Assume there exists a spherical cow in a vacuum...

ROFLMAO! That's the punch line to one of the two physics jokes I know. Here's the other one: what do you get when you cross a rat with a pig?

rat pig sin theta

It would be more fitting, cheaper, and in line with the common man.

Let's shut down coal production, then go after fracking, then shut down every single hole in the ground that delivers any kind of petrochemical, then push in every control rod in every nuclear powe$ plan% in ghe U.X., t en go *fter

NO CARRI

My suggestion: get better speakers.

My suggestion: study Edward Tufte's site [http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/]. Read some of his books ("The Visual Display of Quantitative Information" is especially good), then get back to us.

I was probably in my mid-20s when I began to realize popular music was not only boring, but stupid as well. Most songs have about 25 words that get repeated over and over and over, ad nauseam. At about the same time I ran across a Moody Blues tune (the name won't surface at the moment) that seemed to have some elements of classical music.

Intrigued, I started listening to classical and kicked the pop habit. Give me Beethoven's Ninth over anything else that's ever been recorded.

I wonder whether others who aren't fond of most "music" also don't need to be entertained passively on a 7x24 basis and can find or create their own entertainment.

If RS gives up their brick and mortar stores, I'll say adios. As an online-only retailer, they couldn't possibly compete with Mouser, DigiKey, etc.

If they keep their brick and mortar stores, they need to put specs on the parts they sell. I needed a couple of snap-on ferrite chokes recently and got them at a local RS store. The parts didn't give the first inkling of the range of frequencies they were supposed to block.

How hard can it be to add "blocks RF at 5MHz and above" (or whatever) on the package?

Scientist revives bacteria that kills him could be a winner this year.

If memory serves, one of the people who helped resurrect the Spanish flu died, sadly, as a result.

Keurig provides a clean single-cup solution ...

Keurig coffee costs about $30/pound in the local big-name grocery store. I don't know which is worse: DRM or hideously overpriced coffee. I would avoid Keurig like the plague for either reason.

All modern commercial aircraft can land themselves.

If nothing goes wrong.

I'm not at all thrilled with the idea of a sky full of flying cars, irrespective of whether the pilot is a machine or a trained professional.

If you've ever been in the chipper room at a pulp plant, you can appreciate how wonderful that smell is, much better than PineSol or anything else that ever came out of a bottle.

Although the eastern USA had historic lows last month, the global average temperature was the hottest January on record.

And AGW almost caused a hurricane last fall.

I never failed to be amused at how AGW fanatics warp every single data point to say the sky is falling.

Flying cars have been regulated out of existence.

Citation needed.

"He [Kurzweil] believes, for example, that a significant portion of people alive today could end up living forever, thanks to the ministrations of ultra-intelligent computers and beyond-cutting-edge medical technology."

Que the advertisement for flying cars. Wait, there aren't any.

As Niels Bohr famously said, "Prediction is very difficult, especially of the future."

Even if Kurzweil's predictions come true (which I seriously doubt), I frankly don't want or need the help of "ultra-intelligent computers."

And "beyond-cutting-edge medical technology?" What a joke. Even if obamacare doesn't cause the self-destruction of the U.S. economy, no 99%er would be able to afford that kind of medical technology.

AI reminds me of fusion power: "It's 20 years in the future. And always will be." (Sorry, don't know the attribution for that quote.)

Ever notice how when you ask a dog a question, it almost always tilts its head and gives you a puzzled look?

When I want to demonstrate my dog's pronounced head tilting to others, I speak to my dog (a Border Collie mix) in complete sentences. The degree of tilt she displays seems to depend on whether she understands the word and likely the importance of the word. For example, "momma" or "treat" generates noticeably more tilt than "bath".

"My main hold back is the $1500 price tag for a device that just seems to be a camera and navigation aid. Does anyone in the /. community have Google Glass and can they give some advice to the rest of us considering it?"

Don't be a child. Put your $1,500 into a retirement fund. With the way the U.S. economy is going, you will need it.