Sisyphus

The OP isn't claiming they don't die, just that they don't have definite lifespans. Something external always has to kill them, and if it doesn't they theoretically live forever. Unlike us, or more specifically our cells, which only divide a certain number of times. Of course, this view also has it's problems. How many mutations have to occur before it's considered a different organism? Which daughter cell is to be considered the same as being as the parent? Both? Are all bacteria the same organism? It almost does make more sense to think of cell division as "death" of the parent, or more accurately to say that the life cycle is simply different, and is an imperfect analogy to our own. Hence "immortal" simply isn't applicable, rather than being true or false. You are correct that death has been a crucial part of evolution, but that doesn't necessarily make it a "vain ambition." Organisms do not have an inherent "purpose," and evolution certainly didn't "design" anything.

This is a bit out of my league, but as discussed in that other thread, it's not really appropriate to talk about what a photon experiences, since it's more like a "time doesn't apply" situation. As you approach c, the delta t approaches zero, but that's all. I also don't follow your reasoning regarding predestination, but since your original premise is (apparently) wrong, it might not be worth explaining.

You've solved it! Now go forth and use this knowledge to serve humanity. Do not dally here!

Certainly his position on Israel is important, but that's hardly the point. The questions themselves are deliberately misleading, obviously intended to paint a certain (very inaccurate) picture of Obama. We can go through the questions one by one if you want. So either it's a push poll, or it's research for waging an effective (and dishonest) smear campaign. It's intention is the opposite of trying to reveal Obama's stance; it's trying to portray it as something it is most definitely not.

Still, though, really? So normal solar cells absorb less than 0.2% of incoming light?

Apparently, Jews living in Florida, Michigan, and Pennsylvania have been getting phone calls asking a series of leading questions about Barack Obama insinuating an anti-Israeli agenda. For example, "Would it affect your vote if you knew that..." ...Obama has had a decade long relationship with pro-Palestinian leaders in Chicago? ...the leader of Hamas, Ahmed Yousef, expressed support for Obama and his hope for Obama's victory? ...the church Barack Obama has attended is known for its anti-Israel and anti-American remarks? ...Jimmy Carter's anti-Israel national security advisor is one of Barack Obama's foreign policy advisors? ...Barack Obama was the member of a board (sic) that funded a pro-Palestinian chartiable organization? ...Barack Obama called for holding a summit of Muslim nations exlcuding Israel if elected president? Really, it looks like a pretty classic push poll to me. It doesn't actually make any assertions (so you can't call them out on truth-bending), but it makes insinuations that appeal to our uglier fears. (The infamous push poll from the 2000 South Carolina Republican primaries was, "Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain for president if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?") The poll, apparently, was paid for by the Republican Jewish Coalition, which denies it was a push poll. The argument is that it was too long to be a push poll, which are typically short so as to reach as many people in as short a time as possible. That might be true - they could just be testing out responses to smear messages. Or, frankly, it could be both. Favorite response from The Onion: "I'm more concerned by the implication that Republicans carry around a list of Jews."

Wait, what? So normal solar cells are less than 0.2% efficient?

Ok, pi is defined as the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter in Euclidian geometry. Euclidian geometry is not dependent on scale. Of course, four or five people have already said that, so I don't know what else you could possibly be looking for.

Given those constraints, it might have a ratio of 3.0, but it wouldn't be a circle. It would be a hexagon. And even a hexagon has incommensurable ratios in it, so the whole exercise is pretty much a reductio ad absurdum.

I don't know much about Palin's church and I haven't really been paying attention to the story, so I don't know whether it's scarier than Rev. Wright or not. If it really is one of those "apocalypse is coming any day now, let's hurry it along" places (and I don't know that it is), I'm going to say it is more troubling than black liberation stuff that occasionally gets out of hand, which is the kind of Wright does. Certainly that was exposed to extreme levels of scrutiny, which satisfied me, and I don't think it's crazy to look into Palin's church more deeply, either. Also, with Obama, what ultimately quelled any doubts I had relating to his church was the fact that he explained himself so well. Nobody could read his speeches (including the big one about race) or his many conversations about it and still think he's some kind of religious fanatic that would bring the sentiment of Wright's nastier comments to the White House. Palin, on the other hand, has not yet explained herself. Maybe she will, and maybe it will similarly put us at ease. Or maybe she won't, especially since a lot of her appeal is to people who don't want her to distance herself from that stuff. And if she doesn't, that's certainly a significant reason to try to keep her out of the White House.

Some more revelations come to light about Palin's past, from Hockey Moms for Truth:

How would that jump start the hydrogen economy? Hydrogen doesn't have to be run through pipes, it can be manufactured anywhere at any scale, with just electricity and water.

"Sure, we wanted offshore drilling, but we didn't want you to want it!" It just means they want to move the tax breaks from oil manufacturing to renewable energy. Makes sense to me.

Really, though, you do many things in one day, not just one, so there are a lot more than 6000 1-in-a-millions per day. See Littlewood's Law.

He thinks that the world is made up of planck-length-sized balls, and furthermore that mathematical entities are somehow dependent on our ability to physically make something that shape. From there, I get the impression he's thinking of arranging seven of those balls in tightest packing, i.e. a hexagon, which would have a diameter of two planck lengths, and a circumference (measured from the center of each ball) of six, making a ratio of three to one. Since, in that universe, this would be the most circle-like thing you could physically construct at that scale, he's decided it is a circle, therefore making "pi" equal to three. He seems pretty adamant about the whole thing, too.

The ideal form of government is AntiAmericanism. It doesn't really have any specific political philosophy behind it other than, on every possible issue, always taking the exact opposite stance of the United States.

For the love of Zeus, enough already. This is false. Very very false.

Well, from a biological standpoint, I'd say being willing to kill is a lot less of a big deal than being willing to die, since the survival instinct is obviously our most powerful drive under normal circumstances. Yet even that has precedent, e.g. sacrificing oneself for the sake of offspring, which makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. Being willing to die for something could just be a generalization of that pre-existing urge, i.e. substituting all of humanity for one's own offspring, and possibly some abstract benefit for physical danger. I also think it's important to separate that from religious motivations, since when an "afterlife" is involved the whole equation is completely different. If you actually believe in it, then the survival instinct doesn't interfere with sacrificing your life, and might actually help it along, if, as in Christianity or Islam, you only "survive" in the afterlife if certain conditions are met in life, in which case sacrificing your physical life to meet those conditions is a no-brainer. It should also be separated from being willing to risk one's life, since that's quite different from facing certain death. We're used to mortal risk, since everything we do necessarily involves some measure of it, and in each case we're measuring risk vs. reward, consciously or not. We say that fallen soldiers gave their lives for their country, but in most cases that's not really accurate. They put their lives at risk (sometimes huge risk) for their country, and they didn't beat the odds. That requires a strong motivation, but not the same as certain self-sacrifice.

Or a very long extension cord. Or, instead of a traditional battery, maybe something with hydrogen fuel cells? I have no idea how feasible the required power output/maximum weight would be.

How does that suggest that? If I understand you, you're just saying that particles exist in specific numbers (hence the "quantum"). What does that have to do with their position/momentum?

Well, exactly. It's a diagram, not a drawing. That's all I meant. Molecules aren't multi-colored lines. They're clusters of indistinct blobs, and they don't particularly look like anything. But you're dead on about those angles.

If it's 50 billion gallons, that's still 1/7000000000th of the oceans.

I'm wondering how appropriate it is to think of the scale of the observable universe as the "big" analogy to the "small" planck length. Something which is so far away as to be "causally disconnected" from us effectively doesn't exist as far as science is concerned, right? Just like something smaller than the planck length, even though the immeasurability is for a totally different reason. Between them is the "size range of physical significance" or something. Of course, that's very weird, since what "exists" or not depends on where and when you are. Oy. Then again, the analogy (which, BTW, I'm suggesting with more whimsy than confidence, so restrain your snark) might be useful in illustrating what each does and does not mean, particularly in mentally separating our ontology from our epistemology.

Well, I wouldn't say they look like that, no...

Wouldn't that make the range also zero? They don't give any initial height that it's fired from, right? So you have to assume it's the surface. So if there's no vertical component, the instant it leaves the rifle it hits the ground, because it's falling at 1.67m/s^2 from a height of zero. Range: zero. Am I missing something? What was your answer, and how did you arrive at it?