Dantius

Originally Posted By: Trenton Uchiha, rebel servile. This all leads to the most important question. Is cornstarch mixed with water a solid, or a liquid? I believe that it's a non-Newtonian fluid, which means that it's a liquid that doesn't behave like one when you subject it to pressure, because it doesn't have a constant viscosity. But fluid dynamics isn't exactly my field. You might be better off asking one of the physicists here instead.

Originally Posted By: Malical Originally Posted By: Dantius Originally Posted By: The Turtle Moves At least it's more logical than gates that somehow open themselves when someone dies. As if they were holding it closed with sheer willpower. Even that's not as bad as when the building starts to collapse whenever you kill the Big Bad inside it. That's just ridiculous. But when you add in the spiritual and emotional power that these leaders bring, and how only their willpower is holding the bricks together then surely when they die the building must collapse? So the evil empire with near-limitless resources and wealth is too stingy to hire a competent civil engineer to ensure that their incredibly expensive Fortress of Doom is possesses a modicum of structural integrity?

Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S Originally Posted By: Harehunter I stated my opinion with the distinct statement that I could be wrong. I can offer no further defense than that. In that case, you are defenseless, since you made no such distinct statement. :-D Originally Posted By: Harehunter In the U.S. there is such a wide diversity of environments, that to use a single brush to paint the picture is inadequate. In fact the remarks I am about to make do an injustice to each region as I woefully use a single brush to paint them. Just as there is a wide diversity between the regions, there is a wide diversity within them. Didn't you mention that it was common courtesy to read someone's post in it's entirety before responding in another thread?

Originally Posted By: The Turtle Moves At least it's more logical than gates that somehow open themselves when someone dies. As if they were holding it closed with sheer willpower. Even that's not as bad as when the building starts to collapse whenever you kill the Big Bad inside it. That's just ridiculous.

Originally Posted By: Lilith Originally Posted By: Sylae Reading all of what people have to say is good sense and good manners. *double-posts the Aeneid, complains that people only read through it once* Classic.

Originally Posted By: Nikki. I'll be ready like a jedi. I'll be ready like a guy who edits "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!" into the climax of Star Wars.

Obviously Trenton didn't check with HQ via his wristwatch radio, otherwise he'd know who Dick Tracy was. On a related note, how come we don't have two way video watches yet? The technology to create the exists, I'm staring at it right now in the form of my smartphone, and I'm sure there's a market for it, even if it is a very limited one of Dick Tracy enthusiasts with a couple hundred dollars to burn...

Now that I think about it, you're right. Sometimes, when I'm feeling particularly nostaligic, I look back upon my childhood and think "Wow, I might have been successful if only my parents had beat more manners and blind obedience to elders into me instead of encouraging critical analysis of others based on their personality, intelligence, and traits, instead merely doling out respect based on age, social status, and wealth!"

Originally Posted By: Trenton Uchiha, rebel servile. THIS IS WAY TOO CONFUSING! But yes skwish-E thats what happens when you failed to succeed at failing. If I define a function f(*) that returns "Success" if the argument fails, and a function s(*) that returns "Success" if the argument succeeds, then what would happen if I infinity composed f(s(f(s(...(Success)...)))?

My thoughts on a few definitions: Today, the phrase "social conservative" is edging closer and closer in meaning to, essentially, "Dominionist". The very fact that we can have people like Bachmann and Palin and Perry running for President and somehow being considered candidates that are more viable than Huntsman and Romney and, to a lesser extent, Pawlenty, speaks volumes of this RINO is a term that is now used almost exclusively as a yardstick of ideological purity wielded by far-right ideologues to make compromise impossible. If you are a Republican that thought that universal healthcare for the only industrialized power in the world that lacked it was a good idea, you're a RINO. If you're a Republican who thinks that the Establishment Clause actually means that you can't do things like host "nondenominational worship services" that pray exclusively to the Christian God and Jesus when you're the sitting governor of a state, you're a RINO. If you're a fiscal conservative who also happens to support raising taxes on the wealthy as one of several tools to be used to balance the budget, congratulation, you're a RINO and a class warrior. It's even reaching the point where not questioning science gets you labeled a RINO. You think humans evolved? Hell no we didn't, you must be a RINO. Oh and one more thing. Originally Posted By: Harehunter 5) What has been the effect of greater government spending on the credit rating of the U.S.? Pretty much what would happen to an ordinary citizen who racks up more debt than his credit limit allows. How does that affect the stock market, not only the U.S. markets, but around the world? What impact does that have on the retirement accounts of millions of people? The following needs to be printed on gigantic posters in huge letters and help aloft at every campaign rally and political debate the 2012 election season: IT IS ERRONEOUS TO COMPARE GOVERNMENT FINANCES TO HOUSEHOLD FINANCES AS IF THEY WERE IDENTICAL CONCEPTS. THE SIMILARITIES ARE SUPERFICIAL ONLY AND TO PRETEND OTHERWISE IS EITHER A LOGICAL FALLACY AT BEST AND DELIBERATE IGNORANCE AND/OR OBFUSCATION IN PURSUIT OF A POLITICAL AGENDA AT WORST.

I can do tomorrow at just about any time, so that works fine for me.

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba Your own math proves you false. Posters who are almost always around have an average rate of 4-5 posts per day. Top posters have just been around and posting frequently for a long time. That said, if someone wants to post 10 times a day in order to get a new title and all of those posts are of high quality, Dikiyoba could care less. It's just really hard to make 5 quality posts a day, let alone 10. Not really. That math is just an average over the total registered time, which as Slarty so helpfully pointed out for me, often belies long periods of absence or inactivity. I'd be willing to bet that if you went over the average post s per day made over the past year for those users, the number would be from 5-10 instead of 1-5.

Originally Posted By: Darth Ernie maybe i have failed at failing to succeed and have really succeeded at my original task No.

You'd have failed at your objective and succeeded at failing. You aren't trying to fail everything, merely a specific objective that you designate beforehand. If you fail your predetermined objective, then you will have succeeded in your goal to fail but failed in your primary objective. Understand?

Originally Posted By: Lilith Originally Posted By: Dantius Protip: It doesn't really apply once you get around a one or two thousand posts. Most of the top posters post around 10 to 20 posts a day. most of the top posters already have custom titles and thus cannot be posting just to get a new title I was thinking manly of Alorael when I made that post, since right now he's only like 600 posts away from a new title.

Originally Posted By: Lilith there is also another rule: do not post a lot just to get a new title Protip: It doesn't really apply once you get around a one or two thousand posts. Most of the top posters post around 10 to 20 posts a day.

Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S It is sort of interesting that the time the U.S. was most dramatically bent on opposing communism, was also the time that it had its highest tax rates. Go back 60 years and the highest tax bracket was something like 80-90%. That's also because US politics have shifted drastically to the right since Reagan. There's no way Eisenhower would be considered anything other than a centrist Democrat today, for instance. It's mainly because the realists in the GOP has been hijacked by evangelical voters and supply-side psuedoeconomists more bent on ideological purity than anything else, which as I have said before is one of the greatest US political travesties of the century.

I can't decide if that's a really, really fantastic spammer of a legitimate user. If it is a spambot, it's damn close to being able to pass the Turing test... Oh god. How long until it's SPAMnet instead of SKYnet?

Empty set.

i was expecting it to open with a g'day mate you disappoint my stereotypes of australians

I'd be willing to bet if a mysterious benefactor offered Jeff a quarter million dollars if he made a Blades of Geneforge with some way of guaranteeing payment, it would get made. Great, now all we'll need is to get Warren Buffet hooked on Blades and Geneforge!

Originally Posted By: VCH I find it amusing that you guys seem so knowledgeable about chain saws, yet I'm betting that none of you have used one; I might be wrong though. To add to this discussion: chainsaws are an extremely versatile tool; they're not just for making rough cuts. One can, as I have, become skilled at using them for timber-frame construction, and even standard stick-frame construction. The key is to have a sharp chain, and a saw that starts after one or two pulls; nobody likes a pull-start that doesn't start. I have a light chainsaw I bought for gardening work that I almost never use. A Sawz-All is lighter, more versatile, doesn't require a cord, and is easier on the arms, all while being just as powerful and useful for light and medium work. And I very much doubt that my small electric chainsaw would be very useful at all for any serious work, like felling a tree or something, so it pretty much gathers dust in my garage.

Oh hey, I'm just going to link to Richard Feynman .

Originally Posted By: Master1 EDIT: See also - round off error. Not to mention that we would then have to make sure every tax-paying citizen knew math up to maybe the pre-calc level. That's a pretty steep step for some people, unfortunately. 1. Accountants 2. Table of values 3. Significant figures.

Wouldn't it just be so much easier if tax brackets were replaced by a single monotonic increasing function of income that you'd just evaluate, multiply by your income, and subtract any deductions from? It's be so much easier than bothering with pages of tables of tax brackets and "subtract line 4 from line 5 and mix according to page 5 in Joy of Cooking" that we have now.