Was recently in Italy and had to beg a kindly local woman to buy me a train ticket with her card as the ticket machine would not accept either cash (in the wrong denominations) or my magnetic stripe card. They're probably used to us visiting 3rd-worlders.

If a pair of black holes are present in a quiet galaxy, perhaps there are also black holes present where there aren't any galaxies at all...'between' galaxies. Maybe black holes were the driver for all galaxy and star formation and maybe there are more black holes than there are galaxies. Maybe way way more. Maybe such black holes are the missing dark matter that we are searching for.

Forget the beer price...think of the cows! No more 'brewing by-products.' That's gotta be a whole lot better than what the replacement will be.

For example, the Bush family. Here is an entire multi-generational family that has never enjoyed any sort of commercial success that would lead to great wealth and yet they are all obviously very wealthy despite having done nothing but serve in federal government. Or...another example, the Kennedy family. These people are not fine examples of our best, brightest, or bravest and and yet they obviously have their hands on the levers of power and influence as well as wealth.

Jenny McCarthy is obviously not a mental giant but...give her credit for changing her mind. Before she had kids, she might have thought vaccines were the spawn of satan but after becoming a Mom, maybe they didn't look so bad. From TFA, sounds like she's wanting 'one poke per visit' to the Doctor which is a whole lot better than those parents who refuse to give their kids any vaccines whatsoever. This Slashdot article seems pointless other than to try and make the case that Jenny McCarthy is a hypocrite and bring out some discussion about vaccines. However, we have to cut McCarthy some slack on the hypocrite charge as people are allowed to change their mind with the passage of time.

The AGW advocates always present the AGW discussion as some sort of 'vote' by scientists in which the percentage of something or other is the most important thing. TFA in this case points to a '99 percent' certainty that the world is screwed unless we do what they say. ALL of this is based on computer models of the earth's climate that have not been accurate at forecasting because of their crude modeling of the atmospheric water cycle. Water is the most important 'greenhouse' gas, by hundreds of times, due to its a) prevalence, and b) massive greenhouse effect. But...the AGW advocates ignore the effect of water with their general assumption that a)it's always been there and b) always will be there, and c) does not change and focus all of their attention on carbon dioxide and the hawaiian concentration measurements showing a steady atmospheric increase. However, they completely ignore the carbon cycle. ALL of the carbon that we are exploiting was in the atmosphere in the past and was eventually 'sequestered' through natural processes that continue to this day. ALL of the carbon currently in the earth's crust will eventually be released into the atmosphere, either by the actions of man or by natural processes. For example, there are thousands of locations around the world where hydrocarbons (primarily ch4 but larger hydrocarbons as well) are naturally released into the atmosphere continuously. ALL of the carbon currently in the atmosphere will eventually be returned to the earth's crust. Carbon is constantly being cycled into and out of the earth's crust. Man's exploitation of hydrocarbons are just part of the cycling out of the crust. Moreover, there is absolutely zero evidence that the carbon concentration in the atmosphere is a constant value but rather has obviously changed dramatically over time. The earth's climate may warm over the next century or it may cool (through change in solar output) but there is nothing that we are going to do that is going to change it even 0.1 C. Politically, however, this is an enormous issue because new laws driver by AGW fearmongers will potentially give governments much more power than they already have over the distribution and use of energy. In the United States, we have already seen the beginnings of regulation of carbon dioxide 'pollutant' emissions.

You either miss or ignore the point (probably both). If you want kids to write code, you make getting the means to do it EASY to do. If you create obstacles, they won't. Including a simple and powerful tool in Windows that lets the code be run by anyone who has the same tool on their windows makes it EASY. Pointing to some website somewhere where someone could download and investigate some Microsoft title with obtuse and onerous licensing terms is not about 'making it easy.' Moreover, taking kids to some corporate website and making them enter into some sort of contract with the corporation is...depraved.

Let's be honest here. The biggest problem with the Windows XP installed on your computer is that Microsoft is not receiving any more revenue from you. If you buy an 'upgrade' Windows 8, they receive a new licensing fee. That's the problem that Windows 8 fixes.

So...which of those titles are included with every copy of Windows? Which of those provide kids with a simple and powerful way to create something impressive? For which of those can they share the results back and forth with their friends? If Bill Gates was a teenager now, he would be on xbox live and there never would have been any Microsoft.

...based on what they DO rather than on what they SAY. They used to supply a simple basic interpreter with every copy of MS-DOS that cost nothing and was simple to use. That is long gone and nothing has ever taken its place. If kids want to code now, the options are expensive, complicated, and are not included in the price of 'Windows.' Moreover, Microsoft distributes sophisticated video games that suck up the time and creative energy of the very kids that would otherwise be likely to code in the first place. One might think that Microsoft would encourage high schools to offer coding curricula by distributing tools to high schools for free/low cost and providing training and guidance for teachers. Instead, Microsoft distributes Office for low cost and we are talking in TFA about what Office can do as a development tool. One has to conclude, based on its actions, that the very last thing Microsoft wants is for a lot of bright american kids to be actually writing powerful creative code for Windows.

It's a sword that cuts both ways. On the one hand, the internet brings everyone out into the middle of a diversity of thought. On the other hand, it provides a powerful way to find out more about what you believe...and everyone believes something as our ability to have first-hand experience and new ideas in our own short lives is very limited. We have to rely mostly on other people's ideas and experience passed down through time and shared. Ultimately, if God is acting in our midst, then the internet will be a means for God to reach more people and enter their hearts.

Systemd replaces init and is the first daemon to start up in user space during boot and the last daemon to shut down. When its developer sees nothing wrong with breaking the kernel debug during boot merely because its developer feels that he's entitled to use the same parameter name and the kernel boot be damned, you REALLY have to wonder about the wisdom of using systemd.

The oath for Federal Officials:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

That makes things pretty clear.

Either communications (phone, email, twitter, etc.) are private and protected by the Constitution...or they are not. It cannot be both ways. If they are protected by the constitution...and the government, through its agency, the NSA, refuses to uphold the constitution, then a constitutional crisis is upon us...and the way forward on that is bleak since the constitution has been the basis for the existence of the United States for the last 2+ centuries. Here, we have the government essentially saying that their needs entitle it to disregard the constitution that they are sworn to uphold. Probably the only way to really resolve this is to arrest and bring the responsible officials into court on charges of treason...and it's not clear who or what would do the arresting and prosecution.

Western Washington has millions of people living in slide zones, living on old slide deposits, living in front of future slides. It's easy to point to one active slide area and say 'damn fools shouldn't have lived there' but the reality is that we live in the shadow of glaciers from the recent past that resulted in widespread deposits of soupy soil. Western Washington is also a high-hazard area for huge earthquakes, as are many parts of California. Do people expect everyone to move? Or what about Oklahoma or Kansas in the path of tornadoes? Or Minnesotans subject to stinging blizzards and arctic chill? Or...? You get the idea. You try and identify the hazards, mitigate them, and warn of them. In the case of the Oso landslide, there never should have been clearcut logging above the slide-prone area, there should have been monitoring of the water levels, and there should have been drainage mitigations installed years ago...as there have been in many other similar areas including just up the road from Oso. So...don't tell people to move until you're prepared to tell Californians or Oklahomans or English or Japanese or whoever to move.