unless we go past the event horizon for a look, and even then we wouldn't be able to tell anyone else what we found.

I am not American (thank God!).

Let me copy a post I made in another thread, since it is directly relevant here: I think if I were an American, I would be voting for Ron Paul. Or a better phraseology is, I would want to vote for Ron Paul, since I would not be a registered Republican and I doubt he will gain their nomination. This is rather surprising to me, since I would have regarded myself as more of a Democrat. I think this is mainly because I would like to see what a true libertarian can do in the White House.

What an incredible naive view. Academics certainly have no "vested interest in the status quo" - it is every man for himself. If any of us could prove that there is something wrong with the standard model, we would jump on it instantly and publish lots of papers. But we can't. That was the whole point of this thread which you have perverted to your own crackpot ends. The SM is incredibly good and makes incredibly accurate predictions and no-one (including you) has been able to find anything better. Despite all your talk, you have still not managed to provide one concrete example of a failure of the Standard Model, or even point to an objection from someone else. I think you should take your tin foil hat out of my thread.

I think if I were an American, I would be voting for Ron Paul. Or a better phraseology is, I would want to vote for Ron Paul, since I would not be a registered Republican and I doubt he will gain their nomination. This is rather surprising to me, since I would have regarded myself as more of a Democrat. I think this is mainly because I would like to see what a true libertarian can do in the White House.

Let me put it another way. You have two legs (I presume). You could perfectly well live your life only using one of them, maybe by hopping. But your life will be more fulfilling if you use both of them. Some of the posters on this site would have you handicap yourself by hopping everywhere.

In my view, someone who exhibits faith without reason is equally crippled.

I am fairly confident that I can ride two of your proverbial horses better than you can ride one. And that is not because I am a circus performer - it is because I am a complete person, capable of both reason and faith, rather than some half-man, crippled so that I can only manifest one or the other.

I can think of another example: every area of fundamental physics. In fact, I will make it stronger. If you can't compute it you don't understand it. As a few people have already said, science is about making predictions. If you can't make predictions, it isn't science. And if you can't calculate, you can't make predictions. I put it to you that you only think you understand things without mathematics. Either you don't understand them at all, or the mathematics is so simple for the processes you understand that you would doing the mathematics implicitly.

Don't you think they would have a right to know that they were going to die?

"All of physics is either impossible or trivial. It is impossible until you understand it, and then it becomes trivial." Ernest Rutherford “The supreme function of reason is to show man that some things are beyond reason” Blaise Pascal

That's not true. At best, science requires only the assumption of "philosophical naturalism" for the observables you are testing. It requires no assumption of "philosophical naturalism" for all of reality. Since most religious people are happy to admit the working and application of physical law to the majority of their local observations, I see no contradiction. Indeed, it would be an unproven assertion (i.e. a "belief") to apply naturalism universally, which one might reason was in contradiction with philosophy of science itself.

It is always unethical to lie to your patients.

Well, it is obvious that people who disagree with me are ignorant, since they do not know the correct facts (and I am always right). They are only "narrow-minded" if they refuse to accept that they are ignorant.

You seem to be clutching at straws now. The OP asked if the Darwin-fish was offensive, and I said it was. I gave my opinion. You replied telling me to "Quit with the double standards in the name of "faith is too precious to be criticized." ", and I pointed out that the right to free-speech does not magically remove my right to be offended by what you say. Which bit are you disagreeing with? I have defended your right to criticise my religion, so it can't be that. I have even defended your right to be offensive. But I reserve the right to declare your opinions as offensive, or indeed, to hold any opinion about you I like. And in my opinion, the Darwin-fish is offensive (though only mildly so) and those who display it are rather pathetic. [Feel free to be offended by that opinion.] Since I have him on ignore, I don't really care about his point.

What does that have to do with it? I never suggested making it a crime to display the Darwin-fish. The OP explicitly asked if it was offensive, and I gave my opinion. Are you suggesting that my opinion is 'wrong'? That somehow I should not be (or not be permitted to be) offended? Or are you just saying that you want to restrict my freedom to express my opinion? It is all very well to protect free speech. I would die to protect the right of anyone to insult me. But that doesn't mean that I would think highly of the person doing the insulting. I would have a very low opinion of someone who would make jokes about the WWII gas chambers for example, but I would defend their right to make the jokes if it was threatened (though this would be dependent on the circumstances of course). No, the problem is that you are so quick to make crass generalisations and assumptions about people based apon your arbitrary labeling.

Yes it does. What make you think it does not?

Why is that 'obvious'? (I don't even think it is true.) The 'Jesus fish' isn't a fundamentalist symbol. It is a general Christain symbol for people who want to display their faith. So the Darwin-fish is not just mocking fundamentalists - it is mocking all christians who are happy to publicly declare their faith. Why do you have to be a fundamentalist to be offended? If you insult someone you should not be surprised if they are offended, and you should not feel free to maliciously insult people just because you think they are big enough to take it on the chin. I happen to remember being criticised on this site for complaining about your dreadful spelling. Should I feel free to insult you as much as I like because you will "be chilled and not get offended"?

Why can't you get your own symbol, rather than trying to confuse and/or offend people by making it look like the Christian symbol? It does seem rather pathetic...

To answer my own questions, I just had a look at the upgrade box in a shop and indeed it does say that you can send off for the 64-bit version and pay only for shipping. So I could indeed just buy the upgrade disk and still get the 64-bit version. As for the OEM, I think it does include the disk, just not the support (which is only for 3 months in retail anyway) and no manual. Also you can't transfer it to another computer. I found some details here. Since I never use their support anyway I think I will buy the OEM 64-bit version directly.

Thanks for the clarification. I will make sure I get a 64 bit operating system then. One more question. If I buy the full version of Vista Home Premium I only get the 32-bit version in the box. However, I can send away for the 64-bit version for an extra $10 (basically shipping costs). Does anyone know if this is also true for the Vista Home Premium Upgrade? Can I still send away for the 64-bit version with the upgrade box, or will I need to buy a full version? Another question. I am also seeing offers like this, for "system builders". Does anyone have any experience with this? This looks exactly what I am after (i.e. already 64-bit) but I wouldn't want to do anything illegal, or indeed buy something which turned out to be no use to me. However, it looks like the only difference is that there is no support included, which would be fine since I have always found MS support to be useless anyway.

I have a question. I am thinking of upgrading my PC and am wondering about whether I should install 32 or 64 bit Vista. I keep reading everywhere that 32 bit Vista only supports 3GB of RAM, and since the PC I was thinking of buying has 4GB or RAM, I would need 64 bit Vista to get the best out of it. However, I am confused as to why a 32 bit operating system should only support 3GB of RAM. 1GB is 10243B=230B while a 32 bit operating system should be able to handle 232B=4x230B=4GB. So why are we losing the extra GB? By my calculation the 32b operating system should just be able to handle 4GB of RAM.

I am not sure I get this. Why would we get 5000? I didn't get 6000 either.

Here is a couple of mine: And before the detector went in:

I didn't get any books for Christmas. I got a power drill (a hint to do more DIY I think), a silver wine coaster and a webcam (so my daughter's grandparents can see her more often).