Excellent post, containing actual arguments and links to real papers. Unfortunately we have to put up with provocateurs here, many of whom are likely paid to post, and most of whom have almost no idea of what they are talking about. To those of you who find these corrupt denier posters troubling, remember that science is an unending search for truth. It is the best way we have of comprehending the physical world. What the deniers do is the exact opposite of science.

We who follow science have truth and morality on our side. The power of the catholic church was once threatened by the scientist Galileo's scientific assertions that the Earth went around the Sun. He was persecuted but he stood his ground in defence of scientific truth. Now the power of oil billionaires is threatened by the scientific fact that carbon emissions are warming the Earth. They are using all their expertise in "public relations" to undermine any real action to reduce their power. But we must remember that no matter what the Grima Wormtongue deniers say, the well being of our grandchildren depends on breaking the power of these corrupt psychopathic billionaires. We must break our addiction to oil.

Of course all threats by corporations regarding regulation have proven to be true. Collapsible steering columns, air bags, anti-lock brakes and other government mandated technology standards have nearly destroyed the auto industry, as the American car companies promised they would.

Not really. Riding on city roads places constant stress on frames. The zero fatigue limit on aluminum bikes basically means that your bike frame has a limit on how much it can be ridden. Ride it enough and it will crack. I have personally seen two cracked aluminum frames.

At the very least, I would never buy an aluminum frame unless I know that the frame is an aluminum alloy that has a non-zero fatigue limit. I would also never buy a used aluminum downhill bike.

Once I learned about carbon fiber thermoplastics, I realized that carbon fiber would be amenable to mass production. The idea is that you lay down the fibers using robotic technology. Then you encase the fiber in a plastic resin that becomes soft at high temperatures. Now you have made a flat carbon fiber sheet similar to sheet steel. Finally you use a hot press that presses the sheet into nearly any shape desired...ie. car parts. This is similar to how we form steel into car body parts. This processes is highly suitable for mass production. So yes, carbon fiber is becoming mainstream.

Aluminum bikes have problems too. Pure aluminum has zero fatigue limit, which means that it WILL eventually crack. Zero fatigue limit means that even the smallest stress on an aluminum frame will cause it to fatigue. If you knocked on an aluminum frame with your fingernail enough times in the same spot, it would eventually fail.

I think given this speech by Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Congress in 1938, the best description would be a fascist state. It certainly isn't communism.

The American government has been bought and paid for by private interests/corporations. Under FDR's description, that makes it fascist, or nearly so. Elect Chris Christy as President and that will settle it. He is a dangerous man.

Thank you for mentioning Roosevelt. I did a search just now and came up with his address to Congress on curbing monopolies in 1938. I think it gives me more of an idea as to the real reasons for WWII: private power versus public power.

Here is an exerpt:

Money is soft power. Military weapons are hard power. This difference is quite obvious to Ukranians in Crimea.

I totally agree. These machines make crap coffee for a massive premium price. They are the ink-jet printers of coffee. And I despise the amount of waste produced.

I use an espresso machine and a decent grinder to make Americano's in the morning...it takes a very short period of time, probably comparable to the kuereg. A cappuccino takes a bit longer with milk steaming, but still fairly fast. And I get a lovely crema which tastes oh so good.

What of the percentage of trolls who are in fact paid to post on particular political issues. If I were extremely wealthy and wanted to push public opinion in a certain direction, I think that hiring internet trolls would be a relatively inexpensive way of reaching the public.

It is a fairly common idea in the ideology of many of those who run our education system that if you give students the ability to chose their professors or teachers, they will chose the best professors or teachers. The idea is to make education a marketable commodity with professors and teachers as service providers and students as consumers. There is a deep and fundamental flaw in this view. Markets are indeed extraordinarily good at satisfying consumer demand. The problem is that too many students are not demanding a quality education, but rather the highest possible grade, possibly with the least amount of effort. In other words too many students value the credential rather than the education it is meant to represent. Thus, the market system for education works against the Public Interest, putting an upward pressure on grades and a downwards pressure on standards.

What are some solutions to this quandry? The problem is often that grades for particular courses consist only of a percentage. In most schools and universities those percentages in a particular course do not differentiate between different professors or teachers. Thus a grade given by a challenging professor and one given by an easy professor are difficult to distinguish. The proposal in TFA might help the situation, but I think there is another way. What if each professor got a score not based on the evaluation by students but rather by how his students scored in other courses, especially those that follow his own course. This score for a professor would be like an adjustment factor for his grades. Let's say most students in one professor's Calculus II class who get 75% usually go on to get an 85% score in Calculus III. Thus, this professor's grades would be deemed better than another professor's grades whose 75% students usually go on to score 65% in Calculus III.

This system would reduce pressure on professors to raise grades, especially if students understood this rating system. All that would matter would be that the professor be consistent year after year. It might seem complicated to implement but in our world of computers and databases, I don't think it would be impossible to create. It wouldn't be necessary to follow all of a professor's students, only a few in order to gain a correlation. Indeed, all it would initially require would be for each professor or teacher to be given a unique code which would be attached to each grade given to each student. The rest would be data mining by whatever authority has access to the data.

To quote Otto von Bismarck: "Politics is the art of the possible."