Ric

You're on.... 10 Ruel Street, ya bass!

I would, but I wouldn't like the idea of you spending more time in hospital..

Let's be honest here Pete, you are considerably insignificant...

You realise this has already started. Microsoft bought Skype, giving us...

Going by current theory the Earth will not be habitable (as we know it) within the next 1-2 billion years due to the Sun's expansion, however I have a feeling that the discoveries we make in the next couple of decades will either lengthen or shorten that lifespan.

Certainly "our" fate will be determined considerably sooner, as we are on course to smash into the Andromeda galaxy in anywhere between 3 and 5 billion years. To suggest this would be of a minor disruption would be to suggest that Neil Lennon may be a minor bit ginger. Essentially we have a few million years to figure out how the f**k to get off this planet, out of this solar system (technically these two have already happened), out of our galaxy, out of our local cluster and finally... to somewhere safe. Anyone fancy the odds of that happening before we either (a) manage to blow ourselves up, or (b) get taken out by something big and nasty lurking in the outer reaches of space?

This is where a common misconception happens. The universe doesn't expand "into" anything. There is no beyond or outside. All existence is within the universe (or universes if you wish to support M-Theory). I understand why people assume there is something for it to expand into because we look at it like a 3 dimensional puzzle. If you want to build an extension to your house then there must be land there to build on. This is how humans see the world and in a sense what we have evolved to deal with. It just doesn't work like that when you are discussing the edges of the universe. A better way would be to consider it as the universe stretching. It still has all the component parts it always had (albeit in a different form from it's inception) it's just that those things are now farther apart because the space between them has stretched.

No, not at all. There is "nothing" beyond the universe, certainly not in the sense that we would consider it. The Dark Flow theory has been given a fairly hefty dent with the Plank telescope providing absolutely no evidence to back up the earlier claims. What is more interesting about Dark Energy is that scientists are coming round to a theory that it's not always existed, and it's a "relatively new" (in cosmological terms) occurrence. Possibly within the last 5 billion years. We know from the redshift that the universe is not only expanding, but the speed of that expansion is increasing. Dark Energy is one reason for this, well as the theory goes, however if you look at the speed of the expansion the universe should be bigger than it is if Dark Energy was a constant. This gives rise to the idea that perhaps there is a structured life cycle of a universe, which makes somewhat uncomfortable reading. With entropy we understand that the energy whithin the universe will slowly dissipate, spread more evenly throughout and with the universe expanding that quickens the entropy. In a sense though that in itself is quite comforting. We can predict what will happen and how long it will take. If suddenly we are given a glimpse of the bigger picture we could technically be in a pre-ordained set of steps of which we cannot predict and we have no idea how it will effect us, let alone what is around us. Of course a structured life cycle also suggests that this universe is not a one off and that it is a "regular" occurrence. There is certainly some level of theory to back this up, just no evidence in order to tie it down. The problem being that we can't observe from the "outside" as it were.

Yeah, the basic idea is that instead of being a self contained universe, we are merely a set of different universes all existing on a membrane (hence M Theory). Now you could debate whether these universes are all in the same "place", as in they intersect our observable universe, or are they in some way separated.Humans have evolved to exist within 4 dimensions (the standard 3 dimensions plus time) so why would we perceive any others? So in a sense all the dimensions could exist "here" and they are interacting all around us and we wouldn't notice them. The reason that this theory has been picked up is the problem with gravity. Despite being a dominant factor within the universe, you can argue that while gravity is capable of altering the speed of light (a big debate can be had about that one) it is also a very, very weak force. In physics there are 4 main forces; radioactive strong, radioactive weak, electro-magnetic and gravity. You can do a simple test to show how weak gravity is. We all know that the gravity of the Earth attracts us to it's centre, you jump you come back down again, however take a simple fridge magnet and attach it to the fridge door what happens? It sticks, right? Now look at the actual mass of the earth compared to the mass of the magnet. Despite having an infinitesimally smaller mass than the earth, the magnet (using the electro magnetic force) is able to defy gravity and keep the magnet attached to the door. With that in consideration, the question is why is gravity so weak in comparison to the rest of the forces. One theory is that gravity isn't weak at all, it's just that it's distributed throughout the separate dimensions, where the other forces are specific to this universe.

Oh, and if anyone want to really confuse themselves, read up about antimatter recurssivity. It's a mental theory that everything that is now, what has ever been and what will ever be is the result of one electron travelling back and forth through time. This all comes from the very simple yet not fully explained observation that every electron has the exact same properties.

Any M-Theory fans on here? There's certainly a few holes in it, and it comes in and out of fashion depending on what the recent scientific observations are, but for me it's one of the only ways we can (with current thinking) explain the problem with gravity being so weak. Interestingly though, and despite the Universe being as vast as it is (and there are some argument that the Universe is maybe not as big as we think, it's still bloody big of course) it's at the quantum level that will provide the answers to why the whole thing operates as it does. I still have problems accepting inflation though, the very early universe where the only thing that existed was energy. It seems to me to be a wee bit of "well this theory is about the best fit we have". I was very lucky to spend some time speaking to a professor Cole (or was it Coles, can't remember) who spent time working with Stephen Hawking, and I got a chance to ask him about the big bang, what was before and what will ultimately be. Even now, some 10 years later, I struggle to fully grasp some of the stuff he told me.

I have bought GTA4 for the PC on 3, yes three!, different occasions and have spent probably over £60 altogether. However I am yet to get it to work "at an acceptable speed" on any PC I've owned. On the basis of that I will pirate GTA5 and not one single f*ck will be given.

Empathy; it's the biggest problem with the GTA series. While all I want to do is watch the world burn, somehow Rockstar North think that character progression is what all the kids want, so they hamper us having to take our retarded cousin bowling all the fucking time or have a whiny voiced annoying girlfriend. Help you fly a toy helicopter? GTF kid, I want to shoot pigs with high calibre rifles.

How easy is it to get 100% in any GTA game? Not that I've done it.

It's just a shame that the PC ports of the GTA games are so poor. VC was probably the last one that actually ran OK.

The red section is way too small..

I'm guessing "uneducated morons" would construct their first sentence like you have done. As for respect? She showed scant respect for others in her time, you reap what you sow.

"Unsavoury" is such a subjective term, I believe the word you are searching for is "hilarious".