I know you can answer Jedi on a census in some countries apparently the UK is one of them, but I don't know if it is given all of the recognition of other religions. It could I suppose if the wikipedia numbers are accurate than that would count in many countries. Otherwise if it has such protections than this company has probably just ran afoul of the law and this young Jedi will be getting some cash out of it.

Charlie Eppes: Larry, something went wrong, and I don't know what, and now it's like I can't even think.

Larry Fleinhardt: Well, let me guess: you tried to solve a problem involving human behavior, and it blew up in your face.

Charlie Eppes: Yeah, pretty much.

Larry Fleinhardt: Okay, well, Charles, you are a mathematician, you're always looking for the elegant solution. Human behavior is rarely, if ever, elegant. The universe is full of these odd bumps and twists. You know, perhaps you need to make your equation less elegant, more complicated; less precise, more descriptive. It's not going to be as pretty, but it might work a little bit better. Charlie, when you're working on human problems, there's going to be pain and disappointment.You gotta ask yourself, is it worth it?

I think there is a lot of merit for inter-agency cooperation between the world's different space agencies it seems to have done okay with ISS, but ISS has also shown us some of the limits of cooperation. I am hopeful and optimistic that such partnerships might make more manned missions tenable at least between aligned nations.

Stem Cell Scientists still don't have safe waters with the President's executive order, because it lacks the same permanence of a law passed by congress if the next administration changed its mind too we'd be back to where we were without a law backing it up. As a result of this instability fewer and fewer stem cell biologists are sticking around a few in Wisconsin, a few out in California, and a few other places but most are going overseas to safer waters with greater stability.

Its great that this summer with the LHC being damaged particle and high energy physicists came back to the states to work on the Tevatron, but its still going to be shut down soon and LHC will be online eventually. So there go the physicists back to Geneva (again).

Now were talking about dismantling a core part of NASA. Sure some of the scientists will just get shifted to other projects some may try moving to the private sector, but others are going to go to the ESA, Russia, Japan, and other countries with developing space programs. Since it will be their only option aside from retraining.

The major private R&D companies are persistently decreasing their budgets and sizes. There isn't anything to the scale and scope of Lucent and Bell Labs. The MS Research, Google, and IBM all do good work, but its very focused and well they can't hire everyone (or at least they won't hire everyone) which also pushes some with great talent into the financial sector or just anywhere willing to pay them. I mean how many companies are funding basic research in industrial companies? Big Oil used to fund a lot of academic geology, but a lot of that has gone dry in recent years. Does DOW fund anything that isn't just product enhancement research? I haven't heard much if anything about something truly amazing in aerospace either, I mean we're upgrading the Apaches AGAIN these 30+ year old flying machines weren't intended to be the last helicopters we ever developed, but as it stands there still the best we've come up with, but no one is pushing for better, no one has even tried to define what might make the next thing better.

I completely understand that historically R&D and funding of basic science came from all areas of the private sector (from areospace to mining to well I can't think of any clever industry that begins with the last few letters of the alphabet, but you get my point). All of that well seems almost completely dried out and I'm not just talking about due to the current crisis this seemed to have been the case while things were still booming not so long ago.

Not to mention there is still overwhelming draw (fiscal incentive) by financial companies (some domestic, but many foreign at least in ownership if not location) to eat up people with strong computer, mathematical, or statistical skills for some fat paychecks!

I understand that NASA has recently had problems with pet projects that weren't producing or lacked direction, but the answer isn't cutting off manned spaced flight. Manned flight is what made NASA the success it has been and can be a primer to restoring such glory. Manned flight personifies the modern explorer it provides a face to the organization and heroes for a country as a whole people who are alive and well that people can aspire to. All science has its slow and fast phases and NASA (space/rocketry/etc) isn't immune from that, but that doesn't mean the answer is cutting it off, in fact the answer is the opposite it needs more and it needs nurturing. It needs the support of its public.

I don't see how this proposed shift in NASA is in line with the speech the President just made to the school kids, I mean what if those kids want to be astronauts and rocket scientists? I guess maybe they work for Virgin Galactic (not an American company) or they are likely going to have to work for a foreign space agency. I read the statements they made on the campaign in the Science Debate I do believe this President understands what's at stake if we don't push hard to ignite all areas of MEST immediately. I hope what they are talking about with NASA just means some oversight and different pressures not a dismantling of programs. I need to believe that its still possible that policies will be put into play to stimulate domestic growth in the sciences and that this President will get it done, but I grow increasingly worried.

I don't know why we've allowed ourselves as a society to become so unstable and outwardly hostile to science, but if we as a nation don't get it together soon there will be fewer and fewer scientists left and what will that do to the quality of innovation that's driven this country since the industrial revolution? We've made a big deal to the rest of the world about enforcing intellectual property, because so far we've had the lion's share of it, but as more biotech and other science/tech patents are bolstered by other countries our position will be further weakened as it will become necessary to license their patents for technology that we should have developed on our own to begin with. How will we adapt when the law and financial obligations aren't on our side, because innovation is coming from else where?

IANAL either, but I've read parts and wholes of a number of label contracts over the years. You're right it is likely in the details (and outcomes are heavily dependent on them), but in general the details go something like this.

That eighth album Sony intended on releasing is likely in this artist's contract. He may have only been responsible for being involved with the seven, but in his contract Sony probably retained rights to all material recorded by the artist during the duration of his contract (you general release all such copyrights permanently to your label) so all of those songs are Sony's not his (which is an error to his assumption that since his contractual obligations to Sony are met all other copyrights are retained by him extremely unlikely, but hard to say definitively without seeing his contract), further most major labels reserve the right to release a "Greatest Hits" compilation that may contain previously unreleased content. Generally this last album is purely for the labels profit (has a different scheme of royalty mechanisms) and can be released whether you've resigned with the label or not AND whether you consent to the release or not. Its a standard operating procedure for the big four and mimicked by the majority of the industry that will likely be upheld if his contract is scrutinized by a court.

Even if he can get his way in this case all that's going to do is provide disincentive to the major labels in dealing with artists in Mexico. Maybe that's a good though since a vacuum could inspire upstarts and real competition at least in Mexico which is a growing media consumer. I hope this guy can make a bit of a score off of the labels its nice to hear when its even possible that an artist can get his despite the will of the evil empire. Unfortunately all of these trade groups like RIAA ever protect are the label's bottom lines which generally entails anything, but the artists' best interests. Even the music unions in the US are epic fail. I remember not long ago there was a bill that sought to oversee US record label contracts to ensure fairness. I'm sure it probably got blocked by someone deep in MAFIAA's pockets, but could you imagine the possibilities if these contractual provisions had all been brought to light and forced to change. That'd almost be as fair as if radio stations had to pay royalties or if internet radio stations didn't!

The industry has long been broken these titans need to be brought down, economies of scale are no longer an inhibition to entrance in the market only having to have to compete with monoliths is the problem. The sooner the labels go away or get dismantled the sooner the things get better for musicians and for consumers. Why isn't the government investigating consolidation not just of the four labels themselves (and the fledgling indie labels), but their increasing scope into other areas of the musicians income like tour gross and merchandise sales we feared banks too big to fail because they consolidated we should intercede now before something along those lines happens with the labels and we're permanently stuck with them? Has anyone noticed the distinct lack of medium size bands in the industry for the last decade or so? You're either great success or too little to be known (and therefore cared about in the industry's eyes) that isn't the way the market has been and it doesn't have to remain that way.

Star Trek Online was planning (I don't know if they still are) on putting out versions for multiple consoles (PC, 360, PS3) and allowing them all to play on one system of servers (so someone playing from XBL could play someone on PC or PSN). So it is probably EA (and it might be some legacy hold over from PS2 and XB days as oppose to lets try to get them to buy more than one copy) more so than vendor lock-in.

If they truly wanted to stop multitasking behind the wheel there would be a lot more support for removing the human from the equation. We aren't that far off from cars that can accurately and safely drive themselves. Why aren't we funding efforts like the DARPA road challenge more? Lets get that wrapped up and out there. I mean I think its good that people who end up doing bad things, because of their poor behavior choices are being penalized for those choices, but if safety is truly the goal we'd recognize that in one way or another multitasking occurs for most drivers at some point and the only way to truly get rid of it and the risks they represent is to minimize the human role in controlling the vehicle.

Think about this mathematically.

The oscillation of the ice cap formation and overall weather cycles are the concerns. If we are changing the rate of global warming, even in just a small way, it is possible that our perturbations break the oscillation pattern of the system. That's what we need to determine.

That also leaves a big question mark as to what happens next. I mean one of the descriptions from the global warning namesake would be resonance leading to ever increasing temperatures. Obviously in the real world these ever increasing temperatures would have be asymptotic to some upper bound based on physical limitations of the system, but we have no way of knowing whether that upper limit is even life supporting let alone something we'd want to get accustom to. Not to mention no idea as to the longer term impacts on all of the planet's physical, bio, and eco systems in such an event.