Mr Skeptic

Can you explain how the link you provided relates to the topic (if it even is the one you meant to provide)?

Want to know what would impress me more? A paper showing that evolutionary algorithm cannot account for design. And no, that does not mean showing that the evolutionary algorithm itself needs information, since we have an evolutionary algorithm based off the laws of physics with no need for any other information. Otherwise, showing that there is design will not say that evolutionary algorithm can't account for said design, which would make it pointless for this discussion.

If you're the author of Too Smart for Our Own Good, I would not recommend that book to anyone.

OK, I think that you might be best off trying to show that at least one of the clocks must have a period of less than one hour (it runs fast rather than slow). Given that the clocks run at different rates they would get more and more desynchronized, and my guess is that 5 is not enough to chime twice every hour unless one of them runs fast. Otherwise, the clocks would have to be distributed such that they don't chime too many times sometimes and not enough others. (eg consider the number of numbers that are a multiple of both 61 and 62, clocks with 61 and 62 mins will occasionally chime simulataneously and then go an hour without chiming again). So for proof, see how many clocks will chime simultaneously.

Do you want at least two chimes every hour, or at least one?

Probably nothing interesting.

Sorry, zero does not get any smaller by dividing it. Perhaps if you go with the concept of infinitesimals (very very close to zero but not quite).

Yeah, funny how we can both drink ethanol and put some in our gas tank. Just be warned that the biofuels ethanol is usually poisoned, to prevent people from getting their fix without paying tax.

Hackers always play by their own rules, Assange or no. Tell me you're not surprised that hackers like freedom of information? At most, Assange's involvement here is probably limited to being gleeful.

Well, we can't remember every single date that something important happened. Ask a history teacher, there should be plenty for each day of the year. It is good to commemorate some important events, and all peoples I know do so, but eventually they become obsolete. Also, remembering some things can keep hatred fresh, or perhaps patriotism or respect for our troops (depending on the details). Us young whippersnappers haven't lived through it like you have, to us it is just history. My thinking though, is that it is better to commemorate the end of a war than the start.

First, find the volume of the oceans in question.

Other animals learn too. The animals that are most helpless when young, are usually the ones that learn the most (as opposed to having most of it as built-in instincts). As to why we're so smart, there's a few interesting ideas. Intelligence correlates very well to fitness, and studies show that the people women are attracted to tend to have higher intelligence. Moreover, (some degree of) retardation generally results from most bad mutations, or from malnutrition. In addition, other species use what might be seen as a measure of intelligence for mate selection (birds in particular, are quite smart and the clever ones sing better). So it could have been sexual selection for intelligence. Also, intelligence is necessary for social species like ours (not for herd animals though). We have a complex society and being able to navigate it successfully and profitably takes a lot of intelligence, similarly not to be taken advantage of by other clever individuals.

Well, it depends on the details. But both the weight of the engine and its efficiency are important. You could compare this to ion drives, which are absurdly efficient yet can't lift something off the ground because they're so heavy for the thrust they generate.

Or, they could try him without a jury (as is done in Sweden). And if it comes to trial, the other woman involved will be relevant for a different reason: they only complained to the police after they found out about each other's relationship, but before that gave good indications of having no problem with him.

No. Infinity is not a number. If you end up with a final answer of infinity, then you can't do anything with it anymore (unlike if your answer is an equation that results in infinity, in which case it can be divided or subtracted from another similar equation and potentially get answers). Basically, if 1/infinity = 0 and 5/infinity = 0, then you can't get either of them back by infinity * 0 = ???, like you could with normal numbers.

It's easier to make an engine that runs at a certain speed than a variable speed, so your idea would also lose efficiency. Get yourself an electric car. Electric engines can run at variable speed much more easily, and in fact some designs call for having the motors right on the wheels to dispense with the drive shaft as well.

What if said aliens have the social structure of the social insects (ants/bees), where self-interest worse than the interest of the hive? An intelligent species with that social structure wouldn't do many of the things we do out of personal self-interest. Of course, if ants had nuclear weapons, they'd have nuked the earth several times over, but I still think it would be easier for a few hives to act in their self-interest than that many more individuals.

Well, I'd expect that areas where there is matter/antimatter annihilation would be of slightly lower density (if there are any nearby areas with less), because the photons would travel faster than the particles and so more leave than arrive, leaving less mass-energy. Basically, it would be hotter than areas with the matter and antimatter separated.

This link has a bit more description of the allegations against Assange, and some of the details. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1336291/Wikileaks-Julian-Assanges-2-night-stands-spark-worldwide-hunt.html#ixzz17PsSFVeE

I disagree with one of your details. There's far more renewable resources than there are non-renewable, at least in terms of energy. Consider the energy output of a Dysonsphere, for example, compared to the energy in all the coal we have ever used/will use.

Uh no. An atom has less mass than the protons and neutrons (and the electrons if you bother to keep track of those). At least for the lighter elements. The difference in mass is equal to the energy released by fusion via the equation E = mc^2. Past iron, the mass per protons and neutrons starts increasing again, and again this increase in mass can be used to calculate the energy released by fission.

Right, and infrared is a color like any other. For example, you could say that infrared is the color of carbon dioxide. Although at that point it's usually talked about as an absorption spectrum, since we can't really see infrared.

If you can make an experiment that would determine once and for all whether any particle is fundamental, I think you'd get yourself a Nobel prize. Whenever we checked, the result is that any substructure (if it exists at all) can't be detected by the experiment.

Photons of all types can heat just fine. The visible wavelength photons carry more energy per photon than do the infrared photons, so can heat more each. However, due to the distribution of light that gets emitted by hot objects, they emit comparatively brightly in infrared, and so the infrared portion carries a lot of the energy. Other than that, different colors of light may be absorbed differently by different color compounds. Since only absorbed light will heat an object, its color also matters.

Yeah, honey is rather like flavored sugar.