Members Bob Stuart

6 hours ago: Other comments are not loading, so I'm only replying to Martin's TED talk. The bit about the three bases of happiness was one of the most helpful concepts I've run across. I'm somewhat in the brainy but unhappy group, inspired but isolated by asperger's. Thanks, Martin.

Nov 4 2009: Without checking, I'd say that water reflects blue and absorbs other colours, but I used to live by a river that always looked brown, but photographed as blue.
There are 3 main explanation about how wings work, but they all add up to pushing air downwards. Non-symmetrical airfoils are just more efficient one side up than the other.
What I'm here to point out is that even with the appearance of elliptical orbits due to artists' perspective, we should not be fooled, because the sun is at one focus of the ellipse, giving only one approach and retreat per year.
The motion of the Sun relative to other stars has nothing to do with the eccentricity or lack therof in orbits; the system moves together. Interestingly, the earth and the moon both rotate about a common center, but the moon does most of the motion because it has less mass.