And if you got pulled over shortly after drinking your BAC can actually go up over the next couple of hours - so the blood sample may reveal a BAC higher than the one you had while driving.
Suppose you go to a bar and quickly drink 3 beers in 5 minutes and spill some on your shirt. You then get in your car and start driving home, which is 5 minutes away. You actually have a light out in your car and get pulled over. You're not intoxicated yet because you haven't had time for the alcohol to absorb into your bloodstream. But the cop smells the beer and decides to test you.
At this point you'd probably blow a low BAC. But if you get hauled in and a blood test is administered an hour later your BAC will be higher.
So, waiting until later can actually result in a higher BAC than an initial test done upon arrest.
It might be wrong, but as soon as it's clear to me that the cop is not letting me go, my next question is, "Am I free to go?". And when I'm told I'm not, the very next thing I will say is, "Being a reasonable person, I can assume I'm under arrest and I want my lawyer now."
At that point, I will say and do nothing (including taking a test) until my lawyer is present.
Again, I might be wrong, but I'm not going to help them collect any evidence against me and the court can sort it out. Your defense attorney will tell you the worst thing you can do is confess, or give consent to searches.
I don't drink and drive, but I also don't trust cops. They will lie, cheat, and steal to win convictions. The system works on an assumption that they never lie, so that system is stacked against us and I will not help them screw me.
Myself, I wouldn't say that being feminine in this highly traditional sense is an innately bad thing, but that other role options should be presented and accepted by people at a young age so they can decide for themselves how to identify.
I don't know. It seems her target audience is the teen girl who'd be into magazines about makeup and boys. I think she's trying to show these girls that they can be into makeup and boys and still be good at math. I think she's blurring the roles by adding a component that is normally kept out those roles.
Clearly the book is not for everyone but I like the nontraditional approach.
My cousin served two tours in Iraq and he glibly reports of ramming cars off the road and forcing them into concrete barriers and walls, often killing the occupants - simply because the car was on the road when a US convoy happened to be approaching. So, that's much better than shooting at them.
I'm sure it's all in the name of "winning hearts & minds" and brining democracy and freedom, so it's okay. I'm sure the Iraqis don't mind.
Oh yeah, my cousin's pretty fucked up now. I'll be really surprised if he doesn't end up in jail for assaulting or killing someone now that he's back home. He wasn't like that before he went. The irony is that he laughs about how some kid's head was blown apart but nearly cries about a dog they had to leave on a rooftop. It's amazing what we do to others and our own in the name of democracy.
I also use the Marble Mouse. A friend sent me a used one and I fell in love with it. With my desk arranged in an L-shape, I can rest my whole arm on the desk and only move my fingers. It really cuts down on strain.
The only problem I have is with the ones I have at home. If the ball falls on my hardwood floors it will get a spot in it that will catch on the guides. I haven't found a way to buff the scratches out.
But you can get the non-wireless trackballs for less than $20.
Given sufficient resources, time, and dedication, ANY log can be altered.
What really matters is if there is any case law that actually interprets the laws and provides standards for due diligence.
The law might say "unalterable" or "lasting indefinitely" we all know there are practical physical limits - given enough time, anything is alterable and nothing lasts forever. We could come up with outrageous methods like using satellites with lasers to etch logs on the surface of the moon, but there's not much point in going to such expense until the case law suggests that is what is needed to be "due diligence".
Until you have that case law each organization will simply have to do a cost x risk analysis and determine how much they're willing to risk in order to "do enough" to keep out of trouble with the auditors. Something like:
chance of being audited x cost of failing an audit vs. cost of maintaining an "unalterable" logging system
Then you just wait to see what organizations get skewered and adjust your analysis and practices accordingly... and just hope you're not the first to get audited. OR... we can work on a way to etch logs onto spheres of aluminum that are then launched into orbit so they can be read with a telescope. Though that will probably lead to an increase in insurance premiums.
Sorry, I should have been more clear about what I meant: "That only appears to work for me when I am running IE".
I wasn't implying you were running IE.
I was only reporting my own results as even as I allowed scripts for the various sites one by one, I couldn't get the behavior in Firefox. I was only able to get it when I switched to IE. I then saw all the other crap that I usually don't see.
That only appears to work when running IE. I have noscript and adblock on Firefox and even allowing everything didn't cause the behavior. I had to load up IE on the page to see that ad - and then I saw all the stuff I normally don't see.
It amazes me when I have to use the internet "naked" with IE or on another person's computer - there's just SO much crap. It makes me wonder how anyone can actually use the internet.
I think it was a article by Edward Tufte that decried the use of PowerPoint in education. Instead of having to write 500 word essays, kids write presentations that only end up having maybe 100 words, and instead of real content, lots of "junk".
Rather than learning to write a report using sentences, children are being taught how to formulate client pitches and infomercials. Elementary school PowerPoint exercises (as seen in teacher guides and in student work posted on the Internet) typically consist of 10 to 20 words and a piece of clip art on each slide in a presentation of three to six slides -a total of perhaps 80 words (15 seconds of silent reading) for a week of work.
I know that when I was working on a group project in my MBA program my group about came unglued when I suggest we do a "forum" for our presentation and totally abandon a PPT presentation. They liked the forum idea as it worked well with our project but a couple of them really struggled with the idea of not having a PowerPoint.
Now, where I work... it's ALL PowerPoint, even my boss, who is otherwise pretty brilliant, is enamored with them and feels he cannot give a presentation without a PowerPoint "deck".
I personally think less PowerPoint (or PPT-like) work in schools is probably a good idea.
"If students use an older version of Microsoft Office at home, it is usually possible to translate their projects back and forth between different versions of Microsoft Office,"the letter said. "However, this can be a tedious process, and information may not be always be translated properly."
Basically what they're saying is, "We standardized on crappy software that probably isn't even compatible with its own previous version, so you better buy the newest one too so your kids won't be stupid."
Having worked in a school district IT department was a real eye-opener. There were tight budgets with no money for building critical infrastructure. But we'd all be damned if we didn't have the latest versions of Office and new computers to run them on.
I pushed open source wherever possible, even in the back-end, but it was a real uphill battle. We'd buy the $299 Adobe Acrobat when all they needed to do was make PDF files, and for that, something like PDF Creator http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/ is great - and free. And even after I demonstrated how easy it was to use and how good the results were, there was still resistance.
I wonder what kind of break the school district gets for pushing parents to upgrade?
The funny thing is, while the Wikipedia pages are identical for both kinds of stones, in the literature and movie section ALL the references are to "Philosopher's Stone".
And being just a dumb American, I'd never heard "Sorcerer's Stone" until Harry Potter.
The book was called "Schindler's Ark", but it was changed for the US market. I'll make no aspersions as to why...
I will. It's for the same reason Scholastic changed the title for the first Harry Potter from "The Philosopher's Stone" to "The Sorcerer's Stone" - Americans are just too dumb. We'd probably get confused and think it was an Indiana Jones sequel.
Add to that most of the deaths just didn't make sense. Except for Mad-Eye (and possibly Dobby), basically all the other major deaths were random
Your other points are good. But with this one, a recurring theme in the book is that life is not fair. In her world, often bad people go unpunished and good people die cruelly. I think this is one of the more adult themes of the book that makes the book so appealing.
For example, there is a high probability that this week someone will die in a fatal car crash here in Oregon. The death will be pointless and will probably have no reflection on the goodness or badness of the person who dies. In fact the victim might do everything right and still die - either because of someone else's carelessness, or just plain bad luck. So many "children's" stories avoid this.
Take Hedwig's death, for example. They weren't using owls to communicate any more and there was no need to kill her because Harry could have just left her at the borough. It was a senseless death (and for me the saddest) that only contributed the idea that bad things often happen to good people/creatures, and it's just the way it is.
And then looking at battles, so often in "war stories", somehow all the main characters make it out unscathed either through good luck or good skills. It's very typical in popular stories. It might seem extra tragic that Tonks and Lupin died in the battle, especially after having a newborn, but real-life doesn't spare people just because they are good and have new babies.
How he could get away with not telling Voldemort and the Death Eaters its location?
One possibility could come from how Dumbledore explained that Voldemort never studied things that he didn't think were useful. The fideleus (sp? I only listen to the audio books) charm is one based on trusting someone with a secret. That's clearly not Voldemort's style and he would probably never bother to study up on such a charm or know that when the secret-keeper dies, those who know the secret then become secret-keepers themselves. He would rather prefer darker magic for keeping things safe and secret (like the locket/horcrux in the cave).
One thing that bothered me was how the 3 kept wearing the locket/horcrux. Why? They could tell it was bad for them because they figured out they needed to swap it around. But why wear it at all?
The Elder Wand supposedly made his master unbeatable in a duel, and Dumbledore beat Grindenwald, and again he did not beat Voldemort afterwards. If skill was involved there would be no benefit in having such a wand, methinks.
I think this is because Gridenwald did not defeat the previous owner of the wand - he had simply stolen the wand. Mere possession of the wand does not confer its "unbeatable in a duel" capabilities. Had he slain the previous owner while stealing it then he probably would have beat Dumbledore. I think you have to somehow defeat the previous owner - though not necessarily while that owner is using the wand.
It's the same problem Voldemort had. He had merely taken it from someone who was already dead.
As a former girlfriend (but still very good friend) told me, I have a stubborn streak when it comes to resisting popular things.
It seemed the more people who talked about Harry Potter, the more resolute I was about staying away from it. That girlfriend had audiobook cassettes of the first 4 books and left them at my house one summer while she went to England. I often walked by them with a total lack of regard.
Then one night, I was bored with my music collection and other audio books and was irritated by commercials on the radio. "What the heck", and I put the first one in. It was only 6 cassettes long and I listened to it from beginning to end, all night long. And immediately started with the second.
I really enjoyed the stories but I think it was Jim Dale and his great way of reading the story aloud that really appealed to me.
The stories can be somewhat linear, with a single arc of a story - similar to comparing The Hobbit with Lord of the Rings. But I think the characters are developed well, and with the multiple books, the stories are very well integrated - where seemingly innocuous things in one book are very important in a later book.
But, I think JK is really good at suspense! In this last book, the story opens in a dining hall where all the bad guys are hanging out, with someone hanging upside down over the table. She was able to effectively draw out identifying the figure for quite some time... yet as the reader/listener, I was so wanting to know who it was.
On the other hand, she is able to deliver jarring shocks - like the first main character to die during the flight from Harry's home at the beginning of the book. It was sudden and shocking and emotional.
So all in all, I love the stories. Between JK's writing and Jim Dale's reading, they are stories that suck me right in and give me a lot of pleasure.
As for CS Lewis, I've read Narnia, and enjoyed it quite a bit. And I've written other Lewis stuff. I enjoyed Narnia quite a bit and have even re-read bits of it. But for me, I find the Harry Potter stories much more compelling.
It's been said before. But here's what I know from my anecdotal case:
I made an effort to eliminate them from my diet about 8 months ago and I feel tremendously better - not just overall, but on a day to day basis.
I know what it feels like when I accidentally get a large amount of it - it's just like the crappy feeling I had. And it's not like I know beforehand that I'm going to get it - I get the sudden overwhelming crappy feeling, then I trace back to see what I just ate within the last hour and there's always a major source of MSG to be found. Then I knock that off the list of things.
And maybe it's the case that for the human population as a whole, there's no harm in MSG and HFCS. And maybe it's not harming me - it just makes me feel crappy. Maybe a small percentage of the populate is sensitive to it. For most people, gluten is just fine - but for a small percentage of the population who are sensitive to it, it makes them ill.
And it's not like I'm trying to go around banning the stuff or trying to be holier-than-thou for avoiding it. I LOVE some of the things it comes in - BBQ Chips, Pho, most other soups, etc. But now I know if I eat those things I'll feel like crap, so I choose to avoid them.
Just like riding a carousel makes me feel sick - I avoid that. And I'm happy to tell people that if carousels make them feel ill that they shouldn't ride them - even if science says there's nothing wrong with it. But I'm not trying to tell everyone they should avoid them.
As for HFCS, it's probably making me fatter but it definitely does not taste as good. Many products that use it have a sharp unpleasant flavor. There's definitely a difference between the flavors of sugar-sweetened sodas and HFCS-sweetened sodas. I'll choose the one that tastes better, even if it's just as fattening.
Sounds more like aspartame (NutraSweet). MSG can do that too to some extent, but it's rare.
Aspartame does give me raging headaches. I figured that out while trying to lose weight in the army many many years ago. So I've avoided aspartame ever since.
MSG I only recently figured out leads to all the others. I tried eliminating MSG for a couple weeks when one day I went to Olive Garden with a friend and wasn't thinking about food and ordered the soup. 30 minutes later, WHAM! I felt all that stuff at once. Yes, it's anecdotal, but I do what I can to avoid MSG.
From what I've read, people who are sensitive to one often tend to be sensitive to the other.
Heinz finally makes an "organic" ketchup that uses cane sugar instead of HFCS for sweetener. It actually tastes a lot better - like I remember it tasting as a kid. I've also seen other brands of ketchup that use regular sugar as well.
I personally gave up HFCS and MSG to the best of my ability about 9 months ago. I'm still too fat (probably all the beer I still drink) but I do feel much much better. That near continuous run-down feeling is gone now. So is that all to frequent feeling after lunch like a bad flu was coming (buzzing in my head, hot flash, sweating, tightness in the chest, congested feeling).
I'm sure someone will respond saying there's no scientific proof that MSG and HFSC are bad for me and that I'm a fool for trying to not consume them. That's just fine... call me a fool. I feel better not eating them and that's reason enough - placebo effect or not.
I'm no expert but I think the "you can't prove a negative" only works with certain kinds of problems.
As you have demonstrated, the negative statement above, "I am not 7 feet tall" can be proven by disproving the opposite. (Let's not consider the semantic arguments about what it means - we can assume that he means that he is not 7 feet tall when standing up).
In this case, you cannot be both (7 feet tall) and (not seven feet tall) at the same time. They are mutually exclusive states of existence - and all inclusive.
So, you can prove the negative statement the "I am not 7 feet tall" by taking a mere measurement. The person either is or is not 7 feet tall. If it is determined that the original poster is some other height than 7 feet, then we have proven his negative statement. I don't think it matters that you can rephrase the statement to be a positive statement "I am some other height than 7 feet."
It seems things get tricky when you try to say that in all the universe and in all time something does not exist. Finding one example simply disproves the statement. But it's practically impossible to conduct the exhaustive search required to state unequivocally the positive.
For example:
"There are no apartments with pianos in them." is a negative statement. I can quickly disprove this because I am in an apartment as I type this and I can look to the other wall and there is a piano.
"There are no apartments containing a 3 metric ton sphere of pure uranium 235." Now, from a logical point of view, I would have to look in every possible apartment and determine if there is a 3 ton sphere of uranium. And until I did that exhaustive search, one could argue that I had not proven my negative. But I believe that such a quantity of uranium would reach its critical point and a spontaneous fission reaction would happen, destroying the very large apartment that might have held it. Given that, I can be pretty sure, even certain, that such an apartment/uranium pairing do not exist.
"There is no Santa Claus (as in the fat guy with the flying reindeer delivering gifts to every good child on earth on December 25th)". Again, there is no practical way to exhaustively inspect every location in the universe to prove that Santa Claus was not there. I could make this statement, but someone could try to argue "but you didn't look on the planets of Alpha Centari, he could be there".
I'm not sure but maybe the statement needs to be revised to "There are some negatives that cannot be conclusively and exhaustively proven. Some negatives, however, can be proven.". I think this is why we say in science that if you want to claim the existence of something the burden of proof is on the claimant, and that the default position is non-existence.
"My cat can produce cold fusion by feeding him coco puffs" is a bold statement that requires proof before it could be accepted. It my burden to demonstrate this and not the scientific community's burden to disprove it.
"There is no cat that can produce cold fusion by feeding him coco puffs" is a negative statement. From a scientific point of view, there is no need to prove this because it is (as far as I can tell) the default position. From a scientific sense, there is no need to feed every cat coco puffs and see if cold fusion results.
Ultimately, I think (in all my meandering) that while logic is a tool used by science, it is not the be-all and end-all. Doing so leaves you with results that are useless.
"Non-existence of evidence is not evidence of non-existence" is a statement often used by those trying to use logic to defend their belief in the existence of a deity. The problem with this, as I understand it, is that the scientific position is that such an entity is not said to exist until it's proven to exist.
To say "despite the lack of evidence, God exists because we have not exhausted all possible ways he could not exist" is not a scientifically useful statement.
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I'm no math genius, but if there were only 25 viruses, how can any of the tools catch a percentage of them that is not a multiple of 4%?
Your BAC changes over time.
And if you got pulled over shortly after drinking your BAC can actually go up over the next couple of hours - so the blood sample may reveal a BAC higher than the one you had while driving.
Suppose you go to a bar and quickly drink 3 beers in 5 minutes and spill some on your shirt. You then get in your car and start driving home, which is 5 minutes away. You actually have a light out in your car and get pulled over. You're not intoxicated yet because you haven't had time for the alcohol to absorb into your bloodstream. But the cop smells the beer and decides to test you.
At this point you'd probably blow a low BAC. But if you get hauled in and a blood test is administered an hour later your BAC will be higher.
So, waiting until later can actually result in a higher BAC than an initial test done upon arrest.
It might be wrong, but as soon as it's clear to me that the cop is not letting me go, my next question is, "Am I free to go?". And when I'm told I'm not, the very next thing I will say is, "Being a reasonable person, I can assume I'm under arrest and I want my lawyer now."
At that point, I will say and do nothing (including taking a test) until my lawyer is present.
Again, I might be wrong, but I'm not going to help them collect any evidence against me and the court can sort it out. Your defense attorney will tell you the worst thing you can do is confess, or give consent to searches.
I don't drink and drive, but I also don't trust cops. They will lie, cheat, and steal to win convictions. The system works on an assumption that they never lie, so that system is stacked against us and I will not help them screw me.
Muahahahahahahahahaha ahaha ahahaha...
I love that show (The Prisoner, for those who don't know), but I think I like Dangerman even better.
Myself, I wouldn't say that being feminine in this highly traditional sense is an innately bad thing, but that other role options should be presented and accepted by people at a young age so they can decide for themselves how to identify.
I don't know. It seems her target audience is the teen girl who'd be into magazines about makeup and boys. I think she's trying to show these girls that they can be into makeup and boys and still be good at math. I think she's blurring the roles by adding a component that is normally kept out those roles.
Clearly the book is not for everyone but I like the nontraditional approach.
My cousin served two tours in Iraq and he glibly reports of ramming cars off the road and forcing them into concrete barriers and walls, often killing the occupants - simply because the car was on the road when a US convoy happened to be approaching. So, that's much better than shooting at them.
I'm sure it's all in the name of "winning hearts & minds" and brining democracy and freedom, so it's okay. I'm sure the Iraqis don't mind.
Oh yeah, my cousin's pretty fucked up now. I'll be really surprised if he doesn't end up in jail for assaulting or killing someone now that he's back home. He wasn't like that before he went. The irony is that he laughs about how some kid's head was blown apart but nearly cries about a dog they had to leave on a rooftop. It's amazing what we do to others and our own in the name of democracy.
I also use the Marble Mouse. A friend sent me a used one and I fell in love with it. With my desk arranged in an L-shape, I can rest my whole arm on the desk and only move my fingers. It really cuts down on strain.
The only problem I have is with the ones I have at home. If the ball falls on my hardwood floors it will get a spot in it that will catch on the guides. I haven't found a way to buff the scratches out.
But you can get the non-wireless trackballs for less than $20.
Given sufficient resources, time, and dedication, ANY log can be altered.
What really matters is if there is any case law that actually interprets the laws and provides standards for due diligence.
The law might say "unalterable" or "lasting indefinitely" we all know there are practical physical limits - given enough time, anything is alterable and nothing lasts forever. We could come up with outrageous methods like using satellites with lasers to etch logs on the surface of the moon, but there's not much point in going to such expense until the case law suggests that is what is needed to be "due diligence".
Until you have that case law each organization will simply have to do a cost x risk analysis and determine how much they're willing to risk in order to "do enough" to keep out of trouble with the auditors. Something like:
chance of being audited x cost of failing an audit vs. cost of maintaining an "unalterable" logging system
Then you just wait to see what organizations get skewered and adjust your analysis and practices accordingly... and just hope you're not the first to get audited. OR... we can work on a way to etch logs onto spheres of aluminum that are then launched into orbit so they can be read with a telescope. Though that will probably lead to an increase in insurance premiums.
Sorry, I should have been more clear about what I meant: "That only appears to work for me when I am running IE".
I wasn't implying you were running IE.
I was only reporting my own results as even as I allowed scripts for the various sites one by one, I couldn't get the behavior in Firefox. I was only able to get it when I switched to IE. I then saw all the other crap that I usually don't see.
That only appears to work when running IE. I have noscript and adblock on Firefox and even allowing everything didn't cause the behavior. I had to load up IE on the page to see that ad - and then I saw all the stuff I normally don't see.
It amazes me when I have to use the internet "naked" with IE or on another person's computer - there's just SO much crap. It makes me wonder how anyone can actually use the internet.
Brought peace?
I think it was a article by Edward Tufte that decried the use of PowerPoint in education. Instead of having to write 500 word essays, kids write presentations that only end up having maybe 100 words, and instead of real content, lots of "junk".
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PowerPoint Is Evil Power Corrupts. PowerPoint Corrupts Absolutely. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/ppt2.htm
Rather than learning to write a report using sentences, children are being taught how to formulate client pitches and infomercials. Elementary school PowerPoint exercises (as seen in teacher guides and in student work posted on the Internet) typically consist of 10 to 20 words and a piece of clip art on each slide in a presentation of three to six slides -a total of perhaps 80 words (15 seconds of silent reading) for a week of work.
I know that when I was working on a group project in my MBA program my group about came unglued when I suggest we do a "forum" for our presentation and totally abandon a PPT presentation. They liked the forum idea as it worked well with our project but a couple of them really struggled with the idea of not having a PowerPoint.
Now, where I work... it's ALL PowerPoint, even my boss, who is otherwise pretty brilliant, is enamored with them and feels he cannot give a presentation without a PowerPoint "deck".
I personally think less PowerPoint (or PPT-like) work in schools is probably a good idea.
"If students use an older version of Microsoft Office at home, it is usually possible to translate their projects back and forth between different versions of Microsoft Office,"the letter said. "However, this can be a tedious process, and information may not be always be translated properly."
Basically what they're saying is, "We standardized on crappy software that probably isn't even compatible with its own previous version, so you better buy the newest one too so your kids won't be stupid."
Having worked in a school district IT department was a real eye-opener. There were tight budgets with no money for building critical infrastructure. But we'd all be damned if we didn't have the latest versions of Office and new computers to run them on.
I pushed open source wherever possible, even in the back-end, but it was a real uphill battle. We'd buy the $299 Adobe Acrobat when all they needed to do was make PDF files, and for that, something like PDF Creator http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/ is great - and free. And even after I demonstrated how easy it was to use and how good the results were, there was still resistance.
I wonder what kind of break the school district gets for pushing parents to upgrade?
The funny thing is, while the Wikipedia pages are identical for both kinds of stones, in the literature and movie section ALL the references are to "Philosopher's Stone".
And being just a dumb American, I'd never heard "Sorcerer's Stone" until Harry Potter.
The book was called "Schindler's Ark", but it was changed for the US market. I'll make no aspersions as to why ...
I will. It's for the same reason Scholastic changed the title for the first Harry Potter from "The Philosopher's Stone" to "The Sorcerer's Stone" - Americans are just too dumb. We'd probably get confused and think it was an Indiana Jones sequel.
Add to that most of the deaths just didn't make sense. Except for Mad-Eye (and possibly Dobby), basically all the other major deaths were random
Your other points are good. But with this one, a recurring theme in the book is that life is not fair. In her world, often bad people go unpunished and good people die cruelly. I think this is one of the more adult themes of the book that makes the book so appealing.
For example, there is a high probability that this week someone will die in a fatal car crash here in Oregon. The death will be pointless and will probably have no reflection on the goodness or badness of the person who dies. In fact the victim might do everything right and still die - either because of someone else's carelessness, or just plain bad luck. So many "children's" stories avoid this.
Take Hedwig's death, for example. They weren't using owls to communicate any more and there was no need to kill her because Harry could have just left her at the borough. It was a senseless death (and for me the saddest) that only contributed the idea that bad things often happen to good people/creatures, and it's just the way it is.
And then looking at battles, so often in "war stories", somehow all the main characters make it out unscathed either through good luck or good skills. It's very typical in popular stories. It might seem extra tragic that Tonks and Lupin died in the battle, especially after having a newborn, but real-life doesn't spare people just because they are good and have new babies.
This, I think, is one of JK's strongest messages.
How he could get away with not telling Voldemort and the Death Eaters its location?
One possibility could come from how Dumbledore explained that Voldemort never studied things that he didn't think were useful. The fideleus (sp? I only listen to the audio books) charm is one based on trusting someone with a secret. That's clearly not Voldemort's style and he would probably never bother to study up on such a charm or know that when the secret-keeper dies, those who know the secret then become secret-keepers themselves. He would rather prefer darker magic for keeping things safe and secret (like the locket/horcrux in the cave).
One thing that bothered me was how the 3 kept wearing the locket/horcrux. Why? They could tell it was bad for them because they figured out they needed to swap it around. But why wear it at all?
The Elder Wand supposedly made his master unbeatable in a duel, and Dumbledore beat Grindenwald, and again he did not beat Voldemort afterwards. If skill was involved there would be no benefit in having such a wand, methinks.
I think this is because Gridenwald did not defeat the previous owner of the wand - he had simply stolen the wand. Mere possession of the wand does not confer its "unbeatable in a duel" capabilities. Had he slain the previous owner while stealing it then he probably would have beat Dumbledore. I think you have to somehow defeat the previous owner - though not necessarily while that owner is using the wand.
It's the same problem Voldemort had. He had merely taken it from someone who was already dead.
As a former girlfriend (but still very good friend) told me, I have a stubborn streak when it comes to resisting popular things.
It seemed the more people who talked about Harry Potter, the more resolute I was about staying away from it. That girlfriend had audiobook cassettes of the first 4 books and left them at my house one summer while she went to England. I often walked by them with a total lack of regard.
Then one night, I was bored with my music collection and other audio books and was irritated by commercials on the radio. "What the heck", and I put the first one in. It was only 6 cassettes long and I listened to it from beginning to end, all night long. And immediately started with the second.
I really enjoyed the stories but I think it was Jim Dale and his great way of reading the story aloud that really appealed to me.
The stories can be somewhat linear, with a single arc of a story - similar to comparing The Hobbit with Lord of the Rings. But I think the characters are developed well, and with the multiple books, the stories are very well integrated - where seemingly innocuous things in one book are very important in a later book.
But, I think JK is really good at suspense! In this last book, the story opens in a dining hall where all the bad guys are hanging out, with someone hanging upside down over the table. She was able to effectively draw out identifying the figure for quite some time... yet as the reader/listener, I was so wanting to know who it was.
On the other hand, she is able to deliver jarring shocks - like the first main character to die during the flight from Harry's home at the beginning of the book. It was sudden and shocking and emotional.
So all in all, I love the stories. Between JK's writing and Jim Dale's reading, they are stories that suck me right in and give me a lot of pleasure.
As for CS Lewis, I've read Narnia, and enjoyed it quite a bit. And I've written other Lewis stuff. I enjoyed Narnia quite a bit and have even re-read bits of it. But for me, I find the Harry Potter stories much more compelling.
You're a fool.
It's been said before. But here's what I know from my anecdotal case:
I made an effort to eliminate them from my diet about 8 months ago and I feel tremendously better - not just overall, but on a day to day basis.
I know what it feels like when I accidentally get a large amount of it - it's just like the crappy feeling I had. And it's not like I know beforehand that I'm going to get it - I get the sudden overwhelming crappy feeling, then I trace back to see what I just ate within the last hour and there's always a major source of MSG to be found. Then I knock that off the list of things.
And maybe it's the case that for the human population as a whole, there's no harm in MSG and HFCS. And maybe it's not harming me - it just makes me feel crappy. Maybe a small percentage of the populate is sensitive to it. For most people, gluten is just fine - but for a small percentage of the population who are sensitive to it, it makes them ill.
And it's not like I'm trying to go around banning the stuff or trying to be holier-than-thou for avoiding it. I LOVE some of the things it comes in - BBQ Chips, Pho, most other soups, etc. But now I know if I eat those things I'll feel like crap, so I choose to avoid them.
Just like riding a carousel makes me feel sick - I avoid that. And I'm happy to tell people that if carousels make them feel ill that they shouldn't ride them - even if science says there's nothing wrong with it. But I'm not trying to tell everyone they should avoid them.
As for HFCS, it's probably making me fatter but it definitely does not taste as good. Many products that use it have a sharp unpleasant flavor. There's definitely a difference between the flavors of sugar-sweetened sodas and HFCS-sweetened sodas. I'll choose the one that tastes better, even if it's just as fattening.
It's water and electrolytes to replace what you lose when you sweat.
That's what Gatorade used to be. Now it's just a non-carbonated softdrink.
Sounds more like aspartame (NutraSweet). MSG can do that too to some extent, but it's rare.
Aspartame does give me raging headaches. I figured that out while trying to lose weight in the army many many years ago. So I've avoided aspartame ever since.
MSG I only recently figured out leads to all the others. I tried eliminating MSG for a couple weeks when one day I went to Olive Garden with a friend and wasn't thinking about food and ordered the soup. 30 minutes later, WHAM! I felt all that stuff at once. Yes, it's anecdotal, but I do what I can to avoid MSG.
From what I've read, people who are sensitive to one often tend to be sensitive to the other.
Heinz finally makes an "organic" ketchup that uses cane sugar instead of HFCS for sweetener. It actually tastes a lot better - like I remember it tasting as a kid. I've also seen other brands of ketchup that use regular sugar as well.
I personally gave up HFCS and MSG to the best of my ability about 9 months ago. I'm still too fat (probably all the beer I still drink) but I do feel much much better. That near continuous run-down feeling is gone now. So is that all to frequent feeling after lunch like a bad flu was coming (buzzing in my head, hot flash, sweating, tightness in the chest, congested feeling).
I'm sure someone will respond saying there's no scientific proof that MSG and HFSC are bad for me and that I'm a fool for trying to not consume them. That's just fine... call me a fool. I feel better not eating them and that's reason enough - placebo effect or not.
Thanks, I'll have to go read up on that subject. Can you recommend any particularly good books/sites on the subject to help someone understand it?
It seems the more I find out, the less I know.
I'm no expert but I think the "you can't prove a negative" only works with certain kinds of problems.
As you have demonstrated, the negative statement above, "I am not 7 feet tall" can be proven by disproving the opposite. (Let's not consider the semantic arguments about what it means - we can assume that he means that he is not 7 feet tall when standing up).
In this case, you cannot be both (7 feet tall) and (not seven feet tall) at the same time. They are mutually exclusive states of existence - and all inclusive.
So, you can prove the negative statement the "I am not 7 feet tall" by taking a mere measurement. The person either is or is not 7 feet tall. If it is determined that the original poster is some other height than 7 feet, then we have proven his negative statement. I don't think it matters that you can rephrase the statement to be a positive statement "I am some other height than 7 feet."
It seems things get tricky when you try to say that in all the universe and in all time something does not exist. Finding one example simply disproves the statement. But it's practically impossible to conduct the exhaustive search required to state unequivocally the positive.
For example:
"There are no apartments with pianos in them." is a negative statement. I can quickly disprove this because I am in an apartment as I type this and I can look to the other wall and there is a piano.
"There are no apartments containing a 3 metric ton sphere of pure uranium 235." Now, from a logical point of view, I would have to look in every possible apartment and determine if there is a 3 ton sphere of uranium. And until I did that exhaustive search, one could argue that I had not proven my negative. But I believe that such a quantity of uranium would reach its critical point and a spontaneous fission reaction would happen, destroying the very large apartment that might have held it. Given that, I can be pretty sure, even certain, that such an apartment/uranium pairing do not exist.
"There is no Santa Claus (as in the fat guy with the flying reindeer delivering gifts to every good child on earth on December 25th)". Again, there is no practical way to exhaustively inspect every location in the universe to prove that Santa Claus was not there. I could make this statement, but someone could try to argue "but you didn't look on the planets of Alpha Centari, he could be there".
I'm not sure but maybe the statement needs to be revised to "There are some negatives that cannot be conclusively and exhaustively proven. Some negatives, however, can be proven.". I think this is why we say in science that if you want to claim the existence of something the burden of proof is on the claimant, and that the default position is non-existence.
"My cat can produce cold fusion by feeding him coco puffs" is a bold statement that requires proof before it could be accepted. It my burden to demonstrate this and not the scientific community's burden to disprove it.
"There is no cat that can produce cold fusion by feeding him coco puffs" is a negative statement. From a scientific point of view, there is no need to prove this because it is (as far as I can tell) the default position. From a scientific sense, there is no need to feed every cat coco puffs and see if cold fusion results.
Ultimately, I think (in all my meandering) that while logic is a tool used by science, it is not the be-all and end-all. Doing so leaves you with results that are useless.
"Non-existence of evidence is not evidence of non-existence" is a statement often used by those trying to use logic to defend their belief in the existence of a deity. The problem with this, as I understand it, is that the scientific position is that such an entity is not said to exist until it's proven to exist.
To say "despite the lack of evidence, God exists because we have not exhausted all possible ways he could not exist" is not a scientifically useful statement.
Here's another ne