The Lounge

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Very cool pic of the Large Hadron Collider on today's Astronomy Picture of the Day: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080225.html (That's a perma-link, so it should work even after "today".) Pretty exciting that they're just about ready to fire that thing up. Almost makes me want to donate CPU cycles to the LHC@Home project.

There is a really excellent and realistic simulator called Orbiter. It is a space flight simulator. Its is really enjoyable and you can fly to the Moon, Mars, anywhere you can think of. You can get it here. http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/ And if you are looking for more to do with orbiter, you can visit http://www.orbithangar.com. They have these things called add-ons which you add to the default missions you start out with and they include.....apollo missions, ISS missions, practically almost all the shuttle missions, the Mars Rover missions, it also has planes and jets you can fly. Check it out. There are also tutorials on orbithangar if you need help with anything. Yo…

We talked a couple years back about the hidden cost of participating in distributed computing projects like SETI@home. One of the problems with the calculations is that energy costs vary from place to place, and season to season, and various other factors are involved. Energy is gradually getting more expensive, but processors are getting more efficient, so in fairness it may warrant another look, and it may be that there are ways that home users can contribute here without spending an arm and a leg. But the subject came up again about a year ago in a different way. Sony decided to include Folding@Home software in its Playstation 3 gaming console, and of course u…

Here in NZ, at the beginning of the year, we have a bunch of so-called psychics jumping out of the woodwork making assorted predictions for the year to come, and having those published in newspapers etc. The NZ Skeptics decided to act on this, and talked with the newspapers and other media, and came up with their own set of predictions. The skeptics then recorded all the predictions and re-checked at the end of the year, and rated each set for accuracy, compared to their own. That started some years ago, and (I think) the skeptics have always been on top. The reason for the success is that the skeptics predictions were based on good scientific sense and on rat…

hello guys im doing a science experiement for a IB physics class where i have to simulate a penny dropping from a empire state building we have a paintball gun we are using to shoot the penny 65mph (terminal velocity) so my problem is that the penny doesnt fit into the guns barrel IT ALMOST FITS like 2mm difference in size, anyone have any ideas on how to decrease the diameter of the penny enough for it to fit into the barrel? im open to all ideas

What happens when we have groups like this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPRI8Fh1Xdc Start training criminals to do this?

Almost unfit for a place even in the General Discussion, but no other place on the net has a fitting answer. Is there anyone here that can remix music? And if not, do you have any good programs in mind that could? I'm an amateur at anything that goes in depth in technology (I only know bits and pieces of different programs, but never enough...). My friend and I are in the process of creating a video game (it won't be distributed.. Just a mini-project between us) and there is a song that we both like as an introduction, but neither of us have the ability to edit and remix the song to both a reasonable length and a different-sounding.. sound. I would be extremely gratef…

SFN community is great. You have people helping here and you become good friend-at least on the internet. I am posting this because you wont be seeing me for some time. I have my A'levels exam in May and I have to prepare for that so I am giving up doing internet for a couple of months. I'll be back though (I can't miss such good discussion particulary about chemistry on SFN:D). Wish me luck! I bid you good Bye ! PS. I'll miss you lot!

Hi folks. am new here. I work for wild tiger conservation in India..and the ground realities real bad..we are losing wild tigers at an alarming rate. One of the main causes is inability to accurately tag and track wild tigers. Foresters here still use pre historic methods like pug marks and scat to track tigers. The newer methods..radio collars and trap cams too are not very successful because of repeated physical intrusion into tiger territory Maybe a hybrid system using RFID and motion powered energy source can be used...but its really a huge field... so am here trying to narrow down practical non intrusive systems that can be used to tag and monitor these magnifice…

Just when you think the world can't get any sillier, you find http://www.patentlysilly.com/ I'm tied between "Homunculus Constructed from Common Rubberbands" and Mc Donalds "METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MAKING A SANDWICH".

We didn't get much response in the LED thread, so I thought I'd just go ahead and start another one specifically for CF. I'm just curious how many other folks have made the switch. I suspect I came a little late to this game -- some of our friends have had them for a while now. I bought a bushel of these things a few weeks ago and shoved them into various sockets all around the house. My main motivation was actually just because I'm so tired of changing lightbulbs! As I understand it replacing one 75 watt incandescent lightbulb with a comparable compact fluorescent light saves 55 pounds of carbon per year. Wow.

Well now. i found a video from BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_7250000/newsid_7258200/7258220.stm?bw=bb&mp=wm&asb=1&news=1&bbcws=1 that tells to people : "Freezing temperatures in Estonia have turned the country's famous Valaste waterfall, into stunning ice sculptures." And i see it coming from rather many sources... in fact in estonia we don't have cold... just +10 to -10 and usually during winter we get one -30 week. We even dont have normal snow anymore only ocasional ice... Somewhy media tries to show the thing that happened in -1 celcius and frikin strong north wind to be something that in Freezing temperatures... and often with tal…

well its been a week or so since ive been here and i come to find that there is a new format, and my first impression is i do not like it. Perhaps i am a wee bit retarded, but is there anywhere you can click to take you directly to the forum index? i found i can navigate by visiting a recent thread, clicking the section in the path of the thread, and then at the bottom of this page is the forum jumper tool. Example : bioelectricity, is in general biology, in biology. So i click that forum, and then i have the forum jumper. This works fine, but isn't there a more straight forward way to navigate the forums? The new-fangled bloggery deal does look neat though. i'll hav…

Hi, I want to buy my elder brother a PSP this summer for his birthday. I want to start straight way looking. I was wondering which retailers will be the best to buy from...Argos is the only one I know. And aslo do you think PSP is worth buying because I know people who are opposed to PSP (they say its watse of money). By the way Its in the UK i want to buy from... I live in London!

I am looking to see can math beat the market. meaning stock market. i've taken the S&P 500 from January 1, 1987 to January 12, 2008. Supposedly I've started with $1000. I have no idea where to go from here. any suggestions?

There are potential risks in any procedure and LASIK is no exception. The most common potential problems that can occur during laser vision correction are blindness and death. Blindness simply means that while the procedure may not have improved your vision, at least you're not dead. Death is slightly more serious. It means that your heart has stopped and that can possibly lead to permanent deterioration of the body. Some more serious side effects include loss of bank account, giggling from others and eyeballs that jump out on springs. All of these symptoms shouldn't prevent you from paying for LASIK surgery. There is also a chance of being slapped a lot for being so …

Can someone help me with a stock market question?

so how many fully intact satellite fall into the earth's atmosphere? they make it such a simple and ordinary task of shooting down this one on thursday, but really, what are the odds? a bet is on. okay so...the bet is off...the satellite will enter our atmosphere with grace, i'm sure...if it even does. the big deal is that skylab is the last satellite to crash into our atmosphere as they so eloquently put it. or was it. well, anywho, skylab was 100 tons and this satellite is 2.5 tons. not to say size matters, but...well.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article3393161.ece What a coincidence. Just as this forum is kicking off a debate involving the dreaded Re****** , appears an article in my morning paper (Times uk) headed "Why do we believe in G*D? This appears to be a stub of the main article. Sorry about that, but would not want to short-circuit the inventiveness of debaters. Oxford University academics have been given £1.9m and 3 years to find out. Seems a snip at the price. I am surprised it can be answered so cheaply. "They will use the cognitive science disciplines to develop a "scientific approach to why we believe in G** and other issues aroun…

Is this cool or what? And it even has a green engine, all electric. It floats, it swims, it dives, but don't forget to pack a new set of dry clothes. http://www.rinspeed.com/pages/cars/squba/pre-squba.htm http://www.rinspeed.com/pages/cars/squba/pre-squba-fotos.htm

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1037220/ Neuromancer, William Gibson's thoroughly unadaptable seminal cyberpunk classic, is being threatened with yet another movie adaptation. You may recognize my avatar as one of the multitude of awful looking Neuromancer book covers. The latest adaptation attempt (many have failed in the past) is by a no name director with a single feature film to his credit: Torque. I have not seen Torque, but judging from its critical reception there's not a lot to hope for. They've cast Hayden Christensen as the lead role, the down-and-out Case the Console Cowboy, who is presented with the opportunity to resume his status as one of cyberspa…

anyone else here into it? there`s Hip Hop stuff too

I think the meaning of life is to be happy. I think to be happy you need somthing to look forward to. I think a human always wants more... like smarts, or toys, or looks or like anything. i think we all work to get that want... then when we get it were relly happy. but then we want more still i think a bad person wud say were never satisfied...so y try... i think its wut seperates humans from like puppys and stuff cuz we always want more. i think wanting more is good tho cuz it means were always lerning more and improving r way of life. i gess u cud say its bad for planet... but so is a rock from space hiting us and killing us like the dinasores. …

http://www.howmanyfiveyearoldscouldyoutakeinafight.com/ I got 29.