You got it! My uncle is now a security officer in the military. he's a highly skilled Linux Programmer, and knows how to attack the network if he needs/wants to. the only reason he got in the military and is now in security is because he had a 96% accuracy at 300 yards. After all this time, the military still values killing over technical skills. While they should be on equal footing.

If an Iranian Nuclear power plant can be attacked by a virus, which could have caused major damage we are just lucky it didn't, you'd think the military would take a better look at their skill requirements. But they rely on their current ranks, the NSA/FBI/CIA to foot for when they can't make up. (and the majority of their skills are about as good as the Military) we need a skill refresh, its long over due.

He also misrepresents the entire process of modern agriculture - namely, none of the inputs are implicitly dependent on the active production of more CO2. All of them could be done more efficiently, or utilizing alternative power sources. Of course, he's also not covering the rather considerable issue that high-energy-driven intensive farming is doing a lot of long term damage to arable lands all over the world, and actively reducing their productive capacity. Changes to more sustainable farming methods would reduce the dependence of fertilizers and follow effects on marine ecosystems from run-off.

But there's no sense letting any of that get in the way of trying to co-opt global hunger as a perverse argument *against* doing anything about climate change.

Note that the US, who in principle did not sign the Kyoto protocol, actually reduced emissions significantly (not just reduction in growth, but actual reduction) since 2007 due to the economic recession.

So, we don't want to reduce carbon emissions because it will hurt our economy - but hurt the economy and emissions automatically reduce. Sounds like a vicious cycle that needs a technological exit strategy to me.

Or how about finally facing the fact that we are not the chosen ones. That we are not in the center of the universe. And that we are not special?

My grandma still believes that humans aren't animals. Some people still believe that non-whites are inferior. And some even still believe the sun rotates around the earth.

Admit it. Cause I’m the only god here! . . :P

c is the maximum speed. Things with no inertia, obviously, travel at this speed. This is why it's the speed of light in a vacuum for example. The "mechanism" that determines c is space-time, the speed c, is a null (zero) metric in space-time. Other than defining what it is (299792458 m/s for example), it doesn't have an arbitrary value. Our understanding of space-time could be wrong, but what would the value of c vary against? It's the maximum speed by definition. What (constant) speed could we compare it to?

Try taking a classified military radio (in a properly marked courier bag with all the paperwork) through security. Between what the xray of the bag showed, his truthful answer to "did you pack this bag yourself" and his response to requests to open the bag (he correctly said that he couldn't do that nor allow it to happen) he spent the night with airport security and only got out when someone from the base personally came to get him and told the TSA that he had done everything correctly.

Good for them! Finally, some common sense and rational planning, instead of letting the market get our power from anywhere without regard to the consequences!

I never found it to be that annoying.

Now, silverware scratching on a plate? Gives me the shudders.

Unless you're in dense fog, the beam itself is invisible. You'd only see anything once the beam actually hits the aircraft (and then it's too far away to see the reflection with the naked eye).

However, it only takes a fraction of a second to dazzle and disorient the pilots, so even a momentary random intersection caused by a sweeping laser beam is dangerous.

I love all the cool technical challenges DARPA comes out with, but is recovering shredded doccuments really something we should be helping the government with?

That is a pretty funny list. The US has not _won_ a single war, at least not with the actual goal that they said they had by going to war in the first place. If you change the cover-up goal of establishing democracy to getting more oil, then of course the picture changes.

Which two countries? Oh you mean the ISAF destroyed the Afghan military. Yeah ok that's true. Way to forget your allies there, which include France by the way. And yes, the US destroyed Iraq's puny army - the one that was previously destroyed in 1991 and he was not permitted to rebuild but managed to scrape together with ancient equipment?