jfields

Thanks! Why, yes, yes it is. Now if only I could get a child-sized dropzone.com t-shirt for Lucy, all would be well in the world. ::cough:: Sangiro! ::cough::

I'm assuming that was a rhetorical question, because of course, nobody needs a degree in either of those.

Lucy isn't eating Freebirds burritos either, so I bet her ass smells a hell of a lot better than his does too!

Diaper? You mean she is supposed to wear a diaper? What Chris said, NacMac!

Take her to the supermarket, of course! 20.5 pounds of cuteness.

What Kris said may or may not be what you are thinking of as far as the insurance. I bought third-party AD&D (accidental death & dismemberment) insurance through the USPA. It is not covered as a member benefit, but getting it through the organization may give you better rates than you could get otherwise.

I don't think time is altered by our perception of it. I agree that the perception is based on lots of different things. Position, velocity, brain type, etc. It is appears different in freefall than it is on the ground, or awake versus asleep. But those are merely our perception of time, not time itself. A blind person's perception of color is different than a seeing person's, which is different still from an insect's multifacted eyes or an owl's better night vision, etc. If color is the spectrum of wavelengths, it isn't changed by whatever subset of it or intepretation of it a being has. I would say time is based on "observation point", rather than on "observer". Fine distinction, but one worthy of making. I understand exactly what you are saying about seeing events in the past, based on the speed of light. The same event, your supernova, would have happened at a time, relative to being close to its location, and long ago, relative to being far away, whether there were people, or aliens there to notice the difference or not. Extradimensional beings would perceive time in a totally different way. But that is still perception, not a change in the time dimension itself. It is like a million people looking at a painting. They all see it different ways, but the painting is the same. It would be the same if there was nobody there to see it. I'm agreeing with everything your saying about location, velocity, time dilation, etc., except the assertion that people have to be there for it to exist.

Kinda, sorta. Time is a measurement, not a substance or type of energy. Agreed. So is distance. But the sun would still be the same distance 93M miles, whether anyone was alive to know it or not. If humans were all instantly annhilated, the earth would still travel the rotational path around the sun. The time it takes would still be the same, relative to the positions of the sun and earth. There are two ways to look at the "tree falls and nobody hears it, does it make a sound" issue, scientifically, or philisophically. I'm not going to address the philisophical one, but the scientific answer is yes.

I'd say that time is relative to the position of the observer, where one exists, but that time itself exists whether an observer does or not.

Is this your day job or your night job?

Ask Stephen Hawking. I sure as hell can't explain it.

No problem. It isn't nearly as instigating or tempting for rebuttal as Zenister's.

They aren't allowed to stop yet. Especially Sinker, since I wrote a long post at the top of this page in response to him that nobody but FliegendeWolf has even acknowledged.

Yes, you are.

Did anyone hear anything? ... anyone ? ... ... Didn't think so!

I don't know if I can fit in both a small keg and a 5-gallon fermenter. I'll see. I can already see this thing being attacked by the dremel tool and the hot glue gun. I'll have to remove most or all of the shelves, maybe all the door compartments, and stuff like that. Depending on the exact shape/configuration, I may put a reinforced floor in it so I can fit the fermenter easily and flat. How dorky am I if I ask for a temperature controller for Father's Day.

I have some stouts and porters made at home already. I really like them, but I also wanted the flexibility to make some nice crisp lagers. Now I just need an annex for the brewery expansion.

I used to know somebody named Remster, but now, you are dead to me!

Okay, you homebrewers will appreciate this, and understand my glee. A co-worker of mine is remodeling his kitchen and is getting rid of a working full-sized refridgerator. I convinced my wife that I really, really do need a separate one just for making lagers. We have a fridge/freezer in our kitchen. Downstairs, I have a full-sized freezer, a medium-sized fridge for storing food (beer!), plus now I'll have a dedicated one downstairs for lagering. Starts preparing to make dopplebocks, helles, oktoberfest, pilseners and kolshs. Wahoo! Damnit, we need a beer icon!

Since it will be said anyway, let me go ahead and do it with all sincerity... Boobies are great!

Seeing that this thread is still going, I'll pitch in some more. Sorry in advance about the length... I don't believe in God, but I don't quite see things the same as Zenister, either. Somewhere in between. Though not religious, here are some of the things I see religions (of many types) offering to their adherents: 1. Social interaction with likeminded people 2. Answers to complex questions about life 3. A prepackaged set of morals to live by 4. An infrastructure for communal worship 5. A sense of historical identity 6. A hope for some type of afterlife None of those things are inherently bad. I get those things from that list that I value in other ways. If people want to get them through a religion, that is great. I have no belief or interest in an afterlife, but no objection to those who do. The "prepackaged morals" of many religions are fairly similar to each other, and remarkably like those of "good" people that don't adhere to any religion. Is there a difference between hanging out with fellow skydivers and with people in your religion? Not much. The church is better maintained than a DZ and has fewer ratty sofas. The DZ frequently draws people from farther away for longer periods of time. Both are social places where people share something of great meaning to them. Both require infrastructure to support activities that can’t be supported individually. It take everyone pitching in financially to pay a pastor or pilot. Collective money from participants goes to church renovations or new Otter engines that no one person could afford. The economies of scale draw people together to enable them to have a place and method for their endeavors. How did mankind begin? Where did the universe come from? Life has lots of big questions. I have secular answers to some of those questions that satisfy me. Where I don’t have answers, I’m content to be living as a tiny piece of a mystery the size of the universe. To me, “I don’t know” is a perfectly valid answer. Some people prefer to attribute a cause or reason for something to God. Whatever. I’m not going to beat people up and tell them my answers are right where theirs are wrong, because there is no way to prove whether they are or not. As long as they satisfy me, that is all that matters. If other people do the same, everyone is happy. As to a sense of historical identity, there are tons of ways to look at it. You could be part of a skydiving lineage stretching from Charles Lindbergh to Lew Sanborn to Patrick de Gayardon to yourself. You could be part of an American history with a focus on your nation. You could see yourself as part of a religion stretching back hundreds or thousands of years (depending on which one), with famous people, events and customs. You could pick and choose from any number of personal ways to identify yourself and give yourself a context in history. None of them is wrong, and they can certainly overlap. These are all good things that religion can do. Now, on to the places where I have problems with religion, and participants in religions… Religion is not any more valid than another way of self-actualization or personal identification. It is not the only way to answer any of life’s questions. It is simply one of a huge array of possible ways to see things. “Because it is in the Bible” is not an ironclad assertion of validity. It is fine to believe in something intangible or unproveable, but most definitely not acceptable to insist that others do the same. Religion is not an acceptable reason to close people out of opportunities, hate people whose flavor of religion is different, or come right out and kill them. Religion is not full of universal truths. Catholics and Buddhists don’t see things the same way. Neither do Catholics and Protestants, and they are from much more similar backgrounds. Which one is right? Are any, all or none? I don’t know, but it doesn’t honestly matter. As long as people can learn to play nice with people of other religions (or lack of religions), it is all good. Unfortunately, that tolerance and acceptance has been pretty hard to find. History is full of bloody examples where it has failed. Those lessons, along with contemporary ones, are major reasons many atheists are pushed from ambivalence toward religious people to a reaction mixed between scorn, antipathy and condescension. Everyone can believe whatever they want. They can feel free to talk about their beliefs all they want as well, but to be prepared to be equally respecting of the other person’s view and the fact that it is as “correct” as your own. Edited for typo.

I host my own as well, to avoid people getting pop ups from my site. Some people don't even realize people see pop ups on their site because it is hosted by some cheesy freebie service. As to other site when I'm surfing, pop-up blockers help a lot! There are tons of different ones, with slightly varying takes on how to do it. I've used Proxomitron and Easy Surfer. But there are tons of them, so take your pick.

Viking, If you've read the gun control debates, you'll know I am no big fan of personal handgun ownership. But we aren't talking about that here, and I have to pitch in my $.02. Have you ever fired a handgun? Have you ever received professional (military, police, etc.) training on it? It isn't easy like in the movies. The military taught me to aim for the center of mass to kill people. You don't aim at the head, because while a hit is more effective there, you are dramatically raising your chance of missing. A shot more than about 4 inches high, right or left would leave them uninjured and shooting back at you. An equally off shot aimed center of mass is still a hit directly to the torso. After the first hit, then maybe you can be picky, but get the first shot in to take them down. Any law enforcement folks care to corroborate?

And they are undoubtedly the two cleanest blocks in the entire city. Not a single damned roach, mouse or germ. All killed by the constant fumigation hell you unleash as you walk back and forth.

I'd give that a big hearty "Amen", but I'm an atheist.