jordan

A few questions: Is there any advantage to fahrenhalf? What exactly is hbar? How are all the different plank units derived and what are their uses? I know I could probably find most of this on the internet, and if you don't feel like typing it all out, go ahead and tell me. I would like to get an answer from you, though, in case I have follow-up questions.

What was this proposition again? Yeah. If you're refering to using a telescope, the light hits the telescope at the same time it would hit our eyes so there is no difference there. It's just that the telescope makes things look closer, not sooner.

That seems reasonable. At some point in our universe, the light that reflected off of the Earth during WWII (don't know why I picked that event) would still be visible to someone. The only catch to seeing that light ourselves is that we would have to move faster than the light to catch it and be able to view it. If we were to take off today and travel for 1 light year at any speed, the light we would see when we got there would be from the Earth 1 year ago. But since we were traveling at speeds less than that of light, we would not have been on the Earth when that event happened. We would have been on our way to that point in the space shuttle. So seeing back in time isn't as much a problem as seeing ourselves back in time.

Let's see: If I give you a number X, you could tell me that there are X positive integers less than or equal to that number. (Example: If X is 8, than there are 8 positive integers less than or equal to 8). To find all the even integers would require the formula 2Y=X. X will be the integer and Y will be the number of evens it has taken you to get there. (Example: If you want to find the 4th even number, multiply 2(4) and get 8.) If we rearange the previous equation for Y, we get Y=.5X. This means that any for any number X, exactly half of the numbers below it will be even. If you'll remember, Y have been defined as the number of even integers it takes to get to the number X. Some of the more advanced math members might rip this apart later, but it took a little thinking and I believe my proof is reasonable. Either way, it was good to take a minute to think about it. I wish there were more threads about proving relatively simple stuff like this.

budullewraagh is really being confusing. I'm still convinced he is trying to make some political statement through all this along the lines of what dave said before.

Hey Martin, what exactly is "planck temperature"?

It is starting to look to me like the stomach of the horse is a guys arm and the point where the horses front legs meet his body is the guys head.

That's what I thought he might be getting at. So I'm really confused by what this means:

True. I don't know that either of us are totaly qualified to say exactly how bad the countries were before their respective wars, though. Every news station will give you their biased oppinion about what we did. The best I have to go by are two soldiers (one of which was on this forum. igerlica or something along those lines) and the other from around here. Both had said that the situation in Iraq is better now than before and that most of the people they encountered were glad to see US troops.

Maybe I'm confused, but I was under the impression that the US opporates under a graduated income tax already.

Screwed? How so? Just to note, that was what I was expecting, but I was hoping you would explain why you feel they can't get back on their feet because my post did say that it may, like in any rebelious overthrow of a long-standing government, take a while to smooth out the problem.

Alright Sayo. Let me know about Afghanistan. I'm aware that I know very little about the history of the middle east, so perhaps you could explain where I went wrong and enlighten me.

I would disagree dave. It will be some time before a major pull-out of Iraq, and even longer until we completely pull out. We should know by then if the new government is capable of controlling the country. I really don't see what makes Iraq so much different than any other country. If they want democracy, democracy should be able to survive. Sure, there are those against it, but many democracies have rebels and still survive. It may take a while for the country to smooth out, but that's the legacy of Saddam for you.

Where did you see mud slinging in this debate dave?

And you're using this as some kind of subtle political sarcasm to say...

But so is anarchy. We decided today that since foreign policy and war is such a big issue this year that instead of a debate, Bush and Kerry should play a game of Risk or something similar and let the voters decide who has a better foreign policy based on the outcome. Well, at least people might find it more interesting...

It's just a natural reaction to think that you were not the one that erred. It takes some guts to stand up and say that you were wrong; it's much easier to blame somene else. By blaming someone else, you are really diverting the attention from the fact that you made a mistake to the fact that you are blaiming someone else, and for some odd reason that seems to be preferable.

He said that it's been a while since he's done any actual interpretations and such. He had a few books that he said I could go through and look all the symbols up, but someone already posted some of that on here and I was running out of time. I was hoping he would be able to look at it and give me an idea, but it's been a while since he's done any practicing of psychology. Teaching an intro psych course doesn't really get into interpretations so it's slipped away from him over the years. Sorry that I couldn't be more help.

I think that's going a little far. I clearly stated I would tolerate the person (not shoot them) but that it would still be rude. Years? That seems rather long. If you can't learn a few basic phrases in the time before you get here and a few months after you arrive then you're not trying. After a few years, if someone still has to point to communicate you have not put forth an effort that would make anyone want to be understanding. Now, I realize that they move here and need to find work right away to support their family, but many students who wish to learn a foreign language can go to a country where it is spoken and come back more or less fluent in a few months. How long do imigrants deserve to learn the words and phrases associated with their job, keeping in mind these perticular words and phrases would be used more frequently than most because they are used over and over each day?

Fair enough. I just think it's rather rude to come to a country and reap the benifits of it but then show how apreciative to make the longstanding citizens go out of their way to communicate with you because you wont learn the language of the country you are living in. Sure, I could get around it but it's like when an old guy pulls out in front of you on a one-lane road and then drives ten below the speed limit: sure, I can deal with it, but it's still rude.

Good point. What would you suggest to ensure that people are?

So can you guys turn on the news and hear about US politics? I know that our nightly news stationis tend to focus on just US politics.

Just for refrence the voting thread is here.

I can't speak for anyone besides myself, but I can see that those from the UK are obviously much better informed about our politics than I am of theirs.

I read this article recently that talked about different methods of voting. Incidently, the US system turned out to be just about as bad as one could be. It very rarely provides a true reading and is very syseptable to manipulation. Since the US usuasly has two candidates with any realistic chance, the system doesn't do too bad, but throw three equal candidates into the mix and you get very poor results. The article continued with some other prosposed solutions. This is where you all come in. I would like to see what we can come up with for the most fair system. My favorite so far is call the instant run-off vote where voters rank all candidates in order from favorite to least favorite. Each candidate then gets 1 point for each first place vote. The candidate with the fewest points is eliminated. Then, the points of those who voted for the now-eliminated candidate go to those voters second pick. The candidate who now has the fewest is eliminated and so on until there is a winner. I like this one or one with a slight modification of my own: candidates get 1 point for a first place pick, 1/2 for a second place pick, 1/4 for a third place and so one. This wouldn't discourage people from voting for a long shot because they know that even if their first choice doesn't win, the mainstream candidate wont get a full point from them. What do you think?