CaptainPanic

illuusio, if you have the derivation, can you post it here? We don't get it yet.

! Moderator Note Norbert, Your accusation that rigney dislikes Obama for racial reasons is based on nothing. rigney has said no such thing. We will not tolerate these kind of accusations on our forum. rigney, Don't be tempted to respond to this. Norbert acted against the rules and this has been dealt with. This bit of your political argument stops here and now.

! Moderator Note I see multiple people accusing each other of personal attacks. I don't care who started it, I don't care who should stop it. It stops now. Get back on topic.

I don't care that they put the wrong label on it. It's brilliant. It's a fantastic way to make people realize just how brilliant some classical music is. This kind of music stirs me emotionally a lot more than most pop music... we're being bombarded by junk, while this is out there too. btw, most flash mobs are quite organized with participants jumping in at the right moment, and not randomly.

illuusio, searching for double stars gives loads of hits, but all of them orbit each other, and thereby seem (to me) to have motion related to each other. A circlular motion around a common center of gravity, to be specific. If you suggest that something else is going on, please provide a link, because I cannot get it. Also, from your .pdf article, I do not know which link is the right one (and I am too lazy to try them all).

I am guessing your cans are mostly soda/beer cans? Please note that not all producers of beverages use aluminium. Some use steel. To test, get a magnet. Some will be magnetic, some won't. A large recycling plant will be able to (automatically) split those two, and it can also separate other (non-magnetic) metals from other waste (here's a wikipedia link about the process). It uses an Eddy Current Separator for that. To be honest, I think any attempts to melt it down to ingots at home will turn into a disappointment, because you won't be able to remove the other goo/sand/pebbles/insects/etc... In all fairness, you should just sell the bags to a recycling plant. A quick Google search suggests that the price for mixed scrap metal is about 100-200$/ton, but it depends how dirty your cans are if they will give you such money...

! Moderator Note Moontanman, The discussion that Pymander tried to start was shut down twice by mods. Don't start it again. Pymander, If you come back do not reply to Moontanman's question. If you two want to discuss it, do it in a separate thread.

If you take the physics major (or applied physics), then you'll get plenty of maths, I assure you. In fact, in your first year and possibly the 2nd, you will probably get more maths than physics. Physicists are among the best mathematicians on the planet. Maybe someone with a maths background can shine a light on the additional things that a mathematician can do, that a physicist cannot. I live in the Netherlands, and I am clueless about good universities in the states, other than the obvious famous ones.

! Moderator Note Ophiolite, sri_nav, I have edited sri_nav's post to fix the quotes. sri_nav, you have to copy-paste the . But don't worry about it. The most important is that you're answering the questions and that you're engaging in the discussion. Good job. Please pretend that this mod note was not written... Just carry on with the discussion.

There's no distinct number, it's a gradient. I think we're focussing far too much on small incidents, and far too little on the big picture.

! Moderator Note Pymander, You're still not making any serious contribution to the thread. You are just spamming us with something biblical because you feel it is underrepresented in comparioson to other religions. That is no good reason, it is off-topic, and it stops here and now. This is your last warning. Do not reply to this mod note.

Thanks for telling me which is the best choice of words to convey my point. Very helpful. The what-if-that-was-your-child-argument is a great way to counter statistics. If someone disargees spending fifty trillion on asteroid defense, you can destroy that person's argument by saying "what if your child was hit by an asteroid"? I think it is a fallacy. I have thus far argued that the Olympics is a large event, followed by billions. Therefore, it should deal with big significant events, that are significant to a relevant part of the viewers. The event in Munich is not. Not anymore. 60 seconds are enough to set the political agenda. 12 dead in a cinema are enough to possibly change the gun laws in the USA, even though there are gun-related incidents every day. Emotional stuff and media coverage matter a LOT. Because there is possibly no event covered as much as the Olympic opening ceremony, 60 seconds matter a lot. And that's why I am against 60 seconds of remembering terror victims at the Olympics.

We have clear rules about what belongs where. Here's a link to what goes into speculations. Censorship would be to delete it. We don't delete it. We don't suppress it. We just categorize it. Note that if you follow the rules of the Speculations forum, your average tinfoil hat junk does not belong there. It might at first end up there by accident (or because we're a friendly bunch of mods), but we have a trashcan for the really bad stuff. Thank you for your suggestion.

When? Now, in a few years, or in 50-100 years (in other words, are we talking real stuff or sci-fi)? Right now you have, Soyuz, Arianespace and SpaceX - and possible one or two more that I overlook. Here's a list of the costs of these systems (expressed in $/lbs in orbit). It's from 2002, but still quite relevant. For propulsion once you're in space, I guess the boys at ESA or NASA might know. I guess an ion thruster is the most efficient. My advice: don't do this alone.

Be so decent as to at least link to it. Right now, this is meaningless. Also, if this is an SFN blog, you can actually reply on the blog website (comments).

The underlying reason is that I've just about had enough with this poor excuse to invade countries, limit my freedom, censor information and the internet and invade my privacy. Terrorism is not significant enough to change the whole bloody world, but it does. And you guys aren't helping by demanding it be remembered forever.

! Moderator Note rwjefferson, It is mandatory that you make some sense on our forum. Please check our etiquette guide for more information, especially the bit under "Be Coherent".

Everything about the human brain that we haven't defined by science yet? Here's a youtube movie (TED) about oxytocin, which is a chemical in our brains which influences trust, morality. It shows that we have defined quite a lot already.

I totally fail to understand everybody's fascination with terror. Terror is insignificant. The only reason it is significant is that people like those replying here give it significance. Yes, I actually accuse you of making terror successful (but you're not alone - a majority of the people do this, helped by the media). Did you guys know that annually in the UK alone more than 4,000 kids die before the age of 5? I mean, if you wanna worry about something, there's your much bigger issue. Luckily, the organizers of the Olympics actually DID include a scene about children's healthcare (and children's literature) in the opening ceremony, and they made it lively. It was not a memorial for the dead, but a celebration for achievements of the modern age. I agree with that choice. Also they took a few seconds (no more) for the world wars. A poppy was visible for a very short time. It's not like the organizers of the olympics are an insensitive bunch of bastards. They just chose to not remember each and every dead person ever... and a couple of dead athletes in Munich just isn't the #1 priority anymore. They chose their priorities (and got it right), and there was no room for more memorials, or they'd risk to turn the celebration into a funeral.

Apart from the musical disaster, I think it's propaganda of the worst kind.

I don't think you should clean those ships from the inside. Either be able to deal with the water getting contaminated (run it through a waste water cleaning facility upon arrival, and pray that the refinery is not gonna be upset - the latter obviously being the major issue here), or install some giant bags on the inside to keep any water and oil separated. This technical issue must be solved (economically) or the plan is worthless. Spreading marine alien species is a big issue, however: you're taking fresh water on board. Dumping that in the ocean will kill most species contained in it, because they can't handle the salt. Still, this might leak into local rivers and lakes and this can cause a problem there. So, this water should only be used in isolated dry areas without local bodies of fresh water of any significance. A fish can't swim in the desert. Pumping costs are acceptable, because the alternative is to pump up water from deep down in some aquifer. If you want water, you'll need a pump. It's a significant cost factor, but I would assume it is roughly equal for all options. This plan should obviously have some economic benefits. If there is no money to be made, this won't fly. Someone is gonna have to pay money for that water. I'm sure that they can take it in practically for free in the Netherlands (we have excess anyway, the river flow is about 1500 metric tons per second in Rotterdam), so the costs of the water should only compensate the operational costs (including additional loading time) and some initial investments. Perhaps you can start loading water while still removing oil to reduce loading time. I wonder what would be cheaper in terms of energy spent per metric ton of water... a long pipe from Rotterdam to Saudi Arabia, or to transport it by ship. Oh, and here's a concrete location (just an idea). Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia is a large oil exporting port. Within 50 km, there are large irrigated fields. It completely lacks open water, so no worries about local water life. It's not at a particularly high altitude. And it might even allow local aquifers to recover. If only this is economically interesting. What would an Arab farmer pay for fresh water for irrigation?

On the short term, your plan does. Not mine. On the long term, I think spending it on some reservoirs of some sort, or trickle irrigation, is better. Don't be offended, please. You misunderstood the point of my post. I know you did not suggest to give only a few liters per hectare... the net result would be zero. It would evaporate before it reached even the first roots. I know you didn't propose that. It was just my way of saying that I think the whole plan is too little (and/or too late). I'll do another back-of-the-envelope calculation, assuming a more reasonable distribution, and a dirt cheap price. Let us assume that only 10 cm of water (100 liter/m2) will save the harvest for this season. Annual rainfall in Karnataka is 10x as much... so it's really a bare minimum... Let us furthermore assume that the trucks would have to drive only 10 km, to some nearby river with enough water. A tanker can hold 40 m3. It would consume 1 liter per 10 km, at 1 euro/liter fuelprice. That's 2 euro per 40 m3, or 5 cents per m3. Then you get 40 million m3 for your 2 million euro. That means you can irrigate 400 million m2, or 400 km2, which is only 0.2% of the land area of the state of Karnataka. To put it in a more simple way, irrigation water should never be transported by trucks... and I really think you might as well offer your money to the gods. I hope that, by choosing a best-case scenario, I have not insulted you. It seems we both agree that more sustainable options are better than either offerings or truck transport. For example, reservoirs or trickle irrigation can reduce the burden of agriculture on the waterlevels, thereby increasing the net agricultural yields. Hmm... fair point. I had overlooked that the definition of culture could include science. Replace "culture" by "entertainment", and my point is easier to defend (although the Romans had a point with their concept of bread and games). [edit] damn this thread went fast - I'll squeeze in a reply to this too. Water transport by ship - large tankers - is a LOT better. I have been playing with the idea to use empty oil tankers, and send them back to hot arid countries full of water. They're heading that way anyway, so that's definitely gonna be a bare minimum cost. For example from Rotterdam (wet country, large river with sweet water, lots of oil refineries) to Arab countries. Full of crude oil one way, full of water the other way. Not sure how this is gonna help Karnataka.

Iggy, not everybody realizes that currently, globally we have: 1.78 deaths per second 107 deaths per minute 6,390 deaths per hour 153,000 deaths per day 56.0 million deaths per year 3.9 billion deaths per average lifetime (70 years) (source) There are people who still think that 70 people is a lot. It's not. In the USA alone, there are 5.5 million people registered as "scientific, engineering or technical" (.pdf warning). Based on that, I would estimate that at least 100,000 of such people die every year of whatever cause. According to wikipedia, about 12 people per 100,000 die of suicide every year in the USA. So, from the statistics I would expect that in those 8 years as much as 96 scientists/engineers/technical people would have committed suicide. That's not yet counting the homicides and accidents. So, a conspiracy is born easily if you ignore the statistics. But the statistics say that there's nothing to see here, and we should all move along. My advice: don't count like "one, two, many".

With all respect for your plan, even if a cubic meter of water would just cost a euro (incl. transport, and some form of distribution on the land), that's just 2 million m3. On a land the size of the Karnataka state in India, (size: 191,976 km2), that is about 10 micrometer of water per area. And that's even before you remove a portion of the €2M for the Phi for All personal charity fund. Driving water into an area is the equivalent of giving a hungry man a fish. We all know it makes more sense to teach someone how to fish. Invest in something sustainable, or you might as well invest in the gods.

Eeh... what?