Gah, why? Why is anybody giving this fear mongering the time of day?
This paper doesn't "prove" anything other than they can't present any real arguments against the demonstrations that the LHC is safe. So instead they're intent on poisoning the well with this bogus analysis of retractions.
Here's a question for all of you that take this article seriously: how many times, since the advent of modern science, has a scientific result which nearly every practicing scientist in the field has said is valid, turned out not to be? I'm pretty darned certain that the answer to that question is precisely zero.
The thing that people should be paying attention to is not the fact that these few arguments may be mistaken, but instead the fact that nobody who has training in high energy physics takes these claims anywhere remotely seriously. The fact remains that there are copious theoretical and observational reasons why there is just no conceivable way in which the LHC can be dangerous.
Just to present a rough illustration as to just how unfounded and ridiculous these fears are, they require that some very select hypothetical and extremely unlikely ideas in high energy physics be accurate, while at the same time requiring that well-supported and extremely likely arguments about black holes be false (Hawking Radiation), even though the hypothetical ideas that lead to black holes at the LHC require there to be Hawking radiation!
Then, of course, there are the oft-mentioned high-energy cosmic rays which strike the Earth's upper atmosphere at around a million times the energies the LHC will be testing. And if you're worried about the collisions at the LHC being stationary with respect to the Earth, don't be: the way these collisions work, it'd be extraordinarily rare for a product of those collisions to not have escape velocity. Furthermore the products of ultra high-energy cosmic ray collisions are usually going to be charged, and therefore experience copious amounts of friction and stop within the Earth (if they're stable).
And so when faced with these arguments, and even stronger ones regarding the stability of other objects we observe, the best the fear mongers can do is say, "But wait! Sometimes you guys turn out to be wrong!"
I'm sorry, but this kind of nonsense is just invalid, and should be ignored. Poisoning the well is a fallacy, after all.
If the curing is done properly, it is quite effective. And your post fails to explain why cured ham is very frequently eaten uncooked in southern Europe, with little to no problem of trichinosis. Basically as long as you use enough salt and cure them for long enough, it isn't an issue.
A description of acceptable curing processes for ham by the USDA is described here.
Bear in mind that if these were ineffective, trichinosis would be rampant in the US, and even moreso in Southern Europe where cured ham is far more common.
This is why you cure ham. This process is very common all across Southern Europe, and works quite well to disinfect the product. Basically, the restriction against eating ham only cropped up just because there was an unusual ancient tribe some thousands of years ago that didn't raise pigs. Somehow they got this practice into their holy books and, well, the rest is history.
From what I've read about the differences in the sexes, it seems to me that this is the main problem. Games tend to focus on violence more because most game developers are male, and they make what they like. I think if we had greater sexual equality in the development community, we'd have more games that were quite interesting but with a lot less violence. Just because current games that have violence as an option are often more entertaining with said violence is only an indication that the developers didn't spend enough time and effort on the non-violent paths. It does not indicate that violence is inherently more fun.
As for existing non-violent games, you could definitely try Galactic Civilizations 2 from Stardock, which has the option for violence, but can be won in completely non-violent ways as well. The AI of the computer-controlled players also makes for some interesting interactions.
Come on, the LHC prove God? How exactly would it do that? Do people somehow think that a probability of producing some particle X has anything to say one way or another whether or not a god exists? What about particle Y? Or when you slam atoms together instead of protons?
The fact remains that no god concept has anything to say one way or another on these questions. I find it rather absurd that anybody would consider the LHC to have anything to say here.
As for whether or not a god can be proven, of course, that depends entirely upon the god. If you provide a specific definition that is testable, then it can be tested for. The problem is that most people who believe in one god or another refuse to do this. They stick only to words and phrases which are, by their very construction, completely untestable. I'm talking here about things like, "God is love," or, "God created the Universe." You just can't test these things. Sometimes, of course, they make very specific predictions, such as, "God heals as a response to prayer," or, "God will cause the world to end in 1922," which, once tested, invariably come out to be false. One wonders why they continue to believe that the existence of a deity is even reasonably likely.
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Gah, why? Why is anybody giving this fear mongering the time of day?
This paper doesn't "prove" anything other than they can't present any real arguments against the demonstrations that the LHC is safe. So instead they're intent on poisoning the well with this bogus analysis of retractions.
Here's a question for all of you that take this article seriously: how many times, since the advent of modern science, has a scientific result which nearly every practicing scientist in the field has said is valid, turned out not to be? I'm pretty darned certain that the answer to that question is precisely zero.
The thing that people should be paying attention to is not the fact that these few arguments may be mistaken, but instead the fact that nobody who has training in high energy physics takes these claims anywhere remotely seriously. The fact remains that there are copious theoretical and observational reasons why there is just no conceivable way in which the LHC can be dangerous.
Just to present a rough illustration as to just how unfounded and ridiculous these fears are, they require that some very select hypothetical and extremely unlikely ideas in high energy physics be accurate, while at the same time requiring that well-supported and extremely likely arguments about black holes be false (Hawking Radiation), even though the hypothetical ideas that lead to black holes at the LHC require there to be Hawking radiation!
Then, of course, there are the oft-mentioned high-energy cosmic rays which strike the Earth's upper atmosphere at around a million times the energies the LHC will be testing. And if you're worried about the collisions at the LHC being stationary with respect to the Earth, don't be: the way these collisions work, it'd be extraordinarily rare for a product of those collisions to not have escape velocity. Furthermore the products of ultra high-energy cosmic ray collisions are usually going to be charged, and therefore experience copious amounts of friction and stop within the Earth (if they're stable).
And so when faced with these arguments, and even stronger ones regarding the stability of other objects we observe, the best the fear mongers can do is say, "But wait! Sometimes you guys turn out to be wrong!"
I'm sorry, but this kind of nonsense is just invalid, and should be ignored. Poisoning the well is a fallacy, after all.
If the curing is done properly, it is quite effective. And your post fails to explain why cured ham is very frequently eaten uncooked in southern Europe, with little to no problem of trichinosis. Basically as long as you use enough salt and cure them for long enough, it isn't an issue.
A description of acceptable curing processes for ham by the USDA is described here.
Bear in mind that if these were ineffective, trichinosis would be rampant in the US, and even moreso in Southern Europe where cured ham is far more common.
This is why you cure ham. This process is very common all across Southern Europe, and works quite well to disinfect the product. Basically, the restriction against eating ham only cropped up just because there was an unusual ancient tribe some thousands of years ago that didn't raise pigs. Somehow they got this practice into their holy books and, well, the rest is history.
From what I've read about the differences in the sexes, it seems to me that this is the main problem. Games tend to focus on violence more because most game developers are male, and they make what they like. I think if we had greater sexual equality in the development community, we'd have more games that were quite interesting but with a lot less violence. Just because current games that have violence as an option are often more entertaining with said violence is only an indication that the developers didn't spend enough time and effort on the non-violent paths. It does not indicate that violence is inherently more fun.
As for existing non-violent games, you could definitely try Galactic Civilizations 2 from Stardock, which has the option for violence, but can be won in completely non-violent ways as well. The AI of the computer-controlled players also makes for some interesting interactions.
Come on, the LHC prove God? How exactly would it do that? Do people somehow think that a probability of producing some particle X has anything to say one way or another whether or not a god exists? What about particle Y? Or when you slam atoms together instead of protons? The fact remains that no god concept has anything to say one way or another on these questions. I find it rather absurd that anybody would consider the LHC to have anything to say here. As for whether or not a god can be proven, of course, that depends entirely upon the god. If you provide a specific definition that is testable, then it can be tested for. The problem is that most people who believe in one god or another refuse to do this. They stick only to words and phrases which are, by their very construction, completely untestable. I'm talking here about things like, "God is love," or, "God created the Universe." You just can't test these things. Sometimes, of course, they make very specific predictions, such as, "God heals as a response to prayer," or, "God will cause the world to end in 1922," which, once tested, invariably come out to be false. One wonders why they continue to believe that the existence of a deity is even reasonably likely.