Recent content by vjk2

Prometheus made me seriously doubt the talent of Ridley Scott. It was so disjointed, and the horror aspects felt forced and boring. But, basically, the idea is that there's this group of super-beings that goes around basically seeding planets with life. That's what the opening scene is. To...

To water boiling: how often do you have to worry about that? Worthy tradeoff for getting temperatures in the 60's, 70's, and 80's. Hadn't realized the metric tonne. my bad. Still, it seems like a 180 lb body weight is easier to envision than a 80kg bodyweight.

Metric holds an advantage in simplicity, but imperial seems to have better unit amounts. For instance, temperature. I cannot think in celsius. 60's weather is 15-20 celsius. 70's is 20-26 celsius. 80's weather is 27-34 celsius. Lengths: a mile is a significant accomplishment for human...

I can't seem to edit my OP to fix the name. What he did was illegal -- however, it's already been done. Might as well observe the effects. Here are some good critiques that go beyond the, "he has no credentials" argument: http://www.loe.org/series/series.html?seriesID=27Oceanographer Mark...

It's too bad Aaron Swartz didn't succeed in making JSTOR's content available to all. Anyways, the pop-sci article referenced researchers in national laboratories. Here is the article (linked from pop-sci) https://www.llnl.gov/news/newsreleases/2011/Apr/NR-11-04-04.html Is that "respectable"...

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-04/hydrocarbons-could-form-deep-earth-no-dead-animal-ingredients-study-says Well, this is sort of what I had in mind, as what could possibly be happening, basically ocean bio matter being buried by subduction zones in the ocean, then being subject to...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/19/science/earth/iron-dumping-experiment-in-pacific-alarms-marine-experts.html Last fall. His intention is the stimulate the growth of phytoplankton, thus absorbing CO2. He also did so in violation of several UN charters (or whatever their rules are...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/15/pacific-iron-fertilisation-geoengineering This is an interesting article that's sort of related (and might deserve its own thread). Last fall, a guy named Russ George dumped 100 tons of Iron Sulfate into the ocean. It is in violation of several...

They didn't want an unconditional surrender, no. They wanted to surrender and keep the emperor. Previous bombings were done in the middle of the war. This bombing was done at the conclusion, when surrender was obviously inevitable. Frankly, I trust the statements of high ranking generals...

Actually, since you talk about microorganisms getting buried, I'll be that there are regions of the ocean which are forming oil in this sort of way. An interesting tangentially related fact is that single-celled organisms in the ocean produce like 50% (still) of the Earth's O2. I've heard that...

So attack the messenger instead of actually looking at the message. That's all I hear so far. A number of military leaders, from Douglass MacArthur to Dwight Eisenhower to Curtis LeMay stated that in their opinion it was unnecessary to drop the bomb. That's militarily. Japan was losing the war...

I really recommend that everyone watch the 3rd episode of Oliver Stone's Untold History of the USA which deals with the subject. Basically, the Japanese were sending out peace feelers prior to the bombing. The only issue that they wanted was to keep the emperor, who was a religious figure for...

Thanks for the quick reply. Just speculating on whether it might be possible to...geoengineer new petroleum deposits, or if maybe this is happening naturally right now at a rate that could be a fraction of world consumption. Yes, creationists are annoying. I swear, Richard Dawkins has devoted...

Like the title says. I"m guessing tens of thousands of years?

Oops. Okay, repurpose the question. For the space shuttle and Saturn rockets, how much fuel is needed to get off the ground? A km/mile? HOw much is saved by ejecting spent stages?