Cap'n Refsmmat

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mirroring_Wikimedia_project_XML_dumps Regularly updated copies of Wikipedia would be helpful. They are absolutely huge files, but if you get the equipment to store and read the files stored safely, they can be used for generations.

You should probably ask these problems on the support forums of your specific Linux distribution; they'll be able to help you track down the issues. There's no good reason that a dual-boot setup with Windows and Linux should not work, so I suspect something else went on to corrupt your Windows filesystem.

Also, if the motor system fails, your navigation system isn't going to help. Alternately, if you lose control due to a wind gust or an inconveniently located power line, a parachute would be handy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LORAN

IE has the advantage of using sandboxing to keep security exploits from causing too much damage. However, Microsoft's response time from disclosure of vulnerability to everyone being updated is pretty bad -- Chrome and Firefox seem to convince people to update much more readily, and they make fixes much faster. Google and Mozilla both have bug bounty programs to give financial rewards to people who report security issues, and they've solved quite a few problems that way. Functionally I think the focus of most attacks has shifted to browser plugins, such as Flash and Adobe Reader, which is why you should use Mozilla's Plugin Check website to make sure you're up-to-date and safe: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/plugincheck/

I am a fan of Firefox, for its excellent security and for several extensions that make life easier for me. (Firebug, for example, makes designing and debugging web pages much easier.) I currently use the beta versions of Firefox 4, since they're significantly faster than Firefox 3.6; however, I don't recommend it for general use until the final version comes out in February or so, since there's occasional bugs and stability problems. I particularly like Firefox's AwesomeBar. The location bar -- which you ordinarily just type web addresses into -- functions as a search of all the sites you've recently visited, so if you remember "I read that one site about penguins but I can't remember what it was called," you just type "penguins" into the address bar and down pops a list of sites with "penguin" in the title that you've visited. I often use it to find specific discussions on SFN: "I remember we talked about walruses" and five seconds later I have the thread I was thinking of. Chrome is also a good and fast browser, although I have less experience with it. You can't go wrong with either.

They also get to pull tricks like putting trial versions on new PCs sold by OEMs, so consumers are encouraged to buy the new version to go on their new computer.

Most atomic clocks have their insides at vacuum, so the atmosphere isn't particularly relevant. If someone adjusted the definition of the second to account for gravity, they'd have to re-adjust it whenever moving anywhere with different gravity. And, of course, that'd require actually adjusting the rate at which a clock runs whenever you move it to new conditions, to make it match the "new" standard.

The Volt is not a unit of energy.

This has nothing to do with volts; none of the units in [imath]E=mc^2[/imath] are volts. You cannot expect that when you multiply an energy by time, you get energy.

There's a significant correlation between birth month and achievements in some fields. For example, the cutoff dates for age groups in sports can make a huge difference. It turns out that a disproportionately large portion of professional athletes were born very early in their age group, making them the oldest players in their sport when they first started playing. When you're five or ten years old, being eight months older than the other kids gives you a huge developmental advantage -- and hence more success -- and you end up with more coach attention, more wins, and a track towards future professional status. The kids who made it in just before the deadline are the young weaklings and often don't do as well.

Yes, you have to use the chain rule, because the arctan is inside a square root. It's a function inside a function; you have to use the chain rule.

[imath]E=mc^2[/imath] is a small portion of general relativity. Also, the general form of the equation is actually [imath]E^2 = p^2 c^2 + m^2 c^4[/imath], where p is momentum; [imath]E=mc^2[/imath] only holds for stationary particles. Also, how do you expect this equation to work: [math]E= t m c^2[/math] E represents energy. t is time, m is a mass, and c is a velocity. Using those units: [math]E = \mbox{seconds} \cdot \mbox{kg} \cdot \frac{\mbox{meters}^2}{\mbox{seconds}^2}[/math] Now, units of energy are Joules, which is: [math]1 \mbox{J} = 1 \; \frac{\mbox{kg} \cdot \mbox{meter}}{\mbox{second}^2}[/math] whereas your equation gets: [math]\frac{\mbox{kg} \cdot \mbox{meter}}{\mbox{second}}[/math] Note the subtle difference. Your version of the equation does not give an energy as the result, and so it cannot be correct. Energy cannot be equal to something that isn't an energy.

Let me get this straight. You have: [math]y = \sqrt{29 \tan^{-1}(x)}[/math] So you made: [math]y = (29 \tan^{-1}(x))^{\frac{1}{2}}[/math] and said the answer is: [math]\frac{dy}{dx} = \left( \frac{29}{\sqrt{1+x^2}} \right)^{\frac{1}{2}}[/math] Right? I'm not sure I'm understanding your final equation right. In any case, check how you're applying the chain rule. Your answer should still have an [imath]\tan^{-1}[/imath] in it.

You'd have to measure the second differently at each velocity and gravitational field, due to time dilation.

Surely "logical fallacy" means something to you. Go read my post. They did not fly for hours off course. It is not NORAD's responsibility to track airliners, anyway, it's air traffic control's -- and they notified NORAD within minutes of knowing of the hijacks. NORAD scrambled fighters in twelve minutes. See this report (PDF), pages L-17 and L-18. I quote: At least do some research before you jump to conclusions!

Your facts are wrong. WTC 7 was struck and damaged by falling debris; there is significant photographic evidence to attest to this. Please do your research. The NIST report also points out the inadequate fire suppression systems used, which allowed fire to spread unhindered. http://www.nizkor.or...popularity.html The airliners had transponders turned off, so military pilots had to rely on their own radar units to pick up the airliner. They had no definite location to head for. F-15 pilots were ordered to scramble within 12 minutes of NORAD being alerted to the hijacking. Unfortunately the time from hijacking to hitting the tower was just over twenty minutes, so they had no time to find the plane. Controllers did not realize what Flight 77 was up to because it turned off its transponder and vanished from radar. They did not report it to NORAD. NORAD was notified about Flight 175 after it crashed into the South Tower. I have a finite quantity of time, and it is easier to respond to written text than video, since I can scan through text for pertinent facts and details.

Yeah, the blog listing is regenerated every few hours. Enjoy your new blog!

I did read the entire post. Many of the points have been previously addressed, and I hate the conspiracy theory movement's propensity to make everything into a dramatic video instead of writing out an explanation properly. (This applies to every other conspiracy as well -- they're always videos.)

The NORAD complaints are kind of silly. The link argues that the F-16s weren't traveling at their top speed, but if they did, they'd be out of fuel before they reached the airliners. Afterburners suck. NIST can hardly be expected to test for explosives, since they were dealing with a collapse caused by airliners.

Here: http://blogs.scienceforums.net/IME/wp-admin/options-general.php Are you sure you put that backslash in intentionally? It looks to me like the script that creates blogs may have accidentally done that, since escaping ' with \ is exactly what it has to do. Maybe it did a bit too much of that. I'll have to look.

There is a difference between thinking someone is wrong and being rude to them. There is no excuse for the latter. It seems to me you're picking fights where none exists. In any case, back on topic please.

Perhaps if you were less argumentative and rude, you'd receive more helpful responses. Could you please cut it out?

I'm guessing it's 30MB+ because it's a handwritten text scanned into a PDF. Reading the PDF, I can't see why it's significant to a physicist that "algebraic equations of closed systems generate perfectly balanced pictorial images". Also, why are you representing the multiplication of two variables as vector addition? That seems arbitrary.