Mr Skeptic

Nope, that won't work either because neither of those generate resources; at most they wiggle the time variable. Oh, so was assuming that each atom is equivalent to a human not enough for you? Did you want to have two humans being sustained by the resource provided by a single atom? Fine, but even so they still run out of resources. Nope, it won't work. Not unless you're advocating killing humans to recycle them, but that necessarily reduces the population and would be a form of population control. Remember, I assumed converting every atom into a human; there's not going to be anything left but humans to recycle. You were entirely unable to make your case, as you have not suggested even one possible technology that could even potentially overcome the resource limitation in the above problem. Feel free to try again though. In fact, the technologies you suggested were either neutral or worse than the ones I suggested.

What gives you that impression? Just for clarification, by "human life" are you including cancer cells as "human life"? Just because people use the words "human life" to mean people, doesn't mean that "people" is equivalent to "alive" + "human". Isn't that effectively an admission that your definition is faulty, but that you will stick with it because this particular instance of the fault is uncommon?

OK, how about this for taking into account technology: Assumptions: 1) Exponential growth of population, doubling every 50 years 2) Sophisticated mining technology; can mine all resources from every planet, star, asteroid, dust cloud, etc., so long as they can be reached. 3) Sophisticated transportation; can travel at 99.9999% speed of light. The ships are free. 4) Miniaturization, to the extreme that humans take up 1 atom (presumably we're computer-simulated humans, whatever works for you). 5) Any kind of atom works, even hydrogen, to make the human. 6) Energy not being a problem, with the caveat that we don't go using it to create matter from energy. 7) All the above technologies invented tomorrow. Conclusion: Humans run out of resources and cannot keep up the exponential growth. Now tell me, are these assumptions optimistic enough for you? Do you think we can do better than that? Which of these assumptions is so overly pessimistic that you say we don't take it into account? We still run out of resources for exponential growth. Proof: [math]Resources gained = \rho \frac{4}{3}\pi c^3t^3[/math], where rho is the density of space (eg in atoms per cubic meter). As a bonus, I'm assuming no expansion of spacetime, since it would just reduce the possible resources gained and make the equation more complex. [math]population = 7,000,000 \cdot 2^{t/50 years}[/math] As you can see, the population's equation is bigger than that of the resources (exponential vs cubic), it's only a matter of time before the resources equation can't compete. If you want a specific time frame, just fill in the density of space and solve for t when the two equations are equal. That's the time at which population growth has to stop, given the above assumptions. So tell me, what possible technology am I not taking into account?

http://www.ksdk.com/...223108&catid=71 Interesting. I wonder if someone intentionally helped with manufactured furor, or these were just side-effect of poorly informed but angry people who read about it and decided to get involved. I don't think that part of his job is being bigoted though. Certainly, its unreasonable to expect people to have no such feelings toward some group or another, but most people have the sense to keep it to themselves, so as not to spread it and also not embarrass themselves. Well, it's understandable that people can have such feelings, even when they should know it is irrational. Being irrational isn't even a necessary component of bigotry. But in this case, it also is an irrational fear -- terrorists don't go about distinguishing themselves, they usually dress up to blend in. Look at all those scary terrorists in their Muslim clothing with their turbans and beards so they can identify themselves first and foremost as Muslims. And arguing that what he said is true because he really is a bigot doesn't help his case. --- What scares me is religious extremists who received hundreds of millions of assistance from the US government. (Operation Cyclone) However, I can't distinguish them by sight so I can't really discriminate against them.

Sure, drink it and see if you get gas. If you do, it didn't work and deactivated your tablet along the way. As a bonus, you also get to check what the effect of the tablet is on the milk's flavor, and for that matter whether it dissolves at all.

Actually, Wikipedia has a very good article on them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railgun You'd be wise to get the basics down before trying to build one, and it also has a list of considerations for building one.

And I don't think anyone here actually thinks firing him was the right move. Some of us are pointing out that it's not a 1'st Ammendment issue, and it is well within the rights (legal and moral) of NPR to fire people who speak for them and say something they disagree with. But it's still a dumb move. Sure, and looking at the statement in context (what you provided and what I could find searching for it), it is a bigoted statement that promotes bigotry. Does it advocate bigotry? No. But public displays of bigotry are pretty much the only thing that promotes bigotry, and that's what Williams did. And it doesn't really matter if it's true; if someone on the air said something similar about Bush or Obama it could likewise be a firing offense, even if it truly was their own opinion. Like being told they are fat, some things even if true are best left unsaid. And it doesn't matter whether he's bigoted against black people or not; you only have to be bigoted against one people group to be a bigot.

Well, that's something that our more militant Christians would do well to consider before they go bemoaning the separation of church and state. In our country, our secular laws trump the religious ones, so I'm really not worried.

Yeah, now he can't talk write or otherwise communicate, how sad.

If you think about it, what you are building is a big drop on the penny held there by surface tension, out of little drops who's size depends somewhat on surface tension. I think you should put the water on via a pipette or a syringe, so that you measure the volume not number of drops. Alternately, put a little soap on the other penny, and add pure water to both.

Well it would split the party, losing them lots of votes. Sucks to be them, IMO. The two party system is already protected by law (indirectly), as jackson33 mentioned.

Most muslim countries don't use stoning anymore. The actions of a few violent minority groups can't be taken as the actions of the majority either. It would be like branding all Christians because some of them blow up abortion clinics. In any case, stoning to death is the traditional punishment in the Bible for adultery, and according to this website not actually mentioned in the Qur'an. http://www.religioustolerance.org/isl_adul2.htm According to this site, tribal customs in Pakistan are sometimes followed under the guise of Shari'a law. http://www.euro-islam.info/key-issues/islamic-law/

Yeah, and it would help to know whether you're wanting a membrane protein or a cytoplasmic protein.

You're right. This even beats the previous record low in the 2006 primaries, and you saw how the Democrats got trounced in the 2008 election. Also, I like how the article totally puts the lie to your claim that the country is mostly conservative: When turnout for an election increases, it favors the Democrats and when it decreases it favors the Republicans. So which party is liked by the majority of the population?

Things that are/were verified by science are useful, even if not entirely true. Newtonian mechanics, for example.

It might work. It's also a question of pH in addition to temperature. Colder temperatures won't harm an enzyme, but they can drastically slow down its activity. However, if your pill is intended to get the lactase past your stomach and to your small intestine, then crushing the pill will probably ruin that. I suppose its an easy enough experiment to do though.

Its just the same as 2 10's become 100, 3 10's become 1,000, etc.

Not really. Then again, it's not all that fast in trees either.

Some reactions naturally yield two products, and if you only wanted one the other is an impurity. You can, of course, purify your product, so long as there is some sort of difference you can exploit. Without knowing what your reaction is I can't really help. It's probably a base catalyzed reaction though.

The second one. The first one would be a perpetual motion machine, which never work.

If your glass is full enough, then the water will travel far enough along the paper to act as a siphon, I think. For that you'd need to hang the paper over the edge of the glass and the water needs to reach all the way up over the edge and back down to water level on the other side. If it does, it should act as a siphon, but rather than suction due to the tubes it will be like pulling due to the water's surface tension. It'll be slower than a siphon though.

Ok, Bin Laden is not a total retard, he knew that we'd be after him starting on 9/11, and he planned for that. What exactly he planned I can't say, but just to give an example: Store up 20 years worth of non-perishable food and water in some remote cave, and go hide there before 9/11 (since he himself isn't doing that part), and people can search for him all they want, they'd never find him. Doesn't have to be a cave, it could also be a remote enough wilderness, just that would be more risky. Done properly, it doesn't really matter who wants to find him, they won't. Of course he was a little less cowardly than that, but even communication is fairly safe so long as you have one trustworthy person who isn't under investigation. So how could he be found, would you think? Do you think he's just sitting in some mosque somewhere and a bunch of muslims know where he is but just don't care for a million dollar reward?

Well Americans need about 12 hectares each for sustainable living, if that helps any.

Well, you could read about what people have to say about its safety: http://en.wikipedia...._dioxide#Safety And the Material Safety Data Sheet too: http://www.haloxtech...2%29-540ppm.pdf --- 333, please do go breath a little of it or inject yourself with a very small quantity of it, so you know how nasty it is and stop trying to convince people to kill themselves.

Or if you want an experiment to do to, flip a coin 10 times, writing down a row of H or T for heads or tails. Then do it again, writing the second row under the first. On average, half the flips will match, but sometimes they will match more and sometimes less. This is analogous to the genetics as described by Demosthenes.