101. Beauty ad banned after Christian outcry

Comment #142541 by babrock on March 12, 2008 at 4:50 pm

They had to wait for John to die befor any Beatle songs were used in any adds. I still get quite upset whenever I hear any of their songs being used to sell crap. I think our using "Imagine" is an exception for obviose reasons.

I understand that t word "royal" is owned by t queen or something like that in England.Here in Merca we sell "royal" this, that, and everything. Same for "Presidents choice".

Since nothing I cared about was prostituted I wasnot upset at all and I find it odd that any of us would be. For other reasons I am surprised that any xtian would be troubled by it. Go figure.

For me, it was as if they had made a wish upon a star or to a lepracan.

Also I prefered t one in English w/ t little girl wishing not to grow up a wanker

102. Discovery Challenges Finding of a Separate Human Species

Comment #142501 by babrock on March 12, 2008 at 3:07 pm

Steve

I have only read a thing or two on t matter so I could well be off on this but this is how I understand it anyway.

Isolated on islands predators get smaller, tho it may only be only apex predators. Animales that get eaten evolve to larger sizes.

I donot understand completely all t reasons for of this and I may have gotten it reversed but I donot think so.

This group of humaniods, after decending from another group, managed to obtain t apex position and therfor evolved to be smaller. They apearantly did not evolve too much to have become a separate specis tho.

103. Discovery Challenges Finding of a Separate Human Species

Comment #142142 by babrock on March 12, 2008 at 4:10 am

Sonomonkey
I have read that, what constitute a separate specis is if they canot interbread succesfuly, like you were saying, I think.
Lions and tigers produce infertil lygers and so are separate specis.
Grizzly and polar bears produce cubs that have problems but they can breed so they are not.
As I understand this artical, they are saying that this was merely a group of humans that had evolved smaller, due to island survival preasures,not yet evolved into a group saparate enuf that they canot breed w/ regular sized humans.
I think anyway.

104. Seven new deadly sins: are you guilty?

Comment #141601 by babrock on March 10, 2008 at 8:25 pm

Two thins come to my mind.

1."ecccesive acumulation of wealth" is bad. Thats rich, coming from t Catholic Church.Wheather veiwed as a corperation or a country I am sure they are among t richest on t planet.This would be fogivable in my book, as they do a fair amount of helping t poor, if it were not so big on ridiculously opulent interior decorating, clothing, real estate, ect..
2. "Genenetic engineering is bad" I saw something recently ( I think on TV ) that we ae now dependent on science for our very survival. I think that they might even have specificaly mentioned genetic plant engineering as one of t technologies that we might specsificaly need to deal w/ food and energy production if we are to survive.

105. Contribute to science directly by volunteering some of your computer's processing power!

Comment #140968 by babrock on March 9, 2008 at 9:13 am

Well there.
I think I turned on everything soas to help out w/ t malaria thing.
So far at no aprecietable cost to me at all, so long as nothing happens.
Thanx again for t link.
I donot think I could have done it otherwise.

106. Contribute to science directly by volunteering some of your computer's processing power!

Comment #140959 by babrock on March 9, 2008 at 8:02 am

Damnit
I got up to where I was asked if I wanted it to be running only when I was logged in (which was recomended)or when it I was logged in as well as when I wasnot, or something about w/ another user( t wife, who feels t same as I do on it (talk about t blind leading t blind)).
Now as I donot think that I do anything that uses much RAM or memory or whatever, I can easily imagine it running when I am logged in not being a big problem at all. T problem is that as I understand this so poorly I can also imagine that it could be.
I have crashed or whatever this thing a time or few w/out understanding at all what had happened.
And as I read some people saying that t BOINC could be installed such that it only ran when one wasnot logged in I canot help but be concerned.

107. Contribute to science directly by volunteering some of your computer's processing power!

Comment #140952 by babrock on March 9, 2008 at 7:24 am

Geoff
thanx
I think I can manage that tho I have one short ?.

I havenot yet decided on what project I want to help out w/. I am rather sure tho I want it to be running only when I am not doing anything online.
I am asuming that isnot a problem w/ your "don't bother changing any of the settings" assertion.
I am just not sure about that minor thig is all.
Also note I manged to spell it out entirly since I was quoting you.

108. Contribute to science directly by volunteering some of your computer's processing power!

Comment #140946 by babrock on March 9, 2008 at 6:58 am

I am sold on this idea.
I understand this entire internet thing so poorly that I wouldnot see,notice, or understand whatever down side there may well be to it.
For me t problem is I donot understand how to engage t "start this up" button.
I can operate t TV remote well enuf but w/ all t options avaliable on this internet that is often not enuf, and this seems to be one of those cases. If this could be explained to me (and this probably will not be all that easy, as whatever expaination I am given might not be understood by me), I am in.

109. When blasphemy bit the dust

Comment #140913 by babrock on March 9, 2008 at 5:27 am

Suffolkthinker
Thanx imensly. That sounds quit interesting as I had no idea.Pure luck on my part that we, being new, have nothing like that.
I understand that t facet of law here that others find interesting is how diferent laws can be from state to state and city to city and such.
Not just that fireworks are illegal w/in most city limits but botion and prohibition laws being up to each state differ.( Tho I doubt if any entire state still practices prohibition)
Murder 1 in New York, I understand, only refers to if a cop is killed. Otherwise it is murder 2. Premeditated killing of anyone where I live is murder 1, I think.

110. When blasphemy bit the dust

Comment #140821 by babrock on March 8, 2008 at 5:10 pm

Living in Merca's bible belt we have more than our fair share of stupid laws like that.
Being a new country all of our stupid laws are relitivly new, post enlightenment I guess.
I am curios. Are these blasphemy laws in England also new or are they from HenryVIII or something older?

111. Out of the Blue

Comment #140814 by babrock on March 8, 2008 at 4:52 pm

Geoff
Thank you for your quite civil responce.
I atempted to responed in kind but as I type so badly I timed out and it is just way too much to do it all over again.
Sorry

112. Out of the Blue

Comment #140792 by babrock on March 8, 2008 at 3:49 pm

Another piont.
This one I know to be extremly trivial such that I feel bad wasting anyones time w/ it,including mine but here it is.
Why is it OK for people to have shortened "LOL" and "ROFLI" and such (only a fraction of which do I even know what it means) But not OK (w/ some people anyway) for me to have shortened "t" or "mil" or whatever.
Please donot take this badly as yes I do like whatever atention or responce i get as I am quite new to this whole internet thing, but please feel free to not go to what ever trouble it is for you.
Confesion here from me. I often donot read all of Steves or Paulas posts.They are too long for me w/ my lack of patienc even tho I always do apreciate what they do have to say. As I see it t diferenc is that I see this as a me problem, not a problem w/ someone whose posts are longer than I care to read.

113. Out of the Blue

Comment #140777 by babrock on March 8, 2008 at 3:10 pm

Another issue that may or may not have t least pertinance or rationality.
Besides t diferences btwn t number of nerons in t simulation and t 10 milx more in a human brain,that Steve mentioned, there is also t diference btwn info transmited by these conections.
In computers it is digital, such that there is a set number of posible values, depending on t resolution.
W/ organics I think t info is analog mostly is it not?
Such that w/ a computer w/ t resolution set to 1/10th there would be 10 posible values btwn 1 and 2 say. whereas w/ an analog system there are an almost infinet number of values btwn every 1/10th even.
So besides t diference of 10milx in t conections, there is also a diference of almost infinet btwn t values of t info.

114. Out of the Blue

Comment #140749 by babrock on March 8, 2008 at 2:11 pm

JD Cherry.
I am not going to say one way or t other weather this is a rational and pertinat responce to your concerns but it did make for a great short story.
Harlen Ellison wrote "I have no mouth and I can not scream."
T computer (Not restrained by Asimov's laws of robotics) suffered just t problems you mentioned-due to its design, it feels misery but canot do anything about it,not even scream.
In order to take its revenge on humanity, t computer kills all humanity save about 1/2 dozen which t computer tortures endlessly. In a heroic/human efort to escape t torture t remaining humans atempt mass murder/suicide at t moment that it apears they can get away w/ it.
This atempt is not quit succesful and t kicker is form of torture t computer mets out on humanity where they canot scream either finaly.

115. Feb 12th: Happy Darwin Day!

Comment #140736 by babrock on March 8, 2008 at 1:08 pm

I tried unsucsesfuly to post this corection earlyer.
This talk is taking place on BookTV.
and
This particular ftard wrote something about Darwin Day.

116. Feb 12th: Happy Darwin Day!

Comment #140725 by babrock on March 8, 2008 at 12:42 pm

FYI.
Some ftard from t Discovery Institute is starting up right now a talk billed as "how teaching Darwinism is contributing/causing t general degadation of morals in todays society."
This is w/ their brand new logo. I understand their old logo made it hard for them to deny their religous background as it had Michelangelos god touching a mortal.
This will be followed up, quit likely, by an explaination of how Katrina was caused by our homosexual population here in N.O..

117. A New Pope

Comment #140221 by babrock on March 7, 2008 at 4:03 am

Where can I get one of those light saber chalises to smight and vanquish mine enemies?

118. Fleas on the Horizon: In Defense of God

Comment #138614 by babrock on March 4, 2008 at 3:58 pm

Thats funny
I type so slowly that another universe was created and dicussed in some detail by a rather large number of people btwn when what i was writing about first happened and when it finaly gets posted,pages later.

119. Fleas on the Horizon: In Defense of God

Comment #138609 by babrock on March 4, 2008 at 3:50 pm

This is mostly just hair splitting but I think Steve is right on this.
Einstien, among others, usualy defined god basicaly as t laws of t universe.
Alternetivly, as magic and miricals can be indestingiushable from science we donot understand, a suficiently advanced alien would meet most definitans of god.
I think denying all posible gods might be a bit much.

120. Bulldozers tear down giant religious teapot

Comment #138576 by babrock on March 4, 2008 at 2:42 pm

I read one line of reasonableness in all of this.

Ayay Pin " holds that every religon is equally valid."

I canot argue w/ that, tho some are incrementaly more involved w/ self rightous bullying.

121. Please Call Earth. We Still Haven't Found You.

Comment #138212 by babrock on March 4, 2008 at 4:19 am

Mmurray
I think I read that same story as a kid also but I donot remember who wrote it, sorry.
It may tho have been in an anthology wherein was another story w/ 3 foot furry aliens. The astronots studying them were us. And t astronots discovered a statue that t furrys revered greatly.
T statue was of a hominid that looked like us rather than them and t kicker was that it must have been a statue of J.C. himself.

122. Please Call Earth. We Still Haven't Found You.

Comment #138207 by babrock on March 4, 2008 at 4:10 am

tacitus- Its not a big deal I guesse but thank you anyway for responding.
When I said living reasonably I meant managing just those issues you mentioned; resorces, overpopulation, and weapons ect.
Say, if we had evolved way more from something like banobos rather than chimps.
And I mentioned luck to deal w/ things like major solar events or other astronomical things like what killed t dinos.
W/ all t posible planets, it seems not that unlikely a posibility is all.

123. Please Call Earth. We Still Haven't Found You.

Comment #138085 by babrock on March 3, 2008 at 10:06 pm

In our case, sad to say, civilization ending in only a few decades is a distinct posibility.
Why tho is there an upper limit of 100 million years for civilization, in general, befor ending?
I donot know about any particular specis but dinos in general lived 150 million.
It seems reasonable to me that it is at least reasonably posible that a few civilizations could live reasonably and therefor could manage exsisting indefinetly (w/ some luck anyway).

124. Richard Dawkins' US Tour begins this week

Comment #138078 by babrock on March 3, 2008 at 9:33 pm

Paging Dr. Benway
Paging Dr. Benway
MY wife is enuf of Buroughs fan that she laffs at any reference. Tho we are both too new to t internet to have yet seen it at t Onion.

125. It's Make Believe!

Comment #137383 by babrock on March 2, 2008 at 7:01 pm

Hats optional.
Better than any religon that I know of.

126. Christopher Hitchens on Real Time with Bill Maher

Comment #137375 by babrock on March 2, 2008 at 6:24 pm

And too GOD IS NOT GREAT( I think. It could have been END OF FAITH tho I donot think so) had a chapter entitled "There is no answer in t east" or something similar wherein t author listed almost as many problems w/ Buddhism as w/ t other religons.
Included were its use to justify facism and Stalinism, and how in its martial form it was t impetus for t Emporer worship and all that Bushido code stuff that helped allow t Japanese to comit war crimes that rivaled those of t Nasis, all while feeling absolutely justified.

127. Christopher Hitchens on Real Time with Bill Maher

Comment #137367 by babrock on March 2, 2008 at 5:56 pm

This was what I wanted to say befor but Steve was talking about something els, but this seems like an ok opertunity.
No, it is not of world shaking importance but I too think Mayer is arogant and unfunny and probably a misoganist.
At t height of Lewinskygate Mayer ofered, in a tone that indicated that he thought this was t end all be all responce to t entire afair, that he would not have gotten into t situation that Clinton was then in because he "DIDNOT DATE UGLY WOMEN".
I donot see how anything would have been signifigantly diferent if t involved female looked like Uma Thurman or if Monica weighed a few pound less.
Maher was stating flatly that it would have.

128. Leaving the Faith

Comment #137356 by babrock on March 2, 2008 at 5:29 pm

Man.

This is so cool.

Some guy told me I needed to use t shift key.

But no.

One gets these cool white spaces by using t enter key.

I am amazingly new to this whole internet thing such that I am often amazed at what ever new thing I manege to learn.

Next I need to figure out how to put certain things in boxes and how to do those web addresses that one can then go to by clicking on.

And too it would be great if I could conect my spell check function to this part.

Man This is cool

129. Leaving the Faith

Comment #137346 by babrock on March 2, 2008 at 5:17 pm

Ayaan Ali apeared to me to not look too good.
I can imagine that having ones life threatened constantly can take its toll.
I hope her new security arangment works out for her.

130. Leaving the Faith

Comment #137296 by babrock on March 2, 2008 at 3:58 pm

Ayaan Ali apeared to me to not look too good. I can imagine that having ones life threatened constantly can take its toll. I hope her new securety arangment works out for her.

131. Christopher Hitchens on Real Time with Bill Maher

Comment #137242 by babrock on March 2, 2008 at 2:54 pm

Related to what Steve was saying in #215; Siskel or Ebert (famouse professional movie critics here in America) once said some things defending their position as movie critics. Basicaly they said that as they devoted way more time, efort, and atention to that particular field that therefor their opinions on t matter should be considered incramentaly more legit and serios, not that a non movie critics opinion was wothless in any way. I think any spiritual/phsycological advisor who does not take themselves too seriosly would say about t same thing

132. The Salamander's Tale

Comment #134378 by babrock on February 27, 2008 at 4:52 pm

ADePSP seemed to come a little close to answering my question. I did neglect t "?". But what he said in responce to my question(not that it was meant as a responce, esp as it came way befor) sounded merely like that t antievelutionists responce is to decide to retreat and split hairs, not a great position from where to start their unending atack on evolution, so again; Where do they get off asking for missng links? Am I mising something?

133. The Salamander's Tale

Comment #134372 by babrock on February 27, 2008 at 4:41 pm

I first came across this idea of t separation btwn species being an incremental thing only a couple years ago, I think in T BLIND WATCHMAKER. I think another species of birds was used. Previose to this I was quite ignorant of how new species came about. Other than a similar ignorance of just this state of affairs what is, or can be, t excuse antievolutionists have for asking for "missing" links in t fossil record and so forth when t links are right here staring us in t face. That some of them have gone extinct seems way easyer to belive than that none ever have.

134. Over half of Britons claim no religion

Comment #131565 by babrock on February 22, 2008 at 3:12 pm

AllanW Your Zappa thing reminded me of this. Not that I would have t balls to do this on anything important but I do remember answering;"science" and "yes,very" in responce to "What is your religon?" and "Does it have a big place in your life" on some form once.

135. Over half of Britons claim no religion

Comment #131561 by babrock on February 22, 2008 at 3:00 pm

Aaaaaha, Thank you

136. Over half of Britons claim no religion

Comment #131557 by babrock on February 22, 2008 at 2:54 pm

This Rowan Williams guy keeps being talked about at this site. I am new to this but I did google or what ever him and saw he was t Archbishop ect. ect.. I live in mercas' bible belt and we have our own set of fundy Ftards here but I am hoping someone can briefly explain how that works in England. I thought T King or Queen was head of t church of England (which I think I was a member of up to age 6). Is he like T vice-pope, am I totaly misunderstanding how this works(a rather likely posibility), or what?

137. Moral thinking

Comment #131544 by babrock on February 22, 2008 at 2:22 pm

Shaden. It took me a while to place that Riker but yeah, from " All Good Things" the last episode. Supossedly a third nacelle was almost usless but it helped make it look cool as hell when he blew thru T Klingon ship he had just turned to space debris. And on that idea of Pinkers' of t parts of speach being hardwired into us (at least I think that was what was being refered to), I had heard that atributed to Chomsky and I always thought that it was because that is all that there is. Like there are only two types of polygons w/ fewer than 5 sides. I am no big linguist. Only I remember not thinking nearly as much of that idea as t prof..

138. Missing link found in Sydney Harbour

Comment #130916 by babrock on February 21, 2008 at 1:42 pm

It seams to me that one doesnot evev have to go to t fossil record to see missing links. I saw this thing recently where polar bears can mate w/ grizzly bears. T cubs learn from t mom which to act like but they can sucsesfuly breed w/ either one, I think. It shouldnot be that hard to imagine t two species to otherwise to have evolved such that their offspring become sterile hybrids like those from horses and mules, or lions and tigers, or all t hybrid seed stock, ect.. And then to where they cannot produce offspring at all. And too, there are those birds that Dawkins taked about in "Blind Watchmaker" maybe, ring necked terns (again maybe). They could generaly breed w/ those nearby to both sides but not w/ those too far away.

139. Revealed: Secrets of the Camouflage Masters

Comment #130893 by babrock on February 21, 2008 at 1:06 pm

On some science show I saw t claim made that these cephalopods have an information procesing ability that rivals "higher" animals, posibly even humans. T diferance wasnot t amount of info but that t info in their case wasnot utalized for intelegence but instead as simple brute volume. Tho t idea that they are catagorizing t info into three types seams to show at least that level of inteligence.

140. DLD08 - Life: a gene-centric view

Comment #130822 by babrock on February 21, 2008 at 10:32 am

I am thinking this is related somewhat at least to t Digital Planet thing from befor w/ RD and Steven Pinker and a hugely impresive list speakers, all of whose talks were awsome so that itis one of if not my very favorite speaker video ever to have been put up on RDN. As such I am all that more diapointed at all t glitches. I apreciat all t sugestions regarding other ways to listen to this, but I am way too computer iliterate for any of them to be of any real practical value. Itis all Greek to me. I am figuring on being patient and hoping that it will get fixed up eventualy. If it does get done then here is my thank you ahead of time.

141. Bart Ehrman, Questioning Religion on Why We Suffer

Comment #130812 by babrock on February 21, 2008 at 10:14 am

I was initialy going to post something about asking whatis up w/ that atheistic perpective coming out of Eclesiastese untill I saw Chuckgoecke talking about t joke on his shirt. It reminds me of Andrew Dice Clay, a stand up comedian popular a couple decades back. I generaly thought he was funny. His schtick was going on like an unbeliviably stupid misogenistic jerk. He was regarded as being contraversial as I recall because some people thought t butt of his jokes were women, minorities, gays, or whatnot. It is definetly posible that I was missreading t whole thing but I always thought t butt of his jokes were himself and therefor anyone else as much of a dumb ass redneck as t charactor he was portraying.

142. Atheists An Increasingly Outspoken Minority

Comment #129958 by babrock on February 19, 2008 at 8:14 pm

A small point here in responce to logicell's and Abana's take on it still being dificult particularly here in t bible belt; It is a matter of degrees I am sure, but having lived in t bible belt for decades I can say that from my point of view life is undoubtably less of a series of instances of pursecution, that I imagine it once was for blacks, gays, and athiests. Not that I was ever on t front lines defending those minorities but still I got some crap for not being prejiduce enuf. Now tho it is prejudice that is more likely to be critisized. Tho I will say that progress on t athiest front has lagged behind t other two and that I have moved from a rural area to a city.

143. Bill Moyers Interviews Susan Jacoby

Comment #129032 by babrock on February 18, 2008 at 2:16 pm

Someone last Fri. alerted everyone on this website that this this was to be on that evening. I tho couldnot find it on either of t local PBS stations in our area. So I patrticularly want to thank Josh or whoever got this thing up so i can hear this.

144. Archbishop's 8 March centennial message: Let Sharia Law govern women's lives, Amen!

Comment #128675 by babrock on February 17, 2008 at 2:51 pm

I think that it is fairly easy easy for us here to ask why t woman put up w/ this crap and there may be a fair share of acomadation going on tho I have read a couple books on women living under t Taliban. One taught school to children illegaly, She, I belive, eventualy went to t U.N.. The other, Meena, became a bit of a folk hero resisting them befor she was eventualy killed. In those cases we, America, were funding T Taliban as they were t best bang for t buck in our fight w/ t Soviets and t women were left out in t cold.

145. Machines 'to match man by 2029'

Comment #128664 by babrock on February 17, 2008 at 2:27 pm

Joshua Thank you if you are still there. I have read other people make this same complaint but I have it a bit worse. By t time I am finished and I come back up t thread has moved on to things entirly diferent, tho I still feel that i am wasting time going on about this still. Yes if I couuld type, spell,HTTP, copy edit, ect better I would but as I curently have only t vaugest idea of how that stuff works for now I donot see any other option but to go on like this and hope I learn as I go. Also English wasnot best subject.

146. Machines 'to match man by 2029'

Comment #128655 by babrock on February 17, 2008 at 2:04 pm

Relating to brain/tech interface, I saw this thing where they can recognize t patern in t brain for recognition. I think they call it a murmer. They can use it as a type of lie detector among other things. It reliably can tell if a subject has been to a place befor or previosly met a given person. They do this w/o digitizing t brain info. If they can do that w/ that then they should also be able to have plenty of other brain/tech interface stuff.

147. Machines 'to match man by 2029'

Comment #128644 by babrock on February 17, 2008 at 1:53 pm

The shift key,for capital letters and such. What, I missed a capitalization at some point. I realize that I am a bit odd but I have trouble w/ thinking that you can be for real to think itis a reasonable way too spend ones time to rag someone for bad typing. I feel bad now having wasted all this time. There realy are more important thing to worry about. not that I have any kind of lock on what they are,

148. Machines 'to match man by 2029'

Comment #128639 by babrock on February 17, 2008 at 1:43 pm

Joshua dude I am honestly upset that my bad spelling and such upsets you so or anyone else whatever. i go out of my way to be self depricatig so i find it rather odd. I have mentioned this befor tho youll be forgiven if you missed it I am quite new to this, having gotten this thing. just last Sept. And also whenever I proofread too much I time out and I lose everythig. I will endevor to learn what t shift key does tho. thank you.

149. Archbishop's 8 March centennial message: Let Sharia Law govern women's lives, Amen!

Comment #128631 by babrock on February 17, 2008 at 1:29 pm

Trying to give this Rowen Williams guy t benifit of t doubt.(If it werenot for this site I'd'v never heard of him tho we have our own set over here.) What could he posibly mean by " family code of Sharia law" other than t misogeny, t honor killings, t apostacy issues, and t like? Is there anything good to it that I am unaware of. I honestly donot see any motivation for this than like was explained in t artical and demagogary.

150. Machines 'to match man by 2029'

Comment #128594 by babrock on February 17, 2008 at 12:34 pm

When I was in jr hi or so it was very much doubted wheather computers would beat humans at chess at t grandmaster level by t end of t century. Mid level players then laffed at how badly event best computers of t day played. Moors law, t computers cheating, or whatever Deep Blue beat Kasporov in 97 or so I would not want to bet against this guys prediction tho I would bet it will be too expecive for me and that whatever influece t nanobots will have on imortality will kick in not befor t day after I die.