xkcd

ian

I still don't really understand the argument that a god can exist out of time as a prime mover, but something that isn't sentient can't.

ian

That moment when you think about replying to a thread and then realise you actually started it five years ago (though it looks like I never actually submitted my own list)

Thanks Adacore for actually putting in the work!

ian

Three Rings for the pointy-ear-Leaders under the sky, Seven for the Short-hairy-faced-Leaders in halls of stone, Eight and one for Men who will not live for ever, sure to die, One for the Dark Leader on his dark seat In the Black Land, where the Shadows lie. One Ring to control them all, One Ring t...

ian

Possibly (probably) down the manufacturing process. both the wire and the outer plastic sheath will be stored on spools during and after manufacture. i imagine they coil in the same direction they were on the spools, much like if you roll up a piece of paper and then flatten it out, it will re-roll ...

ian

Just because no one else has mentioned it, Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy (particularly the first one 'Red Mars') would be of great interest to the OP.

ian

If we got rid of the sun, the moon would just carry on orbiting the Earth, but what would happen if we got rid of the Earth? Does anyone know if the Moon would likely settle in a orbit around the Sun, or be flung off? I suppose it would depend loads on the Moon's trajectory at the time of Earth-End,...

ian

Your point? We expected that, neutrinos are emitted before visible light in that sort of phenomenon. But the fact that those neutrinos clearly traveled about the speed of light, and the possibility that neutrinos excited or accelerated in this experiment traveled faster, are not irreconcilable. On ...

ian

doogly wrote: it has also been observed in binary pulsars, which has absolutely settled it.

do you have a reference for that at all?

ian

I'm feeling grumpy, so... Since this is a program I say that it is certain to terminate. After all, the integer range is finite. If it's 16-bit integers, then after 32767 we loop down to -32768. Therefore the program gets a fresh chance to hit zero after about every 65536/9 iterations. With 32-bit ...

ian

yes, sorry i should have been more precise about my question. i realise at any point the program can terminate, but am i right in thinking the probability of it terminating goes towards zero and the probability of it not terminating goes towards one as more loops are added (for a non-terminated-alre...

ian

do gravity waves carry energy? one my relativity lecturers stated that they don't, though they can give energy to a system (hence energy is not conserved in this case), and described them as a propagating distortion in the metric, though i don't really get how that changes from the description of no...

ian

If we start with x=10 and did the following: if x=0 END else flip a coin if heads -> x=x+10 if tails -> x=x-1 would it ever end? at any point a result of x tails in a row will end the program/function, but the chances of this happening become smaller at a greater rate (i hope that makes sense). my i...

ian

i'm with ya p1t1o. I love NASA, and space flight in general, and high energy particle physics, but I do think there are better areas (of scientific research) the money could be spent on. If we could get rid of the ridiculous amounts of military spending and divert a huge chunk to research, then it'd...

ian

yeah expos and i's are fine.

i can get it so i've got a (sin a sin b) integral but changing that to a product of cosines just seems to make things worse

ian

(homework related)
i'm trying to solve:
[math]\int\sin^2 ({\alpha\pi x}) cos({\beta\pi x}) dx\[/math]
(integral sign) sin^2 (a*pi*x) . cos (b*pi*x) dx

how should i go about this? i've tried integration by parts but it's making it harder not easier. can anyone offer some pointers?

ian

faderjockey wrote: and his nonfic stuff is good (Content, Makers) if a bit preachy.

Makers is fiction

I'd actually say, roughly, the quality of his nonfiction has decreased book by book, which is why I've not bothered with For The Win

ian

ah fair enough. yes, always best to start long.

it annoys me that mine doesnt come with a #3 guard/blade length

ian

do you not have trimmers you attach the blade to? how do you then cut it too short? unless you purposefully used a short blade and decided it didnt look great

ian

Why is it you want to teach yourself this? What are you wanting to learn? What are you wanting to do with your new knowledge? I'm a final year physics student and if someone wanted to learn more about physics in their spare time I'd honestly encourage them to stay away from too much math heavy stuff...

ian

well i got my kindle and am loving it. can anyone recommend a reading light for it? In terms of "free" copies of pirated books, I have a simple way of handling this: I don't steal books. If it's worth reading it's worth either waiting for the libraries one virtual "copy" to be av...

ian

Does mr jack involve killing prostitutes? i don't think my gf would go for that.

ian

I know Ticket to Ride has been mentioned in here before, and seems to have a god (or even great) rep, but is it suitable for just two people?

ian

Does anyone know a free simple c++ compiler that will work on a 64 bit system? I've been using borland c++ 5.02 but it won't run on my computer at home, and neither will some other one i tried (turbo c++ i think). alternativly if there is a simple way to get these running using a 32 bit emulator tha...

ian

Reading fast is something you've presumed with no evidence. If someone reads 25 books a year and wants to read 50, then perhaps they are setting twice as much time aside to do so rather than reading twice as fast.

Thanks for your permission though.

ian

Okay, a book where the protagonist had previously won some major photography prize (most likely the pulitzer) for a photograph he had taken of a girl about to die of starvation (based on a real quite famous photo). this was more of the background character than to do with what the actual story was a...

ian

i'm just going to put this here because i have no idea where else to put it, and a thread would probably (rightfully) get closed, but does anyone have a demonoid.com invite i can have?

ian

i can't think of any, at least not fiction. there are plenty of major books that i haven't read, war & peace, catch 22, anything by dickens, austin or the brontes. but i just have no interest in reading such works and don't in any way feel embarrassed by it. actually i've never read any tolstoy ...

ian

tl;dr: And another thing is seperated from HHGTTG and Ender's Game is extracted from the entire series. i think this is a good thing to go with. the series thing is such a difficult thing to deal with and perhaps need to be dealt with on a case by case basis. people generally don't refer to individ...

ian

been doing a bit more reading about them and tempted to get a kindle for santa's birthday. the one thing im wondering is to the availability of drm-free ebooks, though im not sure how much i can talk about piracy on here. as stated in a previous post i'll most likely still buy a physical copy of a b...

ian

Just finished reading (erm, listening to) Nation by Pratchett. I didn't know when I got it that it was "young adult," but it might just be my favorite book since Letters from the Earth for provoking thought and absolving doubt. Presently about 2/3 through Unseen Academicals which common o...

ian

atomic microscopy

or hit with something hard enough to put a dent in it.

ian

As far as I'm aware this hasn't been done before, someone please correct me if i'm wrong. So anyway, let's find out what xkcd's favourite books are. you can each vote for up to 20 books, you do not need to put them in order, every book you vote for will each get 1 point. this seems the better way to...

ian

Or maybe similar to the effects on people at the poles? total sun for 6 months, total darkness for the next 6? I know they wear Sunny's but I think thats more to do with snow blindness(sun reflecting off the white snow) That's a gradual change though, so totally different. There is sunlight long be...

ian

well a neutrino isn't, so uh.....i win?

ian

oh i derped.

though not having charge, a graviton wouldn't have an anti-particle?

ian

mixing the rc cars with starwars, make an r2 droid, or a mouse droid or something. you could then go further and add on operational versions of the various arms and instruments/tools they have

ian

although its been disproven already, force carriers don't have anti-particles. neutrions do.

ian

Cuthberta!

ian

where exactly is that you think they make their settlements? it's not nearby someone's property, it's on it.

and yes, we are against the culture of stealing and thievery. boo hoo.

ian

Some people here (UK) say 'eee tee cee'

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