...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.-- DrBob, Jul 14 2010 Breatharians <sp: surreptitiously changed. Ssssh! Don't tell po!> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BreatharianKnow 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-.htmlI 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] I remember them from my days in San Francisco. Excellent idea. +-- xenzag, Jul 14 2010 There would need to be attention to air quality.-- bungston, Jul 14 2010 "Waiter, there's a fly in my air"-- hippo, Jul 14 2010 [+] with mandala placemats...-- xandram, Jul 14 2010 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).-- 8th of 7, Jul 14 2010 Redwoods get practically all their nutrients from the air and sun. Incidentally, they are very close to San Francisco.
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?-- daseva, Jul 14 2010 what are beatharians? some kind of drummer?-- po, Jul 14 2010 good catch [po]!-- xandram, Jul 14 2010 Breathair or be square.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jul 14 2010 The place to go to after a mcdonalds eating fest.+-- zeno, Jul 14 2010 "Bretharian Happy Meal" ... very Zen.-- 8th of 7, Jul 14 2010 I'll just have a cup'a'helium.I'm on a diet.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jul 15 2010 In that religion do they have The Christian Breathars?-- xenzag, Jul 15 2010 Air farter, who art in...-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jul 15 2010 //a life form would have evolved to exploit that ecological niche// It has. Breatharians. Q.E.D.!-- DrBob, Jul 15 2010 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.-- daseva, Jul 16 2010 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.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jul 16 2010 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)):
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!
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).
Or the scientists were corrupted to ignore the results from the rich media swindling giants.-- daseva, Jul 16 2010 I don't see this as a restaurant, but a community. A place where x gather to practice their belief.-- dentworth, Jul 16 2010 //and several of her known followers have died//
See? There's always a bright side.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jul 16 2010 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.
There is a more serious side to this though, which is that i think it's a form of organised eating disorder.
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.-- nineteenthly, Jul 16 2010 //The truly sceptical thing to do would be to maintain agnostic//
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.
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.
The problem with keeping an open mind is that people tend to dump shit in it.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jul 16 2010 Sp."sceptre".-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jul 16 2010 Sp. "Septic" ... FAR more unpleasant.-- 8th of 7, Jul 16 2010 //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.
//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.-- mouseposture, Jul 17 2010 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.-- RayfordSteele, Jul 17 2010 <obligatory> I tried it once in college...but I didn't inhale.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jul 17 2010 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.-- daseva, Jul 17 2010 //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//
Oh dear god. 4 billion years of evolution for this?-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jul 17 2010 Well, it's more like 15-20 billion if you consider the early universe as an evolving entity.-- daseva, Jul 17 2010 Guys, guys ... what's twelve billion years between friends ?
// energy has the ability to become mass, there's your inlet stream //
Quite correct, but you need special tools.-- 8th of 7, Jul 17 2010 //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//
I hope I'm not being condescending*, but let's use our brains for an instant.
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.
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.
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.
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.
*"condescending" means "talking down to".-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jul 17 2010 //it's more like 15-20 billion if you consider the early universe as an evolving entity.//
Quite so, quite so. And how long is it if you consider the early universe as, say, a chopstick?-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jul 17 2010 That depends on your relativistic velocity. The faster you go, the shorter your chopsticks* seem to be to a "stationary" observer.
That's only if you're holding them properly, of course.
(* does not apply to forks and spoons due to Einstein's Theory Of Special Cutlery)-- 8th of 7, Jul 17 2010 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!-- daseva, Jul 17 2010 I think you may mean "valueless".-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jul 17 2010 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).
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.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jul 17 2010 Yes but no English speaker would say “asshole”, since it is merely a colonial mispronunciation of “arsehole”.-- pocmloc, Jul 17 2010 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?-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jul 17 2010 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.-- DrBob, Jul 21 2010 Polish is an excellent language for being angry in.-- 8th of 7, Jul 21 2010 random, halfbakery