[Weekly Discussion Thread] Scientists, what are the biggest misconceptions in your field?

fastparticles · 2012-05-25T06:17:47.924138+00:00

Articles like that actually burn us twice. The first time when they over sensationalize and dont include complete information and a second time when people find out it isnt what they thought it was, and they are more likely to dismiss it all together as a made up problem when it isnt a made up problem just a misrepresented one.

fastparticles · 2012-05-25T06:10:37.215602+00:00

you can take a look at the unfortunately named /r/climateskeptics though it is quite hard to find a single link to a single solitary science site in that subreddit. It is 90% blogs. For republicans it is political suicide to say they are concerned about climate change. Though a few are.

powercow · 2012-05-25T05:58:31.448703+00:00

I muse that someone would make big bucks if they did a scam... er fundraiser to clone Reagan from this blood. With the goal of him being president one day and making this country perfect again. ;P While sounding completely absurd, I still think the money would roll in.

madam1 · 2012-05-25T05:04:33.372063+00:00

It's probably a bit unfair to say it represents the majority of conservative christians. THOUGH it probably does represent a MAJORITY of the loud ones.

Plus look at polls and such, like this one. Nearly 50% of republicans think interracial marriage should be banned. This is 2012.

You have a serious AND GROWING problem in your party, especially with the religious base.

madam1 · 2012-05-25T05:01:14.204799+00:00

he didnt say it caused it, so your point is mute, it could be that low IQ people are drawn to religion.

prestonbrownie · 2012-05-25T04:51:46.966756+00:00

you right, my bad

werewolves go 60mph, and horses go 45mph

I must have seen a slow one.

ServerGeek · 2012-05-25T02:22:10.022104+00:00

I used to miss a lot of movies that way. I would a.d.d-out and change the channel, remember...when my new show goes to ads, switch back to the movie in time for 2 minutes of the movie and then more ads. Now that I have been spoiled by ad free media, i get bored to tears when I am stuck using someones TV.

Rayneworks · 2012-05-25T02:13:06.367227+00:00

my favorite time to get shot actually.

Rayneworks · 2012-05-25T02:11:52.260176+00:00

Yeah you learn that really quick as a good guy. Hearing signs of other people means heading the opposite direction. I ignore people all the time in trouble.(i helped a guy earlier today but that was because I rolled up on him earlier and he didnt shoot me when he could have.. found him later in a building with no ammo and a ton of zombies). It's kinda understandable the desire to help. It is an easy way to find a friend and someone probably not going to shoot you on first site as they are busy. Plus you know the feelings he is having. "wish someone would help.. i only got a clip left"

When you hear gun shots, bandits hear the dinner bell. It's awesome for bandits as the victim tends to be easier to find. Follow the zeds. They are occupied and less likely to notice you coming up.They tend to be on low ammo if any. Probably low on blood as well. ANd if they are really lucky, some sap shows up to help the victim and you can shoot them while they are distracted bandaging and get twice the reward.

I havent played a bandit yet, but I have played the victim many many many times.

Rayneworks · 2012-05-25T02:04:38.093389+00:00

I survive the cities more than the fields for some reason.

prestonbrownie · 2012-05-25T01:58:51.053983+00:00

awesome and about time, but i have pretty much given up on horses.

First off MODS do fix nearly all my complaints, but a bit late for me to sweeten the bad taste in my mouth i get when I think "horse".

They are suicidally aggressive. Which wouldnt be bad if they werent also pathetically weak and likely to die. It seemed like every time i bought a horse, ten seconds later there would be a dragon attack and my horse would charge the dragon and immediately die. geee that was a fun grand.

Your companions cant ride. You can excuse lydia's bitchyness, when you make her chase you half way across skyrim and then you want to have her carry your shit... are you mad? Lucky she only gets sardonic.

fighting.. ok they are fixing this.. finally but geez did it not work in alpha testing, because this should have been included from the beginning. OR NOT INCLUDED THE HORSES. I really dont get why they were included when IMO they break the game in a dozen ways.(sans mods)

also you miss a ton of interactions on the road when on a horse. ... poor lydia doesnt "you just keep on riding.. i got these bandits..."

last IRL werewolves are not faster than horses.

AdamVR4 · 2012-05-25T01:46:03.437007+00:00

The idea on lobbyists is a decent start.. pretty sure we have that on the books since abramoff. Still We need more than that, we need an entire encyclopedia of regulations for keeping ill gotten gains from congress members.

It is such a crime syndicate. Sure you ban this, is sounds good and all but it does NOTHING. First it is more complex than you think. Can he not get birthday gifts if his kids beg him to legalize pot? Bit iffy there. Also what about jobs after you get voted out. We have some weak regulations that prevent them from becoming lobbysists themselves but nothing from taking a cushy do nothing job for high pay.

Then their is things like briston palin's charity.(just picked her as I know the details), She got paid 270k at her charity which donated a total of 35,000 to the actual cause. This really appears to have been set up solely as a way to bribe the palins. And not to pick on her, she would almost be an idiot not to do it, as most of them do have some sort of way to funnel money to them.

Some of the ridiculously easy ways, is simply through the campaign, They are regulated what they can do with their money. They cant just take it for themselves, but they can hire everyone in their family and pay them outrageous salaries to do basic BS work..

So these comments about "i'm going to outlaw gifts from lobbyists" sound awesome on the surface, but unless you promise to make a series of laws attacking all modes and vectors of bribing congress all you are doing is giving lip service. Lobbyist would laugh at the rule. So what "we will hire your wife and daughter for our super pac, we will pay them 200k each to call us once every month and say hi"

seriously they would laugh and laugh at us peons thinking something had changed.

ServerGeek · 2012-05-25T01:32:59.666540+00:00

The ones I hate.. i think it was TBS that was the worst offender but I have had tv in a long time. ARe the ad blocks that get longer and longer as the movie goes on. So when you get near the end and are invested in seeing the rest of the movie, they make you sit through 20 minute ad blocks.

ServerGeek · 2012-05-25T01:30:41.640283+00:00

actually ads are in a lot of shows these days and as plot devices and it isnt that bad, it is hardly noticed often, especially when written well. South park with cartman and his wii and notice they all have iphones and drink dr pepper?, american idle judges drinking coke. All the shows already sell ads that way And there is a mega ad like that, which is something most people are fond of, which was charlie and the chocolate factory which was just a long commercial to sell wonka products.

Ok I have to admit though, transformers went a bit overboard.

If it is done well, I am more than happy to have ads in the shows.

smather · 2012-05-25T00:41:59.224962+00:00

I'll tell ya things you dont see in the videos.

"Waiting on server response" get to love that phrase, sometimes it can take servers for ever to respond. And I mean 30 minutes and crap to get in.. and if you die.. that's another 30 minutes.(this can give you an amazing fear of death, you will have no blood, no ammo and not want to kill yourself due to the wait) game expects patience even before you play.

days are 24 hours long, this can be a pain some times, a lot of people can only play games at night, and the fastest closest servers tend to be at night. THought a couple have changed their hours some, these tend to be constantly full.

the videos also tend to be edited around the "action", I think you have noticed the videos tend to be long for a game video, well they cut out some of the longest parts. You spend a lot of time hiking and hiking and hiking.

you can easily spend 30-45 minutes not seeing another player or zombie.

the game will make you an expert map reader. that is a bonus. But you will get completely and utterly lost at times.. follow a road or something else.. but follow just off the road, running down a road = bandit bait.

the longer you play the bigger deflation you get from getting killed. At times this sucks. You spend 6 hours hiking up north, only to get gunned down by an unseen bandit in middle of nowhere. and you start off with just the basics again.. and no you dont respawn near friends.. you see the group videos.. when one dies he is pretty much out of the group because he just respawned on the coast, miles away. Locating your friends can be an adventure in itself.`

zombies zombies zombies, be prepared to be overwhelmed at times, and go through 8 magazines and the zombies keep coming. arg. be prepared for stupid bugs. Servers cutting off when you are playing, sending you back to find a server and wait on that damn server response. Some servers get laggy and your frame rate drops to 10fps. Sometimes objects like backpacks are hard to pick up. Sometimes they are floating above you in the sky. Falling sucks, dont do it.

Night time is a bit ...well lets say it is so dark that most people think their monitors turned off when the server finally responds. It gets slightly better after a few minutes when you eyes adjust. Sometimes the only way to tell the game is working is to look up and see the stars.(it gets better when the moon comes out) I'm not exaggerating. Your screen will be black when you first spawn in night time. A lot of folks "cheat" and turn up the gamma in video options. I dont think of it as a cheat, I think of it as urbanizing the rural areas... ok it is cheating so sue me, i cant see otherwise. Sure you can throw a flare.... if you want to get shot.

people are dicks. People will act friendly for hours and then shoot you in the back of the head.

People are awesome. People will risk life and limb to give you some food and blood and then run off playing their game. Dicks outnumber awesome 10 to 1.

OK all that out of the way, I enjoy the hell out of the game, but it sure isnt what a lot of people expect in a game. ANd some of these negatives and features, dont get talked about a lot in the videos and such. More than anything else this game is about patience.

Look forward to seeing you on the servers, and before you ask, yes I am friendly.. almost to a fault.

DEADB33F · 2012-05-25T00:21:25.268519+00:00

just to interrupt the fun, you should be able to give yourself a transfusion. it is the only thing in the game that requires you to trust someone else. While the game play itself beats you over the head with an iron piano to not trust people.

Ikirio · 2012-05-25T00:12:10.899456+00:00

but... it already does this. Great idea but play at night, after a good 1/2 hour it gets brighter.. when the moon comes out brighter still... until you look at a light or throw a flare too close and then you have to adjust again.. or maybe it is my eyes but i swear the game already does this.

powercow · 2012-05-24T15:31:44.837734+00:00

what did bush say about terrorist and the nations that habor them?

WHat about bush attacking pakistan with drones. THink he gave the sovereign nation any warning?

what does the fact that Pakistan was pissed that we killed an INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL(dont forget nearly every nation had citizens in the WORLD TRADE CENTER) that they said they werent harboring.(which is different from Bosch, as with Bosch cuba could lobby us to release him, as we ADMITTED we were holding him,.), what does that have to do with the doctor?

LAST THE GOVERNMENT OF PAKISTAN ACTUALLY SUPPORTS US, which would have been a better retort to my comment. And it is the more lawless areas that convicted the doctor.

A tribal court in north-western Pakistan found the doctor

and pakistan is fragile and walks a delicate line, trying to keep their nation together while trying to be part of the world.

It would actually make some sense, rather than this BS about sovereignty, as if that has ever mattered to the US.

powercow · 2012-05-24T15:23:56.003706+00:00

How, explain. Give a good argument on how it was treason, if pakistan said they would turn him over if they found him and they didnt think he was there.

I'm am more than willing to listen to that view, if you dont mind expanding on your thoughts a bit.

sullen_ole_geezer · 2012-05-24T08:22:09.736076-07:00

I didnt either. I had a lot of misconceptions about the FCC as well.

oteren · 2012-05-24T13:47:07.421851+00:00

I find people forgetting which letter is capitalized to be one of the most common password problems. Most people tend to have one or two passes they use over and over. Stupid but true.

Anyways it is better to have a longer, simpler password that people can actually remember, then a shorter more complex one that looks like someone barfed letters on the screen.

yeah you can use a smaller dictionary in attacks, yep passwords need to be longer than normal for the same level of security but it really isnt that big of a deal.

I do bet they had similar arguments at blizzard but in the end I bet this saved them a ton of money.

sullen_ole_geezer · 2012-05-24T13:30:18.754562+00:00

FCC cable regulations: Historic and current

They actually have a lot more regulatory control over cable than most people think.

powercow · 1 day

Yeah I probably should have left off doctor, since I already doctored up the title so much.(yuk yuk) Not sure why they choose to include his profession, I guess it sounds better than saying some random Pakistani... saying it was someone respectable.

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