Pleiades

Well for one, most domesticated animals have their reproduction regulated; take for example the pedigree dog. Secondly, while we are animals, we are also humans, and we have the responsibility to use our higher intellect to regulate our reproduction on a personal and global level. Thirdly, everything is regulated in its reproduction, its called natural selection. Natural selection won’t always work for humans however, mainly because we live such an un-natural lifestyle. The scheming, arrogant, greedy, ruthless, cunning, uncompassionate business man might have lots of money and therefore be a desirable mate (to some), but these are certainly not qualities that should be encouraged. Yes we must have compassion, but I did not suggest that we kill or sterilize anyone, only that we encourage the less desirable traits in humans, while encouraging the better traits. This can be done with compassion, for example we could give cash incentives for certain people not to reproduce; it is still their own choice. In the end, people should be able to regulate themselves; if they cannot support a child, or they have genetic disorders that will likely be passed on to offspring, they should be thinking about not having that child, or in the latter case, adoption. Which is why reproduction should be self regulated if possible, besides those were probably isolated cases of infanticide blown out of proportion to make China’s child limiting look bad. The solution to our overpopulation problem is to gently introduce reproductive control, for example; children in schools should be taught more about the consequences of unregulated reproduction. When the concept of reproductive control is more widely accepted then we can start using other, more effective methods. I also believe that every human should have the chance to be a parent, in the present they could easily adopt a child, in the future (like 100s of years in the future) perhaps the excess children of the genetically superior parents could be candidates for adoption. In any scenario, reproductive control should take into account not only genetics but also the environment in which the child would be raised. For example, we could put in place laws that require a certain income to be met before reproduction is allowed; if people really want that child, they will get the money from somewhere.

*Steps up onto his soapbox* *dons flameproof suit* All this stuff about people having the right to reproduce is stupid; rights are nothing but a fabrication of society usually imposed by a government. Why do we let a government control our rights? Because if we didn’t, society would revert to people fighting to determine who has the right to do something, which makes us no better than animals. The government should be a reflection for what is best for the human race, not the individual, if it were up to the individual, we would all be fighting each other to determine our ‘rights’. So, in the best interests of the human race, we should not only attempt to reduce the population, but also to ensure that the less desirable traits in humans are decreased, while the better traits encouraged. Random sterilization would serve only to decrease the population, not to increase the quality of the human race. So, don’t try to claim that eugenics, population limiting, or any other type of reproductive control is an infringement on people ‘rights’. Reproduction should be no more a right than driving a car, both can have disastrous consequences if left unregulated.

Oh, ok then, I wasn’t sure, so I thought I’d clarify my statement.

Well, it was just a side note, it’s just my opinion, and as I said, I’m not going to try arguing my stance on the soul issue. My first paragraph on when ‘human life’ begins seems logical enough and based on science. Feel free to ignore the one about souls.

I have a lot to say about eugenics, but ill save it for tomorrow. Wolfgang Mozart: The fact that you can research a topic and make an intelligent post about it in well written English is proof enough that you are worthy of reproduction. An average IQ is nothing to be ashamed of; the test is not perfect. Your trouble in school is by no means an indication of your genetic quality; many people do not function well in the usual school system. However, if you have a long family history of a very low intelligence, you might want to reconsider.

Human life is obviously special, but loosing a bit of skin doesn’t mean you have ended life of any significance. I think that a new human life begins when the two haploid reproductive cells combine chromosomes to become a new, unique cell. Where this puts clones, I’m not sure; perhaps the point is when the donor DNA starts making new, undifferentiated cells. On a side note, I don’t know if the new unique cell has a soul directly after conception, but I think it is given a chance to have one, either some point later in the life of the baby, or sometime after the death of the aborted cell…….Although I’m not sure what would be left after the cell has died to be given a soul, but oh well. It’s a religious point anyway, so I wont try and reason it out. I still think conception is an important point.

Well, since a circle im which time moves more slowly is impossible (at least from what i know), any explanation of what it would feel like is speculation. So where the force to push back comes from is a moot issue, as is what pushing the stick would feel like. Let me speculate: perhaps the stick would appear to be moving more quickly from inside the circle becasue time is moving slower there. Since the pushing force originates in 'normal' time, I imagine the properties (i.e. velocity) of the stick in 'slow' time would be governed by the properties it was given in 'normal' time. Thus the feeling of pushing the stick into the circle would be no differnt from pushing it anywhere else. If that makes any sense

oops, yes i meant megs, its edited now

If anyone has any HDDs smaller than 30 megs, they’re more valuable in a museum than your amateur experiments. Apparently you can find bars of magnesium in stores that sell camping supplies for use as ‘fire starters’, but I don’t know for sure cause we don’t have any stores like that here. I’ve never heard of anything called a "magnesium electrode for water boiler", and Google returns very few hits for things like "magnesium electrode".

Either impure magnesium wont burn, even under a mapp gas blowtorch, or my HDD is not magnesium. A shaving of pure magnesium burned like normal.

Now that IS weird. Tell me it was the weed sap that made the tobacco smoke sweet, I hope you weren’t smoking random weeds from you garden…….unless of course, this is a very specific ‘weed’

I was pretty sure it was magnetite, good to know I got it right, the past 2 popular science How2.O columns; July and August, have mentioned it. Now, I could make thermite if only I could find a good source of powdered aluminum, cause ball milling takes weeks.

I figured it was the body not the blade of those old cheapies. An HDD chassis is a part of a Hard Disk Drive, it holds the disks, the arm and the circuitry together. Hmm, I’m gonna go shave off a piece of my old Western Digital Caviar 21200 and try and burn it, its a whole 1281.9 MB, wow! I wonder if 1995 is old enough

The rectangular blades? I’d say no, I’ve seen them rust. Maybe if the sharpener has a metal body….. that could be magnesium. If you look inside an electric pencil sharpener you will find a metal cylinder with spiral grooves on it that does the cutting of the pencil, I suspect this would be the magnesium part. I’ve not seen this cylinder rust, but other than that, I have no idea.

I’m a bit late but lemme take a crack at it. Magnetite, Fe3O4, is a very common compound found in sand in many parts of the world. I was not aware that any of iron’s other compounds were very magnetic. Magnetite is a black solid that tends to come in little grains, apparently it contains both FeII and FeIII, so the acid/base analysis tests may give you some strange colored results. All this business of chloride confuses me; wouldn’t most iron compounds be displaced into iron chlorides when put in HCl?

Why not put a few drops of the solution on the filter paper (assuming you use filters) and let it dry, this might tell you if the copper salts are simply acting as catalysts and not doing funny business with you taste buds.

Pure ethanol (99%) can be used in normal gasoline burning cars with a simple modification to the engine. Mainly, the ethanol must be heated before it reaches the engine, this is easy and can be done using the engine’s excess heat; the modifications are minimal. The only other concern is the purity of the ethanol, it must be distilled several times, or be distilled in a high reflux still (meaning the ethanol is always boiling and re-condensing, only the purest remains as a gas long enough to reach the top of the still and be collected). Diesel engines can run on vegetable oils with a similar preheat modification. To run a diesel engine without modifications, the oil must be converted into biodiesel. This is a fairly simple process that can be preformed in a kitchen with little specialized industrial equipment. I won’t go into detail on how to make it, as this can be found elsewhere, but you only need 2 other chemicals besides the oil to convert it; sodium hydroxide (lye) and methanol (wood alcohol), or in a pinch ethanol. Wood alcohol can be made without advanced industry, but the lye I am unsure about. Emissions from biodiesel is about half that of normal diesel. However the pollution from biodiesel is not as harmful as petroleum based diesel because the carbon stays in the ‘carbon cycle’, no -more- is introduced, i.e. dug up from the ground where it has been sealed away. The carbon levels in the atmosphere therefore stay quite constant. As for the welding, I would use an electric arc welder, or perhaps a plasma welder, both of which need only electricity (possibly from a biodiesel burning generator) and an inert (with respect to metals) gas, like helium or argon. I’d stay away form hydrogen power; it only introduces more problems, like how to store it safely under high pressure. The only problem is solves is how to turn raw electricity in to a concentrated fuel that can be easily transported. Whew, sorry for the long post, but there were a lot of issues to be addressed.

Sorry to bring back a dead thread but I’ll give my 2 cents: Household bleach (sodium hypochlorite) breaks down very readily in sunlight, so just leave it out in the sun after the bleach has removed the ink and the bleach will stop bleaching the ink and paper. Be aware that bleach mostly works for water based inks such as those in fountain pens stamps and some felt tip markers, ink from the average ballpoint is oily and is unaffected by bleach, in which case you’d need to use some non-polar solvent like rubbing alcohol (which seems to remove permanent marker writing too) or one of the solvents listed above.

Canopus, for sure, because its the star Dune orbits around , that and it's one huge star. Sol is good too, but the sunburn is a pain. I don't think I need to mention the my favourite cluster.

Hi everyone, this is my first post here, and I hope this thread isn’t dead, but I thought I’d contribute my 2 cents. While browsing the plumbing section of the local hardware store I came across a bottle labeled “professional drain opener” the brand is Rooto. It feels heavy, indicating a high concentration, but I have yet to open it, and so I haven’t done any purity tests, but a google search revealed this brand is about 90% H2SO4 or 18M, just look for any bottles inside plastic bags in the plumbing section. It was $8.85 for 1 quart (.95 liters), if it’s anywhere near that expensive I’ll be surprised, since everything is overpriced here. Now, if I could find a nitric acid source…..