Everyone Is a Sith: November's last [chat].

Saturday, December 1, 2007

November's last [chat].

The last [chat] of November.

36 comments:

_J_ said...: Since this blog has lasted far longer than some people thought it would I'm going through the posts and adding labels so that they are far easier to locate/index.

If people want to go back and add labels to their own posts that would be keen so long as sensible labels are used. For example, if the post is about an article detailing how cute puppies are...

Sensible Labels:
article, puppies, cute

Not Sensible Labels:
Ya'll ain't gonna believe this shit, infant canine adoration, cocksdicksolol

Note: If the post is about cocksdicksolol then by all means apply that label. If, however, the post is not about cocksdicksolol then by no means use that label.

It's possible that adding sensible labels is one of the steps required before we move this blog to another server and try to go professional.

Possible.; November 26, 2007 at 10:40 AM
Kylebrown said...: Has anyone seen the Celebrex commercials yet? I can't figure it out yet. The commercial is basically 30 seconds of health warnings, many of which eventually can result in death. The only positives they seemed to note was that the drug has never been taken off the shelves, and FDA says the benefits outweigh the risks. This doesn't exactly fill me as a consumer with confidence.

They need to find a new marketing agency because there is no way that they can be seeing a net profit from these commercials.; November 26, 2007 at 10:41 AM
_J_ said...: Celebrex: It might cure your arthritis. It probably won't kill you.

They ought to modify the formula so that they can say it "may cause erection".

Then people would buy it regardless of the risks.; November 26, 2007 at 10:53 AM
_J_ said...: This just in:
Cheney has heartbeat.

More on this story as it develops.; November 26, 2007 at 4:35 PM
Andrew said...: "During examination he was incidentally found to have an irregular heartbeat, which on further testing was determined to be atrial fibrillation"
So upon further testing his "heartbeat" was found to be an "atrial firillation."; November 26, 2007 at 6:37 PM
_J_ said...: Atrial Fibrillation is a type of heartbeat.; November 26, 2007 at 7:06 PM
Andrew said...: shut up!
i was trying to say that he didnt have a heartbeat you ass!; November 26, 2007 at 7:37 PM
_J_ said...: I think the best way to describe Feist is that feist is Dido, Fiona Apple, and Bjork's super-retarded idiot baby.

Who kinda looks good in that 1234 video. If you cover up her face and focus on the blue sparkley.; November 26, 2007 at 8:12 PM
Roscoe said...: of course.... Feist is a band and not a single woman...

but.. carry on. Your work is desperately needed by third world fans, bereft of sarcasm and pop analysis all together.; November 27, 2007 at 12:55 PM
_J_ said...: Feist is a band?; November 27, 2007 at 1:10 PM
_J_ said...: Feist is not a band, ass:

Leslie Feist (born February 13, 1976 in Amherst, Nova Scotia, Canada, North America) is a Canadian singer-songwriter. She performs as a solo artist under the name Feist and as a member of Broken Social Scene.

So, as I said, I think the best way to describe Feist is that Feist is Dido, Fiona Apple, and Bjork's super-retarded idiot baby.; November 27, 2007 at 1:27 PM
_J_ said...: Two people you don't know broke up.

Hence MSNBC's coverage.; November 27, 2007 at 2:58 PM
Caleb said...: That narrative does not make sense.; November 27, 2007 at 3:37 PM
_J_ said...: Agreed.; November 28, 2007 at 9:07 AM
_J_ said...: I hadn't read conservapedia's Theory of Evolution article before.

Some of the things they say are not crazy. Many of the conclusions they draw are crazy.

This, though, intrigues me:

"We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. 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, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door." - Richard Lewontin, ‘Billions and billions of demons’, The New York Review, January 9, 1997, p. 31

There are many things in that quote. They may or may not need to be addressed.; November 28, 2007 at 4:35 PM
Caleb said...: I'm with Dick.

Science has broken so many of the promises it has made to me. I'm not sure I could ever love again.; November 29, 2007 at 9:15 AM
_J_ said...: I never really loved science. Science was just there and provided an interesting distraction.

We'd always fight over things like the geology.

J: How can you know how old the Grand Canyon it is?

Science: Erosion.

J: But doesn't that mean that at one point in time the hole wasn't there?

Science: Yes.

J: How old is Mount St. Helens?

Science: About 40,000 years.

J: So that means that at one time it was not there?

Science: Yes.

J: So, according to you, at one point in time no geological formations existed and the earth was a perfect oblate spheroid?

Science: Well...well no...

J: So it's possible that there was a giant hole there to begin with and the Grand Canyon isn't really that old?

Science: Well, erosion...

J: And it's possible that the southern rocky mountains are not actually 600 million years old, but were there at the beginning?

Science: Well, if you explore the Precambrian uplift...

J: So all you do is observe things as they exist and happen today and then speculate that at one point in time none of these geological formations existed but you have no idea of what the starting point was?

Science: Well, we can't know what the starting point was...

J: So how can you base your observations on an assumption of how it started? What if it just magik'd itself into existence 7,000 years ago?

Science: Well, that can't have happened. Look at these Precambrian uplifts...

J: You're just making an inference based upon your observations of today. WHY couldn't all of this have magik'd itself into existence 7,000 years ago?

Science: You aren't looking at the precambrian uplifts!

J: I'll look at YOUR Precambrian uplifts!!

Then we had rough sex.; November 29, 2007 at 12:47 PM
MA17 said...: I'm not sure that giving an age for a geological formation necessarily implies a time when Earth was a featureless planet.

On a much smaller scale, I remember a time when your house didn't exist, but that doesn't mean that there was nothing there before the house was built, all it means is that there was a time when there wasn't a house there.

It may certainly be the case that Earth was at one time devoid of geological formations, but I'm not sure you can provide any substantial foundation for the theory, and it seems like all geology can do is observe the current condition, extrapolate a birthday for that condition, and be fairly certain that before that date the geography at that location was different.; November 29, 2007 at 4:06 PM
MA17 said...: That 'it was different' agrees with your argument, but doesn't presume to know an original state.; November 29, 2007 at 4:07 PM
_J_ said...: it seems like all geology can do is observe the current condition, extrapolate a birthday for that condition, and be fairly certain that before that date the geography at that location was different.

To do this, though, assumes that the condition at one time did not exist. Where the Grand Canyon is today there was once not a hole. That's how they determine a date. It would take X thousand/million years for water to carve that area.

Fine.

But to say that implies that the hole was not there. In its place? Obviously a flat plain through which a river flowed. If there was a mountain or other elevated land mass then it would have taken longer for the river to wear away at that. If there was already a hole? Then it would not have taken as long for the river to "dig out" the canyon.

And that's my problem. Saying "it took X million years to form the grand canyon" supposes that X million years ago there was no canyon but rather a flat space. Saying that it took X million years for a mountain to form assumes that there was once no mountain there.

And if this applies to every geological formation, which is the case in my understanding of geology, then at some point earth was a featureless, perfect oblate spheroid.

Take the house example. The house was not always there. So what was there before it? A field? A volcano? A hellmouth? What was there before that? And that? And that?; November 29, 2007 at 4:21 PM
Kylebrown said...: Actually it is quite the opposite. The canyon was carved by a river, because the land was not a flat space but instead mountainous. Plains rivers don't cut canyons because they are slow moving and can't properly move the sediment. Therefore, before the canyon there were just mountains.

And before a given mountain range (rather than just mount saint helens) existed, yes there was just flat land, but in other parts of the world at that time there would be other mountain ranges.

We know the age of the canyon because we can age the deepest uncovered layers using the geological time scale.

One last thing. In the universal sense the earth is a perfect sphere. If one were capable of shrinking the planet to the size of a billiards ball and did so, the earth would actually be smoother with less visible imperfections than the billiards ball.; November 29, 2007 at 8:19 PM
The_Jolly said...: Jay,

You are over simplifying the issue. you assume there has to be a point of origin for the earth that is a perfect shperoid. First off this CAN'T happen since the earth has a molten core. The rotation actually causes a bulging effect around the equator. So no perfect sphereoid could form. Second you assume that the earth must have had a tranquil state at it's beginnings. Just by doing that your placing an assumption on the earth's past just as geologists do. However, geologist use scientific evidence and principles that hold true in today's time and then apply those tools to the past. Which creates an explanation.

It's an assumption yes...but it has some basis in the factual because we can observe them in the present. This is called the principle of uniformitarianism and was given to us by James Hutton (good buddies with Hume btw).

The principle basically states that we assume that things in the present happened as they do in the past. The laws of physics were the same, matter behaved like matter, gravity didn't change so on and so forth. The whole point of this is principle was to try and found geology in a real world base, because if you didn't do this anyone could look at a mountain claim a god of their choosing created it and that was the way things were. BUT THAT ISN'T WHAT SCIENCE IS ABOUT!!!!!

Sure the planet may have popped up out of a void 7,000 years ago just as it did today. But there is no way of telling if this is factual or not. So it might as well have been leprechauns led by their supreme ruler Dennis Kusinich!

Honestly J, you are trying to dissect a scientific principle with philosophical thought. I don't want to have the inductive vs. deductive heyo van iten lecture with you if I don't have too, cause your a philosophy major and should know the difference!; November 29, 2007 at 9:57 PM
Andrew said...: Im not sure you can call what J is doing philisophical thought.; November 29, 2007 at 10:03 PM
_J_ said...: It's not philosophy.

I'm trying to figure out what the implications are of these claims about geological processes. If the Grand Canyon was once full of dirt then that dirt obviously went somewhere. Where is it now? When a mountain is formed that has to take material from somewhere else. What was that material doing before the mountain was there?

That sort of crap.

And I'm not assuming the perfect spheroid. I'm saying that looking backwards assumes something akin to that.

Mentally look backwards through time and fill in the grand canyon, push the Rocky Mountains back into the ground. Shrink the southern tip of Louisiana. Unglacier northern North American and Canada. What view of the earth does that direct us towards? What does it look like?; November 30, 2007 at 9:26 AM
_J_ said...: In the morning I clock in on the timeclock in the back so I can hear the music they're listening to. After I arrived I received this e-mail:

"The gayish music you probably just heard me listening to is actually good, most of it. Ever heard of MIKA? This guy has a voice that sounds just like Freddy Mercury."

I thought it was lol.; November 30, 2007 at 9:28 AM
Caleb said...: 'tis.

They listen to christian pop here. Fortunately my workspace is well separated from theirs.; November 30, 2007 at 10:11 AM
_J_ said...: I heart Christian Pop.

You know, Jesus? I've been thinking a lot about you lately and, well, that's why I wrote this song...

I love you, Jesus.
I want you to walk with me.
I'll take good care of you baby.
Call you my baby, baby!
You died for my sins, and you know that I would die for you, right?
What's the matter, baby?
You tremble at Jesus, baby!

Your love… is my life!
You know when I'm without you, there's a black hole in my life!
Oo-ohhh! I wanna believe.
It's all right, 'cause I get lonely in the night and it's up to you to Save me!

Jee…sus…bay-by!

Also,

The Body of Christ!
Sleek swimmer's body, all muscled up and toned!
The Body of Christ!
O, Lord Almighty, I wish I could call it my own!; November 30, 2007 at 11:17 AM
MA17 said...: MIKA does sound like Queen.; November 30, 2007 at 12:43 PM
_J_ said...: That's pretty sweet.; November 30, 2007 at 12:45 PM
_J_ said...: Guess who is downloading log files!; November 30, 2007 at 4:05 PM
_J_ said...: Tila Tequila Is Straight

"Self-proclaimed bisexual MTV star Tila Tequila may actually be stick-straight."

...aren't...aren't all bisexuals "self-proclaimed"?; November 30, 2007 at 4:51 PM
MA17 said...: That is a good point.; December 1, 2007 at 9:42 AM
Caleb said...: Might there also be the class of "outed" bisexuals?; December 1, 2007 at 12:25 PM
MA17 said...: That is a good point.; December 1, 2007 at 1:14 PM
_J_ said...: To be an outed bisexual I would think one would have to be caught participating in bisexual behavior.

I think that to do that one must proclaim to be a bisexual, if not verbally then through one's actions.; December 1, 2007 at 3:40 PM
_J_ said...: From my friend Oboro on the PA forums:

"I understand it's a little bit sad, but whenever I am being pedantic or flexing my white-knuckle-grip on logical rhetoric I am also thinking, "Man, _J_ would love this!""; December 1, 2007 at 11:22 PM

Everyone Is a Sith

Saturday, December 1, 2007

November's last [chat].

36 comments:

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