J'Dona

It's not really meant as a stand-alone joke, but here's one of my favourite quotes from Douglas Adams (from "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish"). Maybe it's not as funny without context, but it cracks me up...

What if some unforseen cataclysm (a comet, asteroid, climate change, supervolcano, total thermonulcear war, etc.) threatens to wipe out life on Earth as we know it and the entire human race is all here? The only way to really secure the future of the human race is to go into space. There's nothing like a backup against planet-wide catastrophes than another planet. Best not to carry all your eggs in one basket.

Thanks atinymonkey! I didn't actually expect anyone to look at the sites and write down comparisons here; the "exercise" wasn't directed toward you in particular, just anyone in general to consider. I'd like to hear other's opinions too, though I agree with the points you brought up. My main reason for posting it was to draw attention to the lack of any advertising on BBC News and the relatively equal levels of coverage for both parties (in regard to the debates). I hadn't concentrated much on the other news sites, but I'll be looking at them more to compare their articles. Usually when I look at BBC News—which I do about as often as I do SFN—I go straight to the Americas tab and then Vote USA 2004 to check for updates on the election. BBC News seems to offer a much more diverse range of world news, so it can't really be biased toward any one government. I don't know the statistics, but I would imagine that the BBC has a large international audience. I'm sorry to say that most US media outlets concentrate almost exclusively on affairs in the US and Iraq. I wasn't aware of the difference in statistics since 1997; if I'd known I wouldn't have even pointed it out. I wonder what could have caused such a change in that time though.

I heard that the percentage of Americans with a passport was about 21%, or at least that's the statistic that Kerry brought up in the second presidential debate. Either way, it's nothing compared to other countries. I'll bet fewer than 1% of Europeans in Central Europe didn't have a passport before they joined the EU, or didn't speak a second language for that matter. Though, as atinymonkey pointed out, that's mostly due to different travel costs, what with three other countries being within walking distance and all. For those who don't know how it works in the UK, Britons pay 121 quid a year to pay for their TV license, which goes into the BBC. It's pretty successful too, with 81% of viewers being said to approve of the BBC. It also has very few ads because of that funding. It's not in their particular interest to lean toward the government, they're not owned by any major company, and there's less censorship from advertising, so it's pretty objective and unbiased. I must say that some of the US media appears a little biased from this end, different news outlets leaning in different directions. US citizens would do well to look at foreign news sources as well as their own to get a better picture. Here's an exercise: look at each of this small selection of news sites, and decide which site seems to be the best for reporting news as efficiently and objectively as possible. http://www.foxnews.com/ http://www.cnn.com/ http://www.sky.com/skynews/home http://news.bbc.co.uk/

Here's a link posted by coquina in another thread, Sorcerer, that provides a few more examples: http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html If I may say so, GPS, communication satellites, and satellite TV are rather significant advances even on their own. The shuttles have spent most of their time ferrying astronauts around in space and launching satellites, both of which directly affect scientific progress. The shuttles themselves just don't do much direct research, and the last pure research mission took place on Challenger...

Absolutely. Also be careful when posting stories online, mab, that you only post ones you've made for practice, rather than ones you intend to sell. Most publishers want first serial rights, and if you post something online for review and feedback they often consider that a form of publishing.

I think Mad Mardigan was referring to the Libertarian Party. However, it could also apply to the Labour Party, the question being for some reason whether its votes might detract from the three or four other parties with significant support. His location ("The South"), might mean London or thereabouts. I know that's not true, but a newcomer might. Anyway, I don't think there would be much of a difference, since voters who vote for the Libertarian party are clearly voting for the party that represents them the best, rather than one of the two options with a chance of success. In that case, if they weren't able to vote for the Libertarian party they might not vote at all.

Well... according to the Times University Guide, Newcastle, Leeds, and Kings College make 19th, 31st, and 13th places respectively in the UK. Cambridge and Oxford are 1st and 2nd. The average starting salary for a student leaving King's College is £20,637, which is 4th highest in the country, whereas Cambridge is 6th with £20,062 and Oxford 7th with £19,571. Of course, Skye is right. The accuracy of the list for the website I listed is questionable at best. I mean, the list from last year had Cambridge at 5th and Oxford at 9th, and that was the year during which Oxford was above Cambridge on the Times University Guide. I'm more inclined to trust the Times, whose criteria were based more on the actual quality of the university than on indirect indicators of academic success like the number of Nobel laureates or published articles.

I just opened a small community for writers to share fiction and feedback—was waiting for members right now actually. It's a LiveJournal community called Logorrhoea. I wasn't planning on letting it became very large, so it would be quite close-knit and open amongst ourselves. It's just started so there aren't really any members yet aside from me. You could take a look if you're interested. NOTE: I need to update the Rules page, so stuff you read there, particularly in the first section, is probably all going.

In the world top ten, I believe Cambridge is 3rd and Oxford is 8th. All the others are from the USA. 1 Harvard Univ, USA 2 Stanford Univ, USA 3 Univ Cambridge, UK 4 Univ California - Berkeley, USA 5 Massachusetts Inst Tech (MIT), USA 6 California Inst Tech, USA 7 Princeton Univ, USA 8 Univ Oxford, UK 9 Columbia Univ, USA 10 Univ Chicago, USA Taken from: http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2004/top500(1-100).htm

Sorry, just noticed your post. I got the picture from here: http://gallery.artofgregmartin.com/wallpapers.html There's a login when you try to go further but the username and password are both posted there, it's just a technicality. Lots of great images there, the guy's really good at it. Forgot to mention, the wallpaper I'm currently using is called "Shattered", and you can get it in 1600x1200 from there if you want.

Speaking of those papers for plots on the moon, I've seen them being sold on racks in WHSmith, all silvery and shiny in nice sleeves. I can't believe it has been going on for this long. :/ To be honest, I bet corporations want it to succeed, because then land on the moon will become a resource and they can invest in mineral-rich areas or some such. The commercial opportunities provided by owning areas of a celestial body of untouched natural wealth are pretty extensive. It wouldn't be any trouble to buy land back off of the public when the corporations wanted to, if this goes through.

I like ones with a short bit of text and nothing else, like this one from Diesel Sweeties. Wear it to your university interview! The phrases so far in the thread are good, but I think we need ones that are more doomful and mad scientist-like. Everyone likes mad scientists.

If icons are any indication, I must be the most boring person on the forums. :/

Solutions can have pH's above 14 and below 0, the concentrations are just nasty and hard to reach. A 15 pH solution would have an OH- concentration of 10 mol dm-3, which is possible, just dangerous and reaching the limits of how many OH- ions can dissolve in the water. Eventually there are too many ions and the water won't accept any more, same for either H+ or OH- ions. I don't know why you might call it artbitrary since it's based on a normal logarithmic formula: pH = -log10[H+]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3693518.stm Looks like the 6% or so of people who voted "1-5 years" might have been right after all, if you count a cost of £100000 for a few minutes in space. But if Virgin's on it it won't be long before that drops rather a lot, provided there's another competitor.

Yep, exactly. First rule of online gaming: "If you take the time to capitalize You'll just get one between the eyes" EDIT: Yeah, that's true Nevermore.... but is that a direct or indirect cause? I'm asking because I'm honestly not quite sure which either means in this case. Could you give some examples?

I'd say no myself... I mean, I used to play computer games twelve hours a day during the summer and I can still compose a complete sentence. But really. (Yes, I know that's a sentence fragment) The original question seems to suggest that computer games affect the actual literacy rate, i.e. the percentage of people who can read/write/type, at least as I would assume in this context. To me that doesn't seem likely, as just about all computer games require those skills and three-year-olds who are learning those abilities aren't going to be spending much time on the PC, seeing as all text would just be jibberish to them if they couldn't read. But because of this I'm assuming that the question is directed more at literacy skills. I'd still say no, however. I'm no Nobel laureate, but from personal experience it seems to me that most video game players are just generally too lazy to bother with full, grammatically correct sentences on online channels or multiplayer chats, where it's real-time and they're in a rush. Videos games do take time away that might be spent on study and improving literacy skills, but I think this is the sort of indirect effect which you were talking about earlier, and not the direct effect the poll is about. I'm sure there are a few psychologists here who can give a proper answer though. I don't know if he's interested in the subject matter, but I believe Glider has a Ph.D. in Psychological Science. Hopefully if a mod edits the poll options, they'll also move this to the Psychiatry/Psychology forum where it might get better responses.

Just posting here as I don't want to make a thread about it and this seems the closest active one for it, but SFN broke the all-time user record today at 7:48 PM with 146 users, which is over 50 more than the previous record. Has someone been advertising SFN, or was it linked to from another site? Over a hundred guests, wow...

I've only got Green Mars and The Martians, and I can't start there, so I'll have to wait until our shop gets Red Mars and Blue Mars in stock. I hear that it's the best novel relating to the teraforming of Mars ever written though, or at least that's what Arthur C. Clarke is quoted to have said.

As long as we're on Englishman/Sctosman/Irishman jokes, here's a highly edited one... An Englishman, a Scotsman, and an Irishman were standing beside a cliff, accompanied by the rich and eccentric Duchess of Sloufingboroughtonshire. Planting herself on a rock with a good view of the water and rocks below, she beckons them over. "Now, my good gentlemen, I have for you a challenge of your strength and bravery. To whomever can jump off of this cliff and survive, I shall award one million pounds sterling." The Scotman leaps off immediately and, for several seconds, experiences perfect weightlessness, followed by a thousand fatal G's as he hits a rock. The Irishman, not to be outdone, careens off the edge with a spin, hits the wall twice, and splits like a watermelon as he catches one of the outcroppings. The Englishman steps back and bows. "After you, madam."

From what I've read, the rate of travel through spacetime of anything in the universe is always c, so as something travels faster through space, it slows down in time (time dilation). I'm taking that from The Elegant Universe, and I can't quite recall the equation for it from the appendix, but it makes sense. For an object barely moving at all (anything in terrestrial standards) the rate of passage through time is just about c, whereas for an object travelling at almost the speed of light, time is very slow indeed. In that case the speed of time would only be equal to that of light when an object is at rest. Incidentally, if the universe and all objects in it are expanding at the speed of light, how would you account for objects in it not acquiring infinite mass? And since a lightyear (measured in metres) doesn't have the same units as a year (measured in seconds), how can they be equal?

Reopen the arcade! Maybe there could be awards event where people who have contributed a lot to SFN (in terms of post quality, length of being a member, diplomacy and helping people with questions, and so forth) can get perks like a custom title, or a title under their avatar and details (like the arcade ones that there used to be).

Weren't the tax cuts applied for all Americans, but with much greater percentage cuts for the very rich? The income tax would have to be graduated if they're making distinctions there, and if it wasn't before, the new changes make it so. Ah, a link.