120ThingsIn20Years

Thanks people. I new I could rely on this place . I know nothing of gas and fluids other than that which I discovered for myself playing in the bath. If anyone else has anything more to add please let me know. I want all the holes picked and re-picked. Even if it's just +1's, I'd really appreciate all of it. It's been a funny feeling not knowing why it shouldn't work even though I knew it couldn't.

Thanks for the feedback. I was under the impression that gases liked being spread out pretty much evenly within their container. Obviously, there would be some pressure difference between the top and the bottom of the tube taking the gas back to the top, but I would expect it to reflect the kind of difference you might see outside the tube. The fact that they are released under pressure feels like they should at least partly help themselves back to the top. I think thats why, even though compressors tend to be inefficient, refrigeration (via heat pump), is quite efficient. The the refrigerant only needs a slight difference in pressure or temperature to change from liquid to gas and back. I think. There's also extra friction in the length of the gas pipe, but there's nothing to say the tube cant be a mile in diameter and filled with almost liquid gas. thus not a lot of friction, and the thing is already full. I wish I paid more attention to all those people trying to teach me stuff over the years.

I was testing a method I've been working on for problem solving and was trying to test for "must fail" conditions. This is a bit tricky, because proving impossible always is. Unless of course it violates something like the conservation of energies. As a result I thought I'd run something stupid through the process I call "the invention engine" to test some new work I'd been doing to prove fail conditions. I ran an obvious must-fail choice - "Over unity generator" But I got this, my fraudulent over unity generator and have no Idea why it cant work. It's driving me nuts, because I feel I generally have a reasonable understanding of this kind of thing. Can anyone who knows this stuff, and is feeling generous, have a look and tell me where it falls over. I cant have an over unity machine sitting on my blog without knowing why it doesnt work. Especially when I invented it If I cant figure it out, I'll have to sell it to some U-fo space aliens or whoever it is that keeps buying the plans for all those cars that run on water

pretty please

Spin 1/2 , [stuff deleted] Hmmm... [stuff deleted] You seem to be torn between wanting to add a little more chlorine to the gene pool, and understanding that there are people who have just as much right to exist as you. I know there are people fitter, smarter, prettier, and healthier than both of us. I just hope its not them deciding who gets to keep swimming, and who doesn't. In spite of you seeming to come down on the side of "live and let live", there are some scary undertones. The act of deciding that intellectual capability is in some way a more worthy thing than say, being a baker, horse whisperer, homeless person, or piano tuner, is the danger. The tragedy is acting on it, the danger is in the thinking. Most of us think we have the balance between whimsy, thought, fashion etc just right. It's not by coincidence. I happen to think shoes are optional. Few people share my thoughts, and most people look down on me in a supermarket. But the reason they think they have the shoe balance right in their life isn't because of some universal value, it's for all the other social and practical reasons too numerous to number here. The reasons I think I have the shoe balance just right, are the same ones they would offer for me having the balance wrong. Reasons, or reason, and your ability to see it, don't necessarily define someone as superior, just perhaps comfortable. I'm pretty sure I could put a reasonable argument to you as to why you should stop wearing shoes. No doubt you could put up a reasonable argument as to why you shouldn't. But you might have to ignore, or at least appear to ignore, one of those reasonable arguments. If you,(thats you spin 1/2 not you the people) fail to see, or appear to see reason, you run the risk of low self esteem, and low reproductive value in your own eyes.

I like stuff. When typing, my most repeated mistake is to capitalise the word "idea". I love running down stairs. Fast as I can, so that I'm nearly in freefall. Try it. The secret is to only just touch each stair as lightly as you can. I'm new here, and tend to blog about things. I dont have a lot of formal education, and what I do have is 25 years old. I have a genuine thirst for knowledge. I'm trying to gain a new ability every 2 months for the next 20 years. I've never written graffiti, although I once marked a bus seat with a marker pen. After learning 120 things in 20 years, my plan is to reassess my situation. My first post here probably wasnt a demonstration of a forum social coup. My skills include being able to move slowly forward in time, and if I really concentrate, I can sometimes tell what I'm thinking. I like everything except yellow banana shaped confectionery that I suspect is made of chalk, bigots, anyone with too much dogma*, and tall people. I particularly like brandy snaps served with cream. My all time favourite bit of graffiti is "Everyone who isn't me is a(n) [insert an insult meaningful to you]" seen carved into a bench in my 5th year of school. You might already know me as Bullwinkle II. I enjoy lists. But I really like running down stairs.... and brandy snaps served with cream... Love those brandy snaps. For more information, see my profile... *as decided by me.

Sometimes the bits that make us as people and as societies are deemed junk, but turn out to be useful down the track. If I have say some junk DNA that was good to have around when I ate grass, there might come a time when it's a handy thing to have in the armoury. You never know when eating grass will make a big comeback, or being short sighted, or 2 foot tall, or whatever. I dont actually have an opinion on this, but I suspect keeping a lot of different tricks in your bag is a good idea as a species, even if perhaps it's not so good for a particular person who's doing all the groaning. I have an over active immune system that might have killed me in a different era or in a different country, no big deal in this one I'm lucky enough to live in, but perhaps there is some conceivable future where my slacker DNA might make me a super. +1 for my junk

I'm playing around with separating solid fish waste from water in my backyard aquaponics system. (Fish as livestock, grown for the plate, feeding vegetables via their waste in a closed loop as far as water goes. Inputs are fish feed pellets, air, sunlight, and a bit of water) Normally your fish waste goes into an inert growing media where you plant your veggies, but another method called Nutrient Film Technique (NFT) is one used a lot in hydroponics to grow lettuce etc in plastic gutters with nutrient rich water flowing 1 or 2 mm deep through the tubes. The lettuce grow in holes cut into the top of the tubes and are either suspended bare rooted, or in an inert media like gravel. If you have bought lettuce with roots still attached, that's probably how they were produced. The problem with using this system in aquaponics, is that the nutrient rich water also has solids in it. These solids collect in the roots, and block the NFT tubes. The method I'm playing with to separate them out is to use a swirl filter. Water is pumped into a container so that it creates a gentle whirl pool. Solids collect toward the centre. Then, in my case they are removed with a bell siphon*, and redirected back to a gravel filled grow bed, and the cleaner water is pulled from the top of the filter, at the top of the bell siphon's cycle, and for 10 seconds or so of every minute, sent to the NFT tubes. Other systems might expel the solids from the system to waste. (fouling rivers in the process) My question is, what's going on in my swirl filter? Is it just a case of the water being calmer in the centre, and allowing the heavy particles to settle out, or is there something else going on? Watching it, I get the feeling there is a change in the pressure at the outside vrs the centre, changing the relative weights of the poop and the water. It reminds me of the way a helium balloon behaves in a car. ie: moving to the right in a right hand corner, and rushing to the back under brakes. But I dont think water compresses enough for this to be the case. Anyone? All idle speculation, answers, or derisive laughter welcome. I have no formal science, so English rather than equations would be preferred, but Ill take what I can get * Bell siphon - click if it's not animated [edit from the future - what's a quastions? it seems I cant edit titles]

Thanks people, I was a little out of line there. I just read my junk mail box and there was a nice description saying where I could and couldn't post. Thanks for being civil in spite of that Censorship just freaks me out a little.

The fact that this is my first post, and engages with a censorship issue makes me wonder if I'll be welcome here. It's scary enough dropping in to a new community without having to learn new social rules. I spend several hours a week dropping into new communities as part of my ongoing endeavour to experience, but in this particular caste, how can I determine the areas to which I'm deemed unworthy to post? (no doubt there's a FAQ) I have first hand experience with the results of the Australian government's swapping leather bound National® transistor radios for men's fertility in a developing nation, but for some reason cant post to the thread concerning global population. The same thread has a threat from admin to pull the plug if someone fails to cease using a logical faux paux. I would have thought logic might have been a better argument for logic, rather than what ever you might call such a threat. I suspect logic can always be used to form a fallacy fordable argument. This is obviously a place where I want to hang out, but tell me where I'm allowed to sit without someone taking my chocolate milk. I've been through enough as it is. It's possible I'll turn out to be too interesting to sit at the kid's table, but obviously too foreign to sit with the grownups. Then what? Just squat in the corner on the welcome mat, dragged inside just for me? At least give me a glass of water to douse my burning book, in the hope that I might voice an opinion without getting crackling fingers, and rendering my barcode tattoo. - R.O. Shipman, Group Chaplain