Sisyphus

Oh good, I was worried for a second there that other dimensions wouldn't count.

No, I'm saying that what matters to the fly is how fast it's moving relative to the air that it's in. How fast that air is moving relative to something else doesn't make any difference. There's no such thing as "really moving." All motion has to be compared to something else.

All motion is relative. The fly can fly 12mph (or whatever) relative to the air it's flying through. The air it's flying through in this case is inside the car, and moving along with it, at 75mph relative to the ground or the air outside the car. But that doesn't concern the fly, does it? Just like if you get up and walk around on an airplane, that doesn't mean you can walk at 600mph. Nor does it matter that the Earth is spinning, or that it's going around the Sun, or that the Sun is part of a galaxy that is itself spinning and moving relative to other galaxies, and so on and so on.

Mod note: Moved thread to pseudoscience and speculations.

Yes, pretty awesome. Common in most arguments, more common online, and there's at least one troll (who shall remain unnamed, please) who intentionally used this forum and others as practicing grounds for these (i.e., fallacious but convincing to the uninformed) techniques, apparently to improve his skill in sleazy litigation.

It's spelled R-O-G-U-E. *retreats back into the shadows*

Yeah, "energy drink" is really a misnomer. Energy is measured in calories. Hence, the best "energy drink" is probably a milkshake (if you're too squeamish for pure bacon grease). Now, if you want to talk about "alertness drinks," that's a different story.

Depending on who you ask, artificial intelligence as complex as a human brain is pretty much right around the corner. So yeah, we're doing it, and we're taking a whole lot less time than unguided biological evolution. And yes, the reason we're confident it's possible is because we exist.

From the Wikipedia article on Mars colonization, emphasis added: The point being that small, constant acceleration tends to get you where you're going a lot faster. Chemical rockets have a lot of thrust, but they can only fire for a few minutes (as opposed to months for ion propulsion), and you pretty much just have to coast the whole way and make minor adjustments when necessary.

One of my favorite quotes from Carl Sagan is comparing the nuclear arms race to two guys standing waste deep in gasoline, one holding three matches and the other holding five.

Right, right. It's not a replacement for conventional rockets for stuff like taking off from the surface or close maneuvering. But for long trips, slow and steady does indeed win the race.

Indeed. Ion engines are so efficient because the ions are ejected at extremely high velocity, meaning you can get more momentum while using less mass of fuel.

Maybe they were just thanking you for a post by letting you know about good deals in t-shirt printing.

Well, think of it this way. In order to create a cavity at the center of the Earth, you have to displace the material that’s there. And in order to do that, you need to push everything else up (since every direction is “up”) by some small amount. The rest of the core, the mantle, the crust, everything. In the center, there’s very little gravity holding it in place, but it increases as you go farther out, and you’re quite literally trying to lift all of it, including the parts that have almost as much gravity as the surface.

A good point, and actually mutually exclusive with the other benefits. With deterrance, the value is in having them but not using them. With obtaining aid, the value is in plausibly being able to acquire them, but not having them. It also reveals that any promises they make for permanent disarmament are likely lies, but they would likely be happy to stay perpetually on the verge of armament in exchange for periodic carrots.

Incorrect. The material at the center feels no weight, but the rest of the Earth does, and it's all pushing downwards, towards the center. Pressure at the center is almost 4000 metric tons per cm^2.

It certainly can be treated as a game theory problem. I'm not entirely sure the rules you state are correct, however. Let's say that every nation but North Korea completely disarms all nuclear weapons. What happens? We've all lost our nuclear deterrant capabilities, but what does that actually mean? Well, the immediate, guaranteed result is that we save a lot of money, so all other things being equal gives everyone but NK a guaranteed advantage. But what of the strategic situation? From the zero sum Cold War perspective, a sole nuclear power unchecked by mutually assured destruction would have an incentive to strike, to destroy its rival and therefore remove its chief obstacle to global dominance. But that applies to two powers who are otherwise roughly equal who would gain from annihilating one another, and could do so otherwise without major consequence. Would that be applicable for a "rogue state" like North Korea? I'm thinking not. Certainly they gain a benefit from having nuclear weapons and not using them. Namely, as a general deterrant. "If you try to conquer my country, I will use a nuclear weapon before you succeed." Please note that even in that situation, they don't gain any benefit from actually using it. The situation is a bit like a hostage taker wearing a vest made of dynamite. If it actually came to using it, nuking Seoul, say, or Seattle would certainly not save their regime. In fact, if anything, it would further guarantee their destruction, meaning there's a de fact MAD in place even without the presence of other nuclear powers, simply because of the huge power imbalance. No, even though they would be the only nuclear power, the only advantage to be gained from nuclear weapons would be in not using them, but threatening to do so should they ever be forced into a position where they have nothing left to lose. And that situation is no different whether or not anyone else has nuclear weapons as well.

Yes, it's long since been established that alien spacecraft are powered by word salad.

That's actually a fairly common theme in science fiction, and one I really like. It's a way to realistically have "aliens" that are similar enough to us that their motivations and ways of thinking overlap with ours enough to be comprehensible characters, but still as different as the author chooses, so those differences and their consequences can be explored. If we do ever manage to establish self-sustaining colonies on other worlds (which would likely mean one way trips for whole populations), "speciation" seems pretty much inevitable. Although, on an even shorter timeframe, with the rise of genetic engineering and artificial intelligence, I'm guessing that what it means to "human" is about to get a whole lot muddier.

It's a 26 thousand year cycle, not 26 million. The gravitational influences which cause the precession are well understood and precisely calculated (though not by me), and those calculations completely agree with observation. So I guess, what would lead you to speculate that these calculations are wrong, and what mechanism could cause a figure eight precession? Also, what do you mean by up becoming down? For reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precession_(astronomy)

No. Gravity at the center is zero, but the pressure is still the result of the full weight of everything above. You can't hollow it out. Also, the centrifugal effect will also decrease as you get closer to the axis. At the center, it too would be zero, and increase linearly outward, just like gravity, and I'm sure you've noticed it isn't flinging things out into space at the equator, just causing a slight bulge. And the bulge isn't changing, as it's long since in equilibrium. Finally, the centrifugal effect is not directed away from the center, it's away from the axis. So even if, say, gravity were turned off, the result wouldn't be a hollowing out sphere, it would be a disk flying apart, leaving behind a spinning cylinder that was once the axis of the Earth. So, yes, you're totally wrong.

Why would you deduce that?

Haha, no. Of course you can have children with somebody with a different blood type. Did you not read GDG's post?

I do expect it's a sign of things to come, but I don't think it's necessarily indicative of the attitudes of the corny folks, since it's a court decision and not legislation. It does, however, establish another legal precedent, and hurt the credibility of those who think the legal argument only makes sense to "liberal activist" judges trying to "legislate from the bench." Massachusetts and California are godless dens of sin, sure, but Iowa is part of The Real America!

You want efficiency? Cheat. Just have it run once and directly copy the results. Sure, you'll never get a 6 or 7, but if you hide the mechanism, then nobody can ever actually prove they weren't as likely as any other result. It will just quickly become a larger and larger statistical anomaly...