gcol

Never mind about sharing Mars, just see how politicians are creaming their pants about getting helium 3 from the moon. As one of them (who I will not name) recently said "who gets to plant their flag on the moon first and claim it, gets to rule the world". I thought the yanks had already done that. perhaps history is already being re-written. But then it was a politician who said it, so I guess it was not worth the breath he used.

The heretical thought that is buzzing around in my mind is this: Global warming may well be a fact, and who am I to doubt such an august, numerous, vociferous and well-funded body of opinion (majority and concensus always rules by virtue of the right of might), but prove to me that warming due to carbon dioxide is a sole cause , and not a secondary effect of natural variation in the sun's output. If the variable sun is the prime cause, we are in the business of mitigating the effect of a cause we can not control. If carbon emissions are both cause and effect, possibly we can do something positive. Let us have some intellectual honesty here. I dont like jumping on trendy band wagons, no matter which worthy flag they are flying. Another reason for scepticism: When looking to solve a crime, a prime method is "follow the money". There sure is one helluva load of money to be made from the global warming by governments and big business but sadly not by by ordinary foot-sloggers like you and me. The only thing we have to look forward to is ever rising taxation justified by the "save the planet" brigade.

I get the impression that two different types of rights are being confused here. There is the right (or not) of everyone who wants gainful employment to have it, and there is the right, or rights, that employee and employer have under a contract of employment. Granting people to employment is a political matter, and employment rights are a matter of employment law, or the laws of contract. Political rights can vary at the whim of politicians bowing to electoral pressure, and can be given or taken away at a moments notice. Employment rights, being enshrined in law, and agreed by both parties at the commencement of employment, are subject to a much harder to change process. But then this is in the "politics" section, so when in the discussion there is a serious lack of logic an clear thinking regarding such basics as clear definition of terms, I should not be surprised. If this topic was in the Philosophy section, I would expect to see a much more meaningful and less 'touchy feely' parade of partisan dinner-party anecdotes. There is, after all, no truth in politics, and not much honour either.

Don't see the connection between jobs and drugs and the relative rights thereof, but the stated question of this topic may itself provoke some interesting views. Mine is that it is my right to offer someone a job, and if they accept they should be grateful and feel privileged.

I reckon American beer gets a bad press because, having got rid of the brits, it was flooded with an ubstoppable tide of middle and eastern European immigrants who only knew how to make cats-p*ss lager. Some of it is quite strong, granted, but I like to have had a good taste experience before I fall down insensible, makes it more worthwhile somehow. I wonder if prohibition did not happen in Britain because our "proper" beer of the time was too precious to be poured down the drain, but who cried over that lager stuff. Anyway, poor Belgium has been overlooked again.....probably home to the greatest diversity of micro-brewery diversity. Ever tried Lambic beer? Those Belgian Monasteries are certainly good for at least one thing.

England has been metricised by dictat of the EU bureaucratic juggernaut, but we still get our beer and lager in pubs by the pint. English pints, not U.S. Some things even the devil has not yet dared to mess with. One small finger gesture for the remnants of power and influence of ordinary beer guzzlers.

As a precedent, consider how Antarctica was shared out, and how the procedure has worked out and may be improved. I guess National prestige will be of prime concern, then the research grants of boffins and the aerospace industry. Until, that is, useful minerals are found or there is a military advantage, then we will see the bullets and fur flying and once again might will be right. By the time Mars is colonised, the might could well be with China. Uncle sam would not be at all pleased!!

I tried to point the discussion in this direction in my post #2, but more gently. You point out the truth so cruelly! I reckon there are people out there who think property developers and sub-prime lenders are pure philanthropists with hearts of gold and motives as pure as driven snow. Profit? wash out your mouth. Caveat Emptor. Wishful thinking leads to ruin. "I've been greedy, so what? It's my constitutional right for wellfare and everyone else to bail me out, ain't it".

My understanding, for what it's worth, is first to determine the designed flying speed, stall characteristics, then the take-off and landing characteristics required, then choose an airfoil section to suit, and the optimum angle of attack will follow. Highly cambered sections for high lift at slow speed with high drag, and symetrical sections for high speed and low drag. In both cases the thickness is also important. The section also detemines flight characteristics such as stable and steady (almost "hands-off") flying, or twitchy and unstable as required for a fighter.

I do not quite see how your post illustrates its headline, or was that just a tabloid attention grabber? Yes the bubble of upward spiralling house prices has faltered and fallen back in a couple of areas, but obliterated? I think not. Market forces are never obliterated, they sometimes move in unexpected directions outside of some peoples' comfort zones. The profitable trick is to correctly foresee the new direction. Bleating because a wish-fulfilment fantasy has turned into a nightmare is a defeatist welfare-state kneejerk reaction. Treat it for what it is. A predictable downturn correction in an overheated sector. I can be sanguine, having seen the prices of houses in my personal lifestyle sector move from £4,000 to £200,000 inthe last 40 years, and suffered mortgage interest rates approaching 14%.

Answers so far seem to assume identical electrodes. What if they are different?

try this: http://www.coolmagnetman.com/magdcmot.htm I once re-invented the wheel whilst bored, occasionally a pleasurable euphoric state, and one I find more and more common these days.

Stupid question coming up..... If this is not commonly called Maxwells Motor (which see), and obeys the right hand rule, I have seriously misunderstood something. (Highly likely)

I like that analogy. There will always be 16 oz. per lb, because that relies on another constant, gravity, which is actually a variable. So the only constant in our weight system is a constant relationship. I can go on to consider that light is likewise not actually a physical constant, but maintains only a constant relationship, but with what? I like this train of thought, because my bullshit alarm goes off when faced with an arbitrary cosmic speed limit

Can't believe I really said that. I have of course come accross many such, and much larger, from my days in power-hungry valve computers when germanium diodes were still in nappies. A lifetime ago, and memory fades. Was going to write something else, but can't remember it now......

So there you have it. High mass relative to power. Can't beat a heavy mass to kill off those pesky vibrations. That was a practical lesson learned even before the wheel, I reckon.

I wonder if the answer is really so simple. If you stall an AC motor, you get (just before it burns out) a much louder hum than when it is turning freely. Stall a DC motor, and it is silent. Even in a large DC motor, the only noise I have ever heard is from the brushes against the commutator. I think the noise (a hum) in AC motors is the result of mechanical vibration caused by magnetic flux quickly changing and vibrating coils and laminations. It may be possible to build an AC motor robust enough so that it does not hum.

I came accross a similar effect while night fishing with rod and line in fresh water. The surface of the water did not glow, but my line, in the air and on the reel, glowed like the hands and dial of a luminous watch. The sight of this long glowing filament waving about in the dark was rather beautiful. Dont remember the state of the moon, but the night was not pitch-dark. A fish disturbing the surface of the water did not make the surface glow. I wiped the line with a cloth, and the cloth glowed for a while.

These discussions bemuse me. The question is moot until we all agree on a definition of intelligence. Until then, just consider autonomous systems of varying degrees of complexity. Will not grab tabloid headlines, but is surely more scientific and will imply gradual advance. We waste our time sitting around waiting for the magical "eureka" moment. There will be no such thing.

That is how I understand it, and is their simplistic attraction, but the rotor head tilts under the control of the pilot. Maximum tilt back (flare-out) is used to reduce forward speed while retaining lift to achieve very low landing speeds. Helicopter rotors tilt forward in direction of travel, for propulsion, autogyros tilt back solely for lift, propulsion coming from a rear mounted propeller. I stand to be corrected, of course. Once the rotor is up to speed, one might almost think of it as a circular wing.

The fashionably modern term "gun culture" is a politically useful term coined for the convenience of short tabloid headlines. I dont see why it is any more heinous than knife culture, drug culture or mugging culture, except perhaps as a headline threat to state security, and a smokescreen from behind which further restrictions on the freedoms of the law-abiding majority can be launched. Politicians dont have the stomach, money, willpower or wit to tackle the underlying reasons for the proliferation of the criminal underclasses that merely use the gun as the top level weapon for resolving turf wars. Rename prohibition as "machine gun culture", perhaps, and we see nothing changes, and it probably never will. A criminal psychopath will always act true to his nature. The rest of us will just have to learn to duck more quickly

And I hope they dont have nicely frech polished furniture, either..... the shellac is derived from insect excretions. Antique furniture made with glue from boiled hoof and horn, and modern cassein glues from milk, too.

Only just caught up with this thread, But this "example" made me laugh like a drain. Just substitute man and plastic blow-up dolls for dogs and legs, or even for students' rolled up socks, and we are asked to conclude that if a man does such things he likewise has no notion of pain or self. Doll and sock shaggers are thus a legitimate part of the Vegan food chain. Canibalism rules, O.K.? Way to go, Vegans!

Don't go there, Norman, we already have to contend with the celestial clockmaker, and we don't want upset his sidekick the celestial piano tuner also.......! I am mostly unread and untutored in the matters discussed in this thread, but when I hear the faint sound of lateral thinkers beginning to hammer at at locked doors, I just want to join in. Locked doors always arouse my curiousity.