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Mr Skeptic

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Everything posted by Mr Skeptic

  1. One is either a type of metal, or a range on a pH scale (>7), and the other is pH = -log(H+ ion concentration)
  2. Almost everyone agrees that the government needs to cut spending. Just not on any programs We all agree politicians are corrupt (or are at least forced to act similar to a corrupt person).
  3. There's more chemicals (and biological chemicals) than there are atoms in the known universe. There's ~100 million species (estimated), mostly undiscovered and even less studied. These folks are always going to have something to talk about, even if there were no advances in theoretical knowledge. Meanwhile, much of new physics involves nasty mathematics and no newspaper is going to bother explaining it if it is not groundbreaking.
  4. So long as you don't use atoms nor energy from the universe to be modeled, nor leak matter nor energy into it. Deterministic chaos is a system that is annoyingly hard to predict despite being deterministic, and also highly sensitive to the tiniest changes in initial conditions. I think all interpretations are equal if they make equal predictions. Just go for the one that makes the most sense to you. For the multiple worlds interpretation, both events happen but you don't know ahead of time which universe you will be in. So for any practical purposes, there's still randomness.
  5. It would be awesome if this could be done. However, using water as an energy source is impossible. Why don't you try something that is actually possible, like turning lead into gold?
  6. I think that makes them similar to the environmentalist movement, or like the folks who want to cut spending but can't agree on which program. They're mad, they want change, they just don't have a single leadership and can't agree on what the change should be. As individuals they could be very consistent and have a good plan, but as a group they're just complaining in all directions about everything and not accept, as a group, any of the possible solutions. Which makes ignoring said groups the only possible action, since any action possible will by default ignore them. "A person is smart; people are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it." — Agent K, Men In Black
  7. Hm, hadn't realized the OP answered a different question than was asked. He's correct about the probabilities of the offspring, but for a given offspring you have additional information.
  8. To be honest, the number of wasted votes is appalling for a democracy -- and first past the post is the worst offender possible, especially with districting. My favorites are approval voting for its simplicity and instant runoff voting for its thoroughness. I'm a bit unsure about proportional representation.
  9. I'll add to that money spent by an administrator so as not to appear to need less money/to protect his budget.
  10. Remember, science is not about "making sense", it is about predicting results. If you don't understand why it makes sense, no problem, you can still just use the math and predict results. If you reject predictive capability in favor of something that to you makes sense, you lose out on science's major advantage.
  11. I like this idea. As it is, a legislator's vote will come back and haunt them, generally with little chance of them to explain it to the people (or rather, people are going to ignore said explanation in favor of a single 2-3 letter word). I'd agree that this would lead to more cooperation. You'd have to call the votes different words, or at least distinguish them YES, yes, no, NO. However, it's missing the neutral option: present - confused: I don't know what I'm doing present - scared: I don't know which vote will win me more voters (I kid, I kid!)
  12. In a reducing atmosphere, you get many unoxidized metals. Regardless, all you need is a magnetic mineral like magnetite, and then any conductive metal, and you can make an electrical generator. You can use electricity as a heat source to heat metals; it would cost more but you also save a lot by not having to reduce metals before use.
  13. If matter were perfectly perfectly distributed it would not clump, but even the slightest fluctuations would lead to local differences and clumping.
  14. It's one of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell_relations
  15. Windmills and waterwheels and wave power would all be available, and from there all electric stuff.
  16. I think they're also pretty peeved about the interpretation of the Interstate Commerce clause.
  17. A classical electromagnetic wave, on the other hand, would travel slower through a medium with a higher index of refraction.
  18. How about abusive mis-interpretation of the Constitution to do whatever the hell the legislators want even if it is forbidden?
  19. Yes... the left have more to gain by portraying them all as fools, and perhaps even tainting the Republican party and other political opposition (look how silly our opponents are!). The news media enjoy this too, since they are entertainment companies. Here's a simple question: when these journalists compose highly edited videos like the one in your link, do they make available the entire footage? BTW, here's another highly edited video: Although apparently there was no actual wrongdoing on the part of the ACORN staff.
  20. It does show that they are listening to what the people want, so I guess that's a good thing. Kind of like how charitable donations are nice regardless of the reason for them.
  21. ...Ow! That's going to add up. What happened to PAYGO? I like this version of the story a little better: http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/budget/93431-senate-dems-budget-cuts-deficit-by-70-percent-calls-for-jobs-bill The proposed budget's two major priorities of deficit reduction and job creation appear aimed at winning over Democratic lawmakers facing stiff challenges from Republicans in November's midterm elections. The economy and the budget deficit were the top two issues for independent voters in a Gallup poll earlier this month. House Democratic leaders have shown some reluctance to move ahead with a budget resolution this year, wary of forcing vulnerable members to vote for a budget that would lead to large deficits. Mmmm, cynicism.
  22. It seems that amnesiacs can be sad about something even if they don't remember what it was -- and are sad for longer than normal people (for short-term sadness invoked by movies). it-pays-to-remember-what-made-you-sad.html
  23. A very good point. A previous study, Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition, found that death anxiety (among other things) correlated with conservatism. So, to get good results the study would need to account for this variable. To actually prove causation, the study would have to track a large group over a long period, keeping track of health and conservatism and other variables (such as the aforementioned death anxiety), and show that watching Fox News precedes worsening health. Maybe for a short term study they could simply track the level of stress hormones of TV watchers.
  24. As a bonus, if you get the ratio just right you can get a regular bomb instead of a smoke bomb. Or was that not a bonus?
  25. Nope. Try zero times infinity.
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