Cap'n Refsmmat

Depends on from whose reference frame you're looking. If your craft is going nearly the speed of light (it could never reach the speed of light), you could travel inside it at near the speed of light relative to the craft -- but someone outside watching would look at things differently.

Fair enough. Sometimes scientists do get a pet theory and go overboard trying to prove it. But the matters you brought up in your original post are not the work of one scientist, they are theories agreed upon widely by all scientists. So while it's good to be skeptical and to examine the evidence, it's also worth pointing out that for mainstream science, people have been examining the evidence already for decades. The end result is the agreed-upon conclusions you learn about now. Of course, for new discoveries, reaching a conclusion can be more difficult...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8458269.stm The Beeb says Google was expected to make $600 million in China in 2010. That's no small change -- that's 10% of their 2008 operating income, for example. So Baidu's claims that Google is just using this as an excuse to pull out of the Chinese market is unfounded: Google makes far too much money in China to give up for no reason.

Then why present your ideas? The point of science is to improve our understanding of how the universe works. We use evidence because it reveals the behaviors of the universe -- if the evidence does change, it just tells us something else about how the universe changes. Your knowledge of life and your thought processes just reveals how you think; it doesn't show us anything about the universe. That is why science tests views to see how they compare with how the universe really acts.

Well, the functionality exists, but it is not used. IRC Operators can opt to receive connection notices to be informed when users connect and disconnect, but I don't know of any client software that takes advantage of that to do "buddy lists" or anything.

Also, we happen to have an introduction to calculus on this very forum, though it is only half-complete. If you have any questions about it you can always just post a thread and ask.

Also, a car whose engine sounds like a prolonged fart would have trouble catching on. It is interesting that the Popular Mechanics article claims a 800- to 1000-mile range for a compressed-air engine. For a small car, either that's a whole lot of compressed air or something else clever is being done...

http://www.scienceforums.net/crackpotBingo.php We've never gotten around to really using those...

Hm. Fixed now?

I actually don't know if it's true that members are directed to Introduce Yourself. I know the old "Welcome to SFN" automated PMs are no longer functioning, and I have no idea what system generated those... perhaps I'll hack something up to point people the right way. edit: there. Now they're directed to the rules and the Introduce Yourself thread.

On the other hand, if Google pulls out of China, the Chinese government won't have to worry about censoring Chinese search results any more. It's a lose-lose situation, really. It's good that Google isn't allowing itself and its users to be trampled by the Chinese government, but it's unfortunate that their alternative is not existing in China at all. I'd love to see a much stronger attempt by the worldwide Internet community to break through the Great Firewall and provide Chinese citizens easier means to get uncensored access to the Internet.

Can't do that on an iPhone.

Oh, right. I hate music licensing issues.

Pandora is also excellent, in my experience; it's much like Last.fm but it picks similar songs based on analyses of the song styles, rather than using the listening habits of other users. It works fairly well.

Thunderbird 3 has Gmail-specific adjustments, but any version will do, since they all support IMAP. You'll also have to go into the Gmail settings and enable IMAP.

If you add your gmail account to Thunderbird via IMAP you can just drag and drop all the messages into gmail.

This may be of interest: http://news.thomasnet.com/fullstory/459490 However, you could just get a full chain-mail outfit. That would block everything but the really short wavelengths.

Well, at least with the Bible (not the Koran), one can make the argument that it was never meant to be the literal word of God as dictated by God. The epistles and the gospels are letters and histories, not God's commandments; I believe Paul states in one of his epistles that his beliefs are inspired by God, but then also makes some "off-the-record" judgments on issues that are not as clear. The New Testament reads to me more as a history of Jesus, his teachings, and what they mean, as written by people who faithfully believed in him and his work. Some of its preachings claim to be taught by God, but not all. Unfortunately, however, in a document that's thousands of pages long and compiled over thousands of years, picking and choosing is all you can do.

I suppose one could argue that there is a difference between the definition of those religions (as laid out in their holy books) and the implementation of them, as represented in the majority of their believers. But that disparity leaves open the possibility of fundamentalism.

We try very hard not to moderate and argue at the same time. If you see evidence that someone is abusing their mod powers to win an argument, you should always contact an administrator such as myself. You should always argue points, of course, but when it comes to matters of moderator misconduct it's best to let us deal with it.

It's like Lindsey Lohan being famous just because she's famous.

I think contradiction is inevitable in a book such as the New Testament, a compilation of the writings and theologies of many different people made over many years. But could you be specific? My readings have not yet taken me to James. I suppose this is a sort of ambiguous point, yes. Jesus' argument that what goes into the mouth does not make one "unclean" could be used either way. I'm also curious what kind of concordances you have that interpret rather than acting as indexes. I'm curious how you arrived at this position. In Acts 15:10-11 Peter specifically speaks about the "yoke" of the law and that they would be saved through Jesus, not the law.

People are willing to pay a lot to get it.

Matthew 15:10-20 repeals the old practices of certain foods being "ritually unclean". I'll look further; I recall there being other places as well.

Or speakers playing Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport: _D-LmRNdQiQ