EdEarl

Gandhi also said, "Poverty is the worst form of violence."

I do not wish additional violence. But, I wish Gandhi's reincarnation would come to our aid. The people need to speak louder; we are being too passive.

Money buys votes, popular votes, senate votes, congressional votes, legislative votes, etc. Large contributions must go to PACs. However, small contributions can go directly to a politician. For example, it is legal for me to send my senator, congressman, legislator, etc. $1. Would it be legal for a non-profit company to hold $1 from many voters who give to "John Doe," a senator, after the senator voted against a specific bill, e.g., the GOP healthcare bill. Could all those $1 contributions go directly to "John Doe?"

Both the House and Senate "healthcare" bills cut funding and will eliminate healthcare for millions of people. The result will arguably be more people die from lack of care than died on 911. It is unethical. Why are people so passive about such treatment from our politicians and the rich who force these policies on us. In reality, the "healthcare" bill is only one assault on the American people by oligarchs, but it is the current issue. I am frustrated and angry. With healthcare costs rising my savings can be quickly consumed, and I may become a statistic of inadequate healthcare. If my death could assure others would not be so denied, it would be OK with me, but thousands of deaths resulting by the actions of our leaders is an insult to humanity. Rage, rage against the dieing of the light.

Please give a reference to this article, because I don't understand how it could work. Hydrogen fuel cells consume hydrogen gas and produce electricity. ICE burn petrol and produce mechanical energy. They don't seem to work together AFAIK.

A vegan diet avoids both milk and meat. See The China Study, Forks over Knives on youtube and Netflix, and several books by Dr. McDougall.

I don't understand your question, so whatever I say may miss the point. Vacuum tubes aren't used much anymore in electronics, because they are slow, expensive, and inefficient. AC wall power goes through a power supply to generate one or more DC voltages to operate electronic equipment.

What makes you think you are psychic?

I believe computers are so complex today that some engineer memory systems, some IO systems, etc. It is possible many of them do not need to know how to program. However, whoever designs changes to the instruction processing unit must understand programming. Moreover, adding video processing units requires knowledge of the algorithms used in video processing. Similarly, programmers who write operating systems, compilers and optimizers need to know details about the engineering of a CPU chip to take advantage of the hardware. The majority of CS graduates are hired by corporations to improve their computer systems. Recently, these jobs require AI programming of business systems. Thus, there exists a spectrum of people with various degrees and overlapping knowledge needed to fill the variety of available jobs with skills ranging from craftsman to scientist.

If you want to know how computers work, you would study computer engineering or electronic engineering. Most programming languages facilitate calculating values. However, a class of symbolic languages, including reduction languages, optimizers and the Lambda Calculus. The input and output of these languages is or can be programs. MathCAD is a similar tool for manipulating symbolic math. In addition, some, perhaps most, physicists will say that we cannot know whether we live in a physical Universe or a matrix-like simulation of the Universe. I can think of many reasons CS is science, but none to deny it.

CS is a branch of mathematics. Almost all computers are based on binary arithmetic and Turing machines, and Boolean logic is used to describe and optimize computer circuits.

OK, Mother Teresa did both good and bad because of her faith. Phi, I just used a dictionary definition of faith. Another definition is, "belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion." True, there is no evidence for them to have confidence God exists and affects their lives, and no reason they should trust God will affect them in positive ways. I'm not a wordsmith, but I didn't think I'd changed the subject of this thread.

Faith: confidence or trust in a person or thing A child learns to have faith in their parents, which is good, because parents try to keep their children safe and well. However, if a parent is overly critical and teaches a normal child they are weak, ugly, stupid, and clumsy, the child will have faith they are weak, ugly, stupid, and clumsy. That's bad. Religious faith leads people to do good (Mother Teresa) and bad (the Inquisition). Political faith can be good (Gandhi) or bad (Hitler). I personally think rational thinking is better than faith.

In the US distilling ethanol is illegal, AFAIK.

There is a little known man who started a field of linguistics, which might be related to this thread. See: Chomsky normal form. It relates to natural language processing; the link is an example. I think natural language is very complex, and the best way to encode it is in neural nets, with each one being unique and beyond our current ability to visualize and understand.

I was watching youtube videos and ran across several people who confessed to loving some animal. There were no videos of the act, so I thought it might be BS to get views; maybe not.

An engineer or physicist who understands how an electric generator works, also understands it is not significantly affected by gravity, velocity, or vacuum. If you meant an engine-generator set, instead of only an electric generator, then vacuum would prevent an engine from running since engines need oxygen from air to burn fuel, including alcohol, diesel, and gasoline. Rocket engines need both oxidizer and fuel, which are carried on the rocket. One could make an engine-generator to operate in space by using a rocket to heat water to steam, a steam engine to convert heat into mechanical rotation, and use the rotation of an axle to drive a generator, that will produce electricity. This system would be heavy and impractical. Instead, NASA uses solar panels or a thermal electric generator powered by a radioactive isotope to generate electricity for space probes and landers.

Most of my travel has been within the US, mainly from the Mississippi to the West Coast, between 1955 and 1995. There are still interesting places in that area unseen by me, and others like Yellowstone, Big Bend, and the Grand Canyon that can be enjoyed many times. There are many places around the world worthy of visiting, but a working person is limited in what they can see in a lifetime.

Today I learned there is a company that can supply DNA pieces( e.g., a gene) to your specification of a base pair sequence for about $50 US.

Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the Earth about 1700 years before Columbus read about it. It is inconsistent for one to realize stars are spherical, yet believe the Earth is flat. Gravity makes them both; thus, they have similar shapes.

I agree that religion without science is blind.

Example: The ancient Greeks, including Aristotle, looked around and decided the elements were earth, air, water and fire, which people believed until after the scientific revolution. No progress was made for over a thousand years, because philosophy without science is inept for some issues, including the quest for knowledge about the elements. On the other hand, "Cogito ergo sum," is an example of pure philosophy that may never be improved by science, which seems to be inept on this issue. "Did you mean that philosophy needs established facts?" I don't know. Did the Greeks have facts to conclude the elements were Earth, Air, Water and Fire? I think Cogito ergo sum is based on facts.

The scientific method resulted in all the technological toys and tools used today; these developments span about 500 years of recent human history. Philosophy without science existed for millennium without understanding much about us or our environment; philosophy alone can be inept. Similarly, science is inept without data.

People living around national parks would sometimes encounter wildlife from the park. Alaska, Canada, and Siberia have vast areas with few people, and abundant wildlife, including bear, wolves, and large cats, plus their prey such as moose, elk, deer, and antelope. These are the wildest areas on Earth AFAIK; although, there may be comparable areas in Africa and South America. I live in San Antonio, TX, in a community with large lots (.4 hectare) having maybe 25% natural flora. There are deer, fed by some residents, populations surprisingly large. I think I've seen more than 50 while walking around the neighborhood. There are armadillo, raccoon, and coyote; although, I've not seen a coyote, they live in every city in the continental US according to scientific data. A friend of mine reported seeing a cougar near the city, but I doubt it. However, cougars live in the California mountains and occasionally someone is attacked. The smaller black bears live in and around Appalachia in the US, and they sometimes attack people. Eastern Canada and Eastern US have a cross between a wolf and coyote that have a large self sustaining population. It's unlikely that anyone has been attacked by coyotes or this cross breed; for the most part, they hide from people.

An ice comet 30km dia is a few orders of magnitude too small to cause a 20m rise in the oceans from water stored in the comet. The kinetic energy of that size comet might melt enough glaciers and ice packs to raise the sea significantly, but it's a complex problem. I think simulations could improve most on your guess.