zapatos

Excellent! Can you point me to some please?

I'll take that as a 'no'.

When I asked you to back up your statement that "With new forms of alternative energy sources [regeneration, kinetic along with wind, solar, hydro, and geo-thermal] fracking is already obsolete", what I was looking for was something along the lines of an estimate of current energy capacity of the alternatives you mentioned versus the current energy capacity of natural gas. Do you have any evidence that suggests the alternatives you mention can replace natural gas right now or in the very near future?

To what extent are large aquifers fouled (or potentially fouled) by fracking? Where I live we get our drinking water from the Missouri River and from a smaller river which does not have a reputation for being particularly clean. Our drinking water on the other hand is first rate. Is the potential damage from fracking something that could make an aquifer unusable, or is the issue strictly economical, in that if the water is fouled it will have to be cleaned prior to use? Can you back that up please? I find it hard to believe that the alternative energy sources you mention could come anywhere near replacing natural gas anytime soon.

How long ago exactly? How long does it take for a galaxy in 'accelerating expansion' to vanish from our sight?

I don't see how or why there is an exact maximum velocity either. But rather than making up a reason which is pure speculation, with zero evidence to support it, I choose to stop at "I don't see how or why...". Speculate all you want, but try not to believe your speculations unless you have some evidence. Physical constants are not evidence of a coded simulation. They are evidence that there are physical constants.

I know you believe you understand what you think I said about that thing we were going to talk about in order to find agreement but I'm not sure you realize or are even capable of accepting that what you heard about what I said is not really the thing I meant for you to believe but simply to accept as a possibility regarding the types of things I am sometimes known to say. No one knows why the speed of light is c. Physics can describe the properties of the universe but it cannot explain why it has the properties it does. Philosophy or religion may tell you why a physical constant is as we preceive it, but they will not be able to back it up with physical evidence. It is not very plausible that we are living in a programmed simulation of the universe. There is no evidence of it. Until we have evidence we could also ask how plausible it is that everyone is in on a big joke being played on you, and in reality you are king of the solar system, but we don't want you to know yet. At this time, both possibilities seem just as plausible.

I am very happy right now. With the volume that the right speaks with it often seemed as if the whole country was going backwards. I am pleased beyond words that America has shown tonight that rhetoric and religion will not overcome rational thought and compassion. Congratulations to the USA and to people everywhere who hoped for this outcome.

Moontanman will of course speak for himself, but when he said 'horsefeathers' he was simply saying he disagreed with the notion that you 'look gay'. I agree with him. There are some people who I think 'look gay' (although they may not be; I don't actually ask them) but you are not one of them. Please don't be personally offended by the differing viewpoints in this thread. No one is making any judgements, they are simply looking at the evidence objectively and making their argument for what they believe to be true. I believe anyone here will be happy to change his position if he sees convincing evidence to disprove his position.

Sounds to me like you are full of wait for details please

100% A dormant volcano is expected to erupt again. If it doesn't erupt again then it was mislabeled, and should have been catergorized as extinct.

I think another way to look at it is that for a distant galaxy to be forever visible, it must be within our supercluster. If it is not, it will eventually cross the horizon. Unless of course the Hubble Constant continues to change over time and eventually splits apart our supercluster, cluster, galaxy, etc.

rigney, that quote was on the first page of this thread and we finished our conversation about it over three weeks ago. Are you running out of people to antagonize and starting over at the beginning?

Also try to quit stressing about it and consider this a trial. Plan on taking it several times. You'll likely get a better score if you try several times.

Bring extra batteries or an extra calculator.

In college my roommate had a dog that would take food out of its bowl and hide it around the house. Then later in the evening when the food bowl was gone, the dog would retrieve the hidden food and have a little snack. I thought it was hilarious and if that wasn't planning ahead I'd really like to know what it was.

Got it, thanks. By the way, your signature makes me laugh every time I see it.

Unfortunately when the calculus began my ability to follow ended. I am unsure how to interpret what you are saying given other sources of information that seem to indicate that, assuming current understanding is true, the photons will never reach us. Does your analysis suggest that there is not agreement over whether photons will reach us? Or that under certain conditions or distances the photons can reach us? Or that other sources are being misinterpreted? I am unsure if your example takes into consideration the acceleration of the expansion of space. The following seems to suggest that any photons emitted from a distance of greater than 16 billion light years will not reach us. Can you help me reconcile what you said and what I read below? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light

I am voting for Obama. I like him well enough although I don't give him very high marks. Primarily I am voting for the Democrat because the Republicans have aligned themselves with the far right. Because of this alignment I now consider the Republicans damaged goods. A sad day for me as I used to vote roughly 70/30, Republican to Democrat.

If you haven't done so already, please be sure to give derek w's post some serious thought. What he described is a nice overview of what mellowmorgan said. Any job you do, from going grocery shopping to writing code to planning the invasion of Europe involves the process of starting at a high level and breaking it down into smaller and smaller operations. When it comes to grocery shopping you don't give it much thought but you still start with a high level problem, such as 'Need Groceries'. That gets broken down into components involving 'Food', 'Finances', 'Transportation', 'Storage', etc. You then break 'Food' down into 'Meals', 'Snacks', 'Basic Ingredients'... well, you get the idea. Same thing for writing code but much more involved. What is the basic problem identified in the exercise? Break it down into something like 'Output', 'Input', 'Processing'. 'Input' may come from multiple sources; what are they?, how do you get the data?, error correction, storage, blah, blah, blah. The very last breakdown is the actual code to do the operation.

It sounds as if you already have the right answer. If so, could you please post it?

You are now forever lumped in with other speculation thread type people. Hand waving, misdirection, heels dug in, refusal to concede any point or to directly confront questons threatening your position.

As far as I can tell they get no intellectual criticism from the scientific atheist community unless they seek it out. In which case they are probably interested in other views. I have never in my life been approached by an atheist expounding his beliefs or criticizing mine. The religious however have called me, knocked on my front door, and even started yelling at me on the street. Not to mention the lightly veiled anti-atheist threads on SFN. A better question might be "what makes many of the religious immune to manners".

My guess is that you would need to use a high tech version of a cowcatcher to ensure the obstacle is removed from your path.

Excellent! Thanks. I did a quick read and it is very well done. Now I need to spend some time with it to understand the details. +1