Purecheese

Japan is definately worth a visit, I've been there for 3 weeks this summer and it's just incredible. Himeji, the peace park, mt fuji, tokyo it's all just incredible. Very different culture aswell, almost no criminality. and everything is so organised. It's just completely different and that makes it interesting. I also went with a group of students (24) and that's definately a lot of fun aswell. Also went to university's and labs and stuff and I've gotta say that the research they're doing in japan is outstanding, so the educational shouldn't get you bored. To make it short, japan is surely worth a visit. If I were you I'd definately take this opportunity :P As for the costs of it. Japan is said to be very expensive. True to some extent, but if you want to keep the costs down then you can. I spend about 450 euro in the 3 weeks I was there (lunch + dinner + water + other small things). The rest of the costs depend on the places where you'll be staying, but again this doesn't have to be too expensive. Something you definately need to check is whether you'll receive a railpass. With it you can travel unlimited on all the JapanRail lines for say 2 weeks. If not, and you have a lot of time without a program it's definately worth getting one.

It's all working again, it appears to have been some weird problem with the routers :? So no virus or anything at all :D Thanks for the help anyway :)

Hmmm :? I have no clue what's going on, internet ain't working except for my 3 start pages in opera. Anyway some process called lsass is running.. I cannot terminate it.. I read this is some kind of virus? Can it be responsible for blocking my internet? My dad complained to me that windows didn't reboot properly after he had updated while I was on holiday. Anyway when I came back I tried updating windows. Was the look of this page changed? it was for me. And are there windows updates that don't ask for a reboot ? :? Anyway, the good news is, that this is not my laptop and that tip.it is still working. Bad news I've got some work on there which needs a back up badly. So what should I do? list of running processes: Taskmgr[Caution: ExecutableFile] msnmsgr[Caution: ExecutableFile] svchost[Caution: ExecutableFile] (local service) explorer[Caution: ExecutableFile] svchost[Caution: ExecutableFile] (network service) opera[Caution: ExecutableFile] svchost[Caution: ExecutableFile] (system) svchost[Caution: ExecutableFile] (network service) svchost[Caution: ExecutableFile] (system) lsass[Caution: ExecutableFile] (system) services[Caution: ExecutableFile] (system) winlogon[Caution: ExecutableFile] (system) csrss[Caution: ExecutableFile] (system) smss[Caution: ExecutableFile] (system) ctfmon[Caution: ExecutableFile] system (system) system idle process (system)

You divide by (x-y) since x=y you're dividing by (x-x)=0 which is, as we all know not allowed ;) Basically you're saying 2*0=1*0 which is true. then you divide by 0 and end up with 2=1. Sorry to give the answer so soon :P While we're at it, I'll add another need trick with numbers that's actually correct. 0.9 repeating = x (=0.999999999999...) 10x=9.9 repeating (=9.9999999999...) 10x=9+x 9x=9 x=1=0.9 repeating

With over 496.358.750 songs sold in the iTunes music store I'd hardly dare say that aac is an unsuccesfull format :P 496.358.750*0.99 = one hell of a lot money :o

I don't really see where you want to go with this post. Are you trying to say that I'm wrong for believing that the war in iraq is wrong? Or are you just trying to show that the war in iraq results atleast in a few good things? Sure enough good things have come from the war in iraq. But they do not make up for all the terrible things that have come from it. Nor do they justify the war. I'm not looking to go into a whole argument over this as there have been plenty before :P And I definately do agree that it's good to look at the brightside of the war in iraq for a change :)

I always use iTunes to rip cd's. It's free and it works great. It also allows you to rip music into AAC format, which is as far as I know superior to mp3. iTunes is also a great program to get all tags correct. Plus it can automatically organise all your music in a folder of your choice which works great aswell.

That's the exact spot where science and logic fails. And thus the place where you get to prove that there is/was more then just science. It doesn't mean that science fails. Science is there because it works. Because it does explain things. In that way it's just like a religion, a way to look at the world. We should always keep that in mind. Claiming that the results of any scientific results corresponds one on one to reality is wrong. It's a model just like religion. The one difference between science and religion is that religion depends on believing. While science can only be correct if it seems to correspond to reality. The rules that define whether something has been scientifically proven are actually part of science. This means that you're using science to prove itself which is ofcourse wrong. Anyway let's stay on-topic :P

it's called dark matter rather then black matter :oops: . Remembered that wrong for one. We would probably perceive black matter as vacuum simply because it doesn't interact with electro-magnetic waves. So yea I guess that a vacuum would contain dark matter. It does have an incredible mass though, but simply because this black matter would be pretty much everywhere we wouldn't be able to see the effects or atleast not in our normal lives. This is more guessing as knowing though :P I didn't say that no new galaxies can be formed. What I did mention is that the universe has a total mass. Which means that the total mass is constant and thus that no more matter can be created. Or atleast not on a large scale. On the nanoscale in vacuum, visible particles are created out of nothing (or perhaps dark matter?). Particle + anti-particle these two particles annihilate very quickly again though :? Into what? don't ask me Anyway I should stop talking now as I don't really know what I'm talking about. Let's just keep it the fact that the total mass of the universe is important for the final size it'll reach :P

The universe is currently expanding, like others said this can be seen by the redshift observed in the spectra of stars. The futher the star is away the greater the redshift. This indicates that the speed at which stars move away from us increases as the distance between us and the star increases. Along with the fact that everything seems to be moving away from us, or to be more exact that everything is moving away from everything. We're forced to the following conclusion: Space is expanding, not because objects are moving relative to eachother. But because the scale of space is expanding. This has to be true because there is no other way in which everything can move away from everything, plus it perfectly explains this distance dependency of the speed. This of course doesn't really answer the question. The real question is, "what is the biggest volume which will ever contain matter?" This depends on whether the universe will keep expanding or whether it will slow down and stop expanding and possibly even start imploding. This then depends on the total mass of all matter within the universe. Fairly accurate estimations have been made of this. And the total mass is estimated to be just below subcritical (thus the universe will keep expanding). However there is rumoured to be something as black matter. This is incredibly heavy and does not interact with electromagnetic waves at all and thus it cannot be seen or perceived by us in any normal way. if this black matter exists then it'd be pretty much everywhere (if I remember correctly) it would lift the total mass of the universe far above the critical value and it would certainly start imploding at a certain point. So in short, if black matter exists, the universe if finite. Black matter doesn't exist, the universe is most likely infinite. I might've gotten a few things in the above wrong, but as far as I can remember it's correct :P so don't blame me if it's wrong ;)

I had about 1.4k posts on the old scapeboard. Goes to show how much less I'm posting nowadays :P

Radiohead - There there, pyramid song, etc R.E.M. - driver, daysleeper, etc

R.E.M - Automatic for the people Radiohead - Ok computer Both great albums that don't easily bore me.

Scarab of RA, mac game from 1987 I used to play for hour after hour. And then the mummy came :o and he'd electrify me :cry: pic: http://www.semicolon.com/Images/Scarab.gif Other games include simcity 2000, pong, warcraft II, diablo, etc

Brilliant music. Deloused in a comatorium was good, so good that I wondered whether they'd be able to equal that level again on their next album. Frances the mute certainly did equal that level again. And yea after the first time I'd listened to it, all I could say was.. WOW :shock: that was brilliant!

Brunssum is quite far from amsterdam (2, 3 hours with public transport or 180 km). And actually it's in the southern most part of holland. It's near places like maastricht, sittard, heerlen, etc My dad grew up in that area and my grandparrents are still living in the area. Maastricht is a superb city with lots of restaurants where you can sit outside in the sun and enjoy a drink (vrijthof). It's also one of the oldest cities of holland. Plus there's always something to do There's plenty of nature around and things to see like kasteel elsloo, valkenburg and vaalserberg (with 300+ meter hollands highest mountain :D ). People are kind and well just a great place in my opinion. As for amsterdam you can always visit it ;) And maastricht sure enough doesn't do under for it. (use: http://www.nl.map24.com to see where it is in holland for yourself) Feel free to ask me anything else in which you're interested ;)

I don't really know what the confederate flag is, but from what I've read it was the symbol of the southern states of america during the civil war? And now people link it to racism? Here in holland, especially in the part where I live there's a lot of youth wearing lonsdale clothes. Big boots, white strings in them, dutch flag attached to their jacket. That's a huge display of racism. Last week they threw a bottle through the window of a mosque. Result about 60 people with an islamitic background got into a large fight with about 20 lonsdalers. In other towns they've burned down a islamic schools. and there have been plenty of attempts to burn down other islamic buildings. Then again there have also been attempts to burn down churches. And in all honesty many of the youth with an islamic background simply are a problem. Doesn't mean that you must hate them, it means that you together need to find a solution. (most of these things happened shortly after theo van gogh who wrote very critical about the islam was brutally murdered by a fanatic) To me, these people (lonsdale youth) are a disgrace, I see them walk around everywhere. So my guess, yea I'd be offended by the flag.

heh, the upside down pentagram is the mark of the devil. That's what's wrong with it :P I hereby reward you the medal of the devil eeeh valour :x for your fight against god eeeh terrorism Now what would the true meaning behind this be? I don't believe that the designers didn't know about it. Scarry stuff if you ask me

On fusion and Iter Nuclear fusion is very real. The best fusion reactor that exists today is JET (oxford). it produces slightly less energy then is needed to sustain the fusion reaction. Scientists however learned lots of it. Right now scientists from all over the world (japan, russia, china, europe, america) are working on ITER. This will be the first fusion reactor that produces more energy then is needed to sustain the reaction. At this moment they're deciding where it'll be built, either in japan or france though I believe that it's gonna be france (might already be decided on). This reactor will prove that creating a sustainable fusion reaction is possible and ofcourse it'll allow for a lot of research on it. After ITER scientists will be able to start working on the first prototype of a commercial fusion reactor, which is the last step toward fusion powerplants (estimated to be taken in 2040). As for the dangers of fusion, there are very few. In fission processes all of the "fuel" is inside the reactor, which makes it impossible to just remove the "fuel" and stop the reaction when it goes wrong. This is what causes the problems. Fusion however doesn't require the "fuel" to be inside the reactor, it's added during the proces. Aside from that, the temprature of the fusion plasm might be very high, the energy densitiy of it is however very low, this is thus no danger either. As for waste products, the only waste there is, is a bit of helium gas which is completely innocent compared to what we're producing nowadays. Also the reactor itself will be conteminated with radioactive material, it decays however very quick (within a century I believe). As for the amounts of energy that can be produced this way, that's simply huge. I've got no numbers on it though. We can litterally fly to the moon, retrieve the required elements, fly back and still make more energy then is needed (this is for heavier elements, not sure which as the lecture on it is quite a while ago). Anyway more information on iter can be found at: www.iter.org ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- As for science toping in the next century. No way, there's SO much more to discover, there's so much more to apply it ain't even close to funny. I'm expecting a lot from nano technology and new materials, quantum computers. Perhaps some day some high temprature super conductors :D So all in all, I think we've got a bright future ahead of us :) When the problems of our current life style hit us hard, we'll switch to a more endurable life style, which will by then be possible. The economy will get a hit, but I guess we'll survive :wink:

Offensive names are to be reported under rule 1: offensive language :wink:

pff lots of different things: reel big fish (they do own less than jake :P ) thrice thursday a perfect circle the mars volta anti flag against me! rowwen heze the get up kids cursive copeland brand new

Well, most people didn't completely understand my argument. I was trying to say that we cannot possibly explain the beginning or the fact that there is no beginning with the logic and laws that apply to the world we live in nowadays. (that's eleminating certain answers as correct, not giving an answer to the question) For me anything that cannot be explained by the laws of nature that apply to the world nowadays is something "devine" or "greater". Something which you can also call a god. Not neciscerally (sp??) the christian god. but god as being something that doesn't obey to the laws of nature

Science does need something "greater" then what is possible according to science in order to support it's existence. Let's go back in time. Back all the way to the beginning! *booooooooom!!!!* the big-bang! What caused the big bang? an imploding universe? What caused this imploding universe? What caused that? It's an endless line of cause and effect. This would mean that there is no beginning. Something without a beginning? Doesn't that sound as something not from this world as something that is impossible? Or was there a beginning that had no cause? I'd say something without a beginning or cause is definately supernatural. There is No way to describe t=0 without the description being supernatural. It can't be explained by science because there can be no causality at t=0. The funny thing is that we can never know what t=0 really is. How can we know of something that we cannot understand with normal logic whether it really is the beginning or something that happened after the beginning?? this supernatural beginning could be the christian god or whatever you want it to be, if you believe that bush created everything then I got no way to prove that you're wrong. For me that means that I respect all different faiths as long as they do not claim to be the one and only true religion. What I believe in is pretty much Spinoza's pantheÃÆÃâÃâïsm with as "super natural beginning" the formation of laws of nature. But well like I said I can't really know :P btw: the da vinci code is a GREAT book I can recommend it to everyone. the bernini mysterie written by the same person is also a great book