In my experience it's exactly the controversial issues that Wikipedia handles least best. Your example is one where it worked, but very often such disputes force the inclusion of some far-out whacko idea with no credibility that an encyclopedia with a more controlled editorial policy wouldn't even consider worthy of mention.
The trouble is that the whacko editors have far more free time on their hands than the sensible ones, and can just keep hammering away at an article until their POV, silly as it may be, is presented on a level with a more reasoned viewpoint.
I hate to agree with a troll, but he has a point. Had the Democrats nominated someone with more charisma than a dead hamster, we'd have a different president today and a number of issues would be approached rather differently. Bush won a lot of states, true -- but most of them he won by razor-thin margins. It wouldn't have taken much to turn those very pale red states into very pale blue states.
Actually, Columbus could not have been 100% right. There was zero chance of that. The true circumference of the globe had been known to a high degree of accuracy for over 1500 years at the time. Even if this data were not available, other estimates (on, admittedly, less than scientific bases) were of the same magnitude. Those opposed to his voyage were not doing so based on guesswork. On the other hand, Columbus deliberately chose estimates (including the size of a degree of longitude) that yielded the numbers he was looking for. As a result, the true distance from the Canaries to Japan was over 4 times what he figured. This is indeed an object lesson for the present subject, applicable to both sides of the debate.
True, experimentation often produces serendipitous results. But to say it must produce serendipitous results contrary to expectations is wishful thinking. If we're observing a warming trend now, lacking other data we are simply not free to say, "Oh well, this is probably an anomaly/within historical trends/not our fault/not our problem/etc." and pretend it's not there. The correct reaction is to go where the data leads us. That does not, of course, preclude us from looking for more data. But if we're trying to determine a course of action in the meantime, it's again wishful thinking to just assume that any new data we might find will ultimately bear out the conclusion we want it to.
No, Columbus was wrong from start to finish. He thought the world was considerably smaller than everyone else knew it was. If he hadn't run into a continent which neither he nor anyone else knew was there, he'd have starved to death (or dehydrated) on the open sea. This is why no one else though it worth trying, since they knew it was a longer trip than a ship of the time was capable of making. To his dying day he was convinced that he was in the outlying isles of the Indies, and never accepted what everyone else knew -- knew because they knew how big the world really was -- that he had discovered an entirely different place.
Of course, that continent also made his basic idea wrong too. You can't get to India by sailing west from Europe, not without going a considerable distance out of your way to the south.
Lots of people with incorrect ideas have the courage of their convictions, but this doesn't magically convert their ideas into correct ones.
Consult the OED, and discover that many American spellings are in fact older. You'll be surprised to learn, for instance that the -our of "colour" and "neighbour" are relatively new; it was the British who changed it, not the Americans. This page addresses some of the issues, and although I can't agree with everything the writer advocates he has his facts correct. Unfortunately he doesn't go into -er vs. -re much except to express his preference for the former.
As far as "theater" goes, it came into Middle English from Old French, and no, the spelling wasn't standardized at all, not then and not later at the point of divergence. At the time the American colonies were being settled, the i vs. j distinction wasn't not clear, and v/u/w was a matter of preference. (The Latin isn't relevant to this discussion, as it didn't end in either -re or -er in any declension I'm aware of.) The -re ending is phonetic in French, but not in either variety of English. But that's neither here nor there. I have no idea why you think we should hew to French spellings in this area alone, where most other French borrowings of that era have been more thoroughly Anglicized. (For example, "beef" from the Middle French "buef", modern French "boeuf", which is not pronounced "beef".)
If Pearl Harbor was originally Pearl Harbour it's because the British named it, they being the first Westerners to discover the place. Americans would naturally adopt the American spelling for it.
I'm not pompous, I'm pedantic. If I were pompous I'd use bigger words.
English was rather different when the British and American varieties diverged from it is now in either place, and the "standard" American accent actually preserves as many (or more) features from that time than "BBC" English. Spelling in particular was not yet standardized.
In other words, neither is quintessentially correct, since both are "evolutions of what it's based on" if by "based on" you mean 17th Century Midlands -- which is itself based on earlier dialects.
"Theatre" is therefore incorrect because it's part of the name of an American building, in a place where standard orthography would have "theater". It's pretentious because it reflects exactly the attitude you do in your post.
Besides, that wasn't the parent's logic, it was yours.
Incidentally, how is Avian Flu being reported in america? Here in Aus we don't hear much, even though I (and the WHO) are convinced it's the next big pandemic.
The press doesn't harp on it much, but anytime they mention it they call it the next big pandemic. National Geographic covers it in the current issue, and they've got a little presentation about it on their website.
I'd expect the magnitude of whatever change happens to be significantly different, but the direction of the change to be the same, given the same stress.
1. Hydrogen isn't as energy dense as petroleum. So your MPG rating is going to suck.
This is untrue on a kg for kg basis. One kg of hydrogen yields about as much energy as one gallon of gasoline, but the gallon of gasoline weighs 2.8 kg.
2. Hydrogen is REALLY difficult to store.(blah, blah...)
So you don't store hydrogen. You store it as some compound that you can reform either in the vehicle or at the fueling station. You don't run cars on liquid hydrogen anyway, you run them on compressed gaseous hydrogen. And it doesn't pass through a properly designed container, not quickly anyway. Just ask NASA.
3. Hydrogen burns very fast in comparison to gasoline. This makes engine design much more difficult and shortens the life of components.
That's why you don't burn it. You make electricity from it in fuel cells.
4. Hydrogen explodes nicely.
No it doesn't, not in the open anyway. You only get an explosion if it's contained, and it disperses very quickly.
It's more practical for home heating, yes. But if your goal is large-scale electrical generation to replace coal, natural gas or oil consumption, it's no good at all.
If you knew what he was talking about, why did you insist on twisting it in a different direction?
It's only true to the extent that structures that arose later in the evolutionary sequence tend to develop later in the embryo. This, I assume, is what they teach at UC.
However, "ontology recapitulates phylogeny" in the sense meant by the original poster, where embryos at certain stages actually resemble earlier forms, certainly is false. See the wiki.
The point is it isn't true in observation not as a "law", "theory", or "rule of thumb". It simply isn't true. It holds only because it's pithy, and for no better reason. _Please stop comparing embryos and oranges.
First, as another comment here points out, "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" is a myth. In what ought to be one of the more embarrassing episodes in the history of evolutionary biology, it's been shown that Ernst Haeckel, who concocted the idea, falsified the illustrations by which he "proved" it. This was discredited a long time ago, but it continues to be cited by believers. You have to look at actual embryos to realize they don't much resemble Haeckel's drawings.
I'm not a seven-day creationist myself, but with things like this going on is it any wonder that many creationists see evolutionary biology as nothing more than a philosophical/religious idea and not a science? It does not help matters when evolution advocates demonstrate no better understanding of the science than creationists! It's not just you; apparently there are at least a few/. moderators who are equally ignorant.
Second, you've gotten the way evolution works exactly backwards. More advanced forms often to resemble the juvenile stages of the earlier, not the other way around. This is called "neoteny". The "chick" comparison here isn't because dinosaurs resembled juvenile birds but because their primitive feathers resembled the pinfeathers that now appears on chicks strictly for insulation.
Which is, after all, only to be expected. The flight feathers on archaeopteryx are already fairly advanced, complex structures. They must have existed in a simpler form on other dinosaurs, and since it has been long believed that dinosaurs are warm-blooded it could have been predicted (and for all I know, it was) that we'd find them as simple insulation, probably as an adaptation of scales. This is not at all a surprising discovery.
I played Myst, and it was... OK. I mean, the graphics were well-rendered, if no more dynamic for the quality than the technology of the time permitted. But honestly, the whole thing was nothing more than an elaborate Hypercard stack and the puzzles were nothing too difficult. I've always had trouble understanding what all the shouting was about.
OK, guys? One Monty Python quote is moderately funny. On very rare occasions it may even be witty, depending on the context. But once the quote has been given, the joke has been made. It's over, done with, complete, finis, capped off, and numerous other synonyms. Continuing the scene (which I'm sure we all have engraved on our memories anyway) is USDH Certified NOT FUNNY and very definitely NOT WITTY.
Parent post was funny. Sibling posts are not.
Where's that (-1, Lame) moderation when we really need it?
"Tolerated"? Of course it has. But that generally not involved the preservation of human civilization, which is something we ought to be keenly interested in.
Or if by that you meant that fluctuations in solar output somehow magically gets smoothed over by the ecosystem, sorry. I'm no expert on thermodynamics, but if you increase the energy you're pumping into a system, there must be some effect. Energy doesn't just go away. The system's processes must somehow take it in, but they're not going to be unaffected. The energy equation must balance.
But yes, there are indications that Mars is also experiencing global warming. That means our own problem may be self-correcting in the short term -- or it may be a new long-term or permanent state of affairs, to which we may well be contributing to some degree but over which we may not have much control regardless, at least at this particular point.
To which I would reply, So what? That we can get away with polluting our atmosphere isn't a good reason to keep doing it. If this does turn out to be a false alarm as far as anthropogenic global warming is concerned, then I hope it's taken as a warning or wake-up call rather than an excuse to pollute more. Because if it's not our fault this time, there may yet come a time when it is. I'd prefer that we never reach it if we haven't already.
I would say in the case of the $50,000, it wouldn't even raise an eyebrow if it was a larger airline. The trustee isn't concerned with nickles and dimes.
That was a few years ago. Things are different now. Take the newer Wells Fargo ATMs for instance. For some reason not all the graphics appear to be cached in memory and get flushed when the machine hasn't been used for an hour or so. In the short delay for loading the graphics the Explorer graphic placeholder icon is plain to see.
And of course, the annoying lag when keying anything in is Windows pure and simple.
BMW for the most part, although others are mentioned in this particular article. Oddly enough, they have had the occasional problem although I think by now they've worked most of the bugs out.
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The trouble is that the whacko editors have far more free time on their hands than the sensible ones, and can just keep hammering away at an article until their POV, silly as it may be, is presented on a level with a more reasoned viewpoint.
I hate to agree with a troll, but he has a point. Had the Democrats nominated someone with more charisma than a dead hamster, we'd have a different president today and a number of issues would be approached rather differently. Bush won a lot of states, true -- but most of them he won by razor-thin margins. It wouldn't have taken much to turn those very pale red states into very pale blue states.
True, experimentation often produces serendipitous results. But to say it must produce serendipitous results contrary to expectations is wishful thinking. If we're observing a warming trend now, lacking other data we are simply not free to say, "Oh well, this is probably an anomaly/within historical trends/not our fault/not our problem/etc." and pretend it's not there. The correct reaction is to go where the data leads us. That does not, of course, preclude us from looking for more data. But if we're trying to determine a course of action in the meantime, it's again wishful thinking to just assume that any new data we might find will ultimately bear out the conclusion we want it to.
Of course, that continent also made his basic idea wrong too. You can't get to India by sailing west from Europe, not without going a considerable distance out of your way to the south.
Lots of people with incorrect ideas have the courage of their convictions, but this doesn't magically convert their ideas into correct ones.
As far as "theater" goes, it came into Middle English from Old French, and no, the spelling wasn't standardized at all, not then and not later at the point of divergence. At the time the American colonies were being settled, the i vs. j distinction wasn't not clear, and v/u/w was a matter of preference. (The Latin isn't relevant to this discussion, as it didn't end in either -re or -er in any declension I'm aware of.) The -re ending is phonetic in French, but not in either variety of English. But that's neither here nor there. I have no idea why you think we should hew to French spellings in this area alone, where most other French borrowings of that era have been more thoroughly Anglicized. (For example, "beef" from the Middle French "buef", modern French "boeuf", which is not pronounced "beef".)
If Pearl Harbor was originally Pearl Harbour it's because the British named it, they being the first Westerners to discover the place. Americans would naturally adopt the American spelling for it.
I'm not pompous, I'm pedantic. If I were pompous I'd use bigger words.
Because, you know, there are no other chat rooms anywhere else on the Internet.
In other words, neither is quintessentially correct, since both are "evolutions of what it's based on" if by "based on" you mean 17th Century Midlands -- which is itself based on earlier dialects.
"Theatre" is therefore incorrect because it's part of the name of an American building, in a place where standard orthography would have "theater". It's pretentious because it reflects exactly the attitude you do in your post.
Besides, that wasn't the parent's logic, it was yours.
The press doesn't harp on it much, but anytime they mention it they call it the next big pandemic. National Geographic covers it in the current issue, and they've got a little presentation about it on their website.
I'd expect the magnitude of whatever change happens to be significantly different, but the direction of the change to be the same, given the same stress.
This is untrue on a kg for kg basis. One kg of hydrogen yields about as much energy as one gallon of gasoline, but the gallon of gasoline weighs 2.8 kg.
2. Hydrogen is REALLY difficult to store.(blah, blah...)
So you don't store hydrogen. You store it as some compound that you can reform either in the vehicle or at the fueling station. You don't run cars on liquid hydrogen anyway, you run them on compressed gaseous hydrogen. And it doesn't pass through a properly designed container, not quickly anyway. Just ask NASA.
3. Hydrogen burns very fast in comparison to gasoline. This makes engine design much more difficult and shortens the life of components.
That's why you don't burn it. You make electricity from it in fuel cells.
4. Hydrogen explodes nicely.
No it doesn't, not in the open anyway. You only get an explosion if it's contained, and it disperses very quickly.
For more information see here and elsewhere here.
If you knew what he was talking about, why did you insist on twisting it in a different direction?
Yes, but that's not what he was talking about. He was talking about this kind of thing, as should have been transparently clear.
However, "ontology recapitulates phylogeny" in the sense meant by the original poster, where embryos at certain stages actually resemble earlier forms, certainly is false. See the wiki.
The point is it isn't true in observation not as a "law", "theory", or "rule of thumb". It simply isn't true. It holds only because it's pithy, and for no better reason. _Please stop comparing embryos and oranges.
First, as another comment here points out, "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" is a myth. In what ought to be one of the more embarrassing episodes in the history of evolutionary biology, it's been shown that Ernst Haeckel, who concocted the idea, falsified the illustrations by which he "proved" it. This was discredited a long time ago, but it continues to be cited by believers. You have to look at actual embryos to realize they don't much resemble Haeckel's drawings.
I'm not a seven-day creationist myself, but with things like this going on is it any wonder that many creationists see evolutionary biology as nothing more than a philosophical/religious idea and not a science? It does not help matters when evolution advocates demonstrate no better understanding of the science than creationists! It's not just you; apparently there are at least a few /. moderators who are equally ignorant.
Second, you've gotten the way evolution works exactly backwards. More advanced forms often to resemble the juvenile stages of the earlier, not the other way around. This is called "neoteny". The "chick" comparison here isn't because dinosaurs resembled juvenile birds but because their primitive feathers resembled the pinfeathers that now appears on chicks strictly for insulation.
Which is, after all, only to be expected. The flight feathers on archaeopteryx are already fairly advanced, complex structures. They must have existed in a simpler form on other dinosaurs, and since it has been long believed that dinosaurs are warm-blooded it could have been predicted (and for all I know, it was) that we'd find them as simple insulation, probably as an adaptation of scales. This is not at all a surprising discovery.
I played Myst, and it was... OK. I mean, the graphics were well-rendered, if no more dynamic for the quality than the technology of the time permitted. But honestly, the whole thing was nothing more than an elaborate Hypercard stack and the puzzles were nothing too difficult. I've always had trouble understanding what all the shouting was about.
What does agriculture have to do with this?
It says something about me that I posted what I did knowing perfectly well that I was setting myself up for this kind of thing.
Parent post was funny. Sibling posts are not.
Where's that (-1, Lame) moderation when we really need it?
Or if by that you meant that fluctuations in solar output somehow magically gets smoothed over by the ecosystem, sorry. I'm no expert on thermodynamics, but if you increase the energy you're pumping into a system, there must be some effect. Energy doesn't just go away. The system's processes must somehow take it in, but they're not going to be unaffected. The energy equation must balance.
But yes, there are indications that Mars is also experiencing global warming. That means our own problem may be self-correcting in the short term -- or it may be a new long-term or permanent state of affairs, to which we may well be contributing to some degree but over which we may not have much control regardless, at least at this particular point.
To which I would reply, So what? That we can get away with polluting our atmosphere isn't a good reason to keep doing it. If this does turn out to be a false alarm as far as anthropogenic global warming is concerned, then I hope it's taken as a warning or wake-up call rather than an excuse to pollute more. Because if it's not our fault this time, there may yet come a time when it is. I'd prefer that we never reach it if we haven't already.
Hey, United? Can I have a dime? Pleeeeeeeze?
Pfft! With a UID of almost 800000? Who'd buy it? Even a 5-digit UID isn't particularly l33t.
And of course, the annoying lag when keying anything in is Windows pure and simple.
So would I, but do you really need the Q3 source for that?
BMW for the most part, although others are mentioned in this particular article. Oddly enough, they have had the occasional problem although I think by now they've worked most of the bugs out.