ewmon

Anything humans do is imperfect' date=' and when humans view something that's less than perfect, they think in relative terms. Ultimately, we substitute "insurance" for "assurance", and the premiums paid to insurance companies figure into the break-even and profitability equations. The word "inordinate" (off the scale) works well here, because in such cases as this, the [i']probability[/i] that a catastrophe will occur and the magnitude of such catastrophe are both "off the scale" of the human mind, and this means that we are in unfamiliar territory indeed.

1 in 5 U.S. moms have babies with multiple dads, study says I don't think this is an April Fools joke, I just think it's stupid. The word "kids" is plural, and the define of plural is "two or more". Am I demographically/statistically/linguistically challenged, or what? Can one kid have two or more birth fathers and, if so, is it really this common?

Extremes to be sure, and all probably involved a lot of "thinking things over", but these women are at least as violent as men. The only difference is that women are allowed to say that Satan told them to do it. The all too common reality of increasing aggression in girls and young women that's often caught on video Wanda Holloway attempted to murder the mother of her daughter's cheerleading rival. Tonya Harding hired thugs to eliminate her figureskating rival from the competition. Pamela Smart, a pedophile who coerced her victim to murder her husband (but don't traumatize her pet dog). Louise Woodward shook a baby to death, was convicted of murder but served only 9 months. Dorothea Puente ran a boarding house where she murdered old and disabled men for their money. Andrea Yates murdered her five young children by drowning them in the bathtub. Lisa Montgomery murdered an expectant mother in order to kidnap her unborn baby. Katherine Knight murdered, skinned, cooked and ate her husband and attempted to feed him to his kids. And, sadly, we make light of violent females through movies such as Arsenic and Old Lace, So I Married an Axe Murderer, Keeping Mum, and Serial Mom (which also included a cameo by notorious bank robber Patricia Hearst). — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn The reality is that the line between good and evil runs through every human heart, and I don't see women any different than men.

(I put it here due to its connection with the seasons.) Okay, so, here's an article on British Double Summer Time. I read the article, and I read Wikipedia on it, and I still don't know what it is. What is it, how does it work, and why is it better? (...in simple monosyllables, please.) And is it equivalent to America's Daylight Savings Time, or does it go beyond DST? Is it the same as "Single/Double Summer Time? (Yes, Virginia, there is such a thing.)

Okay, so it would eject it tangentially. I was thinking more radially. So, how/why would the sun eject it tangentially?

The idea of the sun giving birth to planets is interesting. About the mechanics of it, I can imagine the sun expelling material, but I don't see how/where the material acquires the tangential velocity for it to orbit the sun.

You might want/need to control the "angle of attack" of the kite to the direction of the wind. A high angle to produce lift/power, then a low angle to bring it back down by expending the least amount of power. The low angle is like "feathering" an oar to move it forward for the next stroke.

Is this a homework problem? How much "acceleration"? What is an "air vehicle"?

The mousetrap will add significant weight to the airplane, so the designer should place it near the main wings (to maintain fore-and-aft balance), preferably "sideways" (to reduce drag) and underneath (to keep the center of mass below the center of lift) like the sternum of a bird. The "bale" (the part that snaps shut!) would be turned upward in its "loaded" position. To eliminate the relatively heavy weight of gears, attach a strong thread (such as dental floss) to the bale, and wind it around the propeller's metal axle. When the bale is released, it will turn the shaft and propeller (like the pull start on a lawnmower).

I'm guessing you're a bit like me. Most students around me were able/happy to accept one layer of understanding at a time; however, I often found (and still find) myself needing some in-depth (ie, deeper layers of) understanding before "accepting" what was being presented to us. I'm the type to ask questions -- lots of questions -- and questions to which co-workers or bosses may not have the answer. Most workers are happy to do their work superficially; I'm not. ... and it never really ends. I know a fellow of supposedly "average" intelligence who wanted to play the organ at his church, so he began learning music, then chords and harmonics and frequencies, and then algebra, which then led him to calculus and differential equations!!! And he did this on his own, self-taught from books. Hopefully people will find ways of organizing information, and I believe that almost all information has some organization to it. For example, imagine the arduous task of trying to memorize the list of elements without the periodic table. PS -- Because of this need for more info, it may seem that you are "slow". Also, you (or others) may feel that you take time to respond or draw conclusions to scientific matters or everyday events, and that you aren't quick to judge. I'm tempted to clump together all these characteristics (mentioned in this post) and attribute them to my manner of perception. Maybe I'm thinking with the so-called "parallel" side of the brain instead of the "serial" side.

Your college or professor may have specific requirements, and we don't know them. So, check with your professor, your course material, other students, or your college's website.

Try this: Go to your system tray, and double click on the volume icon (it probably looks like a loudspeaker). If you can't double click, then right click and select the "Open Volume Control" item from the menu. The popup will show the master volume that controls all the sounds, but there's also controls for things like: Wave, SW Synth, CD/Video in, Line in, and maybe others. Play around with the volume controls, and you might find that the CD music and the websites come through different channels and that you can turn off the website sounds.

Answer: Examples, especially visual ones. Mathematics easily tends toward the abstract, which disconnects with reality and loses people. So I strongly recommend not expounding on, or explaining, abstracts for too long without real-life examples, preferably visual ones. Lots of people, including scientists, learn visually much more than they care to admit (or even realize).

I just found this really nice article: US alarm over Japan atomic crisis (BBC News, Wednesday 16 March)

Human bodies probably produce extremely small amounts of EMF, but do not produce static electricity.

I agree. A replier can often determine the appropriate level of response by discerning the level of the OP. Generally, when an OP asks a question that indicates a basic lack of understanding, they're probably not a "Professor Barnhardt" who could comprehend a "Klaatu kind of response" (here at 9:15 through 10:00). For example, this OP on the 2011 Japan earthquake supposedly shifting the earth's axis 17° looks like it was answered most appropriately by swansont (posts 4 and 7) and D H (post 5) although, with all due respect, I would guess that talk about angular momentum and inertia tensors would be beyond someone who thinks that the earth's axis would shift 17° (and that we'd be alive to discuss it).

If I may get picky about words ... The "something" implies a "product", specifically one for human use/consumption, and the "something" is produced artificially -- that is, by "artifice" (ie, workmanship), which means "man-made" instead of naturally. Can we imitate nature perfectly (eg, make enough potable water for everyone)? Can we extract something from the environment without disrupting nature (eg, mining or even drawing water from a river)? Can we make something or do something unnatural in a natural way (eg, build skyscrapers or transport people in airplanes)? (Obviously no.) So, almost by definition, anything humans do above their "animal nature" (ie, with their so-called "intellect") will not be eco-friendly. Then the "price" of "something" reflects the effort that humans exert to make the man-made product or service as natural (ie, eco-friendly) as possible. However, scientists could argue that, because the environment made humans (ie, evolution), they are part of the ecology, so nothing they do is eco-unfriendly. The ecology simply is what it is, including us and our desires, intellect and behavior. Hmm...

Safety in redundancy, as we now realize. Like "bootstrapping" in reverse ... no power to shut itself down properly. From a couple of posts: And yet, the human mind has difficulties processing/comprehending the "expected value" in the extremes, especially that of horrific catastrophes that have basically no chance of happening, which is how insurance companies make very nice profits. There's obviously very little empirical data on horrific catastrophes (which is why we view them as horrific), so the "statistics" mostly come from estimates and extrapolations. Not to seem sarcastic, but this is looking like it'll only be a regular nuclear catastrophe, not a horrific one.

Most likely, it'll be a straight plot on a log-linear graph, where the concentration is along the log axis and the absorbance is along the linear axis. 1. In Excel, plot the concentration along the x axis as a logarithmic scale, and the absorbance along the y axis as a linear scale. 2. Add a logarithmic trendline, and choose the options for displaying the R² value and the equation on the chart. The trendline's R² shows how well it fits the known data points (ie, the standards), and it should be close to 1 (ie, let's say 0.95 or better, depending on the requirements of the assay) in order to be a valid assay. 3. Solve the equation for x (ie, Conc), plug the Abs value(s) of the unknown into the equation, and compute its concentration. 4. Plot the same standards on log-linear graph paper. (If you don't have any, or don't want to buy a whole pad of it for this one experiment, then there's free graphs on the Internet. Try to find one that's as big as possible to give you the greatest accuracy. However, don't use a graph with too many log cycles because that'll make the line unnecessarily "shallow", which will degrade its accuracy. I mean, try to find a graph with only the number of log cycles you require.) 5. Eyeball the best fit with a straight-edge and draw it in. You'll be surprised how well the human eye can estimate the best fit. Mark the unknown's Abs value on the y axis, draw a line horizontally to the best fit line, then draw a line vertically to the x axis, and then mark and read the corresponding Conc value on the x axis. 6. Good luck with computing the R² value from the graph, if you need to do so. (I've been too spoiled by the microplate reader software and GMP requirements, so I've never calculated it from a paper graph.)

If your standards are in the linear portion of the curve (ie, log of concentration versus absorbance is linear), then you can use a linear trendline in Excel along with the curve's parameters to work backwards from absorbance to concentration. You can also interpolate between two neighboring standard points ... that is, the ones that are closest to, and on either side of, the unknown's absorbance. Because you're also doing this on paper, you may not need to perform a sophisticated curve fit (such as the 4PL method) for the solution using a computer.

Is the "curve" linear?

We've heard of Robert's Rules of Order, so maybe this'll be "Captain's Rules of Threadiquette". Using Quotes I'm advocating being space/time/scroll conscious. First replier. I'm not sure if I see it in this forum, but people who are the first to reply in a thread obviously do not need to quote the OP en masse. Yet, I commonly see this wholly unnecessary repetition. Wall of text. The first replier quoting en masse is particularly annoying when the OP is a wall-of-text --- actually, quoting any wall-of-text en masse is particularly annoying and almost always unnecessary. You'll find that I try to quote *only* the precise text in question. I think it inconvenient to make others plow through several paragraphs when a few sentences or even phrases or words will suffice. Attributing quotes. Quoting by use of buttons is an excellent way of attributing quotes (instead of typing the text (sometimes inaccurately) and using quotes tags), but then trim, trim, trim as needed! Thanks. "Virtual threads within a thread" What do I mean? Threads can be like parties where several conversations occur at once, and where people respond in random order. So, how to keep track and make order of such things? Maybe we can borrow from courtroom procedure. In trials (in America, at least), each side presents witnesses. The presenting side conducts a "direct examination". The opposing side then conducts a "cross examination", but only on the points raised in the direct. Then the presenting side conducts a "redirect examination", but only on the points that the cross examination probed. Finally, the opposing side conducts a "recross" examination", but only on the points that the redirect examination probed. I think you get the idea, although it requires a civil, concerted effort by all. If people wants to raise new point(s) to discuss, they should use a fresh post, quote the OP and, thus, begin a new "virtual thread" within the thread. Yeah, I know, I'm picky.

Torque is force acting on a "lever arm", such as someone pushing on a wrench, or the piston pushing down on a crankshaft, or the teeth of one gear pushing on the teeth of another gear, or a wheel pushing against the road. Power is the torque multiplied times the speed at the point the torque is acting. When power is sent through gear ratios, the rotating speed changes down or up by the ratio, and the torque changes oppositely – up or down – by the ratio. Except for losses due to friction, power is always conserved. This means that, in a frictionless transmission, the power of the engine is applied by the tire on the road; however, the torque will be different, as will the force that propels the vehicle, depending on the transmission gear ratio. In “low” gears, you get slow tire/vehicle speeds and high torque/force. In “high” gears, you get high tire/vehicle speeds and low torque/force. The forces acting on a vehicle come from a few sources: #1 – gravity (when moving up/down an incline), #2 – aerodynamic/rolling drag, and #3 – the forces from the powered wheel(s). Let’s simplify the situation by saying that the road is flat and, so, gravity has no effect. So, we have only the drag (which is mostly aerodynamic) and the torque at the wheel pushing against the road. When the pushing by the tire is greater than the drag at that particular speed, the vehicle will accelerate. When it’s the same, the vehicle will maintain speed. And when it’s less, the vehicle will decelerate. The acceleration and deceleration follow the F=ma rule where, when re-written, a (acceleration) equals F/m (force from the wheel’s torque divided by the vehicle’s mass). Adding mass to the vehicle will increase its mass, m, causing a slower acceleration/deceleration, a.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm no forum expert, but I've seen a few threads lately starting with posts that, while they can be scientific in nature, are merely simple facts with no obvious point of discussion. I'll make up an example: The only rule they seem to violate is #8 (with my emphasis added) -- These threads seem to lack a specific purpose or direction for discussion. Do I have a legitimate concern, or am I just whining?