CaptainPanic

It's just a matter of 'overdimensioning'. Make the system so large that it can cope with the 99% of all predictions regarding growth within a reasonable time. It's a very common principle in engineering. It's better to make stuff too strong, too large, too robust. At least it will survive if your predictions turn out wrong. Water supplies for such a small village are a matter of connecting to the main grid, if there is one. I would not connect to that little lake in the picture you showed. It's too small, and possibly stagnant water. The river is likely better, especially if it never dries up. Obstacles are no problem, because all you need is a pipe, which can go under ground. But your best option is ground water. Drill a well, and get the water from over 100 meters deep. That often requires very little treatment. Anyway, since we're dealing with such a small place, it's important to find out if the neighbors already have something. Google for "malaysia water company", or "malaysia water supply company", and you'll find some real companies. Perhaps it's worth it to send a short email to them?

I use my linux computer for browsing the internet, watching movies, playing a few games (I'm really not a hardcore gamer), and listening music. And it's the perfect OS for that. I haven't had problems in ages, and it's easy as anything. I can also burn CD/DVD's if I have to. I can upload my pictures from my camera. All plug-and-play. But I have seen threads and blogs claiming that GIMP is a real alternative for Photoshop, but it's not. It's decent though. Similarly, OpenOffice is not at the same level yet as the MSOffice. But it's possible to do some minor work with it... and it's free. So, as an office (company) computer, I would use Windows with MSOffice... For graphics I would probably buy a Mac, rather than Windows with photoshop, but whatever. But at home, for chilling out, my Ubuntu rules supreme.

yes sir!

I'll ask you some questions. The answers might point you in the direction that I think is the right one (if I understand your assignment well). 1. How do you draw water from a source? What do you need? What pieces of equipment? 2. How do you measure how much it is? Would you measure the absolute amount you have (m3), or rather the flow (m3/s)? 3. How do you treat relatively clean water? How can you upgrade it to drinking water? Is there more than 1 method? Why did you make the choice you made? Money? Ecology? Something else? 4. What's needed to distribute it? Pipes? How many? Can the amount of piping be minimized, while maximizing the distribution? 5. Would you need a storage or a buffer tank? First put all the major blocks in a row. Work them out individually... because in reality they are all connected, but still individual units in the supply. Of course, after working them out individually, it should connect. I.e. the flow of water coming out of one part must be the same size as the flow going into the next (because in reality it IS the same flow).

I agree. I will kick myself in the head for saying this (those empty post are really annoying), but I do agree that we should leave them. If it is not spam, and also not a bot, and if it is remotely science-related, then it should be allowed. Those silly posts might grow into decent contributions over time.

Oh well, I just wished to bring this up. I am glad to see that this idea has reached the mods. That's the purpose of the Suggestions, Comments and Support... so I consider this mission accomplished. Perhaps, as I mentioned earlier, the cure I proposed is worse than the disease. I think it's wise to leave that to those who remove all the spam. In the meantime, I will happily report any spam I encounter. Cheers.

You're now talking about patent trolls and companies that deliberately buy patents to make sure they do not get used. Yes, that is a very unfortunate outcome of a good idea. Initially patents were meant to protect inventors. Now it seems that the idea has gone over the top, and inventions with large possible impacts on our world actually do not get used. I completely agree that it's time we overhaul our global patent laws. It was not clear from your previous posts that you wished to discuss this.

It concerns me that this question is even asked. If you are drunk you are impaired and have no place behind the wheel of a car. Of course you should take a taxi. It's officially not allowed to even WALK home - driving a car never even crossed my mind. Technically, if you live just across the street, you're not allowed to walk home. The taxi must somehow pick you up inside the bar, and drop you off inside your house... And I should stress the word "inside", because it's not allowed to even cross the sidewalk to reach the taxi - if you cross those 2 meters of sidewalk, then you have been drunk in public (for 2 meters, on foot, going to your taxi). Obviously, it's also illegal for taxis to cross the sidewalk, or to be inside a bar, which is not a designated parking spot. I hope that you can see how ridiculous this law is? Have a look at these laws which are from your own country (I think I recall you're an Ozzie?). Play it by the rules? Or not? If you're really a hardliner, then I wish you good luck. I don't know how you can walk and never be on a right hand side of a sidewalk. Unless exceptions are allowed, you might get stuck when some shop has placed an advertisement on the sidewalk. The law then suggests you must take a detour and go around the block. Of course, you can just use the right hand side of the sidewalk for 1 meter. Should you get fined for that? And how many taxis have that mandatory bale of hay? This might even conflict with laws of hygiene. How are you even supposed to know about stupid laws like that?

The major problem that we have today is probably religious extremism to the point where people have chosen and made the decision to intentionally kill people, particularly those outside their faith, in order to protect their very own belief system which they consider very dear and sacred. Those questions, that people don’t ask, philosophical questions I presume you mean aren’t so popular nowadays among our youths because they never really go anywhere. I mean you can debate a variety of things but in the end people are just going to have to agree to disagree, everyone always sticks to the same stance at the end of debates and this just wastes time and doesn’t lead anyone anywhere. I am only posting this to express my own views however I am not trying to persuade anyone anything. I am glad that you include "our youths" as well as the religious extremism, which is often thought to exist only far far away. The thing is: we're often just as blind about our own society as religious extremists. Most people in free democratic countries fail to question their system. In some cases it's even considered unpatriotic. I'm not saying that the system itself is bad. It's probably the best in the world (that's my opinion). But that doesn't mean that you have to accept everything just like that. It can only be so free and good if people keep asking questions... and I really think that it's become less popular to be very critical about our own societies - and that automatically makes it a bit more fundamentalist/extremist. If a society is based on some rules that make sense, then asking questions cannot harm it. In other words: you can challenge those 10 commandments all you want. It's easy to defend those, because they make sense. If you challenge the establishment (those in power) you will get yourself into trouble... because of blasphemy, unpatriotic behavior, etc.

Who says we aren't using it all the time? Almost all our wealth is possible because of previous discoveries. We're constantly using it... but a few of us are also persuing more. Personally, being an engineer, I use knowledge, I do not create more of it. I just apply existing knowledge... and so do most of my colleagues.

You're correct that the molecular formula is Na2SiO3. I am still not so sure what you mean by "breaking it down to its molecular level". You mean you have to write down the molecular formula of the "ingredients"? We're not discussing any lab-experiments, are we?

Yo! LOL! Absolutely. Couldn't agree more. You're stating the obvious... so it's really hard to disagree. LOL! Anyway, it's really cool that all you kids like the air trecks. I hope some of you are learning some real engineering in the meantime. I really hope that some of you are doing calculations on the power requirements, battery life or torque - to name some random keywords... and not just being cool on the forums.

I think that the number of gaps in science approaches infinite, especially if you include gaps that we don't know of yet.

I meant to say that our DNA will change even if we don't like it to change. Humans are still part of evolution. There is still a selection going on today. It does not require DNA improvements by microbiologists to achieve this. Nature is well-capable of doing it too, given enough time.

Personally, I make a lot of use of the "View new content" button. Unfortunately, that also means that I notice all the spam, which I always report. Wouldn't it be a good idea to ask new members to wait a small number of posts before they can include a link, or 24 hrs? Or both? In other words, would it be an idea to disallow linking to any external website in the 1st post? This would possibly prevent a lot of spam, both from the professional spam bots and from people who just want to promote their blogs and have no interest in a discussion. In my opinion, the large majority of new members have a question that they are capable of explaining without the use of links... and it's often in the answers that external links are used by experienced members. In another way of putting it, I think that if you look at all the posts by new members (those with just 1 post), and make a sub-selection of all posts with links, then 99 out of 100 will be spam. I don't know if spammers have a way around this? They might deliberately screw up their own URL/link to dodge my proposed check. Of course we should consider whether the cure is worse than the disease... but although I still need more coffee, I see few disadvantages at this moment. Maybe someone else can point out the obvious.

Yeah, but will we still be humans? I'd be very surprised if our crappy DNA hadn't changed during the next 5 billion years. There's quite a lot of room for improvement.

Like with every system, the religions of the world started out as a very simple concept. Just a couple of basic rules ("you shall not kill", etc), which were probably indeed told by a popular person - i.e. a messiah of some kind. And that is fine. And then people in charge start adding more rules. And it becomes more expensive. And a more complex bureaucracy/government/college. And religion changes from being some simple rules in life to be a political entity in which people just don't ask difficult questions. And living a good life isn't good enough anymore. You now must actively support the religion, rather than those simple rules. And that is not fine. But this form of group-stupidity is not exclusively found in religions. Free democractic countries suffer from the same dilusions. The organisation is idolized to such an extent that people forget what the core-ideology actually stood for. ("Love your neighbors" suddenly no longer applies if the neighbors are of a different religion, or freedom is not important anymore if the country itself is claimed to be under attack from people who dislike freedom).

If the owner of a house asks you to take your shoes off, then you take them off. It's really simple. In many countries worldwide, from tropical to arctic countries, it's a very common practice to take the shoes off inside the house. It keeps the sand/mud/water/snow outside. Personally, I generally ask what the host expects me to do... shoes on or off. Your guest is unfair, not you.

Calculate the heat transfer coefficient, which means you must probably calculate the Nusselt number, and/or some other numbers. It's very different for turbulent or laminar flows, but since you have all the numbers you can decide yourself what applies. Then calculate the area. I normally do not approach it as a single equation, but if you really feel like it, you can integrate the whole lot into 1 equation. Also, if you already have the heat transfer coefficient, then you might just need this equation.

Stuff gets called pseudoscience because it's not properly based on observations and experiments that can be repeated. What you mean is that a number of people get frustrated because their fantastic ideas get refused by the scientific community, and they themselves just fail to understand why it's not accepted. I think that it is more a political issue than a scientific one. Former presidents occasionally have a very strong opinion that goes against the current. But in science, this is not so much the case... I really do not like the way you present the scientific world as deliberately keeping everybody dumb. There is no conspiracy by the scientists against the world. Maybe there are a few fields that have some gaps that are deliberately maintained. Certainly, if two groups of scientists have conflicting theories, they will fight and try to come out on top... which, I must add, is a healthy test for those theories. They will be scrutinized and mistakes will be found. And then finally, there are some fields which have relatively few real experts and lots of fans. Astronomy is an example... there is only a handful of people who studied it, but almost everybody has looked up to the stars... and therefore lots of people have an opinion. In astronomy there are some fields that are very conservative. For example, the discussion between some people who like the theory of the "electric universe", and the more traditional scientists. The articles that I read about it did not debunk the theory of the electric universe to a satisfactory level, and seemed to ignore some important things. I should immediately add that I am no expert. But you cannot expect that experts constantly debunk every theory that the laymen come up with. And if there is sufficient proof that the new theory has some merits, then I am confident that the scientific world will ultimately embrace it. So, if you really have a good theory, then you may have to fight for it, but you should get there eventually. What you seem to suggest is a very different approach: you seem to suggest that the agenda of the scientific world should be set by what you personally think is the best idea. But that's no how it works. It's certainly not a perfect system, and some ideas get ignored when they should instead be embraced... but it's by no means as bad as you seem to suggest.

I think that Schrödinger's hat just explained that the universe itself wouldn't be a big enough medium to do that.

Since this thread has no topic, I'll just throw in a short story by one of my favorite writers: Roald Dahl. It's called "Beware of the Dog". If somehow, below, this thread manages to get a topic, then mods can delete this post because I never even attempted to be on any topic.

We've already had 2 threads about this topic. So far, everybody loved the anime cartoon, but nobody built anything at all. It was only dreams. In 63 posts Please read the other threads (here and here), and check this post for practical info, and this is probably as good a description as you will ever get. Now, stop dreaming, and start building. Cartoons ≠ engineering

If the design is crappy, then indeed, heating is needed. But there are designs already in existance which are capable of maintaining a relatively constant temperature. Think of some hot-water reservoirs that work on solar energy. They are able to supply hot water in the middle of the night too. So, they should be capable of maintaining mere room temperature in a greenhouse on Mars. As I said before, you must keep the water in. And I think that we have to find actual water on Mars... making enough water is a bit of a nightmare.

It used to be the case that in such a situation, police-officers had the option to evaluate whether they had to give you a fine or not. Obviously, they would always stop you, and have a word. But their primary task was to educate the people (if necessary) and to keep the roads and all other public space safe. It meant that the police officer would evaluate the traffic situation; they draw the line... There are many laws where the police officers have to draw a line. Keeping distance from the car in front... no way to exactly measure that. Something called "reckless driving", it's not even quantified. In other words: the traffic police do these evaluations on a daily basis. Then why can't they do that with a cyclist ignoring stupid rules? Actually, yes. Traffic lights were designed to make it safer for traffic to cross. If it is already "safe enough", they have no purpose. And I refuse to stop because some inferior algorithm shines the wrong wavelength photons at me. And at least in the Netherlands, kids of merely 10 years old manage to get by on the streets, alone. At that age they actually obey all the rules, and listen to their parents. And by the time they are teens, and become reckless, they are experienced enough. The law is indeed the law. However, it is not always logical. Laws sometimes contradict. And in many cases, laws are completely unreasonable, and even downright insulting to anyone with an IQ higher than that of a dog. Laws are made by politicians who try to design a zero-risk society. One single incident, and politicians immediately start designing new laws to outlaw even more - so that the next time such an incident happens, they can point to the law and claim that they did their best. The resulting kindergarden-society just has to be taken with a grain of salt. For example, another traffic law: it's not allowed to be drunk in public. So, how the hell am I supposed to go home from the pub? Taxi? What if the pub is located in a pedestrials-only street? It's officially (by law) not even allowed to enter the taxi if it is in front of the door, because the 2 meters of sidewalk in between are "public space". Try to imagine the police taking this law literally, and fining/arresting every offender. At the same time, this rather subjective law enables the (experienced) police to arrest people who are annoyingly drunk. And "annoying" is so subjective that even the lawmakers didn't dare to put that in the text of the law... but it's pretty convenient that in practice it's applied like that. [/rant]