• You may find search is unavailable for a little while. Trying to fix a problem.

Welcome new Members! Introduce yourselves here!

Status
Not open for further replies.
Hello. I've greatly enjoyed lurking this forum for some time now, and I thought it might be fun to finally sign up.

My name is Stefan. I'm a young man with a background in ecology, scientific computing, and web technology. I enjoy long moonlit debates about semantics, games of rock-paper-scissors to allocate burden of proof, and spotting logical fallacies with my fiancee.

I promise not to post passive-aggressive suggestions that empiricism is flawed because it rejects my irrational belief system, nor to defend that irrational belief system with fallacious arguments and then ignore or dismiss all rebuttals of those arguments.
 
Last edited:
sbeeman said:
Hello. I've greatly enjoyed lurking this forum for some time now, and I thought it might be fun to finally sign up.
Click to expand...


Actually it's the posting that's the most fun of all, but I suspect you knew that.

:)


sbeeman said:
My name is Stefan. I'm a young man with a background in ecology, scientific computing, and web technology. I enjoy long moonlit debates about semantics, games of rock-paper-scissors to allocate burden of proof, and spotting logical fallacies with my fiancee.
Click to expand...


Gosh! Sounds like there just aren't enough hours in the day.



sbeeman said:
I promise not to post passive-aggressive suggestions that empiricism is flawed because it rejects my irrational belief system, nor to defend that irrational belief system with fallacious arguments and then ignore or dismiss all rebuttals of those arguments.
Click to expand...


Bummer. Nobody here ever seems to do those things anymore.

As if.


Welcome to the funny farm, Stefan.

 
Bell said:
Common theme: blame the Jooz!

Anywoo... welcome aboard. Normally I would offer you some Belgian beer, but since out national holiday Queen's Day is coming up, I'd like to offer you some Dutch beer (not Heineken) :)
Click to expand...

I've noticed that the 'Blame the Joooos' theme is common in almost every conspiracy. I wonder if these people have ever even met a Jewish person.

I spent two weeks in Haifa when I was in the navy (US) back in '89. All of the people that I met were friendly. A Jewish family invited several of us into their home for dinner having just met us. We were headed back to the ship and a taxi full of locals stopped to give us a ride. We told the driver that we were broke (as usual), and he still gave us a ride.

Anyway, thanks for the beer. :)
 
Last edited:
COLONEL said:
Welcome SWRIGHT ! Yup it takes all kinds and that's what you will find here too!
We have all kinds of people, we are like NewYork City one big melting pot. As a lurker you must know about the customary glass of Goats milk offered to the NEWB's and that being Friday, the weekend Menu is posted Enjoy your time and the people here.
Click to expand...

I guess it would be boring if everyone used logic and common sense to explain or defend their views.

And thanks for the milk. I think I was too late to order from the menu.
 
Hey everybody. Name is Derchin if you haven't caught that by now. I've been lingering around this site and reading some of the threads for some time now. Aside from some previous hurdles concerning registration, I'm finally a member.

Cool.
 
derchin said:
Hey everybody. Name is Derchin if you haven't caught that by now. I've been lingering around this site and reading some of the threads for some time now. Aside from some previous hurdles concerning registration, I'm finally a member.

Cool.
Click to expand...


I keep telling them to get rid of the 'steeplechase' option on the registration page and go back to the more familiar 'jumping through hoops' process but will they listen?

Harumph, I say.

Anyway, that's all behiind you now and it's sane pailing from here on.

Or something.

:w2:

Welcome aboard.
 
Last edited:
Akhenaten said:
I keep telling them to get rid of the 'steeplechase' option on the registration page and go back to the more familiar 'jumping through hoops' process but will they listen?

Harumph, I say.

Anyway, that's all behiind you now and it's all sane pailing from here on.

Or something.

:w2:

Welcome aboard.
Click to expand...

Hello there. I hope I haven't done anything wrong.
 
derchin said:
Hello there. I hope I haven't done anything wrong.
Click to expand...
Welcome have a glass of Goats milk and the only thing I can think of is if you have not returned all your library books yet, the Library Lady will be after you . Although she might be on vacation as she has not been around for a while, so you have a chance to get them returned.
 
Hello all! I'm a near-lifelong skeptic and atheist (in fact, I would call myself a gnu atheist… not sure to what extent that may be controversial in these circles).

My first intro to this stuff was Joe Nickell's book The Magic Detectives. Other than that, nearly all of the books I have read about the paranormal were more on the credulous side, but I could usually figure out what was really going on, and recent Internet reading has helped sharpen my BS-detection skills.

I work for the after-school program of a middle school, where some of the kids are into the paranormal, especially cryptozoology. I don't like getting into arguments with them since I don't want to harm our relationship (or likelier, get into even more frustrating arguments with their parents). Fortunately, the kids themselves are quite good at arguing against the woo anyway; in fact, most of the "cryptozoology club" meetings seem to consist of the kids watching YouTube videos and pointing out how things were faked or played up.

Like all upstanding folk, I believe in "open-mindedness", but I believe much much much more strongly in the faultiness of human minds and our tendency to project all sorts of inner silliness onto the universe, as if reality were supposed to obey the intuitions of a few billion primates. It would take a very, very, very large amount of evidence to convince me that "the supernatural" exists, because of the long history of fakery-and-mistakery, plus my feeling that the supernatural doesn't really refer to anything that logically could exist so much as a kind of set of quasi-dualistic attitudes.

Maybe we've been visited by aliens… but they couldn't possibly be humanoid any more than they would speak Pig Latin. Maybe someone has experienced actual prophecy… but not Nostradamus or any other claimant.* Those are really tiny maybes. Tinier still are the maybes for homeopathy and astrology. Finding out that either one is "real" would be equivalent to finding out the Earth is "really" flat; it's not even imaginable.

I get really frustrated by the self-contradiction whereby woos insist their stuff in in some way untestable. You can't discover anything to be true in the first place if it's untestable! Even the supposed counterexamples they like to trot out, like love, are entirely testable. There are empirical differences between a situation where two people love one another and a situation where they don't. If someone told me that they knew as a matter of faith that Ellen Degeneres loved me, and I said "That's absurd. She can't possibly know I exist, and she's in a committed relationship, and I'm a man and she's a lesbian", would that person be entitled to reply "But love isn't a matter of evidence!"?

Anyway, rant over. Whew. Nice to be here…

*(The eeriest instance I can think of is the incident of that novel "Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan", seemingly predicting the Titanic sinking — but that's probably a Law of Large Numbers thing coupled with a few interdependent facts, eg, if a ship is going to be way short on lifeboats, it will probably be a very large cruise ship, with a "big" sort of name — look at the Titanic's sister ships! — whose makers are a tad hubristic, going too fast, etc.).
 
Hmmmm...Don't know what the 'Goat's milk' thing is, but I've had plenty of it, since I grew up on it....Yummy!...
And yes, I know the 'paranormal' exists, since I've experienced it myself.
It's kind of like a 'sense' that many people just don't experience...And since there is a lot of corruption regarding 'psychics' and such, it's easy to doubt it all...Which is very understandable, and healthy.
 
Last edited:
Lenoxus said:
Hello all! I'm a near-lifelong skeptic and atheist (in fact, I would call myself a gnu atheist… not sure to what extent that may be controversial in these circles).

<polite snip>
Click to expand...


I can think of no better response to this than to nominate it for a language award.

I hope your stay here is as rewarding for yourself as it promises to be for us.


:th:
 
Akhenaten said:
I can think of no better response to this than to nominate it for a language award.

I hope your stay here is as rewarding for yourself as it promises to be for us.


:th:
Click to expand...

I just read it in the nominations thread. What an auspicious entry.
 
serpentine said:
Hmmmm...Don't know what the 'Goat's milk' thing is, but I've had plenty of it, since I grew up on it....Yummy!...
Click to expand...


I have to say, I've been here for five years myself and I don't have any idea what's going on with that either. This seems to be the only thread in the forum where it's ever mentioned.


serpentine said:
And yes, I know the 'paranormal' exists, since I've experienced it myself.
It's kind of like a 'sense' that many people just don't experience...And since there is a lot of corruption regarding 'psychics' and such, it's easy to doubt it all...Which is very understandable, and healthy.
Click to expand...


Interesting times ahead, I'll warrant, when you start meeting up with the folks here who know the paranormal doesn't exist.

:)

Vive la difference and welcome aboard!


:grouphug6
 
Jeff

The Name is Jeff. Found my way here via the Skeptoid podcast. I have nothing clever to say at this time.
 
Jason Robards was my deliverer

I am quite ashamed to admit that I've spent most of my life as a devoted religious nut.

At one point, I even entertained new age fantasies and went to a psychic.

I had an epiphany watching Jason Robards perform in a production of The Iceman Cometh. His pipe dream monologue was personally illuminating. I've been discarding fantasies since then.

I feel humble and tardy among you.

Regards!
 
The Persian kitten pats your foot with her paw to welcome you. You can pet her, but watch out for the tiara.
 
Last edited:
marsattacksgirl said:
I am quite ashamed to admit that I've spent most of my life as a devoted religious nut.
Click to expand...


I wouldn't sweat it. I've spent all of my life as a devoted nut without even the excuse of religion.


marsattacksgirl said:
At one point, I even entertained new age fantasies and went to a psychic.
Click to expand...


The fact that you've tried these things and not gone over to teh Dark Side™ speaks well of you. Nothing to be ashamed of there.

:)


marsattacksgirl said:
I had an epiphany watching Jason Robards perform in a production of The Iceman Cometh. His pipe dream monologue was personally illuminating. I've been discarding fantasies since then.

I feel humble and tardy among you.

Regards!
Click to expand...


No need for that. Feel welcome instead!

:grouphug4
 
Last edited:
Reverse Chronological Sorting

Hi, all. Yes, I'm a newbie, so I have questions. Is this the right thread to ask newbie-type questions? If not, what thread should I use. If this is the right thread, here's my first newbie question:

The list of posts within a thread is sorted chronologically. How can I change that to a reverse chronological sort?​
 
WarrenGaebel said:
Hi, all. Yes, I'm a newbie, so I have questions. Is this the right thread to ask newbie-type questions? If not, what thread should I use. If this is the right thread, here's my first newbie question:

The list of posts within a thread is sorted chronologically. How can I change that to a reverse chronological sort?​
Click to expand...


Hi Warren. Welcome to the Forum.

:w2:

I'm afraid the answer is that posts always apppear in the order that they were made. Now it's my turn for a question.

Why on Earth would you want to read a thread backwards? Surely it wouldn't make sense to have the answers coming before the questions, so to speak.

Although I have to admit that it wouldn't make a lot of difference in some threads.
 
Reading Backwards

Akhenaten said:
:w2:
Why on Earth would you want to read a thread backwards? Surely it wouldn't make sense to have the answers coming before the questions, so to speak.
Click to expand...

Laziness. I don't want to have to click on the little right-pointing arrow to go to the last page.

I'm quite adept at reading posts backward. I've been doing it so long that it seems natural to me. By the time I get to the original message, I'm already aware of what people have said about it. [Some people would say that I've let my mind be infected by other people's thoughts prior to listening to the original thought, but I'm aware of that possibility and I compensate for it.]

P.S. - I can read upside-down too. Mirror reading isn't so easy, but I'm working on it.
 
Welcome NEWB'S ! Here it is Friday already, boy did this week fly by . So here is our weekend Menu

Goats milk fresh from our Goat, Belhaven beer,and spring water
Cats and Hamsters prepared by our chef and cooked anyway you want them. famous Grayman oat meal cookies and MINTIES.
If you see the Goat pat it on the head .

The Library Lady will be along soon to instuct you on your library books
 
WarrenGaebel said:
Laziness. I don't want to have to click on the little right-pointing arrow to go to the last page.

I'm quite adept at reading posts backward. I've been doing it so long that it seems natural to me. By the time I get to the original message, I'm already aware of what people have said about it. [Some people would say that I've let my mind be infected by other people's thoughts prior to listening to the original thought, but I'm aware of that possibility and I compensate for it.]

P.S. - I can read upside-down too. Mirror reading isn't so easy, but I'm working on it.
Click to expand...
Let us know when you get to mind reading , we will have a real challenge ready for you :D
 
WarrenGaebel said:
Laziness. I don't want to have to click on the little right-pointing arrow to go to the last page.
Click to expand...

There is a way to go to the first unread post in a thread. I subscribe to a thread, then list my subscriptions. Clicking the icon circled below brings me to the first post posted I haven't seen.

96994fa3f97cc2a9d.bmp


Need help subscribing to a thread?
 
Last edited:
WarrenGaebel said:
Hi, all. Yes, I'm a newbie, so I have questions. Is this the right thread to ask newbie-type questions? If not, what thread should I use. If this is the right thread, here's my first newbie question:

The list of posts within a thread is sorted chronologically. How can I change that to a reverse chronological sort?​
Click to expand...

Some older versions of this forum software, I think, used to have that option, but I don't see it here. If going to the last unread post doesn't do it for you, the only way I know to get a reverse chronological sort is to begin a reply. At least a portion of the most recent posts are presented in reverse. You can always abort the reply before you post it.
 
WarrenGaebel said:
Laziness. I don't want to have to click on the little right-pointing arrow to go to the last page.

I'm quite adept at reading posts backward. I've been doing it so long that it seems natural to me. By the time I get to the original message, I'm already aware of what people have said about it. [Some people would say that I've let my mind be infected by other people's thoughts prior to listening to the original thought, but I'm aware of that possibility and I compensate for it.]

P.S. - I can read upside-down too. Mirror reading isn't so easy, but I'm working on it.
Click to expand...

Welcome WerrenGaebel,
Ah I guess great minds think alike. Generally what I do is click on the last page (particularly if it is a thread I’m subscribed to) just scroll down to the end and work my way back to where I left off. In the parenthesis next to the thread title are the thread page numbers hyperlinked to each of those pages. After a number of pages (over 10 I think) have built up the last page will be listed as just, unsurprisingly, “last page”.

Welcome everyone
 
ratcat said:
The Name is Jeff. Found my way here via the Skeptoid podcast. I have nothing clever to say at this time.
Click to expand...

LibraryLady said:
I'm very grateful for that.

Have you returned your library books?
Click to expand...

Ratcat, your comment reminds me of my friend Lenard (who spells his name that way because that's what his parents did). One reason I like Lenard is that he has lots to say -- and he doesn't say it.

LL, you know that Dante was wrong, don't you? The lowest level of Hell is really reserved for people who deliberately didn't return library books.
 
xterra said:
Ratcat, your comment reminds me of my friend Lenard (who spells his name that way because that's what his parents did). One reason I like Lenard is that he has lots to say -- and he doesn't say it.

LL, you know that Dante was wrong, don't you? The lowest level of Hell is really reserved for people who deliberately didn't return library books.
Click to expand...

Actually, no. The lowest circle of hell is reserved for those who deface library books. :j2:
 
Akhenaten...
"Interesting times ahead, I'll warrant, when you start meeting up with the folks here who know the paranormal doesn't exist.
:)
Vive la difference and welcome aboard!"
----------

I was taught not to believe in the 'paranormal', and I'm quite familiar with James Randi and all...I have a relative who has given talks at the Skeptic society, and would most likely think I'm full of hooey...
So, it won't be that interesting for me.
Of course the paranormal doesn't exist for certain folks. It's just not going to for certain people.
---------

I do love that quote in Colonel's postings.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom