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And if you want even more fun, try introducing some magnets. When light reflects in the presence of a magnetic field, it undergoes partial polarisation. This is how the Sony MiniDisc system works ~ by scanning the magnetised disc surface with a laser, and observing any change in polarisation of...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxPsrOmm4mQ

It sounds like you and I have similar hardware needs. My previous computer was an AthlonXP 1600 which is similar to what you are currently using. After much deliberation over what to buy next, In January this year I built a computer with an intel Atom, the D525, and this is similar to the...

It could be the condition of the soil that makes the leaves grow the way they do. eg, if there's too little nitrogen in the soil to encourage thick leaf growth, or if the soil is too acidic. Ivy likes alkali soil, which you can create by mixing in ash, or a handful of limestone gravel. Which...

tsq, I think it's an Algerian Ivy. The vein structure looks the same. The colour and varigation looks the same. The stems look the same. Sometimes the leaves are almond shaped like your plant has. Sometimes they have the 'wings' like other ivy leaves.

I understand now. :vulcan: Here is how it works. Be warned that this is not simple. Let N = number of people with blue eyes, and suppose I (you) are one of the islanders. Suppose I can see one person with blue eyes... but I wonder "can everyone else see that?" Not necessarily. Only if N=2...

No. The puzzle states they are perfect logicians, which implies perfect memory. Also, they are perfect observers, because we are to assume they do in fact look at everyone else's eyes. Furthermore, the puzzle suggests indirectly that each person knows that the others are perfect logicians...

I understand that, and I wrote my post understanding that, so I still stand by my answer. Suppose you are one of the people on the island, and you can see N people with blue eyes. Let N=10 for sake of this argument. Whatever colour someone's eyes are, you know that they will also be able to...

Here is my take on it... The people are stuck on the island because they haven't been able to deduce their own eye colour. Whatever information they currently have must be insufficient to determine their own eye colour, otherwise they would have left by now. Now realise that the guru isn't...

I'm not. I mentioned it because that is what first prompted me to reexamine the relevance of history.

I tended to think that way too at one time, but then I learned about quantum entanglement, which forced me to reexamine the relevance of history in broader philosophical musings. I found thought experiments like the murderer's knife to be quite useful. As a semi-related aside, how do you feel...

No, it's a separate concept. Protein extraction is a process of getting hold of a chemical that already exists in waste. The product retains it's history, in the same way that a knife used to kill somebody retains its history, even though it's function as a knife hasn't been compromised, few...

I think there is a degree of indignity about recycling waste like this. Nature purifies. We should instead be using our waste as organic fertilizer to grow new crops. That's working in harmony with nature, which is how it should be. If this process becomes popular, imagine how many prepared...

Re: New Intelligence-Led Policing Strategy Strives to Stop Crime Befor But you do believe in a constitution. :) The fact that we can write constitutions and have them celebrated for so long should tell you something about ethics. It tells us that ethics isn't such a subjective thing, and that...

Re: New Intelligence-Led Policing Strategy Strives to Stop Crime Befor Lawyers are among those most likely to quibble over the precise wording, and care not for the underlying ethics... especially when it comes to things like corporate law, or insurance, or others cases in which large sums...

Re: New Intelligence-Led Policing Strategy Strives to Stop Crime Befor Not quite. My original point was that written laws are an attempt to describe what is right/wrong, rather than being definitive of what is right/wrong. Let me try to explain that differently... Laws often have...

Re: New Intelligence-Led Policing Strategy Strives to Stop Crime Befor I said in my above post, that at the lower levels of top-down design, you get something practical. Which brings us back to my original point. Whatever pragmatic solution we end up with, we should keep in mind what we...

That picture is quite funny.

Eggs serve in baking as a raising agent and as a setting agent. In this mixture, flour serves adequately as the setting agent, and baking powder is the raising agent. It's also a microwave recipe. It doesn't work in a conventional oven. Microwaves produces lots of steam very quickly, which is...

In a sense, yes. There is an effect called capacitance, where an electrical charge can be stored in a crystal. It is capacitance that allows crystals to vibrate, but I image that's much less energy than you want. ie, you couldn't use it as a battery. To store large amounts of energy, there...