MattC

I don't work out too much right now, but back in college I was at the gym for about 30-60 minutes a day, every day, lifting weights and running. I definitely think that it is a myth (to a limited degree) that you need a ton of protein if you're a body builder. It seems to me to be mostly marketing of GNC-type products that leads to this, but really you don't need that much more. As a vegan, though, protein is very, very easy to obtain. As I said, the only thing a vegan eating a balanced diet should think about is B12, and that can be taken care of with supplements, nutritional yeast (which is great for taste reasons, anyhow), or just eating cereal for breakfast. If you're looking for some great energy food to prepare you for a hard day of physical labor, nothing beats a pasta dish. You can add fried tempeh and cashews as a side, and use a sauce with nutritional yeast, tomatos (crushed or puréed), diced onions, olives, and some shredded green leafy veggies.

Some waste-water treatment fascilities use anaerobic bacteria as part of the treatment of wastes. Methane is produced, and sometimes utilized to generate electricity.

Some great points here! As a vegan of over 10 years, I suppose I should add a little from my experiences: First off, B12 is the only thing you won't find in a strict vegetable/fruit/grain/etc diet. Fortunately, it is found in numerous processed foods (cereal, for instance), and nutritional yeast (not bakers yeast) has a good bit of B12 (this yeast has a great and almost cheesy taste that lends itself well to a huge variety of dishes, from topping on popcorn to the cheesy taste in vegan lasagna). You dont need much at all, so B12 shouldn't be a problem. Theoretically, humans could obtain plenty of B12 by eating a lot of raw foods straight from the ground - this is how cows get their B12. Our fruits and veggies are typically washed quite a bit, however, so it's not a good way for a modern man to get the vitamin. The other thing I wanted to point out relates to the difficulty of adopting a vegan diet. I made the switch at 13 years of age and my parents were of no help in planning my diet. It didn't take long for me to learn the ropes, though, but the thing to remember here is that ANY diet would be hard to manage, if our culture didn't prepare us. Even with plenty of education about various healthy diets available, too many people try to live off of McDonalds or, in general, adopt an unhealthy diet that is not balanced. Health consequences of various magnitudes follow. For a vegan, unless research is done, the constituents of a healthy diet are not obvious, and it's unlikely anyone around you can be of much help. In this sense, it takes much more attention to what you are eating. After a short while, however, it is as easy as any other diet - I know because I am a Vegan still, after all these years, and I spend no more thought preparing my meals than anyone else. Regarding protein: animal protein sources tends to have all of the amino acids, while plant protein sources tend to be deficient in one type of amino acids (but the type varies from protein source to protein source). The simplest way to ensure you get all of the amino acids you need is to mix two of the following, preferably in the same meal: Grains, nuts, legums, and seeds. Most vegans eat plenty of rice and plenty of soy, and many eat plenty of nuts and seeds as well. I have never heard of a protein deficient vegan - in fact, it seems likely that vegans get more protein than your average american meat eater, as we avoid things like the white bread that comes with burgers and hot dogs, instead choosing to eat breads with whole grains and seeds as toppings. And both rice and soybeans really are great sources (though hardly the only or the best, among vegan foods) of protein.

XP S.P. 2 is a well matured OS. Vista may turn out to be great, but I'd wait for it to be tested for a year or so. You won't be missing out that much, I suspect, at least initially. Upgrading to XP servers and computers will allow you to block games, among other things. It can also give you more security. This is all assuming you are upgrading from another version of a microsoft OS. If you're thinking of migrating from linux ... that's a different matter. This is coming from a former (I quit a week ago, and moved to Berkeley) computer technician at Univ. California Riverside, for what it's worth.

For reference for anyone who is reading this and is a little unclear on what is what: Three-pronged outlets are grounded. The third prong, the round one, is the "ground," and a typical ground cable connects to a metal pole in the ground or metal water pipes that go underground. The idea of the ground is that, if a surge occurs, the extra current can be sent into the ground, to protect a person or equipment. Note: one of the two flat pins is called a common, ground, or neutral, but it is not really a grounded outlet. Rather, it is just the end of the circuit into which electrons flow after going through the device. A surge protector does basically nothing without a ground. A GFI will protect a person, but will do nothing at all for equipment. A GFI, or Ground-Fault-Interrupter, will shut down a current if there is a large difference in the current going in and the current going out. However, the numerous small changes in current that will not trigger a GFI will run down a computer, as that extra current has no ground to go into. My idea here is to take that extra current, which is relatively small, and use it to light a bulb or something. This "artificial" ground will give the current a place to go (as with a real "ground" wire), but will not work for very large currents. I'm tempted to do this as an experiment, but I suspect that if it would work well, there would be devices for sale that would do it. That, or it's illegal, because in the case of a lightning strike that bulb could explode due to a massive amount of current. Perhaps. I'm tempted to just buy a 10 foot copper pole, drive it into the ground, and make a real ground. Then the trouble is getting that ground into the sockets in the house ... ugh. Thank you all for your input! I'll let you know how it all goes ... if I don't post here again, I'd seriously consider *not* trying any of the ideas that I've posted about, as I may be toast! Hee hee hee.

I guess I know the answer, I just don't want to pay an electrician. I want even less to risk my expensive equipment. On a related topic, would it be feasible to build a device that mimics the function of the ground wire, to a limited extent? For instance, a basic circuit with some sort of a resistor .. perhaps even a regular light bulb? That would take care of the small surges that are probably the most common. Naturally, a large surge could be too much energy for the bulb, and there might be unpleasant consequences.

I just moved to Berkeley! The weather is wonderful, but the home I'm in is about a century old, and the outlets are not grounded. Is it safe to use my computer, with an adapter? I know that there are personal safety issues - if the case isn't grounded and the wrong wire gets crossed, things could go poorly. But if I'm careful, and if the power supply is very steady, with few spikes, theoretically I should be fine. That said, what is the likelihood of damaging my equipment by using an ungrounded port (with an adapter)? I want to think it's fine, but my gut feeling is telling me no, no no!

I believe you. I didn't run your executable, though, because I didn't trust that there wasn't a virus in it. Umm .. Hmmm.

I can see why the mods always lock these threads. It seems to me that there are two groups of people (obviously) and the two groups are talking in different terms. 1)The self-titled experts (no offense; I haven't seen your degrees) claim, half the time, that their opponents just don't get it, but don't explain why. The other half of the time they give a proof or two; while I firmly believe that .9repeat does indeed equal 1, I have never seen a proof that did not appear to me to have a logical flaw. The clasic 9/9 is the best example - 9 over 9 does not equal .9 repeat, just because x/9 = .x repeat. That's an assumption borne out by experiments, but if you want to know how many barrels of apples (where each holds only 9, exactly) you can fill with nine apples, you end up with 9. That is what math is about, fundamentally - explaining the physical, real world (even though, on some levels, the "real" world seems rather unreal). Or so I would argue. 2) People who tend to be less proficient in math but who sense, as another poster suggested, that others are trying to pull the wool over their head. Personally, I like that the mods lock these threads. I think it's great to debate it, but invariably there are people (from BOTH camps) who get frustrated and (a) start to claim that they are experts (please ... give facts that you can back up and you won't need to claim that you are an expert; even if you are, bragging about it won't get you any respect) who should just be trusted or (b) start to hurl insults at the "experts" because they disagree (often without being able to articulate their reasoning well) with the established mathmatical fact. For the record (since I'd rather have the wrath of the non-experts), I do believe that .999 = 1. All proofs (compelling or not) aside, we're debating over something so small we can't even decide if it exists.

Nice try, Silkworm, but you've really just gotten on the wrong track. Don't you know that the best source of all, the BIBLE, says that God created the Earth a few thousand years ago? Geologists have known this for a while now .. they use evidence from the bible, which is much more reliable than silly data from rocks or such. Gosh. On a more serious note, excellent job. I read through the "transcription" of the event and you really gave it to him. It would appear that your research paid off, because you caught that guy in some pretty serious lies.

Seeing as how I accidentally double-posted (some server bug, I swear.... I hit post once!), I will give another more useful definition (perhaps) that I just realized would have been useful: NMR is a technique by which you can analyze some unknown chemical and determine the carbon skeleton and the placement of hydrogens and such. Other method can be useful for determining molecular weight and maybe determining the presence of functional groups, but it can be difficult to tell whether your carbon structure has a methyl branch, for instance, on the third or fifth carbon in a chain of 8 (3-methyl Octane vs 5-methyl octane)

NMR: Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Some nucleo spin and some don't. Hydrogen and Carbon(13) both spin and thus have a magnetic moment. The spin of these nuclei will align themselves with an external magnetic field, and when subjected to certain frequences of radio, the spin is disrupted and then rights itself (releasing radio waves back out). The frequency (of light, typically radio waves I believe) at which this occurs differs for different nuclei, depending upon factors such as the electron cloud density and presence of other nuclei nearby. For instance, a carbon-13 that is methyl will require a very different frequency (lower, I believe) than a carbon-13 that is double-bonded to an oxygen, as in an aldehyde. Carbon 12, by the way, doesn't rotate. Something to do with nuclear symmetry, I believe - iirc only nuclei with an even sum of neutrons and protons will rotate and have a magnetic field. So, as for the graphs, I won't go into a great deal of data as there are plenty of sites with better guides than I could give (without supplying some NRM spectra and analyzing them, which I'm not so good at anyway). The very basics are simple, though: H-NMR - clusters of readings refer to groups of hydrogens that are energetically equiv. The relative heights of the readings for the various hydrogen groups can be used to determine how many are in each group. The # of readings within a cluster itself refers not to the number of hydrogens that group represents, but rather the number of hydrogen neighbors it has. I.E. in ethane there are 6 hydrogens represented by one reading in ethanol, there are five hydrogens (the OH hydrogen is not counted, it comes and goes too readily). Three are equivalent and will be represented by 3 lines (2+1 ... more on this in a second) that are 3/2 the height of the 4 (3+1) that represent the two hydrogens on the carbon with the -OH bonded to it. Now, about the 2+1 and 3+1. As I wrote before, a given cluster of lines represents a group of energetically equivalent nuclei (or even a single one) - but that cluster has a certain number of lines and these lines do NOT refer in any way to he # of nuclei in this energetically equivalent group. Instead, it refers to the number of neighboring hydrogen atoms (Nh) according to the equation: Number of readings in cluster = Nh + 1 (where Nh= the number of hydrogens on adjacent atoms) This is called J-coupling. Essentially these extra lines are the product of interactions that vary because the adjacent hydrogens. More detail than that is beyond my abilities. NOE: Nuclear Overhauser Effect. More than that I do not know. Carbon NRM is a bit different. <yawn> I'd suggest a google though ... others can give you a better explanation that I have.

You still have +/-. Otherwise, you could easily use the squaring and square-rooting operations to create a paradox.

Gamma rays are just high energy light. Light, as far as I know, is not influenced by magnetic fields. That almost seems odd to me, since light is a wave in the electric and magnetic fields, but I have never heard of light being influenced by magnetism. I expect that the magnetic field would be a sum (at a given point) of the magnetic fields of light waves and other magnetic fields, but that the two would not really affect each other - that is, the light would pass through a magnetic field, and the magnetic field, if we measured it, would be disturbed by the magnetic portion of light, but when the light left the field it would be unchanged and the magnetic field (and the object that generates it) would likewise be unaffected. Hopefully some experts can confirm/clarify these comments.

Light is often called electromagnetic radiation because it travels as a wave in the electric and magnetic fields. I am hardly an expert, but I don't believe it has a shape in the sense that you might expect. Rather, imagine that a ball is moving in a straight path, and that as it moves it affects electric and magnetic fields around it, creating a wave in the fields (as it moves). Now imagine that there is no ball, just a point, traveling in a line, at which the electric and magnetic fields are affected. This wave in the electromagnetic field is light. When it hits something, it interacts as though it is a particle, but while traveling it behaves as a wave. As for seeing a photon from the side ... or seeing a photon at all: When you see something moving past you, such as a bullet, you are not seeing the bullet itself - rather, light is coming from somewhere (sun, lights in a building, whatever) and hitting the bullet. Some of that light bounces off and goes straight for your eyes, where it hits your eyes. Different colors represent different frequencies of the light, though different colors (as well as heat itself, and UV radiation, radio waves, and quite a bit more) are all fundamentally the same - light. A photon is what you see, when it hits your eyes. So you cannot "see" a photon unless it hits your eyes. If a photon is speeding by, in front of you, then it doesn't hit your eyes ... it just goes past you. So you don't see it with your eyes. An image is formed by a bunch of light hitting an observer or appearing to come from a particular place or ... well, there's a lot to learn about imagines, some are real and others are virtual, and it's difficult to explain. Much better to google it and look for some pictures.

Why would you bring your smelly cloths to work? If you can avoid it, put them somewhere else. By unhygenic, maybe he meant that he didn't like the smell. Just because the anaerobes aren't in control doesn't mean it smells good, though it'll probably smell better.

It sounds a lot like your nitrogen was reduced and your metals (magnesium especially?) were oxidized. Hopefully we'll get a chem expert here who can shed some bright light on this.

perhaps you should consider changing the wire in your thought experiment. If you have a normal wire, the resistance that is created as you move the magnet goes into the current - the current does two things of interest: 1) It is a current. You could use it for something, like lighting a bulb. 2) It produces heat in the wire (entropy). If you want higher efficiency, try using a superconductor, or anything with a lower resistance. By doing so, you reduce #2 and the efficiency of the energy that you expend is increased. With regards to the energy that goes into kinetic energy in the magnet ... that is, the force that you put on the magnet that does not get converted into electrical current but rather exists as kinetic energy in the magnet .. that force is irrelevant for the most part. You can reuse that by making the design circular. Even there you won't use all of it (friction with the circular track).

My apologies for my references - I was posting from the library at my university, where we have access (access is restricted by IP). I believe I understand what you are saying - I still have to disagree. I do agree, however, that the empirical evidence of, specifically, the harm caused by these compounds as they are in fat cells will be difficult to "nail down." Large studies (which would be necessary) would have to involve long-lived marine animals, in order to determine the effect of very low doses that accumulate to large quantities in fat. Studies like this would need to be conducted on whales or similar long-lived marine mammals (and some equally long lived fish), and this probably won't happen. My argument is that, as there is no shortage of evidence showing health consequences associated (correlational effects, granted, but all we have, and statistically sigificant to high degrees of certainty) with high levels found in fat cells (where the phrase "high levels" refers to high levels as found in creature in natural aquatic environments, not artificially high levels - just high levels as compared to levels in some other creatures which seem to have less significant levels of buildup), it is silly to assume that there are no health consequences associated with even low-level intake (unless, of course, you define low level as those levels that do not result in fat accumulation levels that exceed the values that have been correlated with disruption of biological processes. The mechanism needs research - this is one of the points of the second of the two articles you were able to access (this article, which I would have assumed you would like, is both skeptical, in that they do not assume anything that has not been absolutely proven, and simultaneously unambiguous about the concensus that there is a problem with these compounds, though the problem is not fully understood yet). I have to object to your choice of the word "alarmist," apparently in reference to the papers I cited (none of which were remotely alarmist), but perhaps you were making the assumption that my opinions come from journalistic articles (as opposed to scholarly), and while it is not true in this case it is definately a safe assumption to make, most of the time, given the horde of alarmist papers (on nearly every topic) in the media. Finally, there actually *is* evidence that these and other chemicals that reside in fat cells play active roles, for instance in pregnant mammals (which have been shown to pass some of these compounds through milk. While it is possible that the effect is due to concentration of recently ingested compounds, nevertheless the amounts found in fetuses and in milk suggest that fat-stored compounds may be passed along, and this certainly does not conflict with our understanding of the purpose of fat cells, which do not just sit there indefinately once they are formed, but rather act as reserves for times of need. I will be the first to admit that I am not an expert in this particular field - that does not mean, however, that I will ignore the opinions of those who are experts. I also do not want to imply that DDT has no benefits - in the fight against malaria and other diseases borne by very DDT-vulnerable organisms, it seems highly probably that, at least in a small, closed system (for instance, when we just consider the effects of DDT delousing on the people deloused), the benefits vastly outweigh the consequences. That is not to say that there are no consequences, and a lack of a significant increase in cancer (which, I believe, is not even the most significant adverse effect associated with DDT, which disrupts a number of glands) should not be taken as a bill of safe health. Not that I was able to find the study you cited - though I have not looked very hard. I have some more to say about this topic, and I am appreciating your skepticism (which, in my opinion, is a vital factor in creating true scientific discourse), but I am out of time. I will attempt to obtain sources that are more accessible and I will discuss a few related points on Thursday, as I am going to be at work and in a lab for the rest of today. I especially want to discuss the ambiguous evidence regarding the effects of fat-stored DDT, though it would be nice to keep the topic a little more broad (as we started out discussing a number of toxins). Have an excellent day, and if you get the chance run by a UC or other university library and you should be able to gain access to a great deal of scholarly journals!

Don't get me wrong - I most certainly agree that the best estimate to date of the age of the known universe is ~14 billion years old. Actually, the most current figure is 13.7 with a 2% margin of error and it is based on studies of the ambient temperature of the universe. Analysis of the age of stars (by Hubble, I believe) yields a similar age, between 13 and 14. Bear in mind, I only agree that these estimates are the age of the known universe insofar as the age is based upon a scale with 0 being the point in time of the big bang. That was my point - not that the science behind these estimates is not robust.

Not to be too contentious, but there actually is a wealth of evidence to suggest that these compounds cause harm. It is irrelevant for this point that they are stored in the fat - that is true in whales just as much as in humans or in any other mammals, and you don't hear people talking about how the ddt (partial) ban is silly because it's stored in fat cells. Fat cells can be consumed, and the simple fact of the matter, as far as I can tell, is that strong correlations between high levels (in fat cells) of these compounds and health problems are universally accepted. In fact, I would challenge you to supply one reliable, reasonably recent scolarly article that suggests that it is reasonable to believe that a creature may accumulate high levels of these compounds without adverse health effects (excepting evidence that suggests that not every single creature with high levels suffers health effects - just as there are smokers that live to 95 and swear by a pack of smokes and a shot of whisky, there will be animals that live to ripe ages despite accumulations of these toxins). I would be very interested to see such evidence, should it exist, as I have read numerous journal articles while doing research for my degree that suggested very strongly that not only were strong correlational effects present, but that also causal relationships had been determined with some degree of reliability (causal relationships can be very difficult to establish, of course, unless you are conducting a very controlled experiment - a feat difficult to do with something like, say, a whale, or in fact any reasonably large oceanic mammal). On the off chance that I eat my words and you have just such a source, let me state that I am by no means convinced that you are wrong - it is just that I have seen in the past plenty of evidence to suggest that these compounds can safely be assumed (when at certain levels that are in fact common in nature) to have dangerous side effects. Additionally, my brief search for additional reliable sources to cite here has turned up a huge wealth of articles, none of which seem ambiguous about the matter (though there are definately calls for more research, for instance research into the mechanisms of these negative effects; I suspect these mechanisms will follow a more thorough understanding of the endocrine system [and other organs]). Here are a few articles that address the topic: http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/(bolfmpabvqdkyt552pq4ig3g)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,2,2;journal,38,50;linkingpublicationresults,1:104774,1 http://entc.allenpress.com/entconline/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1897/1551-5028(2002)021%3C2752:PRAORE%3E2.0.CO;2 http://www.epa.gov/endocrine/Pubs/kavlock.pdf http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/(hcrlbgngdexrvznywuuvjr55)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,4,11;journal,18,42;linkingpublicationresults,1:119813,1 This is by no means a comprehensive list of the research that has been conducted.

The idea that the universe might have a beginning has aways seemed to me somehow problematic. But then, there are problems with the idea that the universe has simply always been, in some form. Calculations of the age of the universe should, I suspect, be taken with a few kilos of salt. We don't even know if there is more put there than what we currently call the "universe" (which is basically the area that we can see, all of which is expanding from one point). For all scientists know, the "big bang" and the "universe" that came from it is merely one grain of sand in an endless beach. It may be more accurate to say that the known universe started expanding 14 billion years ago. Not that I know much at all about this field.

You take your skepticism a bit too far, Lance. Next you'll be pointing out (quite correctly) that there is little evidence to show that picking your **s in public will hamper your ability to get a date. Have you ever seen a study on this? I haven't. Oh well. To each his own. P.S. I hope you do not take my joke to mean that I agree with your statement that there is no real evidence. I would encourage you to do a little research on the matter. You will find that there actually is a significant bit of data to suggest that these compounds do cause problems in a large number of species. The concentrations found in many dead marine creatures exceed levels that are known to cause adverse effects in similar creatures.

Some of the debates (here and elsewhere) about how climate models fail to accurately predict enough to satisfy skeptics (arguably rightfully so) seem so silly to me. Forget computer climate models. Look at a graph of temperature fluctuations over the last couple centuries, or even further. Look at periods when it may be assumed that humans were having negligable effects. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature_record_of_the_past_1000_years This is one good source. Do you see a straight line with a set slope? Obviously not - surely humans aren't the cause of all those crazy ups and down that history seems full of. Climate models today do not claim to accurately predict everything - they are attempts by scientists to understand the possible effects of the variables that are already understand, and it is accepted that there are going to be countless other variables that cannot be accounted for. What we do know is that in the best-to-date climate models (and in general, in the short term, in ALL models) increasing atmospheric CO2 increases the retention of heat. It stands to reason, then, that were we able to see an accurate graph (created, perhaps, by some people centuries in the future) and if we could pick out the effects of specific, individual factors, we would find that anthropogenic CO2 raised the temperature. On this hypothetical graph, the earth might go into an ice age at the same time that humans increase the temperature, paradoxical as this may sound. Or, humans may heat up an already hot age instead of an ice age, and then where will we be? Granted, there may be sinks that appear out of nowhere, and the numerous sinks for atmospheric carbon that we already know about may change, allowing more carbon to be removed from the atmosphere. This is possible. Additionally, other human or non-human factors may be cooling the earth, at the same time. There are countless other unknowns. An analogy, now. If I get up from my seat right now, close my eyes, and start running toward the wall, there is a chance (a probable chance) that I will hit the wall. There is also the chance that I'll just get a great little burst of exercise, and something will happen (god knows what) that will stop me from hitting the wall. On the one hand, I have some exercise, and who knows, maybe my girlfriend will see this, get distressed, and decide that what I need to set my mind straight is some good loving. Or maybe I'll trip on a quarter. I love finding quarters, I never seem to have enough for laundry. On the other hand, maybe I'll just hit my head. This may seem a silly analogy, but when global-warming skeptics point to the inability of climate-models to predict/explain what has been measured in the past, they too are engaging in a great deal of silliness, and most definately missing the point entirely. And one more thing. Why is everything always talking about global warming? What about the effects of pollution in the present on human health? What about the degredation of the worlds arable lands, at the same time as the world population starts gaining enough growth-momentum to make scientists question whether or not it can sustain us? I like that global warming is entering into the mainstream, but it's almost a double-edged blade. The arguments against global-warming, while not terribly convincing, are nevertheless legitimate. Are there any legitimate arguments against the claim that human activities have effectively poisoned the atmosphere in many places, resulting in definate increases in the incidence of disease? [/end rant]