Not a troll at all, and of course you're right. It was late last night & I didn't think that one through.

"People don't deserve service for free just because they're ineffective workers."

Dude!! WTF? The parents point is that poor people (and by the way, what the hell is an "ineffective" worker?) ARE NOT getting stuff for free. They pay a portion of their money in taxes just like everyone else. [disregarding for the time being that some companies - like GE - don't pay any taxes at all.]

Serious question though: What size antenna would some(thing) need to hear our radio signals at a distance of 22ly?

I seem to recall from reading somewhere (Physics of Star Trek?) about this. The gist is that this is a non-trivial problem, requiring an antenna unfathomably wide to catch such a weak signal.

Maybe there's an occasional super neat hack, like galaxy/gravitational lensing. But there's no aiming that.

Anyway, maybe we'll catch someone knowledgable about this... Chime in!

I wish that someone knowledgeable about planetary formation could help me out here...

I seem to recall reading a theory many years ago (circa mid 1990s) about the expected/predicted pattern of planetary formation. That is, it was thought that planets would form from an accretion disc around a star in a mass-pattern that approximated a horizontal line from a Pascal Triangle. e.g.:

1 6 15 20 15 6 1

Translated to our solar system, you have the big gas giants Jupiter & Saturn in the middle, and smaller bodies Pluto and Mercury at the extremes. It's not a perfect model, but I've always felt that these gas giants that have been detected around other stars should also have a number of smaller planets in their systems.

But I have not seen reference to that idea again since then. I'm beginning to wonder if I imagined it, but I'm not that smart.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

- jw

>>Constant tax increases? Have you been asleep for 60 years? Federal income taxes are about the lowest they've been since before WW2.

I am out of mod points -- please mod parent up. Why isn't this point brought up more frequently?

Thank you â€" thank you â€" thank you.

I'm fresh out of mod points, which is too bad. Your post is dead-on. The so-called "smart" comments from Christians are vastly outnumbered by smart comments from atheists.

>> Peter King will sit down and STFU.

Oh, if only we could be so lucky. I, for one, am not quite that optimistic.

"And he just got reelected so you know his stand on this isn't posturing for next years election. He seems genuine and worthy.. even though I typically do not like democrats. I guess he is one of the few good ones left."

Mr. Sumdumass -

I want to say a genuine "thank you" for having the guts to say what you did. I've been watching you spar with other progressives on this site over the years. I'm very liberal so we disagree on a lot of stuff. It's good spectator sport to watch you & spun go at it.

Still, it's tempting for me to dismiss you as narrow minded, but I don't because I'd hate for you to simply dismiss me as same. I'm glad I didn't, and it's cool to hear you give props to Wyden.

Cheers.

***MOD PARENT UP***

I'm out of mod points, but parent cuts right down to the heart of the matter: corporate responsibility.

Kudos to you, your site, and your efforts. Thanks for your efforts.

- jw

Boris -

Thank you so much for the impromptu cosmology lessons!

If you have some time, I'd love to get your insight on something that has puzzled me for a while: How is it that galaxies are "clumped" together?
Wouldn't matter be evenly distributed after the Big Bang? What am I missing?

Thanks,

- jw

I'd like to know a couple things:

1) Do these images imply that the comet is not spinning? Or was it not in frame long enough to tell?

2) Anybody know if there's an animation or a graph depicting the Deep Implact's flight path?

Thanks!

- jw

"Is it just my observation, or is eldavojohn an idiot?"

Rest assured: It is just *your* observation.

Fact? Quitting cannabis give you extreme agitation, loss of appetite?

Sorry dude - just. plain. wrong.

Someone help me out here: Wouldn't this be the right occasion to install a Faraday Cage??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage/

- jw

"vsync? Tearing?? Do you have a screenshot of what you mean?"

It's difficult to get a screenshot of this since it's only visible while
playing video. Imagine a camera panning across a group of people.
When you watch the resulting video from this shot, a person's legs
and waist might appear offset from their torso and head -- like if
you took scissors to a photo and cut it in half horizontally, then
slid the two pieces relative to each other.

It's very annoying to the eye once you start to notice it. I'm sorry
if your viewing is ruined from here on out... ;-)

- jw