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Interesting Stuff Thread

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Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,736 ✭✭✭✭kylith


    If someone wants a fourth for their team, or to set up a Boardsie team, I'm up for it.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,141 ✭✭✭eoin5


    Has anyone else made the decision to externalize as much info as possible and therefore made themselves totally crap for table quizzes?


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,420 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    I'm out of town at the moment, otherwise I'd be up for a boardsie team -- good idea koth :)


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,754 ✭✭✭smokingman


    Lights cigarette, pours 16 year malt whiskey, looks to camera...
    "Where is your god now?"

    Fade to black :)

    http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2011/10/are-stars-the-origin-of-organic-life/


  • Registered Users Posts: 84 ✭✭el oh el


    smokingman wrote: »
    Lights cigarette, pours 16 year malt whiskey, looks to camera...
    "Where is your god now?"

    "God works in mysterious ways"


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  • Moderators Posts: 51,847 ✭✭✭✭Delirium


    robindch wrote: »
    I'm out of town at the moment, otherwise I'd be up for a boardsie team -- good idea koth :)
    I didn't do it, can't prove anything!! :P

    I think you meant kylith ;)
    kylith wrote: »
    If someone wants a fourth for their team, or to set up a Boardsie team, I'm up for it.

    If you can read this, you're too close!



  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,420 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    koth wrote: »
    I think you meant kylith ;)
    Indeed, I did -- humble apologies for getting mixed up :o


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,736 ✭✭✭✭kylith


    *shakes fist* How dare you get us mixed up! :p

    No-one up for it so?


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 25,558 Mod ✭✭✭✭Dades


    Gonna be in a pub watching The Republic qualifying for the Euros (hopefully!) :)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,992 ✭✭✭✭recedite


    smokingman wrote: »
    This isn’t the discovery of extraterrestrial life, mind you, as these compounds are organic but can’t be classified as either alive or dead
    Hmmm.. undead particles; the likely building blocks of extra-terrestrial zombies?
    complex organic compounds—structurally akin to coal
    must be that cheap coal that doesn't burn then...
    Theoretically, this is impossible, but observationally we can see it happening
    Strange days indeed, now... back to the malt whiskey...


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,578 ✭✭✭✭Turtwig


    Surely that's a self defeating question? Stars are origin of all elements so surely then the obvious conclusion is that they are origin of organic molecules because without the initial fusion of the elements there'd be no room for molecules? :)


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,754 ✭✭✭smokingman


    recedite wrote: »
    Hmmm.. undead particles; the likely building blocks of extra-terrestrial zombies?

    They're obviously "soul-less" :pac:
    Malty_T wrote: »
    Surely that's a self defeating question? Stars are origin of all elements so surely then the obvious conclusion is that they are origin of organic molecules because without the initial fusion of the elements there'd be no room for molecules? :)

    Ah but the assumption was that organic compounds, no matter how basic, could only be created on a planet after environmental effects take hold.
    To find them just floating in space would point at the Earth "not" being the origin of our own zoo of life.

    So when some taxi driver gives out about "dem bleedin fordiners", we can turn to them and say, "this actually isn't even our planet bud, we're all fordiners".


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 50,167 CMod ✭✭✭✭magicbastarder


    After Penn & Teller's Bullshit on recycling left me feeling pretty cynical about the whole thing, especially recycling plastic, I was glad to see this Ted Talk by MBA Polymers CEO Mike Biddle. He discusses the problems with recycling plastic and how his company has been going about solving them.
    i started to watch the P&T show. got about halfway through, they seemed to be focussing on people's attitudes and the financial cost and not so much on the actual benefit or damage caused by recycling.
    the nonsense of the staged extra categories of materials was pointless and unfunny.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,718 ✭✭✭The Mad Hatter


    i started to watch the P&T show. got about halfway through, they seemed to be focussing on people's attitudes and the financial cost and not so much on the actual benefit or damage caused by recycling.
    the nonsense of the staged extra categories of materials was pointless and unfunny.

    I agree, but it was when they started looking into the results of recycling - that materials set aside for recycling are often not recycled at all, or recycled into fairly useless stuff, that got me. I know it's an entertainment series and not a serious documentary, but it was still hard to totally discredit.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 23,316 ✭✭✭✭amacachi


    I agree, but it was when they started looking into the results of recycling - that materials set aside for recycling are often not recycled at all, or recycled into fairly useless stuff, that got me. I know it's an entertainment series and not a serious documentary, but it was still hard to totally discredit.

    Another thing that people don't realise it that recycling happened plenty before we got different coloured bins. My dad used to work in the council when they were responsible for waste collection etc. and the odd time he had to do the processing bit where plenty of seperation happened. Of course once it was privatised they needed an excuse to charge so went for recycling and then used it as an excuse for price hikes even though much of it was already happening and people employed.


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 50,167 CMod ✭✭✭✭magicbastarder


    i reckon we'd be as well off burning waster plastic and paper; especially plastic, anyway. that's not an endorsement of DCC's policy on incineration, mind.


  • Registered Users Posts: 238 ✭✭dmw07


    I found this interview with the youtube atheist poster AronRa interesting.



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 31,967 ✭✭✭✭Sarky


    Monkeys control artificial limbs with their minds. And as the researchers are Brazilian, the first obvious step is to apply it to soccer as soon as possible.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,992 ✭✭✭✭recedite


    Poor old monkeys must be paying a heavy price for this.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,420 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Three programs from the BBC on Richard Feynman.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/feynman/

    Restricted to mainland UK, though I gather that can be got around.


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  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,420 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,815 ✭✭✭Burgo


    robindch wrote: »

    So the jist of the story from what I can see is that backflips make you gay?


  • Registered Users Posts: 238 ✭✭dmw07


    Burgo wrote: »
    So the jist of the story from what I can see is that backflips make you gay?
    haha.

    Not really. He played a sport where it is possible to try to rip off another mans clothes, grab some guy by the jewels, look at a mans arse while he holds him up in the air. None of which are an offence....you get the jist. I think the hint was always there. He was always gay.

    The headline is misleading. Burly rugby player does not mean a straight person. I'm surprised this made it in here tbh. Off the back of this mongo you could have christians calling for every gay person to do back flips until it breaks their neck and makes them straight.........or at least to research it. Just as you jokingly commented on, right?


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 25,558 Mod ✭✭✭✭Dades


    dmw07 wrote: »
    The headline is misleading. Burly rugby player does not mean a straight person.
    What about having a fiancé? Or having no previous gay inclinations as he claims (can't see why he'd lie)?

    Mad stuff altogether!


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 32,865 ✭✭✭✭MagicMarker


    Can a stroke have that kind of an effect?

    I have no clue but the first thing I thought when reading that was closet homosexual has near death experience, realises life is too short and uses stroke as an excuse to come out of the closet.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 32,865 ✭✭✭✭MagicMarker


    http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/11/09/mississippi-voters-reject-anti-abortion-initiative/?iref=allsearch
    Mississippi voters reject anti-abortion initiative

    Mississippi voters rejected an amendment to the state constitution that would have defined life as starting at conception, and outlawed abortion and many forms of birth control if passed.

    "I think voters rejected a measure they understood to be dangerous," said Felicia Brown-Williams with the Mississippi for Healthy Families Campaign. "They really tried to manipulate values around faith and family."

    If the amendment 26, or "Personhood," had passed Tuesday, it would have re-opened the national debate on abortion. Court challenges would have set the measure on a path for the U.S. Supreme Court and a showdown in the far right's mission to overturn Roe V. Wade.

    "We are not conceding because we did our duty," said Les Riley, a Mississippi citizen and a petitioner of amendment 26. "We have obeyed God ... it is not tolerable that they kill children."

    Critics say the amendment was a restrictive attempt to outlaw abortion - even in the case of mothers who are the victims of rape and incest.

    It also bans certain forms of contraception that work after a woman's egg is fertilized and questions treatments such as in vitro fertilization because eggs would be considered people and are sometimes destroyed in laboratories.

    "Even in a conservative state, tonight's vote reaffirms that people do not want government intruding in personal decisions best made by a woman, her family and her doctor," said Jennifer Dalven, director of the American Civil Liberties Union reproductive freedom project.

    Opponents criticized the amendment as too vague. If it passed, it would have compelled the state legislature to write rules and laws to govern it.

    "I think voters understood they could not support something that was so broad, sweeping and yes so unclear," said Atlee Breland of Parents Against Amendment 26. "Nobody wants to trust the government to work it out at a later date."

    Mississippi's Gov. Haley Barbour questioned the amendment, but eventually supported it.

    "If they had come to the Mississippi legislature and said, 'look, we want to change the constitution and say life begins at conception our legislature would have passed that," he said on CNN's John King USA.

    "We'd all be better off if this had gone through the legislative process instead of trying to change the bill of rights of the Mississippi constitution by the initiative. You would have had hearings, people would have understood it, you would have gone through the conference committee and you would have ironed out a lot of these wrinkles."

    The ballot initiative was part of a national campaign brought by Personhood USA. The Colorado-based group describes itself as a nonprofit Christian ministry that "serves the pro-life community by assisting local groups to initiate citizen, legislative and political action focusing on the ultimate goal of the pro-life movement: personhood rights for all innocent humans."

    Despite the loss, the group said it has made steps in its fight.

    "We accomplished our mission to be a voice for the voiceless who have no one else speaking for them," said Keith Mason of Personhood USA. "I want to make a commitment that we will stand with Mississippi until all humans are treated as persons."

    A similar amendment was defeated in Colorado last year. Other personhood measures are planned in Florida, Montana and Ohio next year, according to supporters.

    Clergy and church officials in Mississippi were split on the issue. Some anti-abortion religious groups believed the amendment was so extreme, it could lead to a Supreme Court ruling that strengthens Roe v. Wade.

    The idea for personhood started during Roe v. Wade's oral arguments, when Justice Potter Stewart said, "If it were established that an unborn fetus is a person, you would have an impossible case here."

    Personhood USA uses the amendments in an attempt to maneuver a direct challenge to the Roe v. Wade ruling. "We will establish a culture of life," said Dr. Freda Bush, a Yes on 26 spokeswoman. "This is a cultural war from the womb to the tomb and we will be back."

    Thank God!


  • Registered Users Posts: 238 ✭✭dmw07


    Dades wrote: »
    What about having a fiancé? Or having no previous gay inclinations as he claims (can't see why he'd lie)?

    Mad stuff altogether!

    Peculiar alright.

    What about having a fiancé?
    My proper answer is too long for here but it really proves nothing.

    Or having no previous gay inclinations as he claims (can't see why he'd lie)?
    Perhaps he never knew they were there. Perhaps he was conforming with the norm. Again, reply is too long winded for a forum.

    Short end, He was gay, is gay and will be gay tomorrow. People don't turn gay. It's a completely natural hormonal thing, it's genetic. Whether or not he knew it all along is questionable. Even his own evidence is not reliable.

    Anyway, best of luck to him. I suppose he is the only gay in the village now?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 30,746 ✭✭✭✭Galvasean


    Can a stroke have that kind of an effect?

    I have no clue but the first thing I thought when reading that was closet homosexual has near death experience, realises life is too short and uses stroke as an excuse to come out of the closet.

    That was my initial reaction too.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 25,558 Mod ✭✭✭✭Dades


    dmw07 wrote: »
    Short end, He was gay, is gay and will be gay tomorrow. People don't turn gay. It's a completely natural hormonal thing, it's genetic. Whether or not he knew it all along is questionable. Even his own evidence is not reliable.
    Is it a hormonal thing? Surely genetic refers to how our brains are wired from birth - which is fine. But isn't this just suggesting that a rewiring can happen when the brain is damaged and works naturally to overcome damage?

    I don't think this goes against the notion that people are born gay. On the contrary it complements the idea that our brains are wired a certain way.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 238 ✭✭dmw07


    Dades wrote: »
    Is it a hormonal thing? Surely genetic refers to how our brains are wired from birth - which is fine. But isn't this just suggesting that a rewiring can happen when the brain is damaged and works naturally to overcome damage?

    I don't think this goes against the notion that people are born gay. On the contrary it complements the idea that our brains are wired a certain way.

    Is it a hormonal thing?
    A lot of studies point to a mixture of hormones and genetics and not just one definitive cause.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,736 ✭✭✭✭kylith


    Galvasean wrote: »
    That was my initial reaction too.
    Me too. I feel sorry for his ex-fiancée, but I'm glad he's happy.
    Dades wrote: »
    Is it a hormonal thing? Surely genetic refers to how our brains are wired from birth - which is fine. But isn't this just suggesting that a rewiring can happen when the brain is damaged and works naturally to overcome damage?

    I don't think this goes against the notion that people are born gay. On the contrary it complements the idea that our brains are wired a certain way.
    My only worry is that it could lead to some idiots labelling gay people 'brain damaged'.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,992 ✭✭✭✭recedite


    I'm giving up backflips.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,420 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    ^^^ Homophobe!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,038 ✭✭✭sponsoredwalk


    recedite wrote: »
    I'm giving up backflips.

    Always knew you were a backflipper... :D


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,406 ✭✭✭Pompey Magnus


    Dades wrote: »
    I don't think this goes against the notion that people are born gay. On the contrary it complements the idea that our brains are wired a certain way.

    I think the worry may be that if it is down to how the brain is wired there may well be certain Christian groups sitting up to attention at this story, if this kind of thing works one way there is no reason to assume it can't work the other.

    The Ex-Gay Movement in the US is growing and is a relatively big business nowadays, the Attorney General of the US opposed the movement earlier this year by saying that there is growing scientific evidence that sexual orientation is an "immutable" characteristic. This story would provide the Ex-Gay Movement with ammunition to suggest that the scientific evidence may have been wrong and their argument that gay people can be "cured" would be strengthened.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,992 ✭✭✭✭recedite


    robindch wrote: »

    ^^^ Daily Mail reader !!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,992 ✭✭✭✭recedite


    if this kind of thing works one way there is no reason to assume it can't work the other.

    Forward flips then?


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,420 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Toronto zoo is to separate a pair of overly friendly male penguins.

    http://thedailyedge.thejournal.ie/gay-penguins-separated-at-toronto-zoo-275716-Nov2011/

    Meanwhile, here's how China got to hear about the story:



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,038 ✭✭✭sponsoredwalk


    Malaria is a disease caused by parasites passed to humans via the
    bites of infected mosquitoes. Globally, the disease causes over a
    million deaths every year, and is especially rife in parts of Africa and
    Asia. The parasites infect red blood corpuscles (the hemoglobin-
    containing cells that carry oxygen around the body) and hijack the
    support structure within the cells. Some people are known to be
    naturally resistant to the serious effects of malaria, and scientists
    have wondered for decades exactly how their resistance functions.
    Now new research gone a long way to solving the mystery.

    link
    The comments section indicates a libertarian perspective on the above.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,585 ✭✭✭lynski


    kylith wrote: »
    Me too. I feel sorry for his ex-fiancée, but I'm glad he's happy.

    My only worry is that it could lead to some idiots labelling gay people 'brain damaged'.

    Well, I was telling my husband about the rugby player the other day and how it reminded me of the story that my mother tells about a much loved, now deceased Irish singer. As far as she and her friends were aware he was a devil for the ladies, especially married ones, in his youth and he got caught by a husband who beat the living daylights out of him resulting in a blow to the head and waking up with 'the gay'. he was never out, just assumed to be gay.
    she genuinely believed that another blow could knock him the other way.
    i think this very straight rugby player possibly had some damage in the prefrontal cortex which controls inhibition so previously buried inclinations got unburied.
    Who doesn't know someone that is so far in the closet they do not even know there is a closet?
    unfortunately this does give fuel to the pray out the gay brigade and more ammo to aim at confused young people adding to the pile-o-misery created and perpetuated by various religions


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,578 ✭✭✭✭Turtwig


    Neil DeGrasse Tyson is on Reddit right now answering questions! !
    My fav so far :

    If you could add one course to a student's curriculum, what would it be?

    Course title every university should offer: "How to tell when someone else is full of ****"


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,420 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Malty_T wrote: »
    "How to tell when someone else is full of ****"
    Funny, but this was something that catholic-controlled schools never taught.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,578 ✭✭✭✭Turtwig


    robindch wrote: »
    Funny, but this was something that catholic-controlled schools never taught intentionally.

    FYP


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,578 ✭✭✭✭Turtwig


    If he ever does pass away - and I sincerely hope that isn't for several decades yet- then this should be his tribute. What a fitting one it is too. Truly an excellent youtube gem.



  • Registered Users Posts: 5,406 ✭✭✭Pompey Magnus




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,718 ✭✭✭The Mad Hatter


    Neutrinos still refusing to obey the laws of physics
    The scientists who appeared to have found in September that certain subatomic particles can travel faster than light have ruled out one potential source of error in their measurements after completing a second, fine-tuned version of their experiment.

    Their results, posted on the ArXiv preprint server on Friday morning and submitted for peer review in the Journal of High Energy Physics, confirmed earlier measurements that neutrinos, sent through the ground from Cern near Geneva to the Gran Sasso lab in Italy 450 miles (720km) away seemed to travel faster than light.

    The finding that neutrinos might break one of the most fundamental laws of physics sent scientists into a frenzy when it was first reported in September. Not only because it appeared to go against Albert Einstein's theory of special relativity but, if correct, the finding opened up the troubling possibility of being able to send information back in time, blurring the line between past and present and wreaking havoc with the fundamental principle of cause and effect.

    The physicist and TV presenter Professor Jim Al-Khalili of the University of Surrey expressed the incredulity of many in the field when he said that if the findings "prove to be correct and neutrinos have broken the speed of light, I will eat my boxer shorts on live TV".


  • Moderators Posts: 51,847 ✭✭✭✭Delirium


    AC Grayling - Making a case for atheism

    “We no longer have reason to fear the invisible policeman,” declares A.C. Grayling defiantly. One of the world's most revered philosophers and the first Master of London's recently-established New College of the Humanities, the author of more than 30 books, a director of the acclaimed Prospect Magazine and a frequent contributor to many newspapers, Grayling was giving the first in a series of lectures organised by Atheist Ireland. Grayling observed that it was the atrocities of 9-11 that reawakened the world to the dangers of intolerant religious ideologies. Since then the atheist campaign has become a media circus and attracted a glittering collection of eminences, including Steven Pinker, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, who have deployed political and scientific arguments against religion with varying degrees of success.

    While most of their arguments have been as notable for their rancour and vitriol as their intellectual rigour, Grayling's approach has been different. Instead he is quiet, concentrated and conscious of the full implications of what he says, and it's because of this that his philosophical case for atheism is more impressive than any other. Grayling seeks to advance the atheist position by providing cast-iron intellectual justification for not believing in a supreme being - rather than by simply depicting his opponents as fools, charlatans and bigots. Grayling also upholds the value of an entirely secular world because he believes that, for a whole range of moral and ethical reasons, it would be a far better place to live.

    Full article here

    If you can read this, you're too close!



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,992 ✭✭✭✭recedite


    koth wrote: »
    AC Grayling - Making a case for atheism
    He also sees it as “wonderful” and “refreshing” that a country that was once so tightly in the grip of the Catholic Church as Ireland was can elect a Humanist like Michael D. Higgins as President.

    Interesting to see an outside perspective on this; its not something that came up much in the presidential campaign, but that in itself is very significant. A few years ago he would have been knobbled very effectively by the RCC from the outset.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,476 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato


    Just found out today the privately run creche/montessori my 3.5-year-old daughter is going to as part of the Early Childcare initiative, is providing religious instruction as a free extra:

    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=75543651

    Scrap the cap!



  • Registered Users Posts: 238 ✭✭dmw07


    Stolen from boreme

    Irish-American philosopher and writer on many subjects Terence McKenna, gives a poetic rant on the great evil that flourishes in the minds of many - relativism, or the lack of distinction between s**t and Shinola



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