Mr Skeptic

No*, for the most part it's that when a solar system is formed from a spinning cloud of dust and gas, everything should be spinning the same way. To have anything significant spinning in the opposite direction would require either a lot of coincidences or something from outside the system. Orbits are stable due to the effects of gravity and centrifugal force.

So you're claiming that local entropy cannot decrease? Perhaps you'd best study the laws of thermodynamics again. Plants growing is not a complete cycle. Yes, if you grow plants and let them decay that would be a different story but that is not what I asked. If chemistry is too complicated for you, how about if we simplify? Does the local entropy of the inside of a refrigerator decrease when the refrigerator is turned on? This is basic thermodynamics. Really? Can you give an example where replacing random data with repeating data does not decrease the information entropy? Preferably using either formulas or a computer program that measures entropy of strings. Or think it through logically: are there more possible states or less if the data is restricted to repetition? Good, then the increase of information is not a problem. Except that it is indeed a function, and it works. You arbitrarily chose to call its function something it is not, and it is unsurprising that you find it to be non functional. This is no more than a circular argument -- you ask for new function, and then judge the new function as if it were the original function and act surprised that it isn't. You said you wanted a new function but are instead looking for improvements to the original function. So by new function perhaps you mean nothing more than improving existing function? Also, the above is an example where your assumption of a reductionist intelligent designer fails you. As you point out, when looked at as a whole the mutation provides superior function (the organism lives) via a different method (aka new function, a "scorched earth" defense against malaria). Note however that evolution is not reductionist, the organism as a whole functions better in the environment and this is what is selected for. And not just that, but the original genes are kept too, so that when considered as a whole at the population or species level it is even better, just another tool in the adaptability toolkit, that will be automatically reduced or increased as needed (on average). Your reductionist intelligent designer is not as intelligent as evolution, in the quest for perfect components he fails to see that they must work as a whole and in various environments!

Your description would be of an electric dipole, which would have a field the same shape as a magnet but it would be an electric field. Each electron is like a little magnet in addition to being negatively charged. In most atoms the electrons cancel out each other's magnetic field, but in some (the ferromagnetic ones) they don't completely cancel. I think you're right about magnets having a slightly weaker molecular bonding than if they were unmagnetized, but I doubt it would be noticeable at the physical nor chemical level, and as for fusion you would want as much charge shielding as possible. This might interest you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon-catalyzed_fusion

Well gills have a lot of problems, enough so that perhaps it's better to stick with air like the dolphins and whales. If you had gills, you'd have massive heat loss to the water, there's far less oxygen in the water than in the air, and you'd lose water to the higher salinity salt water via osmosis. Perhaps these problems could be overcome, but even so you'd probably need a much larger heart. Look up the tuna's circulatory system to see what troubles a huge fish goes through to be even partially warm-blooded and breathe via gills.

Well, some countries are more lenient than others about experimental medicine. However, you'd still have to find a doctor willing to do it especially considering it doesn't sound like you have a genetic disease to cure.

Alternately, you could say that the location of the big bang/center of the universe, is 15 billion years ago. After all, that is where it happened.

Yes, the genetic makeup can be changed but the methods are considered rather crude and dangerous. When using a retrovirus (a virus that converts from RNA to DNA which is errorprone, and then inserts itself in the DNA which has a random aspect to it too), there's always the fear of causing cancer. While I'm not sure just how significant the probability is, cancer is not a very nice potential side effect.

Actually, I think atheism will become the dominant religion in 500-500 years. By then we should have figured out how to prevent aging and be more or less immortal, and have very pleasant lives, which are pretty much all religion has to offer except real. As for Islam, it seems to me more like fearmongering.

Does bankers meeting in secret to discuss things like derivatives count? I'm sure that knowledge is very closely guarded and certainly useful. And derivatives are kindof esoteric.

Looks like plenty of misunderstandings about spaceflight here. In space there's no air, so fans won't work. Near space there's very little air, and fans become vanishingly ineffective. However if you do have air, the air is very useful to the extent that the specific impulse of a jet engine beats even that of most advanced/theoretical rocket engines, however it also limits it to working only where there is air. As for the need for speed, there's two reasons. One is that hovering costs you both energy and fuel, and another is that to reach a given orbit you need to reach the proper speed for that orbit. And nuclear powered craft still need fuel because they need to throw something backwards to provide momentum. As for lifting a rocket partway with a balloon/blimp, I used to think that was a great idea and wondered why people didn't do it. Then someone calculated the energy savings, and it turned out to be pathetically small. But some companies are using air-breathing engines to get their craft partway there, so maybe there's something to that.

Well, it would be nice to be able to calculate G rather than to measure it.

There's an additional slight difference that this requires you to act, rather than pay your taxes as usual and have the government act on your behalf. As to the comparison to car insurance, you "can" decide not to purchase a car nor the insurance that goes with it, even if it is exceedingly impractical to do so. As for the comparison to mandatory gun ownership, I haven't heard much complaints from the citizens of Kennesaw, Georgia about that requirement being unconstitutional. Anyways, it seems to me that to forbid the use of the "pre-existing condition" would require people be covered, otherwise I would certainly wait until I got sick to get insurance, then everyone else (either tax payers or those who buy insurance from that company) can pay for it, and of course I can drop the insurance when they're done paying my bills.

Conversion from potential energy to kinetic is usually quite efficient. Magnets are not good for perpetual motion machines because moving magnets near a conductor (or a moving conductor near a magnet) will induce an electric current in the conductor which will end up as waste heat, essentially like a long-distance version of friction. Nevertheless, magnets remain fairly popular for perpetual motion machines because a lot of people don't understand magnets and some even think them magical or something.

It won't last very long, and it won't convert magnetism into anything. Magnetic potential energy yes (like dropping a book is gravitational potential, but more like sticking two magnets north to north and releasing them -- they'll release energy but still stay magnetic). You won't be able to get any more energy from that than you put into it when setting it up.

My understanding is that the ideal free market condition of perfect competition applies to everyone, not just people creating wealth but also to people trading. Ie, would you sell to a store that gives you more, or one that gives you less? Would you buy from a store that charges less or one that charges more? In the free market, the profit margins of employers and traders will tend toward zero just as with everyone else. What I did do is point out that due to the apparent limitations of wealth creation, those who make a lot of money are almost necessarily making that from trading/employing, and in an ideal free market they would make hardly anything just like everyone else. Sure, their job is important but so is everyone else's. I see progressive taxation as a (clumsy) method of somewhat countering the imperfect competition of the real market. As for what to consider the change in taxation, as a change it is what it is. But to judge whether it is good or bad depends on a value judgment and consideration of the current distribution, whether people consider it fair or not already.

Just a quick question... how is this superior to a cheaper and more natural IR source such as pretty much any heating system in use?

Everyone is annoyed because our voting system basically forces us to pick one of the two parties to vote for. Voting for a third party is usually wasting your vote since they probably won't win. Also this has a lot of people voting against the people they like less rather than for the people they like more.

Using a laser to heat up air is just plain inefficient. And using it for thrust directly is impractically energy costly. The only reason to use a laser is to decouple the power generation and usage.

@ just means at. There's more than one way to get a clock to chime at a given interval of hours, for example one running at 40 min = 60 real min, and one running at 80 min = 60 real min, will both chime correctly every three hours.

There's a difference between using a laser + solar panel as an energy source, vs using a lase as a propellant. There's no way a laser-propelled device got even an inch off the ground in earth gravity. What you probably heard about is the idea of using lasers to power a climbing device, typically intended for use on a space elevator.

OK, let's keep the comparison to the Saturn V. The saturn V's specific impulse is 263 sec for the first stage, and 421 sec for the second and third, and a thrust of 7.6 million lb thrust for the first stage. For one of the nuclear lightbulb rockets NASA gives a specific impulse of 1870 sec, and an engine weight of 70,000 lb and thrust of 92,000 lb. From the looks of it it would have trouble getting off the ground, but would be several times more efficient. Use this equation to calculate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolkovsky_rocket_equation

Oh, do you mean like a single hospital with awesome tech, rather than the average healthcare of the country?

Depending on what you mean by water, heating the substance until the water evaporates, heating the substance in the absence of oxygen until all the oxygen leaves and adjusting for the produced gases, dunking it in a dissicating agent like concentrated sulfuric acid. Basically, take whatever you mean by water out, and measure what is left.

I hear sunlight works pretty well.

Or you could be lazy and not bother to look it up. Electrons can be found in the nucleus too. If what you mean is staying in the nucleus, then the energy, momentum, and wavelength considerations become significant. For example, if you want it to stay in the nucleus you'd want the wavelength not to be too much bigger than the nucleus. That will tell you how fast the electron would have to move, and then you need to compare to the force that would be holding it into the nucleus. There's also plenty of scam companies suggesting that they found a way to get tons of energy from (usually water) by having its electrons drop to an energy level lower than the first.