That the thing about dark matter... it has a perfectly reasonable explanation (WIMPs). It's not that weird of a "thing".

I dunno. Usually when a theory requires more and more unseen entities over time it's a sign that it's time to replace the theory. We know General Relativity is incomplete, both because it doesn't take into account quantum effects and because it has internal contradictions - specifically, it assumes a continuous spacetime geometry but predicts non-continuous points (black hole singularities). Most likely Einstein simply missed some observer-specific assumption - for example, GR assumes mass-energy has an exact distribution rather than probabilistic one - and thus GR is not completely general.

A question I've had for a while... if space itself is being inflated (or any sort of mathematically equivalent scenario) - everything inflating in all directions at all scales - wouldn't there be some sort of weak radiation signal from electrons expanding into a higher energy state due to dark energy and then collapsing back down?

No, because a continuous force wouldn't drag electrons up and then let them drop back down. What it would do is alter orbital structure and energy levels. But how they'd be altered depends on how quantum mechanics and GR combine, which we don't currently know.

It appears this German guy knew that, and was hiding his problems from his employer and the regulatory agencies that license his operation of giant passenger aircraft.

So what happens when you remove doctor patient confidentiality? The other depressed people will not see them and will still fly, only without having received psychiatric help or medication. That makes the risk larger, not smaller.

Experts on suicide say that the psychology of those who combine suicide with mass murder may differ in significant ways from those who limit themselves to taking their own lives.

No shit, Sherlock.

"Esp. of a woman: sexually promiscuous or provocative, esp. in a manner regarded as vulgar or distasteful.". So you're injecting your subjective views into what looks mean and attaching a value judgement into that.

That description is what whoever picked the booth babe "uniform" probably went for. It's catering to a specific fantasy: "You're a pimp and these are your bitches, if only you buy our product." You know, the exact one a cynical - though not necessarily very smart - marketer would use to sell to a stereotypical nerd.

No it doesn't. It means more demand. Read up on Jevon's Paradox. As a resource (including labor) is used more efficiently, demand for it goes up, not down, because of greater opportunities. It would only go down if the Lump of Labor Fallacy wasn't a fallacy.

The problem is, people aren't coal. A coal seam can sit unused for a hundred million year with no ill effects. An unemployed laborer can't. He either gets a job fast or falls into poverty. Supply of labour cannot go down in response to market situation; the only thing that can go down is the price. And as price of labour falls, demand for products falls, because people who get paid less can't afford as much. As demand for products falls, more people get unemployed, and you have a nice little vicious circle going.

It's what's happening now. Cheap credit kept a fundamentally broken system going for a while, but now that well has ran dry and it's collapsing. Keeping it going forever would require citizen pay, or credit without expectation of repayment. But I doubt the rich and powerful will accept the economic independence this would bring to lower classes, but will continue fighting tooth and nail to retain their power all the way to another bloody revolution.

As a side note, economy is full of "fallacies" that only apply with certain preconditions, for example that the resource can go unused with no ill effects. Ignoring those preconditions makes them a fine way to explain away any need to change. The problem is, reality won't go away just because you ignore it, and reality is that lots of people are unemployed, those still employed are living under constant pressure and fear, national and personal debts are sky-high, and nobody seriously expects any of this to get better in the foreseeable future, at least outside official speeches.

Then explain why an American worker today can be more productive than his or her predecessors, yet paid a substantially smaller fraction of the proceeds from his or her labors?

Greater productivity per worker means less demand for workers. Less demand means lower price. Thus, more productive workforce means worse-paid workforce.

Yay capitalism.

The real question, to me, is, why was the flight attendant not on the flight deck while the pilot was away?

Because you can regulate anything, but in reality the pilot is not going to announce every time he has to pee. Nothing has happened before, so nothing will happen this time.

Except when there is a terrorist threatening the pilot outside, asking him to enter the code...

But that terrorist will be bum rushed by everyone on board and beaten to the ground. Even the hostage knows his best bet is to take the knife between ribs - better odds surviving that than the destruction of the plane.

Terrorists - or anyone - stopped hijacking airplanes the second such hijackings stopped meaning a delay and started meaning everyone aboard dying.

People don't lose their humanity just because they work for (or own) a corporation.

But neither does it extend to the corporation. Aardvarkjoe Catering, LLC doesn't have a religion even if its owner(s) and employee(s) do, and thus can't refuse anything on religious grounds. An employee of Aardvarkjoe Catering, LLC may feel servicing sexual, ethnical, political or other minorities is unacceptable, and if so Aardvarkjoe Catering, LLC must deal with the issue as it sees fit within limits dictated by law; but Aardvarkjoe Catering, LLC is not that employee.

You don't get to put down your corporate shield whenever that suits you, yet hide behind it the rest of the time.

Sexual orientation is usually not a choice. There are those who claim to be "bisexual": they'll choose a man sometimes, and a women other times.

One friend of mine hates onions but is fine with tomatoes. I hate tomatoes but am fine with onions. But one weirdo we know eats both.

That ability to change indicates a choice.

I guess wrinkly skin is just some kind of fashion amongst the elderly, then.

It's much more debatable whether society has, for example, such an interest in forcing you to participate in a gay wedding.

You aren't participating in a gay wedding. Aardvarkjoe Catering, LLC is. Corporate veil doesn't disappear whenever that happens to be advantageous to you yet shield you the rest of the time.

If you respect the right of gay people to choose who to marry, why not respect the rights of others to choose who the associate with also.

And Gen Con has this right too, does it not?

The issue at stake is not religious freedom (since businesses don't have religion), or even freedom of association (since businesses don't have that either), but using the quirks of current economic system and corporate law to bully people into submission. Which, apparently, is fine as long as it's done to gays, and bad when the favour is returned.

But then again, crying foul when someone hits back is pretty typical bully behaviour.

Spread the blame to everyone that made poor choices: Indian Institute of Planning and Management, Wikipedia and those that enrolled without verifying their expectations.

Those that enrolled without verifying their expectations to some unspecified degree made poor choices, or possibly good choices that went bad due to sheer bad luck, as any might.

Wikipedia made the lazy choice of not bothering to verify its contents, despite being a Power That Be in its own right nowadays, likely more influental than most nations.

Indian Institute of Planning and Management made a morally represensible choice of purposefully lying in order to commit fraud.

Do you honestly see these as equivalent in any way? A fool, a slightly irresponsible "dude" and a fraudster don't have a common type of blame they could share.

Will someone please tell me this gives us a basis for Heisenberg compensator?

Because that would be awesome.

But redundant.

And more to your point, I (the collective manifestation of the citizenry) have leverage against a government that does as you suggest by keeping firearms in my possession, being proficient in their use, and advocating (through constitutionally protected peaceable means) for my right to do so. This is one of the functions of the second amendment: to act as a check on a government that overreaches. Tax-dodging nuts holed up in the mountains notwithstanding, governments need checks on their powers that have teeth in them.

The Second Amendment doesn't have any teeth. The problem is, in a democracy the government already is the collective manifestation of the citizenry. And any single overreach only hurts a small minority of people who can usually be dressed up as unpleasant and/or deserving of their fate to the rest, so the populace ends up shooting off its own foot one toe at a time.

Second Amendment serves exactly one purpose, and it's letting people who are too gutless to even vote for a third party to pretend they could stage an armed rebellion any time they wanted. Altough ensuring that there's a steady stream of armed criminals/cults/tax-dodging nuts acting as boogeymen might also count as an intentional purpose for particularly cynical politicians.