CaptainPanic

Today, August 13th, is Left Handers Day. On this day, we celebrate the lefties, and we appreciate their effort to adapt to the right-handed world. Obviously, the left-handed people must adapt to the simple things, such as scissors designed for right-handed people and fish knives which are only useful when held in the right hand, but there are many more examples. Did you know that left handed people must make a huge effort to read the text on a pen or pencil, as it is always upside down when they write with it? So, look up some left handed people today, and thank them for their efforts!

The solubility of CO2 in water is indeed a function of temperature. However, 1 or 2 degrees difference is not going to decrease the solubility by more than a few percent. Even if we have a temperature increase of 5 degrees (which is huge - hurricanes would become insane), as you can see in the graph below, the CO2 solubility would drop by approximately 20%. (source) The increase in atmospheric CO2 was approx. 22% in the last 50 years. Since the amount of CO2 in water is roughly linearly dependent on the amount of CO2 in the air, we can conclude that the increase in atmospheric CO2 has a greater effect on the CO2 dissolved in the oceans than the increase in water temperature. Having said that, modeling the pH of the oceans is ridiculously difficult. It is influenced by CO2, which is in equilibrium with carbonic acid, which in turn is in equilibrium with its (bi)carbonates, which are also in equilibrium with everything else in the oceans that affect the pH, including all marine life and a lot of the sediments and rocks... sooooo, it's a pretty complicated model, and it is very difficult (if not impossible) to really predict what will happen. It is yet another case of: "Do we want to risk jumping into the unknown, or shall we try to prevent the unknown from happening?". When asked "what is the worst that could happen?", we must answer that we don't really know.

! Moderator Note sidharath, You will discuss without the use of any insults. If you fail to do so, we will make sure you will not discuss at all on our forum. Do not respond to this moderator note in the thread.

Living in a country below sea level, we can always use some! I believe we're currently building more beach and dunes on our coast, and that will take roughly 20 million m3 of sand. What's your price? (Please note that this is just a joke, and also off-topic, and if anyone wishes to discuss this topic, I'd be happy to respond in a separate thread).

I agree with zapatos' post. Most shooting stars will start to heat up ('burn up' if you want) in the upper atmosphere, so Mars' atmosphere should be dense enough to cause the same effect, only closer to the surface. On earth, a meteorite has to be of a particular significant size to make it all the way to the surface. On Mars, I assume that the size limit to make it all the way to the surface is much smaller.

Ok, so, to people in disease control and the medical sector, Ebola is important and they should learn about it, develop vaccins, and possibly take further actions and precautions. Institutions and corporations who have business in the most-affected areas may have to take precautions as well (such as British Airways, who cancelled some flights to Africa). I agree that these people make this a top-priority. But here's me, living in the Netherlands. Zero casualties in my country so far. I have no direct links to any affected areas. Ebola is just very unlikely to affect me in the near future. What am I supposed to do? Should I take Ebola as a potential serious thread to my life, at this moment in time? Should I take any precautions? Should I be afraid? I think the answer is no. I might as well ignore it. In the Western world, there are institutes with people who professionally keep an eye on diseases, and our government will issue official warnings when stuff gets serious. Until then, I choose to ignore this media scare, because I know that the right people are not ignoring it.

I am guessing that those who heavily oppose the 'tax on hardware' as explained above are Americans? It's funny that this tax was quite popular in the Netherlands. You pay tax. Artists got money. And we got to download everything we wanted. It was a bargain, and I would still pay the tax if it doubled or tripled. That is your car insurance, and it is a mandatory expense (you're not allowed to drive your car on the Dutch road without an insurance). If the insurance was government owned, you could call it a tax. As it happens, it's a corporation. But you still pay. And it is a very good idea.

Bringing up the flu of 1918 (which caused 50-100 million deaths) suggests you do think that the Ebola epidemic is a very serious and dangerous development? I'd be interested to hear your reason to write that post. You probably know more about the topic than me.

I think that ebola is just the next media scare. It's new. It's exotic. It attracts viewers/readers. It's good quality news! All the reports about wars (Ukraine, Gaza, Syria) get boring, so they need something else. It's even front-page news here in the Netherlands, were we have zero confirmed cases. But you are right, the disease doesn't pass easily from a sick person to a healthy one, so I cannot imagine that Ebola will be a big issue. Ebola death count: perhaps around 1000 people (nearly all in Central / Western Africa). Have a look at the top 10 causes of death to put that tiny number in perspective... The media don't report what is important. They report what people want to read/view.

Some stuff went different than in the future predictions from the 80's, but one thing even those predictions predicted right: it would be different than predicted. That said, I think it's pretty awesome now: Instead of supersonic flights, we got budget airlines. Not as glamorous, but if you think about it, it's so much more practical. So, instead of going from London to Tokyo once per year really really fast, you can now fly to Greece 5 times per year and have money to spend on beer as well! I think we got this one right. We got tricorders. We call them smartphones, but with a few physical add-ons which you can already buy in the store, you can do almost everything that star trek predicted would only be available in the year 2400. And more: we can do video-phone (it's called Skype now) on ours, and play music, shoot photos and videos... and it's even a flashlight and a mirror. Take that, tricorder. We have robots. Lots of them. They manufacture our cars. They sort the mail. They bomb places like Afghanistan all the time. Also, some are rolling around Mars. They just don't have the friendly face as in the cartoons, because frankly, that is just creepy. And we just don't have the one-wheeled household robot that the Jetsons had, but speaking of the household: Most houses have dishwashers, washing machines. Fancy houses even have centralized lights, dimmable windows, climate control. Who says our houses aren't automated? Again, no robot with a friendly face, but nobody is stopping you from sticking a tablet with a smiley onto your dishwasher. So, yeah, we failed on magic levitation which was necessary for hover boards and flying cars, and nobody has yet wanted to pay for moon cities (but that is probably because Dubai hasn't thought of that yet, because they are totally building an underwater hotel). And finally, I love it how you dismiss the Internet as something mundane... If you think the internet is boring, you're not using it right. But that's just me talking from the Netherlands to all my friends on SFN from around the planet.

I think the gut bacteria change as a result of your diet? So, if you would have taken some ancient ancestor, and pulled him out of Africa and put him in - let's say - South America, his digestive system might have protested to the change (just like a Western system might protest if it switches to (for example) an Asian diet suddenly, with much less dairy products, and different carbs, for weeks on end). But since the move went slow enough, and we can eventually adapt, even within the lifetime of a single person, I think that there is no genetic preference for any fruits/veggies from Africa. This is a little speculation on my side, since I am no expert in this field. It just seems to make sense to me.

! Moderator Note xyzt, when I addressed everybody regarding polite behavior, that included you too. The 2nd and 3rd sentence in your post [before you edited and improved it] add zero useful information to this post. Do not respond to this moderator note. [edit] To avoid confusion, it is noted that xyzt has edited (and improved) the above post since this mod note was posted.

! Moderator Note mahesh khati, please observe again the rules of our speculations forum, especially the 1st rule, which states: "Speculations must be backed up by evidence or some sort of proof. If your speculation is untestable, or you don't give us evidence (or a prediction that is testable), your thread will be moved to the Trash Can. If you expect any scientific input, you need to provide a case that science can measure." Also, I'd like to quote on of my favorite blogs: "Of course science has overturned earlier notions of how the Universe works. But sometimes, those rules are shown to be true so much and so often that when you come up with an idea that overthrows all of it, you’d better have iron-clad evidence of it." So far, it seems other members are not satisfied with your evidence. It is your task to improve this. Everybody, please also observe the other rules of the Speculations forum, especially the 2nd rule which states: "Be civil. As wrong as someone might be, there is no reason to insult them, and there's no reason to get angry if someone points out the flaws in your theory, either." Do not respond to this moderator note.

Yes, the Mediterranean will only dry up if the inflow through the strait of Gibraltar is somehow stopped. Frankly, even if some major tectonic event would block it, I think we (humans) would quickly re-open it by just blowing up that blockage. It's just too important economically, as can be seen in the picture below of the world's shipping lanes.

! Moderator Note Everyone, If you see other people taking threads off-topic which the mods did not see yet, report it and we will look into it. It is best if everyone just focuses on him/herself, and make sure that you don't break the rules anymore. Let the mods deal with the rest by reporting it.

! Moderator Note I am locking this thread for moderator review. It is my mistake not to place a warning that we really do not appreciate the discussion of mod notes. I'll have another mod take a look at this.

! Moderator Note Irbis, if you are going to use this forum as a platform to spread your hatred of certain people, your stay here will be VERY short indeed. This is your last warning.

With a wind from the south, planes approach from the north (into the wind). With a wind from the north, planes approach from the south. If your runway is sloped, you now need 2 runways in a north-south direction (one for the approach from the north, one for the approach from the south). That is the problem that pzkpfw tried to explain (I think). Since airports are generally located near large cities where ground is expensive, you suddenly need several hectares of extra space. Also, it would be interesting to have an estimate of how much sand/rocks you need to create the right size hill for this idea. Take into account that it costs more than 10 euro for 1 m3 of sand to be delivered on location. The costs of such a hill/mountain could be quite high. So, although I am not yet convinced that there are any real advantages in this idea, I think that the costs are going to prevent its development.

Please show us what you have tried so far to get to an answer. Also, a little more introduction might be helpful. What do these letters represent? Functions? Matrices? (I get a feeling it is linear algebra, but it might be useful to clarify that). A reminder: this is the "Homework Help" forum, not the "Homework Answers" forum. We will not do your work for you, only point you in the right direction. (Posts that do give the answers may be removed.)

! Moderator Note We do not allow advertising here, not even when it is cleverly disguised as a question. Your question was too specific about one company. It might be that this is a genuine question, and that is why you were not banned as a spammer. Maybe someone can give you some advice. If you have specific questions about a particular company, I suggest you call them up, instead of bothering us with it.

! Moderator Note The entire thread (after somewhere around post 10 or so) is off-topic (at least when we consider the 1st post as the topic, which we do). That is against our rules. Relative, this forum is not a platform where you can re-invent science as you think it should be. The scientific method is a very successful and tested method. Frankly, I am not sure why we allowed this thread to grow so long, but I guess it has a lot to do with the incredibly high rate of posting in this thread (it's only 1 day, and 159 posts). I am going to do the stereotypical moderator thing when rules are violated, and close this thread. Thread closed.

! Moderator Note Just a quick reminder from me, in the role of moderator: We are discussing the chance of winning being determined by the method/timing of shuffling the cards. Read the OP and other posts for more info. barfbag's post goes partially off topic, and although this is not serious enough to get a warning, I want to kindly request that those who want to reply to the part about poker strategies / poker tips do so in a separate thread.

It seems to me that the only difference is that in one case the dealer (who shuffles) influences the randomness between two games, whereas in the online game, the shuffle apparently happened in the past. This may give the impression that people can gain an advantage of it, but unless the security of the servers is breached, there is no issue, and it is just as random as in any other poker game. If I will roll two dice in 1 minute from now, and then promise to leave them under a cup, then it doesn't matter whether we take a guess now (before the roll) or tomorrow, a full day after the roll. We will both be just as clueless, and our guess isn't influenced by anything. Unless ofcourse, someone peeks under the cup in between. But you shouldn't play online gambling games if you do not trust the security of the server you are playing on.

Note: I am no survival expert (quite the contrary), but I think this depends on the size of the area in which you are lost. If you know for sure that the area is limited in size, and that roads/civilization are within a few hours walking in all directions, then I would agree. However, in certain cases (I'm thinking Alaska, and other seriously large wild areas), it may perhaps be better to stay put, and make a good base camp, hoping to be found rather than to try to get out yourself? I can imagine that in such a large area, your strategy will mean that you eventually need to cross fast-flowing side rivers, and that you are in some trouble when a river passes through a narrow gorge, or goes over a cliff.

! Moderator Note Irbis, at least one of your posts violates our forum rules, specifically rule 1. Be civil. Slurs or prejudice against any group of people (or person) are prohibited.Stop writing this type of posts. It is unwanted on this forum.