Sayonara

Someone from Connecticut, US , I would imagine

Polarising plastics have a structure that allows light to pass through in one plane only.

30-odd years of Reel 2 Real lyrics is a more disturbingly horrific punishment, believe me. After the first week he'll be trying to chew his head off himself.

Even at light speed it takes a whole generation to reach our nearest neighbour. Humanity will not get around to visiting all candidate systems within the lifetime of our species - it's a more effective use of our time to work on communication rather than travel.

What is the fuel created from? Unless matter is converted to energy or vice versa, the only change in mass should be due to propellants or wastes ejected from your craft.

That's all true, but there are complications. For instance with a hundred billion star systems in this galaxy, even if we started now and worked for a billion years we'd have to reach 100 systems a year to check them all out. That's a massive fleet of ships using technology and resources we won't have for a long, long time. Depressing, isn't it? My statement is not really ruling out other sentient races finding us first, but it does imply that they will face similar engineering and logistical problems. The suggestion is of course, that the more advanced races there are, the better the chances of two of them meeting face-to-face.

They'd be all the rage for about a week.

Free pony with every post?

HUZZAH! HUZZAH!

Yeah, like "Screw you hippies!" and "My car > j00".

You missed out the critical "flumpf" noise.

My housemate just asked me "what's wrong with that guy?" Being at a complete loss for words myself, I was not able to answer.

Locking him in a room for 30 years with "I like to move it move it" playing on a loop would be much better than killing him.

Why's that faf?

It's not so much that no one has the balls, and more to do with the fact that the civilised view is "two wrongs don't make a right". Depriving him of his conveniences and luxuries for the rest of his natural life is much more effective punishment than shooting him in the back of the head, or gassing him. And it will pretty much preclude anyone from declaring him a martyr.

You deleted a post that had replies hanging off it (#55) so I edited it to redirect that part of the conversation here.

Latest update on that: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3318531.stm

wtf?

If you can't refute all the points, it's considered polite to concede the argument before you wander off.

FOR THE LOVE OF MIGHTY JEBUS ps - you know perfectly well that me calling anyone a "hippy" is not meant to be a slur in any way pps - this being a discussion forum does not make participation in every possible discussion mandatory.

"Pwn3d" means "owned". It is IRC speak for "beaten". I did not say Saddam had no WOMD. What I said was that the news is making a big deal over finding him as if he were a big pile of WOMD, which is what we are supposed to be looking for.

At the moment I am a business analyst, which is quite handy in both directions. My job makes use of the training I've had in interpreting information, and "repays" that by keeping me in practice.

Seriously YT... dance with reality for a moment you crazed hippy. Sky One is the dumbed-down, shiny-lighted capital city of UK television. There's no escaping it. "Brainiac" may well be lots of fun (and I didn't say it wasn't) but it is a symptom of the 'reduction of information' culture that is widening the academic gap in this country. This argument is part of a larger discussion that I am not likely to continue with you, because so far you seem to be headed into "fingers-in-ears lalalala" territory. I am going to restrict my responses to those supporting my actual claim which was that brainiac is not scientific, yet presents itself as such. I will not be distracted by irrelevant wanderings no matter how deftly they are substituted for counter-arguments.

I studied Maths, Biology, Chemistry, and Physics at school (along with English Language, English Literature, French, Latin, Ancient Greek). At University I took a bachelors degree in Applied Biology, a bit like biology only more difficult My job at the moment is not science-based, but then to me a job is not somethig that defines who or what I am.

Basically, giving a correct answer is not as important as knowing how to arrive at one. But then you sound like you already know that [edit] This post does not make much sense because replies #54 and #55, to which it refers, have been deleted. They are in this thread: http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2339