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Would that mean that the evaporation rate would actually remain constant if the surface area was always directly proportional to the overall volume? As I think it would be in an equilateral cone. I don't think this is dependent on 'real world' conditions by the way.

Actually maybe this is the important bit?

There's some truth to this, but it's not really a paradox. First of all, and most importantly, water is always evaporating. The Sun's heat will make it evaporate quicker, and a body of water with a larger surface area will evaporate at a greater rate, but liquids evaporate anyway. In addition...

Well you've been quite selective in your Wiki-ing: So conspiracy theory should by no means be understood as simply a pejorative term. And it most certainly does not mean a theory that is by definition 'untrue'. But OK, we can talk about common usage. How did the term come by this 'current...

What kind of 2-bit operation do you think you are dealing with here? http://dissensus.com/showthread.php?t=1677 Actually it's not much of a thread. It deserves more. Trapped In The Closet is kind of astonishing, and while I'm not sure if that's necessarily a good thing, it's fairly rare.

What's yer problem. That's why I said there was Satanists and there was Satanists. The ones who believe in Satan are generally spotty metallers. A bit like existentialists.

Well again you're working from this idea that you think if it has been called a 'conspiracy theory' then it must be about TOTAL CONTROL BY SOME GUY IN A ROOM SOMEWHERE. It's not, but bad things happen. And you're saying that something you think is implied by something you think someone else...

I know.

It was you that implied a dichotomy between holding that a 'small group controls everything', which is a 'strawman' idea again anyway, and a 'stochastic' reading. But yes it's good to remind ourselves what that means. This never stops some groups trying, constantly. Hence, much of history...

Would probably be an idea to start building one these, just in case - http://www.xinventions.com/main/spud/pac6.htm

Someone's enjoying it all anyway - http://gawker.com/5035885/bush-looking-drunk-at-the-olympics

:) Well I hope it's taken in a spirit of good humour. But I think vimothy's point is largely absurd, ridiculous, offensive even! 'Comforting' FFS. It's just cheap pseudo-psychologising nonsense. There might be some people who get a kick out of imagining all sorts of horrendous things going on...

Looking at all of this now I think something rather odd has happened here, and perhaps more broadly, in discussing conspiracy, and it really should have been apparent sooner. That is, the conflating of the idea of the 'classic' extreme paranoid conception of the universe, with the expositor /...

This is carp IMO. For a start it's a false binary and the same kind of broad-stroke thinking as in the article that spawned this thread. It's also essentially getting into a discussion of perception and cosmic ontology which move I think demonstrates clearly the pervasive assumption that if a...

Maybe not so relevant to this discussion, so it's just as an aside, but as I suggested above I think in essence the basis of religion was enquiry into existence and the forming of theories based on evidence - some of the earliest gods being the obvious Sun, Earth, Moon etc. They were powerful...

Did you read the whole speech? I don't think he is trying to undermine atheism as a belief system, at least not explicitly, more trying to get at the fact that while a definition of 'atheism' may not be straightforward, a discussion of what is behind it can be useful in examining the dynamics of...

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value=""></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> The Teardrop Explodes - The Culture Bunker (Old Grey...

So some of the shots of the opening ceremony fireworks were 'faked' up with CGI apparently! Cool. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/olympics/2534499/Beijing-Olympic-2008-opening-ceremony-giant-firework-footprints-faked.html I didn't think it was all that impressive what I saw of it...

Good article on some of this from the AB of C here. I guess he's someone who's had to give the matter some serious consideration! ;) The point is that atheism is to be defined as a system only by some dramatic intellectual contortions. A number of intellectual and spiritual policies involve or...

I came into this on the 'what is atheism'* question really. Then mostly my disagreement was with some of the definitions of 'religion'. Until vimothy started trying to designate my stance variously as PoMo, New Age, Atheist, Utopian or whatever, and saying I didn't understand religion as a...