I have done experiments with iron based inks as well.
One I like, is made from boiled red rose petals and iron chloride.
The tannins in the red rose petals (MUST be red!) React with the iron chloride, and make an insoluble black complex.
I usually mist the paper with the rose water, then pen the chloride. This ensures good development inside the paper fibers. I don't really care about archival quality.
This whole thing is useless, and counter intuitive.
Essentially, government is going "ZOMG! We have (t)error(ist)s causing problems in our networks causing mayhem and loss of our priviledged informations!" And instead of going "hmm.. maybe we should audit our standards and practices, and actually hire people who know what they are doing...", they instead proclaim "we must create a new branch of the armed forces to be responsible for our existing and unwieldy information infrastructure! We'l call it "cyber something-or-other'!"
This is 100% wrong.
The problem, --and the reason for all the security breaches--, is twofold.
1) we bend over backwards to perpetuate an inefficient intelligence and information handling infrastructure, with all kinds of protocols, and exceptions to rules that essentially (and are created precisely to) create "gyres" where information piles up, gets forgotten about, neglected, and buried. This allows people to hide information. Inject false information. For information to be lost when it could be essential. All kinds of problems. We do this because fixing the problem would expose people (and responsibility is bad, mkay), and would threaten established hegemonies.
2) the creation of this new organisation will only serve as a scapegoat for when things *will* go wrong because of #1. This will only create disgruntled IT people. If govt doesn't comprehend why that is bad, they deserve what they get.
3) the creation of a publicly exposed group causes anxiety in other countries, causing escallation of military backed network infiltrations and abuses of the global public commons that is the internet. It does not discourage this behavior.
Really, the whole idea is stupid.
What they should *really* be doing is improving the NSA to deal with offensive infiltrations (they are already good at it.), and completely restructure their data retention and data handling protocols in a fully comprehensive (with no sacred cows) manner, while hiring competent people to manage their infrastructure.
(In loud, boistrous voice.) [Never underestimate the power of willful self-delusion. Especially in those who have already willfully jumped headfirst into that festering hole. In daddy's mind, his daughter is an innocent little angel, and the world is to blame!]
Not having access to absurdly fresh, and ungutted squid this deeply landlocked, I make a passable sepia tone from hydrolyzed juglone from black walnut hulls. (They are native, and therefor free.)
I suspect that squid is probably superior, (juglone becomes insoluble in water after oxidation, limiting the ability to carry it efficiently. I use a small quantity white acetone to assist with that.) But I do artistic things on shoestring budgets.
The oxidation reaction of the juglone makes it nearly indelible once dry for a day or two.
Sadly, juglone can cause allergic reactions, and in such a concentrated form, is very toxic to a wide variety of fish and plantlife. It takes a little getting used to, as the raw plant juice from the raw extract of the fleshy fruit bodies of green black walnuts is a dirty yellow-brown, and only becomes the "profound, almost black-brown" after oxidation, though the reaction is quite swift. (I personally use a dedicated food processor to puree the outer flesh of the freshly fallen walnuts, then express it with filter paper while wearing rubber gloves.)
I have done numberous experiments with it. It makes a very lovely warm tone, especially when diluted.
Doesn't work for the line thickness requested. Has all of the cited problems with finepoint raven nib. Runs dry quickly.
The reasons are quite simple: blood coagulates shortly after being exposed to air. This causes it to gel up and plug the vein on the quill/nib, resulting in irregular line width, globs on the sheet, dry tip, etc.
Blood is a horrible pigment for penning. You need at least a goose quill size nib just for flow properties, and will have to discourage clotting with something like alcohol. Even still, it doesn't really fix that great.
Not to mention the obvious: it being gross, unhygenic, and bad for the quill/nib and paper.
India ink is superior in every capacity.
If you are looking for a substitute for india ink in a stick pen, (india has several noteworthy problems, especially for teensy weensy text) try using some McCall's black food coloring. (Really just a mixture of FD&C Red #40, Blue #2, Yellow #5, and propylene glycol.) Other than spotting on contact with moisture, it has very good lettering properties. It dries on the page almost instantly, even with a heavy line pressure. Kinda pricey though.
Being halloween, it should be in stock at your grocier's.
And it isn't as nasty, gross, and weird as using blood.:D
The assertion god does not exist is based upon millennia of claimants producing no evidence of any kind, despite an almost infinite number of contexts within which such existence could have been quite conclusively demonstrated.
Or, more succinctly, the absence of evidence is equivalent to the absence of evidence.
This is fundamentally false.
Therefore, since that was the purported basis for your assertion, your assertion lacks merit.
The fallacy that you fail to see, is that I do not ascribe any significance to such claims. There is no evidence to suggest that such beings exist. That does not mean they cannot exist. There is no evidence to suggest that their theoretical existence has any bearing whatsoever on what can be seen to exist.
Thus, while said invisible, pink, jellybean pooping, and earthquake causing unicorns cannot be disproven, their theoretical existence has no outstanding consequence.
The assertion that they do not exist is just as unfounded as the assertion that they do.
The assertion that they have no consequence is supportable.
"I do not believe in any intergalactic, immaterial, invisible yet mysteriously still purple penis, and assert that since it does not exist, it could not have been responsible for the creation of the universe nor for the lifeforms within it."
still runs afoul of logic, when taken in whole.
The leap of faith is "Since it does not exist."
There does not exist any test protocol by which said penis can be detected, thus no test protocol applied can provide a falsifiable result. The assertion that the penis does not exist, while lacking any means to verify that claim, is a lesson in applied faith, not science or logic.
I would say more "False equivalency", and a guilt by association.
An atheist feels that they cannot reasonably assert belief in a deity.
However, there exists a broad subcategory within that group that is directly anti-theist. This group is VERY religious, and likes to reinvent the meanings of words to deny such.
The outright assertion that a deity CANNOT exist at all is very much a supernatural belief. Here is why:
The theist asserts that a deity can and does exist in such a fashion that science can never detect it. There is no evidence nor means to verify this claim. It is therefor supernatural. (Outside of observable and testable nature.)
The anti-theist asserts that no deity exists, and that no such deity can ever exist. There is no scientific protocol or process to determine this standpoint as empirically true, and no such tool can definitively exist within our universe. (There is some shaky evidence to suggest that there are indeed other universes, but our tools mean dick for analyzing them.) Thus, the statement is supernatural. (Outside of observable and testable nature.)
While atheism is not a supernatural position, anti-theism most certainly is.
That anti-theists are a very vocal and prominent demographic of the larger atheist category, is the source of the problem. This is not a strawman. This is a guilt by association. The antics of the anti-theists impugns the character of the larger, benign, atheist group.
The lack of belief in a particular deity would place agnostics and atheists under the same umbrella, which is not conserved in practice.
Agnostics assert that they cannot know if a deity exists or not. Without such knowledge, they cannot believe in the existence of such a being. (De-facto atheist.)
The actual tenet of atheism is closer to the belief that no deity exists. That leap of faith is just as profound as the inverse. A true atheist has just as much faith in the non-existence of a deity as the theist does for that deity's existence. Both are not supportable with logic.
Philosophy can be wrong, and just as dangerous as religion can be. Pretending it cannot and is not is abhorrently callous and dangerous.
Atheists, like Dawkins at least, attempt to build a philosophy around empirical study. This is a very good starting point for a philosophy. However, die-hard atheists actually fall off the straight and narrow of that approach, when they deny that any gods could exist. The tools to make such an assertion do not exist, and cannot exist. (while an anathema to science, there are things that can be conjectured that simply cannot be experimentally verified, either for or against with definitive clarity. The many worlds hypothesis is such a beast, for example.) More rigorous people who follow the principles of objective science more closely assert that such conjectures are not worthy of the effort, correctly citing their unresolvability.
The (hard) atheist incorrectly ascribes "Unresolvable" with "Impossible". (x/0 is unresolvable, but isn't De-facto impossible, for instance.) Such people often resort to pejorative statements, like "God in the gaps" type rhetoric when confronted with this incorrect abstraction ("how convenient for you, that your god exists in such a fashion that no test can ever find him!"), while others will assert illogical statements about probabilities, ignoring the unresolvable nature of the question in a circular mode of reasoning. ("It is more likely that there are no gods, than for one to exist in the fashion you state, given the lack of evidence to support.", despite the illogic of conflating lack of evidence for evidence of absence. Occam's razor is not a scientific proof.)
As an agnostic, I hold no opinion on the divine. It isn't worth my time. Instead, I look at the players that I can clearly see on the field: The theists, the atheists, and the agnostics because they ARE worth my time, and are a matter that can clearly impact me in many undesirable ways. (I am not afraid of fire and brimstone, but I am afraid of angry mobs with rocks, for instance.)
The theists assert unprovable and unresolvable conditions as being "true", and ascribe some special significance to this such that they coerce people (by one means or another) to follow their ideology. They have a history of resorting to violence and outright indoctrination tactics to enforce this unprovable worldview, regardless of the actual theistic religion being discussed. Various theories on cultural evolution suggest that these practices are more in line with social control systems than with actual desire to please any deity. (EG, worshiping the deity is secondary to the social control that enforced adherence to the policies presumably laid out by such deity provides.) Should those conditions change (Worship of the deity takes precedence over social control, with social control being phased out completely over time) then I don't see a noteworthy problem with adherence to a religious faith. (as long as you don't assault me with the holy marinara sauce, your assertions of the divine nature of the Flying Spaghetti Monster have no importance to me. You can perform the sacred mantra of the divine pasta in private all you like. It does not impact me in the slightest. You can even wear the holy pirate regalia for all I care.)
The atheist asserts falsely that the absence of evidence for any given deity (FSM included) is equivalent to the evidence of their absence. This is like asserting that because I am not in your house, and you looked for me, I do not exist (at all). The factual statement is that I do not exist (in your house). As pointed out earlier, there are theoretical modes of existence that preclude even a systematic and exhaustive search. The atheist further ascribes "Absolute truthfulness" to this statement, and uses similar tools to the theist to enforce adoption. No matter how hard they beat the drum, their assertion (No gods exist) does not stop being anything but a rhetorical one without actual logical bas
The reason we want you to stop using software to block advertisements and tracking cookies is manifold; we rely on advertisement revenue to supply you with our web content. In addition to that, we rely on tracking cookies to track your browser session. We do this to differentiate your session from other registered users, and to maintain the contents of any internet shopping queues you may have currently active. Obstruction the function of these two required services greatly reduces our ability to both provide the content you come to our site for, and our ability to provide you a quality user experience.
The DNT setting is intended, by the specification handed down by the W3C organization, to have no default value. It is intended to contain only the explicit desired value, as chosen exclusively by you, the end user.
Microsoft's decision to set DNT's status in their express setup wizard has made this valuable feature completely useless for its intended function, which is to express you, the end user's, wishes about your privacy online. If we wanted to know Microsoft's opinion on the matter, we would have simply asked them, instead of trying to work with the W3C to get yours.
Due to Microsoft's abuse of the feature poisoning the results, we have no choice but to ignore this setting for Internet Explorer 10 users.
We will (*inaudible mumble*) your preferences with the DNT setting on any other browser, however, so please feel free to migrate away from IE10 if you wish to use this feature.
They should have set the DNT field to a null string when not explicitly selected by the user, telling IE not to respond with a DNT response. When a site asks about DNT, and the value isnt initialized, then it can inform the user something like "$DomainHost has requested information about your willingness to receive targeted advertisement information, and other targeted web services via the DNT function. You can read more about this functionality at $MSDNPageReferenceURL. Would you like to enable this feature for this session? You can set your choice globally in the browser options page, and change your preference at any time."
That would have nailed the lid on the "User Intent" issue down hard.
I'm just waiting for such a technology as that lollipop to actually take off, so I can read about hackers replacing the digital data for the flavor information with that harvested from a turd.
That's some prankstering hacking I would roffle reading.
Because artificially controlling supply in order to artificially control costs is an abusive market tactic that can destabilize an otherwise solvent system with its disruptions.
That is why when private enterprises get powerful enough to try it (rackets, monopolies, et al.), they meet the hammer of the FTC and RICO/Antitrust penalties.
The labor market on the other hand, has several serious problems.
1) there is a price fixing scheme in effect. (Min wage) 2) the supply side is being actively padded (illegal immigrant laborers, H1-B workers, etc.)
The effects of the two would nominally be cancellary, however, illegal immigrants and H1-B laborers get various leves of excemption to min wage controls.
The illegal immigrants sidestep it completely. On paper, they don't even exist. No SS gets paid. No medicare. No healthcare. No education taxes. Nothing. Just a few bucks and grueling work for someone else.
H1-B's have to be paid min wage, but sidestep healthcare and a number of other things.
With the exceptions to the min wage controls these demographics have, coupled with the legal min wage for everyone else, and the active procurement of the excempted workers over time, you end up with a very very large disruption in the labor pool.
The solution is to be more discrete, and avoid drinking the university's koolaid.
Universities are notorious for:
1) pressuring you into taking a student loan 2) pressuring you into living in student housing 3) pressuring you into needlessly expensive univeristy courses, which you could take elsewhere less expensively. 4) pressing you into their lucrative "4 years to graduation" paradigm.
To combat this, start from the bottom, and work up.
4) there is no truly pressing need to graduate in 4 years vs 6. Take fewer courses at a time, so you don't bankrupt yourself on the costs. Keep 12 credit hours, but DON'T go over. Prioritize your own class lists. Its ok to use some of the bulk filler the university tacks on to keep 12 hours. Only attend in spring, summer and fall semesters. Ignore the ravings of the guidance councelor.
3) you are only concerned with the state definition of "full time student" for the tax break. NOT the university's. Get a list of transferrable classes from other institutions for prerequisite classes, like english, public speaking, and math classes from student affairs, even if you have to be a pest to get it. It is worth more than its weight in gold. Take the community level classes for these prerequisites, and count the credit hours for your tax return. Transfer them later.
2) DO NOT LIVE IN STUDENT HOUSING. You can get an apartment, with better accomodations, cheaper. Feel free to pimp out your washing machine to the people who fall for the student housing gimmick. You only have to undercut the cost of a laundromat by a few bucks, and those places scalp. Use the laundry money to offset differences in bills and transport. Feel free to use public transportation. (Remember, spring, summer, and fall semesters only.)
1) by reducing your obligations in time to the college by increasing your graduation deadline, you can work a part time job, and seasonally switch to full time in the winter. By reducing your tuition costs by price shopping, and by avoiding the vampiric leeching of student housing, you can now afford college without the student loan, and its oppressive interest debt penalties. So don't take the loans. Ever.
You can get the education that way, and not be financially assfucked for 20 years.
Repeatedly on my smartphone. (Antedeluvian froyo device.)
It has problems when text input from the hardware keyboard exceeds a certain threshold in typematic rate, and when certain system background agets feel the need to spam the alert bar. This causes keypresses to either become out of order in the input buffer, or for the content of that buffer to truncate. (The cutoff for typematic rate seems to be around 8 to 10 keypresses per second, and the usual offenders for alerter spam are things like tmobile's wifi calling daemon, the sms message alerter, and the software update alerter.)
I have been a victim of this quite frequently, leading many posters here to think I got my diploma from a crackerjack box.
Really, I just suffer behind a problematically implemented input device.
Don't get me wrong AC, but that is semantic drivel and childish.
While you can't sensibly kill in the name of atheism, you can kill to promote it.
(EG, "those catholics believing in the fucking skyfairy do more harm to the world by telling people not to use contraception than pandemic communicable diseases go! In fact, their eligion *IS* a disease; a disease of the mind that afflicts young children and drives them mad, prompting them to infect others or die trying. The world would be demonstrably better off without them, so I am going to kill their pope, and smash their hierarchy. While it might not destroy the religion, it would greatly reduce the global impact they have.")
Many atheists have a very scornful view of the religious, theists or no. Instead of trying to systematically eliminate religion, (out of one psychological manifestation of the desire to see the stupid people gone or another) despite the fact that the "major offenders" have been subjected to far worse than textbooks and insults for over a millenia (they are quite adept at spotting attempted eradications of their ideology, and reacting with violence, both verbal and physical. This method of combating the problem only creates extremists and fundamentalists, much like widespread use of antibiotics creates resistant pathogens.), you should accept that the offensive ideology will likely never go away, only evolve and change.
The sensible atheist, I think, would approach the situation from that evolutionary perspective, and also evaluate that not all the things about religion are bad. For instance, for people with severe mood disorders or untreatable illnesses, the placebo effect of believing in a higher power has a profound and positive effect. In order for the effect to manifest via the placebo effect, the belief must be real. Take for instance, alcoholics anonymous. One of the staples of their program regimen is the adoption of a higher power, any higher power. No purely secular intervention group has the longterm effectiveness that it does. The afore mentioned "sensible" atheist would objectively recognize this, as their abstanence from religion is presumably based on scientific thought, which embraces empirical truths. That some people are really and truly assisted in ways that current medical and behavioral science cannot match, even if it is just through a known placebo, is an undeniably good reason to accept religion as a partner in the human condition, despite the educated choice to abstain. (At least I hope that is the reason you abstain anyway. Falling into the "us" and "them" mindset is 100% counter-intuitive to being a free thinker.)
Instead, the aethist should seek ways to promote the beneficial forms of religious belief, and religious practice, so that it simply displaces the aggressive fundie varieties, much like a smart person may encourage the growth of benign and beneficial bacteria in a wound to keep out dangerous infection, or to encourage same as intestinal flora, rather than suffer beholden to a flawed ideological position on grounds of belief in a philosophical view (Eg, "religion is always bad, and if you are religious, you are stupid.") And seek 100% eradication, and damn the consequences.
The only way to do that is to accept that religion *can* be beneficial to society at large, and then see to alter the environment subtly but consistently.
The issue here is that many atheists would see this approach as being "apologetic" toward "clearly factually wrong ideas", prompting them to be intolerant of all religion, and instigating the "education resistant religion" plague.
Naw, didn't fail earth sciences. Just pointing out what is routinely done. (People routinely discarded lawn waste before the widespread use of mulching mowers. I remember the 1980s quite well.)
The issue is indeed what you state; density. You can convert biomass into syngas very easily, just seal the canister and heat it with a solar concetrator. But the resulting syngas has only half the energy density of natural gas.
You can take the syngas, add more energy, and get methane.
You can take the methane, add more energy and processing, and get gasoline.
The problem is that the latter two steps require energy. (Even using solar to provide it using things like concentrators imposes very pernicious restrains.)
Syngas could power electric power plants though with the minimal first stage processing. It would actually be cleaner to burn than gassified coal, due to the absence of radio isotopes, and sulfur compounds. Supply a pipeline, and its golden. (This way you avoid the dangers of liquified petrolium gas storage.)
Collecting city leaflitter, unrecycleable paper and plastic products (diapers, etc.), limb trimmings, and wet municaple garbage, and running it through a gassification plant for power generation frees up other oil commodities. (These are items that end up in landfills. The gassification plant does not produce charcoal. It produces mineral ash, which is a salable product, though it may have problems with heavy metals.)
By generating energy that way for electrical power, you suppliment what you can get from pure solar. If you can get ubiquitous electrical power from the AC mains, then synthetic pretroleum production starts looking viable. (Petroleum for transportation, not power generation, since we already have that.)
The question is if enough syngas can be produced to power a major city's power grid, from that city's waste stream. That I don't know.
Slashdot Mirror
I have done experiments with iron based inks as well.
One I like, is made from boiled red rose petals and iron chloride.
The tannins in the red rose petals (MUST be red!) React with the iron chloride, and make an insoluble black complex.
I usually mist the paper with the rose water, then pen the chloride. This ensures good development inside the paper fibers. I don't really care about archival quality.
This whole thing is useless, and counter intuitive.
Essentially, government is going "ZOMG! We have (t)error(ist)s causing problems in our networks causing mayhem and loss of our priviledged informations!" And instead of going "hmm.. maybe we should audit our standards and practices, and actually hire people who know what they are doing...", they instead proclaim "we must create a new branch of the armed forces to be responsible for our existing and unwieldy information infrastructure! We'l call it "cyber something-or-other'!"
This is 100% wrong.
The problem, --and the reason for all the security breaches--, is twofold.
1) we bend over backwards to perpetuate an inefficient intelligence and information handling infrastructure, with all kinds of protocols, and exceptions to rules that essentially (and are created precisely to) create "gyres" where information piles up, gets forgotten about, neglected, and buried. This allows people to hide information. Inject false information. For information to be lost when it could be essential. All kinds of problems. We do this because fixing the problem would expose people (and responsibility is bad, mkay), and would threaten established hegemonies.
2) the creation of this new organisation will only serve as a scapegoat for when things *will* go wrong because of #1. This will only create disgruntled IT people. If govt doesn't comprehend why that is bad, they deserve what they get.
3) the creation of a publicly exposed group causes anxiety in other countries, causing escallation of military backed network infiltrations and abuses of the global public commons that is the internet. It does not discourage this behavior.
Really, the whole idea is stupid.
What they should *really* be doing is improving the NSA to deal with offensive infiltrations (they are already good at it.), and completely restructure their data retention and data handling protocols in a fully comprehensive (with no sacred cows) manner, while hiring competent people to manage their infrastructure.
But that would fucking make sense.
No! Daddy's little girl is an angel! ANGEL!!
(In loud, boistrous voice.)
[Never underestimate the power of willful self-delusion. Especially in those who have already willfully jumped headfirst into that festering hole. In daddy's mind, his daughter is an innocent little angel, and the world is to blame!]
Look, we can't afford genuine RIAA Nazgul, OK?
That kind of evil doesn't come cheap!
Not having access to absurdly fresh, and ungutted squid this deeply landlocked, I make a passable sepia tone from hydrolyzed juglone from black walnut hulls. (They are native, and therefor free.)
I suspect that squid is probably superior, (juglone becomes insoluble in water after oxidation, limiting the ability to carry it efficiently. I use a small quantity white acetone to assist with that.) But I do artistic things on shoestring budgets.
The oxidation reaction of the juglone makes it nearly indelible once dry for a day or two.
Sadly, juglone can cause allergic reactions, and in such a concentrated form, is very toxic to a wide variety of fish and plantlife. It takes a little getting used to, as the raw plant juice from the raw extract of the fleshy fruit bodies of green black walnuts is a dirty yellow-brown, and only becomes the "profound, almost black-brown" after oxidation, though the reaction is quite swift. (I personally use a dedicated food processor to puree the outer flesh of the freshly fallen walnuts, then express it with filter paper while wearing rubber gloves.)
I have done numberous experiments with it. It makes a very lovely warm tone, especially when diluted.
Doesn't work for the line thickness requested. Has all of the cited problems with finepoint raven nib. Runs dry quickly.
The reasons are quite simple: blood coagulates shortly after being exposed to air. This causes it to gel up and plug the vein on the quill/nib, resulting in irregular line width, globs on the sheet, dry tip, etc.
Blood is a horrible pigment for penning. You need at least a goose quill size nib just for flow properties, and will have to discourage clotting with something like alcohol. Even still, it doesn't really fix that great.
Not to mention the obvious: it being gross, unhygenic, and bad for the quill/nib and paper.
India ink is superior in every capacity.
If you are looking for a substitute for india ink in a stick pen, (india has several noteworthy problems, especially for teensy weensy text) try using some McCall's black food coloring. (Really just a mixture of FD&C Red #40, Blue #2, Yellow #5, and propylene glycol.) Other than spotting on contact with moisture, it has very good lettering properties. It dries on the page almost instantly, even with a heavy line pressure. Kinda pricey though.
Being halloween, it should be in stock at your grocier's.
And it isn't as nasty, gross, and weird as using blood. :D
Unintentional tautology for the win!
Should have been "is equivalent to evidence of absence."
Or, more succinctly, the absence of evidence is equivalent to the absence of evidence.
This is fundamentally false.
Therefore, since that was the purported basis for your assertion, your assertion lacks merit.
The fallacy that you fail to see, is that I do not ascribe any significance to such claims. There is no evidence to suggest that such beings exist. That does not mean they cannot exist. There is no evidence to suggest that their theoretical existence has any bearing whatsoever on what can be seen to exist.
Thus, while said invisible, pink, jellybean pooping, and earthquake causing unicorns cannot be disproven, their theoretical existence has no outstanding consequence.
The assertion that they do not exist is just as unfounded as the assertion that they do.
The assertion that they have no consequence is supportable.
The other two are not.
No, it does not.
The assertion:
"I do not believe in any intergalactic, immaterial, invisible yet mysteriously still purple penis, and assert that since it does not exist, it could not have been responsible for the creation of the universe nor for the lifeforms within it."
still runs afoul of logic, when taken in whole.
The leap of faith is "Since it does not exist."
There does not exist any test protocol by which said penis can be detected, thus no test protocol applied can provide a falsifiable result. The assertion that the penis does not exist, while lacking any means to verify that claim, is a lesson in applied faith, not science or logic.
popularity has no effect on reality or truth.
changing my position would require abandoning reason, which I wont do. :D
I would say more "False equivalency", and a guilt by association.
An atheist feels that they cannot reasonably assert belief in a deity.
However, there exists a broad subcategory within that group that is directly anti-theist. This group is VERY religious, and likes to reinvent the meanings of words to deny such.
The outright assertion that a deity CANNOT exist at all is very much a supernatural belief. Here is why:
The theist asserts that a deity can and does exist in such a fashion that science can never detect it. There is no evidence nor means to verify this claim. It is therefor supernatural. (Outside of observable and testable nature.)
The anti-theist asserts that no deity exists, and that no such deity can ever exist. There is no scientific protocol or process to determine this standpoint as empirically true, and no such tool can definitively exist within our universe. (There is some shaky evidence to suggest that there are indeed other universes, but our tools mean dick for analyzing them.) Thus, the statement is supernatural. (Outside of observable and testable nature.)
While atheism is not a supernatural position, anti-theism most certainly is.
That anti-theists are a very vocal and prominent demographic of the larger atheist category, is the source of the problem. This is not a strawman. This is a guilt by association. The antics of the anti-theists impugns the character of the larger, benign, atheist group.
Careful there.
The lack of belief in a particular deity would place agnostics and atheists under the same umbrella, which is not conserved in practice.
Agnostics assert that they cannot know if a deity exists or not. Without such knowledge, they cannot believe in the existence of such a being. (De-facto atheist.)
The actual tenet of atheism is closer to the belief that no deity exists. That leap of faith is just as profound as the inverse. A true atheist has just as much faith in the non-existence of a deity as the theist does for that deity's existence. Both are not supportable with logic.
Atheism is not a religion, no.
It *IS* a philosophy.
Philosophy can be wrong, and just as dangerous as religion can be. Pretending it cannot and is not is abhorrently callous and dangerous.
Atheists, like Dawkins at least, attempt to build a philosophy around empirical study. This is a very good starting point for a philosophy. However, die-hard atheists actually fall off the straight and narrow of that approach, when they deny that any gods could exist. The tools to make such an assertion do not exist, and cannot exist. (while an anathema to science, there are things that can be conjectured that simply cannot be experimentally verified, either for or against with definitive clarity. The many worlds hypothesis is such a beast, for example.) More rigorous people who follow the principles of objective science more closely assert that such conjectures are not worthy of the effort, correctly citing their unresolvability.
The (hard) atheist incorrectly ascribes "Unresolvable" with "Impossible". (x/0 is unresolvable, but isn't De-facto impossible, for instance.) Such people often resort to pejorative statements, like "God in the gaps" type rhetoric when confronted with this incorrect abstraction ("how convenient for you, that your god exists in such a fashion that no test can ever find him!"), while others will assert illogical statements about probabilities, ignoring the unresolvable nature of the question in a circular mode of reasoning. ("It is more likely that there are no gods, than for one to exist in the fashion you state, given the lack of evidence to support.", despite the illogic of conflating lack of evidence for evidence of absence. Occam's razor is not a scientific proof.)
As an agnostic, I hold no opinion on the divine. It isn't worth my time. Instead, I look at the players that I can clearly see on the field: The theists, the atheists, and the agnostics because they ARE worth my time, and are a matter that can clearly impact me in many undesirable ways. (I am not afraid of fire and brimstone, but I am afraid of angry mobs with rocks, for instance.)
The theists assert unprovable and unresolvable conditions as being "true", and ascribe some special significance to this such that they coerce people (by one means or another) to follow their ideology. They have a history of resorting to violence and outright indoctrination tactics to enforce this unprovable worldview, regardless of the actual theistic religion being discussed. Various theories on cultural evolution suggest that these practices are more in line with social control systems than with actual desire to please any deity. (EG, worshiping the deity is secondary to the social control that enforced adherence to the policies presumably laid out by such deity provides.) Should those conditions change (Worship of the deity takes precedence over social control, with social control being phased out completely over time) then I don't see a noteworthy problem with adherence to a religious faith. (as long as you don't assault me with the holy marinara sauce, your assertions of the divine nature of the Flying Spaghetti Monster have no importance to me. You can perform the sacred mantra of the divine pasta in private all you like. It does not impact me in the slightest. You can even wear the holy pirate regalia for all I care.)
The atheist asserts falsely that the absence of evidence for any given deity (FSM included) is equivalent to the evidence of their absence. This is like asserting that because I am not in your house, and you looked for me, I do not exist (at all). The factual statement is that I do not exist (in your house). As pointed out earlier, there are theoretical modes of existence that preclude even a systematic and exhaustive search. The atheist further ascribes "Absolute truthfulness" to this statement, and uses similar tools to the theist to enforce adoption. No matter how hard they beat the drum, their assertion (No gods exist) does not stop being anything but a rhetorical one without actual logical bas
(assumes role of Devil's Advocate...)
Dear User,
The reason we want you to stop using software to block advertisements and tracking cookies is manifold; we rely on advertisement revenue to supply you with our web content. In addition to that, we rely on tracking cookies to track your browser session. We do this to differentiate your session from other registered users, and to maintain the contents of any internet shopping queues you may have currently active. Obstruction the function of these two required services greatly reduces our ability to both provide the content you come to our site for, and our ability to provide you a quality user experience.
The DNT setting is intended, by the specification handed down by the W3C organization, to have no default value. It is intended to contain only the explicit desired value, as chosen exclusively by you, the end user.
Microsoft's decision to set DNT's status in their express setup wizard has made this valuable feature completely useless for its intended function, which is to express you, the end user's, wishes about your privacy online. If we wanted to know Microsoft's opinion on the matter, we would have simply asked them, instead of trying to work with the W3C to get yours.
Due to Microsoft's abuse of the feature poisoning the results, we have no choice but to ignore this setting for Internet Explorer 10 users.
We will (*inaudible mumble*) your preferences with the DNT setting on any other browser, however, so please feel free to migrate away from IE10 if you wish to use this feature.
Thank you,
$InternetContentIndustry
They should have set the DNT field to a null string when not explicitly selected by the user, telling IE not to respond with a DNT response. When a site asks about DNT, and the value isnt initialized, then it can inform the user something like "$DomainHost has requested information about your willingness to receive targeted advertisement information, and other targeted web services via the DNT function. You can read more about this functionality at $MSDNPageReferenceURL. Would you like to enable this feature for this session? You can set your choice globally in the browser options page, and change your preference at any time."
That would have nailed the lid on the "User Intent" issue down hard.
I'm just waiting for such a technology as that lollipop to actually take off, so I can read about hackers replacing the digital data for the flavor information with that harvested from a turd.
That's some prankstering hacking I would roffle reading.
He would have to haveen very desperate to get guinea worms on purpose!
Those things are life threatening!
I'd have settled for some other parasite!
Because artificially controlling supply in order to artificially control costs is an abusive market tactic that can destabilize an otherwise solvent system with its disruptions.
That is why when private enterprises get powerful enough to try it (rackets, monopolies, et al.), they meet the hammer of the FTC and RICO/Antitrust penalties.
The labor market on the other hand, has several serious problems.
1) there is a price fixing scheme in effect. (Min wage)
2) the supply side is being actively padded (illegal immigrant laborers, H1-B workers, etc.)
The effects of the two would nominally be cancellary, however, illegal immigrants and H1-B laborers get various leves of excemption to min wage controls.
The illegal immigrants sidestep it completely. On paper, they don't even exist. No SS gets paid. No medicare. No healthcare. No education taxes. Nothing. Just a few bucks and grueling work for someone else.
H1-B's have to be paid min wage, but sidestep healthcare and a number of other things.
With the exceptions to the min wage controls these demographics have, coupled with the legal min wage for everyone else, and the active procurement of the excempted workers over time, you end up with a very very large disruption in the labor pool.
The kind that crashes whole economic systems.
The solution is to be more discrete, and avoid drinking the university's koolaid.
Universities are notorious for:
1) pressuring you into taking a student loan
2) pressuring you into living in student housing
3) pressuring you into needlessly expensive univeristy courses, which you could take elsewhere less expensively.
4) pressing you into their lucrative "4 years to graduation" paradigm.
To combat this, start from the bottom, and work up.
4) there is no truly pressing need to graduate in 4 years vs 6. Take fewer courses at a time, so you don't bankrupt yourself on the costs. Keep 12 credit hours, but DON'T go over. Prioritize your own class lists. Its ok to use some of the bulk filler the university tacks on to keep 12 hours. Only attend in spring, summer and fall semesters. Ignore the ravings of the guidance councelor.
3) you are only concerned with the state definition of "full time student" for the tax break. NOT the university's. Get a list of transferrable classes from other institutions for prerequisite classes, like english, public speaking, and math classes from student affairs, even if you have to be a pest to get it. It is worth more than its weight in gold. Take the community level classes for these prerequisites, and count the credit hours for your tax return. Transfer them later.
2) DO NOT LIVE IN STUDENT HOUSING. You can get an apartment, with better accomodations, cheaper. Feel free to pimp out your washing machine to the people who fall for the student housing gimmick. You only have to undercut the cost of a laundromat by a few bucks, and those places scalp. Use the laundry money to offset differences in bills and transport. Feel free to use public transportation. (Remember, spring, summer, and fall semesters only.)
1) by reducing your obligations in time to the college by increasing your graduation deadline, you can work a part time job, and seasonally switch to full time in the winter. By reducing your tuition costs by price shopping, and by avoiding the vampiric leeching of student housing, you can now afford college without the student loan, and its oppressive interest debt penalties. So don't take the loans. Ever.
You can get the education that way, and not be financially assfucked for 20 years.
As a rationalist, I prefer objective realities over subjective ones.
Repeatedly on my smartphone. (Antedeluvian froyo device.)
It has problems when text input from the hardware keyboard exceeds a certain threshold in typematic rate, and when certain system background agets feel the need to spam the alert bar. This causes keypresses to either become out of order in the input buffer, or for the content of that buffer to truncate. (The cutoff for typematic rate seems to be around 8 to 10 keypresses per second, and the usual offenders for alerter spam are things like tmobile's wifi calling daemon, the sms message alerter, and the software update alerter.)
I have been a victim of this quite frequently, leading many posters here to think I got my diploma from a crackerjack box.
Really, I just suffer behind a problematically implemented input device.
Don't get me wrong AC, but that is semantic drivel and childish.
While you can't sensibly kill in the name of atheism, you can kill to promote it.
(EG, "those catholics believing in the fucking skyfairy do more harm to the world by telling people not to use contraception than pandemic communicable diseases go! In fact, their eligion *IS* a disease; a disease of the mind that afflicts young children and drives them mad, prompting them to infect others or die trying. The world would be demonstrably better off without them, so I am going to kill their pope, and smash their hierarchy. While it might not destroy the religion, it would greatly reduce the global impact they have.")
Many atheists have a very scornful view of the religious, theists or no. Instead of trying to systematically eliminate religion, (out of one psychological manifestation of the desire to see the stupid people gone or another) despite the fact that the "major offenders" have been subjected to far worse than textbooks and insults for over a millenia (they are quite adept at spotting attempted eradications of their ideology, and reacting with violence, both verbal and physical. This method of combating the problem only creates extremists and fundamentalists, much like widespread use of antibiotics creates resistant pathogens.), you should accept that the offensive ideology will likely never go away, only evolve and change.
The sensible atheist, I think, would approach the situation from that evolutionary perspective, and also evaluate that not all the things about religion are bad. For instance, for people with severe mood disorders or untreatable illnesses, the placebo effect of believing in a higher power has a profound and positive effect. In order for the effect to manifest via the placebo effect, the belief must be real. Take for instance, alcoholics anonymous. One of the staples of their program regimen is the adoption of a higher power, any higher power. No purely secular intervention group has the longterm effectiveness that it does. The afore mentioned "sensible" atheist would objectively recognize this, as their abstanence from religion is presumably based on scientific thought, which embraces empirical truths. That some people are really and truly assisted in ways that current medical and behavioral science cannot match, even if it is just through a known placebo, is an undeniably good reason to accept religion as a partner in the human condition, despite the educated choice to abstain. (At least I hope that is the reason you abstain anyway. Falling into the "us" and "them" mindset is 100% counter-intuitive to being a free thinker.)
Instead, the aethist should seek ways to promote the beneficial forms of religious belief, and religious practice, so that it simply displaces the aggressive fundie varieties, much like a smart person may encourage the growth of benign and beneficial bacteria in a wound to keep out dangerous infection, or to encourage same as intestinal flora, rather than suffer beholden to a flawed ideological position on grounds of belief in a philosophical view (Eg, "religion is always bad, and if you are religious, you are stupid.") And seek 100% eradication, and damn the consequences.
The only way to do that is to accept that religion *can* be beneficial to society at large, and then see to alter the environment subtly but consistently.
The issue here is that many atheists would see this approach as being "apologetic" toward "clearly factually wrong ideas", prompting them to be intolerant of all religion, and instigating the "education resistant religion" plague.
Naw, didn't fail earth sciences. Just pointing out what is routinely done. (People routinely discarded lawn waste before the widespread use of mulching mowers. I remember the 1980s quite well.)
The issue is indeed what you state; density. You can convert biomass into syngas very easily, just seal the canister and heat it with a solar concetrator. But the resulting syngas has only half the energy density of natural gas.
You can take the syngas, add more energy, and get methane.
You can take the methane, add more energy and processing, and get gasoline.
The problem is that the latter two steps require energy. (Even using solar to provide it using things like concentrators imposes very pernicious restrains.)
Syngas could power electric power plants though with the minimal first stage processing. It would actually be cleaner to burn than gassified coal, due to the absence of radio isotopes, and sulfur compounds. Supply a pipeline, and its golden. (This way you avoid the dangers of liquified petrolium gas storage.)
Collecting city leaflitter, unrecycleable paper and plastic products (diapers, etc.), limb trimmings, and wet municaple garbage, and running it through a gassification plant for power generation frees up other oil commodities. (These are items that end up in landfills. The gassification plant does not produce charcoal. It produces mineral ash, which is a salable product, though it may have problems with heavy metals.)
By generating energy that way for electrical power, you suppliment what you can get from pure solar. If you can get ubiquitous electrical power from the AC mains, then synthetic pretroleum production starts looking viable. (Petroleum for transportation, not power generation, since we already have that.)
The question is if enough syngas can be produced to power a major city's power grid, from that city's waste stream. That I don't know.
Not true. You can do it if you don't mind working with potentially toxic gasses.
Syngas, for instance.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syngas
basically, load the soggy biomass into a crucible furnace, seal it down tight, point a solar concentrator at it, collect the gas. Profit.