Shpaget

Stirling engines are significantly more efficient at converting heat into mechanical energy and then electricity, than thermocouples, so I'm all for it. There are some issues with stirlings, though. It being a mechanical machine it requires more maintenance than a thermocouple which has no moving parts.

As Camcha said, three of your yank feet, or 1 m for the rest of the world high tsunami is still dangerous since tsunami is a very long wave. When the wave reaches the shore, the huge amount of water behind it still wants to continue to move forward, pushing the front up and significantly over that 1 meter mark.

Who else wants to go there?

I must admit I don't follow your math. I get (1/4)^12 = 5,96 x 10^-8 or 1/16 777 216 for each trial. It is just as likely for the 12/12 to come up on a first try as is on 16 millionth.

That's like saying we need not know anything about extinction level asteroid impact until one hits us. Watch these videos.

On the sound one, when I read the question, but before reading the answers I expected to see something along the lines of pressure differential. Amplitude would have been fine in itself, but the "or height" part threw me off for a bit. Height of what? Height of a line on a pressure vs time graph? That's just a way to represent something that we can't see. There is no height in sound. Also the other answer "Velocity or rate of change". My first though at that was "Rate of change of what? Velocity? That would be acceleration. What does that have to do with it?" After that "Velocity is a vector, what is that all about?" Then finally the astrology question bothers me quite a bit, for a different reason. "Which of these terms is defined as the study of how the positions of stars and planets can influence human behavior?" They word the question as if planets can actually influence human behavior.

Same here. That was the only one I needed the multiple choice system which I could "abuse". The answers to the sound one were a bit weirdly worded, though.

Why would they follow the path of least resistance? They may consider that production of computers in space is too difficult and want to use the facilities here. If they think that fighting humans is more effective than relocating then there is no reason to relocate. After all, they are effectively immortal as long as they are connected to a hidden mainframe. Losing a bot in a fight is cheap, since a new one can be built in hours with all the capabilities of the lost one. Then you recycle the lost bot and have near zero losses, excluding the energy usage. Humans take decades to grow and train and are not recyclable. Robots are a perfect counter to a human soldier. You are also neglecting that space is not a hospitable place for robots. There are many issues that probe and rover designers have to account for when building a space machine that are just not an issue for a terrestrial one. Some of them are radiation, lubrication, space dust being very sticky and getting into everything, cooling problems... Robots wouldn't like any of those and would conceivably prefer to stay here.

I'm talking about the concept of countries and capitals. When you take a look at the Earth from orbit there are no visible borders. Also, there is nothing that sets a capital from any other city other than an agreement and functions of some buildings that from the outside appear no different to any other building. A human can recognize that distinction and knows that if a city is a capital of some country that that city is a place where you can find some administrative stuff you can't find elsewhere. A parrot will have no such understanding.

That doesn't mean they have the understanding of what is a country or a concept of a capital. They just attach one sound to another.

What happens when they start demanding all the rocket fuel and resources needed to make more of it so they can launch the supercomputers and the powerplants needed to power them? Humans drop everything they do and offer a helping hand?

Robots have already convinced us that they are better than us and they have us building them, spending billions on their further development. Their campaign is so successful and yet so cunningly done that they have managed to take over the Mars, and for some reason we rejoice every time their population expands. The End is Nigh.

A monkey can get 12/12 on his first try.

It's statistical probability that when presented with 12 questions, each with 4 possible answers and you pick answers at random you'll get, on average, 3 answers correct. It is also statistically probable that when given the opportunity to go through the test multiple times, at least some of the time you'll get more than 3 answers correct, up to and including all 12.

You're right. Anyway, the inclination change still applies.

GEO usually stands for Geosynchronous Earth Orbit, not necessarily geostationary. And even the geostationary is achievable from any latitude by inclination change.

A quick browse shows nothing that smells funny. Also, that's the worst scale model of the Solar system. Not because the sizes are off, but because I'd eat it and have none left. A bit pricey.

Sure, but it would not be stable. Just a slightest perturbation would send the planet towards one star.

DM-03 http://en.federalspace.ru/20417/ Top right corner.

Shame it's a night launch.

You want this for real satellites? That is going to be an issue. To calculate the minimum distance two satellites will pass by each other you need very precise data. Where do you plan on getting it? Read up on this collision. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_satellite_collision A dedicated satellite tracking and close approach alert software miscalculated that event. There is a saying "garbage in, garbage out", meaning if you input wrong or inaccurate data into your algorithm, you can not expect to get a correct answer.

Darnok, considering the fact that movie fails at depicting basic Newtonian stuff correctly, this really is no surprise.

Why would that frustrate you? What does your financial situation have to do with it? Just by having a PC, access to the internet and enough free time to play games makes you better off than a significant portion of population. Do you think that the rest of us here lauch full sized Delta IIs in our backyards when we get bored?

If you have two circular orbits with the same altitude, satellites will either collide on the first intersection or never. They will collide only if the angles between the intersection and both satellites are the same.

David Icke is not authoritative. There is an episode of Star Trek Enterprise (the one with Picard) where they argue with an alien species over this or that. The issue is that their fancy translator thingy doesn't work, since the aliens use language that is so different than human, it's inconceivable to us. They end up using English, since aliens are smart, but the point is that most human languages work on similar concepts, while an alien language can be literally anything and completely beyond understanding.