I agree that citizens should yell and screech at politicians when they misbehave. However, in an ideal world, it should not be necessary to constantly baby-sit the politicians. Such a system has all of the disadvantages of a direct democracy (Citizens need to stay aware of every issue.) and all of the disadvantages of a republic (Politicians may not represent those who voted for them.) with none of the advantages of either (Citizens having a direct voice on issues for direct democracy, or politicians allowing citizens to devote more time to other issues for a republic.).

Mass, not gravity. If there is bound energy, it manifests as mass. A compressed spring is ever-so-slightly more massive than a relaxed spring. The main place where this is noticed is with very strong forces, such as the strong nuclear force.

I believe they get around it by saying that all disputes must be decided by arbitration, and not by a class action lawsuit. Therefore, it is not depriving someone of the court system, only of the most useful part of it.

I beg to differ. Experimental results have only been able to place the lower bound of Turtles Down at 7 or 8, depending on the model used.

I found the exact opposite problem in high school. There was the assumption that everything taught in the previous grade was completely forgotten over the summer, and so half of the classtime was devoted to review of what was taught the previous semester. If we could just move on instead of repeating things over and over, we could have learned so much more.

With regard to your specific example of trig identities, practically nobody keeps those memorized. In that case, the important thing is to know that they are there, and how to use them after you look up the identities

I would say that it always belongs to the world, but that for a limited time, we pay the artist for having made it. The form by which we pay them is the protection of a monopoly for that work. If we had an infallible method by which to determine the value of each new work, then we would be perfectly justified in paying the artist that sum and having everything be in the public domain, to use and expand upon as the public sees fit. Since we do not have such a method, we much rely on the public to assign worth to each work. We do this by guaranteeing the artist control over the work for a given time. After that time, control returns to the world, as the world has owned the piece from the beginning.

I'm curious. It seems like a voluntary DDoS is nothing more than the digital equivalent of a sit-in protest. In each, there is a point to be made beyond simple, malicious destruction. In each, the underlying infrastructure is left undamaged. In each, the method of protest is to do as normal customers do, but more so, whether by sitting in the dining area for extended periods of time, or by requesting the site continuously for extended periods of time. Do you have any opinion as to whether this analogy is valid?

So, anyone want to guess whether people will react with "That security system is horrible." or with "Hackers can do anything." ?

Not common, but I saw it a few times in elementary school. Mostly, the curriculum wants to start giving the basics of algebra without having to explain the concept of variables to students. Mostly, they just leave a blank spot to indicate that a number is missing from the equation. Sometimes they put an underscore or the parentheses to show where the blank spot is.

If I buy the phone, I expect to own it. Even if it is on a rent-to-buy plan like the phone company subsidized contracts, I should have more rights to the phone than Apple does. If I have a phone that I have bought, and someone else has a program that he has made for it, I do not see any moral reason by which a third party, Apple, can restrict my access to my own phone.

In solar fusion, it is rather difficult to form Li from H and He. The "normal" form of He is He-4. If H-1 is added to this, Li-5 is formed. However, Li-5 is not stable, and decays to He-5, which decays to He-4. Therefore, it is not possible to form stable Li using the most abundant isotopes of H and He.

Heavier elements are usually formed by combining multiple He-4 nuclei. This can give Be-8, C-12, O-16, and so on. These elements and isotopes show correspondingly high abundances in the universe as a whole.

In order to form any isotope of Li, the Li-5 step must be completely avoided. Instead of adding H-1 to He-4, either H-2 or H-3 must be added, forming stable Li-6 or Li-7. The H-2 and H-3 are present in much lower concentrations than H-1, and so we are much less likely for these to interact with He-4. There is some interaction, which is where the current Li comes from.

About two-thirds of the way down in the article:

So, Video Professor is a scam, but it's a minor point in the article.

The signal does need to carry energy, but it does not need mass. A photon has energy and momentum, but is massless.

In that case, I issue a challenge. Bash Microsoft in a way relevant to peanut butter, the Death Star, and Alabama.

This is exactly what we don't want to happen. Just because something is part of a covert operation doesn't mean that it should be happening.