CaptainPanic

! Moderator Note Please note that this thread is from 2011. Not all the participants in the discussion are still active on our forum.

! Moderator Note Note to everybody: We have noticed that this discussion is becoming personal and even emotional. Calling someone a liar may be a statement of fact, but it will be perceived by the other party as insulting, and therefore we wish you to stop doing this. Similarly, calling people who eat meat murderers may be true in your eyes, but this is also seen as insulting by the other party. We (moderators) request that all people involved improve their quality of posting. All logical fallacies stop now, including the personal attacks and strawman arguments. Our only alternative will be to close the thread.

It's a typical Friday afternoon. I just cannot get my focus. I allow myself to get distracted all the time. The most urgent tasks are really boring, and the cool stuff isn't urgent at all... I don't want to do what is urgent, and I shouldn't be doing what I want to do... and I end up doing very little at all. I am working in a research environment, where individual researchers are allowed a lot of freedom. There is nobody who will check what I am doing - especially not on a Friday... As long as the projects are finished within their allocated time and budget, nobody complains. Still, I cannot escape the feeling that my productivity could be higher, if only I could give myself a kick in the ass. I am sure a couple of the regular characters here know what I mean (they're regulars here after all). What works well for me is to play music on my earphones, thus blocking some distractions from colleagues... but I always think it is a bit anti-social. I'm looking for other tips and tricks. What works for you, to keep you away from Facetube, Youbook or whatever distracts you?

If we're gonna post funny videos, and allow advertisements (casual Friday?), then allow me to post my favorite of this week too: Shaq finally gets his rematch with Aaron Carter. (Warning, this is also an advertisement for something).

Arete, I think the link you provided says that ants make up 15% of terrestrial animal biomass. The bit in italics is pretty necessary. I am not sure we can call ants "simple". . Totally worth your time. But go to about to see a true world wonder. A leaf cutter ant city. Because of documentaries like this, I respect ants. If they can build a functioning ventilation system which is the size of a small human house, then they must possess some kind of intelligence, even if we cannot measure it on the same scale as ours.

What's with the gentleman's dress code? They're still babies! I still don't know what looks more fake: the hat or the beak.

I am far more racist (as in: it matters which kind of arthropod): Mosquitos: I am worse than you. I hunt them. I will devote time to kill them. I wish the whole species extinct. Wasps: I just want them out of my immediate vicinity. I try to scare them away. If that fails, they die. But out of fear, not hate. Flies: I don't really care, but will murder them if I get a chance. Ants: outside the house I leave them alone. Inside the house, they die. Beetles: and other creepy crawlers of the garden: I hardly ever come across them, so why would I care? Butterflies: I like them, and will leave them alone. Spiders: I generally leave them alone, because they are hunters themselves, and (I hope) will eat mosquitos. I consider them my allies. My house is their house.

The following quote from one of Consistency's links is completely and utterly wrong: "Vitamins found in any real food are chemically and structurally different from those commonly found in ‘natural vitamin’ formulas." And unfortunately, I notice that many links make claims like this. The molecules, such as vitamins, have been subjected to many types of analyses to determine their exact structure, and there is no indication that they are any different when synthetic or natural. They are indeed chemically and structurally the same. It would make sense if the impurities in petroleum derived materials and plant derived materials would be different. For the non-chemists among us: everything in life, the universe and everything always contains impurities. It is not like this is a bad thing (impurity sounds bad). It is just always there. Separation processes are never 100%, and impurities are just a fact of life. And between petroleum and plants they are possibly different. This does not mean they are by always harmful when from petroleum.

No, it is through an area... like through a window. The material is passing through an area, to get into a volume. (And it might eventually also leave that volume again, but that is irrelevant). I am not familiar with the term (but them I am a chemical engineer, not 100% expert in this field). It could be "maintenance reactions". Maintenance is essentially a microorganism eating food, but not growing and not producing any product either. It's just maintaining its own body. It fits your description of no production... but I have never heard the word "demand" used in this context. It could also have something to do with electron donors and electron acceptors... at least then the word "demand" would make more sense, but it doesn't really seem to fit the rest of the description. Hope these two remarks can somehow put you on the right path. Also, there's a fair chance someone else will pass by this thread to enlighten you

A few comments: Why do you propose solar panels at the top of your post? You need lots of power for a relatively short period of time, so I would go with a battery or even a (super?)capacitor. I am confused how you arrive at all the values for the pumps / compressors. How do you calculate the weight of the pump? How do you calculate / find the pressure that the pump can generate? Care to either explain, or give a link (reference)? Without any references, it is difficult to check, but you seem to sound pretty optimistic.

! Moderator Note Consistency, This type of behavior is completely unacceptable on our forum. Arete points out major flaws in your arguments, and you dismiss that by saying that you will not waste any more time on answering that? This completely disrupts the scientific discussion that is taking place here. Your behavior breaks our forum rules (most importantly section 2.4, on logical fallacies and 2.8 on soapboxing). You were already suspended for thread hijacks, and insulting, but now you just completely dismiss posts that say you're using logical fallacies. You have a choice: either participate, and answer questions without using logical fallacies. Or be gone. Consider this your very last warning.

A twin star system of brown dwarves was found at only 6.5 lightyears away, meaning it is the 3rd closest star to our sun, after the Alpha Centauri system, and Bernard's Star. I think it's really exciting that such large bodies can still be found so close to our own solar system. What else is out there? Amazingly, someone has already made a wikipedia page on these brown dwarves... and I bet it will grow over the next couple of days. At the moment, it only has a bit of info on the type of brown drarves.

Yes and yes seems a good reply Here's a link to (Google books) a table that has the actual heat of combustion per CH2 of cyclopropane, cyclohexane, as well as a few more rings.

! Moderator Note I'm sorry if any of you think this is an interesting topic. I am closing all the threads opened by Ben Banana in the last couple of hours. Although this is a classic topic for our religion forum, all his other posts are pure spam. If anyone feels the need to continue the topic, please open a fresh thread, and introduce the topic a little bit better (please assume we cannot watch a youtube video, and just write it out). Thread closed.

! Moderator Note Ben Banana, We are assuming that you are either drunk or otherwise impaired to write a valuable contribution to our forum. Please improve the quality of your contributions once you've sobered up. This thread is closed.

! Moderator Note Although the opening post was an obvious attempt to troll, this thread seems to be developing in a proper way (good job guys). Still, Ben Banana, do not attempt to add any more troll-posts once you've sobered up.

! Moderator Note Ben Banana, We are assuming that you are either drunk or otherwise impaired to write a valuable contribution to our forum. Please improve the quality of your contributions. This thread is closed.

! Moderator Note Ben Banana, This thread is seen as trolling. Do not do this again. On the off chance that you meant to be serious, please explain better what you mean to say. Thread closed.

! Moderator Note The thread has never really had a clearly defined topic, and after brief discussion with the author of the first post, has been closed. Those who wish to discuss anything related are invited to open a new thread. Please make sure to clearly explain the topic of the thread again. All questions regarding notifications can be placed here. Thread closed.

In that case, would you mind if we just close the thread, and ask anyone else who would like to discuss anything related to open a new thread with a new scientific question or statement? (This is a question asked from a moderator point of view, even if it doesn't come in a big green or red banner).

To get into orbit, in a simplified way, you need to use fuel to gain two types of energy: kinetic energy and potential (gravitational) energy. If you calculate it, you will find that the need for kinetic energy is far greater than the potential energy. In addition, your mountain of 5000+ meter is just a fraction of the altitude required. So, in a nutshell, you're trying to save a fraction of a fraction... and the resulting savings in fuel just isn't worth the trouble of building a launchpad at an impractical location.

It is difficult to answer your question without having some figures for the expected concentrations of these components in exhaust gases. For example the CO sensor: it has a range of 10 - 1000 ppm. Under normal conditions, I would think this is the range you could expect from an exhaust, but if combustion is somehow incomplete, it could be a lot higher. I suggest you look up some typical car exhaust gas compositions in Google, and compare that to the ranges give in the data sheets of the sensors. Your HC sensor might be a little limited. It only seems to detect small alkanes and hydrogen. I am not sure what you can expect to find in an exhaust. I would hope that in a modern engine, concentrations of these components is near zero anyway. p.s. A bit off-topic... but I am amazed how cheap these things are!

Marie Curie. I could tell you why, but I could never do it any better than Dr. Sheldon Cooper.

The IT experts, like everyone else, are just members. They will step forward on their own choice. We cannot "arrange" it.

Entropy (or statistics, for that matter) doesn't really apply for systems with too few particles. InigoMontoya said essentially the same thing. Also, in the article, this piece of text summarizes it pretty well The original article doesn't seem to be very sensational. They also don't say that the 2nd law is "broken". That choice of words is entirely by jusconst (our OP). The original title is "Pushing the Second Law to the Limit". I am surprised that the thermodynamics teacher wouldn't believe it. I would expect a thermodynamics teacher to understand this article. To me, there is no conflict between theory and this experiment.