Lets see what he does in 2032.

Right. Everybody I know cares about saving the planet from global warming until I ask them if they've started taking cold showers. Nobody needs a hot shower - they're actually quite unnatural and bad for your skin too. Yet, I've not once gotten an affirmative answer (stick a RADAR gun on how fast they can change the subject!)

We need to stop ascribing any virtue whatsoever to hypocrites who only want other people to sacrifice (and actually call them out on their ill behavior - it's harmful in aggregate).

Based on current trends and short of a major breakthru there is no way someone born today will live to be 120-130.

Intriguing theory you have there. How does it account for Gertrude Weaver (born 1898, died - well, she'll die one of these years, but hasn't yet)?

Note that she's not unique in living in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. If someone can manage to reach 116+ when more than half her life went by with medical care no better than what was available when I was a kid....

I just wondered if he felt like trolling, but in a professional context.

To get a sense of the energies involved: if you're a light-year way from a supernova, the neutrinos will kill you, even though they barely interact with matter at all. One light year is pretty close, but the gamma ray flux is comparable to the neutrino flux and forty orders of magnitude more deadly,

The numbers you assign here do not match reality, since if neutrinos from a supernova can kill you at 1ly, and gammas from same are 40 orders of magnitude more deadly, then a single supernova would sterilize the universe.

Given that we can SEE supernovae, they obviously haven't sterilized US, much less the entire Universe.

One movie, coming up:

"Sling Blade".

You'll thank me later.

(I reckon I'll have me some of the bigguns. Ummmm hmmm.)

Oh hey, I'll just fix that for you:

- The universe did not come from nothing. Thermodynamics prevents this.
- The universe did not create itself. Thermodynamics prevents this.
- The universe was not created.

Cheers!

Atheists tend to have much smaller brain regions for [a part of the brain responsible for causing religious experiences].

Yes indeed. Evolution does trend towards improving species.

Educated stupid scientists never understand 4 sided universal timecube.

I was just asking Tess about her act, and all she would tell me was that the show was big -- bigger on the inside than the outside. So I guess there was a lot of seating. A bunch of folderol, if you ask me. But at least we had box seats.

but the extremes get a lot more extreme

The opposite is true, we've had fewer very large storms, less destructive weather of all kinds across the globe.

Gaia is pissed off you are trying to make her dance like a monkey for your own agenda and is sitting ion her hands.

Science works without even the existance of ultimate causes and absolute truth.

Yes, it does, but that doesn't in any way disqualify it in reaching for fundamental answers, or in working with those ideas so that we have handles on them that are consensually experiential, testable, and repeatable. Superstition provides no tools whatsoever for resolving such questions. Or questions of far lesser import, for that matter.

My long-term general confidence in discovering more and more, deeper and deeper about reality, which is very high, lies entirely with science -- and with technology, science's prolific assistant / toolbox.

Here's the thing. Whether it's happening... whether it's human caused or not... LET'S STOP POLLUTION FOR IT'S OWN SAKE.

I totally agree.

But all of the Alarmists don't care at all about pollution, they only care about CO2 - which is not pollution, and stopping that does pretty much nothing in terms of stopping real pollution.

When you all get back to caring about the environment and not making people at alternative energy companies (or carbon exchanges) rich please get back to us so we can start trying to protect the environment again.

They're mostly a waste of time anyway everyone just strokes their own egos and you spend 2 days digesting information in an archaic inefficient way

You're doing it wrong.

The reason to go to the conferences is NOT the lectures (which these days are all on videos anyway) but to spend AS MUCH time as possible talking to either the people working for the company who produces the technology the conference is about, or people working heavily with said technology. You learn a LOT more that way and make great contacts that are really useful in solving problems or finding new jobs.

Going to conferences is also something to mention on a resume in general, it shows a lot more dedication than most people to keeping technically sharp.

Apparently Liberals area already all over it. You can't fix stupid.

Quite likely, especially since his basic premise is wrong. Many people get dementia as they age, but many others don't. It is not inevitable. I know bright, active people in their 90s. We are making a lot of progress at understanding the causes of Alzheimer's and other debilitating diseases of old age. His future may not be as bleak as he imagines. On the other hand, he may already be losing his grip on reality, since he believes that American are "obsessed" with exercising, and doing mental puzzles. A quick glance at obesity rates, and reality TV popularity, should disabuse him of that belief.

I'm sorry, but your commentary is just a pile of raw bullshit, that I couldn't help respond. Yeah there are extremists on both sides, and those are not representative of either. Speeking of demented, you've forgotten about Hinkley, and "Squeeky" Fromme, and Sara Jane Moore.

Go learn something, and stop spouting crap you hear on MSN.