Sure sounds like a thuggish shakedown to me. "Nice company you got there...it'd be a shame if something happened to it." The fact that everyone is (understandably) hating on BP right now makes Obama's shakedown no less despicable--and a very dangerous precedent (though admittedly with this president the precedent of shaking down corporations has already been set, this is just taking it to new levels).

Excellent, thank you, you answered all the breathless questions I had. If it was as TFA said this would have been huge. Also, I thought the standard in particle physics was 10 sigma...is that for "proof of" (vs "evidence of" vs "observation of")?

Cool! (Not that you had this problem, but that you can see UV light.) I wish I could see UV...working with high-power UV lasers always makes me a bit nervous because I never know if I accidentally took a shot in the eye (which can, incidentally, cause cataracts). With a visible laser you can obviously see it, even with an IR laser you at least know when you develop a small blind spot haha...but take a shot with a UV laser and you wouldn't know it, you'd just end up getting cataracts earlier than you otherwise would.

Link. Summary: regular incandescent light bulbs will be illegal beginning in 2012-2014 in the United States.

How about this? In a free country, don't tell me what kind of lightbulb I can buy.

*whoosh*

I think it's explained in the comic. Each state as a different maximum they'll pay out, and when you average the maximum for the different states...you get the maximum average.

So being in a position where your skills are worth millions of dollars is akin to manslaughter? Do you feel the same way about star athletes and movie stars?

Unlike movies, the guys in high places taking home the multimillion-dollar salaries 99% of the time don't do anything wrong.

Happy fact of capitalism.

!!

"Then I would feel sorry for the dear Lord. The theory is correct anyway." - Albert Einstein, after being asked what his reaction would have been if Eddington and Dyson had not confirmed a prediction of general relativity.

A speedy trial once your charged. They can spend decades collecting evidence before charging you.

Yep. I.e., cut taxes.

I'm surprised specular reflection of a 500 mW beam would be enough to cause damage. I think the rule of thumb is ~5mW is safe, so they would probably need at least 20 mW or so to cause much of a problem...getting 4% of a scattered beam into your eye seems unlikely. Also a 500 mW pump sounds kind of low for a Ti:Saph, maybe that was more?

I toured a lab recently (a federal lab no less, at NIST) and they had half a dozen class IV lasers on all the time, and didn't think anything of it! Would not feel comfortable working there haha...even looking at scattering off of some of the optics seemed a little too bright to be safe.

What?? I don't (personally) know anyone who has blinded themselves, and I know a lot of laser guys (myself included).

And I'd say near-IR lasers are more dangerous--they still get focused to the back of the eye and absorbed there (they don't get absorbed at the front like you suggested), but you can't see it (in fact I read that the way to know if you're getting hit is if you hear a popping sound from your eye as the fluid boils!). Longer wavelengths (longer than 1.4 or so) either don't get focused by the lens in your eye, or don't get absorbed in the back of your eye, and so you can sustain much higher power without damage.