OR.... you could just put a radio telescope at earth-sun L2 and call it a day. That's where we seem to put all those new fangled telescopes these days...

Putting a telescope (radio or otherwise) on the far side of the moon might make it hard to relay the data back to earth (being able to be bathed in the RF light of the earth also implies the reverse that such a telescope could transmit its data back to us poor folks on earth using RF and not try to relay it back to earth through some other potentially unreliable means.

Considering the sun also gives off a large amount of omnidirectional RF transmissions too, the far-side of the moon is not really dark in that part of the spectrum either (except when it's also pointed away from the sun during a full-moon)...

I don't think you understand. They actually fundamentally really don't believe it. It's like cognitive dissonance you experience in your 20's when you think you are invincible and believe that you won't die because the rules don't apply to you... Some may tip their hats to said rules but still do not acknowledge that there is any risk at all *for them* because the rules don't apply to them (for some inexplicable reason). Think of this as a form of confirmation bias that is part of the human condition.

It's just like teenagers having unprotected sex and then ending up pregnant or with AIDS. Such teenagers haven't (usually) made a conscious choice to take a risk, they honestly don't believe they can get pregnant or catch AIDS (for some inexplicable reason that probably wouldn't make any sense if you say it out loud). Of course the belief is misguided (and wrong), but it is their honestly true belief...

It's just like global warming... *ducks* ;^}

I know some folks who like smoking so much that they dismiss any information that says it's bad for you because they don't want to believe it. Then again, some folks smoke until their 90s, never get emphysema, and eventually die of old age (knew one of them).

I also know some folks who appear to be addicted to all-nighters (like a runner's high, they apparently get some sort of high from staying up too long)... Then again, most of them smoke too, so maybe there's some sort of correlation.

Me, I'm not taking any chances on smoking or any unnecessary all-nighters. Sadly, unlike cigarettes, sometimes all-nighters are necessary (but not many).

You literally have no idea about Africa if you make that kind of statement.

It's a bit anecdotal, but I know several people (about 1/2 of them "white/mixed") who grew up in Kenya, South Africa, and Nigeria. According to them, most people in Africa don't even think about "whites". The biggest problems in Africa today are corruption and war. There are plenty of smart people in most countries there, but they have no access to good schools or jobs. Given the economic situation, many have to work very hard just to put food on the table. Everyone they know seems to want to send their kids to the best school they can (which is usually private) and they try to get their kids to study as much as they can.

The problem is that because of the huge human displacement in Africa (economic, war, etc), there are lots of young kids where their best option is to join a war-gang. This is a sad development, but not because that working hard and studying is a bad white trait.

In my estimation (talking to people I know who live in various places around the world, Africa, Asia, India, Western Europe, South America), this anti-intellectual attitude is primarily an American phenomena (black, white, Asian, it doesn't matter). I don't think you see this in other areas of the world as much as you see it here.

The person that seems to have the most alignment with this message is Bill Cosby.

Sadly, many of the young'ns don't know much about him... Maybe his new show can provide a platform for his message.

Of course, there is selection bias. In the US, nearly every college-bound person takes the SAT. In other countries, on those that want to attend schools in the US take the SAT. Those that think they can get accepted to schools that are in in the US instead of their home country will likely be applying to top schools (why waste your money otherwise), and if they are applying to top schools they will probably be in the set of people that score better on the SAT on average than your average joe/jane college-bound US student.

In my school they used to make the gifted students tutor the remedial students. It actually works better than you think it might as it generally requires more insight into a topic and a problem and the to be able to teach it to someone than to just be able to figure out one way to get an answer...

Of course helping your fellow student is likely a foreign concept to many people (who expect that they shouldn't have to do the teachers "job", ignoring the fact that it's often possible to learn even more by teaching somebody something simple)...

Sorry, that was pointer to BICEP1, this new stuff came from BICEP2 which operated from Jan 2010->Dec 2012... It takes a while to develop the analytics through 3 years of data...

Here's a pointer to the preprint of the "new" paper dated today.

Perhaps so, unless of course you believe Stephen Hawkings...

This was the old news...

Basically sifting through information gathered from older CMB detectors, they discovered a statistical B-mode in the data that could have come from gravitational wave that occurred during inflation, but the data was really too noisy to be sure.

The new news is they used a new detectors which are capable of making cleaner measurements to convince themselves that the detected B-mode was unlikely to come from gravitational lensing after the big-bang. The current evidence apparently is consistent with the B-mode coming from a gravitational waves that are predicted to occur during the inflationary period of the universe.

Not if they raise other tax rates to make up for lost revenue... One might think that some how paying tax is kind of like a multi-way prisoner's dilemma between other tax payers, but in reality, the government will get their money some other way, and on that other game (a different tax revenue source), you may be the loser...

If you are in the upper 50%, making sure state revenue comes from paying sales tax and sin taxes is a net win (because sin and sales taxes tends to be highly regressive), but if you are in the lower 50%, rooting for luxury taxes and higher state income tax instead of sin and sales tax is a better way to minimize your contribution to government. I suspect that someone considering buying a Tesla in another state would be in the upper 50% (just an assumption).

Actually, in many states, when you buy a car, you can get a out-of-state delivery rider on the sales contract and not pay sales tax in the state you buy the car in and just pay the use tax on the state that you intend to register/license the car in. This is often done to facilitate title transfer for car brokers (that don't register cars, but still need to transfer title and move cars interstate).

I did this with one car I bought out of state (to simplify the paperwork and still not pay sales tax twice). Of course if your goal is to screw-over NJ for not allowing a Tesla dealership, you would of course pay as much of the sales tax to another state. However, keep in mind, if you actually live in NJ, you are essentially screwing over the state you live in, so it's not a clear cut win for you give your hard earned money to Pennsylvania (in your example).

NY isn't the only state with a so-called exit tax.

One way that states apply an virtual exit tax is change the tax exemption status instead of pro-rating it. For example with property tax, such that if you leave the state, you end up paying a higher rate (e.g., lose the primary residence exemption on your property tax bill) vs if you moved within the same state you could pro-rate your exemption between 2 properties.

Another way is to have a separate rate for a transfer tax for non-residents (meaning it applies if you die or move). California was proposing this.

Another way is to blatantly add a surcharge (I think Yonkers has something like this)

Even if there isn't any actual tax liability, if you move out of the state, they will often chase you around claiming part of your income was derived from the state and you owe taxes on that amount. Say if you file your tax return from 2010-2012 in NY, then in 2013 you move say to Nevada and file a 2013 part year tax return for NY thinking you are in the clear for NY. Later in 2014 you only file federal taxes in Nevada, sometime in 2015 NY discovers that you never filed a NY state tax return for 2014, but the Feds got a 2014 return for you. They immediately send you a notice in the mail, that they have noted on your 2014 Federal Return that you had $X amount of adjusted gross income, and since you didn't file a NY tax return they "estimate" that $Y was earned in NY and as a out-of-state residence you should pay taxes on this amount (one theory they use is non-deductibility of state income tax for non-residents) . You can either fight this shake-down and show that none of the income was earned in NY, or just pay $Y.

It's actually not hard to see why this is the case. What you see as many retail brands is really just a few companies...

Luxottica (which also owns Lens Crafters), Marchon (owned by VSP), and Safilo, plus a few smaller companies...

I think together the top three make up over 70% of the market.