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Problem is that you cannot safely transport hydrogen in a car.

Sure you can.

True.
But there's an even more impressive FUSION reactor in space: http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/sun-update-1.jpg

Seriously why don't we just use that one?

Completely unrelated, but how safe is an etch-a-sketch if it's full of aluminum powder inside? http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/magna-doodle1.htm/printable appears much safer for kids to use.

But i still wish they'd introduce this as prior art.

It's not the same color and it's mechanical rather than electronic, but i really don't think that's a significant difference in terms of the important bits. Flat rectangular thing with bezeled edges and rounded corners that your draw on. This form factor was worked out ages ago, the theory of improving the interface and what you can do with it are certainly important technological improvements but have little to do with the form factor that Apple is claiming is important.

Somewhere back in the [14th Amendment], corporations changed from entities whose goal is making successful products and services to produce long-term growth and profits for shareholders into the social parasites that they are today.

There. Fixed that for you. See http://money.howstuffworks.com/corporation-person1.htm for more info.

Botanically tomatoes are fruits - I have never argued this, and it is in fact part of the point that I initially raised - but here are just a few sources that back me up. As you can see, legally and culinarily speaking, there are a whole hell of a lot of people who consider a tomato a vegetable. This is a fact. This is inarguable. All of your "technically"s aren't going to change this. This is the point that I initially made, this is the point that I have continued to make, and this is the point that you have continued to deny in the face of overwhelming evidence. My ego is not particularly connected to what people think of tomatoes. Maybe you, on the other hand, should consider why yours is so connected to putting on blinders and denying simple facts as they are.

Rectangular screen, bezeled edges, rounded corners.... wait a second...

You're wrong:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_efficiency#Energy_content_of_fuel
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/diesel3.htm

Your "almost identical" is something like 10%...

Seems like way too much potential for false alarm - what happens when I'm driving along and thinking "Crap, I forgot to STOP for milk" or I see someone across the street about to get hit by a car and I think "That car's going to hit him, he better STOP! And my mind goes through the thought process of applying the brakes even though I don't do so"

If they were able to trigger on arbitrary words in your thoughts I'd suggest that they forget the whole braking thing and make a text input system instead. Somehow I don't believe they can do that yet :)

However, the article agrees with you in that they are worried about false alarms. They also state that similar technology is in use in the area of prosthetics, wheel chair and computer control. /me goes off to read about how people control artificial limbs. Fascinating stuff.

This reply bothered me (see my other replies to your other posts). From the same website

Test averages include 21 mpg with a manual-transmission 4-cyl sedan, 19.2-21.6 with automatic-transmission GLX versions, 17.8 with V6 4Motion wagon. W8 averaged 16.2 overall, and 22.4 in mostly highway driving. All Passats require premium fuel

There is no way whatever my car gets anything that low. According to their figures, you are getting 30% over the norm.

Am I missing something?

I had a nice reply all set to go, then the browser crashed on me when I had to preview.
Short version, I am really curious how you get this atypical mileage for that car. 30+% over the norm and EPA is impressive.
I had other links, but I will just use the last one since I still had it in a tab on reopen.
A test LHS averaged 17.7 mpg when new and 21.6 mpg in long-term testing, whereas a 300M averaged 18.6 mpg in mostly highway driving. From
http://consumerguideauto.howstuffworks.com/1999-to-2004-chrysler-300m-lhs-1.htm
EPA was something like 18/27 with testing observed of 20 on the other site.

Even so, an impressive sounding car, but with at least $8k more than my Passat, I would hope so.

Like these? I swear I saw a production car that had this many buttons on the wheel. It was clearly the "car of the future" and the inside looked like a 747 cockpit.

http://www.carstyling.ru/resources/concept/1986_Pontiac_Trans_Sport_Concept_Detroit_02.jpg

http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/1988-pontiac-banshee-concept-car-6.jpg

And that's exactly why NASA is testing the bejesus out of it. Including delaying for exactly that reason

Bouncy rover is good and simple, but the Sojourney rover is the size of a toy car, Curiosity is about the size of a Mini Cooper.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/mars-rover3.htm

They got burned with rockets (no pun intended) on Mars Polar Lander, but guess what, Viking landed with rockets. And Mars Phoenix, and several other craft.

I'm skeptic about the whole crane thing, but they want that for a 'precision landing'.

All wheel drive ( which is what the BMW has, and which is quite different from four wheel drive )
adds considerable stability while driving at constant speed in the wet, or in snow, or on ice.

AWD also helps stability in dry conditions too. Nevertheless, by definition at constant speed or under straight line braking, AWD and 4WD systems are doing nothing different than a 2WD system. It is a DRIVE system - propulsive force. There are many, many sources which will explain this fact. Don't confuse traction control with AWD either.

All wheel drive also helps keep a car stable when braking and during cornering.

It can't help during braking. No propulsive force is (or should be) going to the wheels during straight line braking. AWD does help during cornering because CORNERING IS ACCELERATION. Any curved motion is by definition acceleration. Physics 101.

Seriously, I don't know
where you got your ideas about "four wheel drive" but you don't have a clue about vehicle dynamics in the
real world

Where did I get my ideas? Working at an automotive test track testing SUVs as an engineer. Are we done with the smartass attitude yet?

Of course I live in the Northeastern US and drive in snow and ice many times a year, and I hold
an SCCA competition license, but I'm sure your time spent playing Gran Turismo trumps any real-world experience
I have, right ?

And I live in a snowbelt along one of the great lakes, have driven in snow and ice for over 25 years, and have worked as an automotive test engineer testing vehicle stability. SCCA competition doesn't mean you know a thing about physics.

According to this, it currently costs about $1000000 per pound to send something to Mars (I'll be conservative and say $400/g). Picking the first hard drive that Google gave me, we have 16Tb of storage at 655g, or 4.1e-11 g/bit or 1.64e-8 $/bit, about $164 per gigabit.

Setting up lasers and shit has a lot of upfront cost, but once you get it set up, I'm assuming it's considerably cheaper than $164 per gigabit in the long run.

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/motor1.htm

If you think there isn't a magnet inside your existing cpu cooler, you are in for a surprise.

The brain scans were one part of the study; the other part went on behind the scenes. The researchers had to decide which types of brain activity would indicate which intention in order to establish a computer algorithm that would read the fMRI results. The software incorporates a high degree of complexity. Brain patterns are not necessarily localized; sometimes, in order to fully grasp what's happening, you need to be able to interpret patterns from different parts of the brain simultaneously. Technological innovation plays a large part in what appears to be a successful attempt to read people's minds.

Using a combination of the brain scans and the computer software, researchers were able to "guess" whether the subject intended to add or subtract the upcoming numbers with 70 percent accuracy -- not a bad success rate for mind reading. Activity patterns in the middle of the prefrontal cortex were different depending on whether the subject intended to add or intended to subtract. The researchers essentially looked around the brain and decided, based on all of the activity they were seeing and especially the patterns of stimulation in the prefrontal cortex, whether the brain was preparing to add or subtract.

The study also proved some fascinating hypotheses set forth in other experiments that will no doubt lead to some very speedy progress in the area of mind reading via brain scan:

http://health.howstuffworks.com/mental-health/human-nature/perception/mind-reading1.htm

We are only a matter of time before Law Enforcement across the country has the computing power and equipment to not only do neurological surveillance but to actually enforce thought crimes. So let's say someone on Slashdot thinks about pedophilia, and the FMRI concludes they intend to harm a child, what should be done about this person?

Maybe it's time to make a law to punish them?

my monthly premiums are just over 600 per month (I'm 45 and in pretty good health)

Have you considered catastrophic health insurance? Catastrohpic health insurance has a really high deductible, like around $6000. Then most of your run-of-the-mill health care is just paid out-of-pocket, but if you end up needing a $100k operation, you don't break the bank. It's significantly cheaper, and (I think) is probably a better way to go if you're reasonably healthy.

AFAIK the article is probably inaccurate and the pig bladder stuff is not a hormone.

http://health.howstuffworks.com/human-body/cells-tissues/extracellular-matrix.htm

Extracellular matrix is a component of body tissue that functions outside of the body's cells (thus the "extracellular" designation). It's made up mostly of collagen, a type of protein. So extracellular matrix extracted from the bladder of a pig does not actually have any of the pig's cells in it.

This is mostly associated with nicotine but ignores it's addictive properties.
http://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/drugs-alcohol/nicotine-health-benefits.htm
While it may have some minor health benefits, unless I see people only wearing the patch for that reason, and a method to deal with addiction, it's still not remotely in the same class as the other stuff.

....and vegan foods are much better for the environment

I wouldn't count on that, vegans fart at least as bad as cows...

Mirrors anyone?

Here is a mirror.

No, more like so, except the for the "do something because it's hard and not easy" part.

You can either go with that (we are apes, I would agree) or that we didn't descend from apes (but a common ancestor).

humans didn't descend from apes

http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/life/evolution/humans-descended-from-apes.htm

The RIAA studios are corrupt organizations which have completely gamed the current royalty system to work for them and against the artists. Most of the artists only see a few % royalties from CD / MP3 sales once you factor in paying for production costs out of their share. So even if you were to cut the cost of music to, say, 1/4 what it is now, there would still be plenty of overhead to raise artist royalty shares.

sure. people with O2, and jackets... who acclimate for the ascent for MONTHS. I don't care what kind of shape you're in.. even if they dropped you on everest with o2 and all the equipment... you die unless you're acclimated. period.

"walked up everest?" - the last hop from base camp to the summit takes a while.. the RECORD for the shortest summit attempt is 16 hours. it's not a fucking day trip. http://adventure.howstuffworks.com/outdoor-activities/climbing/mount-everest4.htm

what difference does it make if you survive for a minute.. hitting the groud makes it pretty much irrelevant.

Right, because cloud storage is so secure!

Yeah? Try playing your CD in your bar or place of business sometime, and see how fast the BMI ass-rapes you. Read up on the subject if you like.

You made me curious.

The standard steel production process takes .6 tons of coke coal per ton of steel produced. http://www.worldcoal.org/resources/coal-statistics/coal-steel-statistics/

And a 3.5 GW coal plant burns about 1.4 million million tons of coal a year.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/energy/question481.htm

So building your wind mills will take at minimum the same amount of coal as running a coal plant for 6 months, just for the steel. I just thought that was interesting.

This strategy at this point in time with the current computerpower will end up taking years for a move

You have a completely nonsense idea of how computers play Chess. Sorry.

This article (the first Google result) has the basic ideas right, and explains the general strategy of how an algorithm can deal with the impossibly large state space of a game like Chess.

Of course a real, competitive Chess program is going to use a blend of very complicated techniques in playing, including a database. But beyond openings (which humans certainly spend time memorizing as well), any use of those databases is going to be something very different than "hey, I hope I have this exact position". And it's far from "brute force", just trying every possible chain of moves.

Male and female brains do differ structurally.

So do gay and straight brains

And if I must be lynched, please do it with this one, immediately and repeatedly.

Being rude doesn't matter from a standpoint of factual correctness, but a person can have the facts of their side and still come off looking like a raving lunatic when they write an entire paragraph where every third word is "cock".

Surely a limited data set but it seems to me that people who swear a lot when trying to present an argument often miss or lack a lot of information even though the information they do have may be correct. Swearing can be telling as to which part of the brain is being used and how frequently. It can also affect the person reading/hearing the word in the same region. From HowStuffWorks.

Language processing is a "higher" brain function and takes place in the cerebral cortex.
Emotion and instinct are "lower" brain functions and take place deep inside the brain.

Many studies suggest that the brain processes swearing in the lower regions, along with emotion and instinct. Scientists theorize that instead of processing a swearword as a series of phonemes, or units of sound that must be combined to form a word, the brain stores swear words as whole units [ref]. So, the brain doesn't need the left hemisphere's help to process them. Swearing specifically involves:

The limbic system, which also houses memory, emotion and basic behavior. The limbic system also seems to govern vocalizations in primates and other animals, and some researchers have interpreted some primate vocalizations as swearing.

The basal ganglia, which play a large role in impulse control and motor functions.

There have been many, many studies into this, and there is no evidence to suggest that what you say is the case.

Really? So I guess the medical community is completely wrong when they say residual effects of marijuana can stay in your system anywhere from 20 hours to 10 days, meaning you are impaired for that time, right?

Smoke a joint on Sunday night, come in with the residual effects on Monday still in your system. Yeah, nothing wrong with that. I like having to deal with stoners in addition to the morons who can't follow simple directions such as don't press the red button.

It's time to grow up and think for yourself.

I did. I looked at the studies not done by High Times. The residual effects of marijuana use are real, whether you want to believe them or not. I don't need to deal with people who think it's okay to come in buzzed and not thinking clearly.

How about you grow up and realize that doing shit like that affects those around you.

For reference:

WebMD>

Disocery Health

Which would made the USS Kitty Hawk's range of about 600 kilometers (sorry, 370 miles) http://express.howstuffworks.com/express-aircraft-carrier3.htm
Allow me to doubt that claim.

Try a Hemi Satellite.

http://www.howstuffworks.com/space-elevator.htm

dunno, a hybrid might give a 36-year-old Corvette a run for it's money...

Humans need it to be about (we can tolerate slight variations) 78% Nitrogen, 21% Oxygen, 1% Argon and traces of others.

Actually we only need O2 at a partial pressure of about 3 psi. The absolute lower limit is around 2.32 psi, and spacesuits operate around 4.3 psi with elevated O2 content. There are plenty of other gases available if you must dilute pure O2 to prevent O2 toxicity. Many have more issues that nitrogen at elevated pressure, but probably fewer/none at reduced pressure.

Actually, everything I'm finding says that fuel efficiency is worse at lower speeds, peaking in the 40-60 mph range, then dropping again. This has a good explanation of the math. This has a simple chart that shows the average results. AFAIK these exact figures deal only in gasoline engines, but the logic should be applicable to diesel engines.

To summarize, with the engine on, at 0 mph, you are getting 0 miles to the gallon and all of the gas that you are using is being wasted. Also, the power needed to increase speed and maintain it by 1 mph increases dramatically as speed increases. (The difference in the amount of work needed to maintain speeds of 60 and 61 mph is far greater than the difference in the amount of work needed to maintain a speed of 2 to 3 mph) When these two are combined together. It turns out that, for gas engines anyway, peak fuel efficiency is between 40 and 60 mph, although if you're driving at any speed between 25 and 60 you probably wouldn't notice. After that, fuel efficiency drops dramatically.

Sorry to ruin your trekky fantasies, but we already have transparent aluminum.

There is an article about it here, and many more if you search.

Admittedly, it was developed after the movie.

Heh, nice, you are of course correct; here's a reference by the way for the curious: http://history.howstuffworks.com/european-history/top-5-marie-antoinette-scandals1.htm

The production model will use a beer battery.

If you want a few "travellers" for the trip though I'd recommend using something different to Fosters.

Apparently my mother in law used to have a civic with keyless entry ... in a small town of <30,000 there was another Civic of the exact same color which used the same code.

They found out one time at the mall that they could each open the other's car.

I bet there's not nearly enough uniqueness and security in these things.

I think yo' momma [in law] is full of shit.

It doesn't turn off the accessories, so the heater will still work.

You DO know how a Heater works, don't you?

For those who don't or (like me) kinda sorta do.

some judges now confiscating all phones and computers from jurors

That'll work great until cell phones start being implanted surgically.

The Prius battery state of charge is controlled by a dedicated MCU -- dedicated largely to maximize the life of the battery. (It's located in the battery compartment.) It keeps the battery between 45 and 75 percent charged under nearly all circumstances. It's about as far removed from the charging system of a hand power tool as it is possible to get.

Of course, a pure EV is likely to make larger demands on its battery than the Prius, but the point remains that intelligent control of the battery's state of charge greatly extends battery life.

International flights would probably operate under different rules if for no other reason than the lack of very many countries that permit their citizens to carry firearms. The 9/11 flights were domestic, so let's confine our discussion to that arena.

Fair enough. Let's say I'm a Yemenite raised in the US. I have two brothers in the same situation and we all have stolen the identity of our neighbors and forged the Gun Permits as well as other Identification documents. We are now back at the same situation.

Sure, and where does the budget for that come from? There are over 25,000 domestic flights in the United States each day. Accounting for three shifts and building in some overhead for sick days/vacation/training/etc you'd probably need to hire ~150,000-200,000 LEOs to put two air marshals on each flight. If they are classified GS-10 (that's where the FBI starts their special agents [fbijobs.gov]) they'll be making ~65K a year. Toss in their benefits, training, etc and the cost per employee is close to 100k.

Well, some of those flights are the same flights just doing stops here and there. But your right, it would get expensive. This is probably why the air marshals are not in uniform and it's not announced to the public which flights they will or won't be on. This random appearance of anyone being LEO or equivalent is the same deterrent noted with concealed carry so I'm not sure where it's much different. I mean unless you are going to somehow guarantee that a concealed carry passenger will be on every flight. But then we are running into the same logistics and fiscal problems you already brought about- except we don't know the CC passenger isn't a terrorist in disguise.

That's FUD. A .45" hole is going to cause depressurization. It's not going to "explode" the cabin walls.

Read what I said again. I said it might not automagically cause it. But you cannot guarantee that it won't cause it. In fact, there is a special ammo required to be used by air marshals and pilots because the risk is there.

That's what the oxygen masks are for. And it has nothing to do with "being a hero". It has everything to do with saving your life. Self-defense is an inalienable human right. It does not cease to exist at cruising altitude.

And now we are back to the swinging fists and nose rights again. You inalienable right to self defense stops when it endangers my life. You cannot shoot me because someone else is trying to kill you. You cannot kill my family or anyone else because someone else is threatening your life or family. That is in essence what you will be doing if you kill or otherwise incapacitate the only people capable of safely flying the plane or recklessly do so before someone capable is able to take control of it. That's what you would essentially be doing if your shot caused the windows to burst out sucking the air out and causing those people to go unconscious before they can take control of the plane.

And you cannot guarantee that your actions won't be mistaken by another CC passenger as a terrorist act and them doing the same. And yes, shooting a gun on a plane is a little more serious then you are making it out to be.

Well, now that I know you are being serious, I can hardly give you too much of a hard time since you haven't been through it yet. This is a very basic explanation of how it works.

In a nutshell, you're charged a higher interest rate if your credit score is lower (and thus, you're perceived to be more of a risk....that is...you might not pay for your stuff). So, they charge more to recoup the money they've loaned to you faster (in case you default) and so they can get more profit by taking the "risk" on you. It's sort of like investing in the stock market, but in reverse. The lender is investing in you as their stock, and the interest is their dividend.

I'd add "order of magnitude estimation" to that list, becuase I find it regularly useful to make ballpark guesses about various issues. So, being able to do something like this, just to make something up as a calculation of the mass of the Earth:

The Earth is about 8000 miles across, but let's call it 10,000 in round numbers. It's a sphere, but if it were a cube, it would have a volume of 10K time 10K time 10K, or about 1,000,000,000,000 cubic miles. A mile is about 5000 feet, so a cubic mile is about 75,000,000,000 cubic feet, or about 100 billion cubic feet in round numbers. A bag of dirt is about a cubic foot and weighs about 40 pounds, but lets call it 100 pounds in round numbers and accounting for rock. So a cubic mile of Earth weighs about 10,000 billion pounds. So, the Earth weighs about 10 thousand billion trillion pounds. Or about 5 billion trillion tons.

Let's check how close I got? :-)
    http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geophysics/planet-earth-weigh.htm
  6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (6E+24) kilograms.
10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 pounds (so, a little low if divided by 2.2)

10,000 * 1,000,000,000 * 1,000,000,000,000

Pretty close! :-)

Anyway, while that's a complicated calculation, and with big rounding errors in various places (compressed molten rock must weigh quite a bit more than topsoil since I rounded up a bunch), the more people who can do that sort of thing, the more people can make sense of a lot of public policy issues like comparing NASA's budget to the DOD budget, or understanding the amount of the economy goint to social security relative to education, or guessing how feasible some technical proposal is, and so on. The devil is in the details, of course, but order of magnitude estimation at least can put a sort of ballpark fence around the details. I used just facts I knew (diameter of the Earth, weight of a bag of soil) without precise details to get close. Often, in public policy, close is all you need to have a feel for the basics of a situation and to fact check what you are being told.

You'd need 1. a new catalyst to crack the glucose, 2. a new membrane that allows the glucose (or the oxygen) through, and 3. a way to pressurize the glucose (while fuel cells are positive energy balance, they take quite a bit of work input on the feed side that can be bled from the output side). And you'd have to make sure that the electrochemical reaction at the glucose/catalyst interface is the correct net polarity to provide electrons to the circuit, or the reaction at the oxygen/catalyst side won't work.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/alternative-fuels/fuel-cell2.htm