The Refuge of the Toads

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

Didn't Phillip K Dick write at least one story where time didn't move on - and people were basically repeating the same year over and over again forever?

That was Groundhog Day. :) But seriously, I'm not a Dick expert. There was that Tom Cruise fiasco a year or so ago, where he lives the same day over and over.

Edge of Tomorrow? A "fiasco"? Are you drunk?

[Badger3k]

If 'black' and 'anal' were synonymous there wouldn't be anal bleaching.

It would explain Michael Jackson though...

[feathers]

Didn't Phillip K Dick write at least one story where time didn't move on - and people were basically repeating the same year over and over again forever?

That was Groundhog Day. :) But seriously, I'm not a Dick expert. There was that Tom Cruise fiasco a year or so ago, where he lives the same day over and over.

That's what Xenu does to you.

[Kirbmarc]

Meanwhile in my neck of woods (well, not really, but in my country), yesterday at 17:30 an unidentified man opened fired in a Zurich mosque/cultural center and injured three men who were in the mosque (two are severely injured).

Here's a more detailed article about the event (in German). The police has apparently found a yet-unidientified corpse near a gun 300 meters away from the mosque, under a bridge, near a wall covered in blood (possibly evidence of a suicide). The corpse might have been the shooter, but this is still not confirmed.

There will be a police press conference in about three hours where more details will be revealed.

[Badger3k]

I always thought that the replicant was his girlfriend, whatever her name was. I thought the "you'll see" (or whatever the last line was) referred to him getting hired to target her (or something similar). Also, weren't they talking about something or someone making replicants without an end date? Something new? It's been a long time since I saw the movie, and from what people have said, I have it backwards.

Rachael was a replicant, as Deckard recites her memories. What was always a controversy (because the film was released with the sequence edited out) is that Deckard is also a replicant, as revealed by Gaff's unicorn origami, which recalls Deckard's dream (the edited sequence). Or, at least, there is high probability that he is.

I'm probably not going to like the sequel. I'm not a huge fan of either Gosling or Leto. And it's only BR 2049 so that it happens 30 years after the original, to make Ford "age appropriate". But who knows, maybe it'll be great.

Explains it - I never watched the rerelease or the deleted scenes and whatnot. What they could have done though was make the movie only a few years after the first, thus using the "Decker is Replicant" to the fullest (although that would remove ambiguity unless they explained premature aging some other way). They would save on makeup. Thirty years might not be enough.

[Aneris]

Apparently, the Pakistani has forced a polish driver with his lorry to drive into the crowd and shot him afterwards, then escaped.

Apparently the 2nd guy was caught:

[.youtube][/youtube]

Yes, they have a Pakistani man who is the main suspect. It's unclear who drove, it's also possible that the polish owner was killed before and the Pakistani man drove himself. The lorry is from a polish haulier company owned by a relative of the polish man found shot dead.

But as transpired, some folks take issue that some first headline somewhere was too vague and sounded like the truck itself drove into crowd, or that some politician minutes later weren't willing to speculate. Though according to Spiegel the the top politicians of both major parties named it a (likely) terroristic attack already in the later evening, and hence I found the "Regressive Left" outrage over the top. Even if some local politician was naive immediately afterwards and rather wanted to see it as drunk driving than terror, as one person reports, I cannot find fault with it (I haven't watched TV yesterday, I only found out early this morning, and by then it was called likely terroristic attack already).

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

I liked the 'A Scanner Darkly' with Woody Harrilson (sp) and Robert Downy Jr.

It looked like it was filmed entirely in a version of rotoscope - and for most of the movie the guys sit around and talk about how they were ripped off on the purse of a 10-speed bike as they cannot count 10 gears on it.

It's like a updated stoner version of 'Waiting for Godot' (Which probably says how much profundity I expect from a Philip K Dick story).

It's called cell-shading.

[Keating]

Meanwhile in my neck of woods (well, not really, but in my country), yesterday at 17:30 an unidentified man opened fired in a Zurich mosque/cultural center and injured three men who were in the mosque (two are severely injured).

Here's a more detailed article about the event (in German). The police has apparently found a yet-unidientified corpse near a gun 300 meters away from the mosque, under a bridge, near a wall covered in blood (possibly evidence of a suicide). The corpse might have been the shooter, but this is still not confirmed.

There will be a police press conference in about three hours where more details will be revealed.

Steersman found.

[Keating]

Yes, they have a Pakistani man who is the main suspect. It's unclear who drove, it's also possible that the polish owner was killed before and the Pakistani man drove himself. The lorry is from a polish haulier company owned by a relative of the polish man found shot dead.

But as transpired, some folks take issue that some first headline somewhere was too vague and sounded like the truck itself drove into crowd, or that some politician minutes later weren't willing to speculate. Though according to Spiegel the the top politicians of both major parties named it a (likely) terroristic attack already in the later evening, and hence I found the "Regressive Left" outrage over the top. Even if some local politician was naive immediately afterwards and rather wanted to see it as drunk driving than terror, as one person reports, I cannot find fault with it (I haven't watched TV yesterday, I only found out early this morning, and by then it was called likely terroristic attack already).

On the other hand, you had the BBC reporting on the assassination on Turkey, who while showing the video of the assassin shouting 'Allah Akbar', said that the motives are not yet clear.

[Bhurzum]

[youtube][/youtube]

Jesus wept...

[Hunt]

Didn't Phillip K Dick write at least one story where time didn't move on - and people were basically repeating the same year over and over again forever?

That was Groundhog Day. :) But seriously, I'm not a Dick expert. There was that Tom Cruise fiasco a year or so ago, where he lives the same day over and over.

Edge of Tomorrow? A "fiasco"? Are you drunk?

Couple glasses of wine. That's not drunk, is it?

[feathers]

Couple glasses of wine. That's not drunk, is it?

Never.

http://www.returnofkings.com/wp-content ... -Glass.jpg

[Hunt]

Explains it - I never watched the rerelease or the deleted scenes and whatnot. What they could have done though was make the movie only a few years after the first, thus using the "Decker is Replicant" to the fullest (although that would remove ambiguity unless they explained premature aging some other way). They would save on makeup. Thirty years might not be enough.

Oddly enough, premature aging would also fit with the original, since J.F. Sebastian suffered from Methuselah Syndrome. They could have used that to foreshadow the premature ageing of Deckard.

On the other hand, I think it would have been cool to use Ford as the actor, then digitally youthen him throughout the entire film, which is now technically feasible. Then the could have been a near future sequel.

There are a lot of interesting permutations, given the film is about age and the fleeting nature of life.

[VickyCaramel]

Wow... yeah... well fuck you cunt. I share something that is improtant to me. I don't judge anyone else... nor do I judge their taste or experience. You decide to shit on me like some ass-hole middle-school hipster shouting about which band is really nest. You fucking twat. What's wrong with you?

I've noticed too that Vicky has become a right nasty shite in recent weeks. I think she decided to re-home the Sahara. In her vag.

I was always under the impression that this forum was frequented by freethinkers, sceptics and atheists. But apparently doing bigfoot scepticism is breaking a taboo, and the shrines of the Jewish death cult are still sacred.

[Shatterface]

I liked the 'A Scanner Darkly' with Woody Harrilson (sp) and Robert Downy Jr.

It looked like it was filmed entirely in a version of rotoscope - and for most of the movie the guys sit around and talk about how they were ripped off on the purse of a 10-speed bike as they cannot count 10 gears on it.

It's like a updated stoner version of 'Waiting for Godot' (Which probably says how much profundity I expect from a Philip K Dick story).

It's my favourite Dick book. It reminds me very much of my student days.

[MarcusAu]

Really? - you look more of a 'boat race' sort.

[Bhurzum]

I was always under the impression that this forum was frequented by freethinkers, sceptics and atheists. But apparently doing Boringfoot scepticism is breaking a taboo, and the shrines of the Jewish death cult are still sacred.

Holy elephants

Hide in plain sight

Fapping

Bhurzum, Selected Haiku, 2016

;)

[Bhurzum]

It's my favourite Dick book.

Now that's quote-worthy!

:lol:

[Kirbmarc]

I was always under the impression that this forum was frequented by freethinkers, sceptics and atheists. But apparently doing Boringfoot scepticism is breaking a taboo, and the shrines of the Jewish death cult are still sacred.

Don't be triggered. Your position on Bigfoot, while not as nutty as the average Bigfoot believer, isn't "skeptic".

The skeptic position is that claims require adequate evidence, and there's nowhere near adequate evidence for the claim that there's a population of some big primates has escaped detection but for a for a few grainy or distorted images, some unidentified sounds, some hair which, again, isn't identified, some footprints trail which look ambiguous and some anecdotal evidence, especially since there's no Bigfoot DNA collected, there are no bigfoot bones or bodies and even the fossile record is missing. All of the alleged evidence for Bigfoot is far from conclusive, and a lot of it is more easily explained in other ways.

Of course bigfoot believers are welcome to produce more evidence, but as of right now the skeptic position is to assume that bigfoot, defined as big, undetected primate living in the woods, is just as real as the Loch Ness monster.

Also calling a holocaust memorial "the shrines of a Jewish death cult" isn't going to win you many friends anywhere (except, probably, among Palestinians or Neo-Nazi groups). Imagine if someone called a WWI British memorial that celebrate the casualties of the British army "the shrines of a white guys death cult". Not only it's offensive (which you might care about or not), it's wildly inaccurate.

Holocaust memorials aren't a place of "Jewish" cult (believe it or not millions of non-Jewish people were also killed by the Nazi regime), just like WWI memorials aren't places of "white people" cult.

Saying that a Holocaust memorial is "the shrines of a Jewish death cult" is a precise political/ideological position, not "skepticism". Nothing wrong with you exercising your freedom of opinion, this is an open forum. Just don't expect everyone to agree with you because of "skepticism" or "freethinking".

The SJWs are all about claiming to be the "true skeptics" when they're actually embracing a precise ideological position. It seems to me that you're trying to do the same thing from another political perspective. It's not very accurate, to say the least.

[MarcusAu]

It's my favourite Dick book.

Now that's quote-worthy!

:lol:

It doesn't even have pictures. :cdc:

[Shatterface]

It's my favourite Dick book.

Now that's quote-worthy!

:lol:

I have a large Dick collection. Plus a shelf full of Moorcock.

[John D]

The holocaust memorial there is so moving.... one of my favorite places on earth.

You need to get out more.

Nothing wrong with me. I don't visiting death camps on my bucket list, it's not most people's idea of fun.

You don't even know what you are talking about.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_ ... _of_Europe

[Bhurzum]

I have a large Dick collection. Plus a shelf full of Moorcock.

Aw, it's no fun if you don't bite.

(I'll set this one up for a homerun)

[MarcusAu]

I remember Neil Gaiman saying that he would have probably been teased a lot more if he was born 10 years latter.

[Bhurzum]

It doesn't even have pictures. :cdc:

Try:

1) Encyclopedia Bellendica
2) The Knobrinomicon
3) The Bumper Book Of Gut-Busters (With foreword by Justicar)

I'm sure you'll find what you're looking for :oops:

[John D]

Technically... the memorial in Berlin is called "Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe". It is a large sculpture that is on a site where the Berlin wall once stood. Some people don't like it, but it is the kind of thing that works for me. I understand if it doesn't have much meaning for some. I find it to be very immersive. As you approach the space the tops of the slabs have make the shape of waves. At first you look down onto the top of the slabs and it looks like the sea. As you approach the installment you descend under the slabs. The waves move over the top of your head and then all you see are the sharp straight edges of the slabs. They cast repeating sharp shadows and it feels like they go on forever. It gives me a sense of the scale of the death camps. The idea that only about 3000 slabs gives you a sense of infinite. Yet, each slab is an individual.

Anyway. I really love this space. It has a kind of modern German vibe to it. Very geometric, but very evocative.

So, rather than me swearing at you, I guess I should just explain. If this is not your "thing" that's fine. Both my daughters visited this spot with their exchange "sister". One of my kids loved the experience, while the other was just "meh".

This is one of those places where photos don't do it justice. It's like one of my other favorite spots in Germany, the Dom in Koln. You just have to be in the space for it to make sense.

1280px-Berlin_hh.jpg

(144.71 KiB) Downloaded 198 times

[Snapfingers]

I was always under the impression that this forum was frequented by freethinkers, sceptics and atheists. But apparently doing Boringfoot scepticism is breaking a taboo, and the shrines of the Jewish death cult are still sacred.

Nope, everything you about bigfoot was unsceptical. Everything you wrote about Pizzagate was conspiracy-nut level garbage. Your attempt at a joke on John D just fell flat and now you try to defend it. Bad form, Vicky.

[VickyCaramel]

I was always under the impression that this forum was frequented by freethinkers, sceptics and atheists. But apparently doing Boringfoot scepticism is breaking a taboo, and the shrines of the Jewish death cult are still sacred.

Don't be triggered. Your position on Boringfoot, while not as nutty as the average Boringfoot believer, isn't "skeptic".

The skeptic position is that claims require adequate evidence, and there's nowhere near adequate evidence for the claim that there's a population of some big primates has escaped detection but for a for a few grainy or distorted images, some unidentified sounds, some hair which, again, isn't identified, some footprints trail which look ambiguous and some anecdotal evidence, especially since there's no Boringfoot DNA collected, there are no Boringfoot bones or bodies and even the fossile record is missing. All of the alleged evidence for Boringfoot is far from conclusive, and a lot of it is more easily explained in other ways.

This is bullshit. At no point have I said that the bigf00t claim has even close to the required amount of adequate evidence, in fact I have specifically said it hasn't. Nor have I ever hinted that I think it ever will or that it exists. All I said is that it is worthy of investigation which might not be the armchair skeptic thing to do, but I quite enjoy getting out in the woods and doing experiments.

As you say a lot of the evidence is easily explained, so easy that it seems some people have haven't bothered to do it. I have. And there is other evidence which is fucking hard to explain, and saying, "This is probably just fake, nothing to see here" isn't scepticism... you would at least have to demonstrate that it is possible to fake, otherwise saying it is a fake is just as sceptical as saying faeries did it.
As I already said, big fucking footprints in the snow might not be evidence of a large primate but they are evidence of something, even if it's evidence of faking.
I get really pissed off when somebody just dismisses evidence without any kind of sound explanation. The definition of scepticism includes "suspending judgement", which is why I am quite happy to say that I cannot explain the footprints, the dermal ridges, and I don't feel competent to go against the opinions of the experts who say they can't explain it either. It is okay to say "I don't know".

Imagine if someone called a WWI British memorial that celebrate the casualties of the British army "the shrines of a white guys death cult". Not only it's offensive (which you might care about or not), it's wildly inaccurate.

No, I don't care if it is offensive, and I wouldn't have an emotional reaction and throw a hissy fit. I would certainly agree if you said there is a political and propaganda aspect to British war graves. But I am under no illusion that "remembering our fallen in the Great War" has very little to do with those that fell in the Great War and has much more to do with making us feel better... and from the point of view of the military, reinforcing the tradition of dying for your country. We can break it all down if you like, but suffice to say that I don't hold any of it sacred.

And the Jewish religion is a death and victimhood cult, the Christian religion is a death cult. They are all centred around human sacrifice and surviving death. I make no apologies for pointing this out.

For many of the Atheists in the so called community, going up against religion was just mental masturbation, which is why they spent long hours arguing over the cosmological argument and Pascal's wager. I have always seen it as a political battle. I don't give a shit what people believe as long as they are not using it to influence society and politics which effects me and others who do not hold to their beliefs. I am used to this making me unpopular. I would love for you to explain to me why it is not skepticism to question the motives of religion, or the holocaust industry.

[VickyCaramel]

I was always under the impression that this forum was frequented by freethinkers, sceptics and atheists. But apparently doing Boringfoot scepticism is breaking a taboo, and the shrines of the Jewish death cult are still sacred.

Nope, everything you about Boringfoot was unsceptical. Everything you wrote about Pizzagate was conspiracy-nut level garbage. Your attempt at a joke on John D just fell flat and now you try to defend it. Bad form, Vicky.

My only position on #Pizzagate was that we shouldn't declare this conspiracy theory debunked until all the evidence had come out, been looked through and somebody competent had investigated it. For some of you it's like a fucking competition to see who is the first one to shout "debunked".

[VickyCaramel]

Technically... the memorial in Berlin is called "Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe". It is a large sculpture that is on a site where the Berlin wall once stood. Some people don't like it, but it is the kind of thing that works for me. I understand if it doesn't have much meaning for some. I find it to be very immersive. As you approach the space the tops of the slabs have make the shape of waves. At first you look down onto the top of the slabs and it looks like the sea. As you approach the installment you descend under the slabs. The waves move over the top of your head and then all you see are the sharp straight edges of the slabs. They cast repeating sharp shadows and it feels like they go on forever. It gives me a sense of the scale of the death camps. The idea that only about 3000 slabs gives you a sense of infinite. Yet, each slab is an individual.

Anyway. I really love this space. It has a kind of modern German vibe to it. Very geometric, but very evocative.

So, rather than me swearing at you, I guess I should just explain. If this is not your "thing" that's fine. Both my daughters visited this spot with their exchange "sister". One of my kids loved the experience, while the other was just "meh".

This is one of those places where photos don't do it justice. It's like one of my other favorite spots in Germany, the Dom in Koln. You just have to be in the space for it to make sense.

1280px-Berlin_hh.jpg

I prefer Berlin's pipes, and I like the pink ones best.
https://c1.staticflickr.com/7/6177/6266 ... d2d7_b.jpg

However, staring at pipes or concrete blocks is not my idea of a good time. Personally I would head East towards the lakes.

[Service Dog]

This is a porn link. Not safe for breakfast.
Most social justice Warriors never expose themselves to anything resembling combat--
but this one is the exception.
Likewise, if ya watch to the end, you'll see she's the rarest dictionary feminist--
one who practices what she preach...
http://efukt.com/21636_Feminist_Dike_VS ... archy.html

[deLurch]

Nope, everything you about Boringfoot was unsceptical. Everything you wrote about Pizzagate was conspiracy-nut level garbage. Your attempt at a joke on John D just fell flat and now you try to defend it. Bad form, Vicky.

A joke fell flat.

So doesn't that suggest we shouldn't make a big deal out of it? Or should I go collect some wood to burn the witch who offends?

[InfraRedBucket]

A TOY mouse supposed to sing “Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way” was recalled by its Ferndown distributors after claims that it sang “paedophile, paedophile, paedos all the way” instead.

The cheery looking Chinese-made mouse, dressed in a Santa hat, costing £2.99 and distributed by Humatt, which is based on the Ferndown industrial estate, was bought by a Dorset mum who was horrified by what it appeared to be singing.

There's a different video in the link (but cant seem to embed it here)

http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/4 ... le__mouse/


[youtube][/youtube]

[Kirbmarc]

This is bullshit. At no point have I said that the Boringfoot claim has even close to the required amount of adequate evidence, in fact I have specifically said it hasn't. Nor have I ever hinted that I think it ever will or that it exists. All I said is that it is worthy of investigation which might not be the armchair skeptic thing to do, but I quite enjoy getting out in the woods and doing experiments.

As you say a lot of the evidence is easily explained, so easy that it seems some people have haven't bothered to do it. I have. And there is other evidence which is fucking hard to explain, and saying, "This is probably just fake, nothing to see here" isn't scepticism... you would at least have to demonstrate that it is possible to fake, otherwise saying it is a fake is just as sceptical as saying faeries did it.
As I already said, big fucking footprints in the snow might not be evidence of a large primate but they are evidence of something, even if it's evidence of faking.
I get really pissed off when somebody just dismisses evidence without any kind of sound explanation. The definition of scepticism includes "suspending judgement", which is why I am quite happy to say that I cannot explain the footprints, the dermal ridges, and I don't feel competent to go against the opinions of the experts who say they can't explain it either. It is okay to say "I don't know".

Yes, but this isn't exactly the position you argued for. You wrote extensively about trying to analyze bigfoot behavior as if it were real. While I understand that this a more nuanced position than simply "I believe in bigfoot", it's still one step more than "I don't know". It's making assumptions and trying to fit data (like the stick structures) within the general assumption by making other assumptions. At best it's a theoretical exercise on very shaky grounds. At worst it's speculations which clutters the field.

Also, saying "this probably isn't something which contradicts other kinds of evidence, and might be fake" isn't the same "fairies did it". If someone claims that something violated the laws of thermodynamics and offers a video of what seems to be a perpetual motion machine, saying "this is likely fake" isn't as un-skeptical as saying "this is totally real". Coherence within clusters of evidence and adhering to verified laws of nature are two useful heuristics to approach new evidence. Extraordinary claims, which seemingly violate the laws of nature or introduce incoherence with other available evidence, require extraordinary evidence.

In the case of bigfoot the very weak evidence we have, and the lack of strong evidence that we should have if an actual populations of primates of that size existed (bones, bodies, fur, a fossil record), is enough to tilt the balance in favor of "this is likely not the product of a primate of a certain size, and it might even have been faked". It's really not the same as "fairies did it".

No, I don't care if it is offensive, and I wouldn't have an emotional reaction and throw a hissy fit. I would certainly agree if you said there is a political and propaganda aspect to British war graves. But I am under no illusion that "remembering our fallen in the Great War" has very little to do with those that fell in the Great War and has much more to do with making us feel better... and from the point of view of the military, reinforcing the tradition of dying for your country. We can break it all down if you like, but suffice to say that I don't hold any of it sacred.

It's not a matter of sacredness, it's a matter of designation. I agree that the military in every part of the world exploits monuments for their own narrative, but calling those monuments "part of a cult" is simply inaccurate unless we really stretch the definition of "cult". If someone says "I enjoy going to a British war memorial" and we reply "you're support a military cult" we're being rather inaccurate, and probably more than a bit patronizing in assuming their motivations.

And the Jewish religion is a death and victimhood cult, the Christian religion is a death cult. They are all centred around human sacrifice and surviving death. I make no apologies for pointing this out.

OK, but the Holocaust museum, again, isn't a Jewish place of cult. It's a museum. Not the same thing. Do you think that paleontology museums are "places of cult of science"?

By the way, yes, all "Abrahamitic" religions are death and victimhood cults. The story of Abraham is about human sacrifice, shared by Jews, Christians and Muslims. This doesn't mean that if I say "I enjoy visiting the Sistine Chapel" or "I enjoy visiting the Blue Mosque" I'm somehow just by this enjoyment "being a part of a death cult".

For many of the Atheists in the so called community, going up against religion was just mental masturbation, which is why they spent long hours arguing over the cosmological argument and Pascal's wager. I have always seen it as a political battle. I don't give a shit what people believe as long as they are not using it to influence society and politics which effects me and others who do not hold to their beliefs. I am used to this making me unpopular. I would love for you to explain to me why it is not skepticism to question the motives of religion, or the holocaust industry.

Nothing un-skeptic about pointing out the political influence of religion, and the political side to freethinking is separation of church and state, secularism for lack of a better world. But the political side of freethinking isn't ideological, it's not "left" or "right", it's only concerned with separation of politics and society from private religious beliefs.

Something like "the holocaust industry" has a certain ideological "color", if you catch my drift, which goes beyond pure secularism. I'd be willing to discuss in more details what you mean by "the holocaust industry", but don't be surprised if people don't simply associate that term to "skepticism".

[John D]

Technically... the memorial in Berlin is called "Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe". It is a large sculpture that is on a site where the Berlin wall once stood. Some people don't like it, but it is the kind of thing that works for me. I understand if it doesn't have much meaning for some. I find it to be very immersive. As you approach the space the tops of the slabs have make the shape of waves. At first you look down onto the top of the slabs and it looks like the sea. As you approach the installment you descend under the slabs. The waves move over the top of your head and then all you see are the sharp straight edges of the slabs. They cast repeating sharp shadows and it feels like they go on forever. It gives me a sense of the scale of the death camps. The idea that only about 3000 slabs gives you a sense of infinite. Yet, each slab is an individual.

Anyway. I really love this space. It has a kind of modern German vibe to it. Very geometric, but very evocative.

So, rather than me swearing at you, I guess I should just explain. If this is not your "thing" that's fine. Both my daughters visited this spot with their exchange "sister". One of my kids loved the experience, while the other was just "meh".

This is one of those places where photos don't do it justice. It's like one of my other favorite spots in Germany, the Dom in Koln. You just have to be in the space for it to make sense.

The attachment 1280px-Berlin_hh.jpg is no longer available

I prefer Berlin's pipes, and I like the pink ones best.
https://c1.staticflickr.com/7/6177/6266 ... d2d7_b.jpg

However, staring at pipes or concrete blocks is not my idea of a good time. Personally I would head East towards the lakes.

Like I say "each to their own". The pink pipes are fine I guess... haha.

A few of my favorite places are not man made.

Two Medicine trail in Glacier National park - In summer the ground is covered in tiny yellow, white, blue, and red flowers. The wind across the several peaks is constantly blowing at 20 mph causing a whistling noise across your hiking pole like someone blowing across a bottle. The continent divides here - all rivers flow west on one side and east on the other.... some flowing all the way to the Mississippi and to the Gulf of Mexico. The mountain goats are hesitant to give you enough space to pass on the trails.

Porcupine Mountain state park - Michigan - Can't say enough about this place. Windswept cliffs, eagles, miles of beautiful stony rivers, rocky beach pounded by Lake Superior waves. A new experience around every corner of a three day hike.

Just sayin. Not all our favorite places have to be man made nor must they be natural.

images.jpg

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[AndrewV69]

Whole heap of networking related issues which makes it useless to me. So I might as well continue using one of my Linux boxen. It would have been convenient not to have to get up and walk three steps but perhaps it is just as well.

See https://github.com/Microsoft/BashOnWindows/issues/69

Over the years my rule was never to use Windows for anything serious because it was so easy to break, trivial to hack etc. etc. etc. Just use it to play games.

Whatever.

So run a Linux VM, or hell a Windows VM on Linux. Pick your poison.

I might just do that (one day).

[Lsuoma]

Technically... the memorial in Berlin is called "Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe". It is a large sculpture that is on a site where the Berlin wall once stood. Some people don't like it, but it is the kind of thing that works for me. I understand if it doesn't have much meaning for some. I find it to be very immersive. As you approach the space the tops of the slabs have make the shape of waves. At first you look down onto the top of the slabs and it looks like the sea. As you approach the installment you descend under the slabs. The waves move over the top of your head and then all you see are the sharp straight edges of the slabs. They cast repeating sharp shadows and it feels like they go on forever. It gives me a sense of the scale of the death camps. The idea that only about 3000 slabs gives you a sense of infinite. Yet, each slab is an individual.

Anyway. I really love this space. It has a kind of modern German vibe to it. Very geometric, but very evocative.

So, rather than me swearing at you, I guess I should just explain. If this is not your "thing" that's fine. Both my daughters visited this spot with their exchange "sister". One of my kids loved the experience, while the other was just "meh".

This is one of those places where photos don't do it justice. It's like one of my other favorite spots in Germany, the Dom in Koln. You just have to be in the space for it to make sense.

1280px-Berlin_hh.jpg

I prefer Berlin's pipes, and I like the pink ones best.
[bimg]https://c1.staticflickr.com/7/6177/6266 ... d2d7_b.jpg[/bimg]

However, staring at pipes or concrete blocks is not my idea of a good time. Personally I would head East towards the lakes.

Masurian?

[Kirbmarc]

Apparently the perpetrator of the shooting in the Zurich mosque was a 24 year old Swiss citizen of Ghanaian ancestry (article in German) who also knifed to death a friend of his, a Chilean man, in a park last Sunday.

The perpetrator, who killed himself after the attack of the mosque, is said by the police to have interest in the occult, to have left his job recently and to have been probably involved in a case of bicycle theft in the past. There are no known ties to any terrorist organization, no evidence of a diagnosis for mental health problems and no clear motive for the shooting. Some witnesses say that he shouted "Out of our country" ("Raus aus unserem Land") but this hasn't been officially confirmed yet.

[VickyCaramel]

This is bullshit. At no point have I said that the Boringfoot claim has even close to the required amount of adequate evidence, in fact I have specifically said it hasn't. Nor have I ever hinted that I think it ever will or that it exists. All I said is that it is worthy of investigation which might not be the armchair skeptic thing to do, but I quite enjoy getting out in the woods and doing experiments.

As you say a lot of the evidence is easily explained, so easy that it seems some people have haven't bothered to do it. I have. And there is other evidence which is fucking hard to explain, and saying, "This is probably just fake, nothing to see here" isn't scepticism... you would at least have to demonstrate that it is possible to fake, otherwise saying it is a fake is just as sceptical as saying faeries did it.
As I already said, big fucking footprints in the snow might not be evidence of a large primate but they are evidence of something, even if it's evidence of faking.
I get really pissed off when somebody just dismisses evidence without any kind of sound explanation. The definition of scepticism includes "suspending judgement", which is why I am quite happy to say that I cannot explain the footprints, the dermal ridges, and I don't feel competent to go against the opinions of the experts who say they can't explain it either. It is okay to say "I don't know".

Yes, but this isn't exactly the position you argued for. You wrote extensively about trying to analyze Boringfoot behavior as if it were real. While I understand that this a more nuanced position than simply "I believe in Boringfoot", it's still one step more than "I don't know". It's making assumptions and trying to fit data (like the stick structures) within the general assumption by making other assumptions. At best it's a theoretical exercise on very shaky grounds. At worst it's speculations which clutters the field.

Also, saying "this probably isn't something which contradicts other kinds of evidence, and might be fake" isn't the same "fairies did it". If someone claims that something violated the laws of thermodynamics and offers a video of what seems to be a perpetual motion machine, saying "this is likely fake" isn't as un-skeptical as saying "this is totally real". Coherence within clusters of evidence and adhering to verified laws of nature are two useful heuristics to approach new evidence. Extraordinary claims, which seemingly violate the laws of nature or introduce incoherence with other available evidence, require extraordinary evidence.

In the case of Boringfoot the very weak evidence we have, and the lack of strong evidence that we should have if an actual populations of primates of that size existed (bones, bodies, fur, a fossil record), is enough to tilt the balance in favor of "this is likely not the product of a primate of a certain size, and it might even have been faked". It's really not the same as "fairies did it".

It is exactly what I argued and there is nothing I said above that I haven't said before. I really don't think you have grasped the fact that I am taking these claims and testing them, I am NOT the one inventing them.
I don't ignore evidence just because it is weak, nor do I consider it low hanging fruit. They show me sticks leaning up against trees, I look into that even though it is never going to be proof of bigf0ot. People here seem to be saying I am being unsceptical for taking the evidence seriously enough to apply scepticism to it. I'm also willing to take hypothesis about Sasquatch behaviour and think of ways to test that.

You are contradicting yourself. Do we look at all the evidence as part of a Sasquatch hypothesis including speculation about it's behaviour. Or do we look at each piece of evidence in isolation? You argued for the latter.

But how do you know what we would expect to see unless you are speculating and making assumptions about it's behaviour?

And if we take evidence in isolation, shouldn't we be able to come up with a reasonable explanation for that evidence in isolation? ...but then you look at it at a whole and say it is unlikely, as a probability because of all the other stuff missing. Saying, "it's more likely to be a hoax" may be true, so then lets investigate that but doesn't get you off the hook, and you can't have your cake and eat it. Over the years I am sure you have told somebody "unlikely things happen, it doesn't make it a miracle", so why do you think that "it's unlikely" is a world stopping argument now? It isn't.

I am quite happy to look at evidence in isolation or as the hypothesis as a whole... it's either going to be true, false or unproven one way or another, I don't much mind which.

[VickyCaramel]

Technically... the memorial in Berlin is called "Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe". It is a large sculpture that is on a site where the Berlin wall once stood. Some people don't like it, but it is the kind of thing that works for me. I understand if it doesn't have much meaning for some. I find it to be very immersive. As you approach the space the tops of the slabs have make the shape of waves. At first you look down onto the top of the slabs and it looks like the sea. As you approach the installment you descend under the slabs. The waves move over the top of your head and then all you see are the sharp straight edges of the slabs. They cast repeating sharp shadows and it feels like they go on forever. It gives me a sense of the scale of the death camps. The idea that only about 3000 slabs gives you a sense of infinite. Yet, each slab is an individual.

Anyway. I really love this space. It has a kind of modern German vibe to it. Very geometric, but very evocative.

So, rather than me swearing at you, I guess I should just explain. If this is not your "thing" that's fine. Both my daughters visited this spot with their exchange "sister". One of my kids loved the experience, while the other was just "meh".

This is one of those places where photos don't do it justice. It's like one of my other favorite spots in Germany, the Dom in Koln. You just have to be in the space for it to make sense.

1280px-Berlin_hh.jpg

I prefer Berlin's pipes, and I like the pink ones best.
[bimg]https://c1.staticflickr.com/7/6177/6266 ... d2d7_b.jpg[/bimg]

However, staring at pipes or concrete blocks is not my idea of a good time. Personally I would head East towards the lakes.

Masurian?

I have a friend in East Berlin, we are in contact daily and when she goes out and about she sends me photos. Her favourite places are the lakes East of Berlin.

Unfortunately she keeps sending me photos of boats, and while I do like wooden boats, the real reason I pester her for photos is that she is into Freikörperkultur. She also sends me stunning photos of palaces and castles which are disappointingly short of naked athletic German girls.

[John D]

I have a friend in East Berlin, we are in contact daily and when she goes out and about she sends me photos. Her favourite places are the lakes East of Berlin.

Unfortunately she keeps sending me photos of boats, and while I do like wooden boats, the real reason I pester her for photos is that she is into Freikörperkultur. She also sends me stunning photos of palaces and castles which are disappointingly short of naked athletic German girls.

Naked Germans.... cool!

[feathers]

Unfortunately she keeps sending me photos of boats, and while I do like wooden boats, the real reason I pester her for photos is that she is into Freikörperkultur. She also sends me stunning photos of palaces and castles which are disappointingly short of naked athletic German girls.

Aha, Freikorpskultur! That's what it all started with.

[feathers]

Naked Germans.... cool!

I think I can make your interests meet.

http://www.executedtoday.com/images/Aus ... litsch.jpg

Glad to be of service.

[VickyCaramel]

I have a friend in East Berlin, we are in contact daily and when she goes out and about she sends me photos. Her favourite places are the lakes East of Berlin.

Unfortunately she keeps sending me photos of boats, and while I do like wooden boats, the real reason I pester her for photos is that she is into Freikörperkultur. She also sends me stunning photos of palaces and castles which are disappointingly short of naked athletic German girls.

Naked Germans.... cool!

"Cool" is not the word I would use. God may have sold Germans short on a sense of humour, but they are the most comical people I know.

http://bc03.rp-online.de/polopoly_fs/20 ... 627731.jpg

[Lsuoma]

I have a friend in East Berlin, we are in contact daily and when she goes out and about she sends me photos. Her favourite places are the lakes East of Berlin.

Unfortunately she keeps sending me photos of boats, and while I do like wooden boats, the real reason I pester her for photos is that she is into Freikörperkultur. She also sends me stunning photos of palaces and castles which are disappointingly short of naked athletic German girls.

Naked Germans.... cool!

"Cool" is not the word I would use. God may have sold Germans short on a sense of humour, but they are the most comical people I know.

http://bc03.rp-online.de/polopoly_fs/20 ... 627731.jpg

But, but, but...

[jet_lagg]

<snip>
You are contradicting yourself. Do we look at all the evidence as part of a borequatch hypothesis including speculation about it's behaviour. Or do we look at each piece of evidence in isolation? You argued for the latter.
<snip>

He really, really didn't. He basically said that the prior for the existence of Bigfoot is so low (because of the weight of the evidence already examined) that you need to find new evidence that would be wildly, wildly unlikely unless Bigfoot existed in order to shift the probability back towards anything noteworthy.

[Shatterface]

Apparently the perpetrator of the shooting in the Zurich mosque was a 24 year old Swiss citizen of Ghanaian ancestry (article in German) who also knifed to death a friend of his, a Chilean man, in a park last Sunday.

The perpetrator, who killed himself after the attack of the mosque, is said by the police to have interest in the occult, to have left his job recently and to have been probably involved in a case of bicycle theft in the past. There are no known ties to any terrorist organization, no evidence of a diagnosis for mental health problems and no clear motive for the shooting. Some witnesses say that he shouted "Out of our country" ("Raus aus unserem Land") but this hasn't been officially confirmed yet.

I'm reserving judgement on this case until we can state definitively whether or not he stole the bicycle.

[Kirbmarc]

It is exactly what I argued and there is nothing I said above that I haven't said before. I really don't think you have grasped the fact that I am taking these claims and testing them, I am NOT the one inventing them.
I don't ignore evidence just because it is weak, nor do I consider it low hanging fruit. They show me sticks leaning up against trees, I look into that even though it is never going to be proof of Boringfoot. People here seem to be saying I am being unsceptical for taking the evidence seriously enough to apply scepticism to it. I'm also willing to take hypothesis about borequatch behaviour and think of ways to test that.

The problem isn't about "taking the evidence seriously" it's about the underlining assumption that the Bigfoot, defined as a population of primates of a certain size, is a serious hypothesis to make. At this point it simply isn't. We have some things that we can't explain but it's not evidence of "Bigfoot". It's simply "unexplained stuff".

You are contradicting yourself. Do we look at all the evidence as part of a borequatch hypothesis including speculation about it's behaviour. Or do we look at each piece of evidence in isolation? You argued for the latter.

We need to look at evidence in isolation without considering everything that we can't explain as evidence for Bigfoot. The Bigfoot hypothesis can be safely assumed to false due to lack of corroborating evidence. Other hypotheses are open, and evidence needs to be looked into with necessarily saying "it's fake" but without rejecting the "fake" hypothesis out of hand.

Let me make myself clearer with an example: if we find the body of a man shot to death in a windowless locked room, and after an analysis of evidence we make it clear that the locked door is impossible to open unless you have the key or you force it, and that there are no scratches or signs on the door which show that it was forced, we can safely exclude that someone who wasn't in possession of the key could have placed the body in the room.

We don't know yet who shot the victim, or if it was the same person who shot the victim and placed him in the room. We need to consider the evidence of who was in possession of the key, which kind of gun was used, whether the victim was shot in the room or somewhere else and then placed in the room, all of it separately in order to then evaluate it critically.

Similarly we know enough that from lack of evidence that should be there we can safely assume that Bigfoot, defined as a primate of a certain size, likely doesn't exist. We don't know what to make of stick structures, or of unidentified sounds, or of sets of footprints. Are they hoaxes? Are they due to misinterpretation of the tracks or sounds of other, known animals? Are hunters creating those stick structures? Is it a natural phenomenon?

Again, in the example I made, if it turns out that there is a way to open the door without forcing it and without a key we need to revise our assumptions. Similarly, if you can produce compelling evidence for Bigfoot (bones, fur, crap with unknown primate DNA, etc.) then we'll need to revise our assumptions. For now it's safe to assume that Bigfoot doesn't exist.

But how do you know what we would expect to see unless you are speculating and making assumptions about it's behaviour?

We can safely assume that animals have bones, fur, that they die and leave behind bodies, that they eat and leave behind excrement, that they don't just pop up from nothing and need to develop from newborns to adults, that they leave behind traces in the fossil record, etc. The hypothetical Bigfoot animal would be a very peculiar creature indeed if it didn't do any of those things.

Speculating on its social behavior without even knowing whether it exists relies on much unsafer assumptions.

And if we take evidence in isolation, shouldn't we be able to come up with a reasonable explanation for that evidence in isolation? ...but then you look at it at a whole and say it is unlikely, as a probability because of all the other stuff missing. Saying, "it's more likely to be a hoax" may be true, so then lets investigate that but doesn't get you off the hook, and you can't have your cake and eat it. Over the years I am sure you have told somebody "unlikely things happen, it doesn't make it a miracle", so why do you think that "it's unlikely" is a world stopping argument now? It isn't.

I'm open to the idea of people trying to find evidence of bigfoot. I'm not so keen on them constructing hypothesis on its behavior without even knowing whether it exists. It's like theology or creationism, you start by making a big assumption and then you build on that, but your chain of inferences isn't possible to rationally criticize, since it relays on a big initial assumption. Sophisticated theological or creationist arguments exist, but they're impossible to evaluate according to evidence, because they interpret all evidence in light of the assumption that god is real and/or evolution by natural selection is false.

I am quite happy to look at evidence in isolation or as the hypothesis as a whole... it's either going to be true, false or unproven one way or another, I don't much mind which.

You can look at both. Evidence is isolation needs to be explained, but the hypothesis as a whole suggests what's likely or not.

The skeptical position on "Bigfoot" should be: "We can't as yet explained some of the evidence, but it's very unlikely that it might be a population of primates of the size most people assume. You're welcome to find evidence for this population of primates, but be careful about piling up assumptions over assumptions on the behavior of an animal you don't even know is real".

[Aneris]

I was always under the impression that this forum was frequented by freethinkers, sceptics and atheists. But apparently doing Boringfoot scepticism is breaking a taboo, and the shrines of the Jewish death cult are still sacred.

Nope, everything you about Boringfoot was unsceptical. Everything you wrote about Pizzagate was conspiracy-nut level garbage. Your attempt at a joke on John D just fell flat and now you try to defend it. Bad form, Vicky.

My only position on #Pizzagate was that we shouldn't declare this conspiracy theory debunked until all the evidence had come out, been looked through and somebody competent had investigated it. For some of you it's like a fucking competition to see who is the first one to shout "debunked".

Your views are positivistic or verificationistic. The weakness is that most things are meaningless, but are relatively easy to be seen as meaningful, called apophenia. Your cognition is always at work trying to detect what in German is called “Gestalt” (which gave names to the “Gestalt Laws”). Footprints for example can be from anything, and you actually don't know how boringfoot's feet look like and what kind of tracks they leave. Therefore any vaguely humanoid unexplained tracks can be attributed to it. Maybe someone wore boots, they were muddy, which dried and then this person left larger roundish tracks, maybe the earth was sticky and stuck partially to some animals hoof and that caused it, and so on (mere examples). Propose how it can be ruled out they aren't boringfoot tracks, and then show how this test doesn't work. For example, replicate how the tracks could have been created by other means and when that is possible, the evidence is dead — but of course that's not satisfactory for true believers, who always go about things with a “leap of faith”, because maybe — they say to themselves — the footprints which could be recreated with heavy boots too were still created by boringfoot. Yes, it's possible to the NASA was on the moon, but maybe they still staged it in a studio. Yes, it's possible that universe came about by natural means, but maybe it was still god. Homeopathy seems to not work, but maybe it still does in circumstance X and so on. That's not scepticism, though.

[jugheadnaut]

[quote="Kirbmarc"

The electoral college is terrible. In theory it's possible for someone who got only 22% of the vote to win. Plurality of states is much better if you really need to give power to the states (since the EC gives disproportionate representation to some states over others), but the popular vote is better overall, since it makes every vote in every state count, and it urges presidential candidates not just to focus on the swing states.

Good luck changing the system, though, especially after this election.[/quote]

The theoretical possibility of winning an election despite getting a small minority of the vote isn't so much a function of the particulars of the electoral college, but is resident in any system that divides the country up into districts and then uses a first past the post system in each district. In Canada it's also theoretically possible for a party to win a majority government while getting only 25% of the vote, even if there were only 2 parties (win 170 ridings by one vote and get swamped in the remainder). In actual practice, of course, this is completely unfeasible, although if the greater metropolitan areas of Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver voted 80% Liberal and the remainder of the country voted narrowly Conservative, it would be a genuine possibility for the Conservative party to win an election in Canada despite losing the popular vote (complicated by the fact there are more than 2 parties that get significant votes). Many countries use this sort of system. What distinguishes the US in this regard is how large the districts are: in the case of California, larger than most countries. This makes the situation of winning the election despite losing the popular vote more likely. The moderate disproportionality in assigning electors to states factors in as well, although Trump would still have won in the absence of this (by about 50 EV's instead of 70). Going to a plurality of states just makes the system more disproportionate (it's roughly equivalent to the current system but with each state having 11 electoral votes). I do like the fact that the electoral college forces the candidates to focus on broad support rather than trying to amass huge majorities in concentrated areas. I also like that it puts up firewalls against electoral fraud. My preferred reform would be to force every state to do what Maine and Nebraska currently do, which is divide electoral voting up in the same way they are allocated (i.e. individual elections for 1 EV in each congressional district, with 2 EV's for the statewide winner. This should make winning the election despite losing the popular vote less likely, similar to Canada. While this system would seem on the surface to benefit Republicans, who would gain about 35 EV's from California, New York & Illinois, my hunch is that in totality the election would have been far closer. I'll have to work it out as an exercise when I have time. The only way this could possibly fly, though, if it was coupled with gerrymander reform, as congressional districts are currently gerrymandered to moderately favor the GOP.

[VickyCaramel]

It is exactly what I argued and there is nothing I said above that I haven't said before. I really don't think you have grasped the fact that I am taking these claims and testing them, I am NOT the one inventing them.
I don't ignore evidence just because it is weak, nor do I consider it low hanging fruit. They show me sticks leaning up against trees, I look into that even though it is never going to be proof of Boringfoot. People here seem to be saying I am being unsceptical for taking the evidence seriously enough to apply scepticism to it. I'm also willing to take hypothesis about borequatch behaviour and think of ways to test that.

The problem isn't about "taking the evidence seriously" it's about the underlining assumption that the Boringfoot, defined as a population of primates of a certain size, is a serious hypothesis to make. At this point it simply isn't. We have some things that we can't explain but it's not evidence of "Boringfoot". It's simply "unexplained stuff".

You are contradicting yourself. Do we look at all the evidence as part of a borequatch hypothesis including speculation about it's behaviour. Or do we look at each piece of evidence in isolation? You argued for the latter.

We need to look at evidence in isolation without considering everything that we can't explain as evidence for Boringfoot. The Boringfoot hypothesis can be safely assumed to false due to lack of corroborating evidence. Other hypotheses are open, and evidence needs to be looked into with necessarily saying "it's fake" but without rejecting the "fake" hypothesis out of hand.

Let me make myself clearer with an example: if we find the body of a man shot to death in a windowless locked room, and after an analysis of evidence we make it clear that the locked door is impossible to open unless you have the key or you force it, and that there are no scratches or signs on the door which show that it was forced, we can safely exclude that someone who wasn't in possession of the key could have placed the body in the room.

We don't know yet who shot the victim, or if it was the same person who shot the victim and placed him in the room. We need to consider the evidence of who was in possession of the key, which kind of gun was used, whether the victim was shot in the room or somewhere else and then placed in the room, all of it separately in order to then evaluate it critically.

Similarly we know enough that from lack of evidence that should be there we can safely assume that Boringfoot, defined as a primate of a certain size, likely doesn't exist. We don't know what to make of stick structures, or of unidentified sounds, or of sets of footprints. Are they hoaxes? Are they due to misinterpretation of the tracks or sounds of other, known animals? Are hunters creating those stick structures? Is it a natural phenomenon?

Again, in the example I made, if it turns out that there is a way to open the door without forcing it and without a key we need to revise our assumptions. Similarly, if you can produce compelling evidence for Boringfoot (bones, fur, crap with unknown primate DNA, etc.) then we'll need to revise our assumptions. For now it's safe to assume that Boringfoot doesn't exist.

But how do you know what we would expect to see unless you are speculating and making assumptions about it's behaviour?

We can safely assume that animals have bones, fur, that they die and leave behind bodies, that they eat and leave behind excrement, that they don't just pop up from nothing and need to develop from newborns to adults, that they leave behind traces in the fossil record, etc. The hypothetical Boringfoot animal would be a very peculiar creature indeed if it didn't do any of those things.

Speculating on its social behavior without even knowing whether it exists relies on much unsafer assumptions.

And if we take evidence in isolation, shouldn't we be able to come up with a reasonable explanation for that evidence in isolation? ...but then you look at it at a whole and say it is unlikely, as a probability because of all the other stuff missing. Saying, "it's more likely to be a hoax" may be true, so then lets investigate that but doesn't get you off the hook, and you can't have your cake and eat it. Over the years I am sure you have told somebody "unlikely things happen, it doesn't make it a miracle", so why do you think that "it's unlikely" is a world stopping argument now? It isn't.

I'm open to the idea of people trying to find evidence of Boringfoot. I'm not so keen on them constructing hypothesis on its behavior without even knowing whether it exists. It's like theology or creationism, you start by making a big assumption and then you build on that, but your chain of inferences isn't possible to rationally criticize, since it relays on a big initial assumption. Sophisticated theological or creationist arguments exist, but they're impossible to evaluate according to evidence, because they interpret all evidence in light of the assumption that god is real and/or evolution by natural selection is false.

I am quite happy to look at evidence in isolation or as the hypothesis as a whole... it's either going to be true, false or unproven one way or another, I don't much mind which.

You can look at both. Evidence is isolation needs to be explained, but the hypothesis as a whole suggests what's likely or not.

The skeptical position on "Boringfoot" should be: "We can't as yet explained some of the evidence, but it's very unlikely that it might be a population of primates of the size most people assume. You're welcome to find evidence for this population of primates, but be careful about piling up assumptions over assumptions on the behavior of an animal you don't even know is real".

I think you have confused what I said bigfoot investigators are doing and why they are doing it, with what I am doing. You are still talking as if I am making the assumption that bigfoot is real and looking for evidence of it. In fact I am looking to find the same evidence they are finding, with the assumption that if I find it here then it can't be evidence of bigfoot because there is zero chance of bigfoot in the places I am looking.

And I see no harm in assuming that any part of the bigfoot hypothesis is true in order to test it as long as it is a testable claim. Even if they are wrong to make those assumptions based on pure speculation.

There is no reason to assume there are monsters under the bed, but poking a torch under there is far more convincing that standing there arguing that this is a baseless assumption... especially when the bigfoot investigators are promoting "Project Go and See". I took them up on the offer.

b47d5f27d81e54005d80395f8b628f1e.png

(547.73 KiB) Downloaded 125 times

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

Could just be a badger with really big feet...

[CaptainFluffyBunny]

Could just be a badger with really big feet...

We don't need no steenkin' badgers!

[dogen]

[youtube][/youtube]

Jesus wept...

Weak tea. He doesn't actually tell them what Brawndo is, does he?

[Ape+lust]

You know who else had big feet?

http://imgur.com/qkwBGEz.jpg

(One more try for Billie from Ockham. I think it's still more hideous than comical :) )

[CaptainFluffyBunny]

You know who else had big feet?

http://imgur.com/qkwBGEz.jpg

(One more try for Billie from Ockham. I think it's still more hideous than comical :) )

More hideous than comical describes everything Jar-Jar.

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

More hideous than comical describes everything Jar-Jar.

And Myers.

(what, too easy?)

[Scented Nectar]

(Still can't figure out how to embed)

Bung the url between these - [youtube] URL here [/youtube]

(Scented, your tutorial skills are sorely missed!)

It's obsolete. The new way is so much easier. No tutorial needed. :)

[Karmakin]

[quote="Kirbmarc"

The electoral college is terrible. In theory it's possible for someone who got only 22% of the vote to win. Plurality of states is much better if you really need to give power to the states (since the EC gives disproportionate representation to some states over others), but the popular vote is better overall, since it makes every vote in every state count, and it urges presidential candidates not just to focus on the swing states.

Good luck changing the system, though, especially after this election.

The theoretical possibility of winning an election despite getting a small minority of the vote isn't so much a function of the particulars of the electoral college, but is resident in any system that divides the country up into districts and then uses a first past the post system in each district. In Canada it's also theoretically possible for a party to win a majority government while getting only 25% of the vote, even if there were only 2 parties (win 170 ridings by one vote and get swamped in the remainder). In actual practice, of course, this is completely unfeasible, although if the greater metropolitan areas of Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver voted 80% Liberal and the remainder of the country voted narrowly Conservative, it would be a genuine possibility for the Conservative party to win an election in Canada despite losing the popular vote (complicated by the fact there are more than 2 parties that get significant votes). Many countries use this sort of system. What distinguishes the US in this regard is how large the districts are: in the case of California, larger than most countries. This makes the situation of winning the election despite losing the popular vote more likely. The moderate disproportionality in assigning electors to states factors in as well, although Trump would still have won in the absence of this (by about 50 EV's instead of 70). Going to a plurality of states just makes the system more disproportionate (it's roughly equivalent to the current system but with each state having 11 electoral votes). I do like the fact that the electoral college forces the candidates to focus on broad support rather than trying to amass huge majorities in concentrated areas. I also like that it puts up firewalls against electoral fraud. My preferred reform would be to force every state to do what Maine and Nebraska currently do, which is divide electoral voting up in the same way they are allocated (i.e. individual elections for 1 EV in each congressional district, with 2 EV's for the statewide winner. This should make winning the election despite losing the popular vote less likely, similar to Canada. While this system would seem on the surface to benefit Republicans, who would gain about 35 EV's from California, New York & Illinois, my hunch is that in totality the election would have been far closer. I'll have to work it out as an exercise when I have time. The only way this could possibly fly, though, if it was coupled with gerrymander reform, as congressional districts are currently gerrymandered to moderately favor the GOP.[/quote]

Note that you can't really use existing numbers to determine how it would pan out, as changing the system changes the incentives to vote for a lot of people. If for example, you had that system in California, more Republicans would show up to vote. More Democrats would show up to vote in Texas, and so on. How many more, we don't know. But it's a thing that has to be taken into account.

Which is all the Clinton won the popular vote talk is bullcrap. If the race was based on popular vote it would have been contested entirely differently.

[free thoughtpolice]

I didn't take these photos but I can tell you I have found a lot of tracks just like these. Evidence of bigfeet?

bigfoot track.PNG

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bigfoot tracks2.PNG

(65.76 KiB) Downloaded 109 times

There are areas around here where, especially in the fall where these tracks are extremely common. You can make casts of these 24/7 for weeks and not cast the same track twice near one river in particular.