Earthist From Se Michigan Here

[earthist]

Hi, everyone. I have lots of looking around to do before posting, but I'm looking forward to meeting people, and getting answers to questions about science -- especially physics -- that have left me confused from time to time.

 

I sincerely enjoy learning things, and often find myself hunting answers on Wikipedia. Then, I sometimes think to myself, yeah, but what about X? And then I get lost trying to find the answer to my (seemingly simple) question. I've been known to give up, then try again sometime later, get something else new, then wait some more, and so forth, until maybe a year or more goes by 'til I see something in passing that clears the logjam for me, and things finally fall into place.

 

I keep thinking, if only I could ask a real scientist, this would be easy, but the times I've tried various "ask the scientist" places, I get no answer (maybe I worded the question poorly in their 250-character-limited question box?). Likewise on other science forums I've tried, answers given have been less than helpful and said in such a way that it's intimidating to ask for further clarifications. It's too late for me to go back to school for 4 or 6 years, I'm afraid. My couple of hours here so far have been wonderful in that I don't see those intimidating, impatient answers.

 

Thanks in advance!

 

FWIW, I'm retired after 25+ years in the IT field. I learned on punch-card machines, and spent most of my working life on mainframes. I have administered servers (Windows NT and 2000) mostly running Lotus products (Notes and later Domino). In other words, I understand computers in general, I lived through, and obliquely participated in the birth and development of the "Web," but I'm a dinosaur when it comes to the specifics of what's going on these days. Unix, for instance, is still a 4-letter word to me (that's an exaggeration, but nearly true).

[sanctus]

Welcome to our forums!!! Feel free to ask whatever you wish :-)