Super hungover and this put an immense smile on my face. Tyvm Flynn.

Im drunk so its ok to ask here... Why does the exception prove the rule?

This is all speculative...

I believe that would be due to the limits of man's reason. A rule is a mental construct meant to divide things into dichotomies our brains can understand through consciousness' use of the axiom of identity. Thus, when we make a rule, we split things up, so it is vital that we choose our rules wisely. The exception, therefore, is identified as something that doesn't fit this rule. So we work hard to identify the property that is causing this to be the exception. From here, we've "proven" the rule to the current extent of our knowledge.

But it could also be way more useful than that because we may have the ability to refine our brains "rules" to tell us more about objective reality. I believe people with ulterior motives use this ability to change our brains "rules" to irrationally believe as they do, which is immoral for both the messenger and the receipient.

Some people think it's not that an exception to a rule, meaning a case where the rule doesn't apply, 'proves' it. Rather, the 'exception' refers to someone questioning the rule, allegedly because 'prove' and 'probe' share roots.

Wiki disagrees. Basically it refers to stuff like 'Catholics may not eat read meat on Fridays' indicating that Catholics can generally eat red meat.

Stupidest saying ever.

Counter: "It's always in the last place you look."

Saw an awesome Neil degrasse Tyson lecture yesterday. It was about an hour and a half long, but it flew by like seconds because he was able to keep the whole crowd laughing for about 85% of the time. If I had to pinpoint the main theme of his presentation, it was that America's culture has lost it's focus on scientific thought.

He brought up the period of 800 - 1100ad when the culture in Baghdad was the crossroads of free thought and created algebra, algorithms, and other ingenuities, and how a ruler whose name escapes me claimed that "manipulating numbers was the work of the devil" and pretty much thwarted all muslim free thought from that point on. He then went on to list nobel prize winners and compared Jewish and Muslim recipients, and the Jews outshone Muslim culture by a magnititude of 6400 (measured: prizes won/total population). The muslims have only won 2, and one of those was in economics, lol.

He showed some slides of various bills of world currency. Alot of them featured their most notable scientists and mathematicians ie. tesla, newton, gauss, and a bunch others. And showed America only having Benjamin Franklin but he implied that he is only there because of his "founding father" title since there was no lightning bolt, kite, or key to be found on the 100 dollar bill.

He showed a bunch of flaws in advertisment and statements by elected officials, one memorable quote was a senator or something complaining that "half of all students in [some city somewhere] are below the average in test scores". Duhrrrr.

He also showed pictures of a bunch of disasters that caused human fatalities like bridges collapsing, cranes falling through buildings, steam pipes exploding underneath busy city streets, etc. He blamed this all on faulty engineering. He also commented on Katrina and how the levees didn't break until after it passed over new orleans and weakened to cat 3 hurricane. Thus, that disaster was an engineering fault too.

At the end of the lecture, he progressed through the numbers by orders of one thousand, starting from one and ending at sextillion, the number of stars in the observable universe. At each level he gave a comparison of real life objects that contained those numbers, I think one quadrillion was average number of sand grains on a beach, 100 billion he mentioned using the amount of hamburgers mcdonalds had sold, and he said you could wrap all those burgers around the earth 52 times, then stack them to the moon and back...

Anyway enough of the blabbering, if you get a chance to see this guy give a lecture in person, go for it, he is a thoroughly entertaining speaker.

I have to throw one more on from QDB

<skywalker> hi
<sexiann> hey
<skywalker> how are you?
<sexiann> luke, i need to tell you something
<skywalker> what is it babe?
<sexiann> i know i should probably say this 2 you face-2-face, but im nervous
<sexiann> we've been going out 4 a while now
<sexiann> and things hav been going gr8
<skywalker> yeah
<sexiann> and i think
<sexiann> i think...
<sexiann> i <3 u
<skywalker> i...
<skywalker> i don't understand
<skywalker> you can't have inequalities with imaginary numbers
*** sexiann has quit IRC (leaving)

very clever, from the Skeptic Zone podcast.

Medicins Sans Medicine

He demoted Pluto from a planet...I can't forgive him for that.

+1

My Very Easy Method now Just Sums Up Nothing.

LOL

All those wasted mnemonics!

I don't care what anyone says, Pluto is a PLANET.

You should yell that exact sentence at the world while you hold your junk.

And then put your head down, look around and figure out why.

haha, I assure you, whatever damage he's cost you in murdering mickey's dog, he makes up for in shear enthusiasm for science.

My Very Elegant Mother Just Served Us Nachos...

Punk!

See, the P adds so much!

Who's not fat, kills the cat:

http://www.suntimes.com/news/world/2...021710.article

Article from above link given below:


Italian TV chef suspended for suggesting cat stew recipe

February 17, 2010

ASSOCIATED PRESS


ROME — Italian state TV has suspended a cooking show host who shocked the nation by saying cat stew is a Tuscan delicacy he swears he has enjoyed many times.


RAI TV confirmed on Wednesday that it had suspended Beppe Bigazzi, the 77-year-old host of a popular morning program that offers food tips and recipes in a country fiercely proud of its cuisine.

When his 27-year-old female co-host looked stunned as Bigazzi said he has eaten cat stew “many times,” the white-haired, grandfather figure defended his tastes.

“Why, people maybe don’t eat rabbit, chicken, pigeon?” Bigazzi said. He could have added horse meat, which many butchers and supermarket meat departments stock.

“Who’s not fat, kills the cat,” is how Bigazzi began his lighthearted prattle about cat stew.

Bigazzi claimed cat stew was a Tuscan specialty near the Arno river valley, but co-host Elisa Isoardi looked so embarrassed she ducked behind a cart of fresh salad greens whose healthy virtues the two were supposed to be chatting about.

“Cat, soaked for three days in the running water of a stream” in Tuscany “comes out with its meat white, and I assure you — I have eaten it many times — that it is a delicacy,” Bigazzi continued.

His critics included Health Ministry Undersecretary Francesca Martini.

“Cats are pets protected by law,” Martini noted, specifically against “cruelty, maltreatment and abandonment.”

She lamented in a statement issued by the Health Ministry that Bigazzi’s advocating cat stew “hurts sensibility, which is fortunately steadily growing, of citizens toward animals.”

The director of the RAI channel the show runs on, Mauro Mazza, called the decision to suspend Bigazzi for an unspecified amount of time as “painful but inevitable.”

Only a few moments after revealing his startling recipe, Bigazzi seemed to anticipate he would be barraged with criticism. “Now there will be letters from nature lovers. Why don’t they defend rabbits?” he asked.

************************************************** *************

What kind of wine goes with cat stew? Or do you just drink a local beer? I'm having a great single malt scotch (oban) right now, but I doubt it is what Italians drink with cat stew.

-Zeno

Valmoggycella

An email I received this morning.

shipit

The fact that the exception is even worth mentioning demonstrates how nearly-universal the rule is. A female who somehow manages to qualify for a PGA tour event is the exception that proves the rule "men are better than women at golf."

The only one I ever remember is "MVEMJSNUP!" said by Screech on SBTB

I am drunkand its my birfday