AmericaSpeakingOut is here!

Post #326,911 by Another Scott 5/26/10 11:49:06 PM Reply	AmericaSpeakingOut is here! http://www.americaspeakingout.com/ It's a Republican site, naturally. So it has lots of snark from folks on the left. It seems to be Slashdotted quite frequently in my browsing this evening. http://www.balloon-j.../fish-gotta-swim/ points to this one: http://www.americasp...ged/heliocentrism Stop "teaching" our children the atheist doctrine of heliocentrism. It contradicts the Bible. by DougJ himself. Cheers, Scott.
Post #326,958 by lincoln 5/27/10 4:16:37 PM Reply	And we're paying for it The whole thing would be fine and Democrats could just spend their time mocking the odd platform ideas (like repealing Section II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964) if it was being paid for by a party committee like Michael Steele's RNC. Except that Republicans don't want Michael Steele anywhere close to their election platform. They decided to run the entire project from their minority offices in the House of Representatives. That means that everyone reading Crooks & Liars is paying for the Republican Party's 2010 election re-branding efforts and helping foot the bill for the Party's platform in 2010. [...] And Republicans in Congress hate and distrust Michael Steele. They don't want him to anywhere near their 2010 message. And because of that taxpayers have to pay for the GOP's 2010 re-branding effort. By my estimation, the cost of the website, the video, the staff time, and the glitzy launch today at the museum may have cost taxpayers at least $100,000 -- and it's only the first day. All that taxpayer money because the House Republicans don't trust Michael Steele and the RNC. The Republican Party thanks you for bailing them out. source: http://crooksandliar...g-out-gop-because "Chicago to my mind was the only place to be. ... I above all liked the city because it was filled with people all a-bustle, and the clatter of hooves and carriages, and with delivery wagons and drays and peddlers and the boom and clank of freight trains. And when those black clouds came sailing in from the west, pouring thunderstorms upon us so that you couldn't hear the cries or curses of humankind, I liked that best of all. Chicago could stand up to the worst God had to offer. I understood why it was built--a place for trade, of course, with railroads and ships and so on, but mostly to give all of us a magnitude of defiance that is not provided by one house on the plains. And the plains is where those storms come from." -- E.L. Doctorow
Post #326,973 by boxley 5/27/10 8:58:18 PM Reply	we paid for the copenhagen farce as well, we always pay
Post #326,974 by Another Scott 5/27/10 8:58:36 PM Reply	Privatize the profits, socialize the expenses... :-(
Post #327,047 by mhuber 5/29/10 4:30:17 PM 5/29/10 4:31:19 PM Reply	Heliocentrism is not all that common I'm on this dating site, OKCupid.com. The way it works there is you answer a bunch of questions. The answer includes your answer, the answer you would like from the other person, how important their answer is to you, and whether you would like your answer to be private. If you go for private, you can't see anybody else's answer. Some database math occurs, and you get compatibility scores. The people who run the site go into some detail about the process and some of the statistics on their side-blog. They completely smash the idea of astrological compatibility with statistics so solid they look fake. Several of you guys might find the statistical analysis stuff interesting. I actually got sucked into the dating (met two, two second dates so far) by the math geekery. The questions are supplied by the users, and if your question gets answered a lot, it moves closer to the start of the survey. There are several thousand questions. But I digress. And how. Sheesh. Anyway, one question that comes up is "which is bigger, the Earth or the Sun?" and it is a little shocking how many women (I've got no clue on men's answers, you only see the answers for potential matches who answered publicly) say Earth. Even women who come off otherwise as fairly smart. --------------------------------------- I think it's perfectly clear we're in the wrong band. (Tori Amos) Edited by mhuber May 29, 2010, 04:31:19 PM EDT Expand All History
Post #327,048 by Another Scott 5/29/10 4:34:00 PM Reply	Neat. Thanks.
Post #327,080 by static 5/30/10 8:10:04 PM Reply	There are a set of images that went around not long ago. I don't remember the whole set, but an early one shows the comparative sizes of the first four planets, plus Pluto, in quite good oblique rendering. Earth is obviously the biggest and a skilled orator can play that up, as the preacher at my church did on Sunday morning (but in a nice way). The next picture shows all our planets. The third adds our sun. I could hear a few noises of surprise from the congregation at the comparison. The next show some well-known stars, Sirius, Pollux and Arcturus against which Sol is really quite small. The last showed Rigel, Aldebaran, Betelgeuse and Antares against which Sol is almost invisible. There were people in the same room as me who hadn't thought about this for a long time and may have never seen this answer. Oh yes; I found the images. http://www.kiroastro...tings/perspective Wade. Q:Is it proper to eat cheeseburgers with your fingers? A:No, the fingers should be eaten separately.
Post #327,082 by Another Scott 5/30/10 8:18:51 PM Reply	Neat.
Post #327,092 by static 5/31/10 2:03:39 AM Reply	Aye. Of course, I already knew the magnitude of the size comparisons. The Smithsonian in D.C. has a display showing our solar system in scale. I imagine many visitors don't even see it as it's so big and spread out. http://www.space.com...ystem_011010.html Wade. Q:Is it proper to eat cheeseburgers with your fingers? A:No, the fingers should be eaten separately.
Post #327,093 by drook 5/31/10 9:26:51 AM Reply	Link to the display site http://www.voyageonline.org/ There are a bunch of other versions, too. Good listing here -- http://www.vendian.o...dir3/solarsystem/ -- which includes this one -- http://www.efn.org/~...uttheProject.html -- that a father built for his 4th-grader son to help him with his astronomy homework. I saw one on TV a while back that was based at a college. The sun was over a story tall, which put pluto in the next town. -- Drew
Post #327,098 by Another Scott 5/31/10 10:26:47 AM Reply	Going the other way. While the universe is big, it's startling how tiny parts of its contents are. An atom has a diameter of ~2-3x10^-10 meters - http://hyperphysics....cles/atomsiz.html - or 0.2-0.3 nm. AMD and Intel are selling CPUs based on 45 nm design rules (some distances on the chip are substantially smaller). The electron is point-like - it has no physical size. Measurements show it has a radius no larger than 10^-22 meters - http://en.wikipedia....mental_properties The problem with measuring dramatically smaller distances is that larger and more massive equipment is required. The physical limit is the Planck distance (~10^-35 meters). Supposedly, to try to measure something smaller would require an interferometer that would be massive enough to create a black hole... http://www.newscient...th-announced.html In contrast, the lower-limit of the diameter of the universe is estimated to be 78x10^9 light years ( http://en.wikipedia....servable_universe ) or 7.4 x10^26 meters. A neat short video of the sizes of the planets and a few stars - http://www.youtube.c...tch?v=P38ri8vQjRU One of course would be remiss without mentioning Powers of 10: http://en.wikipedia....iki/Powers_of_Ten http://www.powersof10.com/ Cheers, Scott.
Post #327,125 by Ashton 5/31/10 7:08:17 PM Reply	Ergo, the distance from Mr. Planck --> just-shy-of nirvana is ~< a mere 10^62. However, in just an 11-dimensional construct [under-construction 'they' say] -- these data may prove meaningless / the End of all spreadsheets? Perhaps, should we Actually Face the current Planetary Problems of the [Known and extremely-Likely] scale: some form of Buddha-compassionate philosophy / Gaea-nourishing better-Science might supersede the boring mercantile marketing approach to all things in liff, that Me-Me Affluenza mindset which Got US Here, to the ragged-edge of survivability: http://www.newscient...nd-of-silence.php http://www.amazon.co...nce/dp/1416599592 Some angles in the above might give an intro to that which is perpetually absent in today's environment of inescapable Noise -- that silence from which authentic Thought may arise. (Couldn't hoit.) (Maybe begin from Mahler's Fifth. Then, turn that gear off and -- if it's quiet enough that you can hear your own heartbeat (in anechoic chambers, some have heard another's heartbeat, too) -- go within.) Find a species-saving Out to this mess. Eh? Forget the Think Tank 'solutions' -- too many echoes in those and nary a one with originality.. I could almost see voting for Palin in 2012 on the grounds that this sorry ratfucking excuse for a republic, this savage, smirking, predatory empire deserves her. Bring on the Rapture, motherfuckers! -- via RC
Post #327,127 by static 5/31/10 9:13:55 PM Reply	That takes commitment. I had a science teacher in year 7 who wanted us to build something like that. I already knew it wasn't something you could carry on the bus. Wade. Q:Is it proper to eat cheeseburgers with your fingers? A:No, the fingers should be eaten separately.

Welcome to IWETHEY!