Which is exactly why you will never see anything more than an expert system in space. There is no way any space agency is going to punt hundreds of millions or euros/dollars/pounds into space without a full understanding of the decision tree in the spacecraft control loop. It is hard enough at the moment without introducing outliers into the system.

Insightful? This is flat out wrong, by over 10 years now! See: Planning in interplanetary space: Theory and practice (A Jonsson, P Morris, N Muscettola, K Rajan, B Smith). This group of scientists from NASA Ames and the JPL used AI planning as part of the Deep Space One mission.

From the very first line of the paper's abstract:

On May 17th 1999, NASA activated for the first time an AI-based planner/scheduler running on the flight processor of a spacecraft.

And note that since 1999, much more work has been done in using AI planning (and perhaps other techniques) in space.

Actual quote:

We do not wish, we do not need to expel the Arabs and take their place. All our aspirations are built upon the assumption -- proven throughout all our activity in the Land -- that there is enough room in the country for ourselves and the Arabs.

Go fuck yourself.

Looks like somebody is embarrassed that they clicked the link to the virus. No, those weren't pictures from the party. Sorry.

But seriously, how is that a non-relevant criteria? Especially if you had somebody who has done it multiple times, that is a major risk to the company's network. Especially for a company with people's financial information, you can't have people downloading such ridiculous things.

The entire idea of rising up violently against a democratically elected government because you disagree with it has a major problem: What do you replace that government with? If you replace it with a democracy, the electorate is just going to elect someone you don't like again with good probability. Your only option is to replace it with a dictatorship, in which case you've definitely not made things better.

No, violence against the government simply isn't justified unless it is no longer a democracy. And at the moment, the US remains very much a democracy, and a rather vibrant one. Sure, there are problems -- incumbent Congressmen seem to last way longer than they should in Congress, and it would be nice to have more choices than just 2 parties. But ultimately the elections are fair, and you have the freedom to try to convince people that there is another way. In fact, a call to violence is an obvious refusal to take part in a democratic process, one that I will not join in regardless of how many people take part.

No, violence isn't the answer. The answer is education and eliminating voter apathy. Too many voters are simply too ignorant of the facts. And I realize the right-wing partisans will accuse the liberals of being stupid, and the left wing partisans will accuse the same of the conservatives. The problem is that for the most part they are right. Ignorance has nothing constructive to offer in the political discourse of our nation -- all it provides is screaming, hyperbole, ad-hominem attacks, but worst of all: loyalty. Loyalty to the party leaders who perpetuate this madness.

So go forth and fight for change, but not with guns; show people how to think rationally, how to question society and the world. And even more important, how to debate an issue without demonizing the opponent as a terrorist/socialist/.

The discussion is about bicycles, not motorcycles, which very obviously do not lower the rate of heart disease in their users. (Unless perhaps you are doing push ups while riding the motorcycle, in which case the comment about "biker putty" definitely applies)

This is just grandstanding by a politician running for office.

You can claim grandstanding all you want, but those of us from CT know that Richard Blumenthal goes up against corporations from all around the US all the time. Sometimes they get picked up by the media more than others, but this really ins't anything out of the ordinary for him.

And you can like him or hate him for that, I'll keep this post apolitical, but this is just not unusual for him.

Note that certain mushrooms are still contaminated! Chanterelle mushrooms are still somewhat radioactive, at least the ones from Belarus, and that's where most come from. You can only eat them a few times a year, which is truly a shame, as they are one of the most delicious mushrooms that exists.

No, you fail.

Of course, if the government managed it, it wouldn't work.

So let me get this straight; You think that the government could never organize something like Slug Lanes, and yet the government is the one who set up the HOV lane on the highway in the first place. The government is instrumental in the smooth functioning of slug lanes!

You should consider taking a step back from your anti-government ideology and realize that just like any large organization, sometimes things are done right and sometimes they are done wrong. Government is no different from any other large bureaucracy.

But you also can't be constantly bothering your coworker with questions that can be easily answered by googling. You have to at least try to find an answer before asking the expert sitting next to you -- save them for the really tough ones.

There is indeed a President of Africa., and his name is President Whooooooosh!

Wrong. It is indeed an urban myth, read the damn link that GP posted!! The church example of thicker glass on the bottom is explained much more simply than by the glass slowly moving over time: Glass manufacturing wasn't sophisticated enough to make a flat piece of glass like it is today. If you were given a piece of glass with a thick side and a thin side, which side would you put on the bottom of the window? The thick side, of course, as that will offer better structural integrity.

This is a great article, so here are some of the main points for those who don't speak German:

• Birds will attempt to clean themselves with their beak and tongue even despite the terrible smell and taste of the oil. Birds surviving cleaning then generally suffer from kidney and liver problems resulting from the oil ingestion.
• On the Spain and French coast, thousands of birds were captured after an oil spill and cleaned. Of those, only 600 survived the cleaning and of those 600, many were dead within 7 days.
• The WWF confirms that birds covered in oil are generally not savable once they've been captured.
• The survival rate of birds depends heavily on the type of oil and the amount of oil that is on the birds.

The article does not report this, but other articles have noted that this oil is mostly mixed with water (more than previous spills). This could give hope that more birds than normal can actually be saved.

Alumnus shout out from Colony Manor :)

A bit off-topic, but I've flown Lufthansa and Swiss Air from Boston and New York to destinations in Europe on 4 engine aircraft. I realize they are hard to come by, and I prefer them as well.