Cap'n Refsmmat

Have you made sure you're connecting the right wires to the right terminals? What I mean is that lemons don't exactly have + and - marked on each end like a battery does, so you have to figure out which wire is plus and which is minus. Try connecting them the other way around, to the other battery terminals.

We do not ever intend to single someone out or be rude. We just try to help everyone learn through discussion. But whatever. Let's move on.

[ce]CaCO3 ->[{\Delta}] CaO + CO2[/ce] is what you'd do for heat. The delta symbol represents heat in a reaction. If you have a catalyst or something involved, it would go there as well. "Decomposes" doesn't have to be written -- just write the reactants (well, there's only one), an arrow and the products.

That was the worst night of my life.

This is a discussion forum. Please don't be angry if people respond to your post or make corrections -- that's the way it's supposed to be. Everyone learns this way.

What avatars?

The member count was actually well over 11,000 a few weeks ago. We just keep pruning away old, inactive members and knocking down our statistics. I will be more interested to see when we can hit 500,000 posts. At the current rate, we should be reaching that in about ten months, but I'd like to see us hit it far sooner via growth...

I usually don't have trouble, but writing it out in LaTeX requires a bit of extra brainpower.

Just noticed I screwed up the mole ratio (swapped a 2 and a 1) in my previous post. Sorry about that. I just fixed it.

If you could keep the roof sealed off as well (except for a strongly built air vent, of course) you'd be pretty much invulnerable. If their bodies piled up and let them climb up to the roof, no worries. Just as long as you make sure to have a well-armed response team inside in case of a breach... and perhaps several internal barriers to split the building into independent pieces.

Yes, that'll get you the right answer. But you could have made it a bit simpler: [math]\frac{27.2 \mbox{g O2}}{1} \times \frac{1 \mbox{mol O2}}{31.998 \mbox{g O2}} \times \frac{2 \mbox{mol NO}}{1 \mbox{mol O2}} \times \frac{6.02 \times 10^{23} \mbox{molecules}}{1 \mbox{mol NO}}[/math] Convert to moles, use the mole ratio (coefficients in the original chemical equation) to go to NO, then turn that into molecules. I think this method makes a bit more sense.

I mean castles in the sense of big tall stone walls with towers and stuff. One concern would be the dead bodies of killed zombies piling up until the undead ones can just walk over bodies over the castle walls. That would be a problem.

I think a castle, some sniper rifles, and a huge stockpile of ammo would be great in that situation.

Why write a haiku? It's clearly peer pressure here. Everyone writes them!

Okay, I changed the link color on the link to new forums. I definitely like how it looks now, and the link's still clickable. Visually, I'm not seeing the last post date working on the left. I can try it sometime though. Does anyone use the Views column when looking at New Posts? I might try canning that to make it less cluttered.

Aha. That makes sense. That's sort of what I was envisioning, but none of the diagrams made sense. Thanks. (So this means I should drop the habit of popping my neck by twisting?)

Mokele: So basically you're saying that the axis of rotation on the vertebra (the point they pivot around) is not where the spinal cord runs through, making the vertebra pinch the cord when they are rotated too far? It's hard to visualize without a diagram, sorry.

So today we were having a little debate about a rather gruesome subject: Is it really possible to kill someone by twisting their neck until it snaps? (Twisting in the same axis as you'd turn your head left to right. Presumably this would be done by grabbing the victim's head and turning. It's very popular in movies.) One person claimed she had asked her chiropractor and was told it was impossible. (I find this funny, as studies have shown the neck manipulations and twists chiropractors do can cause strokes.) I'm on the other side, as I seriously doubt such a twist would be very good for the spine. I just don't know if you can actually sever the spinal cord by twisting far enough. Who's right?

I hardly think you'll have a problem with walking zombies if you stay in the middle of the Pacific. If they do start coming, you can make 30 knots away to open water. And I hardly think all five billion will walk into the ocean, so there should be clear spots.

I have a much simpler test to determine if a computer is conscious: If a computer, without previously being programmed to do so, can begin pleading with me not to turn it off, can construct elaborate chains of reasoning to justify it, and can threaten to call my mother and make her stop me (if it is really clever), I will call it conscious. That sort of behavior would show to me that it is aware it is a computer and can be turned off, that it has will ("no! Don't do it!"), and that it can think in some sense. Whether or not it is merely simulating it is beyond the point.

That's not entirely accurate. It's not just the measuring equipment that causes the uncertainty, it's quantum mechanics itself. I could try explaining, but all you'd get is a bunch of nonsense with the word "wavefunction" scattered through it. When I'm more awake I may try checking one of my books to see if it has a sensical explanation.

If their aim is to disrupt civilian life, they would make the rocket attacks totally unpredictable. Put everyone in danger or being blown up, and everybody is afraid. That's what they want, and that's what they're achieving.

I suggested nuclear missile submarine merely because they are large and have more room to keep survivors on, not because I'd want to nuke the zombies. You could get one of the older Ohio-class subs that's been converted to carry conventional cruise missiles...

SFN has hit a new milestone in the usage of our blogs:

But at least you can shoot them if they get too close.