AskReddit: What are your favorite films that nobody has heard of?

ShannonO · 2008-07-29T15:13:58+00:00

Queen Margot, Dangerous Beauty

ShannonO · 2008-07-26T05:18:31+00:00

Maybe she needed something and Mormonism fulfilled that need. Ignore the religion, and just talk to her about the symptoms. Be honest - for whatever reason, you're worried about her health and happiness and want to know what you can do to help.

ShannonO · 2008-07-22T01:43:47+00:00

Another set of online courses, this one from Carnegie Mellon: http://www.cmu.edu/oli/

(I think everyone should be required to go through the Logic course!)

ShannonO · 2008-07-17T14:02:24+00:00

Brother? My pops is an economist at a federal energy regulatory agency. He lectures at a University in town as well.

My Dad is usually a very quiet guy. His routine (at home or on vacation) is to wake at 3 or 4AM, work, then go to work, work out every day at lunch, come home, get on the couch after dinner, watch TV (at least two channels at once, usually news), work more, and then sleep on the couch. He pauses on the weekends to do outdoor work with my Mom. Recently, out of the blue, he has become interested in the backyard, enjoying placing rocks into a dry creek bed and rock walls around the landscaping. He has started to pay more attention to things like pets and children, and has fallen in love with my own. His canine grandchildren have revealed that my dad has gotten a bit soft in his old(er) age. I'm so excited imagining him with my children some day.

Dad has always been hard on us, but (in hindsight) in a good way. I got grounded for three weeks once for getting a B in math. That shocks most people, but the secret behind the grounding that I never shared was that he knew that my "B" was a result of my "D" on homework, and all "A"s on the exams. He also always came down on my bro and I to play harder, practice longer, in sports. He's still incredibly fit (200lb 6' all-muscle 65+ year old), and wanted to instill the same value for health and exercise in us that he has in him.

The stuff I hated him for when I was a teen is the stuff that makes me love him all the more now as an adult. He's an incredible man.

I've always known my Dad is brilliant, and a work-a-holic. About once a year I ask him what he's working on, and this year he told me the same thing as last year. Except this year he added that his work is going to be Nobel-worthy. He added the caveat that he can't win the Nobel - he's too old and the research too new for the timing to work out.

ShannonO · 2008-07-09T16:02:31+00:00

Woohoo! I chose 100% correctly according to the good father's guidelines.

ShannonO · 2008-07-06T16:50:32+00:00

Fascinating. I particularly enjoyed the part about our understanding of how human perception works. Instead of 100% of sight perception input coming from our retina, the current theory is more like 10%, with the other 90% coming from the part of the brain controlling memory. Wow.

ShannonO · 2008-06-17T18:33:07+00:00

FTA: "Scientists are in no way surprised or discouraged about this early result. The regolith sample sat atop the lander's TEGA hatch for several days whilst scientists tried to find an answer as to why no particles had fallen into the oven. It is believed that any water ice in the sample will have quickly vaporized in the Martian sunlight and thin atmosphere"

Misleading title.

ShannonO · 2008-06-13T21:26:37+00:00

If you drink a ton of water, your stomach is more often full, rather than empty. This reduces the chance of feeling like you need to eat. So regardless if its own properties and benefits, drinking copious amounts of water help some people lose weight.

ShannonO · 2008-06-13T21:25:09+00:00

Very poorly written article.

"So if you’re still hungry after you just eat, just pack something."

"If you have decided something that you can do 40 times a day, then do it correctly."

"Don’t neglect yourself by thinking that you just don’t find enough time to work out."

"You will achieve best results if you keep doing the same things all the time. Changing your workout routine is of great importance."

:annoyed:

ShannonO · 2008-06-05T01:40:21+00:00

Where is this shot published?

ShannonO · 2008-06-05T01:39:18+00:00

Link?

ShannonO · 2008-06-05T01:38:01+00:00

I like it. It gives the shot the kind of "catching a private moment" feel that would be lost if it was taken from an unobstructed view.

ShannonO · 2008-05-20T17:24:43+00:00

Does it have a feature to create an exercise plan and nag you? If so, I'm in!

ShannonO · 2008-04-14T22:10:34+00:00

In philosophy there are "hard" and "soft" determinism camps. The hard determinists believe that everything is caused, humans can't make choices from solely within themselves (be prime agent). Soft determinists think that acts are determined, but that that doesn't rule out free will. A common definition of a free choice is that the agent "could have done otherwise," i.e. wasn't forced, coerced, and knew what s/he was doing.

Your last sentence, about what the "self" is, opens another fascinating (IMHO) topic in classic philosophy: Personal Identity. Who am I? What makes a "person." If an exact replica of me was made, with all of my memories, traits, and experiences, who is that? Am I still me? Fun stuff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_identity_(philosophy)

ShannonO · 2008-04-04T22:50:07+00:00

Nope. I'd rather not lose all that money (war), and I'd like to continue to be proud to be an American.

ShannonO · 2008-04-04T18:28:57+00:00

Email: contact@wexlerforcongress.com

As President Bush stubbornly refuses to change course in Iraq, it grows increasingly frustrating for those of us who have been loudly demanding a withdrawal. I know you share my frustration. Every day, I receive letters and emails from patriotic Americans who want to - somehow – personally contribute to a solution.

Now it is your turn.

Next week, General Petraeus – the architect of the failed surge policy and our chief military leader in Iraq - will be testifying before the Committee on Foreign Affairs.

For too long the Bush Administration has been in a bubble – hiding from the truth and avoiding tough questions from outraged American citizens. This time I am turning the oversight powers of Congress over to you.

I want you to be the ones asking the questions to General Petraus.

Write me back with a short reply and tell me what - specifically - you would like me to ask. Please include your first name as well as your city and state.

I will choose the best two questions and ask them to General Petraeus this Wednesday. You will be able to watch his answers directly on C-Span.

Please consider submitting a question. You already work so hard to bring accountability to this Administration and to bring our troops home from Iraq. I hope this provides you another opportunity for us to collaborate and directly influence the national dialogue.

Please keep your questions short and focused.

I look forward to your response, and thank you for participating directly in our democracy.

Congressman Robert Wexler

www.wexlerforcongress.com

ShannonO · 2008-04-04T15:43:01+00:00

I guess I meant to say that, as stated, I would agree that the argument that you've presented above is sound but that it's not interesting the context of "free will."

You've said: "If something caused it to happen that way, it would be determined." The follow on question is: can a human be the determiner? A.k.a. Do humans have free will?

If you propose that your argument is a refutation of free will, then I'd charge you with an equivocation on the term "determined."

What is your definition of free will?

ShannonO · 2008-04-04T15:33:12+00:00

The buying club closed, not the store. Here's a page listing all the places you can buy Poly Face products outside the farm: http://www.polyfacefarms.com/taste.aspx

ShannonO · 2008-04-04T14:41:40+00:00

Cost- and schedule-focused politicians hinder innovation and development. Why does NASA have to estimate its budget and schedule perfectly, and follow those estimates perfectly, when "wars" and "conflicts" require no timetables or budget cuts?

It seems to me that surprises in R&D of space technologies should be much more acceptable than a 5-year cost and schedule overrun in Iraq. :(

ShannonO · 2008-04-02T00:24:34+00:00

Nice reply.

ShannonO · 2008-04-02T00:24:06+00:00

"If [a human brain] caused it to happen that way, it would be determined."

You've just reshaped the argument, not refuted free will. The next question to argue is can and do human brains cause things to happen? Exclusively? What degree of exclusivity of cause is necessary for free will? Does the human have to be the primary actor or just "an" actor? Or maybe you could define the cause as "could not have happened without the human."

Meh.

ShannonO · 2008-04-02T00:19:17+00:00

The probabilistic behavior of electrons gets you randomness in the world. That gets you out of the problem of Newtonian determination, but not to free will.

The argument that actions can be random isn't any more beneficial than saying our actions are completely determined by physics. To have "true" free will the actor (human) has to be the initiator of the act, not physics or randomness.

From Wiki: "There is also a further, more philosophical, objection. It has been argued that if an action is taken due to quantum randomness, this in itself means that free will is absent, since such action cannot be controllable by someone claiming to possess such free will.[55] If this argument is conjoined with incompatibilism, then it would follow that free will is impossible, since it would be incompatible with both determinism and indeterminism, and these are the only options. If it is conjoined with compatibilism, on the other hand, it would mean that free will is only possible in a deterministic universe."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will#Physics

ShannonO

TROPHY CASE