I think you need to calm down before you suddenly bash out the first illogical or fallacious argument that appears before you.

Animal control is best handled by professionals and owners should be encouraged by both carrot and stick to be as responsible as possible.

Perhaps it would be more instructive to think of this on the macro scale. You certainly can't generalise from any one person be it Jim Carrey or Charlton Heston.

All I can conclude is that allowing access to guns across an entire population means a related increase in the number of injury and fatalities. If the entire population was incredibly careful, responsible and thoughtful it might not present a problem. Then again if they *were* we wouldn't have much of many of our other social problems.

All in all I like a country where guns are relatively rare. In a country like the U.S where they are common and many seem to tolerate the awful human cost, I find that extremely strange and frightening.

Dear god, of all videos to offer a 1080 option for...

And what's with the extremely, high-res macro close-up shots? Look, I know the video title is self-explanatory and I have only myself to blame for clicking, but... man... Some of the skin doesn't even look human.

And is this so serious an issue in India that they have a metal instrument designed solely for it?

To top it off, my computer inexplicably strained to play this one back, as though my PC was trying to spare me the disgust.

It's unfortunate that his learning will be limited by the extents of knowledge determined by his lower potential predecessors.
What will he do when he runs out of books?
His ultimate 'knowledge' will come down to his own creativity, and less his ability to absorb previous discoveries.

Someone once made a comparison of us to hypothetical aliens.
How the alien children might do our most complex physics problems in their kindergarten equivalent.
How those aliens could encounter us, and think "oh, look how cute, the human can derive a series approximation".

People like Tanishq are a step/stage between us regular people, and those theoretical aliens. He can do more as a child - but he has the potential to do more as a maximum. A personal maximum that likely humanity can't supply him with today.

People in general are a mix of creatives, memorizers, knuckleheads, middle-grounders, etc.
So the question that comes to my mind is, which kind of person is Tanishq?

We know that he absorbs information better than a regular person.
But there's a difference between memorization, understanding, and intuition.

We've all met people that memorize like crazy. They get amazing grades, but you can tell that their understanding is weak when they ask painfully stupid questions. The kind that would never be asked had they even the slightest understanding of the 'mechanics' of the subject at hand. (This always made my jaw drop. Seeing a person with perfect grades just 'not get it' to badly)

We've all met people that have a strong sense of understanding. They see one example, and they can run with it, adapting it to all kinds of changes. They 'get it'.
(Not always the best grades though. Why study when you can figure it out as you go? Because you won't figure everything out on the spot come test time...)

Then there are those with real intuition. The kind of person that looks at a problem, and thinks "the solution is something like this, I can't say why, but I can feel it. Let me work on it and figure it out." Then some time later they return with a real solution and a proof of why... and it was right along the lines that they had suspected to begin with.
No one had to give them an example, and no one had to pump them full of set-up material. They could feel it, and knew enough to recognize what it was they were on to.
These are the people that make the big leaps for human understanding.

The saddest case for Tanishq would be that he turns out to be a very enthusiastic expert memorizer.

But I hope he, and humanity, can be lucky enough for him to be both a prodigy, and a true intuitive.

-scheherazade


P.S.
Something amazing about those parent's genes. Definitely should save a [consentual] copy... Too good to lose.
IMO there should be focus on creating a gene therapy program to improve learning/intellect.
That will in itself lead to greater progress in other fields, as there would be many more super-intelligent people available to work on those problems, and many more opportunities for big breakthroughs.
It's something that could raise the potential [and actual] achievement cap of all humanity. 'It's kind of a big deal'.
It's like figuring out 'how to become those hypothetical aliens'.

Crappy starcraft example : Don't rush... macro instead. You'll be farther along later than you would be otherwise.

Radio: My favorite discovery of 2012 is "Radio Lab", a story telling show reminiscent of another favorite, 'This American Life', but with a much more sophisticated sound design. All episodes are available for free in the podcast section of iTunes.

Music: I fell in love with the New Orleans second line scene after Issy and I paid a visit to the crescent city this year. We saw the 'Rebirth Brass Band' live and had a great time. We also had a mini-meetup at the show with @dotdude. New Orleans music culture is like no other.

Music: Louis Cole & Genevieve Artadi: Highly unique and energetic electro-acoustic music. Hard to explain.

Music: Austin Texas band 'The Black Angels' - Dark, bluesy rock obviously influenced by the Doors. To be honest, I'm not crazy about blues rock or the Doors, but 'The Black Angels' manage to meld these influences into something I really dig.

Music: UK band, 'Metronomy'. Their sound is eclectic, hooky and heavily influenced by all the cool British 80's bands I loved as a kid. Goes down easy. Works in the background as well as the fore.

Movies: Django and Looper were the two films that captivated me from start to finish. Both films by gifted auteurs, one at the top of his game, the other on the rise. Great writing. Great Directing. Great performances.

Horror movies: The Cabin in the Woods (A clever and absurd meta-horror mashup) and the The Lady in Black (A classic, classy ghost story) both satisfied. It's nice that there were a couple of diamonds in sea of Paranormal-Activity-esque-found-footage detritus.

TV: same stuff that everyone else likes - BB, GoT, DoAb and Sherlock. I also got into Always Sunny in Philadelphia this year - very dark, very funny.

Books: Started a bunch, finished very few. Nothing to recommend. "Checklist Manifesto" is pretty interesting so far - it's about how the brain functions (or fails to function) in the information-dense present.

Games: 'Xcom' was a worthy update of the original. Loved all the detailed micro/macro strategy. 'Journey' was beautiful and fairly moving for a videogame.

Your error here is conflating micro and macro evolution. Creation scientists believe in micro evolution and speciation.

The error is entirely on your part. I am conflating the two, because they ARE THE SAME THING. Creationists are the ones who are trying to divide evolution up into two things so that their whacky worldview can include things that have been observed in real time, so as not to look completely at odds with reality. Unfortunately they are still completely at odds with reality.

Its like if I divided between micro time and macro time, and in some context we actually use words to describe very long spans of time ie: "geological time", "deep time" and so on, but these are not different concepts from the time it takes to boil an egg. Time is still time. 5 billion years is alot longer than 5 minutes, but its just more of the same.

The exact same thing is true for evolution.

At present this concept of design is just castle-in-the-sky nonsense. Empty piffle. A complete non-starter.

This is why the "mere mention" of "design" will get you "banned" from peer-review, because you could just as well have made a "mere mention" of Bigfoot and the loch ness monster in your zoology report, it's a big tell to your peers that you are a nut who fails to understand the nature of evidence and science, and a big sign that you are in for some fuzzy logic and dumb assumptions instead of solid science.

Design is a better hypothesis for the information we find in DNA, and the fine tuning we see in the physical laws. The reason design is a non-starter is because the idea this Universe was created by anyone is anathema to the scientific community:

Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic."

S. C. Todd,
Correspondence to Nature 410(6752):423, 30 Sept. 1999

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the unitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine foot in the door.

Richard Lewontin, Harvard
New York Review of Books 1/9/97

No evidence would be sufficient to create a change in mind; that it is not a commitment to evidence, but a commitment to naturalism. ...Because there are no alternatives, we would almost have to accept natural selection as the explanation of life on this planet even if there were no evidence for it.

Steven Pinker MIT
How the mind works p.182

After essentially nullifying and disproving everything we have learned about biology the last 200 years, you still have all the work ahead of you, I'm afraid. You now have to build a completely new framework and model for every single observation ever made in biology that makes sense of it all and explains why things are the way they are. Shouting that a thing is "complex" is not cutting it, I'm afraid. You need a new theory of DNA, Immunology, Bacterial resistance, adaptation, vestigal organs, animal distobution, mutation, selection, variation, genetics, speciation, taxonomy... well, as Dobzhansky put it: "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution" That quote is more relevant than ever.

Your error here is conflating micro and macro evolution. Creation scientists believe in micro evolution and speciation. That is part of the creationist model of how the world was repopulated with animals after the flood. Macro evolution, the idea that all life descended from a universal common ancestor, is not proven by immunology, bacterial resistance, adaptation, animal distribution, mutation, seclection, variation, speciation, taxonomy etc. The only way you could prove it is in the fossil record and the evidence isn't there. They've tried to prove it with genetics but it contradicts the fossil record (the way they understand it). So Creationists have no trouble explaining those things..and common genetics points to a common designer.

You dont have to trust scientists, most of the EVIDENCE is RIGHT FUCKING THERE, in front of you, in your pocket, in your hand, around your home, in every school, in every home, in every post office or courtroom, in the streets. ACTUAL REAL EVIDENCE, right there, PROVING, every second, that the universe is billions of years old.

Every scientist since Newton could be a lying sack of shit, all working on the same conspiracy, and it would mean fuck all, because the evidence speaks for itself.

The earth is definately NOT ten thousand years young.

Have you ever heard of the horizon problem? The big bang model suffers from a light travel time problem of its own, but they solve it by postulating cosmic inflation, which is nothing more than a fudge factor to solve the problem. First, it would have to expand at trillions of times the speed of light, violating the law that says nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. There is also no theory compatible with physics that could explain the mechanism for how the Universe would start expanding, and then cease expanding a second later. It's poppycock. See what secular scientists have to say about the current state of the Big Bang Theory:

http://www.cosmologystatement.org/

As far as how light could reach us in a short amount of time, there are many theories. One theory is that the speed of light has not always been constant, and was faster at the beginning of creation. This is backed up by a number of measurements taken since the 1800s showing the speed of light decreasing. You can see the tables here:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/cm/v4/n1/velocity-of-light

It's not that there is a 'war' on... it's that there are a bunch of non-scientists walking around saying they're 'creation scientists'.

Many creation scientists have advanced degrees and have published many papers. Why aren't they scientists? What makes a scientist a scientist?

You're absolutely correct, there is no research being done on 'young Universe'... but there is also no science being done to prove 'old Universe'. Science is done by taking small bits of knowledge that have little gaps, and filling those gaps in. We didn't figure out the half-life of Rubidium in order to prove the age of the earth, we figured out the half-life of Rubidium to figure out the half-life of Rubidium. Some other scientists had taken measurements of the natural occurrence of elements and their isotopes in various parts of the world. And then more scientists apply the knowledge acquired in both fields and try to find out what it tells us.

There was a very concerted effort, especially during the 19th and 20th centuries to come up with evidence for an old age of the Earth to support the ideas of uniformitarian geology and macro evolution. There was an ideological war going on, just as there is today, between those secular scientists who wanted to establish their own secular idea of origins to undercut the account of biblical creation. Up until that point, all geologists were flood geologists. Now a days, you're right, they are resting on their laurels, because as I said it has become conventional wisdom, which is not science but philosophy.

I agree, you absolutely should question scientists with an agenda, but I've NEVER heard a non-christian suggest that there is scientific evidence for the earth being younger than 4-5 billion years old.

I grew up in a secular home with a great love for science, and I very activiely pursued studies in astronomy and biology. In all of my studies, I never heard so much as a peep about the controversy. There is an information filter on this subject, and it had kept me in the dark about the whole thing most of my life.

You want to cast doubt on scientists by saying that there are millions of dollars and reputations on the line, but this reasoning is more destructive if you aim it at the young-earthers: Their religion has made explicit claims as to time-spans that occurred 'in the beginning'... their religious leaders have made explicit claims as to the literalness of the Bible. And most church leaders have been explicit that other denominations of Christians may not be allowed into heaven... So you have a large group of individuals who are not only risking their reputation, but what they believe is their eternal soul, on something that they didn't discover, but have worked backward to find evidence to prove that their book is correct.

None of this has anything to do with the question of salvation. The conflict you're seeing is coming from a liberal movement within the church which tends to embrace secular values and rejects traditional interpretation of scripture. As numbers go, it is a small amount of people. As a recent survey shows, the majority of Americans (ie 46 percent) believe in creationism:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/05/americans-believe-in-creationism_n_1571127.html

These views get overreprented in the media by liberals sympathic to their causes. It gets presented in such a way that it looks like it is the majority view when it is actually the minority view.

As far as what Creation scientists have to lose..not much. They already lost much of what they had to lose by becoming a creation scientist in the first place.

Young-earthers each, individually, have much more to lose than scientists. And let's be clear... religions have enough money to staff up scientific R&D labs and fund their own research if they wanted. In fact, the Vatican DOES have it's own, world-renowned observatory. So, how old does this Priest thing the Universe is?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OwWqrXGtrRs#!

I don't agree with the catholic church on practically anything, let alone this.

So, to be clear, it's not Scientists vs. Christians. It's Scientists AND Christians vs. People Who Don't Trust Science.

It's actually the wisdom of God versus the wisdom of man.

And I expect this. Christians have long fought against persecution, and it thrived while it was being persecuted. Now that it's the dominant religion, many of the teachings have lost their luster. Members who believe that the Bible has something personal to say to them will pick up on the persecution aspect, which was intended to help those in the year 200AD... not 2012. So they make up bogey-men and pick a fight with anyone who says something that isn't explicitly allowed in the Bible (and is convenient for them)... hence the anti-Gay-Marriage protests, but no anti-shellfish protests.

Over 200 thousand Christians are martyred every year for their faith, all over the world.

You're a product of your environment, shinyblurry... you're as predictable as Islam producing suicide bombers... and just as pathetic in your misunderstanding of the Universe.

All I'll say to this is that ad hominem attacks reveal more about your character than they do mine.

>> ^Kalle:

One serious question that bothers me is.. why isnt it possible to use gravity as an energy source?
Would such a machine be a perpetual motion machine?


Gravity is REALLY weak. Like 36 orders of magnitude less than the electromagnetic force. 36 orders of magnitude is massive...larger the the total number of stars in the known universe. For instance, a fridge magnet is defeating the ENTIRE gravitational force of the earth AND the sun. Gravity makes for a great way to bind the macro-universe together, but it is shit as an energy source.

Also, gravity has only one polarity...and it doesn't turn off. So for the EM force, we have 2 poles that can be switched around via electrical current to make lots of different energy related things. But for gravity, you just have one ground state, and once you are there you need to input energy to get away from that ground state...no way around that. However, what has been done and is done in certain areas is to have a closed system where you apply energy at certain time and store that energy for later. The example most commonly used is in dams, where the will pump a large volume of water back up stream (potential energy) and store it (a gravity battery if you will) and release it as a later time when demand is high. This is always a loss based way to make energy; your going to spend more pumping it back up (heat loss and other losses including evaporation) than you will when you get it back...so it is just a way to cause demand shifting towards other hours with additional entropy.

You have 4 fundamental forces to draw energy from; and 3 of those are the only practical ones. Strong (nuclear) force, the EM force, and the gravitational force (the weak force is actually the force that powers the earths core, but isn't useful to use in power generation for a similar reason gravity isn't).

The EM force is what we use in internal combustion engines and electrical motors. Chemical reactions are rearrangements of the electron structures of molecules, which makes gasoline engines possible via liquid to gas expansion pressures. Generators deal with EM fields, polarity and current which is what drives thermal reactors like coal or can drive a car with a motor via conversation of stored electrical energy(just a backwards generator). Nuclear reactors deal with the strong (nuclear) force, and combine that with kinetic/thermodynamic forces of same flavor as coal and other thermal plants.

Even gravity isn't perpetual, the orbits of ALL celestial bodies are unstable. Gravity is thought and reasonably well satisfied to travel in waves. These waves cause turbulence in what would seem calm orbits, slowly breaking them down over time...drawing them closer and closer together. Eventually, all orbits will cause ejection or collision.


As to what energy is best, I personally believe in the power of the strong force, as does the sun . When you are talking about the 4 forces and their ability to make energy for us, the strong force is 6 orders of magnitude greater than other chemical reactions we can make. The EM force is not to much weaker than the strong force, but the practical application of chemical reactions limits us to the electron cloud, making fuels for chemical reactions less energetic by a million to a billion times vs strong force fuels. Now, only fission has been shown to work for energy production currently, but I doubt that will be true forever. If you want LOTS of energy without much waste, you want strong force energy, period. That and the weak force are the 2 prime movers of sustained life on this planet. While the chemistry is what is hard at work DOING life, the strong and weak force provide the energy to sustain that chemistry. Without it, there are no winds, there is no heat in the sky nor from the core, no EM shield from that core. Just a cold, lifeless hunk of metals and gases floating in the weak gravitational force.

Sorry for the rant, energy is my most favorite current subject



(edit, corrected some typos and bad grammar)

It was a very addictive game. You could build custom amusement parks with very realistic custom roller coasters. The game play is basically just like the video, but in addition you have to micro and macro manage the park budget and keep your guests happy. You can even drown annoying guests, though it hurts your park popularity. There ware two sequels, the last one in 3D where you could ride the rides. >> ^kymbos:

I'm so far removed from gaming that I cannot understand why there would be a game called 'Roller Coaster Tycoon'.

I can buy micro-evolution of the uneven bars but this in no way explains macro-evolution of the uneven bars!@!

PS The economics theory of Karl Marx is about the only theory of macro-economics still standing. We may all not like the communist ideas that came from it, but his thoughts on capitalism so far have turned out to be spot on.

the words micro and soft don't apply to my penis (or vagina)

I'm sorry what? You have a hard macro vag?

Measuring the effectiveness of a current ad campaign by comparing macro trends that have going on for decades isn't going to be accurate. Useful data would need to be obtained by measuring drivers' behavior after viewing the two ads.

Most psychologists would probably say driver behavior will be more influenced by high threat of financial loss (loss aversion) than a soft, artful depiction of an unlikely event that speeders assume can't happen to them.

If there's a lower rate of seatbelt use in the US, it's probably due to hard reasons like the higher average education level among drivers in Europe and Japan, where car use is more expensive.


Anybody conscientious enough to appreciate an artistic ad has probably only very rarely met the kind of person who doesn't wear their seatbelt.

>> ^jubuttib:

>> ^chilaxe:
If we look at the data, the American commercials likely produce more of the desired result.

I wouldn't be so sure about that. While I don't have hard data at hand, there is one big difference in American and European cars that is related to this: Airbags. The American airbag is designed to be able to stop an adult that is not wearing a seatbelt, because so many people don't use the darn things. European and Japanese cars on the other hand have much less powerful airbags, that are designed to cope with someone that is wearing their seatbelt. Cars that are imported to the States often get the "America spec" airbag added because of this. This would suggest that using seatbelts is vastly less common in the States.

>> ^Crooksandliars:

Leading demands for a revised strategy, French Socialist Francois Hollande, a reader of Krugman, tops President Nicolas Sarkozy in the polls with the warning that putting debt-cutting over expansion is “bringing desperation to people.” Elsewhere, Greeks are turning to anti-austerity parties, recession-wracked Spain and Italy are relaxing deficit targets, the Dutch government is splintering and European Central Bank President Mario Draghi is calling for a “growth compact.”
.


This attitude strikes me as totally bogus. We think the European voters are voting on macro-economic policy? They're throwing out governments because they're unhappy, and they're installing people who promise them higher spending because they like having the government that spends money on them. Italy and Spain aren't revising their deficit targets because of some new found economic enlightenment, they simply lack the willpower or competence to live within their means.

Maybe stimulative policies are better than austerity. I'm not an economist, so I don't know. What I do know is that voters and politicians haven't stopped being short-sighted.

I found this: http://eosdoc.com/jlcalc/, but I don't really find it intuitive to use.

I am trying to make a cheap microscope with the webcam and macro lens. I know there are USB webcams out there. But the lens quality and field of view are pretty limited. I thought a macro lens might provide an excellent solution.