padren

I am a bit curious, if you mean that the basis of thermodynamics is overcome in this state? By which I mean, to achieve any effect, energy is expended in some round about way to achieve the outcome, in a less than 100% effecient manner. Another issue I can't help but to wonder about, is uncertainty in decision making. Lets say the singular conciousness is contemplating how to deal with some regional potential catastrophe. Various solutions are computed and compared, many mutually exclusive, without the time to reconcile them all before the conscious units in that region are destroyed by the impending catastrophe. Lets say if A is right, solution B would result in destruction, and visa versa. Then, the units that presented A, could consider the units presenting B as a threat themselves, since they would be trying to enact a solution that would lead to destruction. Basically, I am wondering how vast any consciousness can be, especially when the organism can function as seperate conscious units. We can choose to undergo brain surgery and remove a portion of our own brain, but if we had to achieve a consensus with millions of units that would be aware of their own extermination, it could be more difficult to resolve. Lastly, (after writing several paragraphs and deleting them because I am up way too late) I at first didn't but now think consciousness may allow for the universe to be destroyed, but it is ultimately a natural process, and either is or is not possible, based on how things have unfolded since the first moments of the big bang. Its pretty hard to conceptualise the ways the universe may end, but then the fact it ever started to begin at all has always irked me to some degree.

I suspect psychologically it has risks, like many things do, to be an over used crutch. What I mean is, if a person avoids actual social contact and withdraws into porn based personal fantasies, then I could see it as an issue. Its not unlike people who watch tons of TV to conpensate for a social void. Also, for most of us, we know exactly how to seperate what is fantasy/unreal vs reality, but if someone had almost no actual personal social sexual experiences, I could see porn potentially having a negative impact there (that could lead to high expectations in very bad pick up lines and confusion with pizza delivery personel.) But those are generalizations of risks that could occur in some circumstances, not to be confused with actually likely problems. Another thought, if a person has trouble meeting members of the opposite sex, to the extent they blame them for his own inadequecies and builds general resentment, I could see how porn could agitate or amplify the building cycle of rejection and resentment, but again this is just as an agitating factor in individual that already has problems. I suspect most people are rather healthy and subseqently would not be harmed by it.

I am curious, how do you calculate the max power output of such an engine? I think, the amount of energy it takes to heat the cold source to the temp of the hot source is the effective measure of the energy input of the power source for the engine itself. If you use a naturally cold body of water and a naturally warm sun exposed land area you have a vast supply to replenish the system, but I think you can still factor the max power output somehow based on the temp difference. Sorry, I am not familiar with the math... my general sense is that the sterling engine is very effecient but since it cannot break the laws of thermodynamics you can't gain car-engine-grade power without some fairly serious power into your heat/cool system.

I think to a large degree, the media leans to whomever holds the whitehouse. I noticed a huge shift in CNN pretty much the day GW was sworn in. I think the media is worried most about the demographics and panders as much as politicans do, and then they treat their political guests like rock stars with kids gloves so they want to come back on their show. Then some news channels, actively seek to cut out a specific wedge of loyal viewership by supporting a specific world view that appeals to a specific demographic. So far I haven't noticed any liberal ones, but for me liberal means that things like universal healthcare and seperation of church and state are non-issues that should have been solid ages ago.

I have to admit I am not up on all the science, but I think there is a valid argument to taking some precautionary steps even if all the evidence isn't in yet on such a topic. If an asteroid was coming towards the Earth, but scientists disagreed on whether it would definately hit us, suggesting we take half of the time of its approach to do further research, would it not be prudent to prepare for the worst, given the time limit involved? I am not suggesting that we act as if every chicken little should be given a grand army to fight the End of Times, but the goals of Kyoto and pollution do have benefits on more fronts than just the potential of global warming, since polution as a whole has become a real health problem. And, if there is a pretty good theory as to the interaction of the amount of green house gasses currently being released and a theory of their general impact on escaping light - even if we don't have good models for the global climate, isn't there a point were we can say "hey, if industry has a high enough chemical output that it contributes to changes in the atmosphere, can we get creative and cut down on those impacts, until we understand the potential impacts better?" If industry has little or no impact at all on the atmosphere, then its not an issue, but I'd argue anything that does impact any global system, should be treated carefully, and more so for our lack of understanding the total system, than the reverse.

Yeah...I've always been told the Dirty Bomb threat was a conventional explosive device intended to scatter radioactive material over an area. The issue is that while we assume its hard for terrorists to aquire nuclear weapons (only evidenced in that they haven't used any yet) that it may be possible and much cheaper/easier to aquire material unsuitable for a nuclear reaction, but still highly radioactive. Klynos: Yes they both utilize conventional explosives but I think the key differences, (that explosives in a nuke only serve to cause critical mass as a precursor to the actual very large nuclear reaction/explosion vs. a device who's total explosive output is no more than the chemical reaction of the conventional explosives themselves) make the simularities moot. Technically, a nuclear bomb can be triggered without conventional explosives, its just a convienant way to achieve critical mass.

I run into roadblocks in my research regarding my missing socks from the dryer unless I am allowed to introduce gremlins into my theories...and yes, I too am scoffed at by my peers when I do this. When people cite the fact that scientists are still stumped by elements of biology as a basis for promoting ID they are utilizing a rather common logical fallacy...I can't think of the name, but its like claiming algebra is mathmatically flawed just because you can't figure out an answer in a 10th grader's workbook. I can't even imagine what criteria ID could possibly pass to get into a textbook. Won't it open the door for Dianetics to be "taught" as a 'balance' to modern psychology? One minute these people are slamming schools for teaching sex education that conflicts with their personal beliefs, the next they are trying to shove their beliefs down everyone's throats. Maybe that horrid voucher program where people can use public funds to send their kids to private religious schools is a good thing...if they'd finally leave the public schools alone to actually teach. "Leave no child other than those of crazy nutjobs behind"

This may sound sort of quaint, but I found it helped me. I find it helps to accomplish something in small, accumulitive steps. It has the psychological value reminding oneself in a literal way (instead of intellectually) that we can make a difference in our lives, and depression is often tied to a sense of fruitlessness and being stuck/trapped. Its not something I logically chose but realized I did in retrospect later. Its not a solution, just something that may be able to help a bit.

Um, I think every gas can become a liquid at some temperature and a solid (except for helium - I read that somewhere in someone's sig here). So, um, to consume it in a liquid state would be the same as drinking liquid nitrogen AKA dry ice, and A Very Bad Idea.

Well, you'd have to be very very sure you had all your components juuust right but you could also try to pour some sort of clear resin that hardens solid to box in your electronics, then pour oil around that block to deal with the remaining air. My thinking is, the pressure would be distributed throughout the very hard resin, allowing very small voids of where your air pockets in the electronics to exist at 1 atmos of pressure. Oil will transfer that pressure directly against any surface that has a void trapped in it, but a very hard resin - I think - would help nullify that. Its just an idea though and may be flawed, do you think it may work?

Isn't there a race condition in there? For life to make order out of chaos, it takes energy over time, and with entropy, there is only so much time. Given the heights of the evolutionary goals, and the amount of time for permutations to continue before entropy is a universal issue, you'd need something like the Drake equation on crack to determine the odds some intelligence will be able to achieve the level needed to overcome the cool down issues in time. But even without the numbers its worth taking the shot. It somewhat overlaps one of my sentiments about life, which for me is, that life today is still very much an early phase, much like the dinosaurs existed in a stage of evolution were even the concept of cosmology could never be concieved, there are equally massive leaps down the road we can't possibly concieve. But, even if we are not alive to see it, we can work towards that by (to use a term you use) keep trying to add memes into the mix we suspect will compete well and bring us a little closer to that eventuality of an unknown greater state. I like the hypothesis though.

This is pretty much what has been breaking my brain. You can tell someone a photon emmits from a light source and its all very straight forward collision stuff, with a little bending of space here and there and lightspeed/relatively thrown in, but the behaviors just 'fit' with our understanding of nature*. (*Ok, wave interference patterns occuring with single photons freak me out but thats another story.) Since someone mentioned EM field stuff earlier, I'd like to ask just to know: what particle emmits from a magnet to draw metal close to it? I've seen magnetic field lines drawn in diagrams where they are lines from north to south etc, but according to Quantium Mechanics, what particle emmisions are responsible for that behavior, and is the force delay in magnetic fields also c? If a magnet pops into existance, does it take c before metals begin to feel attraction?

Maybe they'll X-ray the kids' brains several times a day and track if cancer occurs. If they find any it'll be quite condemning. This reminds me of a guy that I had the misfortune of getting as my masseuse (masseur?) once who not only had a special magnet to protect his energy field (without which he begins to feel like he'll collapse), but went on and on how his dad and a neighbor got cancer from another neighbor with a HAM radio. After talking about wanting to burn the guy's house down, he went on to talk about the importance of positive energy in healing work....true story. Don't school buses have CB radios anyway?

If the poster intended this to have no effect on the plane, then you are correct in that it was not flawed. If he intended this to counter the plane's forward motion, than it is flawed. If it was intended as a brain teaser than it makes sense why he'd include a red herring, but I thought he was asking the question genuinely.

In any example where the air is still, and the plane is still, you will have no lift, I think we are all on the same page with that. In the initial post, they try to keep the plane still, but implement a flawed method for keeping it still, therefore the plane will move forward through the air. Take two boats in the water with exceptionally low water resistance. One has a propeller, the other is a fan boat. They both try to move against a 10mph current with their engines set to go 10mph in still air. The fan boat moves ahead, the propeller driven boat stays relatively still. Crank the speed up to 90 MPH or so, add some airfoils, and you have the same situation presented in the example.

Lets say, you put on a jetpack, goggles, and rollerskates. Not to fly, but just to get around town. Someone puts you on a conveyor, because they want to test how fast you can go without you having to leave the lab. But, no matter how fast the conveyor goes to counter your forward motion, all it does is make the rollerskate wheels roll faster. Only the ground is moving, but your jetpack is still pushing you through the still air, giving you the same true ground speed and air speed as if you were rolling down the street. Your "conveyor ground speed" would be much faster, since its trying to move backwards to slow you, but failing to do more than cause a slight drag via friction within the rollerskate wheel mounts. Since the jetpack pushes against air, you would need a wind tunnel to test it and have a countering airspeed instead of a countering ground speed, since the ground plays no part in propulsion. So if you did do that with a plane, that airspeed would be moving over the wings and it would lift in place, or if you tried the experiment in how the OP described, the plane would move forward and leave the runway as fast as if it was not a conveyor.

Sorry to jump in with something that was mentioned earlier in this thread (I am enjoying this discussion, but I don't have enough facts to comment on the intelligence sources) regarding the case for timelines and blame level on congress. First, with timelines, they are important not because we need to pull out by those dates, but because we have to pull out by those dates if the administration actually has a clue what they are doing. The problem is the administration is executing the war with absolutely no quality assurance or accountability whatsoever. If the administration can say they have x,y,z goals, and their plans are to achieve them on such a timeline, then if they fail its more than justified to replace them with people who can execute the war far better. This would improve our ability to win in Iraq, not lessen it. If they meet most of the plan on schedule, but are delayed on others due to unforeseen events, then maybe they get a C+ and not an A. However, if a timeline is drafted and they show continuing incompetence, in only will help the troops and objectives to shake up the leadership. Secondarily, I think members of congress are to blame for something, but it actually isn't the same thing Bush is to blame for. Many of us were not sold on the Iraq war - mostly democrat voters - back when it was sold to congress. What we saw, was not congress being convinced of the threat, but (at least the dems) congress being convienced it would be politically uncomfortable to oppose it and instead got on the bandwagon to come across as patriots. To many, this is blame for the war on congress for their cowardace, instead of poor intelligence. This is independant of course of the blame on Bush for doing what he and the administration did. I'd like to make one observation about the argument regard the intelligence that congress had: Not the entire congress supported the war, some opposed it. Would they, in their hopes to sway the others, not voice the information regarding the intelligence faults if they did have access to that information? I would think they'd argue with the best information they had access to, and I only recall (my memory is sketchy) that there was lots of talk about inconclusive evidence, but not the presentation of damning evidence to the contrary.

We are still on the basis that the state provides for the needs of the workers, and the workers provide the state with the means to produce the goods to satisfy the needs? It just seems like a lot of work for a state to try and figure out what people need, when if the people just keep that part of the quota for themselves they can just go buy exactly what they need, and more importantly, want. I respect my parents, but they live thousands of miles away, and while I value their older wisdom and input on what I should do to meet my needs with my income, they just don't know enough about myself any my life to be very effecient in making choices for me. I guess I just can't quite understand how a state can play a role of a parent, better than an individual can play the role of...themself. Maybe the arguement is protecting people from themselves, but I feel the same way about smart decision making as I do about how people address poverty. If people in a society need protection from themselves, they are not in the position to intelligently choose those who will do the protecting. If they can make mistakes about planning and marshalling their own futures, those same incapabilities will manifest in the planning and marshalling of the institutions designed to protect them from themselves. The only way I know of for a population to make more intelligent decisions, is by challanging that population with decisions on a regular basis that impact their lives and let them grow from the experience. Since they won't have the bulk of the information of what goes on inside the state apparatus - since the worker and the statesmen have very different lives - it is less effective skill training than making decisions about their own live's needs. Alternatively, you could have an income tax system within a state run economy instead of a quota. Your tax would be exceptionally high, maybe 80%, but you get all the housing and food stamps and clothing stamps out of that you need to live. This would be like the stepped quota system but with infinitely small steps...and if you produce nothing you are still feed, just as with the quota, and you'd still undoubtly be looked down on. Still, to me, its almost an issue of fighting the wind, or using it like a windsock. Why struggle to adapt and anticipate a society's changing needs across a wide and diverse nation, when the most accurate survey you could take would be "hey keep most of your money and buy what you think you need" and have cost zero in administration?

I don't know why the fellow was banned, he did PM me out of the blue asking if I would help work on his project (I don't have the math skills even for sound science) and if he did PM a number of people with that request (since I was PMed randomly I wouldn't doubt if he did PM a few people) they may have complained. Thats just conjecture though, I can only confirm he PMed me about it. As far as science goes, from what fiend posted from CD27: http://freshlinks.net/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9159&PN=1 I think his now closed project thread would at best be moved to "Pseudoscience and Metaphysics" and that "Engineering" is definately out. Maybe the guy does have a gift and can draw smart connections others generally don't, but its clear its also an affliction and he draws many connections that are superficial in nature and do not describe reality at all, and he clearly can't tell the difference between the two. Most forums I know of, delete posts that discuss why they or another was banned - the public members of the forum were not involved nor are involved in the process, so turning into a public debate (often without nearly any of the information on the topic) only serves to confuse the matter. I respect that people are trying to help the fellow understand the potential reasonings the admins may have had, but this is really between the admin and the banned individual. Also, isn't the account Fiend now banned? It says so under his name. If so this thread is moot now as well.

Bascule did' date=' citing 46.7 billion grams compared to the 7.7 billion grams on lifeaftertheoilcrash.net. Please read the items you post, and search page 2 for: You did post that right? They are currently rather low in production and higher in cost' date=' as they are not the most economical means by which we can produce energy. I was making a Mad Max reference. The total desert thing was part of the point. You cited yourself that the US is already grabbing oil from oil rich countries yes? So why do you think that all countries will spontaniously run out of oil at the same time? My point is' date=' as low oil levels begin to stress some areas, it will not yet be a stress in other areas of the world. There will be functioning oil based infrastructure working on market solutions even when it gets rather bad in other areas. I already explained serveral, which you cut out as you had no response to. Take your study that we are in an innovative dark age - one that is claimed to have started in 1855!!! Seriously, look at the progress over the last 150 years and tell me if you REALLY think times have been so dark? My mistake' date=' graphite replaced a different expensive component and platinum was [b']reduced[/b] significantly. http://iris.nyit.edu/~drose01/techwriting/research_project_report.htm And as far as replacing platinum entirely - got iron?: http://www.fuelcellsworks.com/Supppage2030.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/02/10/nbact10.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/02/10/ixhome.html Actually because I got rather worried a while back and looked into it. Here is one source referring to some methods: http://www.iea-coal.org.uk/content/default.asp?PageId=87 There was also a great show on 60 minutes a while back, about someone that developed a waste processing system that burned city waste at high pressure at high temperatures, and was able to generate a decent amount of power as well as burn it hot enough to produce almost no waste. I doubt we'll run out of garbage. Lets see your claims: 1) Not enough platinum for fuel cells. - That was demonstrated as false, and also that platinum is not the only source for fuel cells. Does this change your point of view? 2) Innovation is in decline, harolding a dark age without invention - The only source citing that claim also claimed this dark age started in 1855, leaving us at 50% where we were then. If there is such a dark age, we discovered flight, space travel, everything digital, the telephone, radio - shoot, what the heck did we even have in 1855? Does this change your point of view on the decline of innovation? 3) There will be a universal drop in oil, leading to a simutanious global crash. - Oil is no more evenly distributed in the world than wealth is...there is no basis for this claim. Please defend this notion or exclude it. 4) There are no power systems for flying planes as batteries are too bulky. - Again, this is based on both the misconceptions about fuel cells, as well as ignores the use of hydrogen as a burned fuel source, which very effectively powers rockets, therefore demonstrating a power to mass ratio needed for flight. Again, this is not saying lets use rockets, but we can develop jet engines that can burn hydrogen as long as (as it is demonstrated) the chemical capacity for storing energy is high enough. Can we drop the "only gas is light and effecient" argument now? 5) We are running out of other resources too. - This is a whole other alarmist issue, which IMO holds more water than the oil peak debate, but does not in any way contribute to the issue of the oil peak itself. Can we stay on topic? 6) Production is too expensive. - It is rather expensive, although it is hard to know what the final costs will be. Right now, most alternative energy sources are the equivelent of custom paintings, whereas gasoline and petrolium systems are cheap poster prints. We are yet to see production levels required to reduce costs in alternative energy production. When the market justifies the costs to mass produce alternative energy systems in larger numbers, the costs will go down. I admit that the net costs will likely be higher, but not cripplingly so. 7) Hydrogen is not a fuel. - This claim basically is a matter of terms. Gas is a natural resource and a fuel, hydrogen is a fuel but not a natural resource. The energy to extract oil can be aquired by burning a small portion of the oil extracted, whereas hydrogen requires a completely independant energy source. There are however, other energy sources than oil. I personally think this production is the hardest part of meeting demand, but that does not mean it will be catastrophic. If anything, its the only part of the debate that holds any water at all. PS: you may want to change your catch phrase from "hydrogen is not a fuel" to "hydrogen is not a natural resource" which is more accurate. Out of those 7 claims, 6 are very easily refuted and one is debatable but in no way uncontended. Would you mind sharing your thoughts on the first 6 points?