Cap'n Refsmmat

There have been cases of mass hysteria in which entire schools act ill, without a physical cause whatsoever. Psychosomatic effects can be rather surprising.

That's like asking "If a tree falls down in a forest, and nobody's around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

Is there any little problem with SFN you think needs to be solved? Something we could do to make SFN better? Something we could change? Give you a foot massage? Anything? Post your ideas here if you have any.

Essentially. Light does not reflect off of light because photons are massless, so there's really nothing to reflect off of. But please ask a real physicist, because I'm probably lying to you.

No. Light does not reflect off of light. Remember, the light has to reflect back to your eyes for you to see it.

The reason a beam of light (from a searchlight, for example) is visible is because it is reflected off of particles in the atmosphere back to your eyes. In space, there are no particles to reflect the light, and the beam continues until it hits a solid object and can reflect.

The biggest problem with Internet security is the daft people on the end of the Internet connection, not the network itself.

I think if you owned a larger switch (i.e. a Cisco switch designed for a datacenter), it can use BGP to decide the best connection to use.

This is vBulletin. A lot of things in it are.

Works for me. What are you searching for?

That "absurdity" is based on the bandwagon fallacy. It's the evidence that matters.

There's a difference between "scientists" and "climate scientists." Numbers don't mean anything, in any case. Evidence does.

Yes, but repeating yourself when challenged doesn't work. You need to explain why the other side is wrong, not explain how much evidence there is to support you.

Peak Oil Man, you're using an argument tactic that I generally find very frustrating. Instead of directly engaging others in argument to discuss the fine points of your position, you simply throw more and more evidence at the matter, along with a repetition of the original evidence and statements. You need to learn to think for yourself and defend your evidence - don't just repeat it. It's almost like a war of attrition, with Pangloss eating away at your evidence and you throwing more in as fast as you can. Go on, defend the evidence you have.

It looks like the little module is losing track of people and displaying perhaps half of the people in the chatroom. Occasionally it shows 0 users online, in fact...

If you were a scientist, you'd realize that an anecdotal story doesn't make evidence for or against anything. That's why I posted a link to a scientific study.

Just over a year since the last time we got new staff, we've decided to hire another round of moderators. This time around, the lucky winners are Dak and ecoli. Congratulations to the new staff, and a prize goes to the first person to have a post deleted by them!

Here's Harvard's course listing for Computer Science; you can see what sort of things you'd learn there.

I'm hoping to eventually let resident experts also move threads in General Science and Speculations, as well as their own forums.

Argument from incredulity: I can't think of anything, so there is nothing.

You're making assumptions about the progression of technology that we simply cannot make. A long-term base on Mars could only manage to be a small scientific outpost (compare the situation to Antarctica) without needing vast quantities of supplies sent in through cargo spacecraft at an enormous cost, as you yourself admitted. If you were to limit the scope of the colony, Mars could certainly become self-sufficient on its own. All you need to grow is food, and replacement parts for basic systems could probably be designed. But any sort of "colony" that intends to grow in size (and gain its own independence) would need a level of sophistication that we have yet to achieve.

I can change the message you get when you report a post. You (as in resident experts) should be able to move threads in the forum of your area of expertise (you should be able to move threads in the Physics forum, for example). Go to Thread Tools at the top right of each thread and you can move it around.

I was wandering around the Internets and I came across something funny - a company called ReputationDefender. They claim to defend you against "unfair, revealing and hurtful" things on the Internet by getting them removed - their site aptly says "Next, we DESTROY" the content. Frankly I think it's all a bit dumb. Apparently, their method of choice to "destroy" content is to send emails to the owner of the site (one guy's experience). Obviously a lot of site owners are complying with the demands, or ReputationDefender wouldn't be in business. But seriously, though: ReputationDefender claims that it will help you get jobs or get in to colleges because they won't know these "hurtful" things about you. But they don't just say they'll get rid of slander or libel - they'll get rid of "unwelcome" content. In other words, they'll try to get rid of anything you find inconvenient or damaging, whether it happens to be true or not. Personally, I think that it's rather dishonest to help your own reputation by altering content on the Internet. If it's not slander or libel, it's legal, and I see no problem with your future employer finding it. All you're doing is hiding the past from them. Now, I suppose if you were the person who got something bad about you on the Internet, you'd disagree. But is it really ethical to hide your past doings from your future employers?

I don't think a requirement to claiming independence is self-sufficiency, at any rate. Claiming political independence is different from claiming total independence. I hardly think, however, that regular trade between Mars and Earth would something that could occur without the direct intervention of a very wealthy Earth government. Mars has practically no raw materials to export - they are all materials available on Earth for cheap (you must consider the transportation costs) - and it would require vast quantities of raw materials for very many years, until it could start supplying itself at least the basics for planetary life. Regular trade would simply not work. Mars would run out of money without dependence on an Earth country to provide free aid. So at any rate, while Mars could claim political independence, it would still be dependent on some Earth nation that would essentially be able to run Mars anyway. "Yeah, we need several million more tons of high-grade iron, Mr. President." "I'm sorry, you won't get any until you solve that Martian warthog crisis and grant them civil rights."

That was merely one example, and I'm not even sure of the historical accuracy of what you just said. I defer to someone who knows more history. But the point about Mars still stands.