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imatfaal

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Everything posted by imatfaal

  1. The good thing about swansont is that when he has his game face on you can get to know what he is doing every 100 picoseconds of the day - none of this dangerous "60 seconds or so" time-keeping inaccuracy the ydoaPs thing is just a long term practical joke - the denouement is set for sometime next decade
  2. Cladking - why do you insist on trying to explain the scientific method and modern scientific thinking when you clearly have no idea and have had this shown to you on multiple occasions A scientific model is an attempt to provide a rigorous and self-consistent mathematical and theoretical system which produces results which mirror those we find through empirical observation. An experiment does not reflect reality - it is reality. Models do impart understanding - that is they do unless you are using some mad definition - which is quite possible. They might not impart understanding of some platonic underlying schema - but then nothing does. You do realise that many scientific models are created before any specific data really becomes available - the scientists extrapolate from more general data and other models, guess, and create maths which looks beautiful and fitting. They then work out how this would be manifest in experiment. They then go looking for 27kilometres of superhard vacuum to smash protons together.
  3. Some things are hard wired.
  4. I have just seen your location - from that I really would hope that you are familiar with Epiminides; I also apologize for calling you a liar - even via a millennia old quote
  5. In maths - too complex to do here. In language - the paradox given above. Read Godel Escher Bach by Doug Hoffstadter - it is completely bonkers but a modern classic
  6. Exactly - that was the root of my comment about sail shape. I don't necessarily think the effect would always be negative but it would be large. Sails are a shape and are battoned to work both with the wind and into the wind - this idea would introduce a new variable; the angle of the "mast" with respect to the boat would vary with both the wind direction and with the boat's velocity (magnitude and direction) with respect to the wind
  7. I realise this is pretty meaningless but I do like the new cover photo option - it is accessed from the top right of one's profile screen and allows an uploaded photo to be used as the backdrop of your profile page. Mine is a panorama shot taken from Barf in the Lake District in the NE of England taken whilst walking there four or five years ago with my Brother and Sister-in-law This is what I mean http://www.scienceforums.net/profile/32514-imatfaal/ it is fairly inconsequential but a nice personalizing touch
  8. That position is already taken - have you never noticed my user title? We had a slew of quite vituperative members one of whom called me that and it kinda stuck - for a while some of the other mods had similarly chosen user titles; not sure if any of the others still do
  9. I remember as a young child reading, listening to, and watching the HitchHikers Guide to the Galaxy - and even at that young age realising that such a marvel as the Guide itself was never going to be within my reach. Now I reach across and touch a button on a black glass slab which reads my fingerprint and acknowledges my right to open the interface; I say Ok Google set timer for fifteen minutes. then I say Ok Google what is the mass of of a 352 mainsail. Then OK Google play Bob Dylan. H2G2 had nothing on this - Now if they could get Peter Jones (RIP) to do the voice in OK Google my wishes would be complete
  10. You have two followers - both of rare distinction; the CEO and a lazy lying mud-slinger
  11. imatfaal

    WTF!

    Exactly. One would hope that a person risen to the rank of admiral would have the savoir faire to dodge a question like that whilst reiterating the sanctity of the chain of command and also questioning the wisdom/integrity of the reporter asking the question. Unfortunately I could also imagine the world in which it was a question planted by the administration with a pre-agreed answer - the orange faced excuse for a human being is very bellicose for one who dodged many drafts
  12. Balloons would act as pretty good "air-anchors". You also need yardarms . The sails would need to be different shapes to work - and I don't know this subject well enough but I think they might need to be different shapes depending on where the wind was coming from. Sails and bits will have a mass between 25-50kg for a yacht - even for that you would need some big balloons; but you woud also need much bigger to provide the tension to keep the line close to vertical when a force is applied through the sail
  13. All very well thinking god won't burn us - but not when we might have to pay for a new roof. And you are right about the blame for and act of god - you will remember the furore which surrounded the York Minster strike and fire - not sure what the Arch-Bish had said but the Daily Fail (or was it the Sunday Excess) blamed it (only sllightly tongue in cheek) on some pronouncement which was a little too liberal for them Steel's resistivity is at least 6 times that of copper - so a similarly proportioned (cross sectional area) steel conductor would have to dissipate 36times more heat. Also copper is much more flexible; lightening conductors are ribbons of copper which arrived on a drum and are unwound in situ. A steel version would have to be brought to the site in short pieces and welded into a whole.
  14. Other than being the tallest building around often with pointy metal things on the roof (and a huge publicity problem if their god keeps burning their building down) - hmm dunno - Go on I am intrigued
  15. Self Consistency is essential but not everything. There was (maybe still is) a hope to produce a mathematical system in which each of the axiomata are self-evident if the others are true - but in the end you need something which is just assumed to be true for your system Also complete self consistency is impossible - any sufficiently complex mathematical axiomatical system will eventually produce self-contradiction; but we tend to ignore this as you only get to those points with recursion and self reference. A nice way of thinking about it in linguistic rather than mathematical terms is Epiminides paradox - Douglas Hoffstadter - Godel Escher Bach
  16. I would also mention that quite a lot of people - including nefarious ones - have access to trailer hoists which will pick up and transport a container very easily. What might seem like a semi-permanent structure to you might well appear as a ready packaged gift box to thieves.
  17. I think that public message is aka status update - ie on right hand side of main site and on each of our profile pages. It is a public message to all members. Private messages seem to work as usual. Hit the envelope and compose new, or choose an already active conversation from list
  18. @Studiot I believe this is a public message

  19. If you feel the fact that he is married is pertinent then I would conclude that you think there is a sexual content to his messages (rather than, say, a shared enjoyment of good photography or body-art etc.) If there is a sexual content then it could either be an unexpected sexual advance or being sent as some initial form of intimidation/mockery/harassment, or an incredibly ill-advised attempt at humour/bonding A useful question to ask oneself is to think whether he would send these images to a male friend. Two not easily interpretable acts, do not really constitute harassment; the best way to nip this trend in the bud whilst amongst friends is an open dialogue
  20. Listen to the whole album and try to work out the time signature on each piece. A work of genius. Blue Rondo a la Turk (my fave) the first track on side A is written in both an unusual 9:8 and has a 4:4 side rhythm
  21. You might want to read Seveneves by Neal Stephenson - I will not say too much to avoid spoilers apart from the fact that it is a brilliant read
  22. @Moontanman Well I have found my first mistake. Wikipedia gave density in the easy to use grams/cubic centimetre - but I should have been using kilograms/cubic metre - so that was three magnitudes out! This figure was rooted which means the answer I get is 1000km across. That is intellectually much more appealing as it means that the circumference is 6300km - and this is also the length of carbon colossal tube which could support its own weight in earth's gravity (presuming constant g over that height) But even so - that is the longest carbon nanotube which can be spun up to sufficient rotational velocity to provide 1g at the circumference. This calc is using the structure with the specific strength (tensile strength per unit mass) that is currently known to man - ie colossal carbon tube
  23. What is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything? Just in case you didn't get the reference
  24. To be honest I was really winging it - and lots of these xeno-architectural projects are done by real experts in normal architecture so I would not be surprised to be wrong
  25. I am very good at origami. I tend to do it without thinking and get into an almost meditative state. A few days before christmas I am sitting at my dining table making little sonobe cubes and other shapes from scraps of wrapping paper to decorate christmas tree - everyone else TBOMK is watching a film. After about twenty minutes my (frighteningly bright) niece slides a sonobe cube across the table to me that she has made and learned to make by watching me. There has been no deliberate communication, let alone use of language, as I have never even noticed she was there - I am making sonobe polyhedra not doing anything else consciously (that's the whole point); but the process of making sonobe cubes has been explained ie passed from one individual to a second with no use of language what so ever I still get sonobe cubes sent to me by my niece - but she never really mastered the complex stuff
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