These are pretty pansy little numbers; sure they're kind of long, but they're computable. We know digits of this number.

If you want truly large numbers, you want to use the Busy beaver function. These are numbers for which we can say beautiful, absolute things like:

in the context of ordinary mathematics, neither the value nor any upper-bound of Σ(10↑↑10) can be proven


That is a majestic bloody number.

I know it's boring to interview in a studio between ferns... but if you can't afford any sound engineering it's a good idea to pick somewhere without overwhelming ambient noise. On someone's couch and recorded with a bloody phone wouldn't have looked great, but would have been a lot more pleasant to listen to (which is the important thing here).

I had this happen a while back - the floor mat slid up and caught the accelerator pedal. The best my panicking brain came up with was to jam it in 5th, dump the clutch, and (thankfully) stall. All the better ideas came to me after I was stopped.

I think it's reasonably clear that with some combination of hard braking and slow reaction you'd definitely touch the truck when following that close. You get bumps with cars following too close reasonably regularly, and I don't think the physics (and certainly not the biology) are going to be all that different. I think the question is consequences of a touch:

Even if the cyclist bumps the truck (which I have done too at high speed when my brakes failed), it just scares you and slows you down.


I think that's what happens 9 times out of 10, but that last time I think you go down - and going down at that speed is going to often be a reasonably serious injury (especially without a helmet). Even at more moderate speeds, sometimes little bumps take you down - especially if you have any angle on your wheels or are pumping hard.

Multiplying that all out, I think the probability of serious injury in this situation is low; significant enough that I wouldn't try without a good reason and extra attention, certainly not something I'd do regularly.

Actually, you're not too far off the mark


Lol - thanks for linking that. The video is still crazy, but its existence makes sense now.

I'm slightly curious now as to why he'd leave Scientology (it seems like a pretty good fit), but not curious enough to do any real work and find out. Oddly enough, the first link I found when Googling why he left was titled: "Scientology, anti-psychiatry quackery, and Mike Adams: It all becomes clear now".

Yes, it does.

Holy wow. I mean, I think it's clear that child psychiatric drugs are overprescribed (largely because parents press for "something", I think)... but this video is painfully embarrassing.

I kept looking for some hint that it was tongue-in-cheek or something, but I don't think it is. I think this guy thinks a rap, and a comically bad video is the best way to reach people with his message.

It'd be hilarious if it turned out Scientology was behind this (it seems about their level of video production, social awareness, and about the right level of anti-psychiatry hysteria).

Wow - give him the damn sepak takraw ball.

Pixar is so superior to Dreamworks in every way.


Mostly agree - but I'd take the best Dreamworks Animation movie (How to Train Your Dragon) over the worst Pixar one (Cars 2) - and maybe even Kung-Fu Panda over Bug's Life.

Overall I think the gap is closing (animated movies are so much better than they used to be that it hardly makes sense). That said, Brave looks amazing: well acted, has an interesting setting, and really ups the ante on animation quality (compare the hair in, say, The Incredibles to the hair on this girl).

I think a common reconciliation would be to say that the Bible is a mix of inspired truths from God (which are infallible), and a history (written by earnest people, but who were just writing what they knew) whose recording may have been guided by God but is not infallible.

I agree with Jack, Return of the King needed about a half hour cut off the end (or, alternatively, they needed to cleanse the shire).

I made it all the way through somehow. It hurt me deep inside.


I appreciated your reply, and your "fate of the rich" comment, @shinyblurry. Clearly we don't agree on lots of stuff (and I was, true to character, angry in my initial response) but I understand your perspective on the political bits and am inclined to agree with your interpretation on the religious ones (whatever we disagree in terms of cosmic reality, I think we agree that Jesus had a worthwhile philosophy that's worth understanding). And we also agree that this video was really grating, so there's that too .

Kind of disappointing - I mean, it's nice that you can get a general approximation that way, but I was expecting more of a clever technique when they said "best way". I mean, if you're weighing our head, isn't it quite likely you're trying to figure out what its density is? I mean, that's why people do the swimming pool tests for body fat, is to calculate density - you can't very well do that if your weight measurement assumes an averagely dense head.

And I agree with them. I think Jesus was saying pretty bluntly: "It's fucking impossible for rich people to go to heaven... period."


That site you link also clarifies that:

...and Homo neanderthalensis were simply racial variants of modern humans and, like all humans, were descended from Adam and Eve.


But despite the fact that these nutbars said it, it's true there's no historical evidence for the gate in question (or at least there wasn't last time I looked). However, there's lots of things about life at that time that we don't have any real evidence for, and the parable makes more sense (to me at least) interpreted that way.

It also doesn't jive well with the rest of the Bible for rich people to be unilaterally condemned - there's plenty of biblical people who receive riches as a reward for righteousness. That wouldn't be much of a reward if those riches dragged them down to Hell (haha, here's your stuff back Job, have fun in Hell!).

I've heard all sorts of different interpretations and people trying to "translate out" their own beliefs in Matthew 19:24, but I just can't see it in any other way than: "If you have it, give it all away. You can't take it with you and we certainly aren't taking it into account when you get here."

I'm not sure what other interpretations you're referring to... but there's a very credible interpretation wherein the "eye of a needle" is one of the small, short gates into the city - mostly intended for people. In order for a camel carrying goods to enter in by this kind of gate, they'd have to kind of kneel and shuffle. Thus rich people have to either unload their goods, or be very penitent to get in (and the more goods they're importing into heaven, the lower they have to prostrate themselves).

Makes sense, would have made sense to people at the time, and otherwise the choice of camels and "eyes of needles" seems pretty arbitrary/nonsensical.

it all started to change when Americans rebelled against biblical morality in the 60's and 70's. Before that, we had Christian values and a Christian culture


The 50s were an aberration, not the norm for all time before the horrible 60s. This is a ridiculous untruth propagated by people who grew up in the 50s and who, in the US, are bitter about losing a cultural war. Much of the reason the 50s were so explicitly religious was because of government intervention - explicit religion was seen as a counter to communism. Other than that, it was a generational effect, you can see the cycle through history. In terms of overall morality, I'll take now - a time without slavery, less crime, and much more protection for the bullied in general - over pretty much any point in history.

I mean, there were certainly positives to the 1950s if you were a middle-to-upper-class white male but it really sucked for most other people.

As to now, the biggest immoral behavior I see the US doing right now is slaughtering people overseas. I'm waiting for the time when warmongering candidates can't get support in Tennessee because of all the Christians. Oh wait, it's not warmongering they hate, it's "differing slightly on religious views".

who do you think is running all of those food banks and homeless shelters?


And who is fighting hardest against universal healthcare, foodstamps, and progressive taxation? Most people (of any kind) are good and want to help the underprivileged; mostly they just differ on how to administer that aid.

For instance, arkansas is one of the most charitible states, whose citizens give around 3.9 percent of their income


According to this - http://www.forbes.com/2005/11/23/most-charitable-states-cx_lh_1125home_ls.html - the #1 state is Utah. Hmmm... I wonder why? Maybe it's because they're browbeaten by their church into donating? Too bad they're not Christians, eh Shiny, or you could take credit for them. On the whole, I think it's ridiculous to count donations to a Church as wholly charitable for this purpose. A donation to a church is partially going to support charitable stuff, but largely is going to support building a church, heating it, maintaining it, advertising it, supplying it, and paying people who work there (the same as a donation to Applebee's).

It's simply another anti-christian vehicle that atheists will all nod their head and agree with without any thoughtful analysis.


Speaking for myself, I made it about 10 seconds in before it annoyed me too much to keep watching. Annoying voice, cliche, stupid non-jokes.