General Questions Thread

[King Lycan]

Where could i buy Khaki skinnies pant's/jeans for men online ?..

[klowny]

how does a person get taller? i mean people have been telling me it's genetics but i am taller than my parents and most of my family

[Anh_Minh]

We're a lot taller than our ancestors. Better, more abundant food, I guess. I've read that the Japanese have also been growing taller ever since they started using chairs instead of kneeling so much.


So, yeah. Genetics play a role, but so does how you live while you're young.

Also, genetics aren't that straightforward, what with recessive and dominant genes and all. Just because your parents are short doesn't mean you will be, too. It just makes it likely.

[Clarste]

Genetics are a blueprint. You still need the materials and the labor to actually build the house. In this case that would be eating enough food (and the right kinds of food) and treating your body correctly (enough exercise, rest, etc). Genetics are actually more complicated than that, but I think the analogy works. Also, you're not a clone of your parents, you're a mixture of your parents in a very complicated and indirect way. So there's no guarantee of anything.

[dragon4dudes]

also, in America, growth hormones are/were used for farmers to get more meat per cow. So people tend to grow taller and stronger at that.

[ginran]

okay, lol, I dont know where else to ask this, but how do I know when I get reps and who they are from?

[SeijiSensei]

Reputation appears in your Control Panel below your subscribed threads and forums and below any reprimands you might have received from the mods. As for who sent the reputation, you'll only know that if the person identifies him or herself in the reputation message.

I sign every reputation I distribute, but not everyone does. Negative rep in particular is almost always anonymous. If you want to learn more about reputation, or anything else on the forum, I suggest the reading the forum rules and various FAQs. The topic of reputation comes up from time to time in the Forum and Site Feedback forum; you might try searching there if your questions aren't answered in the FAQs.

[ginran]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Reputation appears in your Control Panel below your subscribed threads and forums and below any reprimands you might have received from the mods. As for who sent the reputation, you'll only know that if the person identifies him or herself in the reputation message.

I sign every reputation I distribute, but not everyone does. Negative rep in particular is almost always anonymous. If you want to learn more about reputation, or anything else on the forum, I suggest the reading the forum rules and various FAQs. The topic of reputation comes up from time to time in the Forum and Site Feedback forum; you might try searching there if your questions aren't answered in the FAQs.

Okay, thank you very much! That's really helpful, I appreciate it.

[Anh_Minh]

Imagine you're on a space ship or space station, without a suit on. You're suddenly ejected into space. You'll be rescued shortly, so you're not 100% guaranteed to die, but what's your best bet? Empty your lungs and risk anoxia, or hold your breath and risk the expansion of air in your lungs to damage them? Or will vacuum kill you before either of these is an issue?

[idiffer]

in a movie with shwarznager, in the same situation, the dudes eyes expanded/popped out.
i wonder if thats true...

[Clarste]

Nevermind, just looked it up. Breathe out, since you're going to faint from lack of oxygen anyway and might as well spare your lungs the damage). Eyes will start boiling (although probably not explode, just dry out very quickly). Bubbles will form in the blood in the extremities, apparently leading to heart failure in about 2 minutes at most. Oddly enough, preventable by wearing tight clothing.

http://www.sff.net/people/Geoffrey.Landis/vacuum.html

[idiffer]

me and my friends had a stupid discussion as to why arent there nuclear powered spaceships by now? seeing how nuclear power can produce a great amount of energy we thought that the spaceships will have much greater speed...

[felix]

What type of nuclear power?

[idiffer]

nuclear fission seems to be the only answer, judging by your link. but it doesnt really matter which...

[felix]

nuclear fission powered spaceship = "steam powered spaceship" (unless I'm mistaken)

Do you see the problem.

[Clarste]

You can't just turn "power" into "thrust" in space. Most modern transport technology is based on "spinning" (to push on the ground, air, water, whatever), which quite simply doesn't work in space. "Pushing" is the easiest way to get motion in space, and we accomplish that by burning rocket fuel.

That said, there have been proposals made about accelerating a spaceship by detonating nuclear bombs behind it. Not sure how far that line of thought has actually been developed and funded though.

[idiffer]

Clarste, thanks))
Cats...nevermind, i guess? "steam powered spaceship", yeah that would be fun)

[Vexx]

Ion power (streams of ions fired out the buttside) can generate large amounts of velocity efficiently over time... but there's the key: over time. You're using lots of tiny molecules to push a large mass so the acceleration is going to be damned tiny.

The NERVA program and the ORION program are interesting little tidbits to read on nuclear power propulsion.

But yay, for steampunk

[dragon4dudes]

There's also the problem of nuclear waste... Spent fuel rods are placed where? Also, what would happen if there was a leak, the radiation and maybe fallout would travel, if close enough, back to Earth and cause a global nuclear winter. On the other hand, who really knows the consequence of nuclear fallout in space entering the earth's atmosphere in large quantities?

[felix]

Some sites force you to use passwords with only numbers and letters. What is the point? Is there really less security with using every character on the keyboard such as #, $, @ etc.