The Refuge of the Toads

#481

jg64 wrote:RIP Terry Wogan

Well that's the end for Eurovision then.

#482

AnonymousCowherd wrote:
jg64 wrote:RIP Terry Wogan
Well that's the end for Eurovision then.

He missed Children in Need last year. First time, I think.

#483

Billie from Ockham wrote:
free thoughtpolice wrote:I think of Salmon Rushdie at the same time as when I think Chanty Binx too! :drool:
Weird. When I think of Salmon Rushdie, I picture salt-water fish swimming quickly up a stream while their bodies dissolve.

Wasn't he the drunk that wrote "The Sotanic Verses"?

#484

Wogan has some relevance to skepticism having interviewed David Icke:

[youtube]IMZtP2d2XGA[/youtube]

Also, he had a massive cock.

#485

#486

rayshul wrote:Stop getting old, pitters.

Don't ever say that to us senior cits. Getting old "sucks", as Cara might gracefully opine, but the alternative is worse.

#487

Shatterface wrote:Wogan has some relevance to skepticism having interviewed David Icke:

[youtube]IMZtP2d2XGA[/youtube]

Also, he had a massive cock.

Don't want to know how you know that.

#488

Cnutella wrote:

She might have at least picked a nicer hotel.

#489

AnonymousCowherd wrote:
Shatterface wrote: Also, he had a massive cock.
Don't want to know how you know that.

https://metrouk2.files.wordpress.com/20 ... 50x300.jpg

#490

The pop world is also reeling having lost yet another great:

[youtube]T3Y4HufJ1oE[/youtube]

#491

Shatterface wrote:
AnonymousCowherd wrote:
Shatterface wrote: Also, he had a massive cock.
Don't want to know how you know that.
https://metrouk2.files.wordpress.com/20 ... 50x300.jpg

I'm sure there's a treatment for that.

#492

Shatterface wrote:The pop world is also reeling having lost yet another great:

[youtube]T3Y4HufJ1oE[/youtube]

But I'm almost certain there's no treatment for that.

#493

AnonymousCowherd wrote:https://metrouk2.files.wordpress.com/20 ... 50x300.jpg

I'm sure there's a treatment for that.

Yeah, but would you really want to take it?

#494

cunt.jpg: (311.77 KiB) Downloaded 413 times

#495

AndrewV69 wrote:
deLurch wrote:It is apparently going nuts over in Sweden.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... o=embedded
Not surprised at all.

Just to give some background to this and recent news regarding Sweden and the immigration stuff:

The murder of the immigrant-worker is just one, one small part in all of this. Of course, it didn't help that the Chief of the Police after the murder came out on national TV and voiced his sympathies with not only the murdeded victim, but also the murderer ("What traumatic experiences has this person been through?" etc) - but that's far from everything.

The Cologne attacks which resulted in the We Are STHLM scandal have been a watershed moment for Swedish media, who are now suddenly reporting about the problems regarding immigration and criminal immigrants in a way that was completely unthinkable just 3 months ago.

Among some of the things that has been reported on recently:

On top of the murder, there have been riots at some immigration centers, just recently a group of immigration workers had to barricade themselves inside a room from a mob of 15 or so immigrant "children" who had become upset and armed themselves with various blunt objects. Reportedly because they had been denied to buy candy... The situation at the immigrant centers are pretty dire as it is, there are daily reports of fights and abuse, in some counties it's been reported that 30% of all incidents requiring police assistance now occur at immigration centers.

Almost daily there are also now news of young girls (as young as 10 in some cases) being sexually assaulted in the public, especially at public bathing houses/indoor pools - resulting in several places having started to gender segregate pools etc. Pretty much nothing of these incidents have lead to arrests or convictions. Often these assaults are reported being committed by "unaccompanied refugee children" - which oftentimes, just like the recent "15 year old" murderer, are anything but children.

3 months ago though, it was a "myth perpetrated by racist hate sites" that many of the unaccompanied children really weren't children - media looked like this (this is from a Swedish anti-SJW blog that due to the recent controversies decided to make a English post explaining to a foreign audience just how bizarre the situation in Sweden has been. These screenshotted articles are all from around 3-4 months ago, before Cologne, and before the government had decided to try to limit the immigration, when media still was in propaganda overdrive mode trying to raise sympathies for the immigrants).

On top of that, there's been several cases of gang rapes where the perpetrators were convicted but not deported. For example there was a case where a woman was gang raped and beaten by 6 Eritreans, where she eventually threw herself out of a window of the apparent on the second floor to escape - 5 of them were convicted and sentenced to 10 months for not reporting the rape (dunno how to translate this crime, I think you get the idea), and one of them were convicted for the brutal rape and sentenced to 5 years - none however were deported, since they all came from Eritrea and had deserted from the mandatory military duty. Sweden prides itself in that we are "civilized" and don't practice the death penalty - and therefore we cannot deport anyone to a country where they might be killed...

Another thing that happened is that recently it was revealed that the police leadership have decided to make all incidents where immigrants were involved into special crime code 291 (called Alma). The police leadership then classified everything under this crime code - Meaning that neither the public nor the media have even access to basic statistics about for example how much police resources are being used up by the recent, huge immigration wave. In an internal PM, the police leadership expressively stated "Nothing shall get out".

At the same time, media has finally started listening to - and reporting - what policemen out in the field have been trying to say for years: There is a huge problem with criminal immigrants children, of which the most glaring problem is that Sweden is extremely generous to under-age criminals, which is being ruthlessly abused.

One policeman told of his experiences in the field, where they oftentimes caught criminal men, clearly in their upper 20s, only to see them released straight out on the streets before the police had even finished the paperwork, because the men had papers or at least claimed that they were under 15. This was a pretty much an everyday occurrence according to several policemen.

One recent major headline really illustrated just how batshit crazy the situation is:

One man recently cut a woman in the face with a knife, after she had refused to have sex with him. In the court, he claimed he was 16. Even though the prosecutor could show that the man had showed a passport in Germany with his age as 29, and even though the woman and her friend testified that the man had told them he was 21, and even though a medical teeth exam showed the man to be between 17 and 21, the court decided that his age hadn't been proven beyond a doubt, and that the man therefore should be considered to be 16 - with the result that he was convicted as a youth and therefore released immediately.

The main reason this even became big news is that papers from Algeria arrived, where the man's birth year was noted as 1991 - so they are going to have a new trial. Media however also mentioned another recent case, as to highlight that this problem was systematic and not just a one off thing - a girl was brutally raped by three boys in September last year, they were completely acquitted and let go because the court thought that the prosecutor hadn't been able to prove that the boys were older than 15 years old and thus having reached the age of criminal responsibility. At the same time, since their country of origin was unclear, they couldn't even be deported...

Basically, the legal systems aren't working - they are designed to handle a identifiable population that are kept within the state systems, not unidentifiable foreigners who commit crimes without inhibitions while claiming to be underage kids. On top of that resources are stretched thin, there's not enough policemen in service to handle this load, there is a physical lack of housing where we can house all the immigrants - the houses have literally run out - there's not enough teachers to handle this large influx of children that supposedly have a right to an education, there's not enough state workers to handle all the papers, and so on....

So, tl;dr - this mob is basically the result of an increasing distrust in the legal systems and the governments ability to uphold the law. It's in no way or form defensible, but it's at the same time hardly surprising that a group of football hooligans decided that the time had come to take the laws in their own hands.

ps. Oh, and about the deportation of 80.000.... that's just theater, it's hot air supposed to make it look like the current government is doing something. In reality, the 80.000 number is from the simple estimation that the ratio of denied asylum request will be the same as it's always been, ie around 50% - it's only 80.000 because we took in around 160.000... and no, they won't get deported by force. Even if the police wanted, they don't have the resources for that.

What will happen is what has happened for the last 5 years or so: Roughly half of the asylum seekers who get their request for asylum denied leave the country voluntarily. The other half goes underground, and tries multiple times to have their asylum request granted - for example the IKEA-murderer committed the murders because his request for asylum had been denied, a second time. Every 4 years, you can try again to get a new residence permit.

If you during this time manage to "root yourself" in Sweden, by for example starting a family, and having kids in school (children to illegal immigrants have the right to education and healthcare, free of charge) that you can show would be very negatively affected by having to move back to your country of origin, your chances greatly increase. This should kinda give a fairly good idea of just how much the police do forced deportations... half a year ago, they had a pile of 17.000 cases, and they barely do a couple of thousand each year....

#496

Brive1987 wrote:Ho ho ho PZ

http://i.imgur.com/AUaWMgI.jpg

PZ's chortling is pretty hypocritical. One of the physics problems reads:

2. Three tentacles extend towards Fumiko. Assume they are cylinders with diameters of 0.4m and lengths of 3m. If they can contract their diameter to 0.25m, will the change in length allow them to reach Fumiko? What if she squirms 20cm further away? Poisson’s ratio = 0.32.

Apparently rape jokes are a-ok, so long as they involve tentacles.

#497

Brive1987 wrote:Ape / Gumby - wtf?

:shock:

*shrugs*

The Surgeon General never said nuffin' about shooping. Stupid Surgeon General.

#498

Swedish courts would probably determine Myers is around 12. Just precocious in the facial hair department. I'd say they'd be right on his mental age, though.

#499

BarnOwl wrote:
Scented Nectar wrote:
deLurch wrote:It is apparently going nuts over in Sweden.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... o=embedded
The idea of beating up children sounded horrifying, but then I read that they are referring to "unaccompanied minors". I also read elsewhere that there are many men in their late teens and twenties who claim to be 15 when they immigrate. Perhaps there is less chance of being turned away at borders or something. The islam apologists are against medical tests which can more accurately pinpoint the person's age. They are, or were, fighting to put in laws saying that immigrants can't be age tested.
Exactly. If that Nuur dude, sitting with his lawyer and translator, is really only 15 years old, I'll eat three garden slugs from my backyard.

He's got a backup courtroom defense plan. You see the semi-burka he's got on? He's about to claim that he's a woman trapped in a man's body, and that his/her victim's transphobia made him/her have to kill her. Also, maybe all the fake minors are really trans-aged, like that weirdo Stefonknee.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/01/ ... 493844.jpg

#500

Photosensitive epileptics visiting the Slymepit be like

#501

Dick Strawkins wrote: Hence Myers can say anything - like trying to reclaim 'regressive left'.
Sorry PZ, stop trying to make your version of the regressive left into the next 'fetch' - it's not going to happen.

Um...

PZ Myers' new cause is to throw the word "regressive" at the vast majority of the community (i.e. the part of the community that knows he's a morally degraded shitstain) and desperately hope it sticks.

In other words, since he's not actually progressive about anything, he's trying to label everyone else a "regressive" so he'll appear progressive by comparison. Or perhaps he's trying to throw back the label that's been stamped to his forehead by the majority of the community. Or something.

In any case, stop trying to make "fetch" happen, PZ. It just makes you look like a dumbass.

Fucker, you Avicenna'd me! BANNED!

#502

ConcentratedH2O, OM wrote:"Right to left motion"? Err, not what I got from this gif, left to right was pretty clear.

Otherwise, your explanation is still too high level for me, I will research "reverse-contrast illusion" to find out more. Thanks.

One version of the illusion is already a meme of sorts:

#503

fuck this flashing bullshit

http://25.media.tumblr.com/c238154d951c ... o1_400.gif

#504

Billy The Hillbilly wrote:Photosensitive epileptics visiting the Slymepit be like

Yeah no shit. Those things are fucking annoying.

#505

dogen wrote:I don't get this. Yes, it is moving. So what?

The key is that most people perceive motion of one sort (in this case, rotation as the front moves right-to-left and the rear moves left-to-right), but that's "impossible" because mean location remains constant. The contrast reversal disrupts your perception of the resetting of location, so you don't see the jump back to the starting places.

If the contrast reversal is too extreme for you, the illusion will be much less compelling because you will see the motion that occurs before and after the reset as coming from completely new set of objects. If that's the case, try moving back from the monitor. One of the difficulties of doing research on these things as that different people have optimal values. (FYI: this is why adding subliminal primes to movies and TV shows is pretty doomed to failure; you have to tweak the durations of subliminal primes on a subject-by-subject basis to have any chance of success.)

#506

MacGruberKnows wrote:I invoke my theory of "It has no survivability factor" so who gives a fuck? Way long ago I was thinking about why why humans could not add up long lists of numbers even though that was a pretty good skill to have (at least before computers). Why weren't we human calculators if not even human slide rules? Because adding lists of numbers had no survivability factor on the savanna lands of Africa. So a treed background shifting back and forth does not happen in reality land, so of course our brains - centered int reality land - can't process it properly, because why should it? At worst, it just makes a goofy illusion on a webboard. We can survive it even it we don't understand it.

What gave us survivability on the savanna lands was pattern recognition, seeing a leopard hidden in a tree, or a deer hidden in the grass, because that was the reality our ancestors had to deal with. If the illusion shit we see on the internet nowadays lead women to want to breed obsessively with nerds who can understand that illusion shit, then we will come to a day when we will all see Euler staircases as being obvious but we won't be able to see a deer or a leopard standing in front of us, at which point we all deserve to die as a species anyway.

Anyway thx for bringing up a fucking topic that will invoke 10,000 more posts from Steersman about a spinning ni**** or something.

While I'm open to the idea that just about every ability of humans has an adaptive function, most of the things of interest to evo psych are much higher order than this. In order for vision to work, we much be able to link the objects in one view (e.g., before a blink or eye-movement) with the objects in the new view. This is the correspondence problem (in vision). The way our visual system solves this problem is highly dependent on direction of contrast; we link darker-than-surround blobs from one view with darker-than-surround blobs in the next. This is very low-level process; it occurs before the "gist" of the scene is extracted or objects are even identified. Therefore, a sudden contrast reversal can completely disrupt the linking of objects across views, even when the higher-order properties of the objects remain constant (e.g., they are still trees or the face of a crazy ex-girlfriend). Because the links are lost, you don't see any movement across the reversals as movement of the objects, themselves. Instead, the links have to be rebuilt using the higher-order codes for the objects, but these don't have detailed location information attached.

#507

Tapir wrote:A fuller diagnosis requires further tests.

Please look at the following picture -

http://i.imgur.com/bQGaGuK.jpg

Do you see;

A: A man

B: A brave, beautiful woman

I see the brave (for wearing dark blue on a very sunny day), beautiful (as are most women when I take off my glasses) woman, but find your test to be unfair because you did not compose the shot very well and the fat, smug and ugly guy in the foreground appears to have captured the camera's auto-focus function.

#508

Shatterface wrote:
AnonymousCowherd wrote:
Shatterface wrote: Also, he had a massive cock.
Don't want to know how you know that.
https://metrouk2.files.wordpress.com/20 ... 50x300.jpg

#JustifiedManspreading

#509

2. Three tentacles extend towards Fumiko. Assume they are cylinders with diameters of 0.4m and lengths of 3m. If they can contract their diameter to 0.25m, will the change in length allow them to reach Fumiko? What if she squirms 20cm further away? Poisson’s ratio = 0.32.

The real problem with the question is the wording and/or misapplication of Poisson's Ratio. It order for the latter to apply, the tentacle must be stretched towards Fumiko. Merely contracting the diameter of the tentacle is insufficient for Poisson's Ratio to apply; it's a law regarding the stretching of elastic objects.

Going further, the mere mention of Poisson's Ratio would seem to be a clear case of victim-blaming. Again, the ratio only applies if the object in question is being stretched by an outside force. Thus, the inclusion of Poisson's Ratio in the question implies that Fumiko is somehow pulling the tentacle towards her. When you then do the maths and discover that only the application of the ratio will get the tentacle any where near her (even before she "squirms" another 20 cm away), you are forced to conclude that the contact was her fault.

No wonder PZ Myers can't help but have a love/hate relationship with this question. "She made me do it!"

#510

And now for something completely different! John Cleese steps into the SJW wars...

"John Cleese: Political Correctness Can Lead to an Orwellian Nightmare"
[youtube]QAK0KXEpF8U[/youtube]

#511

Gumby wrote: Fucker, you Avicenna'd me! BANNED!

I guess you could say he's Avicenna'd you for the Last time.

#512

Regarding the "Pope Song," when/how did it become "Novella-approved"? Did he or one of the other NECSS guests link to it approvingly?

#513

I imagine that many of the NECSS speakers have said or linked approvingly to "unnecessarily divisive" or arguably "hateful" things. The issue really is that feminism is off limits.

#514

Scented Nectar wrote:And now for something completely different! John Cleese steps into the SJW wars...

"John Cleese: Political Correctness Can Lead to an Orwellian Nightmare"
[youtube]QAK0KXEpF8U[/youtube]

Found the justice warrior.

http://imgur.com/AA1wQub.png

How am I certain he's a justice warrior? Coincidentally, this is the other bearded, balding, hairy guy who by every measure you can think of is male, but will angrily assert that he is a woman.

ALL WOMAN, you shitlords.

#515

Ape+lust wrote:
Scented Nectar wrote:And now for something completely different! John Cleese steps into the SJW wars...

"John Cleese: Political Correctness Can Lead to an Orwellian Nightmare"
[.youtube]QAK0KXEpF8U[/youtube]

Found the justice warrior.

http://imgur.com/AA1wQub.png

How am I certain he's a justice warrior? Coincidentally, this is the other bearded, balding, hairy guy who by every measure you can think of is male, but will angrily assert that he is a woman.

ALL WOMAN, you shitlords.

You don't even need to point that out. The SJW credentials are clear from how argues. SJWs love to argue that jokes are "actively contributing to harm".

Cleese knows something about "harmful jokes":

[youtube]ienp4J3pW7U[/youtube]

#516

Tapir wrote:
VR Guy wrote:All I see is two or three frames motion parallax and then an incomprehensible contrast frame that resets the system. Is there something fundamentally different in my brain?
A fuller diagnosis requires further tests.

Please look at the following picture -

http://i.imgur.com/bQGaGuK.jpg

Do you see;

A: A man

B: A brave, beautiful woman

C: the cover model for the 2017 return of the Skepchick nude calendar.

#517

BarnOwl wrote:
Scented Nectar wrote:
deLurch wrote:It is apparently going nuts over in Sweden.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... o=embedded
The idea of beating up children sounded horrifying, but then I read that they are referring to "unaccompanied minors". I also read elsewhere that there are many men in their late teens and twenties who claim to be 15 when they immigrate. Perhaps there is less chance of being turned away at borders or something. The islam apologists are against medical tests which can more accurately pinpoint the person's age. They are, or were, fighting to put in laws saying that immigrants can't be age tested.
Exactly. If that Nuur dude, sitting with his lawyer and translator, is really only 15 years old, I'll eat three garden slugs from my backyard.

If he's 15 then I'm 12.

#518

D: winner of Women's shot-put at the 2016 Summer Olympics

#519

Kirbmarc wrote:
Ape+lust wrote:
Scented Nectar wrote:And now for something completely different! John Cleese steps into the SJW wars...

"John Cleese: Political Correctness Can Lead to an Orwellian Nightmare"
[.youtube]QAK0KXEpF8U[/youtube]

Found the justice warrior.

http://imgur.com/AA1wQub.png

How am I certain he's a justice warrior? Coincidentally, this is the other bearded, balding, hairy guy who by every measure you can think of is male, but will angrily assert that he is a woman.

ALL WOMAN, you shitlords.
You don't even need to point that out. The SJW credentials are clear from how argues. SJWs love to argue that jokes are "actively contributing to harm".

Cleese knows something about "harmful jokes":

ienp4J3pW7U

That was lovely. Those bastards never get old :D

But, yeah. Another mark of a justice warrior is complaining when their complaint was already addressed. Cleese acknowledged the impetus for PC culture was sound, just not when taken to absurd lengths.

#520

Screw all that boring SJW stuff. XCOM 2 is out Friday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I feel like a kid given the keys to a sweetshop.

#521

Tapir wrote:
VR Guy wrote:All I see is two or three frames motion parallax and then an incomprehensible contrast frame that resets the system. Is there something fundamentally different in my brain?
A fuller diagnosis requires further tests.

Please look at the following picture -

http://i.imgur.com/bQGaGuK.jpg

Do you see;

A: A man

B: A brave, beautiful woman

She's stunning and brave.

#522

Ape+lust wrote:
Scented Nectar wrote:And now for something completely different! John Cleese steps into the SJW wars...

"John Cleese: Political Correctness Can Lead to an Orwellian Nightmare"
[youtube]QAK0KXEpF8U[/youtube]

Found the justice warrior.

http://imgur.com/AA1wQub.png

How am I certain he's a justice warrior? Coincidentally, this is the other bearded, balding, hairy guy who by every measure you can think of is male, but will angrily assert that he is a woman.

ALL WOMAN, you shitlords.

But Varmint's a female coyote and they are supposed to be hairy. The only way to tell for sure (and politely from afar), is to watch if Varmint squats or lifts a leg when peeing. Or if Varmint tells you that it's pronoun is 'bitch'.

#523

If Muscato, who still looks exactly like a schlubby, balding, hairy 40-something dude (with no effort whatsoever to signal her gender identity), is 100% a woman because she says she feels like one, would PZ Myers be accepted as a woman if he came out trans without changing a single thing about the way he looks? Would Futrelle? Or Pixlee? What about Dick Carrier? Or Avicenna?

#524

I can't see why not. And I wouldn't care if they did. Carrier would still have a good time spreading his lady-cum all over the progressive community.

#525

Kirbmarc wrote:If Muscato, who still looks exactly like a schlubby, balding, hairy 40-something dude (with no effort whatsoever to signal her gender identity), is 100% a woman because she says she feels like one, would PZ Myers be accepted as a woman if he came out trans without changing a single thing about the way he looks? Would Futrelle? Or Pixlee? What about Dick Carrier? Or Avicenna?

If one takes this ridiculousness to its logical conclusion, in SJW land we'd have to accept it if every man in the world came out as a trans woman, and every woman in the world came out as a trans man. Somehow I think that might give even the SJWs pause.

#526

birdterrifier wrote:
Tapir wrote:A fuller diagnosis requires further tests.

Please look at the following picture -

http://i.imgur.com/bQGaGuK.jpg

Do you see;

A: A man

B: A brave, beautiful woman
She's stunning and brave.

You win.

http://imgur.com/rc7xHEz.jpg

#527

Kirbmarc wrote:If Muscato, who still looks exactly like a schlubby, balding, hairy 40-something dude (with no effort whatsoever to signal her gender identity), is 100% a woman because she says she feels like one, would PZ Myers be accepted as a woman if he came out trans without changing a single thing about the way he looks? Would Futrelle? Or Pixlee? What about Dick Carrier? Or Avicenna?

Not 40 something. Is younger than me and I turn 36 next month.

Remember when Muscato made the announcement and we all, for the most part, support him?

#528

Kirbmarc wrote:If Muscato, who still looks exactly like a schlubby, balding, hairy 40-something dude (with no effort whatsoever to signal her gender identity), is 100% a woman because she says she feels like one, would PZ Myers be accepted as a woman if he came out trans without changing a single thing about the way he looks? Would Futrelle? Or Pixlee? What about Dick Carrier? Or Avicenna?

They're already in-group so of course. The real question is how they'd react if someone like tfoot or the amazing atheist did it. I have a feeling that even if they were sincere, they'd be accused of taking the piss.

#529

Lsuoma wrote:
Bourne Skeptic wrote:
Gumby wrote:
What's important is that Rebecca Watson is happy. Everything else is secondary.
I wonder if she's even capable of being happy?
Of course she is! Oh, wait, that's not harpy...

FT is such a bitch. :dance: :lol:

#530

acathode wrote:
AndrewV69 wrote:
deLurch wrote:It is apparently going nuts over in Sweden.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... o=embedded
Not surprised at all.
Just to give some background to this and recent news regarding Sweden and the immigration stuff:

<chop>

If you during this time manage to "root yourself" in Sweden, by for example starting a family, and having kids in school (children to illegal immigrants have the right to education and healthcare, free of charge) that you can show would be very negatively affected by having to move back to your country of origin, your chances greatly increase. This should kinda give a fairly good idea of just how much the police do forced deportations... half a year ago, they had a pile of 17.000 cases, and they barely do a couple of thousand each year....

Basically, what you have described is the result of a country that has had it's political system hijacked by the SJW crowd. One way or the other it is going to end in bloodshed.

If not for the current situation with the "migrants" then with the other slow burning hotspots such as for example with no-go areas like the one in Malmo.

*shrug*

Not that Canada is immune you understand. We have set things up so that we are also going to experience significant sectarian violence, within another 30 years or so. We might dodge the bullet, but I doubt I am going to be around to see it.

#531

Billie from Ockham wrote:
ConcentratedH2O, OM wrote:As I watch it, sometimes it seems like it has turned almost 90 degrees, and is about to continue on to do the full 360. At that point something in the illusion breaks down, and my brain slaps itself and says "hey, dude, it's not really doing much of anything".
The key to the reverse-contrast illusion is that the reversals disrupt the mechanism that solves the correspondence problem, as well as those that produce the phi phenomenon (which is the non-object-linked perception of motion). In layman's terms, you lose track of the locations of the objects, such that you don't perceive the jump back to the starting location. Thus, in this case, all you "see" is the right-to-left motion, which seems to repeat continuously, while the mean locations of all objects remains constant.

Not sure I understand this as I see mostly the jump back to the start position and not very much smooth motion at all. Is this another of those illusions that need binocular vision to see it properly?

#532

Really? wrote:
RonSwanson wrote:Cara does seem a bit wobbly on some of this. She was chiding Dawkins over Fem Islamist video but then admitted that The Goldsmith Femsoc/Islam alliance against Namazie "totally sucks" and that there are "so many layers to this."
Nothing screams mature adult movement leader who is not a child like saying that some shit sucks and other shit is complicated.

They're not skeptics end of, no idea is above scrutiny, criticism and mocking. You don't get to have your own sacred cow.

#533

Leaving this for posteriority, in case....you know...

Mr Novella can spin it how he likes. At least we know where Necss stands now. If they've chosen compliance to the delusional demands of the SJW lobby, so be it. We're way beyond where they get to lay claim to be the gatekeepers of what feminism is, of what harassment is, what a threat is, what the ludicrous notion of 'punching up' is, or what makes that, and other intellectually facile notions legitimate To pretend to understand and justify the condemnation of the totality of RD's moral thinking on the basis of some tweets demonstrates deep rooted confirmation bias, sloppy thinking, deliberate misinterpretation and outright vindictiveness. The entryist SJW's who have targeted the a/s movement have pretty much sucked the life out of it, particularly in the States, and spinning RD's disinvitation as something other than pure capitulation to the boilerplate authoritarianism of SJW dogma is just a thoroughly transparent exercise in denial.

#534

I still dont get the point of NECSSs Dawkins fiasco.

Its Novellas party. Throws it ~~so he and his family to party with cool people~~ 'for skepticism'. Riff raff are allowed to attend if they pay the $236-295 cover charge. But its his party, of course he can invite whomever he wants.

Why the fuck did he invite Dawkins in the first place?

OOOOOH! Dawkins said something SJW dont like! NO WAAAY! I mean, duh.

Heres another shocker, Novella: Cookie Monster like... COOKIES! Dun dun DUUUUUN!!!

I dont know Novella from Adam (like Twatson before her attack of McGraw), but everybody is like 'Oh SGU!' 'I learned critical thinking from Novella!'. He just looks like another wanna-be intellectual. Poseur. Surrounds himself with idiots so he looks 'smart' by comparison. But then he pulls stunts like this that sharply define the limits of his abilities.

He wants to throw a 'science' conference? Gotta keep Dawkins out of his totally for realsies Science Conference? Where, exactly, did he learn to uninvite people to his 'science conference' for their personal political opinions? I have never heard of invited speakers for a real, academic conference, being 'uninvited' for posting a funny video parodying PETA, or for being members of FLDS and contributing to anti-gay marriage campaigns, or for protesting the second Gulf War, or anything.

Ever.

What neurology, or physician, or whatever conference did Steve go to where the speakers had to pass political litmus tests before they were allowed to speak about their research?

You are an 'academic neurologist', Steve? ...Have you ever spoken at a real scientific conference, invited by your academic peers, not one of your 'fans'?

Where did you learn to do this?

#535

Gumby wrote:
Kirbmarc wrote:If Muscato, who still looks exactly like a schlubby, balding, hairy 40-something dude (with no effort whatsoever to signal her gender identity), is 100% a woman because she says she feels like one, would PZ Myers be accepted as a woman if he came out trans without changing a single thing about the way he looks? Would Futrelle? Or Pixlee? What about Dick Carrier? Or Avicenna?
If one takes this ridiculousness to its logical conclusion, in SJW land we'd have to accept it if every man in the world came out as a trans woman, and every woman in the world came out as a trans man. Somehow I think that might give even the SJWs pause.

You know, the funniest thing...

In Sweden, the political party Feminist Initiative demands that:

1: Companies should by law be forced to hire an equal amount of women for their boardrooms (and other fancy jobs as well pretty much).

and

2: Juridical sex-change should be available to anyone, free of charge, without any medical demands whatsoever (ie. no need for SRS or hormonal treatments whatsoever, just get a form and send it in, viola your now juridically speaking have changed your gender).

Combine these 2 demands... anyone with 2 braincells to rub together should be able to see how it would play out :)

"What, you mean we just need to get half our boardmembers to send in a form that doesn't affect them in any way at all, except they get to use the women's changing rooms at the gym if they want to? And we can keep going as if nothing has happened? LOL OK, I'm sure we can find some old pervs that'd be up for that!"

#536

comhcinc wrote:
Kirbmarc wrote:If Muscato, who still looks exactly like a schlubby, balding, hairy 40-something dude (with no effort whatsoever to signal her gender identity), is 100% a woman because she says she feels like one, would PZ Myers be accepted as a woman if he came out trans without changing a single thing about the way he looks? Would Futrelle? Or Pixlee? What about Dick Carrier? Or Avicenna?

Not 40 something. Is younger than me and I turn 36 next month.

Remember when Muscato made the announcement and we all, for the most part, support him?

I did, and I still do but this is absurd. He (or she) is not undergoing hormone treatment (obviously), he/she's not transitioning. He/she looks exactly the same as he/she did before he/she made the announcement and that was a year ago. The point about trans is that you don't feel comfortable in your body, isn't it? So you make the change. Not "I'm trans" and not do a bloody thing.

This was Dave Muscato.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b398/ ... 15x345.png

This is Danielle Muscato.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/QCum9J0lURM/maxresdefault.jpg

Give me a fucking break.

#537

Gumby wrote:If one takes this ridiculousness to its logical conclusion, in SJW land we'd have to accept it if every man in the world came out as a trans woman, and every woman in the world came out as a trans man. Somehow I think that might give even the SJWs pause.

The pause would only long enough for them to practice saying "matriarchy." Then we'd be back to where we are now.

#538

He looks more like a woman in the first picture.

#539

Malky wrote:Not sure I understand this as I see mostly the jump back to the start position and not very much smooth motion at all. Is this another of those illusions that need binocular vision to see it properly?

Have you tried moving back, away from the monitor? We only perceive smooth motion when the jumps are across relatively small visual angles.

#540

ERV wrote:
I dont know Novella from Adam (like Twatson before her attack of McGraw), but everybody is like 'Oh SGU!' 'I learned critical thinking from Novella!'. He just looks like another wanna-be intellectual. Poseur. Surrounds himself with idiots so he looks 'smart' by comparison. But then he pulls stunts like this that sharply define the limits of his abilities.

I am with you there. I am mr podcast and I honestly never saw the appeal of SGU.