CaptainPanic

You're just ranting, aren't you? This is just one giant complaint, which, I guess, comes from some huge disappointment. I'm guessing you lost your job? Don't blame the technology sector. Blame the financial sector for this crisis.

No. No. I agree that we have no direct proof of the big bang itself. And we don't know what was before that, if anything. But we do know for certain that the universe expanded from a very small one into the one we have now. And that's a part of the big bang theory we can measure. We just don't know what caused it. So, if you would suggest that god caused the big bang, then that's as good as any other explanation. If you want to make up a story what happened before the big bang, and what caused it, then you are free to do so. As long as you realize that every other explanation is just as valid - and probably just as wrong. There is no way to be certain that time itself did not exist before the big bang. And there is also no way to say that there was a god.

So, you have re-invented the clock. You divided your circle into 24 hours, which are each divided into 60 minutes, so it's essentially the same as any regular clock. But, you need an incredibly thin line to point at only 1 minute, instead of multiple minutes at the same time. In your picture, is it 18, 19 or 20 past 0 (or 24)? I cannot see the difference. And why do you bother with the funny symbols? What's wrong with the regular numbers (1, 2, 3, 4, etc)? I've never seen your symbols before, and it looks like something that belongs in an Indiana Jones movie. What's so sacred about it? (And why would I care?)

The simple answer is Yes. You would be well qualified for that. Make sure to follow a few courses in biochemistry and biochemical process technology if you can. If not, I'm sure you'll pick it up soon enough. Equations might look slightly different, and molecules tend to be more complicated, but in the core, it is the same.

I disagree. We can build biochemical factories that produce reliably. We can predict the working of the microorganisms to such an extent that we can tell a customer to the day and hour when their order can be produced and delivered. So, we understand some micromechanisms, but we can also successfully blackbox the whole thing, and still get a reliable prediction. Even some complex ecosystem like a rainforest can be blackboxed and simplified so that we can make predictions... and getting more data will improve predictions. Physics and chemistry will always stick to the same rules of nature. Biology slowly changes as ecosystems evolve... But economics tries to describe human financial behavior. That changes so fast that by the time a model is developed, the boundary conditions of that model will have stopped to exist. So, yes, there is some point in studying economics... just like studying history can be useful. We can learn from history. But we cannot simply extrapolate our current society into the future solely based on historical facts. Unfortunately, economists who predict future trends do exactly that (if they aren't completely biased, and even ignore history altogether). I agree that not all economics is about predicting outcomes... but the economists that have the power all predict the future. I am talking about economists that advise governments, or those in the national banks, those in Moody's and other rating agencies, those in a company's board of directors. None of them are really interested in the past. They all gamble about the future.

You are focussing only on end-consumer technology. You are (for example) forgetting the technologies used in industry... Chemical processes in general have gone through a non-stop evolution of getting new, more efficient, cleaner, and better products. Multi-billion euro worth discoveries are common there. Take for example the strong fibre technologies like kevlar. Or take the composite material technologies. Or look at the gas cleaning technologies which make our cities liveable again. Or the drinking water technologies which means that water doesn't taste like chlorine anymore. Maybe you don't notice those, because you are neither their supplier or their consumer. But these things definitely affect the average guy on the street. I could extend this list into hundreds of examples, each worth billions. Yes, some jobs are becoming obsolete. So what? New specializations are emerging. And it's just a matter of getting proper education. I don't know in which economic hell hole you're living, but where I am (Netherlands), there is a shortage of scientists and engineers. You are talking about the technical world? And you're suggesting that technical people will be out of a job? In fact, it's the exact opposite. There is a shortage of scientists and engineers in this country. We import brains. If companies require someone's expertise for only a few months, then that job will be outsourced. It's completely normal - in fact, even common - to temporarily hire some engineer to fix a problem. There are companies which are like a "Rent-an-Engineer". Your view is just over-simplified. That's the first thing I agree with in your posts.

Well... I think that we have pretty much nailed down what inflation is. But we don't exactly know why it is. And certainly not where it's going to. Inflation is the increase of the average price level of pretty much everything. And that's being measured as you would expect: By looking at price levels of a lot of things, and taking a weighted average of their relative changes. But I do think you have some kind of a point (and I risk repeating myself). There are multiple theories on why inflation is... and in fact, there are probably multiple good answers as well as multiple wrong ones. And we cannot seem to agree on which one is correct. But it gets only really vague if we try to predict what the inflation will do in a few months from now... we're better at predicting the weather in 10 days from now than the inflation or the stock market.

If you are not of average length, the body mass index will give an error. To show the error, you should check out NBA basketball players. They are top athletes. But they somehow all get into the very dangerously fat category. The reason is that they are so tall. Weight scales with the 3rd power of length (like volume). The BMI only scales with the 2nd power of length. And that is just a really crappy fit.

Come on, make a little effort to write something more than 1 word. It's not the first time you write such a short reply... and although it's not against the rules, it kinda kills the conversation.

Then make it an elevator, or escalator. An escalator can stick out from the side. And with your sci-fi technology, you can easily imagine that it extends a few hundred meters away. Your problem is not how you are gonna get people to climb up to the city. It's what they do when they're waiting for that escalator. Your hover city will be creating hurricane winds away from the city. Not the ideal place to chill out and wait. I guess I would want to be dropped off by helicopter.

The simple solution is: If you want to get famous, but you're not after money for a specific invention: publish. Get it out in the open, with your name on it. Get it in a peer-reviewed journal. If you want to get rich, and you only have a single brilliant idea: patent. Check through a patent search if you are correct that nobody else thought of this before. If no, get a patent. And yes, a patent is expensive... but there exist investment funds that like to invest in high risk science. The better your idea, the better the deal you can strike with them. But it'd better be a good idea. With just a hypothesis, I would publish. A hypothesis is not gonna make you rich. And in all fairness, I don't think it's enough even to publish. You should test the hypothesis a few times if you can. And you should show why it's better than an existing hypothesis that describes the same phenomenon...

Econ 101? Which one from this list is "Econ 101"? (source: Wikipedia page on "Schools for economics"). 1 Ancient economic thought 2 Islamic economics 3 Scholasticism 4 Mercantilism 5 Physiocrats 6 Classical political economy 7 American (National) School 8 French liberal school 9 German historical school 10 English historical school 11 French historical school 12 Utopian economics 13 Marxian economics 14 State socialism 15 Ricardian socialism 16 Anarchist economics 17 Distributism 18 Institutional economics 19 New institutional economics 20 Neoclassical economics 21 Lausanne school 22 Austrian school 23 Stockholm school 24 Keynesian economics 25 Chicago school 26 Carnegie school 27 Neo-Ricardianism 28 Modern schools 29 Current heterodox schools 30 Other 20th century schools (And #30 splits up again into: ) Public Choice school Marxian (Marxist) and neo-Marxist economics Keynesian economics New Keynesian economics Post-Keynesian economics New classical macroeconomics Austrian School Neo-Ricardianism Chicago School Freiburg School School of Lausanne Stockholm school Institutional economics Evolutionary economics Constitutional economics Is there just 1 belief? Are there more beliefs? I think it's all a big guess. They have developed models that describe history quite well, but they all fail to describe the future. Every time that the world took a new step, they had to develop a new school of economics. That's not a science. And it's all equally worthless to predict even the economy of tomorrow. I will preach the School of Common Sense. And it's just as good as any. Sorry to push this thread so far towards schools of economics. Perhaps we should consider to split it off.

Teaching and doing research are two different things. The OP asked if they were paid for doing philosophy or science. [edit] oh, I think you were just responding to the comment of skanda - sorry At the same time, I admit that talking to students can give someone completely new insights. Their open minds can come up with some brilliant ideas. so, in such a way, teaching will lead to discoveries too.

I bet your daughters are happy they learned some cooking - there's nothing like a good meal every day. It's one of the biggest pleasures in life, and the skills of cooking are hugely underappreciated in this world, because you will not get rich from it - only really happy. There are multiple ways to get 'educated' in cooking. Parents are a good source of information. But fellow students or friends can be an inspiration too. And finally, you can learn to cook out of necessity. And recipes are just a google search away. In the Netherlands, all students who live in a student house will have a kitchen. They all know that cooking your own food will always be cheaper than anything, and cooking for more people will make a meal cheaper than cooking for yourself alone... So they will often eat together at home... and after a couple of years of that, they can all cook some basic things. Does the average American dorm (or whatever place a student lives in) have kitchens for the students? Will a college student who lives away from his/her parents learn to cook? Or is there a common dining room, with food prepared by whatever institution runs the place? I'm quite ignorant when it comes to US student housing, and US student eating habits.

I think you should state a preference. What type of programs/applications/models do you want to build? There are many languages and they don't have the same strengths. For example, I used to write a lot in Matlab, and that made it relatively easy to pick up a few other languages that use lots of math (i.e. ray tracing languages). But I am useless using C++, or even python and I don't really understand the concept of a compiler (never used it). Both those languages (matlab, povray) started with the smallest possible projects... something to give an instant result. Instant satisfaction. And that's the only thing that kept me motivated.

In those early days, I think it was the other way around. You had to be wealthy to have the time to do science/philosophy. Ordinary people (the large majority) were doing the ordinary jobs every day.

iNow, doG, When you take 1000 economists, and they predict 1000 truths, there are going to be a few who are spot on, and some who are horribly wrong... and you will also get all the opinions in between completely right and completely wrong. It's just a statistical distribution (perhaps a normal distribution - not sure). In retrospect, it is always easy to say that someone was right. If the majority of economists would have been right about the crisis, then I would still believe in them. But they weren't. A lucky few had it right. Not enough to make me believe they are anything but ordinary charlatans. Fortune tellers are about as trustworthy. Take a deck of cards. Ask 100 people to predict the next card. I would estimate (without bothing to do the statistics) that about 2 people will guess it right. Looking back at the event afterwards, you can say: "Those two were the fortune tellers - we should have listened to them!". And you'd be right... you should have listened, because they were right. But does that give you any guarantees for the future?

Good question... I guess that the hovercity would push the water down by an equal amount. If you have 3 bar of total (absolute) pressure under your city, then logically, it would displace water like a boat would. So, under the city it should push the water level down by 20 meters. But it wouldn't move the seabed so it would lift itself up. Still, something to keep in mind when near some shallow rocky shores. When I have some more time, I will look to find out how much the water is pushed down by a regular hovercraft. It should be a measureable amount.

Radiating heat and absorbing heat are (theoretically) the same principle, only in reverse. But... With a fire burning, you will get soot. And a radiator is an absolute nightmare to clean... in fact, I would say it is impossible to clean. So, yes, aluminium fins, or a radiator setup would work. But only for a little while until it's dirty. As mentioned before, dirt/soot/dust/ash will make the heat transfer worse (by a significant factor). A car radiator is almost like a filter... every little particle will attach to it. I really don't recommend it. My advice would be to use a geometry used in boilers. They tend to increase surface area by using more pipes, and a very limited amount of fins (as in the picture), or often no fins at all. Also, they often keep the pipes as straight as possible (until the end, where there is a relatively sharp 180 degree bend). Not only is that easier to fit into a furnace, but it's also easier to clean.

But the state is already controlling food supplies: Financially: trade barriers, subsidies Marketing: rules about packaging, commercials, and mandatory information Health: rules about expiration dates, additives, methods for testing So, what's wrong with moving the subsidies from one food group to another? Because that's all the OP seems to propose. And you choose to point at a duck, mention one characteristic of a duck, and conclude it's Donald. You choose one particular duck (named Stalin).

Luckily, I am a chemical engineer, with some experience in heat transfer. What happens in any heat transfer is that the warmer material has molecules that 'bounce', and 'wiggle' faster. That's what is means to be warmer at a molecular level. So, these hot molecules bounce into the colder material, and transfer some of their energy into the colder material. They lose some, the other material gains some. After colliding, they will bounce and wiggle slower, and the atoms in the copper pipe into which they crashed will move faster. The copper atoms will transfer their heat inwards onto other copper atoms, until the ones in contact with water transfer their energy into the water. So, a gas, which is very light, has fewer molecules and therefore conducts heat much worse than a solid or liquid. If you want to carry cargo across a river, it will go faster if you have more boats. Same with heat. More molecules generally means better heat transfer. In double glazing, they use air (or another gas) to insulate, because with so few molecules between the two windows, heat transfer will be terrible (and if you want to insulate, terrible is good). But if you have a convective flow ("wind"), that greatly improves the heat transfer, because although the density of molecules is still low, at least you replace the molecules that cooled down quickly with hot molecules. So, it's not as simple as knowing the material properties or density. Turbulence and convection matter a lot. The point I tried to make earlier is that a plasma (fire) and air both are low density. It's just that the plasma molecules will move faster, and have more energy to transfer. But it's still essentially a gas. It is still a very low density material. I maintain that what our OP is proposing is essentially a central heating system. It's just that he wants to burn wood instead of gas.

Is this a sort of godwin? What's your point? All authorities are like Stalin? Anyone who tells you what to do is like Stalin? All countries, all societies, both now and in history, have had rules. Maybe all of humanity is like Stalin? Making some rules is not necessarily a synonym for "killing millions of people".

Yup. Our experts are clueless. The voters are clueless. And as a whole, we iterate ourselves forward. There is no plan. And if it all goes horribly wrong, we change course in another random direction. That's democracy for you.

Isn't hot air or a flame practically the same, with only a few hundred degrees Celsius difference? Heat transfer is a little more complicated than saying that "air is an insulator". The heat transfer coefficient of air and air can differ by a factor 10 or more... depending only on the turbulence of the air, and nothing else!

Normally, the water gets heated by a gas flame in your central heating system, or by any other fire (wood, gas, oil, coal, garbage) in case of district heating. So, a hot gas heats water, which heats the air in your rooms. So in fact it is very similar to a central heating. But building a central heating system, which is essentially what we're trying here, is not as easy as it sounds.