Phi for All

Is this homework? Do you know how glucose functions in the body? Do you know why an injection is sometimes required instead of oral doses?

Do plants need the entire spectrum? Perhaps the black leafed plants that have evolved all overheated and didn't survive to spread seeds.

I've seen a lot of them do just that. You can tell because the crosswalk timer for pedestrians counts down to 0 and then starts back over again but the light stays green. But you're right, some don't. I'll bet it's a setting that has been overridden for some reason, or perhaps something besides a car can trick the sensor into thinking there's a car. How sensitive are the sensors?

I was in Italy a number of years ago and a native told me the only way to survive as a pedestrian in Rome is to NOT look at the cars. According to him, if they could see you looking at them, they assumed you wouldn't be so stupid as to walk out in front of them. And though I thought the Italian drivers were reckless, they were always paying attention to what was in front of them, unlike the driver in Xitten's example. The trick is to cross the street looking ahead but keeping enough peripheral awareness that you don't step out directly in front of a car. I was amazed that it worked. People honked at you sometimes, but they were honking at everything anyway. When they saw you walking, whether you were looking at them or not became part of the equation of how to treat you as an obstacle. Hesitate and they kept right on going. Walk with a measured stride and they slowed to compensate. The worst thing was changing your stride once you started; that messed everyone up. I can appreciate that more now, but at the time it just seemed crazy. Now, everything in driving to me is about timing, taking a look at how fast someone is moving (walking or driving) and making adjustments to your speed to interact successfully with them.

Are you unsure of how to set up the whole equation or just parts, like how many receptors are in each pit? Remember that 100 nanometers (nm) = 0.1 micrometers.

Soccer, or football to you. Driven by soccer moms who will run your ass over if you make their kids late for practice. The utility part is that they can be used for many things. They can hold just the driver, or the driver and one passenger, or the driver and two passengers (three, four, five, six and sometimes seven passengers, plus the driver). They can also be used to haul groceries from the store to home. Oh, and they can also hold cups and television sets. They have four-wheel drive, but that's only used in bad weather. Most US SUV owners won't even let their wheels touch dirt, much less go off-road. I have a neighbor who went out and bought two Hummer H2s just as the company was going out of business. At first I was appalled. Now I just laugh as I drive by, because they're so wide he can't even fit one inside his two-car garage because of the rest of his junk he stores in there, and they won't fit side by side in his driveway either. I don't know him at all but I hope his wife yells at him every day. The biggest benefit to his Hummers is that he wouldn't even hear the crunch if a child ran in front of him at a crosswalk. One can only hope his coffee might fly out of his cup holder though.

I understand now. And I can see your point about the running. Since kids often run for many reasons (from bad time management to sheer exuberance), I don't know that there's much to be done. I disliked the SUV height problem too, until I got a light truck that puts me up just as high. Now I can't understand what you short lot are all on about. Again, not much to be done. If you figure that one out, try to apply that to floor seats at a concert. I hate paying good money to have people stand in front of me when I'm sitting, then stand on the chairs when I stand, then stand on the backs of the chairs when I stand on my chair. But this thread is about your peeve, and I do get it. Running attracts the eye, no matter how far removed from the top shelf predator lifestyle we are, but it also disrupts our planning, especially when we drive. It is dangerous to have someone suddenly come into play when we've already scoped out how we're going to handle things a few seconds in advance. I don't get as many kids running as you do, I guess. But I understand the disruption to your plans that it causes. I hate when you're turning left and there's one car close and a pack further out, so you edge a bit closer than normal and the doofus in the close car slows down, messing up your perfectly planned turn.

I'm not sure what the peeve is. Do you object to running in the crosswalk in general? Is this a case where someone pushes the button and then starts crossing before the light changes? I also don't get this part : "Whether someone is driving legally or illegally, it's the *dashing* that suddenly puts the kid in front of an unsuspecting driver, especially with all these big SUVs that conceal what's on the other side of them." What does the driver being legal or illegal have to do with the person crossing? And if the traffic is stopped for the light, why does *dashing* make a difference? And why, if he's already stopped, is the driver "unsuspecting"? Sorry if I'm just being dense today. I just don't get this at all.

No problem, I'll move the thread and leave a note where it's moved to. I don't mean to say that there isn't anything biological going on, just that the origins seem related to your consciously thinking about creating these feelings. Even Iggy's suggestion of it being related to the SNS requires your brain to trigger the response.

What exactly does "flying unaided" mean? Just that you can't be touching it? Does it have to move forward or just be off the ground? How long does it have to fly, or is the idea to fly as long as possible? If that's the case, why is a Chinese lantern a rubbish idea (beyond having an open flame in a grade school)? The first thing I thought of for a primary school was a helium balloon with just the proper weight on the string to make it hover. That could stay in the air for a very long time, longer than any of the propeller crafts.

It's not so much about caution and reserve. It's more like you've been there, done that, and now know how to do it better with less resources. Even if we had a regenerative ability that caused our cells to be replaced with fresh new copies, and could regenerate teeth and lost digits and limbs, with accumulated knowledge one becomes more economical in their movements and the way you deal with the world. You learn to be less scattered. You don't run around needlessly expending energy because you've learned you may need that energy for something else later. It's not about being reserved. It's about working smart instead of hard. Instead of grabbing the 80 pound bag of dog food off the floor at PetsMart, hefting it up and walking it over to your cart like you did when you were 20, the older/wiser you might push your cart up closer and slide off the bag that's closest to the height of the cart. Not because you're not as strong, but because you're smarter. And maybe you don't have as much to prove by showing off your strength. I think wisdom and experience is going to temper the way you interact physically with the world. I'm not sure it would continue to increase as you got older. It's interesting to think about. Would a thousand year old person in a twenty year old body pick up some really great ways to work smarter, not harder? Seems inevitable. Again, if we can regenerate, we could always work out as much and as strenuously as we want. I'm not talking about capability or about caution so much as wisdom. Some risks aren't worth the effort and you know that after you've taken enough of them. And if your mind stays sharp but you just keep on accumulating knowledge and experience, you could get to a point where it would greatly affect the way you approach many situations. I think we've established that this is going to be our definition of immortal. Young adult bodies that regenerate all tissue, limb replacement instead of scarring and complete teeth regeneration throughout your life. Decapitation or severe brain trauma is the only way we could die. This would allow your mind to develop unchecked by aging or disease. Edit: I know we're being wishful, but let's also be realistic. The regenerative ability wouldn't be rapid, occurring right before our eyes like in the movies. More like a salamander in real life. So you'd probably take more risks than you would at present, tempered with the thought that too much risk might take you out of commission for a few weeks. Few would take that prospect lightly. I wonder, would the smaller, more understandable threat of being laid up for a few weeks be taken more seriously than the more mortal threats we tend to deny in our present state?

I have a friend whose ex-wife was always looking for happiness in "things". She told my friend she was unhappy because they were throwing away their money on rent, so they bought a house. She was happy for a while but then became depressed and said she wanted kids. They had two boys and she was OK for a while until she started complaining that she missed having horses like she did growing up. They ended up selling their house and buying a horse property. Within a couple of years they were selling their two horses and the property and getting a divorce. My friend's wife was never happy with herself. She was a very nice person, smart and funny, but she always thought happiness was found only in the proper circumstances. I always thought she could have anything she wanted but until she could be happy with nothing, no amount of things or situations or circumstances would ever help. Similarly, if you always look at the injustices and poverty in the world, you'll never see the compassion and prosperity that's all around you. If your nihilist view says the world is a burning house, at least know that you aren't the only person throwing buckets of water on the flames. And each bucket you throw saves a few more important things, and you get to choose which things get saved, that's the best part. If you're a nihilist, do you truly believe that existence is meaningless or do you just reject traditional values and beliefs?

I'm getting tired of these people who post a brain teaser and then never come back to check if someone got it right. It's a form of terrorism, really, and should be reported to their ISP and Homeland Security.

Yum.

I would think this is more of a psychological phenomenon, tied to some sort of self-hypnotic suggestibility. I can almost guarantee it has no biological basis. If you have no objections, I can move this thread to the Psychiatry and Psychology section where it will gain more practical responses.

Ah,

Audiometric testing might suggest that they have a mutated hearing threshold. We could experiment further and make a metal fan tell us the words to a song without using the lyrics sleeve.

Good catch. I typed "more nurture" but somehow lost it in editing down. There has to be some nature for complex thought to exist in the first place.

It's not really about overestimating yourself. You could donate an hour of your time every day to a worthy cause and thus do more than most people are currently doing. Or you could spend every spare minute and all your resources helping that same cause and be considered its greatest benefactor. In either case, though, if it's not enough for you, if you continue to think that, in the greater scheme of human existence, that it's all futile and just a small drop in a very large bucket, you'll still end up bitter and disillusioned. I think you need to resolve the conflict about how you feel about our existence. Even a nihilist should be able to come to grips with the fact that being pleased with what you're able to do is preferable to being always frustrated by your limitations. The efforts of one person are ultimately only limited by the way they are perceived by that one person.

Definitely nurture, imo. It's part of the education and learning process, and a willingness to let go of some ego in order to allow a more open perspective, while always admitting that we can never be truly objective about ourselves.

I think the next level of awareness is thinking about the way you think. Most people think they make rational, logical choices, but if we're aware of the way our minds really work, we understand that we have to fight against preconceptions and prejudices in order to make a truly rational choice. A good example is procrastination. Most people think it's about laziness or a lack of will power. If you really think about the way you think, it's more about a choice between A (what you want to do) and B (what you need to do). When we procrastinate, we make a promise to do B in the future, without thinking about how your future self will probably also want to postpone B in favor of A. If you understand this, then you can tell yourself that B isn't part of a choice, it's simply what you need to do now so you can make choices later.

I agree with Psycho (honestly, I'm think I'm going to make that into a bumper sticker). Would it be practical to have a regulation saying that the price of copper from known sources is uncapped, but if you can't prove where you got it the price is no more than £2,000 per tonne? I don't know much about how the trade is handled, so this might be completely unworkable.

! Moderator Note Moved to Homework Help for the proper attention. How much have you figured out so far? Let us know how much of the question you understand.

Personal opinion here, but I think before you try to figure out your career, you need to resolve this paradox you're in. You want to provide assistance to mankind but mankind sucks. I think you need to ask yourself if there is a way you can both make a positive influence on mankind and also be satisfied that your efforts will help. That needs to be enough for you. No offense, but right now it sounds like you could do a great deal for mankind but you'd always be looking at the parts that still suck and feeling depressed about it. You can do a lot as one person, but you can only do what you do, and that HAS to be enough for you. Could you do that, work towards what you think is going to be positive in terms of mankind's future, and be satisfied that you did what you could?