CaptainPanic

I'm not sure I agree (but not sure I disagree either!). I think you're describing "experience", while the article in the 1st post described "focus" or "concentration". I would suggest that these are unrelated (or did I miss something crucial here)?

What Schrödinger's hat means is that we need a better explanation. What do you do, and what happens?

Most periodic tables use different colors to indicate the different groups of elements. The problem that any beginning student is facing is that the periodic table actually contains a LOT of information. Just study a lot - I promise it's worth it.

Define "need". You do not need all those features to get from A to B cheaply and efficiently. But you do need them for a whole range of emotional reasons (impress yourself with going fast, impress others) and comfort. People drive a big car everyday because maybe they have to move something large one day. Many people will argue that they "need" a big car for such reasons. (Please note that I agree with you actually - and I think that if people "want" it bad enough, they say they "need" it.)

In all fairness... it is you who is not being very helpful. You're expecting an awful lot from a forum full of volunteers. We're not contractors which you can just give some vague plan, and tell them to work it out for you. You have to give a much more specific idea, so that we can help with the details. We're not gonna spend some hours of time working out your question, while you're too lazy or too stressed to answer even simple questions such as 2 posts above.

If you're in such a hurry, then you'd better post a list of possible inputs (senses) and necessary outputs (the muscles). You're asking us to design a circuit (the brain), but we don't even know how many senses our robot has, or what muscles it requires. What senses does your bag need? What can you measure about the position or location of the bag (especially in relation to the owner)? How does it know where you are? And what 'muscles' does it need? What are the bare essentials that the bag must do? Think of it as a LEGO toy. What's the absolute minimum amount of engines or actuators that you need, and do you need to control those in an on/off way, or more smooth?

I think it's safe to say that everybody is wondering that, because we don't actually know why the big bang happened, or if there was anything that triggered it. We can calculate back how the universe was a fraction of a second after the big bang, but not what it was like exactly at the big bang. But, given the fact that so far only one big bang happend in the entire universe, in the last several billion years... chances (if possible at all) that one happens next to your window during your lifetime is absolutely negligible.

It'll work. It's a principle that is called "heat storage". The best thing to do is to look up "heat storage" in your phone book, or using Google. There may be companies that install this professionally. Those installations, while more expensive, will be a lot more efficient, and will avoid the next couple of dangers: - Make sure to have sufficient surface-exchange area in the drum for it to be efficient. - Also, does it ever freeze? If it does, you absolutely do not want the pipes to be exposed to the outside air (insulation is probably not enough). They will freeze, and then possibly break. - Obviously, you should pay a lot of attention to the new connections in your water supply. Do not let any contaminations get into them (especially not from that drum, which will eventually have contaminated water). You may also consider a solar boiler, which reduces your heating bill even more, because it is able to heat up water to temperatures well above ambient.

Electrical energy is transformed into mechanical energy. Mechanical energy is transformed into heat. The mechanical energy dissipates because the mechanical energy is turned into heat because of shear stress (because of viscosity). Just like when you rub your hands and they get warmer because of the friction, heat is also created when air is moving. (Note that it works a little different from rubbing your hands together... the 'friction' is not along a surface, like the palm of your hand, but in the entire volume of air).

What's a good example of that? Lentil, beans and sunflower are the examples. You can just go to the garden shop, and ask for 'lentil', or 'beans' or 'sunflower'.

The only way you can create jobs is if you spend your tax money wisely. Every dollar spent by the government must somehow generate more than that dollar for the economy. All basic infrastructure is a good example. A highway costs a billion... but all the transportation is essential, and enables the economy to make multiple billions. So, the real question is not how much tax you are gonna have - but what you spend it on.

Sorry not to help you at all, but if designing the circuit diagram is the assignment, then I think forum rules prevent us from saying how to make that circuit diagram. It's homework. I would suggest that you start off by working out the controls. That's entirely mathematical. Focus on the orientation... how does your bag figure out where you are? It probably needs two receivers to use two signals to calculate your position. How does it calculate where to go? How do you prevent it from hitting your own feet, because the bag is too close to you? Make a list of all the inputs it can get, and all the outputs that are required. Initially, that's all mathematical, and I think it is your assignment to figure this out. edit: you may want to look up controllers or control theory.

I would guess that if all the steel is replaced by composite materials, you can reduce the weight by 50%. Emphasis in the previous sentence on 'guess'.

States sell licences to companies for exploiting natural resources. They're called royalties. This wikipedia text describes it in a little more detail: And although I haven't looked it up for other resources, you can bet that the state get some money for the exploration of any natural resource - probably even for ordinary water, and maybe even for the use of land in general (for farming or anything else). So, yes, a LOT of federal income comes from the (indirect) sale of natural resources. The wikipedia site continues to explain that the old system (until 2002) was abused by industry, who consistently paid too little. It does not however seem to explain the current regulations. Also, it is incredibly difficult to find the exact income from this. For example, the Netherlands (the state treasury) has received over 211 billion euro for its gas. Unfortunately, the wikipedia site hasn't been translated into English, so I have to link to a Dutch one.

LOL Just in case someone takes that serious: The control test is that you drink on an empty stomach. I guarantee you that there are no 'diced carrots' then, so this is not true. And yes, when I was a student, I've been stupid enough to drink beer on an empty stomach a few times until I got sick.

Personally, I would wait with the fly traps and sensitive plants until the kid is a few years older. A fast growing plant or big flower (lentil, beans or sunflower) is impressive enough... and part of the experience now is that the child gets responsibility of the plant in the first place. When putting seeds in the ground and watering plants (and possibly getting incredibly dirty from all the sand, and soaking wet from the water) isn't interesting anymore, you can move on to more interesting plants. Personally, I still think that ordinary vegetables and herbs the most interesting plants, because you get to eat them at the end.

I would also suggest to contact universities and/or companies with labs, preferably in your local area. Contact individual scientists (and not the communication department). I guess most companies and universities will accept a Non Disclosure Agreement if you pay for the work. There aren't many individual scientists with access to labs for private use. We all work at companies/universities, and would probably have to involve the organization anyway (if work gets done at a university or company, the results belong to the university or company - and any NDA must therefore be signed with the university/company, not with the individual scientist). The tricky part is that ideally, you want to do business first (especially the NDA), and talk science later... but on order to find out if you are talking to the right scientist, you should talk science first, do business later. It's up to you to find your position between those two extremes.

What about the smell of a train that hits the brakes? The burning iron smell? Isn't that the smell of pure rust aerosols? It's quite a similar smell as an angle grinder cutting through metal. In both cases, there is a metal (probably steel), which is grinded and heated. (If this off-topic question gets more than 1 answer, it may be a good idea to split it off as a separate topic).

No, the forces have little to nothing to do with blood circulation. Only if the forces would be very extreme (i.e. more than 2-3 G for long periods, or more than 6-10 G for a short period) it would matter... but you cannot achieve such forces on a motorbike. You need a jet fighter or a stunt aircraft for that. You lose heat because of the heat transfer. As was mentioned by insane_alien, the only parameter that you can influence easily is the quality of the gloves, and perhaps the outside surface area of your hand/fingers (mittens is better than gloves, and a fist is better than an open hand). However, if you have gloves that are a little too small, you can prevent proper blood circulation. That can also have an effect. You need some blood circulation even if you have the thickest gloves in the world. Could it be that your grip on the throttle is too tight? I can imagine that you do not get good blood circulation if you have a really tight grip for a long time.

Apologize again. If it's a good friend, then I am sure you have other ways to reach him than Facebook? Say sorry again. Also, if it's a good friend, then I am sure he'll read the Facebook eventually, and reply. A single emotional angry moment should not be a problem among friends.

Hangover in the head (dehydration): drink water or anything else. Hangover in the stomach (puking and stuff): big breakfast including plenty of liquid (water or anything else), if you can keep it in... then straight back to bed for a 1 hour nap. I usually wake up feeling fine after that. If you can't keep breakfast in (i.e. it comes straight back out), something smoothe like yoghurt can help. If you can't even keep that in, you're screwed and you shouldn't drink so much. The cure against hangovers cannot involve "not drinking". That's like preventing speeding on highways by removing all engines from cars. Although it seems to solve the problem, somehow it's not what we meant.

2 kW equals about 2.7 horsepowers. Even ultralight aircraft usually have at least 15-20 hp (5-8 times as much!!). So, even for a small, single-person aircraft you need 5-8 plasma cutters for power. If you want a real aircraft, with real speeds, you're probably looking at 10 times as much. I'm not saying it cannot be done. I am only saying that you shouldn't underestimate the amount of power required for flight. And you will need really light batteries. Sneemaster, I really don't think that an electric engine and 'a little extra propellant' will get you into space. Please do some calculations. They say space starts at 100 km (already hard to achieve). But to achieve orbit, you need 200 km, and (the most important) a velocity of 8000 m/s (!!!). That's why rockets are so freaking huge.

The Pelamis wave energy converter (link to wikipedia, link to commercial site) can convert wave power to electricity. It's a big sea snake, which generate power when they are bended (picture). As usual with sustainable energy from waves, wind or solar, it needs to be pretty freakin' big to get any real energy from it. From this picture (source website), it seems Pelamis are on the right track.

I think it's better to say that uncertainty is reduced (or completely eliminated) by measuring something. And in the case of flipping a coin, a "measurement" is really simple: you just look whether it's heads of tails. No tools required, other than your own eyes.

Yes, you seem to understand me. It should be a matter of risk assessment. What are the (expected) odds that an asteroid hits us in the foreseeable future, and what would be the result of being hit? And that should then be compared to other risks (which have other odds and effects). And that will enable us to spend our money more efficiently. So, it might not be wise to spend billions on something that is extremely unlikely to happen. But it certainly is a good idea to make an objective analysis of it. You are absolutely right again. In a city of 300,000 people, 10 dead people in 1 day IS actually significant... and it should be local/regional news. But I do not understand why it would have to be national, or even world news. In the Netherlands, we read about murder cases in the USA. That's so unbelievably irrelevant. (We never read about China or India - probably because most Dutch media do understand English, but not Mandarin or Hindi). I guess that serial killers, and other types of news are just sensational. Just like the news that Paris Hilton has given a party (seriously, google for [paris hilton party] - I get 19 million hits). I really don't know why people think it's interesting. Also, I think that such objective news would be incredibly boring, and sensational news is exciting. But, like any manager, it's important to know the boring facts / news. A CEO of a big company cannot run the place efficiently if his only information is sensationalism. Similarly, a government cannot run a country based on sensationalism... but they seem to do it anyway. But please note that I am not saying that the media should prioritize (although I would say that they at least have to be independent, and not a government propaganda agency). It is the government who should prioritize! Unfortunately, we (everybody) listen to the media... and most of us cannot prioritize. And governments follow us, because of the elections...