I think they misrepresented Hawking

"I have no idea. People who boast about their IQ are losers."

- Response upon being questioned as to his IQ, in interview with Deborah Solomon "The Science of Second-Guessing", The New York Times (12 December 2004)

Funny, I never thought of using a peltier like that, my only exposure to them has been in applications where electricity is applied to produce the thermal gradient, not the other way around. I have to admit, I feel a bit stupid that that didn't occur to me. Good post.

Doc_M, I fantasize about raping 7 year olds, after torturing them by pouring boiling lead down their throats, and urinating on their corpses.

What's more offensive? What I just said? Which is perfectly okay on daytime television, or saying "I fucking love pussy"? Note that I used no profanity in the former.

You say, "If it is considered vulgar by the masses then in practice, it IS vulgar", while true for those who find it vulgar, it seems to me that we should expect of others, and ourselves, justification and reasoning for our decisions.

It's the ideas conveyed that give words utility, many of the ideas that can be expressed though use of words deemed profane are in fact not offensive.

"I fucking love pussy" means -> "I thoroughly enjoy vaginal intercourse" - does that offend you? If so, why?

The other needs no explaination. I agree that the use of some language can come at a price, the question is; "Should it?"

I lost respect for her the second I found out she decided to go to work for AEI. I can't think of a single lobbying organization that does more damage than AEI.

A good radio cast dealing with memory, several parts, the last of which deals with Clive.
http://www.wnyc.org/flashpop.html?playlist=%2Fstream%2Fxspf%2F71758

Yeah, what Doc M said

thanks fedquip, that was seriously funny.

For those interested this is "Formula Offroad". Sadly, has yet to catch on here in the states.

"No nation was ever so virtuous as each believes itself, and none was ever so wicked as each believes the other."
- Bertrand Russell

Sorry Gwaan's previous post got me to thinking about Russell and the quote seemed relevant

LOL, that's hilarious. The audio from that third caller, Jen, is priceless. Is she masturbating? My co-worker thought I was watching porn!

Thanks gwaan, I've never heard what he sounded like.

You rock gluonium, Thanks!

"Free Energy" is like "Magic", if you think it's real, you don't understand what's going on.

Thanks gluonium, good find. You might find this interesting:

It's a lecture by Craig C. Mello, who won the Nobel in 2006 for the discovery of RNA interference. He's a pretty good speaker. Of course it doesn't hurt that this is one of the most promising areas of medicine.

Return to the RNAi World: Rethinking Gene Expression and Evolution - Google Tech Talks April 9, 2007
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7104884525024111858&q=rnai&hl=en

Constitutional_Patriot, that's been covered:
http://www.videosift.com/video/Equinox-It-Runs-On-Water-1995-documentary-on-free-energy#leavecomment