StringJunky

I actively encourage the people I know I annoy to speak their mind about me to my face...after they've vented their thoughts a new strength in the relationship is sometimes gained. I have better more open relationships with some people who fundamentally disagree with me and I them than some people who are supposed to be close friends! I think the approach in schools for young children today is to put them into a place to cool down then find out what's wrong. I don't think repression is the aim, quite the contrary. It's ok to ask a child to calm down as long as the cause of their upset or grievance is addressed in return I think if the anger is allowed to be released as it happens, when young children, the second negative kind you mention, which is probably a consequence of it being punished and frowned upon could cause it to find a destructive purpose (grudge leading to revenge behaviour), may be avoided later on in life. My nephew (nearly 8) was brought up by the more modern approach I mentioned earlier and he seems to have nice level of peace of mind that I can only envy. Having been involved with him all his life at fairly close quarters his rages and tantrums when very young were not smacked or frowned upon but he had to take time out until he cooled down and then finally expressed his thoughts has led so far to be a very personable, open and affectionate human being with not an ounce of malice. This contrasts sharply with the 'no nonsense' regime of my early years and the problems of inhibited negative emotions that has caused me over the years. One thing I'll give the admin here is that nothing and no one is sacred (except the Scientific Method) and just because some things have always been so they are not afraid to change or lose them if they find an approach they had is outdated, unequitable or just plain wrong in the final analysis...like good scientists do.

If you use a flat surface as an analogy you lose that part of the Balloon Analogy which explains how it can expand without an edge in sight and also a flat sheet analogy would imply that the Universe was expanding into a pre-existing space.

About in the same league as trying to make a perpetual motion machine then?

Culturally-induced repression of publically displayed angry emotions was certainly a widespread phenomenon in England: 'stiff upper lip' is an English expression and to quote Roger Waters from Dark Side of The Moon's "Time" who noted that in the early seventies: "Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way". Contrast this with the inhabitants of some Continental nations who seem, to me anyway as an English person, to be much more extravagant in their emotional displays. When I was a child in the sixties and seventies childish angry displays were routinely met with corporal punishment domestically and in the educational environment. Now that these tactics are illegal and listening to a child and encouraging them to self-analyse ( 'naughty steps' at home and 'rooms of reflection' in schools) is institutionally promoted, the average state of personal well-being across future UK populations will hopefully improve. One of the things I like about this century is that slowly and collectively we are starting to address and confront the problems with the human condition in many previously taboo areas and society's effect on it. This forum is a good microcosm of that emerging free exchange of thoughts about previously difficult and controversial subjects. One of the things that draws me to scientific environments like this one is the inherent scrutiny of methodology and shared conciousness of potential bias which imo promotes more productive outcomes with difficult subjects.

That was just a thought experiment to illustrate the curvature of space. I ME I find as long as I don't try and imagine the shape of the Universe from the 'outside' it all makes sense and I can picture the expansion in 3 dimensions...all the effects are relative to me within the Universe

It could cause the manifestation of an ongoing and destructive internal dialogue whereby the repressed person becomes, for example, both the abused and abuser resulting in self-harming behaviour patterns which redirect their disturbed mind in the form of physical pain, which to them is preferable to the mental distress, and gives them some temporary solace. The consequences of repressing aggression can have pathological and physical consequences. One friend's sister slowly pulled all her hair out as child, never to regrow, as a consequence of constantly repressing her anger towards her parents and no one to confide in. I've also seen an otherwise normal teenager hitting himself repeatedly in the face when they were upset about something they were thinking about and clearly engaged in some personal dialogue. The common theme here is that they had no harmless outlet for their repressed feelings. Case histories presented in books by psychologists Dorothy Rowe and Alice Miller that I've read have similar stories about repression and its consequences. I think it's important if one is angry to give it expression as soon and as safely as possible. I would think constant repression instils a feeling of impotence leading to damaged self-esteem.

By 'boundary' I meant the nearest point from an observer on Earth at which the rate of cosmic expansion starts to exceed the SOL. The distance outside that 'boundary' increases so fast that the incoming photons can't reach us. I'm not talking about a physical edge. If you don't understand cosmic expansion you won't be able to visualise what I mean. Got this out of Cosmo Basics sticky here: http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/Balloon2.html It doesn't show the photons never reaching a galaxy but does show the increase in distance without the galaxies moving. Edit: The Hubble Distance is the boundary I was on about which is about the same as the distance of the Observable Universe. http://www.universeadventure.org/fundamentals/media/model-hubbledistance.swf I don't know why the link here is bounded by 'media' but just copy and paste the address in between to see an animation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe

The Universe is not expanding from something , the space expanding between the galaxies at the Supercluster level is increasing...space is created and can do so at superluminal speeds. The rate of expansion increases with the distance two points are away from each other. Beyond a certain point, which is the 'edge' of our Observable Universe the rate of expansion becomes superluminal which at this point leads to the subject of my previous post.

Can I put this thought foward...please shoot it down if it's wrong. If the universe is infinite with an infinite number of stars couldn't the cosmic expansion explain why the sky is not bright all the time because outside the boundary of the Observable Universe the expansion exceeds the speed of light and therefore those photons don't reach our vision...we only see the light of the stars within the Observable Universe which are finite in number. i thinK I'm wrong...I'm sure I've missed something but I thought I'd throw it out here for an explanation why.

Lemur I should have said: "If Life had survived from multiple sources we would expect to see...". The other possible sources of existing Life's ancestry would have been selected out by the version that was initially the most prevalent and fostered by the most favourable conditions at the time. Sorry about that. I was just trying to show two common features found by scientists in the field that links all organisms and hence their likely common heritage. Iceveela was talking about lack of fossil evidence but you can look at the molecular level to find links. Asexual reproduction came first...sexual reproduction is higher up the Evolutionary ladder as far as I know.

One very good argument, I think, that reinforces the idea that Life descended from a single common ancestor is ALL terrestrial organisms can only metabolise the right-handed isomer of glucose and only produce the left-handed isomers of amino acids. If the ancestry of Life had multiple sources, which would support your argument, I would have thought it probable we would expect to see utilisation of both versions of each type of chemical in different organisms in some variation between them but it doesn't. .Scroll down to page10 for an explanation of mirror or optical isomers: http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:tcVC_d9OR3kJ:www.oneworld-publications.com/pdfs/Life_Universe.pdf+all+life+metabolises+right+hand+glucose&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESiqrMZAkOrOifrpozfKiqjjYumeax5z1U-_A2oiUji__KB667Q3x0lUJgDPJO5tJ5tYS4hTINvWUF6y4o5-E9GWmHFMAQx-2SpQJl1uCcGmwb7-WqxKJYpd3QMvIfNKrY7Iqgjp&sig=AHIEtbTIRHznjg62546q8VirygRPhek_aA Why left-hand amino acids? Nasa's working on it: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/left_hand_aminoacids.html

I concur with Ophiolite, the use of profanities can enrich the reading experience but it very much depends on the context and intent how they are received and interpreted. As long as bad language, delivered in an uncouth and ill-mannered way, receives a swift and sharp rebuke that kind of all-encompassing censorship software filters bring is not necessary IMO. We cannot be so naive to think youngsters don't see/hear swearing in their daily lives...we can together show them, by example, that moderate and judicious use of them can make discourse more interesting and lively.

I thought you were referring to the continuation of his family line.

He didn't need to... he's more immortalized and influential in history than 99.99>% of his and future generations will ever be. In his case, lack of gene transference was trivial: what more could the Newton line do than produce one of the brightest minds in human history? I'd swap my sperm for his intellect any day.

He was also the President of the Royal Society so the scientists can claim him...clever bugger all round really.

Wouldn't he be better described as a polymath because he excelled in both, amongst other things?

We see what we want to see...

Theory means what the scientists here say it means...it doesn't matter what you think...it's convention* It's the modern equivalent of the word Law that it replaces because history shows that no idea explains everything which that idea is supposed to encompass: The essential property of a Theory is that given x and y we'll get z... some new phenomenon always comes up in time which that Law/Theory can't explain or predict the data that arises from an experiment its supposed to be valid for and the scientific community is mindful of this so they don't recognise Laws or Facts any more. They use a thing called 'confidence levels' or probability and if it exceeds 95% they will, tentatively and sceptically, accept into the body of scientific knowledge as mirroring Reality. In science, Theory now represents the highest level of confidence Convention is a very important concept in science that you need to absorb because when a scientist uses particular words or phrases it conjures up in the minds of other scientists exactly the same thought that s/he intended. Hand waving and saying this is not so will quickly show you the face of impatience if you do not acknowledge and respect this simple idea. Science doesn't care about semantics only that there is a consensus as to what a word conveys or represents. In actual fact, they often use common words now that have been stripped of any classical meaning, so, arguing the meaning of words in a science forum is pointless really. .

Michel Until we know what it is, it's definitely a schmiblick! You occasionally bring up some interesting foreign (to me) words That I have to look up. Here’s the pictures of it cleaned up...I’ve lost a lot of the silvery coating or it may have corroded away but it’s evident on the tip. There appears to be a red/brown colouration (layer?) in it as well. It’s definitely solid brass. It came the from the ground of RAF Alconbury which has been around since 1938 and is now used by the USAAF but not as a flight base. It opens up the possibility of it being something used in that field of occupation. http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&q=raf+alconbury+map&psj=1&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=RAF,+Alconbury,+Huntingdon,+Cambridgeshire+PE28+4DD&gl=uk&ei=gYqsTd_wOo6XhQeoopHDCQ&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=image&resnum=1&ved=0CBsQ8gEwAA (Google Map) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Alconbury

I think I know what it is: a bricklayers pointing tool. I can't get the light to take a good picture of it cleaned up at the moment, but it's solid brass with a silvery coloured plating...nickel?. It's from a remote airbase and my friend said it did have brick buildings on it. What period would a tool made with that technique would it be from is my next question? You were correct John with it being a moulding tool but most likely for a bricklayer I think...would you agree?

Thanks John..I'll tell my friend and also get it off him to clean it up then put pictures on that forum link imatfaal posted to see if we can get confirmation. I Will post back if I know more. I'll put the pictures on here as well cleaned up.

We may have a non-militaristic need for the explosive power of a nuclear weapon...destruction or deflection of potentially catastrophic Earth-bound space debris for example.

Sorry BA I assumed that you were dual-booting. According to this you can run either: http://products.amd.com/pages/desktopcpudetail.aspx?id=53&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1 You could get both LiveCD/DVD versions of Mint which will allow you to test them live before installing...runs slower though. Installing Mint should only take about half an hour to fully install and be usable so you won't lose much time if things don't work out...it's not like Windows which takes an age to set up. You've made a good choice.

Speccy will tell you what version of Windows you have: 32 or 64. http://www.piriform.com/speccy Imgburn will burn the Mint iso...choose 'Write Image File to Disk' and select a slow speed. http://www.softpedia.com/get/CD-DVD-Tools/Data-CD-DVD-Burning/ImgBurn.shtml I use these and know they are ok.