"Beyond that it seems a more intuitive and precise for everyday uses."


Exactly. It "seems" more intuitive because it's really not. Neither is metric more intuitive, it just makes more sense generally and is easier to compute with when dealing with unusually big/small (i.e. unintuitive) numbers and measurements. Once you switch to metric from imperial, the everyday "intuitive" measurements are still intuitive, they're simply expressed in different units. Anyway, imprecise measurements are imprecise, whatever the system you use.

>> ^entr0py:

>> ^gwiz665:
shakes fist
Ounce makes no sense
Pounds make no sense
Miles make no sense
AM/PM is stupid
Fahrenheit makes no sense - 32F is the freezing point, wtf?
It is colloquially adopted everywhere EXCEPT certain third world countries and the US... goddamit, get with the program!

1. The alternative to Ounces, Pounds and Miles are equally arbitrary measurements. Just easier to deal with since they're in factors of 10. I'd personally be happy if we switched, but it would be a huge pain for everyone and cause lots of confusion at first.
2. You've seen clocks; that's where it comes from. AM/PM has never been much of a problem for me since you can always tell which one it currently is by looking outside. And if you're telling someone a time it's slightly faster to say eight-PM than sixteen-hundred-hours.
3. 0 Degrees F is the stabilization point of brine. Fahrenheit had a lot of reasons for setting it exactly where he did (partly he was building on pre-existing scales), but the one that makes the most sense in the modern day is that "The outcome was a scale that had, essentially by design, the points 0° and 100° corresponding closely to the lower and upper limits of human comfort, an approach which made the scale inherently preferable in many everyday contexts" It's easy for anyone to remember that 32 is the freezing point. Beyond that it seems a more intuitive and precise for everyday uses.

>> ^Lawdeedaw:

Wait, an elected body ruled over Rome... but, this guy says later, since it had 300 that ruled it became a democracy? Um, wasn't it still a republic? I mean, democracy would be if everyone voted and I don't recall Rome being a nation of 300...

I think that's where the "Horible Histories" title comes in.

Upvote for Oohashi Miho, since she is the bomb. Also, not even Horiken's constant sexual harassment can make her cringe. Prof. Himonya's little parlor tricks are flimsy in comparison.

Haha it's the invasion of the gay Cybermen.

lol at you guys trying to justify gratuitous violence. Police officer or not, you cannot hit someone else unless in self-defense. Obviously the girl was not a threat to the officer's life or even his physical integrity and neither was she resisting arrest or anything (she willfully entered the cell and took off her shoes when asked). Thus this should be automatic battery. Also, the officer should be forced to check into a mental hospital : being provoked by a 15 year old girl already inside a prison cell is really immature to say the least.

>> ^ajkido:

I can't believe somebody found a new angle (for me at least) into this matter. Doesn't surprise it was David Mitchell, though.

It's not a new angle, it's simply ignoring/bypassing the parameters of the wager. It's actually the only reasonable answer to it (without going into the theological debates, which are pointless anyway since Pascal made it clear that his wager was only something atheists could even consider taking because of the whole "sincerity of belief" thing the other guy mentioned). As for the novelty of Mitchell's answer, Voltaire already responded to the wager in much the same way, i.e. by making fun of Pascal himself and of the whole idea of an atheist wagering on something he believes doesn't exist in the first place. Like they say, the only way to win is not to play.

How is this different from killing a fish by hitting the head with a hammer and then gutting it? The only difference really is that seals have harder skulls and thus may need to be hit two or three times before they stop moving completely (the first hit probably kills 95% of them, but some still move just like a headless chicken would).

By the way, rifles are used to kill adult seals, since they move too fast on ice. But of course you don't see that because it's not "brutal" enough. What you see in the videos is always hunting of 12 to 15 days old seals who have begun molting (their pelt changes from white to grey). These can be killed with only the hakapik since they can't move fast enough to escape a killing blow.

In Norway, a veterinary must be aboard each ship. Still the Norwegian rules for seal hunting state that : "Adult seals that are more than one year old must be shot in the head with expanding bullets, and can not be clubbed to death. The hakapik shall be used to ensure that the animal is dead. This is done by crushing the skull of the shot adult seal with the short end of the hakapik, before the long spike is thrust deep into the animal's brain. The seal shall then be bled by making an incision from its jaw to the end of its sternum. The killing and bleeding must be done on the ice, and live animals may never be brought onboard the ship. Young seals may be killed using just the hakapik, but only in the before mentioned manner, i.e. they need not be shot." (From wikipedia) Also, "In 2007 the European Food Safety Agency confirmed that the animals are put to death faster and more humanely in the Norwegian sealing than in large game hunting on land." The only difference with Canada I think is that Canadian hunters don't have to bleed them on the ice.

>> ^ChaosEngine:

While I agree with the sentiment, to be fair to the "over-sensitive asshat", he didn't say the book should be banned. In fact he pretty much foreshadowed Pullmans advice and communicated his dislike of the title to him. I fail to see how that's a problem.

Basically, the guy gave his (subjective and retarded) opinion about the title of the book. The author rightfully responded with his own (objective and rational) opinion. I fail to see how you fail to see the problem.

If we deconstruct occam's razor, it goes like this:
(assumption 1)There exists at least one simplest explanation of a phenomenon which makes the fewest assumptions.
(assumption 2)There does not exist a better explanation than the simplest explanation for a given phenomenon.
(argument)If the simplest explanation covers all known facts about the phenomenon it explains, then a better explanation does not exist.

This is perfect logic. You may not agree with the assumption that there exists at least one simplest explanation which makes the fewest assumptions, or you may even not agree that the best explanation is the simplest, but in both those cases you are toying with metaphysics. In the world of information, simplest is always the best. It doesn't mean you always get the best, but ideally the best you can attain is also the simplest. If you find that your previous best explanation requires the addition of a new assumption, then that means it didn't cover all known facts and thus wasn't the best explanation in the first place. Indeed, science is the search for the very best explanation, that explains even as yet unknown facts (facts which you try to find through experimentation, which is why you will sometimes get false positives that validates one of your new and fancier explanation). But in the meantime, we do what we can with the best explanation.

>> ^Sagemind:
Occam's razor is not considered an irrefutable principle of logic, and certainly not a scientific result.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor
William Ockham (c. 1285–1349): The term razor refers to the act of shaving away unnecessary assumptions to get to the simplest explanation.

I think the whole point of this level is to get you to go wild shooting at civilians just to surprise you at the end by shooting you in the face when you expect a pat on the back. You do your best to blend in with the bad guys, in utter vain.

I knew I was an undercover agent before I started the mission, I knew I would have the opportunity to shoot or not shoot at civilians even before I laid hands on the game, yet since I didn't know the denouement of the mission the trick worked perfectly when I played it. It was one of those rare times I had mixed feeling about getting killed in a cutscene (I usually simply get angry). It worked way better than anything in the first game, although the rest of the story was shit.

>> ^Jesus_Freak:
What I don't have to imagine is the ACTUAL reason I'm thankful for my Christianity. I've led a very satisfying life with very tangible blessings stemming from my relationship with Jesus Christ. I've found His teaching to be profound and reliable, I've found indescribable freedom, and I've found layers of comfort that surpass all understanding. If you wish to maintain a dim view of all Christians in some stereotypical way, you do so with a focus of poor examples of some individuals who share my faith, or from a lack of exeprience that your scientific analysis can't quantify.


That is in fact the root of the problem. You make all these unfounded assertions about the benefits of being absorbed in your religion, yet you show no proof of this, most probably because you can't. Then if we ask you why you can't, you say no one will ever know because its a mystery out of the reach of science. That is the same bullshit mentalists/psychics and other charlatans use every day to justify how none of them have passed the James Randi Educational Foundation "One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge". I do not maintain a dim view of Christians on the basis of the fact that they believe in something, only in the fact that they believe in something that 1. hasn't been shown to do what they claim it does 2. isn't worth believing in in the first place (since it is medieval bigotry at its finest) 3. demand that they shut off their bullshit detectors so that they can believe it blindly.

If you want to live your life on the precepts of Jesus, why not throw away the Old Testament and its irate God? Why not throw away everything else but the apostles' testaments? Why not try to reconcile the message of Jesus in light of scientific discoveries? Why not abandon, or suspend indefinitely your belief in, the idea of God as being superfluous to the realization of Jesus' message in this life? If you cannot do all this then you are not a Jesus freak, you are simply a God freak of the most hypocritical kind.

@Jesus_Freak:

First, "bigotry" doesn't take two "g". Maybe you should spend more time with a dictionary than a Bible.

As for your purported claims of Jesus' divinity as found in the site you linked, well, assuming he really did want to make it known that he was divine wouldn't you think there would be more than NINE verses in the whole Bible about that? And three of the quotes aren't from the apostles, which writings amount to hearsay in the best case anyway (the rest of the New Testament in mostly shit, especially anything written by Paul, but it still doesn't show how Jesus is somehow divine). Plus, there is a section on the page that says in bold "Jesus is worshipped - Jesus said to worship God only, yet He receives worship." That kind of shows that Jesus wasn't a deity, at least in the sense that he was simply as much divine as everyone else on earth.

Plus, the only direct assertion is in John 10:30 "I and the Father are one." But this is quoted out of context, where Jesus says something about sheep being given to him by his father and thus he and his father being of one purpose in leading these sheep (that includes you, Jesus_Freak). In John 17:10 : "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one." Looks like pantheism to me or some shit.

http://wings.buffalo.edu/sa/muslim/library/jesus-say/ch1.2.2.7.html (yes this is from a Muslim book, but hosted on the University of Buffalo site, thus very respectful blah blah blah and the page in question has no Islamic doctrine in it) Read that for many quotes that demonstrate how the first Christians, as shown in the texts of the New Testament themselves, thought about the unity of Jesus and God. The first recorded use of the word "trinity" in christian texts is in 170 A.D. and the doctrine of trinity only adopted in 325 A.D. So the divinity of Jesus is indeed a later purely theological development.

This is not *sports, this is gratuitous *violence. There was absolutely no need to stop the receiver dead in his tracks like that. He was just inches away from the side lines. A tap on the shoulder would have made him go over. But I guess the rules say you must hit everything that moves since this is american "football".

>> ^Jesus_Freak:
Anyone who was raised Catholic and can't answer "what was so special about Jesus" either wasn't listening or was horribly underserved in the teaching department.
What I did find refreshing from this clip (compared to the buh-zillion other atheism clips on the sift) was his willingness to live and let live in terms of other people's beliefs with minimal judgmentalism. I find "evangelical atheists" to be a bit ironic.


You find "evangelical atheist" ironic only because you are too much of an idiot to understand what evangelical really means. It means "to bring good news", hence the "Good News" ("gospel" in anglo-saxon, from "goodspell" NOT "godspell") of the coming of Jesus. Thus an "evangelical atheist" is the bringer of the good news of atheism. Pretty straightforward, eh?

What's really ironic, on the other hand, is exactly the content of the joke about the specialness of Jesus. We are all sons of God, says Jesus himself, yet the church would like us to believe Jesus was somehow special. Yes, Jesus says he is the the son of God but he also says we all are sons of God. Why is he special then? The answer: he's not and he never claimed to be. Only people who never really read (understood) the Bible, but only had it read (interpreted) to them instead can say that Jesus was special. Yes, that means the Trinity is bust and the reformists are "right" but all these theological debates are moot when you realize Jesus considered himself a simple, very much human, messenger and nothing more (much like the Mohammad of Islam). And of course, that we put so much energy on explaining fairy tales seems really ludicrous and somewhat sad when you realize there is no such thing as God.

One argument that he deconstructs is the "cells are replaced so we're not even the same body" argument. Surprisingly, he doesn't mention that brain cells have traditionally been held NOT to do so, though this may have been an abandoned argument in light of recent studies that suggest some regrowth\repair may be possible.

Cells are indeed replaced quite quickly at the periphery of our body, like the limbs, the stomach/intestine (remember that they technically face the exterior!!), but cells in mission critical organs like the brain and the heart are not repaired when they die, most of the time. Yes, in the brain cells are replaced and pathways are rewired, although with inevitable change, but the heart remains mostly the same, always beating. Thus even a minor heart problem can be crippling and irreversible. That's also why bypass surgery is sometimes the only solution when an artery attached to the heart becomes clogged (a recent study showed 40% regeneration of heart tissue over 70 years, while we thought 0% some years ago).

It's also been suggested that consciousness is all post-hoc. That everything we experience has already happened, even if it's fractions of the second later. That we "feel" like we've made decisions but really we're just experiencing the machinations of the brain's processes after the fact. This works pretty well for dualism, because then you no longer have to account for influence on the process. (However, it blows a hole through the theories of most dualists, who are arguing for a soul and the free will that accompanies it.)

If we look closely, we can see it cannot be otherwise. What you call "consciousness" here is really "conscious awareness", the intertwining of consciousness and awareness. Consciousness is intentional, though not really causal, and awareness is plainly passive. Consciousness is really like a recursive loop program, which has a variable (the object that is aimed at) which can refer to any kind of object in the world, be it the mental world or the perceptual, outside world. Consciousness cannot then be said to be responsible of the actions that follow it aiming at an object, nor can it be said strictly to be choosing what to aim at, but what we know is that this is where our illusion of freedom comes from: the selecting of objects to be aimed at intentionally. No doubt part of it is unconscious, like when you turn your head after seeing something move on your peripheral vision, but since consciousness is recursive, it must be able to change the reference of its own variable. That does not mean it has absolute freedom in choosing the new reference, in fact it can't be since we're not omnipotent, but it must have a means to do so, otherwise the very existence of self-awareness would be useless. If consciousness was strictly determined by the "outside" i.e. by external processes from elsewhere in the brain, then consciousness + awareness would not give rise to the kind of self-awareness that is evident in higher mammals. As we know, evolution does not do things for no reason, i.e. it must have a purpose, which gives an adaptation benefit. Here the adaptation benefit could be that by doing this we can reflect on some of our own thought processes and can influence their course (by "concentrating" on them, making them the aim of our intentional consciousness). It may also be that we can broaden our intentional objects to things which are not in our immediate senses/memory, i.e. imagination.

You are right though that dualism is not that easily dismissed, but it is always in the end shown to be either naïve, unfounded or plainly superfluous (i.e. useless per Ockham's razor).