jordan

Gigantic Octopus= ocean creature feature

All I was saying, and I have begun to see where I went wrong, is that how humane an action is can be calculated by intent. If there is suffering but that was not the intent of the action, would that be inhumane? Not as much as taking an action with the intent of causing suffering. Therefore, the way in which a nuclear bomb causes destruction is more humane than the way in which chemical and biological weapons do.

The fact that the intent of the other two is to make people suffer, yes. Granted, there is the radiation sickness bit. But, if that is kept to a minimum, then yes, nuclear weapons would in no way involve suffering, thus being more humane (though the whole subject is just horrible to be talking about in this sense).

But there's the whole suffering bit to chemical weapons. Biological weapons would be the same. And nuclear weapons are almost humane of the three. Looking at the effects on people and not the environment, chemical weapons could be considered mass destruction.

Kinda sucks when you make the whole country hate you except for a few radicals who know they can't show their face. Then your life is on trial in front of these people. I guess it would've been better to NOT to starve them wile he lives in huge palaces, blow them up and drag the country down all around. Subtle.

How about the fact that, as is being discussed in another thread, altering genetics after a person is full grown can only change a few characteristics and not "transform" them. I can't believe I replied to this...

Great, so the issue is with Kbzon59 and not the both of you. Ok, now I just have to wait for him/her to come back online. Glad to see someone agrees with me for a change.

Alright, I seem to have misunderstood what you were saying. Kbzon59: I don't like the death penalty (typicly used on criminals convicted of a murder or maybe a few murders). Me: Saddam is in a different league than the guys you're used to thinking about in refrence to the death penalty. I think you might want to think this one through more than you did. Sayo: We need to try people by their crimes and not by our biases towards them. Me: Agreed, and historical precident says (if I'm not mistaken) that these guys don't usualy get life sentences, but rather death. Sayo: We need to sentence them in accordance with their crimes. Does that sound about right? If so, I do agree with you on that, though I still don't like Kbzon59 saying that he shouldn't die just because he doesn't like the death penalty.

Sure. Can you list for me, say, five guys who have commited crimes on the scale of Saddam along with their punishment? Seriously, you guys know lots more about history than I do. So, on the scale of Saddam, who are five guys in the past 25 years or so and what are they doing right now?

Sure, but to what extent? How much are you willing to pay? How far from normal does the prisoner have to be before you don't waiste time trying to rehabilitate him/her? How do you ensure they really changed? Do you keep them in prison even after they've "changed'?

What do you mean? Do you mean he hasn't had a trial yet? That's still coming pretty soon. I can't really argue you on this one since it's an oppinion, but wouldn't you say Saddam sort of transcends the logic held against most criminals? The Iraqi government would execute him. He would be tried by a group of Iraqi's who most likely hate him (but that's what you get for being so cruel to your own country). As to your last sentence, I don't understand who you think his counterpart is. That would be a stretch for almost anyone, regaurdless of political affiliation, to say. Again, I don't think you understand exactly what kind of leader Saddam was. It's tough to find many leaders to compare him to in today's world. One question, though. If they do execute him, where will they keep his body? You know there will be people who will try to steal it if they just bury it somewhere.

I don't remember where now, but it seems I remember reading something saying that it changes depending on what feild you're working in. I can't recall the specifics, but in one case, it's appropriate to say it equals 1, in another 0 and in a third it can be undefined.

That guys shirt is hilarious. But so is the face on the guy next to him.

I don't follow.

Thanks. I do have LaTeX down. I've used it extensively in this is the learning calculus threads. Anyway, I started the questioni in post #6 and rephrased in post #9. I was asking if you said what I was saying or not. I can't see the difference right now, but I am extremely tired of looking at the problem. Thanks.

Is that what I said or not?

Cool. I'll wait.

There's the mistake. Thanks.

So then 10^10^10^34 is as follows: 10^10^(10^34) or 10^10^(10 followed by 34 0's) as 10^34 is 10 followed by 34 0's. So then 10^10^(10 followed by 34 0's) would become 10^(10 followed by 35 0's) as 10^(10 followed by 34 0's) is 10 followed by 35 0's. Then 10 to that power makes it 10 followed by 36 0's or 10^36. There has to be an error in there somewhere, but I've looked at this too long and now can't come up with anything new. Sorry for the elementry question.

No matter what else is added around the xn? I guess what I'm getting at is the "interested reader" section. What is that equation used for?

Since I'm fairly comfortable with this now, I have a question about the aplication. The method I used (take the power to the front and then subract 1 from the old power...) works in all cases where it's f(x)=xn no matter what the function is?

Since my question seems to have been answered well enough (thanks all) I have a quick question probably not worth a new thread. I just came across Skewe's number again ([math]10^{{10}^{10}^{34}}[/math]). To solve this number, I would have to work from the bottom up (starting with [math]10^{10}[/math]) and not top to bottom ([math]10^{34}) right. I'm aware this is probably very easy, but I thought it would be working from the top down. That means [math]10^{34}[/math] or ten followed by 34 0's. But then working down and taking 10 to that power only adds one zero, doesn't it? And then [math]10^{that-big-number}[/math] would add 1 more 0 which isn't too impressive. On the other hand, if you work for the bottom up, the answer is much bigger. But these seems counterintuitive, like working outside the parenthesis first. Am I missing something?

I understand why division by 0 is undefined, but we aren't deviding by 0, or are we in a sense? How did they decide it's undefined?

I'm not sure if there is a thread on this. If so, I don't know where it is. The question is, what is 00 and why?

Alright, I got the right answer...eventualy. I thought I should take the 2 out, but that ment retyping everything in post 10 so I meant to say that in the answer of post 10, make all 2's into 1's. I had the 2 from multiplying xa by xn. Somehow I got an x2 in there with the a and n. Then it got all distributed. Those kinds of problems are really great though, because you have to do it a couple times and thus learn the intricacies of the method and in doing so it really gets ingrained. All around, I gave this thread 5 stars. Thanks for putting up with me.