Baby Astronaut

That can get fairly gross on any computer. <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN5ifyYWHgQ&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN5ifyYWHgQ&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVPDpov5LsM&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVPDpov5LsM&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

I watched the vid before posting. To answer both you, the vid had no particular statements to refute except just its main premise. Well that and I disagree with the overall assumed simplicity of their forecast outcomes. I do agree with Paralith's opening sentences. I think a few people have said something along these lines before, but I have no problem with science informing moral and policy decisions. The more knowledge you have about a problem, the better, I say...

*Bump* to answer last post?

Yeah. Should've ended with... I calculated this .. and didn't bother to recalculate then calculate it again. Because no ... that doesn't work. The link: http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/article973953.ece

I agree with Severian. Differentiating right from wrong is not science in any way. That's opening a can of worms too.

Can a planet be hurled by a star that's gone nova, or by any other means? If so, would it careen through space at high velocity, and keep its pace, seeing as objects in motion don't slow down unless acted upon by a force? Or would intergalactic gravity slow and trap it? However, if so, what if that event occurred in a nearby star in our galaxy -- would the planet be able to cruise through our planetary system at near its original high velocity? I'm just testing the feasibility of an external planet colliding into Jupiter or a smaller planet (like Mars/Earth/Venus).

Do one now, and let's examine how you coded it.

No (Except at Rove headquarters, perhaps) Same joke at: Why can't the Democrats see this , even a child does? The answer picked by the questioner has a really twisted and incomplete worldview, but I liked the other answers. For example... [hide](Makes complete sense. Republicans usually have the intelligence level of young children) [/hide] Here's a decent counter as follow-up... I was talking to a friend's little boy who mows my lawn. I was telling him that I found someone else to mow my lawn. "What do you mean?" he started tearing up. "Haven't I done a good job?". "It's not that" I said. "I pay you $20 to mow my lawn and I found a mexican guy who will do it for $10. Sorry, it's market forces at work". "I thought you hated illegal immmigrants?" the boy said. "I do" I replied "but business is business". The boy paused and thought for a moment. "So even though we don't like illegal immigrants we can still hire them? All this time I could have just outsourced it to this guy and made $10 a week for doing nothing while still hating his guts?" And I said, "Welcome to the Republican Party" (However, most of the ones at that forums are lame. Maybe we could do better)

Yeah Snail, or hit the icon on the left of the "Quote tags" icon, and voilà....

Nice, JohnB. A bit odd...unless they mean "we reject all submissions of the theoretically impossible nature." Maybe if someone actually did invent the machine, but omitted the bits about perpetual motion -- and just claimed it produces a "big saving on energy" -- then it might get accepted? However, from the OP's link to the Blogspot follow-up.... Somewhat unromantically though understandably the US Patents Office no longer entertains such "perpetual motion" ideas without a working model. If true, the patent office might accept its submission if proof of a functional model were demonstrated. But the company never even produced one.... Since then it has raised €16 million from investors and has spent more than €10 million of this but it still does not have a prototype of any sort to show for its efforts. Wow, those investors need better advisers For anyone's curiosity.... What can be patented – utility patents are provided for a new, nonobvious and useful: Process Machine Article of manufacture Composition of matter Improvement of any of the above What cannot be patented: Laws of nature Physical phenomena Abstract ideas Literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works (these can be Copyright protected). Go to the Copyright Office. Inventions which are: . Not useful (such as perpetual motion machines); or Offensive to public morality Invention must also be: * Novel * Nonobvious * Adequately described or enabled (for one of ordinary skill in the art to make and use the invention) * Claimed by the inventor in clear and definite terms

JohnB, there is no such law to change. Nowhere in the patent requirements does it even suggest that a machine violating the laws of physics can't be patented. http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/utility/utility.htm#detailed Detailed Description of the Invention... In this section, the invention must be explained along with the process of making and using the invention in full, clear, concise, and exact terms. This section should distinguish the invention from other inventions and from what is old and describe completely the process, machine, manufacture, composition of matter, or improvement invented.... It is required that the description be sufficient so that any person of ordinary skill in the pertinent art, science, or area could make and use the invention without extensive experimentation. http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/doc/general/index.html#whatpat What Can Be Patented... The patent law specifies that the subject matter must be "useful." The term "useful" in this connection refers to the condition that the subject matter has a useful purpose and also includes operativeness, that is, a machine which will not operate to perform the intended purpose would not be called useful, and therefore would not be granted a patent.... A patent cannot be obtained upon a mere idea or suggestion. The patent is granted upon the new machine, manufacture, etc., as has been said, and not upon the idea or suggestion of the new machine.

What I meant is that if the device has been patented, all relevant details will be in the patent -- if they even applied for one. And if they didn't, it's suspicious and a bit more reason to be skeptical.

Shouldn't it turn up in a patent search, then? All details of an invention must be disclosed (and other people should be able to build the exact invention from those patented details), in order for you to gain exclusive use of the invention.

Maybe this: if no one has posted in a thread for several years, the first new post would go directly into a hidden queue to be pre-approved until a mod lets it through.

When the forums software puts URL tags around links, it fails to do a complete tag-wrap if the link ends in a parenthesis. See the examples below.

Link correction. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydra_(genus)

Fixed your link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Bainbridge_(DDG-96)

Like most people from a third world nation, whose attempts to visualize the structure/processes of 1st world nations results in a severely distorted image, the pirates are lacking a huge sense of perspective. Unlike the many of us here who've attended over a dozen years of schooling, watched video programs of the great strength of U.S. armed forces (including Navy Seals), have access to libraries and a great many resources of knowledge -- yet occasionally still manage to be duped by politicians and their media networks' falsifications of everyday life -- most of the pirate recruits get their info with even less accuracy points than a game of Whisper Down the Lane. So iNow did make a valid point. Several years ago an unusual news clip snatched our interests about pirates on a speedboat taking loot from a bigger ship. Then the miserable people of a rundown nation heard tales of an easy way to alleviate poverty, and it's become a fad among some of those who can even get access to the proper resources: boats, guns, navigation know-how. Could they measure the risks and fully deduce what they're all getting into eventually? I'll have to guess daily survival and food on the table (or shack floor) is probably a more urgent thought. And, conversely, a good many people who live in a more comfortable system lack a sense of perspective when attempting to visualize the lack of structure/processes/foundations in a third world nation (and the conditions that help sustain the wretched antics of pirates/looters). Lastly, equipping ships with armadas is not only too expensive, but counterproductive -- for we all know the best defense against pirates is.... a contingent of ninjas.

I came back to post that I concluded a similar thing. You're entirely correct, padren. The universe doesn't really have these units called seconds, nor would it have it conveniently quantified for our benefit and/or instruments we use for measuring time's passage. So my error was in following the thought based on our self-assigned, numerical divisions of time -- instead of on reality (i.e. the actual universe).

Oops, cross-posted before. Took me a while to add up the fractions and compare You've expanded my mind. Wow. How dare you? That is fascinating. So it's possible that from the Big Bang to the Next Big Thing, we might actually exist in one infinite second, and within our portion of that second, we've created even more units of time to sub-divide further, and each of those new units might be infinite as well. w o o o o o o o o o o o o That is exactly what Syntho-sis's Zeno paradox (mental-exercise) concluded. Or at least it seemed to. (we'd never reach "1") But they won't *dissipate* into a finite number, regardless of how crazily fast you add up the sub-divided terms. Even at planck lengths, it might sub-divide -- we only lose the ability to measure the division, but time itself might still be able to keep dividing.

The denominator of the last added fraction matches the denominator of the answer. 1/2 = 1/2 1/2 + 1/4 = 3/4 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 = 7/8 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 = 15/16 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32 = 31/32 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32 + 1/64 = 63/64 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32 + 1/64 + 1/128 = 127/128 What's the relevance to time?

Odd. If you view all posts by a member, it gives a search ID but doesn't remember it. Edited my last post to correct the error. Here's a post by Severian just five days ago.

Sure looks it

There, fixed

I just intended to highlight the way everyday people use terms incorrectly without realizing. People do it all the time. "It's only logical that it's just government screwing us again", "it's only logical that she'll call you back," "it's only logical the home team's gonna win" My point is that a newcomer and we might not be on the same page about certain terms, which should be taken into consideration if we ask for a reply tailored to our expectations for verifiable statements -- an uncommon expectation which a newcomer might be unaware of, from habits formed in the everyday world. It's possible they don't know the meaning of falsifiable, or think by evidence you mean some video/news item with compelling "logic", or verifiable means it's repeated throughout the internet. At the forums heading: We welcome science discussion at all levels — from beginners to researchers... With that kind of invite, beginners and the scientifically curious will be stopping by -- i.e. people raised mostly on entertainment's version of science, and the cultural use of language with vague/imprecise/casual meanings. It wasn't directed at you, I just happened to put my reply to you in the same post as my general two cents. Over the past week I saw a few threads where people seemed confused and maybe feel like they're getting reamed, and it's not until later they realize the level of precision needed for statements made on these boards -- after someone mentions it and realization hits. All I'm saying is maybe we can give new people the benefit of doubt, and clearly show them what's expected and a link to helpful tips so we're all on the same page when talking and/or making statements. It'll keep people around longer, which increases the number of people knowledgeable about real science, and who might otherwise have lost interest or went elsewhere. Fair enough. I did only mean how Syntho-sis could've been trying to say "it's only intuitive," but if so, might not have considered to instead say "it's only logical". In the second vid, from 2:35 to 2:45, it makes a leap from non-living and chance interactions to gaining the ability to make other copies of itself. What I'd like is for each step of the process within that leap to be shown. Exactly how did it go from being at the right place/time to being able to make copies? It's still unsolved (if they have no answer). Great vid though.