thegreatbeyond

Why is Times New Roman called that?

By the way, the whole spiel on the Song of Storms in Zelda: Ocarina of Time was totally theoretical and shouldn't be considered as true.

I'm still waiting on a clarification to the question about the moon.

Times New Roman is called that because, in the early 1900s, The Times, a once and still prominent newspaper, comissioned a typographer to design a special font just for them that was based off old Roman script. Two companies got ahold of the font, one calling it Times Roman and the other calling it Times New Roman because it looked more like new Roman script than old. The "new" version became more commonplace, so the name stuck.

well, at around sunset, you can see a nice big, orange moon, but late in night, its small and white, does it have something to do with elipses? i think it does

There's actually two different issues you're talking about here.

The first issue is the size difference. This is actually an illusion, created by your brain because it percieves objects on the horizon as closer than objects in the sky. You can prove this by taking a picture of both positions of the moon. When you look at the pictures, you'll see that the "size" of the moon is actually the same.

The second issue is the color difference. The moon is the same color, no matter what, but what changes the color is the amount of atmosphere the light from the moon has to travel through to get to your eyes. If it's a low amount of atmosphere, like high in the sky, more of the light comes through clearly. If it's a high amount of atmosphere, like on the horizon when the light has to come across the surface of the earth, the light is scattered. Since blue light scatters more than red light, all you see is the red light coming from the moon, tinting it orange.

illusion, eh? I'll have to try that.. so no elipses?
I've heard rumors about Bush wanting a Lazer Satalite to shoot down missiles, or a colony on the moon, but none of that is possible yet, right?

Nope, no ellipse tricks. Though the orbit of the moon is an ellipse, that doesn't have anything to do with the perceived change in "size".

Actually, lasers are possible now. They've existed for quite some time in the form of laser pointers, which just polarize light and send it in one direction. The kind of laser Bush is referring to, one with a much higher density of light, is possible, but astronomically expensive to make and maintain, not to mention the amount of energy it requires. I believe only two such lasers exist at the moment, both in research labs at universities.

A self-sustaining colony on the moon, however, isn't possible at the moment. We haven't developed the technology to recycle waste nor produce enough food and oxygen for an indefinite period of time. This is likely to change soon, however, as there is a lot of research being done on this.

Both of these ventures would cost in the trillions of US dollars, so it's not likely that we'll see either soon.

cant you like, use plants for renewable oxygen?

You can, but plants consume carbon dioxide much slower than humans consume oxygen. The number of plants per person would be staggering, and maintaining all those plants takes resources.

hm, if only there was a way to put a little forest on the moon, but the dirt and air and water... hmm
It was snow storming and then there was thunder and lightening, how does that work?

Well, thunder and lightning can appear during a rain storm, right? Well, snow is just a lighly frozen form of rain, so the same principles would apply.

What's a random RPG noise?

why are thumbnails called that? does it have something to do with people sticking out their thumb when they paint things, and why do they do that, too?

is perpetual energy/motion possible?

IF((you had some place with no resistance whatsoever, including friction and air resistance et al)
AND (this theoretical place looped back on itself))
THEN
{
theoretically if you put a brick in there and pushed it it would continue forever
}

Unfortunately, such a place is impossible.

The sound of a gun shot, no matter what time period the RPG occurs in.

Thumbnails are called that because, when they were first made, were the size of the nail on your thumb. Not very large, but large enough to give you an idea of what's in the picture.

The technique of holding up ones thumb while painting helps with prespective. If you hold up your thumb and observe that something is about the width of your thumb, then you can paint the right width on your canvas. It's a quick and easy way of making sure you have the right sizes, but it's not totally accurate.

In our universe, the law of conservation of energy states that energy cannot be created nor destroyed. Theoretically, it is possible to construct a machine that does something indefinetly but puts out no extra energy since it would use the energy it creates to fuel itself. Since emitting light is a form of putting out energy, it would hard for us to see such a machine. In fact, observing the machine would be impossible, as all human senses require the output of energy from what we're sensing (sight requires light, hearing requires vibration, touch requires force and heat, taste and smell require chemical reations, and kinesthetic is in-body only). Also, since, in our universe, it is impossible to escape friction or heat, it would seem that it is impossible to construct such a device.