h a l f b a k e r y"This may be bollocks, but it's lovely bollocks."
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...at top prices in order to keep the riff-raff out.
NB: If you slip the waiter a few quid on your way in, he might find a seat for you under the skylight.
Breatharians <sp: surreptitiously changed. Ssssh! Don't tell po!>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breatharian
Know your enemy! [DrBob, Jul 14 2010, last modified Jul 15 2010]
Yoshi's Feast
http://www.amazon.c...d=1279141953&sr=8-1
"You have charged me for the smell of your eels, and I have paid you with the sound of my money!" [bungston, Jul 14 2010]
Randi speaks on Breatharians.
http://www.randi.or...d-by-sunlight-.html
I get the impression that he isn't totally convinced. Never mind, still plenty of money in the concept I feel. [DrBob, Jul 16 2010, last modified Jul 21 2010]
[link]
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I remember them from my days in San Francisco. Excellent idea. + |
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There would need to be attention to air quality. |
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"Waiter, there's a fly in my air" |
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[+] with mandala placemats... |
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You humans are very odd. If this worked, given evolutionary pressures, a life form would have evolved to exploit that ecological niche. Even photosynthesising plants need water and minerals to survive, and by and large humans lack significant amounts of chlorophyll in their epidermis (with the obvious exceptions). |
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Redwoods get practically all their nutrients from the air
and sun. Incidentally, they are very close to San
Francisco. |
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Also, 8th, are you just a highly organized and complex
blob of tightly intertwining closed loop electromagnetic
fields that
pull the ions necessary for your survival and eventual
procreation from the reactions between sunlight and
stray amino acids in the interstellar space of star
nurseries? And if you are how do you ever make it down
to the surface of a planet to inhabit the brain of a
corporeal lifeform? That must be the hardest part, no? |
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what are beatharians? some kind of drummer? |
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The place to go to after a mcdonalds eating fest.+ |
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"Bretharian Happy Meal" ... very Zen. |
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I'll just have a cup'a'helium.
I'm on a diet. |
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In that religion do they have The Christian Breathars? |
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Air farter, who art in... |
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//a life form would have evolved to exploit that ecological niche//
It has. Breatharians. Q.E.D.! |
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There's info later in the article that doesn't corroborate
with that fact, however. Namely, several Indian
universities have undergone significant studies regarding
breatharians and they continue to do so. |
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I have to admit I was surprised to see V S Ramachandran's name ascociated with it. After watching his TED talk contributions and reading some of his papers he strikes me as a fellow with his head screwed on his shoulders. I guess the improbable needs looking into too. |
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I was sitting there thinking about it too (the study
where the guy walks out of range (the only one worth
crediting in my opinion)): |
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Friggin' hobbly old guy has to set it up, this whole sham.
This whole, oooh look at me I can live without food or
water sham! And when nobody's looking his brother
slips
him some ham and cheese, key lime pie smeared from
the
broken box in his coat pocket where the cameras don't
zone and whamo! Lookey look
brother we really fooled the world about what it means
to stay alive! |
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I just don't see it happening like that. The doctors
would be able to find food particulates in his water spit
(which had to remain finely balanced, water in equals
water out). |
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Or the scientists were corrupted to ignore the results
from the rich media swindling giants. |
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I don't see this as a restaurant, but a community. A
place where x gather to practice their belief. |
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//and several of her known followers have died// |
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See? There's always a bright side. |
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The truly sceptical thing to do would be to maintain
agnostic, but this is very hard for me to do. [Quest] has the
right idea except that i think they should agree with the
researchers on what constitutes good design, provided that
doesn't include eating anything classed as food. They do
seem to claim they can live on herbal infusions and of
course that can be weak soup in a sense and is not
subsisting without food as such. |
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There is a more serious side to this though, which is that i
think it's a form of organised eating disorder. |
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I can envisage some kind of filter-feeding animal living in a
very polleny or insect-ridden atmosphere surviving by
straining out the nutrition. Spiders are a little like that. |
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//The truly sceptical thing to do would be to maintain
agnostic// |
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I disagree. The need to eat is not a complete unknown -
there is very strong evidence that it is actually quite an
important part of staying alive. |
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A true sceptic - if you mean someone who does not pre-
judge issues but awaits evidence - would realize that there
is an overwhelming amount of evidence against this sort of
moronity, and that evidence ought to be counted. |
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The problem with keeping an open mind is that people
tend to dump shit in it. |
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Sp. "Septic" ... FAR more unpleasant. |
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//easier to trust sources// Because sources worthy of the
name provide metadata to help with evaluating their
trustworthiness. In Wikipedia, it's the History & Discussion
tabs. |
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//bit of colour// People's level of skepticism varies with
the practical importance, to them, personally, of the
conclusion. Things like the origin of the Universe are of no
practical importance to most people, while the question
of who ate the yoghurt you left in the office fridge is truly
significant, and your standards of evidence for that will be
much higher than for breatharianism. |
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I wonder if these people ever sweat, or lose a hair
follicle, or a skin cell. There seems to be a slight
matter imbalance here. |
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<obligatory> I tried it once in college...but I didn't inhale. |
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The whole idea is they get energy from Prana, or
something like that. Since energy has the ability to
become mass, there's your inlet stream. |
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//The whole idea is they get energy from Prana, or
something like that. Since energy has the ability to become
mass, there's your inlet stream// |
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Oh dear god. 4 billion years of evolution for this? |
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Well, it's more like 15-20 billion if you consider the
early universe as an evolving entity. |
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Guys, guys ... what's twelve billion years between friends ? |
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// energy has the ability to become mass, there's your inlet stream // |
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Quite correct, but you need special tools. |
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//The whole idea is they get energy from Prana, or
something like that. Since energy has the ability to
become mass, there's your inlet stream// |
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I hope I'm not being condescending*, but let's use our
brains for an instant. |
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Taking just protein as an example, you need something
like 0.5g of protein for every kg of body weight, per day, to
stay healthy. So, for a 60kg person (I guess most
breatharians are skinny), you need about 30g of protein.
But let's say you can get away with 10g at a pinch. |
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10g converts, using e=mc^2, to about 0.01 x 3 x 10^9 x 3 x
10^9, or about 10^17 joules. The USA uses about 10^16
joules of energy per year, as electricity alone. |
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So, you really ought to get one of these Pranaholics
and plug 'em into your grid. You could export the surplus
energy to the world. |
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Also (as an aside), why is it that the word "energy" crops up
in this sort of mumbo jumbo so much more often than,
say, the word "walnuts"? When ever anything needs an
explanation, it's always some strange form of "energy", and
never a strange form of "walnuts", which would be just as
likely. |
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*"condescending" means "talking down to". |
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//it's more like 15-20 billion if you consider the early
universe as an evolving entity.// |
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Quite so, quite so. And how long is it if you consider the
early universe as, say, a chopstick? |
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That depends on your relativistic velocity. The faster you go, the shorter your chopsticks* seem to be to a "stationary" observer. |
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That's only if you're holding them properly, of course. |
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(* does not apply to forks and spoons due to Einstein's Theory Of Special Cutlery) |
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Yea, hmm. I agree with you, you know [MB]. Also, don't
worry about condescension. I said don't worry about it you
worthless twerp! |
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I think you may mean "valueless". |
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Incidentally, I have to tell you that the word "twerp" just
doesn't sound right with your accent (but, bonus points for
mastering its use and context). |
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It's an interesting topic. For example, "asshole" sounds
completely ridiculous when said with an English accent, just
as "bloody" is comical coming from an American mouth. |
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Yes but no English speaker would say “asshole”, since it is merely a colonial mispronunciation of “arsehole”. |
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Well, naturally, yes, but that's beside the point. Why is it
that "bloody" sounds silly in American or Dutch accents, but
fine in English, French and German accents? |
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I have to say, I'm strongly in the 'it's all a load of bollocks' camp but I'd be happy to change my mind to just 'doubtful' if someone came up with some decent proof of concept.
Meanwhile, back on the main subject...
//What kind of service is offered if the staff isn't serving anything?//
Why, exactly the same kind of service that you get in a normal restaurant. Waiters would show you to your table, help you into your seat, light the candles and then hover unobtrusively nearby in case you wanted anything. The manager would occasionally come over and ask, in an oily and patronising manner, if everything was to your satisfaction. People would occasionally rush back and forth, in a panic, to the kitchen from whence would come the sound of constantly clinking crockery and of chefs shouting at each other. There just wouldn't be any food or drink is all.
Now, veering off topic again...
//Why is it that "bloody" sounds silly in American or Dutch accents, but fine in English//
Interesting question. I would guess that it is something to do with the evolution of language. My theory is that swear words generally sound quite harsh, lots of hard consonants, in their mother tongue. Foreign accents tend to smooth over the harshness and take the curse out of curse words. I don't know if the same applies in other languages but I suspect it's true. From my original research (which I have just conducted)and my limited knowledge of French & Spanish, it's interesting how different their swear words sound if you say them with a native accent and then try it again in English. |
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Polish is an excellent language for being angry in. |
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