Bush Philosopher

There are many narrow and moderately windy unpaved roads where I live. Is there any research on whether widening these would improve safety, or would it just allow people to drive faster and have more serious accidents?

A 'simple' geography question:

Cape Yorke is the big pointy peninsula in NE Australia, what is the name of the big 'flat-topped' peninsula on which is Arnhem land? The Cobourg Peninsula is a small peninsula on it's NW corner, the Gove Peninsula is a small peninsula on its NE corner.

We have a couple of pistachio trees. Often the husks are difficult to remove. And when we get the husks off, the shells are reluctant to pop open. We've tried drying them in a low heat oven (110 degrees C) for a few hours, which does help. Is there a better way.

Perhaps we have been picking them before they are entirely ripe. But if we leave them on the trees longer, the birds get them.

Does anyone know a reasonably priced place on southern Yorke Peninsula (South Australia) where I could stay for a couple of nights with my dog?

Lightning strikes often occur on the tops of hills and they can start fires in grass or trees. If a row of wind turbines are built along the top of a ridge it would seem that the likelihood of wild fires would be reduced. The wind turbines will conduct the lightning safely to ground. (See ramblingsdc.net/Australia/WindProblems.html#Lightning_strike).

Some people, not a lot, are bitterly opposed to wind farms, especially nearby wind farms. Yet very few are opposed to solar power installations, even when these are on a neighbour's house.

Most people are concerned about climate change. A typical modern utility-scale wind turbine will generate about as much clean electricity as 2000 average roof-top solar installations (see ramblingsdc.net/Australia/WindProblems.html#How_does_wind_power_compare_to_roof-top_solar) so logically anyone who wants to see action on reducing greenhouse gas emissions should support wind power.

Wind turbines make some noise, solar panels don't. Both are conspicuous, but in different ways; wind turbines change rural views, solar panels just change the appearance of people's roofs. Both produce clean energy.

Australia is a terrible place to holiday if you have a dog with you. Does anyone know a cabin, home-stay, farm-stay, whatever in the peninsula area south of Adelaide, South Australia, that will allow a dog and will not cost the Earth?

Can anyone tell me the name of this very distinctive Catholic church in Dalat, Vietnam.

It's bell tower looks like an oriental pagoda. It's Vietnamese name could be Chua Thanh Than.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/daveclarkecb/66749480...

What relative advantages do pads have compared to notebooks or laptops (for that matter, what's the difference between notebooks and laptops)? I do quite a bit of writing, so will probably want something that can have a full size keyboard plugged into it from time to time. I'll be wanting to surf the net, maintain a website, access things like Google Earth, etc.

I am an administrator of a group in Flickr. I want to invite another group member to be administrator; or promote him to administrator, but I can't see how to do it.

It is usually said that there is energy in petroleum, because when it is burned, heat (that can be used to produce electricity, etc.) is released. But isn't it just as true to say that there is energy in oxygen? The energy releasing reaction is between the petroleum and oxygen - no oxygen, no reaction. Both the petroleum and the oxygen were produced by ancient life forms.

Most people go to bed around ll pm or midnight and then get up at around 8 am. We are animals best suited to work in the daylight hours, our eyes are not well suited to night vision. Why do we not go to bed around 8 pm and get up at 4 am so as to have all the daylight hours available for us to use? There must be something in our genes that I am missing.

There is undeniable evidence that the world's oceans are becoming more acidic from the same atmospheric carbon dioxide that our fossil-fuel power stations pump out and that is the main cause of climate change. Do the deniers manage to look the other way on this as well?

For example, I'm interested in wind turbines and wind power. Is there some way I can set up an automatic email to inform me whenever someone asks a question on these in Yahoo Answers?

There are innumerable stories of wind turbines making people sick, but where is the solid evidence? Has anyone published anything in respectable scientific journals?

There are innumerable stories of wind turbines making people sick, but where is the solid evidence? Has anyone published anything in respectable scientific journals?

I want to install a 10kW solar power system. There's only room for about 3kW on the roof of my cottage, so I'm thinking of building a pergola specifically for supporting the solar panels. I want to make it look good. My place is at 34 degrees S latitude. The roof needs to be about 7x9m. I'm thinking of a roof sloping at 20 degrees toward the north, mainly flat, but with two panels on each side (1.6m, on the E & W sides) sloping downward at 15 degrees. The roof would be 1.4m high at the low end and 3.2m high at the high end. The land slopes down toward the north at 5 degrees.

The photo in the link below shows solution features on a massive limestone surface in the Flinders Ranges of South Australia. They are caused by the limestone going into solution in rain water. The grooves are about the diameter of a man's finger, the ridges are quite sharp. I'd like to know the correct technical name for them; I have used 'clints' and 'grikes', but I believe this is wrong.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/daveclarkecb/46653168...

If God is omniscient surely it would have been easy for him to write his holy book in all the languages of the world? Then he could have given it to all the peoples of the world. Better, don't you think? (If you believe in the Islamic God).

Why did God leave the writing of the Bible/Koran/whatever to Men? If he wrote a translation of his holy book in every language, autographed them, and spread them around the world to all language groups it would have avoided a whole lot of misunderstanding; not to mention bloodshed.

Perhaps he didn't have the literary ability, or the language ability, or the publishing/printing facilities? But then isn't he meant to be omnipotent (able to do anything) and omniscient (knowing everything)?