Fallen One

So I was messing around with some calculations regarding car acceleration, and I want to know the maximum acceleration that a vehicle can obtain.

Obviously the engine plays a role in that, but I figured out that part. I'm interested now in the traction because, especially in sports cars, a tire can only transfer so much force before it slips. I know car physics is complicated stuff, but I'm just looking for something simple. Assuming a standard tire and dry, good condition pavement, what is the maximum force that a tire can transfer?

I can figure out how to calculate it given the weight of the vehicle and such, but I can't seem to pull up any numerical data on tire grip. That is the only piece to this puzzle that I'm missing. Anyone know where to find it?

As a side note, is there a simple way to account for the traction differences between FWD and RWD? Assuming everything else is the same, a RWD should be able to accelerate faster than a FWD because of how the weight transfers, so is there an easy way to calculate that too?

I'm interested in getting my hands on a decent gaming PC. I don't have the skills to put one together from scratch, and off-the-shelf gaming PCs are overpriced as hell.

So, could I just buy a decent off-the-shelf PC and then install a better graphics card? I mean, I know I'd have to check a few things (making sure the PSU can handle it, making sure there's even room in the case, probably need some additional case fans, etc) but would it work? Can you take a store-bought PC and add new hardware?

Also, I'm not worried about voiding the warranty. The only time I've ever actually needed that was when I bought a laptop that was dead right out of the box, and I would make sure the computer I bought for this was working properly before I added anything new to it.

I currently drive a 2004 Saturn Ion, and last winter I noticed that it was very difficult to get anywhere in the snow. It seemed to handle fine once I got up to speed, but I found that trying to accelerate just resulted in a lot of getting nowhere fast.

On one hand, I could get all-terrain tires. For one thing, I'd get better grip all-year round (compared to my current all-season tires). I'm not really concerned about wear (I don't drive enough that it would make a big difference) but more grip sounds good any time of year to me.

On the other hand, the winter tires wouldn't really be that great any time other than winter. Which either means I leave them on all year (not good) or switch back to the all-season tires (which would require a trip to the garage as I only have one set of wheels).

However, my main concern is snow/ice performance. I'd assume winter tires would be better in winter (duh), but I don't know how much better they would be. Since I don't do anything more than commute back and forth, are all-terrain tires good enough? Or are winter tires necessary enough to bother with the extra hassle (and expense) of switching them out in spring?

I'm not talking about emissions. That topic has plenty of coverage as it is. What I'm interested in is a performance comparison.

If you took a fuel cell and hooked it up to an electric motor, then dumped that into a car, how well would that car perform compared to a similar gas-powered car?

Again, I'm not talking about fuel efficiency. Lets compare more important (at least for drivers) statistics, like weight, horsepower, stability, etc.

Where are those discussions? I've looked for hours and I can't find any kind of details on the performance of H.F.C. vehicles beyond its emissions and fuel efficiency. And I'm curious because, honestly, if you could get enough power flowing an electric engine is much better at propelling a car (for one, there would be almost no need for a transmission, since electric motors have a mostly flat torque curve, producing maximum power across their whole RPM range).

Is anyone even interested in this? Most of the complaints against H.F.C. (or any other electric motor system) cite the fact that they just cannot compare on the track. So why is there so little talk over this glaring detail? Does nobody realize that most drivers will simply not choose to drive an electric vehicle if it can't do anything remotely sport-y?

So yeah, is it possible? Zero-emissions is great and all, but can we get zero-emissions AND performance on the track? Or is it an either/or scenario?

Also, I'm specifically asking about H.F.C. because batteries kinda suck. They are heavy, expensive, don't last long and are bad for the environment (mining the metal that goes into them is not an earth-friendly process).

So I watched the movie Oblivion earlier, and the song that played when Jack and Julie first go to Jack's secret house or whatever sounded eerily familiar. A quick search later and I determined that it was the song A Whiter Shade of Pale by Procol Harum.

But, here's the thing: I've never heard that song before. If you play any song for me I can reasonably tell you if I've heard it before or not and I swear I've never heard that song.

However, while the lyrics sound entirely unfamiliar, the instrumental behind it sounds *very* familiar. I cannot for the life of me place where I heard it, but I believe I heard something very similar in one of the Unreal games. Can't for the life of me figure out which one or what song it is that sounds similar. Anyone else know, or am I just going crazy?

It's an HP G60 (yeah, it's old), and it was running Windows Vista 32 bit if I remember correctly.

Anyways, it wont start. It automatically goes into system restore mode, which always fails. There are no backups that it can load (even the oldest one still puts the computer into system restore mode). I don't have the recovery disk.

I'm only interested in getting it working again so that I'll have a second computer to mess around on. I don't even remember what I had installed on it, so saving any files or programs isn't a concern. I just want to get it running, any way I can.

If I can't get it back to original, could anyone recommend a linux OS and a way to install that instead?

Also, for good measure, the screen is cracked. I can only see the right half of it. Which isn't an issue once I can get it running (I have a monitor, but the laptop wont display on the monitor until it's up and running).

I understand that the steering column has a gear at the end that attaches to a flat, straight bar with teeth on it, and turning the steering wheel results in a back-and-forth movement in the bar. I get that part. What I don't get is how this back-and-forth movement results in different turning angles for the wheels, since when taking a corner the inside wheel follows a smaller turn than the outside wheel.

Seems to me that a simple back-and-forth movement would result in both wheels having the same angle, which would cause issues, especially on sharp corners. The inside wheel needs to turn more than the outside wheel to follow the smaller turn radius. So how does the rack and pinion steering accomplish this?

The person in question asked me to take some of the photos, and took some themselves which they shared with me. They also posted most of these photos to a public tumblr account. I was never given permission to share these myself, but I also wasn't told to keep them private. I was just wondering if it's legal to share these photos with others, assuming I don't profit from doing so in any way, without the person's consent. If it matters (I'm assuming it does), the photos depicted the person naked, or with very little clothing (yes, THOSE kinds of photos).

I actually don't have the photos anymore, and didn't plan on sharing them. I'm just using them as an example and am wondering for future reference. I would, of course, always try to get permission when possible, and would not share them (even if it were legal) if the person asked me not to.

I was wondering, but since they never actually find out who the killer is, does anyone think it's possible that the killer is the one making the documentary? I thought it was odd that we never actually see who is recording the documentary, and then at the end when the cops said 'we never actually found out who he was' It just seemed logical to think that maybe the killer was the one documenting his own killings... It makes sense too because this is a killer who obsesses over documenting things, so what could possibly be better than making a documentary of their own serial killings?

And before someone says "That isn't a question," my question is does anyone else think this is a possible plot twist?

I'm running windows Vista on my laptop, and for some reason I cannot run any games in fullscreen mode. I've tried updating the system, which did absolutely nothing. Sometimes, if I restart my computer, it lets me run one program in fullscreen once, but as soon as I exit it doesn't let me run in fullscreen.

It doesn't give me an error message either. No matter what game I choose, it will minimize to the taskbar within a second of my running the game. It still shows the game as running, however, but if I attempt to restore the screen it just keeps minimizing it to the taskbar.

This problem has only occurred recently as well... Maybe one of the updates messed with the graphics? My computer never had any problems running the games in fullscreen until about a month ago... I'm at a loss as to what could possibly be wrong, and I can't find any solutions to this issue (what solutions I have tried have done absolutely nothing at all)...

I'm running Windows Vista on a HP G60. Cheap laptop, but I don't need it to do much. Anyways, the problem is that whenever I try to run a program in fullscreen mode it continually minimizes the program. I'm thinking this might be due to issues with VLC player.I'm actively trying to figure out how to get my games to play in windowed mode (as I like windowed mode better anyways), so if anyone can tell me how to just force everything to automatically run in windowed mode that would be nice.

Or, if you can help me fix this issue all-together, help me with that too... either way is fine...

So I hear there is no way to download additional songs for guitar hero for PS2 as there is no actual memory in the PS2 itself, but is there a way that it could be done with, say, a thumb drive? My PS2 has 2 USB ports on the front (it's the slim version). So, is there a way to, like, load songs onto a thumb drive so that when guitar hero is launched it also reads the songs from the thumb drive?

inb4 anyone says "try google," I tried that. I tried everything I could think of but it just kept giving me hits for blogs and **** that randomly had the words "guitar hero" or "PS2" in them somewhere...

For halloween, me and two friends are going to be sith. I found patters for robes, and am in the process of making them. The problem is, what good is a dark jedi without a lightsaber. Which brings me to the issue. With the only alternatives being cheap toys or (rather expensive) Force FX sabers, I would prefer to make my own. I have found numerous guides on how to build hollow lightsaber HILTS, but is there any way to add a BLADE to this?

I was thinking some sort of clear plastic tubing, but that still leaves the problem of lighting it up. Anyone have any ideas on how to make a fake lightsaber blade? Also, since we will probably 'duel' with these for fun, it either has to be very sturdy or easy to replace (which was why I was thinking about a clear plastic tube).

That pretty much says it all. Is lolicon considered illegal in the US? I looked it up on wikipedia, but it was very vague as to what was considered illegal with regards to drawn pornography...

best (serious) answer will get 10 points

funny answers will be posted on funnyjunk.com

http://topsecret.quadium32.com/level2.php

I know it's asking "If today is the # WEEK of the YEAR, then what DAY of the YEAR is today?" But no matter what I put in (tried inputting 15-25) it doesn't let me through. So WTF?

Easy ten points if you have been through this before...

Also, if you want to play, go to http://topsecret.quadium32.com/

It helps to click View > Page Source

Is there an add-on for Firefox that manages your other add-ons? I searched google for nearly an hour looking for one, but I could not find anything. Also, I tried to find the mozilla page that lists all the add-ons for firefox by categories and such, to see if I could find it there, but I couldn't find that either.

Links for one or both appreciated.

I would really like to know why there is always some fanatic Christian (or Catholic or whatever) who is trying to "save the souls" of every non-Christian no matter where you go. I'm not trying to put down people who are Christian, but in truth I have never seen a non-Christian try to "save" someone.

These people are just one reason why I absolutely detest religion. Is it really so bad that someone follows a different belief? I am a LaVeyan Satanist, FYI. I enjoy my life exactly the way it is, and I don't need some crazed fanatic trying to "save my soul" everywhere I go.

So, back to my original question:

WHY THE **** DO THESE PEOPLE EXIST? DO THEY THINK THEY ARE SERVING A BETTER PURPOSE BY ANNOYING THE CRAP OUT OF EVERYONE? OR CAN THEY NOT HANDLE KNOWING THAT SOMEONE WOULD CHOOSE A DIFFERENT RELIGION?

Hi. I am a Satanist, though I would like to learn about other religions. I have learned from experience that unless you do a very specific search, you usually end up with links to Christian websites when searching about religion. And I have thoroughly checked that religion, and was one up until I was 16, which was when I changed my ways. Best answer to the person who can list the most for me, as I would like to make a list to go off of when looking at other religions.

P.S. Any religious name-calling will be ignored by me. If you want to do that, do not to it through answers to my question please. If you really must, check profiles for contact info. If you wish to debate with me, check my profile and send me an email... Thank you to anyone who answers this and follows this simple rule.

I was wondering if there was a way to microwave Annie's Shells? Most boxes of mac'n'cheese have instructions for this, but Annie's Shells do not, and my search on the internet did not yield any results... I would really like to know so if anyone can tell me that would be great.

Also, I don't want to use the instructions for a different type of mac'n'cheese as most have different microwaving instructions, so I'm assuming that Annie's Shells do as well...

Alright, I asked this earlier, but apparently people didn't understand my question, so I am asking it again. On youtube, the channel Alliance of Christ contacted me about my "nice comments" on their channel. I could not find my comments, so I assume they were being sarcastic. They also told me to check out SHOCKAWENOW.NET, probably in an attempt to convert me to Christianity. You see, I am a Satanic-Athiest. And when I went there, there were numerous recordings of Atheists failing at defending Atheism. And at the end of each one, they asked for Atheists to "call in" and try to defend Atheism. I would like to do so. But I spent an hour on that site clicking links and reading FAQs and such, but I couldn't find out how to contact them. So I would really like your help. If anyone can tell me how to do this, please share your knowledge with me. Before you answer my question, please make sure you are, in fact, answering my question and not posting something like "Why, so they can school you?" which was an answer I got the last time I posted this. I WANT TO TALK TO THESE PEOPLE. IF YOU KNOW HOW I CAN DO THIS, TELL ME, AND LET ME WORRY ABOUT GETTING "SCHOOLED" AT RELIGION. DO NOT ANSWER WITH ANYTHING BUT THAT. I suspect that quite a few Christians will stumble upon this question, so please do your religion a favor and tell me how I can get schooled, if you so think I will. Please. Regardless of what I believe, please tell me how I can contact these people and speak with them. If I make a fool of myself, I will post it on youtube.com or funnyjunk.com or something, and they will definitely post it there. For everyone who answers me, thank you in advance.