Mr Skeptic

The speed of sound is not dependent on its loudness, it is dependent on the elasticity of the medium it travels through and the density. Suck the helium out of a helium balloon, and you increase the speed of sound withing your lungs and voicebox, which will make your voicebox "sound" like it is smaller, and you will talk at a very high pitch (like a chipmunk on cartoons).

We already have similar stuff, but they're just toys. For large-scale production it is going to have to be cheap and robust, not "pretty".

Well if you have a reducing atmosphere, you can keep a jar of oxygen as "fuel" that you can burn with the surrounding atmospheric gases. Or maybe hydrogen peroxide, if you prefer a liquid "fuel".

You can heat up metal by hammering it, although that is hardly the ideal method.

Well, in a reducing atmosphere you wouldn't need fire to have metals, since the metals would not be oxidized. In addition, there are other sources of heat, such as a solar furnace. Certainly not as easy to understand nor acquire as fire, but it would do the trick. Now if you have an underwater civilization, the boiling point and heat capacity of water might be a problem, and likewise saltwater would mess with electricity and electromagnetic signals.

As an American, you might not know that during the American Revolution, the people who supported the British Empire were called "Tories" or "Loyalists". Americans were not too fond of them, especially after winning said war.

Not quite. I think that if keeping one's job is the primary motivation, then the top exec will want to bribe the lower execs, since all the top execs are afraid to lose their job. While #2 might like to fire #1, doing so puts him on the chopping block. If you assume superrationality (that everyone reaches the same conclusions), then #2 considers that because a majority would want to get rid of #1, a very similar majority would want to get rid of him as well. In this case, (let's assume that the money is essentially worthless), #6 and #7 are guaranteed their jobs. #5 can't reject #4's proposal because of that, since #6 and #7 will kick him out. So #5 is fairly secure in his job, as are all the others below him. I guess that means that these four will have the majority and outvote the others.

Some games compensate for lag by allowing the lagger to function as if there were no lag. Then there are inconsistencies, but they can be resolved fairly well if dodging is hard. In other games, the lagger gets penalized, often attacking things that aren't there. Generally the screen shows what you would see if there were no lag, even if it is not accurate.

Let's keep score. The fraction indicates a n-way split but not necessarily evenly. Score: Exec #1: loss of job Exec #2: loss of job Exec #3: loss of job Exec #4: loss of job Exec #5: loss of job Exec #6: 1 mill, -5 competitors Exec #7: -5 competitors Score: Exec #1: loss of job Exec #2: loss of job Exec #3: loss of job Exec #4: loss of job Exec #5: 1/2 mil, -4 competitors Exec #6: -4 competitors Exec #7: 1/2 mil, -4 competitors Score: Exec #1: loss of job Exec #2: loss of job Exec #3: loss of job Exec #4: 1/2 mil, -3 competitors Exec #5: -3 competitors Exec #6: 1/2 mil, -3 competitors Exec #7: -3 competitors screwed if it gets down to #3. Score: Exec #1: loss of job Exec #2: loss of job Exec #3: 1/3 mil, -2 competitors Exec #4: -2 competitors Exec #5: 1/3 mil, -2 competitors Exec #6: -2 competitors Exec #7: 1/3 mil, -2 competitors Score: Exec #1: loss of job Exec #2: 1/3 mil, -1 competitor Exec #3: -1 competitor Exec #4: 1/3 mil, -1 competitor Exec #5: -1 competitor Exec #6: 1/3 mil, -1 competitor Exec #7: -1 competitor Exec #1: 1/4 mil Exec #2: Exec #3: 1/4 mil Exec #4: Exec #5: 1/4 mil Exec #6: Exec #7: 1/4 mil If -1 competitor is worth 1/4 mil, then this proposal will be rejected by #7.

Which helium-filled balloons will do when you release them and they float upwards to where the air is less dense.

E-Z notation. E is like trans.

"Aerodynamics is the study of air and its interactions with objects". Brief enough? Or maybe you wanted more detail: Applied Aerodynamics:A Digital Textbook

Mmmm... "Study finds that watching Fox News linked to strokes and heart attacks" I wonder if anyone would dare do that study, and how hard Fox News listeners will laugh at it?

Hm, according to point 9 on Paranoia's link, if the charity sells something as a fundraiser, they say what it costs and the difference is considered a tax-deductible donation on the part of the purchaser. So if the host sells something as a fundraiser for a donation, they have to decide the "real price" of the item, and that much is their income (since they sold it) and the difference is the other person's donation (since they overpaid for it). Of course, I suppose nothing is stopping the host from claiming the whole amount as the cost, so as their income and their own tax-deductible donation. Depending on the circumstances, it may be possible to save money overall by doing this, if the auction for charity price is significantly higher than the normal auction price and they do claim it all as income. I don't think they could get away with this for donations, however. I wonder how closely the IRS examines charitable donations.

Ooh, someone says that a theory that has stood the test of time nearly 2 centuries. I can't wait for the shocking new revelations! This will revolutionize the world of science, it's not every day that such a well-supported theory gets overturned. However, I'd rather read the peer-reviewed article rather than some random guy on the internet. So where was it published? Science? Nature?

Did you think anyone would accept a theory like relativity if they didn't absolutely have to? If you have a better theory, one that has more accurate predictions (not make more sense), then maybe it could be replaced. Otherwise, don't bother.

Which is a much stronger statement than ecoli's statement about decreasing marginal revenue. In any case, both of these arguments are clearly true (that the marginal revenue decreases, and that it decreases to the point of becoming negative, with increasing tax rate). Obviously, that doesn't mean that decreasing the tax rate would increase revenue, unless we were already past the point of negative marginal returns. Since it would be pretty retarded to raise the tax rates into the area of decreasing marginal revenue, I'd like to think that we will never have to decrease tax rates to increase tax revenue. Now can we get back to the topic?

And that borrowing must be repaid by tax money, plus interest. They are not lowering taxes, they are raising taxes by borrowing against future taxes. Spending = taxes.

I agree with him -- I consider myself libertarian, and I definitely align more with the Democrats. Although I kind of would like less taxes, at least the Democrats want to spend it on things I can agree on, things that need to be done anyways and so are not an extra cost (as compared to wars on terror, drugs, or foreign nations we don't like)

I do agree that cutting spending is the solution to our deficit issues. Tax rate is just an illusion: we have to pay for what we spend, whether we do it now, later, or ahead of time. The Republicans say they're all about cutting taxes but they never do. This is obvious from looking at their spending -- they just borrow money from China and hope the Democrats pay it back for them, and as a bonus that means they can complain about the Democrat's high taxes.

Well New Scientist has been rallying folks to make science a significant part in the coming election. I do hope that turns out well. As for the voting system, I would like that reformed here in the US as well.

Ah, that is a really hard question, mainly because "species" is such a nebulous concept. If by "species" you mean a kind of organism that can interbreed with itself but not other groups, then we have already made multiple different species (changing the number of chromosomes, for example, would suffice). If you mean having new/distinct traits, we have already added new traits to various organisms, for example "golden rice" which we have taken genes from other species (daffodil and bacteria) and incorporated it into the rice so that it produces beta carotene (vitamin A precursor). We've created plenty of species that produce Green Fluorescent Protein (from jellyfish), which is useful for research purposes. We've created several breeds of domestic animals and varieties/cultivars of domesticated plants (the banana perhaps the most extreme example).

Emphasis mine. Yes, created from energy. Did the particle and anti-particle exist before that?

However many of the proteins will be solid.

Meanwhile, many of folks on the Crusades were also using religion as a reason despite that not necessarily being their primary motivation.