Danijel Gorupec

I suppose, with an offset handle you can reach the ground level with (effectively) shorter handle and still maintain nice body and blade positions. To do the same with a straight handle, the handle would have to be longer -> thus more difficult to lift.... But, I would choose the straight handle anyway (as I like long handles on snow shovels). With an offset handle, I suppose it should be harder to push the shovel into a compact snow. I have less experience with swords, sorry.

I can agree with this particular part... This should be true in general - whenever a group is nourishing symbols, behavioral patterns or ideas in order to bind group members together, the group becomes responsible for their usage. If these symbols ever become 'hijacked' by another (parasitic) group, it is expected that the original group confronts it first and strongest. Bystanding is not a moral option in this case. While I can clearly hear Muslim community (majority) condemns any terrorism in the name of Islam, I am not sure I could classify this reaction as 'first and strongest' (and I am quite disappointed because of this). If this is because there is actually a silent sympathy among large body of Muslims toward anti-western terrorism, then this world is in deeper shit than it seems. (Don't get me wrong, when I look at the overall picture I am not sure we are victims here. But still, terrorism will not make this world any more righteous place.) .... Unrelated to above, F. Hollande and its government failed to protect people. I see this as a fact. Not that they were not warned (I would not be surprised if security spendings were also increased since the Charlie Hebdo attack)... I am not sure what is the best thing for France to do now... to keep the unable government or choose extreme nationalism. I hope there is also a third way.

It seems to me that you all expect that human civilization development rate will slow down significantly in following years. You are talking about technlology level that is only several thousand years from now, supposing a sustained development rate. On the other hand, in the case of continued development at today's rate (not likely, imo, but who knows) then in a billion years I expect Sun-Earth system might be a heritage site and will be preserved. The Sun will be continously replenished with hydrogen while heavier elements will be removed. Many Earths might revolve it, each Earth preserved in certain 'typical' historical era. The original Earth might still be there (if not destroyed earlier by an accident, war, etc.). This, of course, if human civilization continues to be sentimental.

I kinda hoped this is a gratis integer... At one site they offered me a free shampoo sample; at some other site they even offered free cheese samples.... but this science-related site does not even offer free integer samples.

That would be a bad design. Safety interlocks should be controlled by the lowest possible level (hardware if needed). In that sense, using any modern multi-user, multi-tasking, multi-whatever, GUI OS for safety interlocks is bad.... But I see no problem to use Windows for 'higher' functions. Are you designing or are you commenting some existing design? Maybe you see Windows in front-end but there is actually a microcontroller behind the scene.

But why did you exclude batteries, fuel cells, solar cells, thermocouples... ? Also, do you talk about no magnetism at all, or only no ferromagnetism? In the first case I suspect that three might be drastic differences in how universe would look like - someone with better knowledge of phisics might provide better answer. Without ferromagnetism, I guess, we might see some more electrostatic generators around, but nothing that compares to todays methods of electrical generation. It would be the price of electricity that would limit wide usage of electricity in general.

Imo, as other said, the difference is somewhat blurry. The Almighty Economy keeps engineers on somewhat shorter leash than scientists... Scientist are forced to do engineering very often because 'engineering' means 'dealing with limited resources'. Engineers use some scientific methods whenever they are too lazy to learn the theory properly and do the math (sometimes too complex to be used at all), but instead prefer experimenting a little. Sometimes engineers have to deal with a so narrow knowledge field that no scientist was interested to digest it and write a proper paper about. The crucial difference, however, is that engineers are much more handsome man than scientists. It is not possible to provide any scientific reference to this claim because scientist do not want to publish this result!

Regarding software.... if you are mostly interested in presentation, then hardly there is any competition to LaTeX - it renders the best looking math I have seen. On the more informal side, if you will be looking for a tool to write down your personal math notes and drafts quickly (but more coarsely rendered) then you could try Math-o-mir (Windows).

Yes, I know, although I didn't try any... I suppose that such a keyboard can be useful to someone who writes math on a daily basis at his home/workplace. The negative side is that such keyboard is not easily portable and if you need to write math anywhere else then you are in trouble (it is difficult to switch keyboards when you type math - you need to memorize at least three times more keystrokes than is needed to write plain text). On the other hand, I was in my thirties when I was learning my math-typing, so for someone who is still in their teens it might be much easier.

But what is your plan actually - do you plan to hand-draw math-problem sketches and graphical analysis or do you plan to actually hand-write some dense math equations? I guess that having a stylus is easily the best way to do the graphical part of mathematics in digital form (while pencil-and-paper might still be better in some aspects). I am doing all my math on my laptop using keyboard and mouse/touchpad and for sure I dream to have a stylus on hand whenever I need to make a sketch or outline a function graph. For the 'textual' part of mathematics, I am not sure you will be satisfied with stylus. I learned to use keyboard (it was painful - it took me some 2 years until it become natural) and now I would not change it for a stylus. With stylus you will create graphics, not structured math (and even if you use hand-writing recognition, I am not sure you will be satisfied when some serious volume of math needs to be written). As you said, maybe the best would be to combine some stylus graphics device with some math-typing software. But I am afraid 'the best' solution is very individual and you might need to try many varieties yourself.

As Klaynos said, a starter kit is the easiest way to start (for every uC line there is a starter kit, not only for arduino. But of course, with arduino you can enjoy benefits of large community) especially if you are not an expert in electronics. That is about all you need to start. Some time ago when I was to choose the uC line for my hobby projects, I consulted the internet to find more popular families (PIC, AVR...) and then consulted my local store to see what they regularly offer (but you might however prefer buying over internet or some other way to obtain your chips).

My opinion is that sending a message won't do any difference. Therefore I am neutral to that idea (supposing that only symbolic resources are invested). Maybe I could be even sympathetic if this could be a way to popularize space investigation with only a small investment. Well, if we are sending a message, maybe it can be a sentence like "A cup of tea, perhaps?" But seriously, if we are really into sending a message then I am thinking that maybe we should immediately expose our soft underbelly. Whoever might be able to reach us will be almost as powerful as God... (lol, imagine we receive a response: "Thanks for contacting us. We already sent a projectile that will destroy your planet. It is traveling at a near-light speed and will reach you two months after this message").

Don't forget that you must know something about electronics (a nice thing to know, anyway). It is a cheap hobby, but don't expect that you will make your walking robot in your first attempt. More likely your first application will be just blinking a LED. You can program PIC in C (I don't know, but probably not in pascal). And even assembler is easier than people think. I respectfully disagree with Sensei's wording "nothing familiar" because I think all programming is somewhat familiar. I make stepper motor drivers etc using small 8-bit microcontrollers (AVR family is my choice).

This is rutinely called 'damped oscillations'. In my mind I would call 'oscillatory' anything that has some periodic component (Probably even if it does not 'exhibit slope changes'; on the other hand I might not call something oscillatory if it does not have a periodic component even if it does 'exhibit slope changes'). Also in my mind, the term 'oscillations' might be somewhat stronger than the term 'oscillatory' (strange).

I am interested if you investigated if it could be possible to use LCD screen (or some other screening technology) as a mask?

Because OP asked that we should assume that the bare-below-elbows practice is effective against germs, then I must agree with you. In a more realistic scenario, the anti-BBE group does have some chance in a possible lawsuit case. In this case hospital management will have to show effectivnes of the BBE pracitce. If unsuccessful, then there is possibility that the court will allow long sleeves claiming that the BBE practice is unnecessarily discriminating (like in the 6-foot personel example). To make things more complex.... Even if BBE practice is effective, if there is no requirement for such practice (from law or specialized government istitutions) then there is still the question how the court will stand. Even more complex... If the hospital management claims that "the BBE prctice is not measureably effective, but there is very measurable money-income effect from enforcing such rules because it is an effective promotion technique" and claiming that these workers are thus working against the firm... This is a gray area already. I am not sure how many people would agree that promoting unexistent benefits is a good reason to force rules that might hurt some workers, even if the promotion itself is effective. But I still see the whole issue just as a lobbying problem. No rules are broken. (If for example a hospital management decides that all workers must shave their hands, have sweat glands and fingernails surgically removed, then there would be even more lobbying against it.... It will not happen even if it is more effective agains germs.)

Oh, I did not mention scars in that way... My mentioning of suicide scars was an attempt to demonstrate that 'personal' reasons not to show ones wrists might be as strong as 'religious' reasons.... IMO, differentiating between the two is wierd (I see no ground for doing this) but, as other posters mentioned, is rutenely done (discriminating those without religion, lol).

Hmm... 'someone wants to be exempt' is a normal situation. It is perfectly ok to lobby according to your interests. I see no problem as long as these healthcare workers are still doing their job according to current hospital procedures. (Wedding rings were also allowed after some lobbying, probably.) Whether this exemption should be allowed - this really is no question. What will eventually happen is a matter of power distribution within the group. I however think it would be ridicolous to call a hospital BBE, but still allow for long sleeves. So if the anti-bare-below-elbows group overpowers the rest, then the hosptial will probably be forced to change its name (and loose its marketing edge). If you ask should there be law that will grant 'religious rights'. I am lobbying "NO!!!" .... Now, a more complex situation would arrise if the hospital management at one point decided, for marketing reasons, to change the hospital name to BBE and require that all their workers from now on display bare hands. I this case I would stand together with female muslim healthcare workers against the new hospital policy (as well as with those who have nasty scars on their hands from attempted suicide when they were much younger, despite the fact that they cannot call it 'religious reasons').

I just wanted to comment that any avatar picture will still look a bit intimidating if titled as "30491 posts". So, the weaponary is stil visible.

- to convert Earth into volatile stuff like light, just use a matter-to-antimater transmutation device. I don't think the transmutation process can use lot of energy. - to destroy all information about Earth (except for mass, charge and angular momentum), you should create a small black hole and feed Earth to it (don't burn yourself!). You should be able to create a small black hole efficiently. - to destroy surface, all life or at least humans, you might try to infiltrate the NADDI ("National Agency to Deflect Dangerous Impactors" - will be founded shortly) and then sneakingly use their technology to deflect an appropriate-size impactor toward Earth. You can use government money, so the efficiency is not very important. - to destroy civilization, there are some pretty cool advices in other threads on this site - like the one where some suggest nuking a 2-million city in SA. The efficiency is very good because others will finish what you started. - to destroy one man, marry him. I don't know the exact mechanism, but it works and works good.

As swansont already explained, there is no simple circuit that will do it. One way would be to use some sort of DC-DC converter that will be able to keep constant output despite the fact that its input voltage decays, but DC-DC converters are not simple circuits. (with a very good DC-DC converter, I would say, you could get 80 - 90% of the energy stored in capacitor). Much more important to note is (in addition to problem with units that swansont mentioned): - a standard capacitor that can take/give 30A for 1 sec is a very very large capacitor. With these numbers, more practical would be to use a supercapacitor or a battery. - a lamp that takes 10 amps is rarely called a 'small light'

Was I just a witness to a purely emotional response by ajb? I hope so.

Yes, you are right - probably most biological clocks are disconnected from higher brain functions. If this is also the case with humans (as you suggest) then it is a shame - I spent hours of my life sitting in my car at the same intersection, looking at the traffic light (not to miss it when it goes green) instead of watching girls passing by. I also noticed the fact that I can wake up just a minute before my alarm clock turns on. This accuracy is so high that I find it hard to believe it is a result of an internal body timekeeping. I suspect it might be by some external cues. But if yes, if such precision clock exists somewhere in my body, then really is the shame that it is not accessible to my consciousness. @Roamer... sure. But imo, the question is not so much if there are better timekeepers, but are there seriously better timekeepers (2-3 orders of magnitude or more) suggesting a different clockwork mechanism. If there are none, why not - because a precise clock does not need more energy than a lousy clock.

Thanks Acme for your 'biological clock' article find. Nice examples... The question "why hasn't natural selection resulted in perfect endogenous clock" is just the question I was asking (because higher accuracy does not mean higher energy 'expenses')... The article doesn't mention, though, if there are some experimental research on limits how accurate these clocks might be. (Speculations: There might be several different types of 'clockwork mechanisms' developed by natural selection that have very different accuracies. Also, animals might have very different level of awareness of such clocking. For example, a pigeon might have almost perfect clock in its head and use it to accurately determine longitude. And while it might be aware of the longitude, it might still be unable to access the time directly.) @John Cuthber... One should be careful to exclude immediate external cues - cows might just be observant about sun position or human activity around. But if genuine, and if last time-sync event was, say, the sunrise, then the precision of 15-30 minutes after, say, 5 hours would be much better than I would expect from a human. (I always suspected cows might be supreme beings, lol). There is a counter-example in city of Zagreb (Croatia) where, by tradition, a cannon is fired every day exactly at noon. This always surprises pigeons on the city square. Either these pigeons cannot predict the noon precisely, or have no control over their reaction. (And this clearly disqualifies pigeons as supreme beings ) @Swansont... You are right, humans (and all the life) have this perfect clock. Still, it seems that humans benefit from artificial higher-resolution clocks, so I suspects other social animals might also benefit from the same.

Was thinking a bit... Accurate clocks did not exist in human society for long time. But once we got them into our possession, we quickly adopted them and are now using them extensively. I have no doubt that this is because clocks proved useful to us - to synchronize us and thus make our time and energy usage more efficient. Therefore, I see Swansont's claim that our timekeeping needs are result of artificial social constrains only as a part of the whole truth. Timekeeping truly can be innately beneficial to social animals and might be essential to create very complex (global) society. One might argue that humans are exceptions and that other social animals could never benefit from accurate timekeeping because, say, their brain power is limited. I agree, but I think that a social animal would still benefit to some small degree. Taking in account that only miniscule amount of energy is needed to run an accurate clock (increase in clock accuracy does not require proportional increase in energy usage) I must conclude that energy expenses is not the reason to not have this feature. As Delta1212 mentioned, it is the unlikelihood of the "pure random chance" of creating a clock that I see as the main reason for animals not having accurate timekeeping mechanisms. As I understand, a clock is complex and if just one part is removed, it becomes useless. It therefore cannot be created in a simple-step-by-simple-step manner where every further steps is increasingly beneficial to the animal... This reminds me to the "flagellar motor" controversy that was popular some years ago, if I understood the controversy correctly. Flagellar motors exist... and this makes me wonder does accurate time keeping also exists. I noticed that we always suppose that there is no such thing, but I am not aware of any research on this topic. Of course I expect that some animals will be much better timekeepers than humans are - this would be not surprise. But I am thinking are there animals that are several orders of magnitude better timekeepers.... Ok, now I am heading toward speculation. Still, an experimental research on the topic might be a valid idea (if not done already).