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When I originally posted about the ultra thin wires it was with respect to clearing a bit of water vapour from a windscreen. Toasting bread takes a lot more energy. Those thin wires wouldn't do the job. They do not produce enough heat to toast bread, unless you leave them on for a very long time. And obviously you can't just crank up the current on the thing wires, because they would easily melt. This is why toasters use thicker elements with much high currents.

bascule: that link doesn't work now , it looked like a good read! Demosthenes: so seemingly tor acts as a local proxy and not a normal 'anonmous surfing' website, big difference. He is totally correct. I've asked a question on the forum to clarify my understanding of how Tor works. http://tor.eff.org/overview.html.en

Erm, I'm not exactly sure what you're problem is. Can you post the exact error message and what it says it might do in 3 days. If it is something to do with WGA (Windows Genuine Advance) which throws up error messages such as this: http://www.mydigitallife.info/wp-content/uploads/2006/04/wga-notification1.jpg and this: http://www.mydigitallife.info/wp-content/uploads/2006/04/wga-notification3.jpg then you can solve your problem in many ways. Please read through these sites: 1) http://www.mydigitallife.info/2006/04/26/disable-and-remove-windows-genuine-advantage-notifications-nag-screen/ 2) http://blog.mypapit.net/2006/05/windows-genuine-advantage-tattoo-cracks.html 3) http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/technology-and-science/microsoft-genuine-advantage-cracked.asp I have known this problem to come up on a few different winXP computers. Funnily enough all of the people with Windows Genuine issues have all been using legal versions of Windows. The people I know using illegal OSs have never had this issue. You gotta love MS! If this is not your problem then I've misunderstood your post so could you please be more specific. When do you get the error? What does it say? What MS page does it link to? Can you continue to use the computer normally? etc.

OK, thanks. So is m some constant which can be easily seen? Maybe generally m can be found by looking at the power, m, in [math](sinx)^{m^{-1}}[/math] (thats m^-1). Which would explain why m=2 in this case. Can phi be calculated using some preset rules? I think I'm correctly interpreting this: [math]\sqrt{\sin x}= -2 E(\frac{1}{2}(\frac{\pi}{2} -x),2)[/math] (or should it be: [math]\int \sqrt{\sin x}= -2 E(\frac{1}{2}(\frac{\pi}{2} -x),2)[/math] ???) as meaning that: [math]\phi = (\tfrac{1}{2}(\tfrac{\pi}{2} -x))[/math] is there a general rule for calculating phi?

I added bold: Ah, that's the answer then. When using CD cloning software specifically designed to bypass the copying protection systems there is a 'quick error skip' option that is required for some forms of protection. Some protection systems kick up thousands of errors when you copy it (this is a consequence of the protection, not the purpose of it), and consequently a normal copy will take a very long time. This is why CD copying software was specifically designed to fast skip these meaningless errors.

Using SSL is not the only form of encryption. But is a good and common example. I've just thought of a great example to share. In school there's a censoring system. It has varied from nothing to basic software, to advance software and is now integrated with the ISP (some special school ISP). I'd like to talk about the basic/advance software censoring. With the basic system I would be able to go onto a proxy and through that bypass the censoring. However with the advance system not only were nearly all proxys blocked, but if you did find one then it would come up with the proxy window, and then within that it would come up with the blocked sign. The advanced system saw that it was the approved Tor site sending you the data, but the data itself was checked, and this was blocked. So what would happen if the data was encrypted? To be honest I don't know. Although a simple solution would be to just block encrypted data. Sometimes when you're browsing a page will come up as normal, but then the advert in the top will come up as the blocked page sign, which is sometimes amusing to see. Although I suppose if you used an encryption where A=1, B=2 etc. and then hosted the code for the site using this encryption it should get past the censoring, and then the user could decrypt and assemble the code at home.

You don't even need it coiled, the real life examples usually the wire is almost straight but with a very slight squiggle (a sinusoidal curve with a very low amplitude - how do you say that simply?!). The main thing you would be relying on is the conduction, surely. Most of the IR radiation will not pass through much of the glass. The wires heat up because of their resistance and the warm wire, via conduction, heats the surrounding glass. Now we all know that glass in not a very good thermal conductor, which is why the wires are very close. About 5mm between them. That is quite close, but remember these wires are so fine that you have to look very closely just to see them, so it does not effect the transparency in any significant (to the human eye) way.

Yep. Note that some members will need to clear/refresh their cache before they will notice the change. Thanks. And good to see you round Blike.

As far as I understand CCl4 has a high boiling point (relative to that of PbCl4) because the +4 oxidation state of the carbon is very stable. Whereas for lead it is not. As you go down Group 4 (towards lead) the +4 oxidation state becomes less stable and so for example; PbCl4 easily decomposes into PbCl2 + Cl2.

Well, I would say if New Scientist say it then it's good enough, but no, you are right... I do know better, I just worded it a bit very badly.

General Science is a good place to post something like this. UV ink does exist and is often used for security on tickets, money and passports etc. I know in the UK that notes (money) all have things printed on them in UV ink. The £10 note only has "10" printed on it, but I'm sure £20 note had something more interesting, but I don't have one to hand. So where to buy, try google, I came up with this: http://www.fxsupply.com/uv_ink/uv_ink.html when Google-ing for UV printer cartridges remember to ensure that they will fit inside your standard printer! Alternatively the idea of refilling an old printer cartridge with UV ink sounds a good idea. Whilst there may well be a bit of left over ink, I think it should work quite well. Just my thought! Don't hold me to it!

Front windscreen heating elements do exist. My dad had the Ford Mondeo for many years and you could see them if you looked closely. They're significantly thinner than the standard heating elements on rear windscreen and you could probably miss, especially if you weren't expecting it. Just do a google search for ultra thing wires or go to an electrical supplier and see the finest wire they sell. It doesn't release energy as visible light. It will emit IR, and if you passed a very high current through it could glow red. However the currents are nowhere near that high, consequently only IR light will be given off. Just like most warm bodies.

Indeed, even with a slow CD burner, burning a CD shouldn't take more than 30mins. Longer for a DVD. But nothing like all day.

Outgoing: Home -> ISP -> tor -> site you're visiting Incoming: site -> tor -> ISP -> home The ISP sees all. Do common browsers (IE, FF etc.) encrypt all data being sent? When a website has encrypted data such as passwords it does for sure, but generally I'm unsure. I don't think that plain text websites are encrypted. If a website was encrypted then the ISP would not be able to easily read it. Say I develop a new language which is a cross between morse code and ancient egyptian (random!) I could use that to communicate to my friend over the Internet and our ISPs would not be able to understand it. Going back to countries where censoring is enforced, incoming traffic: site -> tor -> ISP -> home those arrows represent the uncesored version of the site. When it goes through the ISP it will then be censored. The automated censoring software doesn't care whether the uncensored site is coming from tor or anywhere else. The whole point of the anonymous surfing is that the site you're visiting thinks that Tor is viewing the site, and not you, therefore you remain anonymous.

Appologies, I was not clear, that is what I meant. Reminds me of the difference between Admin and Super Admin on some software, where an 'admin' is a normal admin and a 'super admin' is someone who could, for example, renew the domain name.

When you drag a thread to your desktop, which I do for a quick link that I can remember to look at in more detail at another time, it replaces the normal webpage icon with a SFN specific one. However I noticed it changed to this: (the blue is my desktop background) now the icon used to be the atomic SFN logo found in the top left of each page. Wondering why SFN changed to a V I'm guessing it's to do with vBulletin and that this is the default icon for all vB forums. Just thought I'd point it out that has changed!

Indeed, which is a good thing. Incidentally the Staff List would need to be saved offline by some members, because if the site went down then relying on a list on the non-working site for help isn't really ideal! Also how actually has admin rights here? The kind that can fix issues like this? I assume Blike, Dave and Sayo do, but does anyone else?

If I said I understood approximately, say, zero of that, could you help explain? In simple terms that is. Or is this very complex calculs which I have little chance of understanding it? Maybe elliptic integral of the first kind (if that exists, whatever it might be) is easier to learn than the "second kind"?

What? No, well, it depends on what you mean. If you mean in countries where there is enforced censoring then that censoring is done on the 'borders' of the countries. All data which comes into the country will go through the ISP and all the ISPs (quite possible there is only one) will censor it. Ah, now I see where you're coming from, either:1) When Torpak sends the 'illegal' webpage to you the ISP will stop it or 2) The censoring works, technically, differently. These anonymous surfing sites are popular and not that new. AFAIK there is no way around a country's block on websites, and if there is it would not be something as simple and common as Torpak. Not that Torpak itself is common, but the idea and general programming behind it is.

Err, ok, at first that seems great. A very minor simplification. However it would still be too complex. Then this dawned on me: So the only speed this projectile will have is the speed from the RC plane. Now RC planes don't go that fast and accounting for air resistance and gravity I think that unless the car is nearby and infront of the plane then the projectile will not reach it as it will 'run out of' speed and crash into the ground first. If the car was on the side of the plane or behind it the projectile would not be able to get to it. But that's ok, because the plane just turns around before it fires. But I still think that the plane and car would need to be fairly close for this to work. How about trying this for fun instead: have a rope with a magnet on the end attached to the plane and another magnet on the car. The person flying the plane needs to get close enough to the car so the two magnets connect. You could then either try; (a) sliding a 'bomb' down the rope, (b) lifting the car up or © the car turning around and crashing the plane! Powerful magnets will work better. It does sound quite fun! I think that the original idea is a bit too complex for a hobby project. Maybe as a Masters project for an Electronic degree, but don't let me put you off!

At first I misread this, I thought you wanted to point a laser at the wall and using the time taken for the last beam to come back you would calculate how far away the wall is. But that's not what you mean. It is a clever idea, however I see two immediate issues that may arise. Firstly as i_a said, it will only work at one set distance (unless those lens are variable*). For best accuracy you would need another ruler to measure the distance between the laser and the object you are projecting the ruler onto. And secondly how clear the ruler image is. You don't want the laser to diffract a lot as this would give the ruler a fuzzy edge. If the 1cm mark looked like this: then you would have a problem. *Of course theoretically you could get an automatically adjusting lens. You'd need to measure the distance and then use that information to change the shape of an electronically sensitive lens. However this would be very complex.

Wow, that's complex electronics. So you want to drop something, call it a projectile, from an RC plane and you want it to, with its own propulsion system, track and crash into a moving RC car? To simplify things you could have a RF emitter on the car, and a detector on the projectile. As opposed to using IR. But you still need a computerised system to track and adjust the propulsion accordingly. It would be easier to guide your RC plane into the car!

It does have nothing to do with temperature. i_a's explanation (above) is correct. Back in 2000 scientists stopped light: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn340

So are there any particular patterns within the periodic table?

The paradox was this: Maxwell says that light travelled at c. Pretty simple, but think like Einstein did, relatively, and it becomes a big paradox! Travels at c relative to what? Relative to me? If so then what if someone overtakes me at half the speed of light? Then they see light at c/2... but this is against what Maxwell said. If I travelled at c then I would see like moving at v=0, but that also violates what Maxwell said, because c is not 0! This is the paradox. Einstein went on to solve the paradox by introducing relativity, which says that light travels at c relative to everything. Maxwell was correct; light travels at c. Einstein added to that by saying light travels at c relative to anything and everything. The consequences of this lead him onto further discoveries and more relativity. [edit]wow! this is my 5,000th post here!