newbay18

My 2001 MB C320 has whitish/bluish smoke coming out of the exhaust when it's been driving for ages then let to cool down. It also happens when I'm cruising along at a constant high speed on like a highway, then give it some gas (to like 3000RPM), then huge amounts of smoke billows out the back then it's back to normal. I repeat the smoke usually happens only on startup and when suddenly under load after a period of constant RPM.

The check-engine light went on one day accompanied by some rough idling and the dealer said it was worn piston rings causing it, and that an engine rebuild or replacement was the only fix. However could it still be the valve seals? The car's only done 160,000kms and the engine apparently is quite tough (M112) I'm kinda surprised the rings have gone this early. It's definitely not the head gaskets and I'm not losing any coolant.

What class of aircraft has the longest (by that, I mean distance wise) flight range on full tanks and if applicable, without mid-air refueling. And also disregarding tailwind/headwind, crew fatigue etc...

Does responsibility for the protection of the Queen and the Royal Family (UK) rest primarily with the military or law enforcement i.e the police?

Well, general opinion (and mine) is that even if he did manage to pull off a victory at Waterloo, he would've been steamrolled by just about every single country on the continent. Even the Spanish weren't prepared to risk another Napoleonic European rampage, even tiny countries like Switzerland/Sweden/Denmark were convinced to fight alongside the 4 Superpowers (Austria/Russia/Prussia/GB).

Napoleon himself may have been able to create miracle victories personally, but I don't think his Marshals would've been able to (France would've been attacked from all sides) hold off collectively, what would've been one of the largest armies ever assembled in history.

A small farm has 5 ducks and 2 geese. Four of these birds are to be chosen at random. The random

variable X represents the number of geese chosen.

1. Draw up the probability distribution of X.

I know what the table looks like, the values of X are 0,1,2 geese in the group of 4 but how do I calculate the probabilities? or P(X=x). I'm assuming the birds are taken out once chosen and the order doesn't matter, so if they were all ducks (i.e 0 geese) it would be 5/7*4/6*3/5*2/4 which gives me the correct answer of 1/7. How do I go about solving the rest though?

The minimum was easy...if cos^2x was equal to 1, then 2 - 5(1) would be -3. This was correct.

But the answer says that the maximum value is 2, but if cos^2x gave me -1 (for e.g cos 180degrees) , wouldn't it therefore be 2 - 5(-1) which would give me a maximum of 7?

Yesterday I had a rather painful and hard crap....took quite an effort to get it out and when I wiped it stung a bit but the stain looked normal.

Today I took went to the toilet and did my thing without any problems (i.e normal poo) but when I wiped there was a massive red stain in place of the usual brown stuff. It isn't constant bleeding I don't think since it wasn't absolutely soaked with blood just a big faintish stain and I'm certainly not leaking any blood, other than that I'm feeling fine. Is it what I think it is? I.e tearing some skin somewhere because of an overly hard crap? I certainly hope it isn't serious.

Why did Hitler desperately want to enlist in the German Army in WWI instead of joining the Austrian Army? I mean...they were both on the same side and Austrians weren't exactly 'inferior' according to his future Nazi Idealogy. Austria did have an empire that did include many races that Hitler later treated with contempt, other than that I can't think of any reason why he didn't want serve his native country.

Do artillerymen nowadays get trained in direct fire with their guns? I know artillery is primarily for indirect fire but in the unlikely event that enemy penetrated rapidly and far into friendly lines would crews be trained to fire in defense of their guns? In WW2 there were instances where some quick deployment and some luck managed to save travelling howitzer batteries that had been ambushed by tanks or infantry.

I live in New Zealand where our policemen do not carry firearms on the beat, in the 17 (my life) or so years I've lived here I've seen cops with guns maybe twice? So I definitely haven't spent long periods of time in places like Italy where you can encounter 5 different kinds of 'police officers' who all dress and arm themselves like soldiers.

However on my various travels I have met obviously armed/heavily armed cops, even soldiers (I saw a few in a Swiss train station with their Assault Rifles) and don't feel intimidated at all...on the contrary I feel safer, knowing that the guy with the firearm is there to protect people. Of course if you were in a country like Afghanistan where insurgents have infiltrated everything, you have reason to worry but in an industrialized country surely you'd feel comforted that the weapons are in the right hands?

I went to Singapore with some mates of mine who had similarly lived in NZ for their entire lives and were quite uncomfortable in the presence of cops with MP5s strutting around in the subway and shopping malls, unsettled by the possibility that one of them might just decide to open fire on the crowds. I tried to convince them to no avail that the greatest threats were the ones you couldn't see and that Singapore has one of the finest law enforcement agencies in the world, that the guy was out there in the interest of the public's safety and that they had nothing to fear.

They felt that to entrust a weapon like a weapon like an MP5 to a police officer was giving him/her power over everyone in their vicinity...I mean wouldn't you rather him be there in the unlikely event of a terrorist attack? Or armed offenders? I'd much rather that our protectors and our government has the ability to defend its people from inside and out, in places like Hong Kong/France/Switzerland etc...the cops aren't there as fascist oppressors or to intimidate ordinary people with their weapons, they're their to defend you against those that might and sometimes that requires a bit more than pepperspray and batons.

I would personally feel safer in the presence of heavily armed law enforcement officers, in fact seeing a few G36s around in the right hands would calm my fears of being the victim of a crime. I'm not debating whether it's actually effective at combating crime or not but why people still look at the men/women that swore an oath to protect them, like the Gestapo or the SS.

Why do some regions or particular countries have the ability to be rich and prosperous no matter what happens to them? And the reverse would be true for some others...

E.g Germany: Predecessor state of Prussia was incredibly powerful and was relatively affluent. Imperial Germany was strong enough to stand up to the UK/France and despite having a rough time in the Weimar period, Nazi Germany's living standards were quite high by 1939. Despite being split up and reunited, Germany is still one of the most technologically advanced and rich countries ever to have existed.

So despite being crippled in WWI and WWII, and being split and made one half communist for 45ish years, the German people have constantly bounced back to prosperity after each conflict or disaster.

Yet some countries just seem unable to dig themselves out of trouble even after long periods of time, ordinary Russians haven't had much luck for a VERY long time, it sucked in Tsarist Russia and sucked even more in the USSR.

When I look at Electric and Steam locomotives specifications I see just one value for the tractive effort, e.g 200 Kilonewtons, in other words it's constant. When I look up diesel-electric engines I get 2 values, e.g a Dash 9 can produce 620kN when starting but can only maintain 480kN continuously...why is that?

When I look at Electric and Steam locomotives specifications I see just one value for the tractive effort, e.g 200 Kilonewtons, in other words it's constant. When I look up diesel-electric engines I get 2 values, e.g a Dash 9 can produce 620kN when starting but can only maintain 480kN continuously...why is that?

The USA is the only country I know that has basically a 2nd Army, in the form of a Marine Corps. It's absolutely huge at 200,000 personnel and is capable of conducting major operations on its own with some support from other branches.

Alot of other countries have a marine/naval infantry force but they are generally far smaller and are treated as commandos or elite light infantry that usually require the support and assets of the other branches to participate in major operations, most are simply too small to do everything by themselves.

For example (manpower):

UK Royal Marines: 8,000

Russian Naval Infantry: 12,000

China's PLAMC: 12,000

Indian MARCOS: speculated to be around 2,000

As you can see even the emergent superpowers have only tiny marine corps, why does the USA need essentially a 2nd armed force? What can they do that the Army/Navy/Air Force can't?

Generally they are capable of greater acceleration than diesel-electrics and more powerful? When I visited Germany, their S-Bahn (commuter) EMU's accelerated like two times faster than the DMUs and Diesel Loco hauled suburban trains in New Zealand.

And when comparing diesel and electric locomotives of the same era: I find that electrics outmatch their diesel counterparts most of the time in terms of tractive force and power output.

Even the BR Class 55 'Deltic', famous for its high performance can only develop a maximum tractive effort of 222kN.

A humble DB class 103 electric of around the same era, could apply 312kN and was capable of far greater speeds.

Generally they are capable of greater acceleration than diesel-electrics and more powerful? When I visited Germany, their S-Bahn (commuter) EMU's accelerated like two times faster than the DMUs and Diesel Loco hauled suburban trains in New Zealand.

And when comparing diesel and electric locomotives of the same era: I find that electrics outmatch their diesel counterparts most of the time in terms of tractive force and power output.

Even the BR Class 55 'Deltic', famous for its high performance can only develop a maximum tractive effort of 222kN.

A humble DB class 103 electric of around the same era, could apply 312kN and was capable of far greater speeds.

I'm perplexed as to why IGCSE, AS and A2 level History course all only focus on events prior and after major conflicts. I know alot of stuff of significance happens in peacetime but shouldn't the course do a bit on the actual wars? E.g WWI and WWII...I mean they were the bloodiest conflicts in history and that's really where countries are destroyed and made right?

Is it contradictory to believe in the Christian Faith as well as science? I personally believe in God, but I also acknowledge the fact that the universe and everything inside it is incredibly old, far older than some religious nuts claim it to be and I accept the big bang theory/evolution etc.....is this OK? People make it seem as if being religious and being educated are two mutually exclusive events.

What is longest train journey in the world? (distance-wise)

Conditions:

Shortest possible travel time (So no unnecessary zig-zagging/backtracking etc...), on any lines with scheduled passenger services and you're allowed to switch trains.

WWI: Started off friendly with the Central powers, then backstabbed them and luckily for them, joining the Allies worked.

WWII: Same thing, was committed to forging a new Roman Empire together with the Germans, then when things started getting bad and the Allies seemed to be winning, they turn on their allies which actually helped their war effort quite a bit and had no qualms about firing on who would've been their friends just a few days ago.

I'm kinda getting the impression that if an Italian was in charge of the UK in 1940 after Dunkirk they would've pretended that they had no reason to hate Germany and join in their holy crusade against Bolshevism -_-