CaptainPanic

A part of the Theory of Forum mechanics mentions the phenomenon of Mod-member duality: Mod–member duality is a theory that proposes that some members exhibit the properties of not only moderators which have the power to ban, but also members, which add useful information to the site. The theory of General Creativity however says that they usually do so using the same account.

Heh, a petting zoo with crabs! That's a brilliant idea, actually. Very educational too. We can also make a TV show about the crab farm: Least Deadly Catch, where a bunch of lazy people fill up a basket with crabs and swear a lot, then go back to napping in the sun.

! Moderator Note ajb, Schneibster, You both engaged in a pointless bickering, and you both wrote several posts that were aimed only at continuing the bickering, and in which no additional information for the scientific discussion was offered. Please improve. Schneibster, you made some personal attacks that we do not appreciate on this forum. In addition, you make use of some vulgar language, and a particular condescending style of writing which suggests that at least part of your posts were not aimed at getting a scientific point across. I noticed that in the last few hours, you were engaged in another discussion that also required moderation. In both, you were rather insulting. You have been warned about the same in the past already. Since it seems that the OP has not returned to our forum for a long time, I think we can close this thread. Nobody wants to read what you both just created. Thread closed.

Would that search be any different than the other searches for objects in space? If SETI pick this up, wouldn't they be doing exactly the same as other astronomers, thereby doing double work? As far as I know, SETI search for intelligence by searching for pattern in particular signals. They're searching for broadcasts, basically. I'm sure that if astronomers discover a glowing ring around an object, or otherwise discover a weird object, they will publish this, and the media will pick it up and we'll read about it soon enough. What if your weight distribution on the ring is very assymetric? That would start to resemble a single object in orbit. Can you explain what causes the instability?

Anyone who saw the film must have noticed the reference to a particular game which was mentioned at 4.53 min. That's just because big corporations have the budget to make a video go viral.

What is the average life span of those? I seem to remember that some arthropods can get really old.

I disagree with your comment. Last week, the EU ruled in favor of net neutrality, which means all traffic on the internet is treated equally. The Netherlands has had such net neutrality for a while already. Also, with the new rules in the Netherlands, the government said it is up the copyrights holders to get violators to court. The government will take a passive role, and will not close anything. In fact, the Pirate bay (which is a torrent search engine, I believe) was closed for a while, after a lawsuit was won by one of the copyrights holders (i.e. music and film industry), but was recently opened again after the court ruled differently in a second court case. Also, one of the two parties in the government coalition is against the current developments, and want to reverse it, and make downloading legal again. I can only find a reference for that in Dutch though.

We're discussing a BSc student, possibly soon to be someone with a masters degree, not someone with 10 years of working experience. You cannot expect a student (BSc or MSc) to have a network outside their own university. While still a student, I would suggest that the students focus on getting good grades, and possibly doing some additional (voluntary) work at the university, possibly for a student council or something similar. It is perfectly fine if students do all the networking within their university. (That will actually be a valuable professional network at a later stage in anyone's career, as these will all be people in roughly the same field). But students shouldn't put too much focus on getting a network outside their university with the aim of finding a job. If there are opportunities to get noticed by a company/industry, take it. But such opportunities will come in the form of projects, courses or a thesis... probably not networking. Students at that level never attend conferences or workshops.

This is true. It would be a civil case... At least, the newspaper say that the government will not hunt for downloaders. But as in many other countries, there are well-organized institutions that have the sole purpose to hunt for people breaking the law. (As of yet, they claim to only hunt for the providers of illegal content: the download sites). Still, none of that changes the fact that I may sometimes break the law, without knowing it. And I am trying to find out if there is any way at all to know this before. But seeing how everyone avoids the actual question, there may not be one. Yes, I see your point. But that just means that there may be a way out if someone sues me. I want to avoid being sued in the first place.

Great. So far, nobody actually answered the question which I conveniently put in bold. Can we please get on topic? This is a very practical question. swansont, as I said before in the OP, I do not want to discuss individual examples. Fuzzwood, as I said before in the OP, I do not want to break the law (or find a way to avoid being caught). alkis3, although not explicitely excluded, the situation in Russia is not relevant, because as you say there is no distinction between legal and illegal content.

Exactly. And our law now says that if I watch that illegal content, I break the law. So, how the hell do I know if I am about to break the law? That is the question. (Again, let's not discuss the individual examples, because that will go on indefinitely, and we would avoid the actual question). Please people, stick to the topic. I clearly outlined my actual question.

Today, downloading from an illegal source is illegal in the Netherlands. Up until today, downloading of material was tolerated, and was compensated to the producers (musicians, studios, etc) through a tax. The EU overruled this, and that created the current situation. Let's not discuss this change, and just accept it as a fact. For me, and all other people living in the Netherlands with internet acces (that's nearly everybody), this is a huge change. Starting today, I can break the law by clicking on the wrong thing. Now, obviously, like in every other country where it already was illegal, it is nearly impossible for the government to catch and punish people violating the law. I don't want to learn how to avoid being caught. I want to be a good citizen, and not break the law. The main question of the thread: What is a fool-proof distinction between legal and illegal content? The obviously legal content: Youtube, popular paid video streaming/downloading sites (netflix, itunes, etc). The obviously illegal content: Blockbusters which currently play in the cinema. Live streams of big sports events. Downloading these without payment is obviously illegal. Some examples of the grey area in between: - Short videos of sports (goal of the week, dunk of the day, hole in one by so-and-so) are sometimes legal, but sometimes these videos disappear as they become popular, which means they were only online because the owner of these rights hadn't found it yet. - BBC documentaries: some are for sale on DVD (downloading probably illegal), and some are on youtube (downloading probably legal). - Illegal youtube content. Sometimes videos disappear from youtube because they were illegal. But I can watch them until they are removed, but that violates the law, I think. - Websites exist similar to Netflix which offer a big database of contents, and paid users get better access. Some are really dodgy though... But as the market for such things grows, how do I know if a newcomer is honest and legal, or illegal? And please, let's not debunk every example I give (I know some may be wrong). I want to know a fool-proof method to make the distinction myself... A huge list of individual examples is not a workable situation for me. Many of the SFN members live in countries where it has been illegal to download illegal content for a lot longer... How do you deal with this? I don't want to break the law, but I am confused what the law says... And I do not want to "be better safe than sorry", because that restricts me too much online

Some news came out about the possible orbit of "planet X". While the initial articles that I linked to (in the OP) suggested quite a wide range for the possible orbits of the unknown planet. New calculations, using a larger data set have narrowed down the possible orbits, and the orbits that are possible are rather far away.

If something is really crusty, it may be useful to use a vegetable oil (e.g. sunflower oil) to dissolve the non-polar components. The difference between this and petroleum spirit is that it won't evaporate quickly, giving the crusty gunk some time to dissolve (or the other way around: for the oil to go into that gunk and to make it more liquid). Another advantage is that it is quite likely that you already have this in your house, and it is not toxic at all.

I really hope this is some homework exercise that you do for highschool. Frankly, if you did not learn this in university, then I think the chance is very small that you will be able to design and operate such a process, but my biggest concern if you even try it would be safety. The most common process is achieved in two steps: steam reforming and methanol synthesis. There is plenty of information, and just googling for [methane methanol reformer] got me a lot of hits already. This one shows a nice process flow sheet on page 4. These processes are very large, because they are just not economical at small scale.

I doubt it. I've done chemical engineering, and we learned staggeringly little chemistry in the first 3 years. We learned solving mass and heat balances, and mass and heat transfer problems, as well as lots of thermodynamics. But to be sure, you really should just contact a university where they teach such a master. Only they know for sure. Perhaps I am too pessimistic...

I do not know the answers. But I'll give it a try anyway. 1. Perhaps milk aerosols are created, which - contrary to normal water - do not completely evaporate before you inhale it. The lipids and proteins will still be a particle (solid or liquid, I don't know). 2. There are 2 different effects: (2a) Certain components in the smoke will dissolve into water. So, as the smoke is in contact with water, when it is bubbled through, at the interface of the smoke and water, some components will enter the water. The effectiveness will depend on the size of the bubbles, and the height of water that they travel through. It's probably not very effective... but it is not possible for me to put a number on it. (2b) In addition, the water will cool the smoke down to room temperature, which causes some larger molecules to condense. Once in liquid form, these will stick to whatever solid or liquid surface they encounter... and they do that before hitting your lungs. 3. That very much depends. I'd start by first listing those components. Some may be water soluble. Some may be large molecules that you can condense / filter out. The separation (removal) method depends on the chemical. Other than not smoking (I had to say it), there is no easy way to prevent those chemicals getting in your lungs. You may need a number of different separation methods. But then again, of you remove all the smoke from the smoke, what's the point of smoking? Why not just smell something nice? 4. You could set some tires on fire. Recently in Kiev, they showed that you get really nice thick smoke. (Of course, I am joking, I just don't know). Finally, a warning: Be careful testing out new things by breathing it in. There is an obvious hazard here.

! Moderator Note vampares, The tone of your post seems to suggest that the person asking the question should have understood this already (the "Duh" is often used to point that out). But this is the Homework section where people are supposed to be learning, and asking questions is a vital part of learning. Also, if you are going to reply that things do not exist, please check this first (and if your favorite search engine does not suggest an alternative spelling, please make sure you get it right when you check it). Do not reply to this mod tip in the thread. If you have any problems with it, use the report function at the bottom of this post.

At the moment, algae are produced in roughly 2 types of 'reactors'. There are the open pond systems, which have low productivity, but which are technically easy to build, require little energy but may need a lot of water (losses are due to evaporation). And there are the closed systems, often tubular reactors, in which the insanely high productivities are achieved that sound so promising. However, these tubular reactors require a LOT of energy, to get CO2 in, and O2 out of the water, and to keep the water turbulent enough to rotate the algae into and out of the sun quickly. And I haven't read much about the cooling of these tubular systems, but I can imagine that they can get really hot on a warm day in a desert, so that's another issue which will cause additional expenses. The open pond systems just don't come near the promised high yields, and are therefore not that interesting (in my opinion). The closed systems are so expensive - both in terms of investment and operating costs - that they are not economical yet. When will they be economical? I think that it's safe to say that they won't be for another 5-10 years.

Recently, I watched a very interesting live streamed video conference (warning: 1h30min long!) about the 2nd confirmed Inner Oort cloud object (2012VP113), as well as a centaur (sort of dwarf planet) with rings. I want to discuss a detail about the Inner Oort cloud objects, and a speculation that came of that. The make a long story short: it seems that the 'Argument of perihelion' for distant objects clusters around 0 degrees. For those who don't know what that means (like me, 24 hrs ago), the argument of perihelion is the argument of periapsis for the specific case of the Sun (helion). This article in The Economist is able to explain it quite well in layman's terms: A graph of this effect is shown in the video conference, at around 26min, 25 sec. The graph was originally published in a Nature paper. That nature paper (you'll need to pay - I also didn't read it) that described the initial discovery suggests that this situation may be maintained (but not created) by a very distant planet of the size of Earth or bigger. Now, before anyone jumps up and shouts "but WISE proved it's not there!", in the video conference mentioned above, they also discuss the WISE observations, which limits the options for types and distances of "Planet X". I thought that this graph (below) is quite neat to explain what is possible, and what's pretty much been ruled out. At the same time, there don't seem to be too many alternative explainations. Anyone dare to take a shot? Note: I don't expect this thread to reach any conclusion, since even the experts say that there's too little data to reach any conclusion. I just thought it is too interesting not to post it here. Also, of course, I used a popular thread title to lure you all in. (My source for this picture is a blog, which probably found it somewhere else). Picture was also used in the video conference.

! Moderator Note We don't censor anything, we don't delete anything, and we're not afraid of new information on this website, unless this would violate our rules, which are no secret and can be checked by anyone. The rules do not mention anything about any particular topics being illegal, with the exception of those mentioned under section 2.3, such as drugs and dangerous chemicals (such as explosives). Sometimes however, we do close a thread. For example, when a member couldn't find something, and created a new thread to ask assistance to retrieve some information: we close that thread once the information was found. In other words, please continue your conversation in the other thread... this one is closed.

If you want to levitate your city some 5 centimeters above the ground, I think the magnets are quite feasible. If you want kilometers, then I think that you run into some practical problems. I recommend concrete or steel pillars. While it is not exactly flying, it is far more practical. The only realistic alternative is to get your city into orbit. Anyway, apart from the coolness factor (the 'science fiction factor'), I still fail to see the point.

! Moderator Note This member recently posted several other posts of the same nature (minimal text, link to the same website that was removed here), and we suspect that we're dealing with a spammer, and not a member who is interested in a scientific discussion. However, this suspicion only arose because of the more recent posts. Therefore, I decided to post a moderator note in this thread too. However, you are right that the moderator note is quite late, and I should have checked the date and made a remark about this. Thanks for the question, I can always improve. This wasn't my best moderation ever. Hope this clarifies things.

! Moderator Note Schneibster, This site is not denying or suppressing any information. However, we do not appreciate all the accusations and since it is unclear whether this thread is supposed to be about the posts of a professor in psychology, or about how SFN is moderating its forum, I am closing this thread. I have only removed the name of someone who isn't personally involved here. Don't bring your fights from elsewhere to our forum. Also, don't use any vulgar language here. Thread closed (but not deleted or suppressed).

! Moderator Note montrelblundell, Please read our forum rules, specifically section 2.7. Links, pictures and videos in posts should be relevant to the discussion, and members should be able to participate in the discussion without clicking any links or watching any videos. Next time, give us a proper introduction to get the topic going. Thanks.