CaptainPanic

You provide quite little information... but what happens if you turn off the screensaver or the power saver (i.e. you go into the control Panel (or wherever the screensaver and/or power saving settings are hidden), and you just say it doesn't turn on at all. I'm assuming that your computer isn't doing much else when you're gone, so that might be linked to the crash. At least this way you can doublecheck it, and narrow down the list of possible problems.

Yes. That kind of attitude might just as well support an economy. You believe it, but can you back it up with some numbers? Also, wouldn't that make Clinton responsible for the mortgage schemes rather than the immigrants who got a place to live? Watering down your argument doesn't make it less wrong. Ah, so now immigration "plays a role". Sure... immigration plays a role. It would be hard to deny that. But earlier in this thread, you made them responsible ... and that's not the same. That was a fallacy. There still are a couple of fallacies left (one of the biggest coming up right here). But that's not what you said. Earlier you linked the population growth to the bursting of the economic bubble... which is not necessarily true. While it is true that two individual bubbles will eventually burst, you claimed that the growth of one bubble would cause the bursting of another. In this latest point, you make two statements which are both true. And then you seem to suggest that this should prove your previous point... which it does not.

Wow!! You jump to a couple of conclusions based on that first remark. But is there any truth in the first sentence? Where I live, immigrants who come to do cheap labor (often East Europeans) share houses, and generally don't even have half the living space per person as the locals. Some even live on campings! Sure, they all dream to become rich eventually... but that's not what you wrote. Then you jump to another conclusion where you link the entire mortgage crisis to the government's housing programs... which is false. The crisis was caused by individuals who couldn't pay their mortgages anymore, and by the banks who wrongly evaluated these mortgages as not so risky and profitable, causing a bubble. It's sad that you use a series of fallacies (or lies?) to blame stuff on immigrants that isn't their fault at all. It's one thing to have different political ideas, but it's another altogether to use a fallacy to make a point. I'm afraid that I have reported this post, as it goes against forum rule #4, which explicitely forbids the use of fallacies. You seem to link population growth and fertility to a lot of problems. You're all over the forum on this topic. But, in fact there are plenty of examples of a booming economy going hand in hand with a booming population.

Immigrants: they either cost too much money because they're unemployed, or they steal all the jobs. It's difficult to do it right if you're an immigrant. Anyway... as iNow explained in his post, the costs of the social programs are a symptom of the current bad economy, not so much of the immigration. Immigrants actually come to the USA to build a future and get rich - not to sit in a small apartment getting a very marginal amount of money for free from the government. The majority would just get a job, if there were jobs. If the economy picks up, it is a good thing to have 'cheap labor'. In the 60's and 70's, European countries actively invited cheap laborers to come and work, and that gave a huge boost to the economy.

It does. There is one thing in particular that I would like to read some information (proof) about, namely this: I am not sure this is true... and I am not sure your reasoning is sound. I'll explain: Investment costs The reason coal is so cheap, is that we're using very old power stations which (because of their age) have zero depreciation. All they have is regular maintenance, which admittedly is higher than for new power stations. Still, it is cheaper to keep an old station running than to build a new one. Although I cannot quickly find a source for this: I think that the payback time (the period over which depreciation is counted) is significantly longer for a coal power station than for a wind turbine. Operating costs If you just compare the investment costs of the coal power station to the wind turbine, I can guarantee that the coal power station is cheaper. But wind power does not need 25 kg of coal for every GJ it produces. So, that is not really a fair comparison, is it? Total price Wind power has a clear price: The operating costs are quite small: only maintenance. For coal power, this is not so easy. First, we must take into account the investments. Then the price of coal. Then the subsidies on coal (yes, coal is subsidized, in Australia as well as in Europe!!). In fact, I think we should compensate both wind and coal to their real price... including new investments, operating costs, and no subsidies for both. It's a calculation which you will not often see. Quoted prices for coal always include the subsidy, while wind power is often quoted without. Other investments (backup and storage) In Australia, you already have electricity storage, so let's ignore that part. Europe also has a similar storage capacity btw, in the Alps and in Scandinavia. It's in the order of Gigawatts and the European grid is completely connected. Btw, coal also requires a backup, because a coal power station needs about 1 hour to change its power output. Just like with old steam locomotives, there is a lag between the input of more/less coal and the output of more/less electricity. Fluctuations are absorbed by other power stations.

Just google for the annual report of Elsevier. See page 2 (look at the page numbers, don't just scroll to the 2nd slide). It's a .pdf btw. Reported figures Revenue: 7,084 million euro Adjusted operating profit: 1,819 million euro Adjusted profit before tax: 1,496 million euro I do not know in detail what all those profits mean, but I do know it's not just peanuts. That's a serious business, with equally serious money, earned because all the scientists in the world do not get money.

It should always be for free. It's ridiculous that publishers get rich over the backs of the authors. It's a mafia practice, with a monopoly position for the large publishers and the position of a slave for the authors who get no money, and have to beg and hope... if you ask me.

Ok, I need to get 1 thing clear right now. Brainteaserfan has been promoting your point for a while in this thread, but Brainteaserfan did explicitely say that we "don't have to all get up at the same time, eat at the same time etc." (quoted from post #33). However, this is your thread. Are you perhaps saying that the entire world does things at the same time (i.e. we sleep, work, eat at roughly the same times everywhere)? Office hours worldwide would be synchronized? Or do you propose that we all have the same time on the clocks, but we let our days be governed by the sunlight like it has always been? We shouldn't be discussing two different things in a single thread. Although I oppose both ideas, I need different arguments to fight them. Oh, and btw, please be so kind as to expand your 'micro example' of having lunch at 1 A.M. into a 'macro example' explaining how you see work.

I fail to see the relevance of this. But I will reply anyway (I feel like replying). I had a business lunch today. I had agreed with my colleagues to meet in the restaurant right about when we're all starting to feel hungry. I arrived at noon, while some of my colleagues arrived only at 13.30 hrs. Alternatively, we can sync our stomachs. This means I should go to the meeting when I am really hungry, while my colleagues already depart when they are moderately hungry, that way we all arrive at the same time. You cannot run a society on a feeling.

My first sentence is maybe a bit cynical, and not very technical... but I am sure that coil guns will be built, and will have a market. Sadly, humans are always interested in new ways to kill each other. That said, you need capacitors to store your energy (the charge), because they can release it much faster than batteries. Here's a wikipedia page that says that you can store about 0.1 MJ/kg in electric double layer capacitors. Note that these are not your average household capacitors. And here's a list of .30-06 springfield cartridges which says (in the right side table at the bottom) that a bullet will have around 4000 J. So, capacitors of just 40 grams should be able to hold enough energy to shoot a single bullet. The only question I cannot answer is whether you can discharge it quickly enough, and whether you can build the electric system to control it. p.s. if you really plan to build this... please keep safety in mind. It will be just as violent as a normal gun!

First of all, I hope you'll still be fine after this thread. I really do not want to permanently change your diet... but at the same time, I do not see a solution for you. You will eat insects sometimes. Everybody does. First things we need to know: does it matter whether insects are dead or alive? Second of all: are we talking about insects only, or all little creepy crawlers, including spiders, worms, etc. I guess at least microorganisms are excluded? The problem is that the world's smallest insect is only 0.1 mm big. The smallest beetle (which is btw also an insect) is 0.3 mm big. The smallest anthropod is even smaller though: 85 micrometres (0.0033 in). Some plant parasites (eriophyid) are only about 100 micrometers. And the eggs of the common fruit fly are just 0.5 mm long. Life forms can be incredibly small! Life is everywhere. Food producers do their very best to keep your food clean and safe, but life really gets everywhere. The food producers can make sure that everything is dead... but they cannot guarantee that there are no whole insects. Obviously, certain types of food are practically guaranteed free of insects, because of the way it's produced. But I do not know how to guarantee that for fresh food. Unless you really search every bite you take with a microscope, I am not sure what method there is to guarantee that no whole insects are found in/on your food, while excluding dead and processed insects. You can't check for any chemicals if you specifically want to find the whole insects. It has to be a visual inspection, and as I just explained, that's pretty difficult. There are methods to make sure that nothing survives (for example, a homogenizer (essentially a super-blender) will destroy individual cells - that makes sure that not even the smallest insects will remain in 1 piece... but I am afraid that if you use this, you will drink protein shakes for the rest of your life, for breakfast, lunch and dinner). Maybe I exaggerate the problem. Anyway, wash your food. Good luck.

Cracked.com had a good and relevant article for this thread: 7 Scientific reasons zombie outbreak would fail (quickly). Bottom line is: Humans are way too good at killing things, and way too smart to let a zombie outbreak ever be successful. Also, zombies as shown in the movies (lurching, half-dead, dimwitted) are just not going to be able to successfully take over the world. Read the article.

I think you aim too high with your solution for your problem. If you would just say that North-America could adopt a single time zone, then you would not find so much resistance. There are already some examples in the world where such large time zones work: Central Europe (Central European Time zone, or CET) and China (which has only 1 time zone in the entire country). Also, note that the +3 time zone between Russia and Eastern Europe is completely missing (because we've made the time zones larger). The practical problems with the time zones become more obvious if you discuss it at such a smaller scale, while practical problems are easier to overcome. I guess you live in North-America, possibly in the USA? But to put the entire world into 1 time zone is like trying to cure a simple mild headache with open brain surgery. Edited to fix typos.

I guess in this case it matters where the landslide occurs, and in which direction the landslide moves. With a "normal" earthquake when the entire seabed moves up or down, the wave travels in all directions. Such a wave (caused by a 500 cubic kilometer landslide) would definitely reach the cost on the other side of the ocean, and cause devastation.

The surface of the earth is not relevant. The surface of the airplane, and the difference between the speed of the airplane and the air is the only thing that matters.

Not really true. If the electrons travel from one atom to another within the molecule, it's nearly impossible to "harvest" those in a chemical cell. And in normal electrochemistry, the processes are already optimized.

Nonsense. You pick 3 cases where you make the same mistake 3 times. You forget to mention which time zone. We can make it all 1 time zone, but instead of having different time zones, we would have different Office-Hours-zones, and different dinner-time-zones.... and we would be in exactly the same situation as now. ... unless we would all get up at the same time worldwide, and go to sleep at the same time... but then I want to live in the part of the world where we get up at sunrise, and go to sleep at sunset. You can live on the dark side. Where do you live? I'm in Europe, which is by definition already close to GMT / UTC. Americans will have to get up around what is now midnight, and work through the night. Chinese will have to get up in the afternoon and work well into the evening. And Europeans can get up at sunrise, and work during the day. Excellent idea. I have a funny feeling some Americans and Asians will object though.

First of all, I think we can all agree that humans are best awake during the day (when it's light), and asleep in the night (in the dark). Sunlight influences our bodies in multiple ways, and light is important to be healthy. Also, personally, I happen to like sunlight. It makes me happy. So, from that we (hopefully) can agree that despite our global economy, we're not all going to be in the office at the same time. Most people will want to be up during daylight. And therefore, I think it's convenient to have time zones. Now, I can just look at the time zones, and make an estimate when someone will be in office. If the whole world has 1 time zone, I am utterly clueless when someone far away will be in the office... We would still have maps like this one, saying that despite that we're in the same time zone, there is an offset for office hours. So, we would be in the same time zone, but we would all have different office hours. And that would mean that effectively we've progressed nothing at all. As John Cuthber already wrote: UTC already exists for important global systems that need 1 global time. And it happens to be (almost?) the same as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), which we also have chosen as the +0 hrs time zone. We can always adapt to new definitions (of almost everything!). It's just language. But what's the point? Edited to include links and fix typos.

For those who don't have a lot of time to spend on Youtube, could you please summarize what (according to the documentary) would cause the Mega Tsunami? Generally speaking, the one-hour documentaries of Discovery can easily be summarized into a couple of sentences. For the rest it's just repetition, silly special effects and unnecessary interviews... and some more repetition. According to this Discovery documentary (also youtube, I only checked part 1/5), a normal earthquake will just cause a wave of about 10 meters, along perhaps hundreds of kilometers. But that's a normal tsunami. What makes a Mega Tsunami so Mega?

I am not sure whether petrochemical components are suited for redox reactions. A couple of petrochemical components (methanol, hydrogen) can be used in a fuel cell. Anyway, the technology exists. It's just a matter of economics. You should remember that you cannot use petrochemical components to make electricity and still sell them as gasoline or other valuable products. If you put them into a fuel cell, you will in fact burn them, making CO2 and water, like always.

It can be because the reactants are already mixed, and just need time to react. Diffusion causes mixing. In some situations, this is sufficient. In large industrial reactors, sometimes mixing is achieved through other means than mixers. Turbulence can cause mixing too.

I don't think there is a fundamental limit... maybe the amount of power per kg that you can get from nuclear fusion?

Again, I am not convinced that this is any different in other countries in the world. Over the last years, in almost every country in the world, the gap between rich and poor has grown. But that's a different topic altogether. Probably best dealt with in another thread. My work here is done.

Ah, and there we have the core of our disagreement. I have said earlier that rich and poor should be compared worldwide. Compared to the rich west, everyone else is poor. If we take the rich western nations as the reference point, we can conclude the following: - All muslim countries are poor - All Asian countries are poor - All South-American countries are poor - Heck, all the world except us and a few small exceptions is poor Therefore, we can safely correlate "not being us" with "poverty". Still, it has nothing to do with Islam.

You need a more precise thermostat, I think. Also, make sure to mix the water bath, and also mix the flask or pot. The water temperature can change locally if you don't. Finally, if you slow down the heating rate (the speed with which you heat up or cool down) you will have more control. If you have your water bath on a heating plate, the moment you reach your temperature, the heating plate is still extremely hot. Although the power will shut down at that moment, the heating plate will still transfer heat into your system. If you have it on a lower power setting, it will transfer less heat into your system once it shuts down.