Dave

I suppose that's a matter of opinion - I don't really mind it to be honest. Plus, it keeps in check with the rest of the forum, since the thread symbol is displayed with every* thread listing. (*I haven't checked them all, so don't beat me if I'm wrong.)

What I'm describing isn't really a Technology forum, more of a science-based hobbyist forum (e.g. for posts like the rocket thread, many of YT's experiments, etc) of which there are quite a few around.

I think that would definately depend on the type of person we're talking about (i.e. whether they're motivated or just plain lazy). Plus, after a thousand years of doing nothing I'd be pretty bored. You'd need something to keep you occupied.

I personally like the idea of a mentoring system with a selected group of mentors. Not only do we get to awknowledge the value of these people, but we get to help others as well. However, it'd definately have to start out small, and we'd obviously need the people to agree because it would be using some proportion of their online time.

Quite; it'd just waste a lot of time. I don't really relish the prospect of having to do that We have to put in a reason for deletion anyway, and if I see a reason that seems a bit dubious, I just have a quick check (as I'm sure most of the mods do).

Yeah, I'd love some nice SFN goodies Maybe we need to poke blike more.

At the risk of sounding overly harsh, some of the people who contribute the most don't post a lot of posts, and some people who would be in that top-10 list probably don't contribute the most thought out posts (e.g. Tesseract et al)

We just condensed a load of forums down so it made it easier for people to decide where to put things. However, it's quite apparent that a lot of the hobby stuff gets posted on here, and most of it does end up in the Engineering section. Perhaps convert (as in, change the name) the engineering forum over to a Hobby Science Project-type forum?

I'm liking the new look, it's a lot cleaner than before. One thing I'd like would be the ability for us (the staff) to reward those who contribute a lot to the community, perhaps creating a new usergroup for them (with a little logo/coloured username/etc) so we can recognise their efforts. For example, swansont has done a lot for the physics stuff, and bloodhound/e)ch00n have both done a lot for the mathematics forums. Maybe even have a forum for this usergroup, although I'm not sure what would be discussed in it - perhaps forum issues, or if we did the entire mentoring thing it'd come in handy. Just a couple of thoughts.

they'll be like "omg rofl i was l33t teh n00bs!!!!!11112". Or similar.

Hmm, maybe we need a Geographical sciences forum at some point.

Brute forcing it by putting loads of numbers in?

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

Accordingly he was one of the most arrogant mathematicians of the time - partly because he had published so many papers, I assume. Probably Euler after some consideration, though.

No, I find it generally confusing.

Fair enough, I'm just pointing out that possibility for the reasonable long-term.

There are also more than a few ebooks you can buy on the subject. I prefer a hard copy though, much more productive.

I would assume that either that figure was incorrect or he has a rather large connection. 512kbits/sec only produces around about 60kb/sec in real terms.

Yeah, it's more complex than most people need, and the zone files are fun, but apart from that it's a nice bit of software and one of the most reliable you're likely to come across.

Yeah, but we're talking a couple billion years until that happens.

I love the rowing, it's rather nice. Shame Steve Redgrave isn't competing this year, but he's done pretty well for himself, with those 5 gold medals and all. Pole vault's amusing at times as well.

Plus there's a very real possibility of terraforming another planet in the Solar System. Science will save us all someday (touch wood)

Yes, it looks a heck of a lot better now. And thanks for the compliment Martin

I'd definately have lunch with either Euler or Gauss, can't really make up my mind.