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Comment Re: illogical captain (Score 1) 937

Reeves showing how he 'flew' as superman using special effects, did not debunk the annual migration of geese.

Or again, the proof that 99.99999% of people do NOT have eidetic memory does not prove that Tesla was a fraud, and all his inventions nonsense. I happen to claim that I know one of few in our country who has been documented as having such memory, and it has caused her great trouble.

To put it shortly, yes thereeare frauds and chareletans.

There also exist the works of God, and there also exists healing. The first does not compare with the second.

The woman who was healed, a family friend of ours, seems to be okay with it.

Comment Re:illogical captain (Score 0, Flamebait) 937

First of all, religion is not irrational. You have to ignore a ton of evidence about what you cannot explain, to actively deny that there is a God.

Second, though, I think the article and the title are very intuitive, and point out the irony of the department: 'need a way to cheat death'. Because one of the real complete failures, as you have noted, is the need-to-cheat-complete-meaninglessness.

And most religions, whether utter nonsense, or really evil, or extremely dangerous, do offer some kind of meaning, even if it is false. And that is probably why many atheists, while officially of that religion, in fact end up believing in government as god. They need something to fill the void, and government really reeeally wants to.

Not that there isn't a level of dispair there: there will be. If I. as a Christian who has seen healings, and experienced the voice of good, and seen his power, can bounce along on the edge of despair, surely someone with less evidence might as well.

And I'm not 100% sure why.

Comment Re:Easy solution (Score 1) 348

Actually, science works DESPITE many scientists not having integrity.

That's one of the reasons that I actually FAVOR creation science despite the fact that I think it is not a correct theory.

Because there are a ton of scientists out there who do fudge their data, or take their data and deliberately misinterpet it, beyond those who take their data and accidentally misinterpret it.

Then others go around and BELIEVE the studies, far in excess of the claims of the study. So then you have general academia all saying "well, science proves that lack of funding will destroy education." Or whatnot. Because they heard it, and want to believe it.

And there, to break through all the dogma, is the creation scientist who says, "uhhh.... a lot of your data looks okay, but you draw absolutely nonsense conclusions from it. Here, look at the limits of accuracy of your pb-pb dating, and consider...."

Now: Don't take my word for it... I'm making up numbers to give the gist of what I'm about to say, but 90 percent of the scientists will refuse to listen to what he said. 9% will attack him virulently. And 1% will say, "That's very interesting. I still think the theory is basically valid, but what would that imply, then?" And sometimes he discovers a fraud. Sometimes he discovers a new law.

So it is the creation scientists who battle the dogma, and help ensure that science moves forward.

So don't worry that science wouldn't move forward if scientists didn't have integrity. For it is very possible (and indeed, from what I have seen it is moderately often true) that don't, and it does.

You just have to figure out what to ignore.

Comment But if the buses clean the cars off the road (Score 1) 491

What you describe is with the current situation, which is currently crashing all around us. Bus usership is skyrocketing in the city where I am (Hampton Roads). If that trend continues ... and I admit that I do NOT see national statistical evidence that bears me out, but if it continues, then the automobile may be less relevant.

Now, that said, I think there is something far more important than electric buses, and that would be electric metro trains that can dock at speed.

  First, because electric is best suited to short stretches without power, and buses and autos fail at that.

Second, because if you can use a system in which every trip is nonstop, one way, and moderately fast, it will clean out the short-hop airline industry AND some of your more extensive auto use.

Third, because if a reasonable public transit system is offered for medium- and long- trips, then short-hop electric becomes more viable.

Comment Re:Scammers recruiting local "payment agents" ... (Score 2) 160

I wonder how much they are duped. I repeatedly see spam-ads in forums for "moneyrelative.com" except that isn't what it is. It's money ... ummm... something else.

And the spam ads always look like somebody misplacing a comment from a completely different forum, "uhh, yeah, what kate said, it's amazing how you can earn yada yada dollars in only a month..."

But they never say what you do for the money.

Now, I *DO* earn yada yada dollars in a month, because I am drafting working drawings for real bridges that get built. I KNOW what I do is valuable. But if you are employed... no, let me adjust that.

There are LOTS of jobs out there for which you can be paid a reasonable looking wage for no particular service other than time spent. How is that? Because the purpose you are serving is reducing the risk to your "employer". So you can get a job flipping houses with no money invested, taking 10% of the profit, but ALL of the loss (that is, bankruptcy) if the market crashes. And that is how your employer steals money from banks. Or you can get a job running drugs: your risk is 20-to-life if caught and you DON'T rat out your employer; or death to you and your family if you do. He makes millions, you make a good , what, maybe $70k in a year. And so on. Now, this money-relative-dot-com (name changed to protect the probably guilty) , I half suspect is nothing more than recruiting US accomplices to the Nigerian gangs. But I don't know, and I'm not willing to go over to the site and risk my browser (in case it's actually recruiting spam bots).

But I rather suspect that most people know that it's illegitimate when they sign up for it. But they hope that it's legit, and even if not, they hope that somehow they'll slide. Because that reeeeeeaally need the money, and they've maxed out their credit cards, and a person shouldn't just give up when they can do SOMETHING to get money.... ... but a lot of times, they set themselves up for that, deliberately, before, when they chose to get the things they wanted, knowing that they'd have to go to the shady side to pay it off.

Comment Re: Coincidence? Or conspiracy? (Score 2) 107

I don't think it's a coincidence OR a conspiracy. I think that as a comet or multi-part asteroid approaches close to a planet, it breaks up like Shoemaker-Levy 9.

As it misses, the different fragments get accelerated at different angles around the planet. At that point, they will end up with vastly different orbits, all focused on the same approximate point in space.

But from a solar-centric perspective, they all still have the same energy, and thus all have the same period.

So they hold a reunion of sorts after that, all passing close by each other.

And if the planet also happens to pass by again, the astronomers can be watching one asteroid, and not see the rabbit punch coming from a completely different direction.

Comment Re: What's wrong with Windows Server? (Score 0) 613

Just a crazy comment/question... is this systemd issue kindof like the SSL question, in which a specific weak class of random number generator was selected for SSL and PUSHED THRU?

The heavy-handed tactics of labelling the opposition as troll does seem very normal to human nature, but it also seems normal to this particular cloak-and-dagger government we've inherited from the post-ww2 years.

Comment Re: How Does SpaceX Do it? (Score 0) 78

Well, if I remember correctly,first theyor other private corporations fight the government on whether they should be allowed to have propellant; then they have to fight the government on whether they should be allowed to launch. Then having proved their technology they have to fight the government on what new paperwork they have to fill out to sell US-made rockets to the government, rather than buying from the standard graf^H^H^H^Hgovernment contractors like boeing that illegally buy Russian rockets, mark them up, and sell them to the US government for nonbid profits galore.

Then they have to fight the government on quickly having signed an exclusive nonbid contract with said preferred contractors while the previous issue was still being dealt with.

Idon't know, it seems pretty par for the course, and was why Mircorp went under.

Why did you want to know how companies like spacex do it?

Comment Re: Global Warming? (Score 1) 273

You said that we can't predict volcanos and quakes. That isn't entirely correct. Mt. St. Helens was predicted, and they cleared the mountain of most people.

And we do have signs of impending quakes, including certain mediterranian ants. Also, IIRC, methane gas release is also considered to be a quake precursor.

Which DOES make me wonder, if this methane release is normal, or recent. I guess we won't know, or even have an idea unless we compare it to other areas.

Submission + - Peak prosperity: preparing for the end of growth (peakprosperity.com)

MickLinux writes: You all hopefully have heard of peak oil: that the easy oil is gone, and so now we're down to fracking. If fracking costs $120/barrel output, then the price of oil isn't going to go down below $120 a barrel ever again.

And you aren't going to find 2-ton copper nuggets in the streambeds either: the mines now get 0.04% rich ore, which takes a lot of oil to work the mines. So peak oil means peak copper, too.

Peak oil means peak everything. So that means peak growth.

But our world's national debts, which are all far above the highest debt-Gdp ratio that has ever been repaid, assume infinite growth.

Worse, growth and prosperity depend on the same resources, so that means an end to prosperity.

So what's coming? And how do we prepare? That's the point of this website, because founder Chris Martenson's idea is that if we collectively give up the growth, we can still have prosperity. And if we don't collectively give up the growth, we can still predict what is coming, and weather the storm until the growth dies on its own. *Then* perhaps we can recover the prosperity.

Chris Martenson has put together a website including forums, groups, and above all three crash courses: a free 1-hour overview course, a free 4-hour 2008 version broken into 2-6 minute chapters, and half free/half paywalled 2014 version. The 2008 and 2014 versions are basically equivalent, but the 2014 contains better graphics and a bit more info.

He's asking people to get the word out:

Go watch the crash course, and then prepare.

Comment Re: wait.. did you feel that? (Score 2) 90

Making the earth's crust rise should not directly affect the strike-slip San Andreas fault at all. However, it has been anecdotally noted on syzygyjob.com forums that thrust quakes seem to be on the rise, along with hypothesizing that the rising crust might release friction allowing exactly that.

For my own part, I've noticed a large increase of small quakes surrounding the great elliptical basin, the southwest of which coincides with the rising sierra nevada; and occasional time-coincident radial forays into the same basin.

So I half wonder if the rising isn't part of a larger-scale process.

Comment Re: Dobsonian (Score 1) 187

Why not... get with small museums and astronomy clubs in remote (low-light-pollution) locations across the US, and use smaller scopes not just at your location, but set up all across the US?

Then phase the scopes together, and use scheduling software to let the museums (and you) use them.

Early on, you should be able to get an image under any weather conditions.

Later, as you upgrade and develop your software, you should be able to get excellent 3-D images of planets, better identify the orbits of asteroids and comets, identify new asteroids (take one image, align it to others, and subtract the scaled values to minimize the overall light. Then look for arrays of speckled dots, that indicate a closer object. )

Eventually, what you could end up with is a very large phased array.

Comment Re: Bioaccumulation Ahoy (Score 2, Insightful) 180

Okay, here's your first citation.

http://www.elizabethriver.org/

Now, having worked on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, I can assure you that it is common in the newspapers to have articles about projects to restart clam and oyster aquaculture, which crashed, resulting in a spike in pollution in the water.

But more to the point, I worked at Atlantic Metrocast, where the land had been taken over by the military during world war 2, and all kinds of extremely toxic munitions leaked in. That site is a superfund site, paid for by the Federal Government, because they are the ones who polluted it.
To the south is Julian Creek, where munitions were just dumped into the water, and the cancer rates and birth defect rates are sky-high.

Oh, I haven't mentioned the shipyards yet. They also were dumping in the river, aah, welding materials, lead, whatnot. AND, when the company at the old Bells Mill site needed to turn the mashland of their worksite into solid land, they used fill from the shipyards. So as you walk along the land at BayShore Concrete, you'll every so often find all kinds of heavy-metal-laden industrial parts there, embedded in the ground.

Oh, and don't forget right by the Gilmerton Bridge where there's a recycling center that tears down ships.

Now, that's just the Elizabeth. Let's move on up to the James, where you have Tenneco/Newport News Shipbuilding, the Navy's ship graveyard, and of course Smithfield Hams. And all that agricultural land that gets sprayed every year.

Or how about the Shenandoah River, which five years ago practically died due to heavy metal pollution in the Shenandoah Valley, and dumps into the Chesapeake Bay through Maryland?

Citation needed, I gave you one; I mentioned a few other places where you can find more.

One hint is that wherever you find the military, destruction is not far behind.

Open your eyes and look for yourself, and quit with the laziness, because that's what it is.

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