DrKrettin

It does make you wonder what it would take for people not to vote for this idiot. From the Guardian newspaper: "Democrats swiftly rejected the desertion of Trump by those who had endorsed him as political calculation – pointing out that Republicans had stood by the former reality TV star even as he disparaged Mexican immigrants, Muslims, prisoners of war, the disabled and the Gold Star parents of an Iraq war hero and repeatedly made crude statements about women."

I must be missing something here. If this is 15th century Welsh numerology, why do you give a code relating to the English version of the Roman alphabet, where the Welsh one is considerably different, and includes letters like ch, dd and ll?

That's a relief. I had already wondered why the letter was written in English.

RTFM - Read the manual

The lizard's tail has extremely useful functions. The most important (again, I speak only of gallotia galloti) is deception. If an animal catches the lizard's tail, the tail detaches and squirms about as if alive. The lizard can make its escape whilst the hunter is confused. I've had that happen when trying to catch a lizard for its protection in a hazardous situation. The squirming of the tail can last a few minutes. Another use is a counterbalance. They can scale walls very effectively, and can drop off a vertical wall and re-join it further down, using the weight of the tail to flick it outwards, giving momentum to the body towards the wall to get a foothold. And they were presumably doing this long before Newton invented the conservation of momentum. I suspect the tail has an important function during mating, because of the manner in which the males and females twist around each other. ... drone...drone...

The lizards which we have in our garden (Gallotia galloti) lose their tails sometimes (attacked by cat or stuck between rocks etc.). We can identify quite a few individuals including one or two who have lost their tails, and as far as we can see, the tails grow back to be as effective as the original ones. They walk normally with the new tail, and it looks the same, although we have had no reason to capture one and examine a new tail. The tails can be cut or torn off at any point and regrows from there, although it remains an unusual shape if not detached completely at the stem. It takes quite some time for a whole tail to grow back (months at least)

I think you have the wrong idea about what is a fact. It makes no sense to say it is a fact that there is no god. All you can say is that there is no evidence that there is one, so until there is evidence, you assume there is none. That does not make it a fact. Equally, would you say it is a fact that there is no alien life anywhere in the universe, simply because we have no evidence that there is? That isn't a fact either.

That's a nice touch But I was assuming a negative correlation, if any.

I wonder whether it makes any sense to claim that women have a higher average IQ than men (or vice versa). Men and women have different mental strengths, so whether they do better or worse than men depends on how IQ is defined. I think the only realistic way of defining it is to declare that men and women have equal average IQs by definition, and devise IQ tests to reflect that. Or we could just count the number of people of both sexes who follow utter crap such as X factor or Strictly Come Dancing, or follow the personal lives of celebrities, and let us draw our own (totally predictable) conclusions.

I can see a certain connection here with dick size**. By the way, is there any correlation with that and IQ at all? positive or negative? **After reading that, I meant it as a general comment, nothing personal.

I'm not a guitar player, but can't the individual player influence to note slightly by the tension with which he/she applies to the finger holding down the string? More importantly, the point on the string where it is plucked will determine the nature of the overtones generated, and the player can change that.

But that doesn't explain why that is the exact size of a sheet sold here in Spain. I'm sad enough to have just measured one to be quite sure.

Ah - that's what Descartes meant - habeo smartphonum ergo sum. True true

Does that make me far more ignorant than average because I don't actually have one?

Jeez - I wish you guys would use sensible units and not antediluvian ones. The problem is that inatfaal is working as a mathematician and comes up with a maximum volume for a surface area. But it does not take into account the practical issue that the sheets are always certain dimensions which prevent that ideal solution being put into practice. Your solution uses all the wood of a 4x8 sheet nicely, but is not the theoretical maximum volume.

I'm glad somebody else has said that. I find sans serif rather difficult, and just can't see the difference between the words "click" and the word formed when the "c" and the "l" form a "d". So when the computer screen says "click here" I think it's rather impertinent. But for a thesis, readability is of prime importance. The serifs are there to make reading easy, so avoid sans serif. For a long read, I find TImes New Roman far easier than anything else. And bear in mind that what is important is not how it pleases you, but how it pleases the examiners, and they are likely to be old and conservative like me.

There is that danger, of course, but the problem there is that is was all rather eclectic with no particular universal principles. That ended with Newton's laws of motion, and I have always understood Classical Science as being based on these, as distinct from modern science based on quantum mechanics and relativity where relevant. Having said that, I'm talking of physics, and I'm not at all sure where Darwin stands if we are trying to define Classical Science generally.

Does it not bother you that you have scientifically proven something which contradicts the law of conservation of energy, and that you will now have to travel to collect your Nobel prize?

OK - I'll bite. Can you explain how there can be time without motion?

No scientist saying he is not 250 years old, everybody is saying this is most unusual and could we have some evidence please?

Perhaps it would be better if we concentrated this "smartness" into making the planet habitable enough so that we didn't feel the need to abandon it. Now that would be intelligence.

In real life, most work is not only physically demanding, but also boring. For a lot of people, sitting at the desk thinking about something is a lot more attractive than actually doing something useful, like ploughing or weeding.

My guess is that a car driver is far more likely to be visually aware of a motorbike than acoustically. I have no idea whether a quiet ride is preferable to some, but I have seen people on motorbike forums complaining that their "bike is not loud enough and how can I make it louder?". People can be weird.

For what it's worth, my experience of decades of motorbike riding is that generally, with obvious exceptions, motorbike riders are much more capable than car drivers. Any idiot can drive a car, but the majority of bike riders are aware how vulnerable they are, and behave accordingly, kmowing that car drivers can be idiots. I'm not excusing the organ-donor biking idiots by the way. But to me it is blindingly obvious that motorbike riding is more dangerous, simply becuase you are so vulnerable.