If you look at popular magazine articles about global warming, they're 50-50 for supporting it or dissenting from it.

If you look at peer reviewed scientific articles, it's a slightly different balance. There's almost one article saying that global warming isn't happening. We'll call it zero. There are hundreds supporting global warming, with the major differences being in cause and extent and severity of future trends.

But most people don't read the peer reviewed articles. They read Time and Cosmopolitan and watch Fox News [sic]. Most people aren't qualified to have an educated opinion about global warming, because they aren't reading research, they're reading the words of people that don't know anything. I don't care how many times you tell me that, in your opinion, d(x^2)/dx = 3x. You're still wrong. I don't care how many people agree with you either. You're all wrong.

Climate Science isn't a popularity contest. It's science.

I get consistently better reception (full 1080p) on most major channels with an antenna on my roof than friends get with cable. I'm watching a football game or something at home, leave to go to their house, and the picture is worse for what they're paying for. Seems silly to me.

I happily pay for Netflix because their customer service is awesome. The couple of times I've had problems with a DVD, it's been fixed instantly (or close enough as is reasonable) with no questions asked. I pay for a 7Mb internet connection, and complain when it's not performing. I'd pay for faster if I thought it'd be more reliable and truly faster.

I took a CS course some time ago in C. The instructor told us that it was perfectly okay to get help from another student on the assignment, because of how he constructed the exams: He would give you one additional feature to add to the program in class, and you had until the end of class to complete it. That way he would know if you really knew what you were doing, or whether you really copied someone else's work.

I helped another student with some of the assignments, including the last one. I knew what I was doing, they didn't. I went to check my grades a couple of weeks after the end of the semester, and there was a notification to come into the departmental office. It seems that the final assignment I turned in was very similar to another student's. My implementation of the final project was clean and quick, and adding the final feature took all of about 5 minutes. I said that the other student had cheated off of me, and I knew what I was doing: they didn't. Unfortunately, the other student had left town, already having a BS from another university (not in CS). This was a community college. The teacher himself never confronted me or made any comments that what was going on wasn't okay. In fact, he had specifically stated in class that it was okay, but the department chair said that he was 'on vacation, so unavailable'. I was furious, and fought it, but lost. I got an F on the final project, and my grade in the class was lowered an additional letter. It's been more than 10 years, and it still makes my blood boil.

I was talking to a friend who still lives in the same town recently and he told me that he has now heard this story 7 times from 7 different people who all had the same thing happen: no comments were made during the semester, and so while the teacher was on summer break, they had cheating charges leveled against them. It was the same teacher. His name is Scott Badman. He taught at Parkland Community College in Champaign, IL, and I think he's now finally retired.

So, did I cheat?

This wasn't a meteor. It must have been a satellite. Meteors/meteorites move VERY fast and explode quickly. There are no extra-terrestrial objects that would match the velocity of the earth to within a few hundred mph (and not get accelerated to beyond that by gravity). That thing had to have been man-made.

Why is this news? Microsoft doesn't follow any standards, and never has. It's part of their strategy. Since they're bigger than everyone else, everyone has to adhere to their (non) standards, which means everyone else is always playing catchup, and can never get ahead. This way implementation is never judged on speed or size, but instead judged on "how Microsoft-like" it is. Microsoft always wins that comparison.

I was given a piece of advice when I started using email: "Don't put anything in email that you wouldn't want shouted by the town crier in the town square at high noon on announcement day."

There is no expectation of privacy in email.

However, ANY encryption method can be used to protect yourself legally. You can use rot13 if you like, or if you're paranoid, triple rot13. IANAL, but my understanding is that the DMCA prevents anyone from decrypting your email legally (if not practically). Decryption of digital transmissions is illegal.

If you want real privacy on email you send, use pgp.

Exponential decay uses e most of the time, because the derivatives and integrals are a lot less messy. e is irrational. What makes you think you're using 2? And what makes you think that the decay only has values for integer time? What's 1/3 of the way between (1/2)^3 and (1/2)^4? An irrational number.

That's just the notation. Math is abstract concepts. Abstract concepts existed before the wind. They're abstract.

Go to your nice local Unitarian/Universalist Church. There's lots of friendly people there. They like to do things that help the community. Chicks dig guys that help the community, and since you're a fellow Unitarian, you might be worth talking to (even if you're introverted).

There were many editors on the book, but unfortunately, they weren't actually allowed to do anything. I mean nothing. They couldn't change commas or periods or point out factual errors. It's bad because he paid to have it published. He really didn't do anything new in the book. People have been trying to come up with reasons for complex-looking patterns for a while. Occam's razor says there should be a simple reason.

100:1 odds says this thing is underwhelming at best. Most of the great stuff attributed to Wolfram is only because he was the one who had the money.

How do you think the situation should have been handled, then? Let the girl do whatever she wants? At what point do you not accept her bad behavior?

I recommend to my students when faced with this situation that they not react. If it's genuinely an emergency, then do what must be done.
When the teacher takes further action, simply state something to the effect of, "I understand the rules. This was a genuine emergency. I understand if you feel the need to take further action."
If you get assigned detention, then serve it and try to get some homework done during it. I've found that most teachers and admins won't push it too far if the student/parent isn't being overly self-righteous.

Most CFOs are old guys. Like 60+. When they were entering the work force in their 20's, it was 1970 or so, a time when there was massive sexism in America. So is it any surprise that there are more men than women at that level of corporations?

It's not like they're given these jobs. They have to fight and sacrifice a lot to get there. They don't get to spend a lot of time with family. Many of them didn't take a lot of vacation time and worked 60+ hours a week to get where they are now.

Which would you rather do, work nonstop climbing the corporate ladder or stay at home and raise your children. There are a lot of women who would take the latter choice. There is virtually no opportunity for a man to make that choice.