Riiight. I'll just leave this here (PDF).

(P.S. Things haven't gotten better since then.)

Ah, yes. The non-overlapping magisteria idea.

The fact is, science does provide truth, or near enough to it that the average person (and even every scientist I know) accepts solid findings as such.

The trick is knowing which findings are solid (gravity), which are sketchy (Lamarkism), and how to determine whether the finding you're looking at is the former or the latter. That's what we need to teach kids. Yes, teach ID in schools. Then, have the kids explain for themselves how it isn't science. Don't fail the ones that think it is (at least a first); help every single one of them see the inherent issues with reaching a conclusion based on an a priori decision.

When science is able to create life from non-living components, to create matter from electromagnetism, and to create human-level consciousness in a computer, it is unlikely that the average school child will be able to distinguish these things from the magic proposed by religion (hello there, Mister Clarke!). But even well-educated children should be able to figure out the processes that lead to these - and understand the difference between someone starting with a conclusion and gathering evidence in support of it, and building a complex process by understanding its constituents.

Exactly. If you cared about the writing and characters in the original Fallout games, you will be sorely disappointed with FO3. However, combat was better in FO3, the world was neat to explore, and it felt just right - until you started talking with the NPCs.

You've got a lot of replies talking about gravity, CO2, magnetospheric issues, etc.

These problems drop away when you consider a floating city (our atmosphere: 70% N2 / 20% O2 is a lifting gas on Venus). Besides the awesome sci-fi factor, we have the technology, almost literally right now, to put something like this together. Can anyone tell me why it wouldn't work? (apart from funding problems).

It sounds like the EEE would do everything you're asking for. My brother owns a 1005 HE and it has Flash, a camera (mediocre picture quality, but sufficient for video conferencing), Bluetooth, WiFi, and enough hard drive space to store a hundred ripped movies (speakers are mediocre quality, use headphones when watching movies on it). Ubuntu Netbook Remix was easy to install, and provides simple games (follow this exactly. Battery life is great. 8 hours web surfing in real world usage (the 10.5 hour claim on the package is, of course, crap).

The only downsides I know of are the tiny keyboard and the small screen. I could not stand to write more than a couple of pages on the keyboard, and the screen is, well, small. If you can try using a friends to get a feel for the keyboard and screen, and you think you could live with them, it's certainly worth it. IMHO, a tablet is just asking to get broken, and you're better off spending $350 on a netbook than twice that on a first generation novelty device. The EEE is stable, mature, and, most importantly, not locked into a proprietary OS.

That makes sense. Thanks for the reply.

These are my sentiments exactly, but remember that you and I are not the target audience here. Apple sells fashion accessories, not electronics. People will buy one of these (the most expensive one no doubt), just to impress their friends. Yes, there may be some people who genuinely need the features offered by this (although I cannot think what features these are off the top of my head), but the majority will be buying just for the sake of owning the latest and greatest.

P.S. If you ever build a time machine and happen to run into me circa 2001 deciding not to buy Apple stock because the iPod is an overpriced, locked down piece of crap that no one will ever buy, slap me. Hard.

No, of course not. The dB, or decibel, system is simply a method used to describe the magnitude of noise in a room. The base unit is the bell, defined as the mean sonic amplitude made by the ringing of a single bell. For example, "Jingle Bells" has two bells in it, so the average playback of Jingle Bells can be said to have a mean sonic amplitude of "Two bells" (despite "Jinglin' all the way...").

Expanding on this concept a system was devised, historically known as the Graham system, after its inventor, a graham cracker. Today, we know it as the decibel system (deci from the pig Latin meaning "to kill", as in decimate, and bel from the Belgian word "bell", which, as I've already explained, is the mean sonic amplitude of a single bell ringing). As the name implies, the decibel system provides a measurement of the number of bells killed during a time interval. Thus, a system with more decibels (literally, "killed bells") will sound quieter.

The more bells killed, the quieter the sonic amplitude: If Tom Bell and Alice Bell are singing Jingle Bells and you kill one of them, the sonic amplitude will go from two bells to a single bell. Hence, a linear one decibel shift. It's quite simple. You and the parent are both wrong. (A refrigerator has no bells, and thus cannot contribute to the ambient sonicity of a room.)

To be honest, I thought everyone already knew this. I'm surprised it's not up on Wikipedia or something.

I've heard this a lot on Slashdot, and, frankly, it makes a bit of sense. Space is expensive, hostile, and shows no payoffs.

The thing is, inevitably, we are going to need to get off this rock if we are to survive as a species. The sooner the better; some gamma rays could come and kill us all before I click submit.

There is no reason we shouldn't dump as much cash as possible into space exploration, particularly manned space exploration. There's no downside except for money lost, and I've yet to see that cash spent bailing out banks or building missiles is any better than cash spent on space. Actually it's worse: cash spent to take us to the moon doesn't simply vanish, it goes into the pockets of hard working people whilst teaching us how to survive in space. Cash spent on missiles accomplishes the same thing [cash spent on bailouts goes into the pockets of the rich], except that instead of advancing science, it advances hatred for America.

Lack of money spent on NASA does not appear to equate to lower taxes, better schools, or anything else with real benefit. So what exactly are we gaining from cutting this program? Let's hope Russia, China or India can pick up where we dropped the ball and

I thought part of meningitis was often the breakdown of the blood brain barrier, thus allowing the immune system in. If the blood brain barrier is still active (as it should be in prion diseases, unless they specifically target astrocytes), shouldn't it be impossible for the immune system to enter the brain?

GP is not saying society as a whole can't do impressive things (for ancient cultures religions like animism were able to bind people together to accomplish e.g. Stonehenge or Easter Island), as an anthropologist you know a lot more than I, the ignorant layman, do about that.

I believe what the GP was referring to was the inability of the individual to form cohesive, specific, long-term plans. This is pretty much the domain of the human pre-frontal cortex - not many other species evolved to have the types of planning seen there. The PFC integrates information from our environments and tries to make the best decision possible based on that information. But, being a new evolutionary development, there are still lots of bugs to work out. Advertisements, propaganda, and their ilk are able to trick the PFC into thinking that a decision is the "best" one, when it is in fact terrible.

Our failure to deal with collective problems is, likely a collective one, but our failure to deal with specific individual problems is a "failure" of our PFC. The classic case study for this is Phineas Gage, who decided to experiment with blasting power and iron rods. After he suffered PFC damage, he lacked the planning skills to lead a normal life, instead "living for the moment". It's an extreme case, but I suspect that the "failure of our biological circuitry" really is behind a lot of people's inability to plan 10 years ahead (note that "failure of our biological environment" may also play a pretty big role).

No. They are action-RPGs. Vampire - Bloodlines, Deus Ex, Diablo, Defense of the Ancients. These are action RPGs. The very best (the first two I listed) allow you to change the story, and have loads of dialogue to back up the action. A different type (also good, but not to my tastes so much) eschews story for pure stat-based combat. These tend to have superior combat systems, but lack decent dialogue and interesting characters.

I concur with the GP that an RTS-RPG would be awesome. Dawn of War II had a fairly solid single player campaign, and it could have been truly spectacular if it had contained interactive dialogue, quests, and the ability for player choices to impact the story. Think Planescape - Torment with a cover system, suppression, the need to flank, build defenses, and the freedom to solve situations multiple ways (will I use dialogue, bribe the guard, kill him, or try to micromanage my stealth units past him?). That would be one hell of a game.

Who cares, that's the funniest thing I've read in weeks.