taks

hmmm, i wonder what god thinks about my new organizations which i will henceforth refer to as TEETH and ETGTs. taks

please, oh please, let's not let this devolve into the religious argument as it is wont to do. there's way too many good jokes in the ethical treatment of ghost thingies to lose it all because we simply can't help ourselves. hmmm, i guess in the other thread we should be discussing the ethical treatment of extra terrestrials, or ET of ET. of course, those buggers are likely in the "ethical treatment of" department just due to advanced technology they hold compared to us (barring some strange virus they suddenly don't know how to cure), so really it becomes extra terrestrial ethical treatment of catt... er, humans. ETETH. taks

yeah, but if ghosts are really malevolent, don't we have a right, nay, a responsibility to save humanity from them? down with ghosts! long live... uh, up with alive people! if we don't get rid of the problem now, next thing you know ghosts will be demanding fair treatment under all of the equal opportunity acts and clauses. it could get ugly. just imagine the first time ghosts attempt to marry. taks

nope. they simply reported on it because it is a story. kinda sucks that it is a story, but it is. they hammered john edwards, too, so they are at least equal opportunity in that sense. personally, i wouldn't trust a journalist as far as i could throw a politician. they don't have sufficient education to report on the things that i think are important and instead, get led around by the nose incapable of asking the right questions. taks

boohoo, no beer for me today. first friend was at texas roadhouse eating a steak when i emailed him, second friend was waiting around by the phone to support his current employer at a conference and third friend works here at my office and was required to stick around because the guy he's reporting to at the moment suddenly showed up. sigh... of course, so then i ran out to get some mickey d's, mcribs are back, yay, and returned only to find out that everyone and their brothers showed up for a meeting this afternoon and they had just ordered pizza. good thing i got all that other junk food. taks

i was talking souls in the religious sense... that wouldn't rule out possibilities of some underlying energy source that persists after we die, but to date, nothing like that has even come close to being shown to be true, let alone even possible. taks

the impression i got is that obama buys into the "war on terror" but thinks we should be focusing on afghanistan rather than iraq. personally, we should just tell the people of the middle east to move out if they want to live, then turn the whole area into a glass factory. taks PS: um, that's a joke. i am hinting at the simple notion that there is no one "source" of terrorism, as the whole of the middle east is complicit in one way or another, IMO.

exactly what i was getting at in my last post. nail, head, meet hammer. it's not a surprise that someone like me views religion in the same manner. not that i want to get into the religion discussion, just that i tend to be of the "show me the evidence" slant before i put my faith into anything. ghosts, like religion, are ill supported by physical evidence. taks

"ghosts"* require an afterlife populated by... souls. i am an atheist, you know. alien life doesn't really require any stretch in imagination (or faith) other than the simple concept that we may not be alone, and the other life out there could easily be significantly more advanced than we are. other than that, less evidence that remains unexplained in spite of gobs more "sightings" throughout history. even hell kitty's link is, well, a joke (creepy, yes). first of all, how does something "feel evil and malevolent." the thing hung out and observed them all freaking night, even allowing them to throw things at it, yet did nothing. not very evil if you ask me. also, the room got colder but the thermometer didn't show it? sounds like something imaginary to me. you can tell by the beginning of the story that they went in to the place with the implicit assumption that something was there (heck, the guy had "psychic training" ). it is not a stretch to think their own minds perpetrated the hoax. overall, the ghost phenomenon is a bit easier to falsify scientifically. so far, i haven't seen anything that passes the smell test. taks * the term ghost should not be used when a readily available, albeit odd, phenomenon exists by which it could be explained. there are things that may seem supernatural, but they really don't have any actual link to prior human existence of any sort.

hehe... beer for lunch today. it is imminent. i've posted links to this place before. trinity brewing in CO Springs. it's like the hippy joint with a bunch of liberals running the show serving a bunch of conservative engineers sneaking a beer for lunch (actually, they aren't "sneaking" beer, since their bosses are probably in tow). strange dichotomy. taks

why isn't there a "they all suck" vote? well, i guess i can't say 3 sucks since i haven't tried to play it yet... taks

that's a completely legitimate expense. image is extremely important in an election anyway. people make a fuss about it because it seems excessive, just like john edwards and his $500 (or whatever) haircut. hard to claim you're connecting with the average joe the plumber when you're spending that kind of money on things most of us consider frivolous. the irony, of course, is that we expect these people to look good on tv. taks

i killed a few ghosts in devil may cry 4 last night... does that count? my friends, one of whom i went to college with, i.e., another trained engineer, believe in all manner of ghosts and supernatural stuff. drives me nuts. in all the years that we've been trying (as a society) and with all the technical capabilities we have, there is even less evidence of "ghosts" than there is of UFOs. in fact, i would wager that of the various phenomena, the probability of aliens/UFOs is the greatest, and ghosts the lowest. these are the things that likely have natural, physical explanations, though that does not mean they are the result of phenomena we fully understand yet. taks

pareidolia taks

sorry 'bout your dog, architect. i've had many pets in the course of my life and it is always a bummer when they are sick. my mother's dog had surgery this summer to repair a torn ligament in his hind leg. he's been a tripod for a while now but supposedly he's beginning to use it again. i guess i'll see when i'm home for turkey day. my only current pet is the most psychotic cat on the planet. he's probably going to live for another decade just to drive me nuts. though i love him, i know deep down that he is absolutely evil. bleeding from various wounds resulting from his penchant to play with his claws out is a common occurrence in our home. taks

let me repeat: I DID NOT SAY IT WAS SMALL. i said, quite plainly, that it was smaller than it could have been. not that you would understand mathematics (no numbers larger than 2^12 and all), but even with 8.3 million it is only a swing of 4.15 million, when it could easily have been 10 or more, which was my point. yeah, maybe when he's done the US will see the switch to libertarianism or similar. taks

that's one of the few because of the very real perceived threat of terrorism. nonsense. you're completely missing what i said. i'm simply saying that i'm surprised it was as small as it was, not that it was small. given the media slant, and the lack of popularity of the "old guard" resulting from the GOP's inability to control itself the first 6 years of bush, i would have expected a much larger gap. oh, and 6% is really a misnomer in a 2-party system. it's really 3%, i.e., take just over 3% away from obama and give them to mccain and the vote goes the other way. just over 3 million votes. taks

that goes to motive, which is immaterial. bias is bias regardless of what causes it. which tends to fall into liberal territory, almost by definition. again, immaterial. certainly mccain did not help his own prospects, and i've pointed out previously that the 6% margin was in spite of his lack of quality. in other words, it is surprising he did as well as he did given his obvious (to me) deficiencies and the almost certain tilt in nearly every media outlet in the country towards obama. obama's deficiencies were simply ignored by the media, all of them. media bias has been an issue since long before the race for president either way. taks

maybe they pop out more than we know, and we simply don't notice them all the times they do? heck, maybe I AM one of them thar atlanteans? taks

the fact that the margin is only 6% actually suggests the opposite conclusion. the bias that i complain about is not individual journalist bias (which clearly exists, but it is easy for intelligent people to spot and ignore), it is general news outlet bias. only running stories that tend to favor a certain opinion, or in the context of an election, ignoring a story that is potentially damaging to the candidate the paper is on the record as endorsing. that's where bias comes into play, and it has a much larger impact than you might be willing to believe, but it doesn't need to be much. given a 6% margin, it doesn't take much of an impact to sway an election or turn public opinion against some pet project of the media's "emotional" desires (oh, i can think of a few). taks

exaaaaactly. oh, and by "alien" i mean, not of known human origin. i can't fully discount the possibility (albeit very low) that there is some extremely advanced civilization hidden under the sea somewhere that like to spy on their landlubbing neighbors. taks

btw, i would not be surprised if there were some truth to a lot of these claims, at least, that there may be some advanced technology floating around in the skies that we (the public) are not 100% aware of. that does not mean, however, that it is a) extraterrestrial or b) alien, but neither does that exclude either possibility. i want to believe, but i also want the information to be factual, not nonsensical. taks

the 36 is probably similar to the 30, i.e., an x-band pulse doppler radar, so similar numbers would apply. i found some other discussions that have much lower numbers for the speed (like 800 kts) which is much more reasonable. i also tried to find actual parameters for these specific fire control radars but it seems there isn't much out there (uh, on the web). skolnik's "radar handbook" doesn't list any APG radars. it's no longer used so no surprise that information is hard to find. taks

not commendable, nor outstanding, since i do radar for a living, but thanks anyway. the first tipoff was the speed. here's a link that explains it all (i have books, but can't really point you to those as a link): http://www.engineering.uiowa.edu/~ece195/2...ocs/Doppler.pdf i think UFO hunters should simply think about things a bit before making wild claims. the reporter that wrote the piece was obviously not capable of discerning the validity of the pilot's statements. he was assuming (perhaps rightly) that the pilot really had a deep understanding of the general math behind radar. the pilots i work with that actually understand radar do so only at a cursory level, and mostly from a user perspective rather than an implementer perspective (they become contract managers after their flying days are over). keep in mind, i'm guessing about the type of radar he was using. the AN/APG-30 was probably the most advanced technology they used on the F-86 sabre, so it seems to be a reasonable assumption that 7600 miles/hour was not within detection limits. taks

so that explains why you now have extra limbs, three ears and such? taks