tomgwyther

I recently emailed this poem to a significant other Love is like a lump of gold, Hard to get, and hard to hold. Of all the girls I've ever met, You're the one I can't forget. I do believe that God above, Created you for me to love. He chose you from all the rest, Because he knew I would love you best. Forgetting how pragmatic, scientific and atheist both she and I are, I got this back. Thank you for the plagiarized poem it is very lovely although I detect a hint of cynicism. Not least because you said God sent me and we both know God if he exists at all is too busy playing Pac Man in another dimension. So to avoid anyone one else making the same mistake, I have re-written the poem for her and my fellow SFN users convenience. Human emotional attachment can be likened to the characteristics of element #79 'AU' in that obtaining said element is not easy and retention of it also requires effort Out of the many female homosapiens I have encountered, you physical and mental persona, occupies an above average quantity of nuero-synaptic interactions in my pre frontal lobe. A tacit understanding of reasonable assumption in either a deistic or theistic figure, either intelligent or otherwise remains a false dichotomy in that evidence of absence or presence are unprovable. For the purpose of this poem, whether by design or default aims to assert that your existence has an intrinsic function to increase the number of nuero-synaptic connections in my cerebral cortex and produce certain neurotransmitters, specifically dopamine and oxytosin which affect the synaptic cleft in that they stimulate the relevant receptors to produce a subjective pleasurable effect. The afore mentioned deistic/theistic idea can also be used to understand the statistical improbability - but not impossibility - of our having encountered one another. you are unique but statistically you fall within a 'bell curve' of probability. Based on this, it is reasonable to assume that my neurotransmitter levels and synaptic activity may be greater than that of a larger statistically significant group.

I got an English assignment from them once, it was rubbish.

Those pump things are used to remove air from bottles, usually wine bottles. If the air is removed, the wine cant 'breath' and so keeps fresher for longer. Doing this to a soda bottle would probably remove the precious Co2. if you go to a good brew shop, they'll sell you a pressure bottle to which you can attach a small screw-in Co2 canister to the cap. The cheaper, squeezy bottle approach has always worked for me.

The water costs were really a bit of guess work. given than we need about 1 litre per day, plus a bit more to wash. Not sure how much could be recycled, probably most of it actually which would bring the water bill down a bit. Thinking about it further, you could grow food in the 'bus-moon-house' I suppose. Also, if a group of people decided to live on the moon, it might bring down the cost for each individual. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedOops! it appears I have "Champagne taste and beer money"! Have a look here http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16126918/ turns out NASA reckon on spending over $100Bn [This is why I'm not an accountant!]

Simple, squeeze the bottle. Carbonated drinks stay carbonated because there is a layer of Co2 in the bottle, Between the liquid surface and the bottle cap, the same applies to beer kegs. In the case of the beer keg, we inject a mixture of 30% Co2 and 70% nitrogen into the keg (Beer naturally produces Co2 but this process helps a lot. In the absence of a 70:30 gassing system, try this. Pour your drink, then squeeze the bottle so the liquid is nearly at the bottle neck and the air is squeezed out, then screw the cap on tight. it has the same effect. (Doesn't work too well when the bottle is nearly empty)

Intrigued by your question; I did some rough numbers Cost of a moon mission in today's money = $150-$175 million cost of getting cargo into near Earth orbit = $3000 per Kilogram (once your in orbit, you spent most of your energy and money so getting it to the moon wouldn't cost too much more, say another $1000 per Kg) Assuming you want to live in a relatively nice 'moon-house' you'd be living in something similar in size and weight to a bus, which weighs about 2000kg So: (Including labour) about $200,000,000 to get there about $80,000 weekly grocery bill about $40,000 weekly water bill (Although you may be able to recycle and bathe in you own "water") so about $200,000,000 to get there and between 5,000,000 & 6,000,000 per annum to stay there. I haven't worked out how to pay for air conditioning/heating cooking energy needs as yet.

other effects as well as heart beat can also be observed . body temperature is regulated by the hypothalamus. Blood pressure and Breathing function can be maintained by the medulla oblongata; part of the medulla which is more akin to the spinal chord than the brain itself.

What kind of TV is it? Is it a cathode ray tube, Plasma or LCD. My only guess is that, if it's a CRT screen there's a magnetic field near one side of the screen, possibly from a loudspeaker. Either that or one of the four electromagnets at the back of the tube is defective.

I think (Or at least would like to think) that Google want to pull out of China on purely moral grounds, irrespective of how much money they would loose. Google's success I believe, has more to do with being incredibly usefull rather than merely chasing profit, but through it's usefulness; has acquired a huge market share. Its success is down to its efforts to allow the free flow of information, which China wants to put a stop to. It appears that Google is sticking to it's founding principle "Don't be evil." For which I applaud them.

That seems to make sense, although there are other variable in making choices. The time allowed to make a choice being a big one (although this was briefly mentioned in the above post) Choices which lead to other choices and variables. Choices made due to emotional response rather than pure boolian logic. Where are you going with this post? Do you have an objective hypothesis you wish to reach?

"everything is still here" As far as I'm aware, the statement is pretty much correct. We gain a little bit from debris falling to Earth from space, We loose a little bit when we put probes and the like on other planets. Other than that, most of what is here on Earth now, was here billions of years ago, albeit in different forms.

Glad to be of help. Moreover: the more you do something, the more connections are made. The more connections there are and the stronger the relationship between neurons; the easier you find it to do a particular task, as there is a stronger set of connections in the brain devoted to it. The first time I drove a car, found it very difficult, I was using non-car-driving neural pathways to try and operate the pedals, let alone do much else. Now those brain structures are in place, I can drive without really thinking to much about it, and turn my attention to more important things, such as navigating around London. Which, in itself becomes easier the more I do it. the structures formed when you practice something are almost perminant physical structures. A bit like web pages are on the internet, they form connections with other servers in various parts of the world and communicate with each other. the connections and content can be changed but don't require constant traffic all of the time. I've not ridden a bike for a while now, but the 'Brain software' to enable me to do it is still in place; ready to be used.

Those memories we are not permanently conscious of are retained as neuro-physiological structures; a certain configuration of grey-matter. For example, there is a section of the brain which is entirely devoted to Jennifer Aniston, the actress. it lights up when ever you're shown a picture of her. When you not, the neurons kinda just sit there, dormant. When the picture is flashed up again, information travels down the optic nerve to the occipital lobe at the back of the brain, then through structures in the limbic system where it is ordered around various other parts of the brain, i.e temporal lobe, periatal lobe, motor cortex, frontal lobe for facial recognition, orientation, emotion, short term memory and the bit usually in the pre-frontal cortex which holds specific information about Jeniffer Aniston's face. other parts of the brain may also get involved to induce certain physiological responses, or increase/decrease various neurotransmitters. All this happens in a split second, and is continually happening. like a computer network with over a 100 billion work-stations, each connected to about 60 thousand of their neighbours, franticly sending information back and forth. have a look here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjxJabpjDGo

Brains are very good at filtering out unnecessary information, a huge amount of it is filtered out, otherwise life could be very stressfull. It's suggested that people with certain forms of autism cannot effectively filter out the unnecessary information, and therefore find the outside world overwhelming, and so tend to focus on very small, specific, often complex single tasks. As I understand it, consciousness exists in a very fluid state. (Analogies between computers and brains tend not to work very well.) What we perceive as consciousness is the constant interaction and re-wiring of millions of interconnected neurons. The differences between remembering something and experiencing aren't all that different. If I imagine drinking a nice cool pint of beer, some of the neurons associated with that act are activated as if I'm really doing it. The same is true if I remember a particular instance drinking beer. if I watch someone drinking beer, those same neurons activate helped along more so by the visual aid and if I actually drink a beer, again the same neurons activate but with much more information coming from my senses. This constant interaction between memory, imagination (Or abstract thought) and sensory input is what we generally perceive as consciousness. Your brain is constantly making sense of the world via a mix of current sensory input and retained nuero-physiological structures pertaining to what you're experiencing. All working almost simultaneously and constantly updating themselves.

I've not seen 'go god go'. But just did a little wiki check-up. It seems division into factions can happen in the absence of supernatural belief systems. Keep evolutionary biologists away from Mrs. garrison and fat kids away from refrigerators eh!

I have to agree with the 'No' camp here. this is after all, a science forum, in which we discuss science. To discuss religious matters; ydoaPs has a forum for this. As mentioned earlier. nearly all science V Religion discussions end up with Catch-22, false dichotomy or screaming match situations. Maybe a Philosophy sub-forum might work, but even that may not be immune to the afore mentioned problems. Moreover, people from different cultural backgrounds would submit postings pre-equipped with certain biases and assumptions based on there personal cultural spiritual upbringing. There are so many religions, Hindu, Jew, Christian, Muslim... there are about 4000 of them. But there is only one science.

I personally worked on the alien ship that crashed. all the technology was rubbish, except for a computerised version of table tennis, which I sold to Atari a few years later. Nothing else worth salvaging unfortunately. The military wouldn't have known what to do with any of it anyway, they're not that intelligent; this is an organisation which took over 600 years to invent camouflage for goodness sake!

It also has value in that, it's value doesn't change that much. Currencies may rise and fall and in some cases completely collapse. But gold stays relatively consistent, making it a good investment and thus giving it value against currency. One could equally argue, why Fiat money is valued. Consider this: Today, an ounce of gold will buy you a reasonable second-hand car (Or its cash equivalent will) in the 1980s and ounce of gold would by you a second hand car in the 1950s A second hand car had the cash equivalent of a second hand car in 15th century an ounce of gold would buy you a decent second hand cart In Roman times a modest chariot could be purchased with an ounce of gold. Gold technically has no real value though as it cannot be eaten, only traded for food. In some sort of Hollywood style apocalypse, gold would clearly have no value what ever.

It could just be one of may bodily forms which are attractive because they represent general fitness and health. The dimples appear to be caused by the gap caused where the Cartalidge below the latissimus dorsi overlaps the external oblique. Some one who had toned and supple back muscles would show this gap more apparently. Or it could just be that certain images set of certain chemical reactions in the brain; some people get turned on by the sight of paper clip. I personlly like that whole collar bone area, although "Darling, you have beautiful sternocleidomastoid connective tissue to your clavicular head." Doesn't really work as a chat-up line, I tried.

general rule-of-thumb as far as I'm aware is that; The more dense the material, the better it conducts heat.

"The assumption of reality is the normal state" That's pretty much it. It's worth remembering that there is no clear definition of 'awake' and 'asleep'. There's a lot of middle ground. Something stage hypnotists are able to take advantage of in their shows, whereby they alter the participant's perception of reality. Someone you might want to look up is Derren Brown, he uses this quirk of consciousness to great effect as he is expert in it's psychology. As for daydreaming, if you're relaxed enough and daydreaming enough and have someone or something to influence you; your perception will be altered to some degree.

As iNow stated, our brains use the same machinery during dreaming as it does when we're awake. When we're awake, our brain produces a coherent reality based in information it is givin about it's surroundings from our senses. The brain is constantly updated with new information about what's happening. For example, if you see something whilst you're awake, nerve impulses travel to the occipital lobe from the eyes via the optic nerve, then via the limbic system to the rest of the brain (temporal, parietal are involved in some of the processing and frontal usually deals with judgement etc) This activity is generally what we experience as consciousness. When you are dreaming, it's pretty much the same story except information about reality is not coming (For the most part) from the eye and optic nerve. the information is coming from our own memory. consequently, when you're dreaming it seems real. Studies have been done to see what differences there are between conscious and unconscious brain activity. The results sugest that there realy isn't any significant difference. To put it another way, you are always dreaming. But when you're awake you brain is acting on different; more accurate information. I'll see if I can find links to the research I've been reading and post them up on here.

I've never had a bizaar illness, but I do have a bizaar wellness which I share with my grandfather. Neither of us are able to contract the cold or flu virus. I remeber about ten years ago I had a bit of a bloked nose, but that's about it. My grandfather used to go into hospital for medical research. The doctors would put him in an sealed room and fill it with germs to see if he got sick; he never did.

I'm about to buy a new printer, in its technichal specifications it says it Does not support Linux. Which I find odd as it shouldn't really matter, Ubuntu Linux worked fine with my old printer. I think what the website selling the printer is trying to say is that The software CD which comes with the printer is only meant for Windows and/or they've never used the printer with Linux so they just say 'No' on the site so as to cover them selfs. Would I be right in thinking any modern inkjet printer will work fine if I just plug it into my USB port. Thanks in advance guys

I'm not sure if this is the time or place to mention this but... In my honest opinion. The comments made by Mr Skeptic, iNow npts2020 and Peron sound remarkably similar to the goals and tenets of The UK Zeitgeist Movement. Two of it's main objectives are 'The application of the scientific method for social concerns' and 'The implementation of a resource based economy'. Plans to try and implement the societies you've outlined are already underway (I'm working on ways to consolidate local exchange transaction networks.) This post is meant merely as an observation of similarities between ideas concerning society, politics and economics. I've included the earlier posts for consideration. Mr Skeptic A constitutional libertarian democracy with a sane voting system, such as range voting. The constitution should have a completely unalterable portion, as well as parts that are simply very difficult to change. There should be a minimum of laws, with government's role being largely taxation, production and maintenance of public goods, national defense, making laws and at least a portion of the law enforcement, and providing information. Rather than forbidding things, or requiring things, the government should provide information, and account for externalities (behavior or products that affect others in a positive or negative way that is not part of the cost to the parties who do it) by providing tariffs to discourage things with negative externalities and subsidies to encourage things with positive externalities. iNow People have access to food, resources, and healthcare without cost or limitations based on status/social hierarchy, they have occupations which are based on their own interests, aptitudes, and merits, and it's all centered around a passion for exploration, learning new things, and connecting with others. npts2020 Whatever one wishes to call it, I would like to live in a society where governmental decisions are made based on the best scientific evidence available and the goal is improvement of the condition of the greatest number of citizens possible. Peron I would say that humans decide what is good, based on scientific evidence. What humans needs most, is access to healthcare, food, shelter, water, sanitation, etc. You can build the entire society on technology, trying to reach sustainability and the only way to reach sustainability is to remove case poverty and insular poverty. To do that we must share resources, equally.