Anjin-san

Well, I don't think there's any approach he'd reject, so long as it doesn't interfere with whatever medical treatment he will be getting (was only diagnosed in the last week or so, and he's still undergoing further testing), so please, any ideas are welcome. Thanks!

Hi, everyone, A good friend was recently diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma. It's considered treatable, but incurable. If any with medical expertise could reply with suggestions, ideas, whatever, I'll link this thread to him. I know he would appreciate it, and so will I! He sent me this link, asking for my thoughts, but I have almost no knowledge in this area, so I don't think my opinion would be very valuable. Please review and comment. http://lowdosenaltrexone.org/ldn_and_cancer.htm Thanks in advance!

If the heating throughout the oven were smooth and even, with no hot or cold spots, it might be simple arithmetic, but it doesn't work that way. For a liquid in a single container, it might, but probably not for foods on a plate. Here's a nice video that explains the oven's principles - around 2:15 he shows a neat experiment that might clear it up a bit (it did for me): https://youtu.be/kp33ZprO0Ck (if this post shows up twice, it's because I tried to embed the video the first time, requiring moderator approval)

I would much rather focus on quality of life, which requires respect for the non-aggression principle, than quantity. "nathanm" summed it up nicely: See the earlier fiction of Larry Niven, for example. His future society achieved immortality through drug discoveries, and though organ transplants. The elites made more and more laws punishable by death - on the operating table, where organs were harvested to feed their own demand. Eventually, even jaywalking was a capital crime (if I recall correctly), and death was the only punishment. I would not, however, initiate force to prevent voluntarily-funded research.

I did a little poking around on the topic of "irreducible complexity," and found this page, the first of a series of questions and answers with Eugenie C. Scott on the DNA Learning Center website. I found it helpful. The rest of the questions are below under "Related content" - they're listed out of order, but numbered. Intelligent Design and Creationism as Science One thing I'd like to bring up from earlier in this thread, though, is the idea of "fully-formed species." Fully-formed by what standard? What are the criteria for an animal being "fully-formed?" If it's able to survive and reproduce in its environment, even if conditions are promoting further adaptations, sounds fully-formed to me, but I'm no biologist.

I don't think you were paying close attention, or quit partway through. This is a man in the early stages of doubt. He is rejecting conventional religious teachings, and is even starting to question the idea of a god, and is agonized enough about it to put his thoughts to music and in film. I hope he keeps asking questions, and we can see & hear where it takes him. Thanks very much to the OP for posting these!

I'd say the first 4 seconds sums up the statist position succinctly: https://youtu.be/wj0aH_PiAnI (sorry, don't know how to embed video here)

Well, crud... missed the asterisk to the tiny footnote that said no weekend service at my station... found out from a jogger, and the parking at the next station was so inaccessible, I missed the train there by about 2 minutes If you get this in time, how late do you all hang out? Next train is at 2:00, so I wouldn't get there until probably 4:00.

Thanks, Millie. I'll be coming in on a different line, so it looks like I'll be walking a couple blocks from Union Station to the Brown Line, and getting off at Belmont - not the most interactive of maps, though (imagine that from a gov't website). See you as close to 2:00 as the system allows!

Thanks, Millie. I joined the Meetup group, and just RSVPd. What El line do I take from downtown, and what's the best stop to get off at? I'm coming in from the 'burbs on the Metra. Thanks, looking forward to meeting everyone!

I was surprised by this one - in a scene where Richthofen asks a nurse about the health of an Allied pilot he shot down: Nurse: "Do you really care, or are you just curious?" Richthofen: "The latter." Nurse: "At least you're honest." Richthofen: "It's a start, isn't it? Can you be caring without being curious in the first place?" You can find philosophy in the strangest places, once you're open to it.

Around 36:00, "Al-qaeda has been decimated." Politicians choose words very carefully, and the original meaning of "decimate" is to kill 1 in 10. So, it's possible the truth was told plainly and openly.

You're asking more than i'm capable of, especially since it's been so long since I read it, but here's the gist: *Spoiler alert* The main character, the result of a centuries-long secret breeding program, has his latent future-seeing abilities greatly enhanced by an overdose of a drug already known to bring out prescience in others, to differing and lesser degrees. He uses these abilities to win a war which frees an oppressed planet's population, giving him an army of what become fanatics of a religion that grows up around him, due to his seemingly godlike powers. These fanatics, which he is powerless to control, then wage a jihad against the rest of the populated galaxy, spreading this religion, and thus rule by the priests of this religion, over the galaxy. His vision of the future also show the extinction of humanity if its current course remains unaltered. Feeling helpless to change it, or unwilling to embark upon the self-imprisoning and violent course to do so, he chooses to walk away from what he has begun. His son, however, has no such moral compunctions, and takes steps not only to acquire this godlike prescience, but near-immortality, at the cost of his own humanity and any real self-determination, locking himself and mankind on a course to prevent their extinction. He does what so many rulers throughout history have done: use his power to rule as a tyrant "for the greater good." We are led to view this as a true sacrifice on his part, however, having committed himself to millenia of boredom, knowing what's to come and powerless to change it except through the forced-stagnation that he inflicts on mankind. It's multiple volumes, which can hardly be condensed into a few paragraphs, but never did Herbert portray these characters as gods in the mythical sense, so we can't really deal with the issue of omnipotence. Well worth reading, in my opinion.

It's been a while since I read it, but I think Frank Herbert dealt with the boredom and helplessness of prescience quite nicely in his Dune series.

Calling someone a "creep," as a noun, is quite different from calling them "creepy." I've always thought of "creep" as being synonymous with "asshole." Someone who's "creepy," however, is one you get a very bad feeling from, and would never leave alone with children, or wouldn't want to be alone with as a woman. I think you were using "creep" correctly, which is a much less personal or damning word.

"The Bothersome Man" - A man finds himself in a hell I think many of us can relate to. Norwegian with subtitles (original title "Den brysomme mannen"). I watched it on Comcast On Demand (free movies), but you can find it other places if you're resourceful. Makes me dread the upcoming holiday drivel that passes for conversation...

You could also try setting it up in a dual-boot configuration, repartitioning the hard drive for two operating systems, but make sure you have a FULL hard drive image backed up first! Frankly, though, it might be less painful to buy an old PC from Craigslist or other and play with Linux on that. You can find early 2000s Pentium-4 machines for $50 or so (I know because I trying to clear space and was considering selling one there). Good luck!

The characters were highly stylized, and deliberately so (Rand herself wrote about this), carrying each character's beliefs and principles to their logical extreme. It was an artistic device.

It could be password-protected, and not editable. By the way, I've always had good luck with Cute PDF Writer, the free version. Good luck!

Hi, everyone, A customer for whom I've done a fair amount of work (IT support) recently asked me to come to a presentation about a multilevel marketing-based company he's become involved in. He's a small business owner, and I was already approached by one of his employees about this, but I turned down the invitation - not strongly enough, it seems. When he called a couple days ago, I reluctantly said that I'd be willing to go to the presentation, but that the odds of my becoming involved were low, especially since the product of the company is self-help, "leadership," "life-coaching" materials, and so forth (link: http://www.life-leadership-home.com/ ), and that because of my intense interest in philosophy, I would have to be very, very certain that the products were in line with that. I did quite a bit of thinking about this over the weekend, as well as perusing some of their offerings, a came to the conclusion that it wasn't for me, even if I could "get behind" the products (I couldn't). This type of marketing doesn't fit my personality, and that I know I would never enjoy it. The presentation was scheduled for the evening, and I called in the morning and told him that I had thought about it, but had decided to pass, because it wasn't my kind of thing. He told me "You don't know that, because you haven't heard what it's about. You're not making an informed decision, but if you want to make an uninformed decision, that's fine." (old-time aggressive sales-pitchy language and tone, which puts me off). I said that regardless of the information in the presentation, I knew myself and my personality, and that it wouldn't be a good fit. He said again that I didn't know that (as if he knew more about me than I do.) I said thanks, but I'll pass on the presentation, but he's welcome to talk to me in private about it sometime if he'd like. I've been to a couple of seminars for MLM companies before, and do not like the high-pressure closing techniques they use - reminds me of an initial Landmark Forum presentation, which I'd also been to once, years ago. How would others have handled this? I should probably have been more assertive and refused the initial invitation. I should probably also not have left the door open to discussing it in private. I don't want to jeopardize future business with him, but I also didn't appreciate the pressure to become involved in something having nothing to do with my area of expertise. I don't know for certain, but I get the impression that he's pressuring his employees to join this as well, which I think is unwise. Thoughts? Thanks in advance!

I had a nice, long reply extolling the virtues of Virtualbox, which I use with great results (and even have a 77-year old client who uses it to run Windows Vista from within Linux Mint), but then noticed the "PPC." It turns out that Virtualbox doesn't work on a PowerPC Mac. I did find this page, however, which looks like the right stuff, which is what Undelution1982 recommended: Virtual PC Good luck!

"True or False: "Quantitative easing has massive advantages when done correctly." ?? True. I don't know what "correctly" means in this sentence, but "quantitative easing" has massive advantages. The only question is: for whom?

I came across this audio clip while looking for other material from a fine actor, Victor Buono, probably best known (to those who know him at all) as King Tut from the '60s TV series Batman. I'll withhold comment for now:

To be truly precise, which is very important in debating, "atheist" does not mean "against theism" or "against god(s)." The prefix "a" means "not" or "without." It does not mean "against." "Anti" means "against." So, to be "a-theist" means to be without theism, or not thiest, and thus not a believer in god(s), from "a theos," meaning "without a god." The word was created by rational people, not irrational people, to be precise in communication, and not to denigrate those that disagree with them. How irrational people intend that word to be understood when they use it may be another matter, however, on which I will not comment here.

If you're trying hard to be atheist, you'll never become atheist. It's like struggling for serenity. You can, however, try hard to understand that gods are logical contradictions, to understand reality and search for evidence that won't be found, and to deal with the emotional turmoil that years of programming will bring up when you even consider atheism. For me, after doing this work and finally understanding the logic, I just relaxed into atheism. I was just ready, and I had my "Ah ha!" moment. Do the work, and just be honest.