Mr Skeptic

That's also how I know that the Bible is true -- it is supported by a lot of well-regarded people, and also it says it's the Word of God and you can't get any more reliable than that! Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Incidentally, what do you suggest would have been a viable alternative for the flotilla?

It's called a loophole.

I think Green Xenon may actually be getting ahead of the rest of us. Eventually, we will be synthesizing our own food instead of killing poor innocent plants like the barbarians used to do. Before we can do that, we need to find out what ingredients will be good for us or necessary and which will be bad. Considering all the "info" about what is good/bad for you, this will be a monumental undertaking. I nominate Green Xenon as our first guinea pig.

"Empty" is a much harder word to define than one might think.

Yes all known life requires water, and this is necessarily so from our chemistry (see condensation and hydrolysis reactions). I'd consider intelligent robots life, and they would not require water.

To some extent. Mutations are random, so predictions need to be statistical in nature; you can't really predict a specific mutation in advance any more than you could, say, predict Joe's IQ from the average IQ of Americans. However, it is known that mutation rates vary between different genes, both because there is stronger error-correction on them and because if you mess up certain genes it means certain death. So yes, to some extent mutations can be predicted and I think some biologists even try to use it as a dating system (to guess at how long ago two lineages split, for example). Also, if you cause a point mutation that disables a very important (but not vital) gene in a bacteria, eventually you can expect that it will revert back. While the mutation that would revert the change may be as likely as a mutation anywhere else that might make it "worse", that particular mutation would cause a tremendous increase in fitness (fixing a broken important gene) and so if/when it does happen, the bacteria with it will have a tremendous selective advantage.

Oh oh, looks like I opened a new can of worms. Let's try to make this short, or it will have to be split. He's talking about the policy in general, as compared to laws against killing disabled non-combatants. He probably didn't catch the meaning of "hors de combat" which means outside the fight. I'd agree that killing a disabled person normally wouldn't be kosher, but if they are going to die anyways from multiple bullet wounds and due to the fact some of them want to die and can still be lethal if alive (suicide bombers), it seems like a bit of a different story. In any case, let me play the bolding game: Art. 2. In addition to the provisions which shall be implemented in peace-time, the present Convention shall apply to all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties, even if the state of war is not recognized by one of them. The Convention shall also apply to all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party, even if the said occupation meets with no armed resistance. Although one of the Powers in conflict may not be a party to the present Convention, the Powers who are parties thereto shall remain bound by it in their mutual relations. They shall furthermore be bound by the Convention in relation to the said Power, if the latter accepts and applies the provisions thereof. Art. 3. In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each Party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions: (1) Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria. Should we split this to a different thread?

Well, cancel out the terms and see what you get. On the other hand, can you figure out what the limit of the individual fractions would be, and then multiply them together?

Right, but that doesn't stop incompetent or malicious journalists from saying so, nor other silly people from repeating it.

As for the head shots, it seems that when the IDF kills someone they stay dead: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=51737 The IDF has a "confirm kill" policy where even after a person (who is considered a danger to the life of a soldier or other Israelis) is neutralised by several bullets, a final shot is fired into the head at close range to "confirm the kill".

Didn't you say earlier that 25 tons of cement had made it into Gaza? Was that since the start of the blockade, or the first shipment from this flotilla? Because I get the impression that allowing in the cement from the flotilla will far exceed any cement that had been allowed in previously. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged As for the socks, I suspect they were returned to the wrong person. Stealing socks seems like a really dumb thing to do. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged That doesn't seem like it would be legal. The use of lethal force is only supposed to be authorized if they resist being boarded, if I understand things correctly.

I think the belly flopper is going to kill you quicker. You get to crush your head (if it crushes at that speed), but if not, I expect the temporarily increased blood pressure will burst all your arteries. In any case, a belly flopper hurts even at swimming pool distance falls.

See, this is why quantifying is so important. It is much easier to see when something is wrong when it gives wrong predictions, instead of vague non-predictions.

Why not?

Find [math]\lim_{x\to\infty}\frac{f(x+2)}{f(x+1)}\frac{f(x+1)}{f(x)}\frac{f(x)}{f(x-1)}\frac{f(x-1)}{f(x-2)}[/math]

Gravity acts on neutral objects, and can't be shielded.

Yeah, be careful of the submit button. Sometimes they work a bit slow and pressing it more than once will likely cause trouble. This goes for pretty much all the submit buttons out there, although some places have their submit button disappear when pressed to avoid this problem. If you have a post that you are unsure if it was submitted, copy/paste it somewhere, and check to see if your post is where it should be.

You could try doing it in an icebath, with slow addition and stirring, and less concentrated sulfuric acid.

Because incest is much less common than adultery. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged What!? Where?

In addition to what Moontanman said, the fish's ventilation system may not work with air. Also, air actually has a lot more oxygen than water, for breathing purposes. The oxygen in H2O is essentially unusable, for animals at least. There is roughly 30 times as much oxygen in air as in water (depends on temperature and other conditions), and on top of that, the water is 1000 times more dense and 1000 times more viscous. Also gases diffuse much more quickly in air than in water.

This is backwards! I'd be all for a law prohibiting law enforcement or other officials from "confiscating" videos. Any confiscated video should not be destroyed (and if it is destroyed after being confiscated the cops involved may not testify on that case). Copies of any confiscated video should be publicly available even if the equipment remains confiscated, with the exception of very rare cases where there actually is a reason it needs to be kept secret. However, I'd be OK with a law requiring whoever makes a video of law enforcement send a copy to the officials in question (or make publicly available) the unedited footage if requested, before they do any edits. This as an extension of politeness and/or libel.

We don't know. Also, that hypothesis has zero or approximately zero predictive value (ie, it's untestable and unscientific).

For me, subtitles don't detract from a film much because they can be read almost instantly. Sometimes I find it difficult to understand what people are saying without the subtitles. Occasionally the subtitle itself can block important information, especially if it was added afterward. I've heard that speed readers sometimes have better recall of what they read then people just plodding along. Not sure if it was due to having less time to forget.

I've generally found that when someone proposing a new theory says that something is evidence of their new theory, it usually isn't. Even more often, it is impossible to tell whether it is evidence or in fact refutation of their theory, because they never bother to work out how strong the effect they predict would be numerically. Meanwhile, the accepted theory almost always gives the numerically accurate prediction.

When falling you want to present the greatest cross-section possible to increase drag and minimize terminal velocity. When hitting the water you want to minimize the cross section to minimize deceleration injuries (they say it's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the end). Normally, I'd dive head first with my hands in front, but at that speed I'd be afraid I might break my neck. So instead, I'd go feet first, with the feet in tip-toe position, and the legs crossed and tense to minimize the chance of my feet separating (doing the splits at terminal velocity would not be fun). I wonder how deep in the water you'd go? I've heard of one way of getting rid of people that some governments have done, is dump them from an airplane into a swamp. No funeral necessary.