CaptainPanic

In another post, you suggest that the ethics board is getting out of control, and that people are discussing at the wrong level. But now I read your opening post, and I am confused what you want to discuss. Do you want to discuss if there are situations where ethics can be thrown aside? Do you want to discuss if ethics can be thrown aside in the specific case of the Australian rabbits? Or do you want to discuss what would ethically be the best way to deal with the Australian rabbits? Those are three very different levels... the first one quite abstract, the last one quite practical. Please be more specific before we all get out of control again.

It's completely normal for an internet forum thread to slowly drift off-topic... and you have to be a bit tolerant with that. Many people post things that are sideways related. Or they treat the topic on a much more abstract level. Or they only deal with 1 aspect of the question. Especially when dealing with complicated issues such as ethics, which almost never have a straightforward answer, the discussion is likely to go off-topic. If you dislike that, you can always write a summary of all that's been said so far, and conclude that summary by re-stating the original question... Or, as swansont said, you can always report it. But be a little tolerant. We're having a forum where people of all nationalities, all ages and all professions can write something...

A simple organic solvent (such as methanol) will change the interactions of the chemical with the living aquatic life more than most surfactants. In fact, it might kill it. It will also increase the solubility of the oil in the water+methanol phase. I'm still confused a bit what you try to achieve actually. You seem to mix the concepts of "emulsion" and "solution"... but physically, these are very different things... The primary question is: can your algae consume the lipids from the liquid lipid phase (lipids are not dissolved)? Or should the lipids be dissolved in the aqueous phase? As I said before: these are two very different things. Increasing the solubility of the lipids is a completely different problem than increasing the emulsion stability.

I would write about paper making - it's literally the most persuasive paper you'll encounter in the field of engineering.

You're gonna need some (digital)books - or some other permanent sources of information. The web keeps changing, so I don't recommend that for a solid foundation. Also, the web just does not provide you with the continuity that you need to learn. The web is always a mixture of simple stuff and complicated stuff... and you might easily get sidetracked into things that are fun and interesting, but that don't give you that solid foundation that you really need to get first. Then you have to figure out the level you currently have, and start to improve it. I know of no practical way of doing that - but two things come to mind: 1. Take a number of actual tests - contact some highschool teacher to email you some old tests, or browse the internet. 2. Buy some books of different levels. If you understand it all, it's too simple. If you have no clue, it's too hard. Get somethign in between. But as for an actual name of a good book or good series of books - sorry, I don't know. I think however that the best idea is to enroll in an online class or even university. You actually become a student-at-a-distance, in a special online course. You pay tuition, you will receive study material, and you will make exams... and you will get a real diploma in the end.

Can I summarize this as: "I'd like to learn everything that schoolkids learn between 16 and 18, and then specialize in some direction"?? You do realize that children, youngsters, students, etc., do this full-time for a number of years with teachers to help them, right? I mean, you realize that you're basically committing yourself for the next decade if you do this on a parttime basis?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._J._Heinz_Company There you go. Why do you need everything a.s.a.p.? What weird project makes you do a literature study like this in a hurry? Many companies are very closed - it's hard to find out anything except those things that are public information by law.

!

What you're saying is that someone who makes the whole country rich will get a lot of votes at the next election (even if he ruins the democracy behind the backs of the people)? I guess I totally agree with you. It's a (nearly) universal desire to gain more material wealth... The lack of freedom only becomes important once you no longer like your government... When the government does not bring prosperity, or when the police state becomes oppressive. I would bet that Mubarak (Egypt's current president, about to be kicked out of office) would not be in trouble if Egypt's economy was growing like China's.

Students often (mistakenly) think that professors have any responsibility to help them with assignments if the assignment seems too difficult to the student. Instead, it's the students' responsibility to get help if they cannot handle the assignment. That means starting the assignment on time, and have some extra time for problems. You are learning more than just the science. You learn to organize, to plan, to cope with setbacks and unforseen problems, to deal with disappointments, to deal with nasty professors... etc, etc. I remember being a student. Typically, you start an assignment too late. You then have no time for any background work or questions (professors are only in office during office hours and you're making the assignment the evening before it's due)... and then cursing the professor for not spelling out exactly what he needs. Now, several years later I realize the value of those cursed assignments. The customers I get now at my work can be even worse, but I can handle it now. Anyway - bottom line about this presentation... I think everybody must give a bad presentation at some point in their lives (I know I have!) but you have learned some very valuable lessons in presenting: 1. If you do not know your topic inside out, the presentation will not go well. 2. You have the freedom to choose and avoid some topics... unless there are some people in the room who know more about it than you. 3. Nobody is responsible for your work, except you.

Of course, with some populism, or fear (or any other means to distract the population) you can have a democracy that doesn't care about the important issues in life... like freedom. But the most important thing in Egypt is to first get their democracy working again (fair elections)... then get free media... and after that, they can try to make sure that the elections are about the most important issues for the Egyptians.

I think that if the government gives up in Egypt, there is quite a big chance that they will get a real democracy. They already have a democracy, but the elections are (very likely to be) fake. But anyway, the concept of a democracy is known, and therefore implementation should be relatively straightforward. Whether they will get a real, functioning democracy - only time can tell. There are plenty of examples (worldwide) of democracies that changed from bad to good, and from good to bad. Germany had a functioning democracy before Hitler got to power. And the Ukraine, although a democracy, had a corrupt government before the peaceful orange revolution. In other words - it can always go two ways, in every country. The best they can do in Egypt is try.

I responded to this post: I definitely stepped outside of my own field of expertise here... but I'll describe what I meant to say: The post of ajb describes a reaction, and a reverse reaction. That always means that there is an equilibrium - which might however be completely at one side, completely at the other. Note that this says nothing about the rate (or frequency) of this reaction. It only deals with the relative frequencies of the two reactions. If the beta decay and inverse beta decay can both occur, then we have an equilibrium situation. That means that the hydrogen atom will exist for some time as a hydrogen atom, and for some time as a neutron. And it can theoretically go back and forth (although it might not happen too often). The question is then, do you call this "stable" if the hydrogen atom spends 99% of its lifetime as a hydrogen atom, but jumps back and forth several times... or is it unstable then? I realize that this is more relevant in chemisty than in nuclear physics.

RAM memory should be under the ctrl-alt-del Task Manager, under the "processes" tab (and then look at the bottom right corner for the total). Harddisk memory you can find by right-clicking on the harddisk icon (in "My Computer"), and choosing properties at the bottom. For the total harddisk memory of all disks combined, you have to add up all the harddisks and partitions manually.

(Going off-topic again)...Contrary to what some of my countrymen think, "Dutch" is absolutely not a "race". We're at best a nation or a culture. Historically, the Netherlands is a melting pot of a lot of different kinds of people... and it still is. Good luck with the lessons! Make sure to do a lot of practice (talking in Italian to someone who has the patience to talk slowly and translate things if you don't understand it). Don't be afraid to make mistakes... making mistakes is part of learning a language. You're likely to be making mistakes for the next several years to come... and that's perfectly ok. Remember that you will get a lot more credits/respect if you try to speak Italian with a lot of mistakes and a big accent than when you just talk English because you're afraid/embarrassed to make mistakes in Italian.

You try to make an emulsion, so the solubility is not very relevant. It only shows that there are lipids left to make an emulsion, because they do not dissolve. Well known microemulsions of lipids in water are: milk or mayonaise. Milk seems closer to what you try to achieve (just a little lipids, and quite a lot of water). So, I suggest that you investigate the stability of milk to get an idea. In case your emulsion has to be food grade: all the ingredients in milk are food-grade as well. It's quite unlikely that your particular lipids will actually form a stable microemulsion in normal water by only adjusting the pH. You probably need a few more additives (emulsifier). Here's a little text (wikipedia) on the stability of emulsions.

Since the reverse reactions also exists, there is an equilibrium situation. You can also ask yourself if water is stable. If you know that in any glass of water, billions of molecules of water dissociate into a hydronium and a hydroxide ion every microsecond, then it doesn't sound very stable... only the reverse reaction where water is formed again proceeds just as fast. Does that mean that water is stable? Call me pedantic, but in this case it's worth the effort to define the exact question first... and that might mean you even have to define "stable".

I'll go straight offtopic (sorry!) but how can you be 1/3rd Italian (instead of 1/2 or 1/4th)? Personally, I speak Dutch (native language), English, French and German. I learned all those in school... and I hated every minute of it. The system sucks (why learn to write when you need to speak??). However, now that I can express myself in different languages, I absolutely love it. I still suck at writing in French and German... but at least I can talk. As for which language you should choose: it's a difficult choice. I guess that it's important that you have someone to talk to in that language. That can be some friends for practicing, a job opportunity in another country or just a long holiday. Obviously, the closer you are to a country, the more likely you will visit it, and use their language.

You guys sure take a beating lately. First the floods (is the water gone already?) and now this cyclone, which will bring devastation and possibly more floods. I hope everybody is evacuated, because this sure sounds like it's gonna be very dangerous...

What about this fictional example: I like to whistle while I work. But I work in an open office environment, and I know for a fact that my whistling annoys other people. I therefore repress myself - and the goal is to please other people (or, more accurate: not to annoy other people). There is no rulebook that says I cannot whistle. It's not in my contract. It's no religious repression. It's just me, choosing not to whistle. There is always repression, for the simple reason that you will not always be exactly the same as another person... But in a liberal world, I believe that it is important that there is a mutual repression between people, give and take. Religion is just one set of rules to live by, but almost everyone has a set of rules. And you will probably find that the secular liberal people have a set of rules too. A true liberal accepts that other people might have other rules... because people have the freedom to choose their own set of rules. But at the same time, it is important that those other people also accept the liberal. And that's where the annoyance with the more fundamentalist religions comes from: the lack of acceptance that other people are different.

The steps to success (in my humble opinion) are: 1. Have a good message 2. Choose your audience 3. Choose the appropriate method to get your message to your audience. As far as I can see, you're jumping to step 3... but step 3 is dependent on the other two steps, so there is no good (or bad) answer to your question.

It looks like you write it in a hurry. I suggest you read your own blog posts a number of times, and that you make sure that there are at least no spelling, grammar or punctuation errors in it. You should also try to improve the structure of the text. In general, I struggle to understand what you want to tell me. That's partially because of the (lack of) structure in the sentences and (lack of) paragraphs, and partially because of a multitude of spelling, grammar and punctuation errors. The sentences don't start with a capital letter, and the sentences are difficult to read. The order in which you put your words confuses me. For example, the 2nd blog post starts with a sentence that I don't really understand even after reading it twice... And most importantly, I don't have a clue what you want to tell me. Personally, when I write a blog (it's not world-class, but I think it's better than yours), I probably read it 5 times before I leave it... I suggest you do the same. Also, I read it at least once after posting it (in the blog format, not in the editing box). There is an edit button if you find a mistake after you posted it. Also, you can look at some popular blogs - and study the structure in the paragraphs.

It's not proven beyond doubt that it is impossible - but until now, there is also no proof that it is possible.

In reaction to the OP: I always explained liberalism as a freedom of choice and an acceptance of other people being different, rather than the adoptation of a new set of habits, and thereby merely comforming to yet another group. This means that they will have casual sex, and talk openly about it if (1) they like to do so themselves and (2) the partner likes that as well. But both the liberal person and the partner don't necessary have to like this. It's the freedom to choose and accept what makes a liberal. As far as I'm concerned, a true liberal will actually conform to any set of rules (and change them too if necessary) - but because it is practical, not as a matter of principle. There is a very limited set of rules that almost everybody should conform with, and those are the basic human rights, constitutions and freedom itself.

I would suggest that an underground city is only useful if the volume of living space is a bottleneck at a certain location (I'm thinking of Manhattan for example where population density is really high). For most places on earth however, the bottleneck is not volume, but it's surface area (or sunlight, which scales with surface area). Only under the assumption that you have unlimited energy (future scenarios with nuclear fusion, or really clean fission) can volume become the limiting factor on earth.