Cerebral Stasis

Does anyone else find that image extremely disorienting? It looks like someone set broken concrete or heavily burned plastic onto the keyboard, but how it stayed upon the keyboard when put in that position, I cannot tell. It doesn't look like it's exploding at the moment the picture is taken (aside from the debris and a dusty look, there are no signs on anything wrong with the laptop), and the angle is odd, not to mention the laptop is set up in a very strange way. I'm probably overanalizing this, but the picture does not seem like the results of a blown-out laptop. If anything, it looks like someone set up the laptop, covered it in dust, and then dropped some debris and took a fast-shutter, high-resolution picture of it just as it was falling down the length of the keyboard. In fact, with the keyboard of the laptop leaning "inward" (meaning, toward the camera), it looks like the debris was glued onto the keyboard, except it looks too heavy for glue to hold it.

It's not even just about the cost. Fusion may create huge amounts of energy from a relatively small amount of fuel, but the efficiency at which that energy is harvested isn't 100% efficient. For example, in fission, the nuclear core heats water to the point of becoming steam, and that steam then turns a generator. It is the same general concept behind any fuel-based power plant, and the efficiency is reduced due to the converting of energy from one form to another (in this case, heat to mechanical). According to this website, nuclear power (that is, fission) is still the most efficient of all. Nuclear power gets around 90% efficiency, while fossil fuel plants get around 70% efficiency, natural gas ranges from 14-50% efficient, and wind/solar get anywhere from 15-30% efficiency. Keep in mind that efficiency means the amount of energy that is actually harnessed as electricity. It's easy to see why most places would prefer a single fossil fuel plant at 70% efficiency over a field of windmills, each being 20% efficient. Of course, that kind of thing will change. As for fusion, we currently do not have a form that is positively efficient, meaning that we don't get more energy out of the fuel that we put in, but when and if we do, it will be a very high-output power source. Of course even fusion wouldn't reach 100% efficiency, but considering the amount of power that is given out, it would still out-do all other power sources we currently have, once again, assuming we can make it positively efficient.

Quantum physics is a science of possibilities instead of reality, and therefore it is quantum physics that gives us the proof of alternative universes. There is one experiment in which photons are shot through a slit one at a time, yet they seem to be infered with by another photon that we cannot detect, so scientists have concluded that a photon in a parallel universe is what caused that interference. String theory also has a similar concept of parallel universes. For more on the "slit" experiments and the concept of interference without visibly physical means, I highly recommend this video. It doesn't talk so much about parallel universes as it does simply the concept of function collapsing due to observation, another property of quantum physics, but it is still quite informative.

I like that. When you see that guy next, let him know you posted it on the Internet and some guy in South Dakota thought it was funny.There is nothing wrong with sex, it's using it irresponsibly that is a problem, and by irresponsibly, I mean without protection or forethought as to the consequences. Sex is pleasureful for a reason - it's meant to be enjoyed, just like eating. Just because eating a lot can make us fat doesn't mean we should eat nothing but bread and cheese every day.

Nice, except for the dark grey around the PSPs themselves. It makes them look to be sloppily cut out of an image.

The problem is that 3ds max isn't free.Excellent work on the wheel. I've done some 3D meddling and although I came up with a few fairly impressive results in the past, I have since given up with 3D modelling (without formal instruction, anyway) for now, since it can be so difficult to envision/create realistic objects, let alone texturing/animating them.

No. The reason that there is no "free energy" isn't because we haven't looked, it's because it's theoretically impossible, as far as we currently know. Of course, as I said, it's in theory, so it may be possible though a means we haven't discovered yet. I say "yet" because a company, Steorn, claims to have discovered a perpetual motion machine using magnets that has a 300% energy efficiency and the parts that it consists of never wear out. Now before someone scoffs and gives me a witty rebuttle that implies that with intelligence and gulliability being inversely proportional the latter is the the smaller in my case, first wait and see how it turns out. Steorn has nothing to gain from making such an ellaborate hoax (they have spent around a million dollars in advertising and many millions more in development of their "discovery", and with all that, they are NOT accepting any investments, which means they are only losing money on this, as far as can be seen). They have challenged a panel of 12 physicists, which will be chosen from some 3000 scientists that have offered their abilities, to view a demo of their invention and determine if their claims are true or false. If anything, I believe that they think they have found something. They may be mistaken and their creation may not work as they think it does, but I highly doubt that they are flat-out lying. In any case, keep an eye on the website and news and see how things turn out. According to their website, there are three phases: Phase I Current Phase: Confirm that the Steorn technology has a coefficient of performance greater than 100%. Phase II Current Phase: Confirm that the operation of the Steorn technology does not affect the component parts of the technology. Phase III Current Phase: Carry out a full thermodynamic analysis of the technology. Remember, even the Law of Thermodynamics is just a theory. An extremely well-proven theory, but a theory nonetheless. It is possible that we could be mistaken, that the law doesn't apply in all cases, as previously suspected, or that the law is not actually being broken and the energy output is coming from a source that we are just currently unable to detect. The company is currently not releasing the details while patents are pending. After all, if they DID figure out a way to make free energy that could power everything from cell phones to cars and never, EVER have to be refueled or recharged, there are lots of people who would jump to steal such a thing. They have to keep their interests in mind as a business as well. Once again, I recommend that everyone hold off their skepticism until the results are published in a few months. State your opinions, but avoid being insulting with them, since none of us here are aware of the details of such a device, and so none of us can really say whether or not it is real. Personally, I would like to see it be true, but I must admit I think it's unlikely, however I will remain open-minded until the results are published.

Trace, would you buy a cereal that came in a bio-degradeable box/plastic wrap if it cost 35 dollars instead of 5? If so, more power to you. The reason industry doesn't make wrappers like that is because most people won't want to pay more to save the Earth. Biodegradeable substances that work the same as plastic are expensive to develop and manufacture, at least at the moment.I am not a Christian by any means, and I do see how humanity could be seen as a menace, as it well may be, but it also has the ability to fix it's faults. The problem is that people, like animals, are naturally selfish (thus is our heritage, one could say), and it takes great will and selflessness to overcome that. Most people aren't willing to give that much for the betterment of everyone else, but it's possible that they could - it's just not natural.

I'm afraid I do not fully comprehend the prupose behind such an endeavor, but in any case, good luck. Concerning "Turtle", is this perhaps based upon the same idea that Stephen King's It was based upon (with a Turtle having puked for the universe)?

According to a news article I read a couple days ago, Anna Nicole got some $300,000 for allowing the press to take pictures of her deceased son.

It may or may not help his campaign. If it gained him popularity, then yes, he'd do another movie.Personally, I thought The Matrix series was good to the last drop, but then that was majorly due to the exellent acting of Hugo Weaving - it let one look around the numerous plot holes.Arnold would be the same kind of bonding that would hold the movie together, and that may be enough to make people see it. I'd probably watch it, but I would not be afraid to "boo" it if it sucked.

No, it's not really. Even if one did have a female companion, the incest that would be unavoidable would result in many, many dead and/or seriously deformed/degenerated children, which would make the whole human race, or at least your part of it, a complete mess. Besides, without a doctor to perform the proper births, chances are your female companion would die after the first two or three children. In any case, as was mentioned, how would a cryogenic capsule remain powered and maintained for 1000 years? Look at the last thousand years - there have been big changes, and I don't just mean technologically. Languages have come and gone, civilizations have fallen and risen again, etc. Chances are that, if there wasn't some kind of worldwide disaster that threw everyone back into the Stone Age, then the capsules would either be abandonded or destroyed during civil unrest or when the company in charge of the capsules was liquidated. If one did, however, survive a thousand year sleep, the world would be so different, chances are you would never get used to it in what remained of your lifetime. Even more likely, you would die for being so different. If society relapsed, you'd either be seen as some kind of witch or other evil magical creature, or, if society remained and/or advanced, you'd be seen as a barbaric relic of the quaint past, unworthy of the time of the people who lived in the future. Futhermore, you'd have no idea how to speak their langauge, and by the time you learned, it may be too late to save yourself, whether it be from death or ridicule.

Actually someone made a good comment concerning this in another thread. He suggested that perhaps there was a sack of a certain chemical that, when exposed to air, exploded. This sack was located in the dragon's mouth and the dragon would breathe heavily outward as it released said chemical from the sack (it would be able to control the flow in order to protect itself, as snakes do from their own venom).I'm not saying I believe it (I don't), but that sounds like the most likely conclusion. As for breathing ice... no. That's just absolute bogus. There isn't any docile chemical that I know of that can become cold enough to turn something it touches to ice simply by being exposed to air or another docile chemical.

I actually read an article (not exactly sure where, though) that suggested that Earth had actually been in a min-Ice Age for the past thousand years or so. It is now returning to it's normal temperature, or so the article suggested.In any case, money is what makes the world go around, not bleeding-heart concepts of saving the earth. Therefore, solar energy isn't widely used, but not because we just like to pollute - it's because solar power is expensive and inefficient. The best and most efficient and clean power source we have is nuclear energy, and everyone throws a fit because of the nuclear waste (even though it is very carefully disposed of) and the possibility of a meltdown (which has never happened in the USA, and very rarely anywhere else, in fact there hasn't been a major case since Chernobyl, and that was due to reactor malfunctions, but since nuclear reactors have become many, many times more efficient and safe, so much so that a meltdown now is a virtual impossibility). Besides, it takes time to change.

Selfishness is natural. If creatures were not selfish, they would have no will to exist and would die.Humans aren't a scourge that came to this innocent planet to take it over. We supposedly evolved here, which would make us a natural process. While some animals have sharp teeth, some have poison, some have claws, we have sentience. It just seems our natural defense outdoes that of most animals in the long-run, but that doesn't mean that we are any less animals fighting to survive in a cruel ecosystem.As has been said, humans do not possess any negative attributes that animals do not also possess.As for eradicating humanity, many in the past have tried to help do that (i.e. Adolf Hitler), and yet I'm pretty sure you do not support his work, even if it may have helped humanity in the long run by thinning out the numbers and creating a race that is much less disease-ridden (no offense meant to those not of the Aryan race, that was not my point nor my intention).

Yes, by "deleting" a file, one simply tells the computer (or phone) to allow the data allotted to that file to be overwritten, so until that happens, it is still physically there, just not virtually.Only thing I can say is that, before discarding your phone, be sure to run it over an extremely powerful electromagnet.

Well, it would take awhile before they could be read-write, if ever, so they wouln't be used as hard drives for awhile.And to that RAM comment, 64-bit processors allow for a few TB of ram, if I'm not mistaken. Problem is, we don't have RAM chips that big.

I recently recorded a podcast on this subject. Feel free to listen and let me know what you think. Click below to listen.

Yeah, but a jetpack would be a wee bit more expensive/dangerous.

Very nice layout. It's grunge, yet clean, and despite being simple and tiling, it doesn't look boring at all. Great job.

It may just be me, but the alignment of the website doesn't look right on Firefox 1.5 - see below.

The text on the logo image that says FFUniverse Wiki is awfully rough. You should remake it so it's smoother and easier to read.

The area above the text looks a bit empty. Some kind of abstract would help keep it from looking that way.

But not believing certain technological feats will be accomplished isn't the same as having practical facts stare you in the face and give you a slap. Jet packs, as far as we can tell, aren't and will not (for a long time) be practical enough for people to use them.And really, why would we need them? They would guzzle fuel and would not really be worth it. If you have to travel somewhere nearby, drive. If you have to fly to somewhere far away, take a plane. There's no reason to have jet packs, aside from the "cool factor", and that isn't enough to make expensive trinkets a commonplace reality.

Well, currently the players cost some 12,000 USD and the disks 1,000 USD each, if I'm not mistaken (it may be more for the player), but prices will eventually go down, even though it may take a few decades.