A mathematician friend of mine was telling me about a fellow in the 19th century who was interested in large prime numbers. What were they good for, people would ask, and the answer was: nothing. Not in his lifetime did they prove useful, but he studied them because he was curious.

So if you know anything about large prime numbers, you know the moral of this story. If not, let's put it like this: a dollar spent today uncovering a mysterious substance on a piece of instrumentation tens of millions of miles away may return the cornerstone of a culture tomorrow.

Frankly, I think finding out about our universe is one of the highest of aims whether we get a dollar return or not, but what do I know -- I'm only human.

On the other hand, if we had dumped all our eggs into the manned mission basket, we probably would be sitting here right now arguing over which multi-billion dollar system would best shield astronauts from cosmic radiation instead of arguing over the output of that $20 camera. I'll take the latter.

Some of us are in a position where we have to support IE of some sort -- forcing everyone to make the same choices we do is just not an option. If that's where you are, though, better to support one crappy browser than two.

... just as long as they put similar stickers on the doors of military recruitment centers.

I didn't chuckle. Can I get my money back?

No, I'm arguing with your imprecision vis-a-vis things you most definitely said. E.g.:

That's just a silly thing to say.