Questions of a weird mind

[Ravens_cry]

Yes, but most of that is long-term, so they have time to fix stuff, and the rest is a minor group. It won't affect the total population too much. Probably. And why should I care? I'm a villain, I don't have guilt or morals. I only have greed. All this could be avoided, I just want world domination!
What kind of world have you conquered?
You not only destroyed civilisation, you destroyed the infrastructure to repair civilisation.
Besides, I was pointing out that the idea that you "could cripple the entire world without killing a single person" (boded for emphases) is an utter fallacy.
All told, including the 'long term' deaths you so dismiss, you'd be the worst mass murderer in history, plunging the planet into a literal Dark Age.

[Yora]

No, we're speaking about major infrastructure destruction:

Without power, there are no water and oil pumps. All energy has to come from disel generators, but pumping stations and oil rafineries will also have major equipment damage so they might not even work with that. So fuel will run out within days as refineries are out of work and then you can't transport food to the cities. Also the farms can't opperate without heavy machines that require gas, so even in the villages you will barely be able to get enough food for yourself.
Making electronic spare parts requires complex factories, which will also be severely damaged so it will take forever to get spare part production running and the parts dilivered through all the cities and towns as well as getting them installed. And it all needs to be coordinated without phone, email, or radio, as those services will also be destroyed.

You basically have whatever there is in your fridge and what is on shelves in the stores. Which may last for a week at the most, then everyone will starve. Unless they have died of thirst, plane crashes, chemical plants explodings, and fires. Short circuits will cause lots of fires, which without water and phone would be very hard to put out.
A village in rural India or Equador might do well enough and get through the ordeal. Major cities wont. There's just to many people without access to equipment that runs without either electricity or gas.

I would estimate 25 to 40% of all humans dead before a new stable infrastructure is in place.

[Ravens_cry]

The fires.
When the power goes out, people will start burning things, anything, for light, for heat.
At least some of these fires will grow out of control, burning down cities in an orgy of destruction, of flame unchained.

[Matthias2207]

Detonating the bomb is a bad idea, apparently. I like my electronics. But just threatening the puny humans into submission with my ultra EMP should work. If I can't have world domination, then nobody can! MWAHAHAHA!

Question:
When trying to put two magnets with the same side together, the force increases exponentially(?). So when they almost touch, the force should be immense. Is it even possible to let them touch, or do they just come really close so it looks like they touch?

[razark]

I would estimate 25 to 40% of all humans dead before a new stable infrastructure is in place.
I think you overestimate the survival level. Without the infrastructure, a lot of people will die, and without those people, you won't be able to rebuild the infrastructure. It would be a massive reduction to late agrarian/early industrial technology level throughout the world. No modern equipment and fertilizers means a lot of people are going to starve, and a lot of the people that are left are not going to have the knowledge needed to continue surviving on a long term basis. On top of starvation, disease is going to devastate the early years of the post-apocalyptic world, and modern medical technology is going to be gone. People will be struggling to survive, rebuilding infrastructure won't be a major concern for a while.

World population didn't hit one billion until 1804. I think that's the level of die-off we would see (probably even lower, in my opinion). With seven billion people currently, dropping to about one billion, you're looking at upwards of 80% of people dead.

[Ravens_cry]

@Matthias2207:
Practically speaking, what's the difference?
Whenever you 'touch' something, the atoms aren't actually touching, but rather they are being repelled from each other by the same force at a very short, but measurable distance.

[Doomboy911]

Has anyone ever tried a durian because I kind of want to have some.

[Brother Oni]

World population didn't hit one billion until 1804. I think that's the level of die-off we would see (probably even lower, in my opinion). With seven billion people currently, dropping to about one billion, you're looking at upwards of 80% of people dead.

I think it'd depend on how much coverage the EMP had and how much it knocked out.
I believe that the TV series Dark Angel, suggested what would happen to society if a substantial part of the US was knocked out by a terrorist atmospheric nuclear detonation (it effectively got reduced to the state of a Third World country).
Assuming that the rest of the world survives the subsequent political and economic meltdown, the casualty rate might not be as dire as you think.


Has anyone ever tried a durian because I kind of want to have some.

I've had durian and it's a very polarising taste - you either love it or hate it.
It's got a very slimy texture with a fairly rich, almost creamy taste
For a lot of people, the smell puts them off (it's very strong and has been described as decomposing meat) and both taste and smell tend to linger for a very long time.

I'm not too fond of the actual fruit texture, but I quite like the taste. I brought in some durian flavoured wafers in to work once and I ended up eating half of them myself and being ordered to take the rest of them home (they also ended up in an airtight container shortly after opening as the smell was overpowering for them).
Comments ranged from "I can see why people like it" to "I could still taste it 3 hours later after eating my lunch!" and "Oh, so we're not having a gas leak".

In their defence, I work with English people, who are notoriously fussy about their food. :smalltongue:

[Doomboy911]

Two more questions Has anyone ever tried Dragonfruit?
And the second question http://www.amazon.com/RLT-Industries-10201-Stirling-Trebuchet/dp/B001ALL6LK/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1340812574&sr=8-4&keywords=medieval+model+kit you want one don't you.

[Partof1]

I've tried dragonfruit, and it's pretty tasty. Kinda of like kiwi, if I remember correctly, but with more seeds.

[Karoht]

Pretend I am a human being on earth. My brain 'rests' inside my skull, with gravity pulling downward on my brain.

Pretend I am a human being in zero gravity. What happens to my brain? If I am at rest, is the brain mildly floating within my own skull?

[Ravens_cry]

Pretend I am a human being on earth. My brain 'rests' inside my skull, with gravity pulling downward on my brain.

Pretend I am a human being in zero gravity. What happens to my brain? If I am at rest, is the brain mildly floating within my own skull?
Pretty sure your brain floats ordinarily in the fluid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebrospinal_fluid)between your skull and brain, gravity or no gravity.

[Karoht]

Pretty sure your brain floats ordinarily in the fluid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebrospinal_fluid)between your skull and brain, gravity or no gravity.

Cool. That was more or less my guess.

[Ravens_cry]

Cool. That was more or less my guess.
This is one reason car accidents and other sudden decelerations can be so bad. The car stops, and, thanks to seat belts, you stop, but your brain keeps moving forward thanks to inertia, slamming into your skull.
Ouch.:smalleek:

[Brother Oni]

This is one reason car accidents and other sudden decelerations can be so bad. The car stops, and, thanks to seat belts, you stop, but your brain keeps moving forward thanks to inertia, slamming into your skull.
Ouch.:smalleek:

It's also why boxers tend to suffer brain injuries later on in their careers; too many repeated blows to the head causing their brain to bounce against their skull.

[Doomboy911]

It's also why boxers tend to suffer brain injuries later on in their careers; too many repeated blows to the head causing their brain to bounce against their skull.

Heh reminds me of a joke I wrote for a comic I'm working on. The superheroes are just getting used to having superpowers and they're getting the absolute crap beat out of them by a bunch of humanoid robots and one of them dazed and confused asks "Alright who ain't punch drunk?"

[Maugan Ra]

I imagine that in regular, unmoving zero-g your brain is likely fine. In motion, however, especially with turns, it's likely fairly easy to end up with inadvertent concussion.

I can attest that prolonged g-forces allow you to feel the sensation of your brain being slowly pushed against the inside of your skull. It is a profoundly weird experience.

[Xuc Xac]

I can attest that prolonged g-forces allow you to feel the sensation of your brain being slowly pushed against the inside of your skull. It is a profoundly weird experience.

The brain itself can't feel anything because it has no sensory nerve endings. You're probably feeling the blood pressure rising in the layer of tissue where you feel headaches.

[Yora]

Why does it appear that water is cold by default?

[thubby]

Why does it appear that water is cold by default?

it's more thermally conductive than air. you're usually hotter than your surroundings. sticking your hand from air into water of the same temperature will feel colder because the water pulls away the heat more readily.

the same holds true for metal and wood.

[Yora]

But even during a long hot summer, small rivers still get nowhere near 35 degrees.
Is that because water takes longer to warm up and cool down than air and the average air temperature on earth is about 13 degrees? While air temperature changes drastically between night and day and the seasons, water below the earth has the temperature of the environment that does not recieve heat from the sun?

[thubby]

But even during a long hot summer, small rivers still get nowhere near 35 degrees.
Is that because water takes longer to warm up and cool down than air and the average air temperature on earth is about 13 degrees? While air temperature changes drastically between night and day and the seasons, water below the earth has the temperature of the environment that does not recieve heat from the sun?

oh hell, that's a more complicated question.
um, yes?

it depends on the body of water. the ground for our purposes is a fairly constant 10-12C. so yes, any river fed from groundwater (read:most of them) is going to be like that for most of its length.

the ocean is it's own tangled mess of hydro-insanity, but around here it's kind of funny because the ocean is often significantly warmer in the winter due to some current.

[thubby]

ok i have one.
if you had a free-floating mass of water in zero gravity, and put an air bubble into it, would it do anything or go anywhere?

[Matthias2207]

ok i have one.
if you had a free-floating mass of water in zero gravity, and put an air bubble into it, would it do anything or go anywhere?

What about pressure? Is it in vacuum? Wait. Floating mass of water isn't even possible in vacuum. So with normal pressure... I think the air bubble would leave the water.

[Yora]

Strange that you ask that. I saw a picture of just that yesterday.
The answer is: No, the air bubble does not "rise to the top" and will remain stationary in the center of the water sphere.

http://chzscience.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/funny-science-news-experiments-memes-light-is-weird.jpg

[Elemental]

Why does it appear that water is cold by default?

It's not. As you said, it just takes longer to heat up than air.

[thubby]

What about pressure? Is it in vacuum? Wait. Floating mass of water isn't even possible in vacuum. So with normal pressure... I think the air bubble would leave the water.
the obvious problem being which direction would it go, and by what
mechanism...


Strange that you ask that. I saw a picture of just that yesterday.
The answer is: No, the air bubble does not "rise to the top" and will remain stationary in the center of the water sphere.

http://chzscience.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/funny-science-news-experiments-memes-light-is-weird.jpg

...and that's just awesome.

[Elemental]

Agreed. That picture is seventeen kinds of awesome.

[Matthias2207]

the obvious problem being which direction would it go, and by what
mechanism...


All directions, diffusion. But, as proved by the picture provided by Yora, it doesn't.

[Doomboy911]

Hmm where would you want to live in the world? Both what part of the world and in what kind of place?

I'd love to live in Ireland or where I'm at now (Pittsburgh) and I would love to live in a lighthouse or a wasteland apparently (my brain started to accidentally type it and I'm kind of game for it.)

[Qwertystop]

Why did they stop making Metroid Prime Trilogy?!

[factotum]

Hmm where would you want to live in the world? Both what part of the world and in what kind of place?

Given a choice I'd live on a Project Utopia yacht--concept can be seen here (middle link at the bottom):

http://yachtislanddesign.com/concepts/

It'd probably still be wandering around in UK waters most of the time, though. :smallwink:

[oblivion6]

is it normal to think about my friends girlfriend being raped just to see if my friend would tell me such a thing despite me moving away?

(not entirely sure if "raped" is against forum rules, i will edit this post if it is)

[Doomboy911]

is it normal to think about my friends girlfriend being raped just to see if my friend would tell me such a thing despite me moving away?

(not entirely sure if "raped" is against forum rules, i will edit this post if it is)

Eh everything is relative I suppose but that is very odd.

[oblivion6]

Eh everything is relative I suppose but that is very odd.

glad im not the only one to think so

[Doomboy911]

glad im not the only one to think so

Just to show that everyone is odd I can't stand seeing the car antenna or straws makes me want to vomit. I feel as though I'm going to get jabbed in the eye by them. Also no one should touch my finger nails.

[Yora]

All directions, diffusion. But, as proved by the picture provided by Yora, it doesn't.

Might possibly only work with water though. As you probably learned early in school, water has a very strong tendency to stick togther, which is way you can fill a glass several milimeters above the rim.
I guess was water sphere in microgravity would probably require more force to reshape than other liquids.

Which also opens the interesting question, why do superfluids flow against gravity? What is the equilibrium-state it attempts to attain?

[Castaras]

is it normal to think about my friends girlfriend being raped just to see if my friend would tell me such a thing despite me moving away?

(not entirely sure if "raped" is against forum rules, i will edit this post if it is)

Everyone comes up with weird terrifying scenarios for things in their heads. Brains like coming up with the worst scenario for things to make you reconsider your sanity.

[Matthias2207]

Why did they stop making Metroid Prime Trilogy?!

Because it was finished. Three games were made. Metroid Prime, Echoes and Corruption.

[Halberd]

Why is yellow so much harder to distinguish from white than other colors? Whenever I write in yellow marker on a whiteboard, it is much harder to read than it would be if I had written in another color.

[Elemental]

Why is yellow so much harder to distinguish from white than other colors? Whenever I write in yellow marker on a whiteboard, it is much harder to read than it would be if I had written in another color.

Because yellow is usually produced in lighter shades for aesthetic reasons, whereas blue, red, purple and green are often preferred in darker shades.

As shown in this image, darker shades of yellow do exist.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Color_icon_yellow.png

[thubby]

Why is yellow so much harder to distinguish from white than other colors? Whenever I write in yellow marker on a whiteboard, it is much harder to read than it would be if I had written in another color.

contrast. light with the frequency for "yellow" activates almost all the same rods and cones in your eye as "white" so we see them as almost the same.
interestingly, other animals have different colors that they would consider low contrast.

also what he said^

[Qwertystop]

Because it was finished. Three games were made. Metroid Prime, Echoes and Corruption.

I mean the Wii compilation disc. The one that improves all three, and updates the controls for the first two? That is better for everyone who isn't trying to sequence break them? That they stopped manufacturing?

[Ravens_cry]

Because yellow is usually produced in lighter shades for aesthetic reasons, whereas blue, red, purple and green are often preferred in darker shades.

As shown in this image, darker shades of yellow do exist.

Most of the darker ones I'd call orange or rust, and perhaps gold and mustard.

[factotum]

Ravens_cry has a point--I just took a screenshot and checked out the colour values in your chart, Elemental, and most of them have quite widely differing Hue values. That's not to say that darker yellow doesn't exist, but it tends to look sort of murky rather than the bright orange or amber tones you have there.

[Elemental]

Ravens_cry has a point--I just took a screenshot and checked out the colour values in your chart, Elemental, and most of them have quite widely differing Hue values. That's not to say that darker yellow doesn't exist, but it tends to look sort of murky rather than the bright orange or amber tones you have there.

I admit to stealing that chart from the Internet.
But yes, most shades of dark yellow do look rather murky, and thus, not aesthetically pleasing.

[AtomicKitKat]

Forcing Magnets together against their will. Works. You damage their magnetism if you bind them that way long term though.

Durian: Smells like stale artificial vanilla. If you've ever had the displeasure to experience the stench of rotting durian shells(combined with rotting saliva, maybe), it can really put you off. I've been told I used to eat durian a lot when I was younger, but I have no memory of ever willingly eating durian.

Dragonfruit: It's like a Kiwi, but sweeter. And stains your hands red. OUT DAMN SPOT!

[Elemental]

Forcing Magnets together against their will. Works. You damage their magnetism if you bind them that way long term though.

Durian: Smells like stale artificial vanilla. If you've ever had the displeasure to experience the stench of rotting durian shells(combined with rotting saliva, maybe), it can really put you off. I've been told I used to eat durian a lot when I was younger, but I have no memory of ever willingly eating durian.

Dragonfruit: It's like a Kiwi, but sweeter. And stains your hands red. OUT DAMN SPOT!

Ah... Macbeth...
My Mum often jokes that Lady Macbeth was telling the dog to go away, but that's not important.

Which means... I have a question...
Where on Earth did the superstition that people in the acting business should never refer to Shakespeare's Macbeth by its proper name arise?
It seems rather silly after all...

[Yora]

I don't have the exact names and dates, but what I remember is that some journalist in the 1880s or so made the story up and put it in a newspaper, and then actors actually started doing it.

Because yellow is usually produced in lighter shades for aesthetic reasons, whereas blue, red, purple and green are often preferred in darker shades.

As shown in this image, darker shades of yellow do exist.
Yellow is a weird color, as the human eye does not have cells that detect the wavelengths of yellow light. Human eyes are pretty much RGB, simulating yellow color by mixing signals from cells that detect green and red light.
There are some cases of people appearing to have cells that react to yellow wavelength which allows them to differentiate between many more shades of yellow, while for most people these collors are all "just yellow".
We're pretty much all yellow-blind.

And speaking of color blindness, I found this entertaining test: http://www.xrite.com/custom_page.aspx?PageID=77
But given that I scored 100% perfect with 0 errors, I don't know how good it is. 100% does usually not happen. ^^

[Elemental]

I don't have the exact names and dates, but what I remember is that some journalist in the 1880s or so made the story up and put it in a newspaper, and then actors actually started doing it.

You know... That seems like a really likely story.
Victorian Era... Made up superstitions... Fake historical connections...
Sounds about right.

[Ravens_cry]

Ah... Macbeth...
My Mum often jokes that Lady Macbeth was telling the dog to go away, but that's not important.

Which means... I have a question...
Where on Earth did the superstition that people in the acting business should never refer to Shakespeare's Macbeth by its proper name arise?
It seems rather silly after all...
Actors, like criminals, are a superstitious and cowardly lot.
Actually, I have a theory, a theory mind, that superstitions tend to develop among people with little direct control over their fates.
Like sailors, and soldiers, actors could do things perfectly and still lose.
Also, effort wise, it takes insignificant effort to believe.
If by some chance it helps, it helps, but if it doesn't help, what are you losing?
Table top RPG and wargames dice superstitions have a similar origin I believe.
You could have a great strategy and tactics, but if the dice 'hate you' it can really make things difficult.

[AtomicKitKat]

What I read was that That Scottish Play usually requires few actors, and very little in the way of sets, so was usually put on by small budget theatre troupes who needed to make next month's rent. And being low on budget, there were many safety precautions that might have been skipped. Also, they may not have been all that good, so, failing to make the rent, they'd be booted off the premises, giving the impression that the play led to their demise.

Interesting question I semi-answered last night. How do you cure running deafness(kind of like when you blow your nose while pinching it shut)? I told the guy that it was probably caused by having a congested ENT(Ear Nose Throat) system, because it usually only occurs in conjunction with a blocked nose for me(and typically clears up when the weather is less cold/rainy). Am I far off the mark? Is there a solution(beyond drinking more water, but that has its own problems if you're running shortly after). :smallconfused: Also, that guy apparently had low blood pressure, which doesn't apply to me. Any relation to the condition?

Edit: Regarding the colour test.


Online ColorIQ Challenge Results
Your score: 83
FM Hue Test Results
A lower score is better, with ZERO being the perfect score. The bars above show the regions of the color spectrum where hue discrimination is low.

I thought I did pretty well for 5 minutes' work. The bars were all low(is that good?) except at the blue/green region.

Apparently not.


Based on your information, below is how your score compares to those of others with similar demographic information.

Your score: 83
Gender: Male
Age range: 30-39
Best score for your gender and age range: 0
Highest score for your gender and age range: 1520


I do actually have fairly good colour differentiation skills(I mean, I do model kits, and slight hue differences are my cue as to whether I cleaned up the sprue marks enough), so I think it was more a lack of time on my part.

[Ulysses WkAmil]

Why does milk negate the effects of spice or after-taste in general better than other liquids?

[Doomboy911]

I want to believe it's not that it does it better but that water opens up a part of the tongue making things worse but milks doesn't so it does its job. I think.

[Ravens_cry]

What I figured was that milk contains fats, which not only coat the tongue and prevent the chemicals from reaching the receptors but also help dissolve the chemicals responsible for the burn.

[Elemental]

Why does milk negate the effects of spice or after-taste in general better than other liquids?

As Ravens_cry said, the chemicals responsible for the burning sensation dissolve more easily in fats than in water.
There's science involved, but I'm feeling too lazy to describe the difference between polar and non-polar substances.

[Abscondcrow]

Why do our arm, neck and leg hairs stand straight up if we're cold, scared or furious?
On the subject of cold, what the heck -are- goosebumps?

[Eldan]

Vestige from our hairy ape days. Similar to cats, dogs, chimps and almost anything else with fur: your hair stands up to make you look bigger and more threatening when frightened or angry. When cold, it traps a layer of air between your skin and the outside, for insulation.

[Ravens_cry]

Why do our arm, neck and leg hairs stand straight up if we're cold, scared or furious?
On the subject of cold, what the heck -are- goosebumps?
On critters with more fur, it's to fluff up to either better trap heat in cold conditions or to look bigger and therefore more threatening.
It doesn't help humans much in these regards, but we still retain this reflex.
The 'goosebumbs' are merely the muscles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrectores_pilorum) attached to each hair flexing and becoming more visible.

[Ulysses WkAmil]

Why is buying in bulk mostly cheaper than buying small? Setting aside convienience, what is the gain there?

[GolemsVoice]

The more you buy, the more fixed costs spread. Say you need a truck to transport something. The truck always costs the same, but if you fill it up, the costs of the truck and the transport are spread on more product.
Also, there's often a discount for buying larger amounts to encourage this, because a) it's generally easier to produce and ship large amounts and b) they want to sell much.

[Brother Oni]

Why is buying in bulk mostly cheaper than buying small? Setting aside convienience, what is the gain there?

Economies of scale.

When manufacturing an item, you have a number of fixed costs that never change, thus the more units you manufacture, the more these costs are dispersed and so the average price per unit is cheaper.

With regard to household items as a consumer:

Surface area to volume ratio kicks in for the packaging, thus the packaging cost/unit is cheaper.
Manufacturer may give a bulk discount of a few percent (as incentive to suppliers to buy more), which the supplier passes on to the consumer. This happens a lot with wholesalers which generally have restricted membership for a variety of tax reasons.


Edit: Gah, ninja'ed.

[Yora]

There's really a lot of other factors as well, that make it more efficient to do anything in large quantities. For example, every time you want to change the color for painting new cars, you need to wash out the whole equipment. If you make 100 cars in red, and then 100 in blue, you need to wash only once. If you make 3 red, 5 blue, 10 yellow, 5 green, 1 black, 3 blue, 2 red, ... then you are cleaning all the time, each time costing time and resources.

The two major factors that counter it are storage costs and how well you can anticipate the demand in the future. It's silly to build 10.000 cars of a model that only sells 500 a year since in 20 years people don't want to have the 20 year old one but a new model. Or if you manufacture ammunitions for AK-74s, you can be quite sure that you will be able to sell them in 50 years, but you need to have a place to store all the boxes for all that time, which can get really expensive in rents. And if you store explosives or other delicate things, you can't just put a shed into the dessert, but you need all kinds of security or cooling, and other things.

But with the example of milk, you have a very steady stream of raw material, a very steady rate of demand, specialized equipment that can't be used for anything else than processing milk, and your product does not have a long shelf life. So transport costs really become the most important factor.
How to get the most amount of milk with the smallest number of trucks making the lowest number of runs between the processing plant and stores? The answer is selling the milk to stores in large quantities so you have to resupply them less often.
At the same time, the stores don't want the milk to take up all their cooled shelves and store rooms, so they want their customers to take big loads and store them at their homes. How do you get them to buy 6 liters every two weeks instead of 1 liter every 3 days? Bulk Discount! :smallbiggrin:

However, you also have to consider that in many cases consumers just want something in small amounts, like 200g of canned corn to make potato salad two times a year. I don't want a 500g can of which more than half gets thrown away because it won't keep fresh for 6 months.
And transportation for the customer. Probably less a fector in America, but here in Germany, I used to buy 2 bottles of soda because I can't get a 12 bottle crate home on my bike. But quite recently, they started offering 6 bottle crates, which I can strap to my rear carrier. And now I buy 6 bottles, since that means I have to transport less often. :smallbiggrin:
It's about finding the optimal balance between the producers and the customers needs.

[Yora]

This is more of a weird observation:

I had the fridge not all closed last night, so now it's really a good way to defrost it. Power off, door open, just let the ice block on the cooling unit melt.
Now I think three hours later I checked it, and not only is the ice not showing any kind of melting, the dish that collects the meltwater is still bone dry.
And it's probably 27 degrees in here. (Now I hear the first drops falling)

I'm not sure, but does it always take so long for what I estimate to be up to 2 liters of water to start melting?

[Brother Oni]

I'm not sure, but does it always take so long for what I estimate to be up to 2 liters of water to start melting?

Did you have the door fully open? Refrigerators by their nature are rather well insulated, so the only way for the heat to get in is through the open door.
If the door isn't open enough, you're not getting enough circulation of air, so there's a nice insulating buffer of cold air between the warm air outside and the ice inside, thus it takes longer than it should to melt.

[Ravens_cry]

Water is extremely good at taking in thermal energy, heat, without actually changing temperature, even more so when it is changing state, like from a liquid to a gas, steam, or a solid to a liquid like here.

[Yora]

Well, the dish that goes under the cooling unit was really very close. The ice had grown to the point that pulling the dish out actually scraped the underside of the ice. On the third side is almost directly the side wall of the fridge, so circulation would have only be on one side.
It actually started to melt just about a minute after I took out the seperating grills on which you put all your foodstuff, which also holds the dish under the cooling unit. Now it's really dripping at a quite rapid rate.

Air flow did come to my mind, but I didn't think it could make such a dramatic difference.

[Iruka]

... 200g of canned corn to make potato salad two times a year ...

Canned corn in a potato salad? What's wrong with you? :smalleek::smallbiggrin:

[Matthias2207]

... 200g of canned corn to make potato salad two times a year ...

Only two times a year? What's wrong with you? :smalleek::smallbiggrin::smalltongue:
But seriously, why?

[Eldan]

Only 200g? What's wrong with you? :smalleek::smallwink::smalltongue::smallamused:

[Yora]

Canned corn in a potato salad? What's wrong with you? :smalleek::smallbiggrin:

It's awesome! When you get invited and asked you bring something, you can throw something together in 20 minutes with just a jar of mayonaise and a jar of pickles, either potatoes or noodles, and whatever else you happen to have at home.
Cook potatoes or noodles, add a jar of mayonaise and sliced pickels and pretty much any kind of fresh or canned vegetables you want. Put it in a fridge for a few hours and done. Tastes good, even looks good, and since it's all soaked in mayonaise and pickle juice, nobody will notice the quality of all the other ingredients. :smallbiggrin:

And with 200g of peas, 300g of pickles, 100g onions, and so on, you get quite a considerable amount of stuff in addition to the potatoes or noodles.

[AtomicKitKat]

since it's all soaked in mayonaise and pickle juice, nobody will notice the quality of all the other ingredients.

^And this is why I avoid Mayo(*spits*) like the plague. That and the fact that it does horrible things to my insides.:smallyuk:

[Brother Oni]

Air flow did come to my mind, but I didn't think it could make such a dramatic difference.

Air is a great insulator, and in this case, it's the only medium by which the environment can deliver thermal energy to the ice.

If you imagine an air cooled CPU, it normally trundles along just fine unless the fan stops, at which point it'll usually cook itself in very short order.

[Jan Mattys]

Friction comes with a raise in temperature.

When a meteorite or the shuttle enters atmosphere, it gets very hot very quickly.

But if I put my arm out of the car's window while driving, my arm passing through air molecules feels cold instead of warm.

Why is that?

[Matthias2207]

Friction comes with a raise in temperature.

When a meteorite or the shuttle enters atmosphere, it gets very hot very quickly.

But if I put my arm out of the car's window while driving, my arm passing through air molecules feels cold instead of warm.

Why is that?

It's not fast enough to have real friction. The air absorbs the heat of your arm faster than the friction gives back.

[Elemental]

Friction comes with a raise in temperature.

When a meteorite or the shuttle enters atmosphere, it gets very hot very quickly.

But if I put my arm out of the car's window while driving, my arm passing through air molecules feels cold instead of warm.

Why is that?

Through the simple fact that your arm is travelling no where near the speed approached when an object enters the atmosphere.
As a result, the frictional heating is so minimal, that the rush of air over your arm just blows it away and is free to cool your arm down by carrying heat away from it.

[factotum]

Actually, the heat generated when a spacecraft re-enters is not primarily frictional heating--it comes from the air being massively compressed by the passage of the spacecraft and getting very hot. If it was frictional it would tend to affect the sides of the craft more than the front of it, which is not what happens.

As for your arm feeling cool, that's common or garden wind chill factor--the moving air simply carries heat away from your arm faster than stationary air would, so it feels colder.

[Doomboy911]

"What's your favorite song from My Little Pony; Friendship is Magic?

Mine is becoming popular and art of the dress.

[Brother Oni]

"What's your favorite song from My Little Pony; Friendship is Magic?

Mine is becoming popular and art of the dress.

The pony thread is over here. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=248361)

[Iruka]

It's awesome! When you get invited and asked you bring something, you can throw something together in 20 minutes with just a jar of mayonaise and a jar of pickles, either potatoes or noodles, and whatever else you happen to have at home.
Cook potatoes or noodles, add a jar of mayonaise and sliced pickels and pretty much any kind of fresh or canned vegetables you want. Put it in a fridge for a few hours and done. Tastes good, even looks good, and since it's all soaked in mayonaise and pickle juice, nobody will notice the quality of all the other ingredients. :smallbiggrin:

And with 200g of peas, 300g of pickles, 100g onions, and so on, you get quite a considerable amount of stuff in addition to the potatoes or noodles.

Interesting, where I come from that's only done with noodles.
A potato salad is almost always just potatoes, salt pepper, vinegar, oil and maybe a bit of vegetable stock. Ideally served warm.

[Tvtyrant]

^And this is why I avoid Mayo(*spits*) like the plague. That and the fact that it does horrible things to my insides.:smallyuk:

Agreedo. Mayo is a disgusting substance, and I avoid it at any cost.

[Yora]

Air is a great insulator, and in this case, it's the only medium by which the environment can deliver thermal energy to the ice.

If you imagine an air cooled CPU, it normally trundles along just fine unless the fan stops, at which point it'll usually cook itself in very short order.

I somewhere saw a temperature test with infrared on a CPU with the entire cooling unit removed. It went from room teperature to dangerously high in just 10 seconds or so. What sorcery is this material that heat sinks are made of? :smalleek:

Also, how does water cooling work? Shouldn't the water heat up much faster than it cools down again?

[Qwertystop]

I somewhere saw a temperature test with infrared on a CPU with the entire cooling unit removed. It went from room teperature to dangerously high in just 10 seconds or so. What sorcery is this material that heat sinks are made of? :smalleek:

Also, how does water cooling work? Shouldn't the water heat up much faster than it cools down again?

Water has a high specific heat. This means that it absorbs a lot of energy for a comparitively small change in temperature. In layman's terms, it changes temperature very slowly. The water absorbs a lot of heat from whatever it's cooling, denny's move elsewhere to cool off. As long as you give it enough time to cool off ( which would mean your cycleing a lot of water), it will be back to a cooler temperature by the time it gets back to whatever you're cooling off.

[Yora]

So it's more of a heat sink than a radiator?

[Brother Oni]

I somewhere saw a temperature test with infrared on a CPU with the entire cooling unit removed. It went from room teperature to dangerously high in just 10 seconds or so. What sorcery is this material that heat sinks are made of? :smalleek:

Thermal conductive paste (usually silver) to transfer heat from the CPU to the cooler block, and the cooler block is usually made out of aluminium.

I remember reading somewhere that surface area for surface area, a newer CPU generates more heat than a nuclear reactor.



Also, how does water cooling work? Shouldn't the water heat up much faster than it cools down again?

Water holds heat better than air, so heat transfer is more efficient.

The water is in constant motion and the post CPU water is pumped to a cooling block where it's chilled (either passively or actively) before being sent off to the CPU again to collect heat.


So it's more of a heat sink than a radiator?

Most water systems are active ones, so they're more radiators. I'm not sure I've ever heard of a passive water cooling system for a computer.

[factotum]

Thermal conductive paste (usually silver) to transfer heat from the CPU to the cooler block, and the cooler block is usually made out of aluminium.

I remember reading somewhere that surface area for surface area, a newer CPU generates more heat than a nuclear reactor.


Better CPU heatsinks are made from copper, or at least have a copper core, which transfers heat even better than aluminium. I think you may be misremembering the other bit--a modern CPU generates more heat than a nuclear reactor per unit *volume*, I don't think surface area comes into it.

The first PC I ever owned (back in 1993...a 40MHz 386SX, as I recall) didn't even need a heatsink on the CPU! It used so little power, and was so large compared to modern processors, that it could dissipate all the heat it needed to via convection from the surface.

[Brother Oni]

I think you may be misremembering the other bit--a modern CPU generates more heat than a nuclear reactor per unit *volume*, I don't think surface area comes into it.

You're probably right - it's been a while since I read that bit.

[Yora]

I looked up thermal conductivity and aluminium, gold, copper, and silver appear to make the top (if you exclude diamonds, carbon nanotubes and supercool helium) at up to a thousand times greater than water. But then water has the ability to move warm molecules away and cold molecules in, that probably also counts for something.

If you have a water cooled computer, where does the water transport the heat to? Are there large additional alluminium or copper radiators somewhere else, that can't be crammed directly on the circuit boards?

Another question: Could you make a psudo-Perpetuum mobile powered by gravitiy? Or is gravity not an actual energy and the whole device would end up in an equilibrium as the initial push is lost to friction?

[Elemental]

Another question: Could you make a psudo-Perpetuum mobile powered by gravitiy? Or is gravity not an actual energy and the whole device would end up in an equilibrium as the initial push is lost to friction?

Apologies for not bothering to look up pseudo-perpetuum mobile prior to answering this...
But the answer is no. No matter the energy source of the original push, eventually it'll lose it all to friction.

[Yora]

Yes, but gravity always applies, it doesn't run out of affecting the system.

[Eldan]

How would it work? I'm not a physicist, but the way I see it?

You let something fall and somehow you get energy out of that fall. Say, by attaching a spring to a rock, or something.

Then what? Eventually, it falls to the nearest center of mass, or as close as it can get and it will stay there. Attach more weights? You'll have to lift them first, so they can fall. Which, since Thermodynamics is a bitch, will take more energy than you'll get ouf of it.

[Douglas]

Gravity may always apply and never run out, but that doesn't mean it's an unlimited energy source. The only way to extract energy from gravity is to have something fall. Once something has fallen, extracting more energy via gravity requires either moving on to some other object or raising it back up so it can fall again. Moving on to another object goes against the concept of a perpetual motion machine so that won't work. That leaves raising it back up, and you will never get more out of the fall than you have to spend on the raising.

If you have a perfect no-loss system you would get back exactly as much as you put in, and you could indeed use that to keep moving forever (provided you never exceed a certain elevation), but such a perfect no-loss system would require absolutely no friction, sound, light emission, and a whole bunch of other things that are just never going to happen.

[Yora]

Yeah, makes sense. I think I mixed it up with a combination of gravity plus water, which does have the nice effect of getting up the mountain by itself. Though that's actually solar heat that provides the energy.

[Douglas]

Most forms of energy production on Earth are actually derived from the sun in some way. The exceptions are nuclear power, geothermal, and tidal. Fossil fuels, hydro power, wind, and (of course) solar all wouldn't work without the sun constantly dumping huge amounts of energy into the planetary ecosystem.

[Brother Oni]

If you have a water cooled computer, where does the water transport the heat to? Are there large additional alluminium or copper radiators somewhere else, that can't be crammed directly on the circuit boards?


Depends on the manufacturer. Look up water cooling system in any online PC shop and you'll find a whole variety.

[Eldan]

Most forms of energy production on Earth are actually derived from the sun in some way. The exceptions are nuclear power, geothermal, and tidal. Fossil fuels, hydro power, wind, and (of course) solar all wouldn't work without the sun constantly dumping huge amounts of energy into the planetary ecosystem.

Tidal as well, actually. Quite a bit of the tides are due to the sun.

[Douglas]

Tidal as well, actually. Quite a bit of the tides are due to the sun.
A portion of them, yes, but the large majority comes from the moon.

[AtomicKitKat]

Springs help to mitigate some of the energy lost, but not much. Perhaps use them to pump water to a higher point to power a hydro-electric turbine?

While on the topic of energy conservation/generation. I posted this some 10 pages ago, but nobody really responded to it.

Is it viable to put wind turbines along expressways/highways, to utilise the slipstream (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slipstream), or the air that gets forced away from the cars travelling along the expressways? Alternatively, placing them at the edge of a roof to capture the wind generated by air passing across the roof suddenly increasing in speed as it crosses the edge.

Alternatively, placing some kind of miniature hydro-electric turbines along the drainage routes from the roofs of tall buildings, to capture rain run-off. Or, and this is my most ambitious one yet. A giant(like 10-30 storeys tall) plexiglass(not really completely plexiglass, but that forms the actual waterproof roof part) umbrella, whose core consists of a series of hydroelectric turbines, to extract power from the collected water as it drains away. This also has the side-benefit of reducing potential floods in the area covered.

[Doomboy911]

Is desertification impossible to fix? I had some theories of how to fix it they're just not pretty.

[Ravens_cry]

Is desertification impossible to fix? I had some theories of how to fix it they're just not pretty.
Well, probably not impossible, but it does tend to be a bit of a viscous cycle.
Replanting plants hardy enough to stand the desert conditions could be a start.

[factotum]

Is it viable to put wind turbines along expressways/highways, to utilise the slipstream (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slipstream), or the air that gets forced away from the cars travelling along the expressways?

Wouldn't be strong enough. Mythbusters tested out the myth that you can be pulled off a station platform by a passing express train, and as I recall there was practically no effect unless they put the person within inches of the train--and a train is much larger and has a much greater slipstream than cars do. A passing lorry might generate enough breeze to briefly power a windmill, but you're not going to get enough power out of that to be worth the effort. (You could always try attaching magnets to the vehicles and using a buried cable to induce some electric current, though :smallwink:).

As for the rain capturing methods, firstly, it's not raining constantly (although the current weather in the UK might make you think differently), and even when it IS raining the actual amount of water falling out of the sky is not that much.

Overall, building lots of tiny turbines would likely cost more and be less effective than building a single large one, especially since large generators tend to be more efficient than small ones.

[AtomicKitKat]

Wouldn't be strong enough. Mythbusters tested out the myth that you can be pulled off a station platform by a passing express train, and as I recall there was practically no effect unless they put the person within inches of the train--and a train is much larger and has a much greater slipstream than cars do. A passing lorry might generate enough breeze to briefly power a windmill, but you're not going to get enough power out of that to be worth the effort. (You could always try attaching magnets to the vehicles and using a buried cable to induce some electric current, though :smallwink:).

As for the rain capturing methods, firstly, it's not raining constantly (although the current weather in the UK might make you think differently), and even when it IS raining the actual amount of water falling out of the sky is not that much.

Overall, building lots of tiny turbines would likely cost more and be less effective than building a single large one, especially since large generators tend to be more efficient than small ones.

Isn't a train relatively more streamlined than a car though? With regards to the rain, it rains about 200 days out of the year here 1 degree north of the equator, with a fairly high amount of it in June(200mm an hour? in abnormal conditions, 100 otherwise).

[Doomboy911]

Wouldn't it be more efficient to put like windmills on the train? Such as built into the side so wind would go through and build up power, not to power the whole train but to reduce the amount of power used on the train. If that's confusing picture it like this we have Power 1 which is used to power the train and Power 2 which is done with the turbines. Power 2 goes into power 1 reducing how much of power 1 in being put in to power the train.

If that doesn't make any sense I could try to draw it up.

[Qwertystop]

Well, this may be a weird question, but that's what this thread is for...

What is the evolutionary purpose of the hymen? I mean, it's a part of the body which must be broken to be passed down, in an area for which I cannot see any use other than that use which breaks it.

[Doomboy911]

That I cannot fathom my mind can only assume it makes a funny noise when it pops. If the easier broken hymens belong to the girls who have been around the block more often than it makes no sense that they're still around. You'd think they'd breed out by now. (This all comes from a slightly above average understanding of evolution sullied by years of science fiction.)

[Ravens_cry]

Well, this may be a weird question, but that's what this thread is for...

What is the evolutionary purpose of the hymen? I mean, it's a part of the body which must be broken to be passed down, in an area for which I cannot see any use other than that use which breaks it.
Protection from infection, perhaps?
It's common in some other mammals, so I imagine it serves *some* purpose.

[factotum]

Isn't a train relatively more streamlined than a car though?

Hardly--most trains tend to have very blunt front ends (particularly freight trains), and that's what causes the ram effect.

As for the idea of putting turbines on the train itself to "save energy", you don't get anything for free. The turbines would, indeed, generate power, but they would also generate drag that would require the train's engines to work harder. If you could somehow figure out a way to generate *more* power from the turbines than you're losing in the train's engines then you've created yourself a perpetual motion machine, because you could theoretically just start the train off with a push and let the power generated by the turbines drive it the rest of the way!

[AtomicKitKat]

Hardly--most trains tend to have very blunt front ends (particularly freight trains), and that's what causes the ram effect.

My bad. I guess it's the different mental images of the term "train". For you it's the coal-powered monsters. I was thinking more like the bullet-nosed types used for subway systems.

In my vision of "highway-side turbines", the fan blades could be turned either by the slipstream, OR by the air flowing in the opposite direction.

Regarding the hymen, I'd guess it's from the point in gestation when the opening was still partially sealed. However, short of Truman Show levels of observation from the moment of conception(which assumes that someone somehow develops a transparent artificial external womb), it would be impossible to know for sure.

[Matthias2207]

Why is the meat in chicken nuggets grey-y? Normal chicken meat is white.
Edit: Actually, I don't know if I even want to know.

[Brother Oni]

Why is the meat in chicken nuggets grey-y? Normal chicken meat is white.
Edit: Actually, I don't know if I even want to know.

A quick wiki check shows two words - meat slurry. Yeah, you're better off not knowing...

[Eldan]

Actually, sometimes you see some grey meat on a chicken. They mainly use the cheap meat anyway for the nuggets, so there's some of that.

And yes, slurry. Urgh.

[Yora]

Say about meat what you want, consider the pros and cons for yourself, and buy as often and where you think it's okay. Except chicken. There is no such thing as an ethically tollerable chicken farm. There are some places that produce eggs from free range chicken, but those don't produce any meaningful quantities of meat.

[Doomboy911]

Hardly--most trains tend to have very blunt front ends (particularly freight trains), and that's what causes the ram effect.

As for the idea of putting turbines on the train itself to "save energy", you don't get anything for free. The turbines would, indeed, generate power, but they would also generate drag that would require the train's engines to work harder. If you could somehow figure out a way to generate *more* power from the turbines than you're losing in the train's engines then you've created yourself a perpetual motion machine, because you could theoretically just start the train off with a push and let the power generated by the turbines drive it the rest of the way!

Could have it sit on top of a hill.

[Matthias2207]

Is it an infinite hill?

[Karoht]

Why is the meat in chicken nuggets grey-y? Normal chicken meat is white.
Edit: Actually, I don't know if I even want to know.
White Meat + Dark Meat + Bone Marrow + Stock from boiling down bones (adds flavor) + Livers and Kidneys and such (common in most forms of stock as well) = Grey color.

[Ravens_cry]

You know, I think it a little funny that people are complaining about this.
After all, it's just a new way to use 'all the buffalo' or in this case, chicken.
We're pretty picky if we get squicked by eating a little umbles.

[Karoht]

You know, I think it a little funny that people are complaining about this.
After all, it's just a new way to use 'all the buffalo' or in this case, chicken.
We're pretty picky if we get squicked by eating a little umbles.

In the case of nuggets, it's the preservatives that bother me.

In the case of all the chicken parts, I regularly purchase extra chicken liver to go in my dirty rice, or my home made chicken stock. Bones and Marrow? Again, stock. I break the bones open whenever possible to ensure that the marrow gets out easily.

Anyone here like Turkey gravy? Proper turkey gravy is made with giblets and drippings from the bird. KFC gravy uses deep fryer fat (namely the stuff at the very very bottom with chicken bits and such), a boat load of flour and corn starch, and loads of salt.

[Brother Oni]

You know, I think it a little funny that people are complaining about this.
After all, it's just a new way to use 'all the buffalo' or in this case, chicken.
We're pretty picky if we get squicked by eating a little umbles.

I've got no objections to eating offal - for example small intestine has this really odd texture which is smooth on one side and 'lumpy' (best description I have for it) on the other due to the villi.

I do however live in the UK, where English people can be fantastically picky about their food, so prefer to err on the side of caution when informing people about what they're eating (one semi-ostracisation was enough for me).

[oblivion6]

In the case of nuggets, it's the preservatives that bother me.

In the case of all the chicken parts, I regularly purchase extra chicken liver to go in my dirty rice, or my home made chicken stock. Bones and Marrow? Again, stock. I break the bones open whenever possible to ensure that the marrow gets out easily.

Anyone here like Turkey gravy? Proper turkey gravy is made with giblets and drippings from the bird. KFC gravy uses deep fryer fat (namely the stuff at the very very bottom with chicken bits and such), a boat load of flour and corn starch, and loads of salt.

i love turkey gravy...despite KFC using deep fryer fat, their gravy is still the best

[Elemental]

I suppose... When it comes down to it, a person doesn't go to KFC because they're known for how healthy their food is.
They go because of those eleven herbs and spices.
And the chips are good too.

As for their gravy, it's nice, but not the best.



And because, I feel like asking a question for once instead of just answering:
I can understand the reasoning behind annuals, but why would any self-respecting plant grow for thirty to eighty years to a height of up to twenty-five metres before flowering once and then dying after setting fruit?
It seems rather silly to me...

[AtomicKitKat]

And because, I feel like asking a question for once instead of just answering:
I can understand the reasoning behind annuals, but why would any self-respecting plant grow for thirty to eighty years to a height of up to twenty-five metres before flowering once and then dying after setting fruit?
It seems rather silly to me...

I'm not a botanist by any measure(animals are my specialty, whether quirks, biology, or tastiness), but I'd think it might have to do with evolutionary pressures/environment at the time they were naturally-selected. Apart from the known Ice Ages(which I shall refer to as Epic Ice Ages), there were many mini Ice Ages(each lasting many decades, or even centuries, but less than millenia). Say these century plants came about during the first of the many mini Ice Ages after the Epic ones. So they follow the herbivore route, growing as gigantic as possible, while being as distasteful as possible, until the ice recedes, then spit out their seeds, die, and the next generation repeats it. Alternatively, they could in fact have come about during the Epic Ice Ages, and their actual lifespans actually measure in the millenia, just that all the constant care and attention on them with human intervention shortens the time needed for them to reach "maturity size" and thus reproductive capability.

Thoughts on my theory?:smallsmile:

[Yora]

Maybe the plant needs a lot of room to grow and a single big one has much better chance to surive than lots of small ones keeping each other from growing to full size.

So the plant benefits from there being solitary, but a species needs to reproduce to ... well, be a species! :smallbiggrin:
One biologist, who really just should have stayed in the field he knows about, made the very good explaination that it is not the individual organism that needs to survive and do well, but that the evolution of species depends entirely on which traits can be passed on to later generations.

So I would guess there was an environment in wich the ancestor of these plants lived, and some of them had genes for many fruits and others genes for fewer fruits. And every time something bad happened and destroyed a lot of the plants, those that produced the least amounts of fruit survived. Maybe they were standing further apart and so could grow larger or could recieve more light. In patches where the plants grew more fruit, the plants could not grow as big and where blocking sunlight from each other or stealing each others water. So they were eaten up or burned by fire, or really anything else imaginable.
Repeat this cycle a few dozens or hundred times, and you end up with plants that grow really big and have really few fruits. The best survivors would of course be those plants that had no fruits at all, but they did not reproduce and when they got axed (possibly quite literally), the genes that make the plant produce no fruit is gone.

[Ravens_cry]

I suppose... When it comes down to it, a person doesn't go to KFC because they're known for how healthy their food is.
They go because of those eleven herbs and spices.
And the chips are good too.

As for their gravy, it's nice, but not the best.



And because, I feel like asking a question for once instead of just answering:
I can understand the reasoning behind annuals, but why would any self-respecting plant grow for thirty to eighty years to a height of up to twenty-five metres before flowering once and then dying after setting fruit?
It seems rather silly to me...
Well, a large goal is to reproduce. Some reproduce profusely, making many, many, of spring, while others produce in much more conservative numbers.
Think humans verses salmon. A salmon will produce thousands of eggs, and only two need to survive in order to keep the numbers at parity, while humans produce only a handful of children and most survive.
Now if a plant only flowers once after that long a time, it probably is in a pretty nutrient poor environment, with little to spare to reproducing.

[Karoht]

I assume you are talking about trees in general, right?

Well, lets look at humans. We take typically 16-18 years before we are able to reproduce. A tree is still a living thing that entire time, all the way until it reproduces.

[Yora]

Does anyone know about the accuracy of the story that sailors used to be unable to swim, out of superstition?

I grew up at the sea, and this story sound to me just like knights being unable to move in armor and a flat earth. Funny to redicule the people of the past, but highly doubtful for a number of reasons.

[Gnoman]

Well, I'm not sure how far back it goes, but sailors of the great naval wars (1550s-1830s) are pretty well confirmed to rarely have the ability. Numerous primary sources from the era make reference to this. Now, the source of this lack is unknown. It may have been superstition, or the fact that most crews were largely prisoners or gang-pressed landsmen.

[Ravens_cry]

Knowing how to swim wouldn't help in most cases anyway unless you were really near to shore, and even then you need a fairly nice beach to survive that.
You fall in in open water and all knowing how to swim will do is make you die that much slower.
Also, there is a bit of sympathetic magic involved.
You don't want the sea to get a taste for you.

[Brother Oni]

Wasn't there also a period where it was believed that bathing was unhealthy for you? Since they didn't like to bathe, swimming would be pretty much out of the question.

[Ravens_cry]

Wasn't there also a period where it was believed that bathing was unhealthy for you? Since they didn't like to bathe, swimming would be pretty much out of the question.
I don't think the two were connected, at least not much. After all, it is contemporary accounts that mention the sailors lack of swimming. If it was a part of a widespread cultural trait, I have my doubts it would have been commented on.

[Gnoman]

Wasn't there also a period where it was believed that bathing was unhealthy for you? Since they didn't like to bathe, swimming would be pretty much out of the question.

That was two to five centuries earlier. By the time period in question, the prime reason for not bathing regularly was the logistical difficulties inherent in the process. Most people didn't have time.

[Eldan]

Plus, water in the cities was really dirty. Bathing or drinking water really could give you Typhoid or Cholera. Which is why beer was so important: the alcohol content kills quite a bit of germs.

[Tonal Architect]

Question:

How do cannibals protect themselves against AIDS? I assume that gorging on a victim's insides is most definetly a risky behavior.

[Ravens_cry]

Plus, water in the cities was really dirty. Bathing or drinking water really could give you Typhoid or Cholera. Which is why beer was so important: the alcohol content kills quite a bit of germs.
It's also that water was boiled as part of the production process as much than the alcohol content, which was quite low in small beer.

[Eldan]

Question:

How do cannibals protect themselves against AIDS? I assume that gorging on a victim's insides is most definetly a risky behavior.

I don't know about Aids, specifically, but the few societies on Earth that regularly practise cannibalism (there's only a handful, really) often suffer from diseases you can almost only get that way, especially brain diseases like Kuru. If AIDS is a factor, I don't think they could do much about it.

[Brother Oni]

Question:

How do cannibals protect themselves against AIDS? I assume that gorging on a victim's insides is most definetly a risky behavior.

As Eldan said, they don't.

They tend to avoid it by virtue of their victims simply not having been exposed to those diseases, but when they munch on an infected person, they catch it. Kuru is an excellent example of an endemic disease that got into their food chain and subsequently developed.

[thubby]

Question:

How do cannibals protect themselves against AIDS? I assume that gorging on a victim's insides is most definetly a risky behavior.

they... don't?
tribes that still practice it continue to have problems with a lot of diseases because of it.

[Yora]

Plus, water in the cities was really dirty. Bathing or drinking water really could give you Typhoid or Cholera. Which is why beer was so important: the alcohol content kills quite a bit of germs.
And making it usually involves boiling.

[Eldan]

Yeah. I was more thinking of keeping it fresh once made ,actually.

[Yora]

Wasn't brewing done mostly at home? I wonder how frequently that was done and how it was stored?
On a farm with 10 people, you can easily go through 20 to 30 liters every day. Even when you prepare it for a week, that would still be about 200 liters. I think this makes it quite likely that it wouldn't be stored for very long. But I think the alchohol would probably help keeping the storage containers clean. A half-filled wooden barrel with water would be one of the first places I would start looking for any kinds of molds.

[Elemental]

Question:

How do cannibals protect themselves against AIDS? I assume that gorging on a victim's insides is most definetly a risky behavior.

As everyone has said so far, they don't.
Societies that still practice cannibalism aren't exactly known for their advanced medical knowledge.

[Karoht]

Question:
How do cannibals protect themselves against AIDS? I assume that gorging on a victim's insides is most definetly a risky behavior.
Easy. Modern Cannibals don't eat human meat. They eat Hufu. Human flavored tofu. Look it up.

[Doomboy911]

As everyone has said so far, they don't.
Societies that still practice cannibalism aren't exactly known for their advanced medical knowledge.

Or food critics for that matter.

[Brother Oni]

Easy. Modern Cannibals don't eat human meat. They eat Hufu. Human flavored tofu. Look it up.

Wouldn't it be cheaper just to eat pork?

[Elemental]

Wouldn't it be cheaper just to eat pork?

I'm just concerned that people actually want to eat human flavoured tofu...
It's very disturbing...

Also, it's strange to think how someone can be a cannibal and vegetarian without being a plant...

[Zale]

Easy. Modern Cannibals don't eat human meat. They eat Hufu. Human flavored tofu. Look it up.

I lol'd. Then I looked it up.

It's really a thing. :smalleek:

What.

[Brother Oni]

I'm just concerned that people actually want to eat human flavoured tofu...
It's very disturbing...

I wouldn't mind trying Hufu.

That probably says a lot about me...

[Yora]

Wouldn't it be cheaper just to eat pork?
Socially accepted canibalism is usually not for food, but for riualist purposes.

I think the most commonly practiced form is to cremate the body of the dead and then drink the ash mixed with water, to allow the soul to remain with the tribe and become part of the soul of children born in the future.

[Ravens_cry]

I lol'd. Then I looked it up.

It's really a thing. :smalleek:

What.
Which leads to something like the chicken question from the Matrix.
How do they know it tastes like human flesh?

[Yora]

Somebody donated a body. For science!

[Ravens_cry]

Somebody donated a body. For science!
I did a little research and apparently it's not a real thing.
There was a real website, but not a real product.

[Matthias2207]

I did a little research and apparently it's not a real thing.
There was a real website, but not a real product.

:smallfrown: But if it was never produced, it was never sold and that means I can't buy it! Not even 'vintage'... Now I'm forced to eat real human flesh if I want to know what it tastes like.
About the chicken question: Hufu probably just tastes like chicken, because everything tastes like chicken. (Or was it that chicken tastes like everything? Need to watch it again.)

[Ravens_cry]

:smallfrown: But if it was never produced, it was never sold and that means I can't buy it! Not even 'vintage'... Now I'm forced to eat real human flesh if I want to know what it tastes like.
About the chicken question: Hufu probably just tastes like chicken, because everything tastes like chicken. (Or was it that chicken tastes like everything? Need to watch it again.)
I doubt humans taste like chicken. We are medium large mammals.
I was referring to Mouse's question as how the machines do know what chicken tastes like when they feed the stimulus directly to the enslaved's brains.
Everything tastes like chicken because chicken don't taste like much; it's fairly tasteless stuff as is the flesh of many small creatures aside from fish.

[Doomboy911]

I remember reading somewhere that some japanese guy ate someone after some prison time he became a celebrity and got his own cooking show he said people tasted like cat food. Wonder when he ate cat food.

[Brother Oni]

According to various historical records, human meat has traditionally been referred to as 'the long pork', so presumably cooked human flesh would have a taste and texture not unlike pork.

I'm inclined to agree with Doomboy911 - when did the guy eat cat food so he have a taste comparison?

[Doomboy911]

According to various historical records, human meat has traditionally been referred to as 'the long pork', so presumably cooked human flesh would have a taste and texture not unlike pork.

I'm inclined to agree with Doomboy911 - when did the guy eat cat food so he have a taste comparison?

Maybe cat food tastes like pork. Oh my god cat food is people.

[Grytorm]

Is it weird that I have only a handful of dreams in a year?

Secondly how much do people think using words as opposed to acting just actions?

[AtomicKitKat]

Having incinerated more than a few body parts over the years(not what you think, just hair, nails, dead skin, stuff that regrows), I can verify that it does indeed smell a fair bit like roast pork. Burnt keratin actually smells quite a bit like popcorn.

[mucco]

Is it weird that I have only a handful of dreams in a year?

It is not. In reality, you do dream every single night you sleep a "normal" time, which is, more than like 4 hours. You just don't remember your dreams - many people have a hard time remembering them.

If you want to remember them, take a piece of paper and a pen and put them next to your bed, to write a description of a dream you just had as soon as you wake up. The mere fact of you knowing that you have to write about your dream should be enough, psychologically, to make you remember it. If you do write about it and do so for some time, you will remember dreams better and better; some people after a certain time manage to take control of their dreams as well!

[Matthias2207]

Is it weird that I have only a handful of dreams in a year?
Alarm clocks kill dreams. You won't remember them if you woke up suddenly.


Secondly how much do people think using words as opposed to acting just actions?

Depends on the kind of person. Some think in language, others in actions and emotions.

[Yora]

How much of the actual heat of the sun makes it all the way to earth, and how much of what we recieve is actually just radiation heating up matter here on earth?

[Ravens_cry]

Having incinerated more than a few body parts over the years(not what you think, just hair, nails, dead skin, stuff that regrows), I can verify that it does indeed smell a fair bit like roast pork. Burnt keratin actually smells quite a bit like popcorn.
Really? I find burning hair smells like burnt feathers, (which makes sense as I believe they are made of the same goop, keratin) and that smells nasty.

[AtomicKitKat]

Really? I find burning hair smells like burnt feathers, (which makes sense as I believe they are made of the same goop, keratin) and that smells nasty.

It's a bit odd actually. I think it's one of those things where it smells differently if in different quantities. Fingernails I know for a fact create a fairly pleasant smell(in small quantities only. Larger quantities create choking smoke), possibly due to the maillard reaction.

[Fragenstein]

Why do my fellow Americans have so much difficulty accepting the bidet? They're awesome. We should all use them.

[Matthias2207]

How much of the actual heat of the sun makes it all the way to earth, and how much of what we receive is actually just radiation heating up matter here on earth?

Heat = Infra Red = Light = Radiation

But IR can't travel very far, so it never reaches Earth. The heat we feel is other sorts of light being converted to IR when it touches the/our surface.

[factotum]

But IR can't travel very far

Astronomers use infra-red observations to look at objects that are hidden by dust clouds in the visible spectrum, so it actually travels further than visible light does! What you possibly mean is that IR radiation doesn't travel well through the Earth's atmosphere.

[Doomboy911]

Why do my fellow Americans have so much difficulty accepting the bidet? They're awesome. We should all use them.

We apparently hate trees and the thought of super soaker to the hiney bothers me but I would get one. They should heat it though to kill germs because we do ignore that.

[Ravens_cry]

We apparently hate trees and the thought of super soaker to the hiney bothers me but I would get one. They should heat it though to kill germs because we do ignore that.
Oh joys, the thought of scalded groins thrills me to no end.*
*The above is sarcasm.

[Doomboy911]

Oh joys, the thought of scalded groins thrills me to no end.*
*The above is sarcasm.


We could do this, people would stop eating fast food.

[Ravens_cry]

We could do this, people would stop eating fast food.
What.:smallconfused:

[Doomboy911]

Okay so your toilet is going to fire hot water at your butt are you going to eat something that causes you to go back to the bathroom a lot or the food that doesn't.

[Ravens_cry]

Okay so your toilet is going to fire hot water at your butt are you going to eat something that causes you to go back to the bathroom a lot or the food that doesn't.
I don't know about you, but I've never gotten the trots from fast food.
To be honest it tends to bind me up.
High Fibre food on the other hand . . .

[razark]

We could do this, people would stop eating.
Fixed that for you.

[Karoht]

I did a little research and apparently it's not a real thing.
There was a real website, but not a real product.
I knew that. I just wanted to see how many people would take it at face value rather than look it up.

[Ravens_cry]

I knew that. I just wanted to see how many people would take it at face value rather than look it up.
In other news, hydroxylic acid, the deadly secrets THEY don't want you to know.

[Karoht]

In other news, hydroxylic acid, the deadly secrets THEY don't want you to know.
I see what you did thar.
It's a major conspiracy. And it is in so many products, even food products!

[Ravens_cry]

It's a major conspiracy. And it is in so many products, even food products!
Yes, and like with sugar, they use a different name to try and hide it. Sneaky sneaky.:smalltongue:

[Karoht]

Yes, and like with sugar, they use a different name to try and hide it. Sneaky sneaky.:smalltongue:
*gasp*
The nerve of those hooligans.

[Ravens_cry]

*gasp*
The nerve of those hooligans.
And in cosmetics and hygiene products they use a different name again.
The fiends!

[Eldan]

My chemistry lecutres are a few years ago. Isn't that another name for DHMO? You know, Oxidane.

[Ravens_cry]

My chemistry lecutres are a few years ago. Isn't that another name for DHMO? You know, Oxidane.
Among other things. I chose an acid name because it sounded among the most threatening.

[Douglas]

I don't know, the DHMO name immediately brings Carbon Monoxide to mind as a possibly related chemical for a lot of people due to the commonality of "monoxide" in the two names and its rarity elsewhere, and "everyone" knows how dangerous CO is. Calling it an acid evokes similar automatic "that might be dangerous" associations, but I'm not sure it has as strong an effect as invoking implicit comparison to CO.

Also, the classic web site (http://www.dhmo.org/) for it uses DHMO.

[AtomicKitKat]

It's a pretty cool substance, eh? Takes away heat from my skin and doesn't afraid of anybody. Still, I wouldn't advise anybody to do the same with iron products. It's notorious for oxidising them.

[Yora]

Oxidizing is putting it mildly. It can completely eat away big chunks of iron and causes dramatic discolorations in copper.

http://www.dhmo.org/images/dhmobanner.gif

[Ravens_cry]

I don't know, the DHMO name immediately brings Carbon Monoxide to mind as a possibly related chemical for a lot of people due to the commonality of "monoxide" in the two names and its rarity elsewhere, and "everyone" knows how dangerous CO is. Calling it an acid evokes similar automatic "that might be dangerous" associations, but I'm not sure it has as strong an effect as invoking implicit comparison to CO.

Also, the classic web site (http://www.dhmo.org/) for it uses DHMO.
That's another reason not to use it, people might have heard of the substance in that form, so are more alert for it.

[thubby]

thought of another

is there a liquid, stable at normal temperatures, that humans could not float/swim in?
(also, that won't kill/maim on contact would be nice)

[Eldan]

As in, sink, you mean? Human density is not much less than that of water, really. So, anything with a lower density. Probably most vegetable oils, as they swim on water due to their lower density. Pure Ethanol might apply, with a relative density of 0.78 (water is 1).

[Karoht]

That is actually one of the fears that the recent gulf oil spill brought to light. A serious enough oil spill/leak in that area and most of the ships in the area would sink.
Oh yeah, and the disasterous loss of life and all. But hey, save the boats and all.

[Doomboy911]

Hmm let's suppose that dolphins and alligators could exist in the same enviroment which one do you think would win in a fight a pod of dolphins or a pod of alligators?

[Ravens_cry]

Hmm let's suppose that dolphins and alligators could exist in the same enviroment which one do you think would win in a fight a pod of dolphins or a pod of alligators?
Well, there is fresh water dolphins and salt water crocodiles, so it's not completely far fetched.
If the alligators could ambush the dolphins, which is what they do being ambush predators, I'd give it to them. Much, much, nastier dental equipment.
Dolphins do attack sharks, but they generally outnumber them when they do I believe.

[Elemental]

Agreed.
Individually, a fight would go to the alligator.
But dolphins are rarely found on their own.

[Doomboy911]

Hmm I brought it up elsewhere and they said it really depended on the environment as optimal conditions for an alligator or a croc would be something about fifteen deep and murky so they can hide while a dolphin would want something clearer and deeper so it had room to move. Although I'd throw it dolphins the alligator's tactic of dragging them to the bottom of the river and wrestling until they're out of air wouldn''t really work too well. Although I suppose a croc or alligator could just drag the dolphins out onto the ground individually. Now to switch it up Hippos vs. dolphins.

[Yora]

Unless they poke a hippo in the eye, I don't really see how much they could do.
But, well: Dolphins live in environments where they only have to fight if an attacker pursues them.

[Doomboy911]

Which is worst to have a hopeless dream or no dreams at all?

[thubby]

Which is worst to have a hopeless dream or no dreams at all?

i disagree with the premise that a dream can be hopeless.

[Doomboy911]

i disagree with the premise that a dream can be hopeless.

You and me both and yet I came up with the question.

[Coidzor]

Which is worst to have a hopeless dream or no dreams at all?

You can give a dream hope or rise from the ashes after you finally have it dashed. If you have no dreams at all, it's in all probability because one is unable to dream or because one's circumstances have become very, very bad, and there's only so low we can go that we can bounce back from with circumstances, while an inability to dream is unlikely to be remedied, to put it mildly.

[Ravens_cry]

Better to have loved and lost than to have never have loved at all is an aphorism I firmly believe in.
Life is in the trying, the struggle, and with that comes risk, the risk of failing. But if we are to succeed at all, we must take that risk, that leap of faith into the unknown.
Dream the impossible dream; it may not be as impossible as you think.

[inky13112]

No one ever failed to achieve the dream they never had. No one has ever succeeded at a dream that is hopeless.

[Eldan]

I never had a dream I had even a remote sense of achieving. I love this world, it is wonderful and beautiful, but whenever I look at the things I truly, really want, I see that I will never have them. I will never discover a new continent. I will never stand on an alien planet. I will never have magic. Or a thousand other things that truly excite me. This real life only offers remote shadows of those dreams, that never really excite me.

[Elemental]

Oh well... One cannot expect the real world to shape up to the expectations of the imagination.
But still, it is pretty awesome, magical and epic in a way explainable by science.

[Coidzor]

No one ever failed to achieve the dream they never had. No one has ever succeeded at a dream that is hopeless.

Well, for the first, they just failed to achieve having dreams at all. For the second, you can't know that, for a given value of "hopeless." :smallwink:

I cannot comprehend a complete human being that does not have some manner of dream or that has not had dreams in the past.

[Matthias2207]

Oh well... One cannot expect the real world to shape up to the expectations of the imagination.


Unless you're Haruhi Suzumiya. :smalltongue:

[inky13112]

Well, for the first, they just failed to achieve having dreams at all. For the second, you can't know that, for a given value of "hopeless." :smallwink:

I cannot comprehend a complete human being that does not have some manner of dream or that has not had dreams in the past.

True, everyone has dreams whether they think it or not. But if someone ever achieves a hopeless dream it wasn't really hopeless was it? Semantics I guess.

[Adlan]

True, everyone has dreams whether they think it or not. But if someone ever achieves a hopeless dream it wasn't really hopeless was it? Semantics I guess.

If someone achieves a hopeless dream, then it could still have been considered hopeless, so long as the person believed that the dream was without hope.

On the topic of Dreams, mine is a little less hopeless, I hope. Weird Question: What Jobs for a British Chemistry graduate are their in Canada?


Seriously Weird Question:
Is it Wrong for a person to want to emigrate? Does it imply they hate their old country? Should everyone just stay in their own country and fix the problems there?

[factotum]

Is it Wrong for a person to want to emigrate? Does it imply they hate their old country? Should everyone just stay in their own country and fix the problems there?

What's wrong with it? It means that you prefer some other country than the one an accident of birth or circumstance landed you up in. It no more means you *hate* your original country than it means you hate any other country than the one you're planning to emigrate to.

Of course, this is all with the caveat that you've done the research and know exactly what you're getting into--there are plenty of examples of people who emigrate to what they think will be a better life, but end up coming back to where they started because the new country wasn't quite as awesome as they thought it would be.

[Karoht]

@Immigration/Emmigration
Without touching politics... Hooboy. Here goes.

Nation X can have problems that the individual citizen may not be able to address, cope with, or solve. The individual citizen doesn't have much in the way of options at this point. Stay and tough it out, or leave.

I do not personally begrudge anyone who prefers to leave. Especially given some of the pretty horrible places out there on this planet earth.

It's really not that different than changing jobs. A person might find themselves in a job they hate with no ability to change certain aspects of their employment. So naturally, the person will then look for a better job with better conditions.

[ForzaFiori]

Seriously Weird Question:
Is it Wrong for a person to want to emigrate? Does it imply they hate their old country? Should everyone just stay in their own country and fix the problems there?

I'm in the US, so many of my examples will come from there. I'd imagine there are other examples around the world, however.

I don't think so. For one thing, sometimes people are forced to emigrate - the refuges from political and military unrest. Many of them still love their home country, but just can't live there right now - they have to fix the problem first. For example, the Cuban refugees in Florida, or the large number of SE Asian refugees that came to the US in the 80's and early 90s.

Sometimes another country's culture appeals to someone more than their own. That doesn't mean that they don't love their own country, just that they see another one that they like. Nearly every family in America is here because of this, yet you still see massive amount of pride in where your from - My family has been here for 4 generations, yet we're still proud of the fact that we came from Italy.

Finally, sometimes you emigrate for work, rather than a wish to change nationality. The Chinese that came over during the early to mid 1800s, for instance. My mom and dad nearly moved to Holland (they wouldn't have become citizens, but they would have moved there) for work before I was born.

[Doomboy911]

If I wanted to become a citizen in every part of the world what would I have to do and what could possibly stop me from reaching this goal?

[ForzaFiori]

Some nations don't allow dual citizenship. The USA, for instance, doesn't recognize it.

EDIT: Also, many places make it VERY hard (or impossible) to become a citizen - Australia, New Zealand, most of Europe, etc. Places with bad overcrowding already don't want people flooding in, obviously.

[Eldan]

Some countries don't allow double citizenship: if you want to become a citizen there, you have to give up all other citizenships.

[factotum]

Not to mention that the ones which DO allow dual citizenship might start getting suspicious when you turn up as a citizen of 23 other countries already... :smallsmile:

[Doomboy911]

Dang it now I have to become a man of the world through more symbolic means.

[Karoht]

If I wanted to become a citizen in every part of the world what would I have to do and what could possibly stop me from reaching this goal?Here is a step by step guide I found on the interwebs. Seems legit.
The following is complete satire and should not be taken even remotely seriously. Really, not even a little. No, not even that much.
Step 1: Buy some land that no one cares about.
Step 2: Go through all the paperwork to recede from your current nation and have the land declared its own independant nation. Yes, this has been done before. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Molossia
Step 3: As supreme ruler of your new nation, draft and ratify some official document to declare that all citizens of your nation are permitted multi-citizenship. You may have some trouble getting it through your 1 party review and approval system, just buy everyone off with lavish gifts.
Step 4: Become recognized by the United Nations. Previous advice to get the paperwork passed may have less than desireable results.
Step 5: Apply for citizenship everywhere else on earth at the same time. Do NOT attempt to buy people off with lavish gifts at this stage, too easy to follow the papertrail. Stick to modest or even cheap gifts. I hear fruit baskets and chocolates do help.
Step 6: Any nation which denies your citizenship, you simply unrecognize as a nation.
If you are currently drafting a serious reply to explain in detail how this would not work because of X, you are doing it wrong.
Sounds pretty easy right?

[Yora]

Has anyone else noticed getting sleepy from closing your eyes and sitting still?

I have my pair of sunglasses mostly for driving. Not because I can't see anything, but when I squint my eyes, I get very sleepy very quickly. With sunglasses I am completely awake.
And today the dentists light was shining at my eyes, so I closed them and shortly after dozed off on the chair. While having my wisdom teeth removed. :smallbiggrin:

[Qwertystop]

How fast must something rotate to appear to be rotating slowly in the opposite direction?

[Douglas]

How fast must something rotate to appear to be rotating slowly in the opposite direction?
If you're talking about watching a video or TV show, it depends on the frame rate. If you're talking about real life, it doesn't work that way.

[Qwertystop]

If you're talking about watching a video or TV show, it depends on the frame rate. If you're talking about real life, it doesn't work that way.

No, I've seen little toys that have a row of lights on a bar that spins really fast and eventually it looks like the lights stop spinning and then start spinning slowly in the opposite direction.

[thubby]

No, I've seen little toys that have a row of lights on a bar that spins really fast and eventually it looks like the lights stop spinning and then start spinning slowly in the opposite direction.

oh, thats a function of how often the lights blink.

[Elemental]

Damn you... I was about to say that!

[Qwertystop]

oh, thats a function of how often the lights blink.

Is it? I never noticed the lights blinking.

[Elemental]

Is it? I never noticed the lights blinking.

It really depends on what kind of light they are then.
They could be blinking, but at such a speed that you aren't aware of it, a known feature of incandescent lights.
As a result, when it shines on a rotating object, that object is most strongly illuminated at certain points in it's rotation. And it can thus appear to be moving slower or faster than it actually is, sometimes even appearing to be still.

[inky13112]

I seem to recall seeing this same effect in spinning car wheels? Maybe I'm mistaken, but if not how does the blinking light explanation work here?

[thubby]

I seem to recall seeing this same effect in spinning car wheels? Maybe I'm mistaken, but if not how does the blinking light explanation work here?

on tv and movies it's framerate. IRL it's an optical illusion caused by your eyes derping because of the small radial lines all moving.

your eye tries to track the spinning but can't, instead grabbing tiny bits and pieces as it wiggles (your eyes just do that). your brain has a fit, gives up, and resolves the bits as "going backward"

also yes, the toys blink. I've taken 2 of them apart in my life and they definitely blink. they just do it insanely fast.
(btw, the motors in those things are impressive for the size and cost)

[sktarq]

How much of the actual heat of the sun makes it all the way to earth, and how much of what we recieve is actually just radiation heating up matter here on earth?

What do you mean by "actual heat"? If it is energy that leaves the sun causing the average solar KE to drop and causes the earth's average KE to rise then it is actual heat, no mater what the carrier. There are really only two main ways to get energy from the sun to the earth. One is the vast, strange, and totally fun EM spectrum. Basically photons of various energies. The other is the solar wind in which bits of the sun blow off from the corona and fly out and hit the earth. Which is comparibly minor in terms energy delivery. There are good arguments for magnetic field variations leading to internal friction here on earth but the amount of energy is dwarfed by the photon delivery meathod. And for those looking to quantium effects like tunnelling, sorry, it doesn't happen enough to really matter.

[Yora]

I think I was thinking of heat transfer by convection, like when you are standing next to a fire and can feel it's heat. But since space is empty, that would be the case only for hot material ejected from the sun that hits earth, which probably wouldn't be much.

But that begs the question, if any other factors were as with a simple ordinary fire on earth, how hot would it be to stand next to to a fire of the size and intensity of the sun, where "next to" means the actual distance to the sun?

[factotum]

I think I was thinking of heat transfer by convection, like when you are standing next to a fire and can feel it's heat.

Actually, if you're standing *next* to a fire (rather than on top of it) most of the heat you feel will be radiation--convection will be mostly heating the air above the fire.

As for how hot the sun would feel at Earth's distance, there's an equation which determines how hot a planet should be depending on its distance from the sun and its albedo (e.g. how much heat gets reflected into space). If you perform that calculation for the Earth, I believe it comes out with a figure of -23C--the greenhouse effect means it's actually warmer than that in reality, of course.

[Yora]

Okay, makes sense. So the heat one feels when standing in the sun is mostly the energy from absorbing uv-radition?

[Matthias2207]

If we were just to fill the space between the sun and earth with matter, it really depends on the sort of matter and the behaviour of the matter. Take normal air for example: the air closest to the sun heats, gets lighter, goes 'up' (away from the sun), but when it gets too far from the sun it hasn't any gravity (or cold air that goes down) to have a direction and it just spreads. I don't think it's really going to work.

[Eldan]

Woudn't rather a lot of that air collapse into the sun's gravity well?

[sktarq]

Okay, makes sense. So the heat one feels when standing in the sun is mostly the energy from absorbing uv-radition?

UV, Some IR, Some micowave, Some Visible, but basically yes. Much of the heat we get from the sun (most actually) comes from the ground absorbing the radiation and passing it on to the air by conduction instead of the air absorbing it directly (which then gets spread to the rest of the air by convection.

If there was an atmosphere from the sun to the earth then it would carry heat by convection, conduction, and radiation. And yes there would be all sorts of convection currents as the atmosphere would heat up close to the sun raise away from the sun go out toward the edge of the heliosphere and then fall back. Just like the majority of the sun's plasma does here in the real world.


Woudn't rather a lot of that air collapse into the sun's gravity well? yep actually all of it. Since that is what actually happened. Made the sun grow, eventually it started a fusion reaction

[Matthias2207]

Woudn't rather a lot of that air collapse into the sun's gravity well?

Yes, but we need something to fill the empty space, so we're just going to ignore that.:smalltongue:

[Eldan]

So we would need some kind of interstellar medium with no mass, but the ability to conduct heat...

Yup, ladies and gentlemen, we need Aether for a physics experiment.

[Elemental]

So we would need some kind of interstellar medium with no mass, but the ability to conduct heat...

Yup, ladies and gentlemen, we need Aether for a physics experiment.

But wasn't that discontinued due to budget cuts?

[Brother Oni]

Since there's nowhere better to put this and I feel the need to ramble:

As every school boy or girl knows, if you want to improve the dissolution of a solid in a solvent, the first step you take is either heat it up or stir it.

On a more technical thermodynamic level, what you're doing is increasing the energy in the system to overcome the enthalpy of solution, which is directly related to the solubility of the powder.

However I've worked with enough powders and liquids to know that if the solvent is added in such a way as to not overly disturb the powder, you end up with a large lump of powder in the bottom of your nearly full flask.

Presumably this indicates that the solvent is locally saturated around the powder, and depending on the properties of the wet powder, it can be a right [redacted] to get it into solution (oh lactose, how I loathe you).

Now going back to the original fix of stirring or heating, if you heat the mixture, you both raise the solubility of the material in the solvent and introduce convection currents that shift the saturated solvent away.

If you stir it though, the primary method of dissolution is removal of the localised saturated solution, which leads me to my question: is there a threshold point where it's better to stir something or to heat it up, to make the solid dissolve?
Presumably the cut off point is the boiling point of the liquid, or it's so violently stirred/shaken that the solvent is dispersed into spray, but there must be an optimal point somewhere at a sensible level.

Thoughts? Or do I just need to stop daydreaming while putting sugar in my tea? :smalltongue:

[Elemental]

Since there's nowhere better to put this and I feel the need to ramble:

As every school boy or girl knows, if you want to improve the dissolution of a solid in a solvent, the first step you take is either heat it up or stir it.

On a more technical thermodynamic level, what you're doing is increasing the energy in the system to overcome the enthalpy of solution, which is directly related to the solubility of the powder.

However I've worked with enough powders and liquids to know that if the solvent is added in such a way as to not overly disturb the powder, you end up with a large lump of powder in the bottom of your nearly full flask.

Presumably this indicates that the solvent is locally saturated around the powder, and depending on the properties of the wet powder, it can be a right [redacted] to get it into solution (oh lactose, how I loathe you).

Now going back to the original fix of stirring or heating, if you heat the mixture, you both raise the solubility of the material in the solvent and introduce convection currents that shift the saturated solvent away.

If you stir it though, the primary method of dissolution is removal of the localised saturated solution, which leads me to my question: is there a threshold point where it's better to stir something or to heat it up, to make the solid dissolve?
Presumably the cut off point is the boiling point of the liquid, or it's so violently stirred/shaken that the solvent is dispersed into spray, but there must be an optimal point somewhere at a sensible level.

Thoughts? Or do I just need to stop daydreaming while putting sugar in my tea? :smalltongue:

You need to stop daydreaming when putting sugar in your tea is the short answer.
And anyway... In my humble opinion, one should not look for the method that is more efficient, and instead the method that is more easy to enact.

Also, from another angle, stirring is more effective when it's sitting in a lump as the lump is dispersed.

[Doomboy911]

Shouldn`t the easier to enact method be the more efficient method on the grounds that the more efficient way is harder to do.

[Castaras]

Might as well ask this here... :smalltongue:

Why do girls feel softer than guys? And no, the answer can't be moisturiser or female products, because I don't ever use them and am still apparently "Made of Softs!".

[factotum]

Why do girls feel softer than guys?

I'm no expert, but I'd say it's a combination of having less skin hair and a higher percentage of body fat than a male. (Please insert your own joke about more experimentation being needed here :smallsmile:).

[Brother Oni]

Depending on what exactly you mean by 'Made of softs'.

If you mean roughness of the skin, then it's different testosterone levels causing the difference between males and females, and weathering/environmental conditions.

For example, highly exposed parts of your body like the face and hands/forearms roughen up in response to UV light, wear and tear, etc. Your underarms and other *cough* less exposed areas will undoubtedly be softer.

Testosterone causes the additional body hair roughness as mentioned by factotum, but also causes the skin to thicken to a degree.

If you meant just softer overall, then it's a little more complicated with body structure, muscle tone, body fat percentages/deposition, etc and all the involved biology.

[Castaras]

Hehe, thanks for the concise answers Oni & Factotum. :smallsmile:

[Yora]

Also, from another angle, stirring is more effective when it's sitting in a lump as the lump is dispersed.
Like evolution: Not perfect, just barely good enough to not become extinct. :smallbiggrin:

[Zar Peter]

I seem to recall seeing this same effect in spinning car wheels? Maybe I'm mistaken, but if not how does the blinking light explanation work here?

I don't think that was answered yet so I'll try: You will see this effect at night, with artifical light. Since the light uses alternating current it flickers with the frequency of this current (usually 50Hz-60Hz, depends on country). This flickering let you see the stroboscopic effect (as it is called) on car wheels.

Of course, this is functioning only if you use fluorescent light, light bulbs don't cause this effect because the frequency is too fast for them to stop emitting light.

[Andre]

Might as well ask this here... :smalltongue:

Why do girls feel softer than guys? And no, the answer can't be moisturiser or female products, because I don't ever use them and am still apparently "Made of Softs!".

Now, on a more pratical level, you wouldn't actually like a guy to 'feel soft' while you're hugging him, right? Right.

[Yora]

When they say pictures of stelar nebulars and galaxies are real photos and not simulated, do they mean actual visible light photos, or just composites of infared, visible light, and gama-ray photos that have been colorized to make them visible?

[factotum]

I would have thought they mean they're real photos taken with a camera, regardless of what frequency of ER radiation that camera is detecting. They usually use the phrase "false colour image" to indicate they've changed the colours in the image because it was taken in a range of the ER spectrum that isn't normally visible, not "simulated".