Mr Skeptic

That's quite reasonable. The computer age is a fairly momentous event, and though it didn't start at any specific point in time, this the date they decided to start counting from. Although I'd hate to have to rewrite all the history books and relearn my history.

Politicians are corrupt? Shocking!

Consider that camels can have urine so concentrated that it is the consistency of syrup. Definitely much more concentrated than the plasma. I suspect humans can similarly have hypertonic urine, though definitely not to the same extent. http://www.springerlink.com/content/p475u90681pm83q1/

If you throw a spinball, you can use Bernoulli's principle: there is some air rotating with the ball, and on one side the air flows faster and on the other side lower, causing a high pressure area that causes the ball to curve. If you throw a ball with almost no spin, irregularities on the ball's surface can change the direction slightly and in a random direction.

I've concluded exactly the same. There doesn't seem to be anything not covered under chance and determinism, or some combination thereof. Free will as I imagined it seems impossible. (For extra fun, this also means God has no free will. Or, more likely, we need a different definition of free will.)

Thanks!

To some degree it is realistic. There are some limits to what can be done; exponential growth of any kind cannot continue indefinitely. The universe would look largely the same. Earth would be drastically different though.

I thought I'd never see the day when I agree with Glen Beck. Also, I think this is a particularly good time to do this: we really do need more income and less spending. Pros: New income: tax on marijuana Savings: less spending on jail and law enforcement Less disrespect for the law (from people who smoke pot, or know someone who does and gets away with it) Less crime Less lives destroyed. Less money funneled to criminal elements Smaller government, more liberty More consistent laws (compare to tobacco and alcohol) Cons: People upset that others don't follow their morality A few more people who are cheerful, paranoid, and hungry I'm sure there's a few more, both of pros and cons.

It's a very foggy topic, to be sure. You won't be able to make anything but statistical probability claims for an individual, at best, and for rather limited topics. There's been some study of this. Fortune-tellers do have plenty of actual experience in this sort of thing, as well as extracting information unwittingly.

Incompatible with some models, sure. But how do you intend to check whether there is mass not at the singularity? What difference would it make in reality?

The sun exerts a centripetal force (gravity) on the earth, accelerating the earth toward the sun. However, this acceleration is perpendicular to the direction of movement, so it causes the earth to deviate from a straight line. Were the earth stationary, both its movement and its acceleration would be toward the sun and it would fall in. But since it is moving, it just continuously turns toward the sun and ends up going in a circle. The equal and opposite force is Earth's inertia (centrifugal force, the earth pulls the sun just as hard). This is a force on the sun, not on the earth. Inertia. Things tend to resist a change in velocity. That is, whatever is moving will continue moving in that direction (a straight line) without any change in speed. If it is stationary, it will remain stationary. To overcome inertia (that is, change the velocity, also called acceleration), you need to apply a force. For more, see Newton's Laws of Motion

Tables can be graphed. You only really need the peak locations (though the intensity would be useful too).

It doesn't matter how the mass is distributed within the event horizon.

Black hole size relates to mass within the event horizon. The mass that can be consumed by the black hole depends on how much mass there is nearby. Kind of like you don't find blue whales in a goldfish bowl.

Sorry, I misunderstood you. I was talking about intensity. Um, if you stretch or shift your graph, can the peaks be made to match the reference graph? I don't really know too much about NMRs.

I suspect that for next election, or the one after that, the national debt will play a prominent role. The Democrats will have to explain why the debt is so high, and the Republicans will have to explain why they opposed PAY-GO.

It's not so much the height that is your data. You need your relative heights, and the positions on the line. You'd get different heights by using a different concentration, for example, or a different exposure time.

The sail will face roughly in the direction of the sun. You can change the angle depending on what direction you want to be accelerated. The craft can be moving in any direction regardless of how you angle the sail.

Since billiard balls are shiny, you can also consider the reflection of the lightsources. The position of the reflections relative to the ball's outline would probably also be enough to get the position. You can combine the various methods suggested for higher accuracy. I think the best field of knowledge to find answers for this would be computer graphics. Since billiard balls are fairly simple, maybe a student or teacher of computer graphics at the local college could help design a program. It wouldn't surprise me if there's commercial programs as well. You could ask these guys: Application of high-speed imaging to determine the dynamics of billiards

Don't forget the time lag. That half hour time lag between what you see and what you do is gonna bite you. Space is big... Underwater robots would make a lot of sense since they don't have any problems with pressure if they have no gas or nitrogen dissolving in their blood, and negligible time lag (but instead, communications become distance-limited very quickly).

Are any products made via yeast kosher for passover? I thought one of the main things about passover was the lack of any yeast products (because they had no time to let it work as they prepare to leave Egypt).

Yup, the only problem I have is his claim that his premise is a tautology and therefore his argument a theorem. I agree with his premise and his moral code; he's just overdoing his claim as being objective and undeniably true.

Well I found something similar. Miegakure: it claims to be a 4D platform jumping puzzle game. http://marctenbosch.com/miegakure/. Found it thanks to xkcd.

They want a few things: shelf life, controlled release, having some excuse to have a higher price.

For many plants and a few animals like sponges, the cloning process involves cutting a piece off with a knife. Some plants, like commercial bananas, are produced almost exclusively via cloning. In the very early stages of development (only a few cells), cloning can be done by separating the cells, essentially creating twins. Otherwise, you need an egg, the haploid nucleus is extracted from the egg and replaced with the diploid nucleus from a cell of the animal to be cloned, the egg is zapped to simulate fertilization, and then you hope for the best. Don't be surprised at success ratios of 1%. You can't clone "someone" as in a person. The cloning process will only create someone who is slightly less similar than an identical twin. Differences are due to having different epigenetics (patterns of gene activation not coded in the DNA) and different mitochondria (unless the egg is from the person being cloned, and of course there's also the age difference. The clone will have none of the knowledge of the person it was cloned from. Cloning humans to my knowledge has not yet been done successfully. A success, and the birth of a new technique. I personally have no qualms about harming a creature without a nervous system, even if it is human, especially if there is a benefit to humans. However, normally stem cells are gathered from waste blastocysts that would otherwise be destroyed, whereas if it were cloned for that very purpose some might see it as worse. So I'd say slightly worse ethical problems for those who consider it an ethical problem. Yes. Some animals used for breeding purposes are valued largely for their genetics, which cloning can copy. Cloning techniques may allow the revival of extinct or endangered species. As a reproductive strategy for humans, I disapprove of it, even without the extra dangers. We do need genetic diversity. For most people there is little or no harm in them. If they caused a genetic disease, then definitely getting rid of them would be a good thing. Yes and yes. It is very inefficient, and human eggs don't come cheap. I and many others consider personhood to depend on the information contained in the brain. We have no qualms about terminating a body who's brain has been irreparably damaged (brain dead) since we consider the person already dead. Likewise, we have no qualms about terminating a bunch of cells with no brain, especially if it will help a person. Some people say they value "potential people" but then they tell their daughters not to have a child out of wedlock, which also prevents potential people. It would require a much more efficient process, and also an artificial womb. You don't have to worry about this for quite some time. I would focus on the potential harm done to the child. The cloning process as we have it now is a brute force ugly approach. It is little different than drinking and taking various drugs while pregnant.