tomgwyther

Agreed, it is a bit of a 'chicken and egg' situation, but kicking the bully (who ever the bully is deemed to be) can only serve to antagonise the bullied. The school playground analogy is very apt here. If the Palestinians enjoyed the same rights to jobs, economic security, food, health care, education and security that their Isrealy neighbours did, it would be a step towards peace. Militants would have no real reason to fire rockets in the first place. I'm talking from the perspective of the common man, trying to live in Gaza. If my home was bulldozed, and my family destitute, and my friends had their backs broken by Israels soldiers with hammers, I might think about taking up arms. p.s I may be lacking in understanding in Judaism, but why does this religion have to have specific piece of land associated with it? no other religion has a 'Homeland' to be so bitterly contested. I say again "The middle east: Worlds largest outdoor lunatic asylum."

If Cuba started firing missiles at Florida, although utterly abhorrent, It would be easy to understand why Cuban people were doing it. Also Cuba differs in that it is an independant state and it's inhabitants aren't displaced American citizens And for the record, my friends and relatives don't live in Florida, they live in London, where one of them 'Lydia' had her place of work destroyed by an IRA bomb. My government didn't respond with firey rage and malice, they got talking and now we have peace.

The middle east: The worlds largest outdoor lunatic asylum. Most of the trouble we see in this area is due to the west fiddling around with it too much. My part time job at the local university engineering faculty has allowed my to speak with many Iraqis, Iranians, Saudis and Palestinians. When I ask them “What does the Arab/Muslim world want?” The answer is “To be left alone.” Agreed; the random firing of rockets into Israel in order to kill, is utterly unjustifiable, but it is not surprising given the circumstances. If you subject a population of people (Any population of people) to the conditions seen in Gaza; there will inevitably be a small percentage of that population who will become violent against whom they see as their enemy/suppressor. If there is to be any remedy to the situation in Gaza, the first step should be to re-instate a number of basic human rights to the Palestinian people Such as: Article 9 No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile. Article 15-1 Everyone has the right to a nationality. Article 17 Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property. Article 23.1 Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. Article 25-1 Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services. These are all things which have been denied the people living in Gaza since the 50s. The situation is similar to the apartheid regime we saw in Africa, and dare I say it, not too dissimilar to the Nazi treatment of Jews in 1930s Germany. After which the state of Israel was founded based on the above UN Human rights declaration.. (An abject irony me thinks.) Now add to this that staple of SFN's antagony; religion. On the one hand we have a group of people who's God has declared that a specific piece of land must belong to them, which subsequently led to people being forcibly removed from their homes and put into what is effectively a ghetto. On the other we have a group of people who's God demonstratively allows them to kill and be killed on the promise that they will become martyrs and ascend to paradise. I quick fix to this situation would be to take a time machine and stop this ludicrous situation from ever happening. But in the absence of a flux capacitor equipped De Lorian this approach is unrealistic. On a more realistic note, a good start point would be for one side to take the moral high ground and swallow it's pride. To Hamas I say “Gandhi did it, Martin Luther did it, Nelson Mandela did it, all through non violence, through which they all archived 'martyrdom' To Israel I say. Stop behaving like the Third Reich at the hands of which your people suffered such incalculable pain, and understand that we are all just passing guests on this little blue planet, so we had best try to get along with our neighbours.

Good point, I guess a guitar string couldn't exceed the speed of sound, at least not very easily. It would be fun to find out what would happen if it did.

I suppose, the maximum speed a guitar string can move as pretty much infinite, as long as you have a very sturdy guitar and the string doesn't try to go faster than C (Speed of light) Music at near light speed pretty much died out in the early 90's. It's true that the harder you twang a string, the faster it will move, otherwise the frequency or 'note' would change depending on how aggressively you played. Think of it a bit like a pendulum on a clock, which oscillates once per second (1Hz) If you pull back the pendulum further it will still oscillate at the same frequency, but move faster. Harmonics do complicate matters a bit. It's safe to say that a guitar string can oscillate with no harmonics, although the player can force a harmonic or harmonics to occure. A guitar (If you have one) is a great way to illustrate what happens with harmonics because you can see it happening. 1. pluck the string exactly in the middle and you get a pure sine wave with no harmonics 2. pluck the string at either end and the wave form although uniform takes on a more jagged appearance 3. place you finger exactly halfway along the string as a damper (12th fret) and then with the other hand, pluck it. What you'll see is that the area in the middle of the string doesn't vibrate but the area either side of this point vibrate twice as fast 4. If you place your finger 1/4 along the string and pluck it, you'll have three points where the string doesn't vibrate and four areas where it oscillates four times as fast. if you get it just right, you can have both the sine wave and the harmonics coming from one string. Some instruments rely on harmonics in this way, for example the notes on a xylophone or glockenspiel and on some wind-chimes are fixed in place at the 1/4 interval and thus are always playing harmonics of their standing frequency. if you can (As I just have) take the chime from a glockenspiel, throw it in the air and hit it whilst it's in flight,then put it back in the instrument's frame and hit it again, you get two different tones. Hope this is of some help, I shall now put my oscilloscope, my guitar, and my slightly damaged glockenspiel away! But what the good of running a music studio if you can't play science-boy occasionally.

Draw a triangle anywhere on the Earth's surface (Which covers a large amount of ocean) then do some research into lost shipping and lost aircraft. What one finds is that the frequency of shipping and air losses (Explained or otherwise) is roughly the same. In fact most insurance companies lower their premiums for vessels around the Bermuda triangle because it is "One of the quieter areas of freight transport with regards to shipping losses".

Titanium Dioxide, calcium carbonate Are used in commercial reflective paints according to their MSDS sheets.

I doubt it would spin (In a free energy type way) Only one way to find out; build it and see what happens. Theory, experiment, conclude.

I'm not a particle physisist, but I think I see the answer. The Idea of anti-matter is reliant on the concept of matter, i.e matter and particles thereof are massive; they have mass. As I understand it, a photon is mass-less, therefore the idea of an anti-photon is unintelegable.

Anger can manifest itself in many ways, one of the most obvious is to feel hostile towards one environment. Most people feel hostile when they're angry, especially when that anger is triggered by something over which one has no control. e.g hitting the computer when it wont work as a primative way of gaining supremacy over it even though punching your PC monitor doesn't help at all. Or shouting abuse at the driver who pulled out in front of you on your way to work. it my be possible that the act of physical violence towards ones self has it's roots here. Perhaps because the object of aggression is himself (as opposed to the computer or the car in the example) he feels it's his face which should be hit, the physical stimuli of doing this is very apparent too. Anger is also often associated with a sense of guilt from lack of control, i.e rather than break his toys or lash out at another person, the aggression is directed back inwards. I would definatley recommend speaking to a qualified professional about maybe finding other ways in which he can vent his anger and frustration. As iNow said, seeking help via an internet forum (albeit a good one) is probably not the best course of action.

Or click this link... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm_shift

Glad I'm not the only one who thinks of weekdays as having colours. I believe the reason synesthesia happens is because alot of the brain structures which deal with spacial awareness and colour are sited very close to the brain structures which deal with language and numbers. Synethesia happens as a helping hand to though and reasoning. and is used in nearly all language. i.e a taste can be described as 'sharp' a sound described as 'soft' theres a great BBC documentary on youtube about it, have a search

Hmmm, interesting article. it could be a legitimate concern; an insurance policy. Something which sounds like a bad idea at the time, but turns out to be useful some time in the future (Useful for who?) Or it could be a precursor to totalitarianism; a sneak preview of things to come. One thing is sure though, the US government is expecting civil unrest in the future, and is trying to insure against it.. Thankfully, I live in 'America-Lite' (Britain) so needn't worry too much. Our head of state can use her army against the populous anytime she pleases, and has been able to for ages - but she doesn't. let's just hope she doesn't go nuts! Imagine if George W Bush were a queen.

I also tend not to have a synesthesic approach to match letters/numbers with colours I (as other do) think of numbers as 3D spacial entities. I think of number as fractions based on these i.e 75, 750 7500 etc are expressed as 3/4 on different 3D planes in relation to other fractions. sounds overly complex but makes sense to me! Try this: Days and colours usually have a strong synethesic affect, I think Sunday = yellow Monaday = blue/grey Tuesday = green/yello Wednesday = pink Thurdays = Brown Friday = White Saturday = Red Anyone else share these?

I love the scale idea, although I think a more apt name would be the 'G' scale; G standing for gullible. Chakra refers more to physiology in Indian/eastern belief systems. A similar scale was put forward by Prof. Richard Dawkins in his book 'The God Delusion' which goes as follows: 1. Strong Theist: I do not question the existence of God, I KNOW he exists. 2. De-facto Theist: I cannot know for certain but I strongly believe in God and I live my life on the assumption that he is there. 3. Weak Theist: I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God. 4. Pure Agnostic: God’s existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable. 5. Weak Atheist: I do not know whether God exists but I’m inclined to be skeptical. 6. De-facto Atheist: I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable and I live my life under the assumption that he is not there. 7. Strong Atheist: I am 100% sure that there is no God. Generally, most people I know are about a 6 or 6.5 on this scale

I work in the entertainment industry as a musician and sound engineer, would be happy to help. It all depend on how big the stadium is, (I assume it's an outdoor environment) General rules are. You'll need about 5 watts @8 ohms per person i.e a room which holds 100 people would require an amp of 50 watts RMS @ 8 ohms better to have about 7-10 watts if budget will allow. although this ratio deminishes with room size e.g massive stadium (80,000 seater) pa systems are about 20,000 watts Your amps power output should match the speakers power handling i.e 100w amp with 100w speakers. although there are two schools of though on this... either; your speakers should be able to handle more power then your amp can generate, thus avoiding damaging your speakers or you amp should exceed you speakers power rating , thus avoiding overloading the amp. the easiest way to over come this dilema is to buy powered speakers, these have an amp build into the speaker cabinet which is perfectly matched to the speaker chasis and coil. you will also need some kind of interface between the sound source and the sound produced - a mixing desk. for your purposes an eight or even four channel desk should be fine. e.g you can plug in a couple of microphones and a cd player etc. because it's a stadium and the audience is situated 360 degrees around the source you would do best to have four speakers. If indoors; do not put your speakers in the corners, have a flat wall behind them, preferably with something soft (Foam) on the wall behind the speaker. this help the acoustics and minimises feedback from microphones. (in the UK and probably in the US ceiling or wall mounted appliances such an speakers must be secured with a chain as well as the mounting bracket: H&S law) so. to sum up, for a 1000 seater, 360 audience stadium I would use 4X 500 watt powered speakers or 4X 500 watt passive speakers with 2X 1000watt amps and a 4 channel mixing desk. a Shure SM57 microphone or two or maybe even a radio microphone would be of more utility. hope this is of some help. there are lots of other issues regarding this sort of thing, this is just a general overveiw.

I'm an odd ball on this forum, i.e. I'm a musician by trade (Jazz piano) and have astro-physics and quantum mechanics as a hobby. Sorry I observe far more than I post guys, but touring kinda takes it out of you!! p.s visit http://www.tomgwyther.com

I've always had old and/or falling apart computers. As mentioned, not enough RAM; not enough processor power are the cause of most problems. The sudden restarting or shutting down of the system are likely overheating problems. having said that, a virus can do these things too, If your computer restarts over and over again, it may be due to a physical 'Gap' in the hard drive where the boot information is stored, i.e. as your p.c boots up, it will get to the gap - get confused - then start from the begining again. easiest remedy: buy a new computer, while your at it, could you buy me one too!!!

The question isn't whether global warming is happening or not; we know that it is, we can mesure the temperature rising over time. Also, global temperature has risen and dropped many times throughout history. The debate is one of 'cause' Whether or not burning fosil fuels is actually causing the temperature to fluctuate, or whether this fluctuation is entirely natural and is not caused or accelerated by burning fossil fuels. One of the main arguments is whether increased CO2 causes temperature increase, or whether teperature increase causes CO2. Either CO2 has a much higher thermal absorbtion rate than nitrogen or oxygen, thus CO2 rleased into the atmosphere will cause it to get hotter. Or As sunlight hits the ocean, it releases CO2 into the atmosphere; increasing the overall level of CO2. Either. All burning of fossil fuels is effectively carbon neutral, as the carbon within coal, was originaly part of a tree, which got it's carbon from the air when it was growing, thus by burning it, one is simply putting the carbon back into the atmosphere where it came from millions of years ago. Or, by burning fossil fuel, this carbon cycle has been interfered with, putting carbon into the air at a faster rate than nature intended. Questions: Are humans capable of producing carbon in sufficient quantities to have and effect on the carbon cycle, enough to change global temperature? Is even a small amount of man made CO2 enough to tip the scales, into a cascade sequence of global warming? Is global warming bad for the Earth in general? (It's recovered from worse) Is global warming just bad for human survival? (how much does it affest us?) If we stopped using fossil fuels tomorrow, what would happen to the temperature? Could we adapt to a hotter Earth? How much affect does the fluctuating sun have on Earth's temperature? If it is a conspiricy, who stands to gain from it, if anyone. If it is not a conspiricy, could governments do more? Conspiricy or not, fossil fuels are running out, so any effort toward renewable energy must be positive. Do the general public realy understand science and climatology? enough to make decisions about it. If they do, why do they buy hybrid cars? My own personal position is 'On the fence' (A fence made from sustainable sources of course) As i've see evidence from both sides of the argument.

I like the ron's comments on the age of the universe, and other such questions. It's so very comfortable to know that anything one personally doesn't understand can easily be replaced by magic. it saves all that bother of collecting evidence, we'll just say that the magic sky god did it, and that's that! I shall now sleep easily in my bed with mohammed the teddy-bear, safe in the knowledge that there's an answer for everything, and that if I disagree with the magic, I'll burn in magical hell. Or. I could read a different book - or several books - or maybe even observe the world around me - or the whole universe around me. And top it off with a visit to a museum to see some dinosaurs or somthing.

Because Pb is very dense and X-rays have difficulty passing through it, Lead is also worn by the person taking the X-ray to protect them from constant exposure.

Probably the most peaceful solution would be to revert Iraq back to three individual states. The current government was put there by America, there-fore the Iraqi people aren't happy, If the Iraqi people decide who's in charge; the shia majority would vote for leaders that the US don't like. plus the suni minority would by more likely to bread increase in militant action. Devolution is by no means perfect, but the situation will only get worse if we stay in this stale-mate. Most Iraqis I've spoken to just want the electricity back on, clean water and for the west to leave them alone.

Good sugestion Snail, Newtonian physics would be a good foundation, to then move onto Einstein. May I also sugest a very good book to Shygirl. 'Sophie's world - by Jostien Gaarder' It very elequently and consicley explains the last 2000 years of science and philosophy. All told through the eyes of a 15 year old girl.

Confusedkid: Could you not try the experiment yourself with a bucket of water and two objects of differing volumes; with equal mass? [As mentioned before, weight is a mesure of mass under the influence of gravity]

A friend tryed this on me. This was the solution he showed. That each line can pass through each house and each util.ty