That still does not explain why the Air Force paid before the software was written? I know it is a lot of money, and companies taking on the job would press for an advance. However considering that 1B is still small compared to the balance sheets of large software companies (Apple, MS, IBM, etc.), I do not get it.

So what was keeping the Air Force from setting the terms to include payment on delivery (other than incompetence)?

Apple Inc. products are as fashionable as a Honda Accord or a Toyota Camry (the comparison stops there, these cars are fairly priced and of excellent quality). These are products for the masses. Apple marketing is outstanding in convincing their users that they are trendy and cool. The fact that only these users think so, while others just are shaking their heads in bewilderment does not deminish the accomplishment on the part of Apple's marketing machine.

Apple products are primarily for those whose understanding of technology is cursory, but who want to pretend they are on the edge. Their actual functional needs of the users are average (few exceptions apply), but they pay a hefty premium for the brand and "belonging".

I would allow HFT, but I would like to see a charge for orders/bids not just trades. I suggest a bid/cancel charge of $0.02. That is my $0.02.

Not anything though. It is not allowed to report on exit polls until polls closed. It is forbidden to say: X candidate is winning according to the exit polls we need to get our supporters to the booth!

No campaign in the last 72 hours? Then what if your opponent release an attack 72 hours and 1 minute before the election? It seems you cannot defend yourself according to the law... How does this actually work?

Better solution: make the voters aware that political adverts are not to be taken seriously and they are more often wrong than not. Definition of the idiot voter: believes what a political campaign tells them and cannot recognize political ads dressed as news, think tank policy paper etc.

No. You are confusing it with your 401k. Social security is a pay-as-you-go system with guaranteed benefits, an actuary's nightmare... The actuarily prudent system would tie benefits to a (moving average) of incoming contribution, forcing it to be close to be balanced.

As it stands now, the money paid into the system is not invested in a traditional sense. It is invested in infrastructure, in the education of the next generation etc. so when they grow up to work, they can make money and pay the benefits to the retired folks. Considering the state of education and else I would not be confident regarding a good return... The money is not spent on "investing in our future", but rather on wars without clear objectives, inefficient education and health system, bank (union) bailouts, wasteful government programs, farm and ethanol subsidizes, tax-cuts to big oil, other lobby groups, etc. (some of it depends on which aisle you are from). Good luck on collecting.

Thanks!

You are missing the problem too. Vaccination is administered at a given age for children. Older unvaccinated children can infect younger yet unvaccinated ones. The chance of that is reduced if the older kids are vaccinated. (Note, that older kids may travel more and get infected say abroad and bring back the bug, a bug to which the younger kid would not be exposed at that age. Anyway travelling to Africa? Get vaccinated weeks before!!)

It is not necessary that 100% of the population is vaccinated in order to effectively eradicate a bug. Annually changing flu shots are sufficient to be administered to fraction of the population (typically, older people, hospital workers, etc.) which will prevent an epidemic.

No worry. With FOSS you provide source code. The user can decide to compile and install at their own discretion.
Of course if a company sells FOSS support they would take on the responsibility. Of course they would be expected to audit
the code and the burden is on them not the developer.

I admit that I did not read the paper. I wonder how they proved causation? Based on what I heard about the data I could only prove correlation. Maybe being suicidal will increase the probability of having cats?

One experiment that could work (but I am no expert in this field) is to compare suicide rates between women with cats infected to women with cats not infected with the parasite. In general you want to eliminate all other factors than the one you want to prove about.

Assume that would show that women with the parasite are more suicidal than women without the parasite (both groups equal in all other aspects). Then I would be tempted to conclude that the parasite causes the suicide tendency, since I do not know how being more suicidal would cause to be infected with the parasite. (Or wait a second...) Anyway is that sound scientific reasoning?

And since we are on the topic. I am still trying to figure out how people brandishing umbrellas promotes cloud formation and rain... :-]

I watch only over-the-air, mostly the PBS Newshour, Nature, NOVA, Masterpiece series. I do not think these will go away. I try to make sure by funding them

I do not have a problem paying for content. But last time I checked cable and dish had commercial breaks while also had a usage fee. That makes no sense to me.

I would welcome an internet based and fan supported distribution model financed through micropayments. Fox et al. can go the way of the dodo as far as I am concerned. The content produced by studios would survive, in fact cutting out the middleman should benefit them as well.

And that is why publishing only that they tried X and worked on Y is not publishable (or should not be and it is not as I am aware) in a top journal. You need an explanation. If the explanation is lacking but the result is truly surprising or revolutionary (cold fusion, cure of up-to-then uncurable condition, faster than light travel, etc.) then you repeat it maybe 5-10 more times? Until that is completed, you may publish a tech report putting your stamp on this work.

Can someone tell me how to always play these clips? I normally use:

mplayer -dvd-device dir dvd://1 -vf ...
but occasionally the main feature is in section 2 etc.

Are these going to be in section 1 and 2 predictably? I want to update my script
so I do not miss these educational messages.

Thank you!

You suggest that Elop is intentionally driving Nokia to the ground.

It may sound like a concpiracy theory, but I agree and go even further: Elop is grooming Nokia for a Microsoft buyout.

There is still a way for Nokia to go down before that is feasible, my guess is another 18 months.

> Hell, the EPA might even be able to do it. But this is what really frosts me about the current state of affairs. Even if industry and government should have similar goals (keeping the screw ups and cheaters out of the game), they can't seem to get together and put up some fairly simple regulatory frameworks.

As I understand, a large part of the problem is that regulatory bodies are often underfunded to the point of dysfunction. It is done intentionally, under the heading of "starving/shrinking the government", arguing that the government would be (is) inefficient anyway. The second related major issue is that nominees heading agencies are often cannot be confirmed due to (even) a single senator holding up the vote.