Greg H.

You have already failed to demonstrate your claims on multiple occasions, so I am going to call you out on this early to save everyone here a lot of time. Prove it, or for the love of God, stop posting crap threads.

We'll end up with an affinity for plants that no one else can pronounce?

My wife is mildly claustrophobic - I can tell you from experience that having windows on the enclosed space doesn't help.

My guess is that you'll be waiting longer than a couple of days, given the Illusio has been suspended (again, IIRC)

The reason they swing out is pretty simple, and it's also the same reason that emergency doors on buildings are usually mandated by code to open outwards - if they swung in, people would get crushed against them trying to get them open by the panicky mob behind them in an emergency. By having them swing outwards, no one gets trapped against the door. That's neither here nor there when it comes to not having opening windows on aircraft. The idea is to have as few things that open into the pressure done as possible, because if any of those seals spring a leak, the whole plane has to be grounded and the leak found and fixed. Four doors is a lot easier to maintain than four doors and 40+ windows.

No, we just need to make political office volunteer positions. No paycheck, no fancy houses, no 6 month vacations. Make it more like the military. You show up, you serve your term, you thank the deity of your choice you survived.

He's making the same mistakes that G.W. did during his term - talking about things he has no knowledge of, and making himself sound like an ignorant ass. That seems to be the pattern with the Republican party now. What scares me is how many people vote for folks that obviously have no idea what they're talking about.

You might consider elaborating a little.

I can't really offer any better advice. Go see a medical professional for a proper diagnosis.

While I do know that you can put limited amounts of metal in a microwave (small piece of aluminum foil, for example, or for instance the left over rims of those microwavable soup cups (http://www.campbellsoup.com/Products/Microwavable/All/11669 for example) I'm not sure an entire box made of metal that your food goes inside would either work or be safe to use.

Mythbusters actually did an episode (Episode 104, 2008) that included a waving flag in a vacuum in a vacuum chamber, demonstrating exactly what StringJunky is talking about. When you twist the pole it looks like the flag is waving in a breeze, when it actuality, it's just the motion of the pole being transmitted through the cloth.

Well, here's some information to get you started - from the Wikipedia article on the car: So the question is then how much lift the car's body creates at that speed - if it's greater than the downward force then it would leave the ground. I'm not sure about the maths necessary, but I expect someone here can provide an equation.

That is the central point I was trying to make - you may see some efficiency improvements, but the cost may be so overwhelming that the rail industries will simply say "No." and walk out of the proposal. That aside, I agree that a simple(!) alternative is to simply move to higher speed rails like they have in Europe. I lived in Germany for a couple of years and I was impressed by two things - travelling by train didn't take all day, and the trains actually ran on time. In comparison, Amtrak is, frankly, embarrassing. Granted, Germany is much smaller than the US - but I think the basic ideas are there. Start with regional high speed rails, and gradually expand them to connect the regions together. But when it takes longer to ride a train to Chicago from St. Louis than it does to drive, and it costs as much as flying, why should I bother with the train at all?

Assuming I had no choice in the matter, I'd pick Wicca - it seems least likely to start invading my personal life at inopportune moments.

If you're planning to do this in the US, Canada, and/or Mexico, remember to factor in the cost of switching nearly the entire locomotive fleet off of diesel fuel to pure electric (they should have done this years ago anyway). You would also have to design specialized cars for those cargoes that cannot be shipped in a vacuum (livestock, for instance). The next big question is - would the efficiency gains outweigh a (relatively) simpler conversion, such as changing the trains over to a maglev configuration? (By simpler I mean you could continue to use existing rail infrastructure, with the appropriate updates, and existing rolling stock - again, with the appropriate updates, as well as existing capital facilities such as stations and servicing facilities).

No thanks, I'll pass. None of my friends would talk to me again if I passed on this drivel.

Ahh. Ok, I understand what you're getting at. Thank you for correcting my misconceptions.

If I understand what you mean here (the bolded part) this was actually the idea behind the compound steam engine. High pressure steam was used to drive one set of pistons, and the low pressure exhaust steam was used to drive a second set extracting yet more energy from the steam before it was finally released The second set of pistons, however, always produced less energy than the first set, because of the loss of energy into work from the first set.

Actually we lose most of our heat through our heads, if I remember my biology lessons correctly.

I thought it was amusing.

Socrates was not a troll, and his Socratic method was (IIRC) an answer to the Sophists of his time who often used cleverly ambiguous arguments to win their debates. He was trying to get people to start thinking critically about their opponents arguments - it's a shame he isn't alive now, maybe we'd have fewer sheep come election day. If he came to the forum (regardless of the section) and asked a direct question earnestly seeking information, then of course he's not a troll. If however, he (or anyone) came to any section of the forum and made grandiose claims that run against the grain of modern science while providing no supporting evidence, failing to address counterclaims and rebuttals by others, and in general making an ass of himself, then yes, he's a troll (or stupid - sometimes it's hard to tell the difference).

I don't mind the videos per se, but I hate slogging through a ten minute video trying to find the 30 seconds that the person posting it thought was relevant. If someone is going to post a video, it would be helpful if they at least posted a summary of the important parts that support their argument, along with a rough estimation of where in the video they are. For example See the linked video, around 1:35 where Dr. Fugensteinalgab clearly says that the moon is made of cheese and he has the studies to back it up. This lets the reader know where in the video the presumed support is, and gives a brief summary of what that support is supposed to be. It also gives us (the reader) an insight into how the poster of the video interpreted the video, which can help identify misconceptions about the science involved.

That's an incorrect assumption. It is possible to carry a disease and be asymptomatic for the disease itself. The lack of ethical thought in this idea is astounding.

Yet another presumptive conclusion on your part, I'm afraid. You should try this little thing we like to call "gathering evidence" before you make statements like that. You'll look less foolish in the long run.