Oh man. If my office had noise generators my sanity would crumble so quickly. It's bad enough my semi-cube is 10 feet from the corporate server closet, but if I had to deal with non-localizable static all day I'd be raving like a lunatic. I have pretty bad tinnitus from a youth full of fireworks and raves, and it'd probably get so bad I'd might as well be deaf in that kind of environment.

properly understood, Quantum Entanglement is at the core of all Quantum Physics

To a US English speaker, this phrase can generally be translated to mean "All quantum mechanical reasoning relies on quantum entanglement" which is false. But the phrase you state leaves room for interpretation and can certainly mean "quantum entanglement is one of the basic features of quantum mechanics" or even "quantum mechanics requires quantum entanglement to be true". It's just that the standard way the phrase is parsed makes it seem you're saying entanglement is the most important or most fundamental feature of quantum mechanics. You aren't wrong, but the way you expressed yourself can be a little confusing.

While technology and technological knowledge could certainly weather a large portion of the population vanishing, what do you think of the economic implications of a significant impact event?
How would the global economy react to a mile-wide rock hitting Manhattan? Or Hong Kong? Berlin? Tokyo? Any large city?
I have the feeling that there would be a global economic upset the likes of which has never been seen.

religion is what kept our society together in difficult times.

Y'know what caused a lot of those hard times in the first place? Religion.

I don't disagree with the general premise that the NSA would resort to torture if they thought that it would be in their best interest.
I'm stating that since the NSA isn't exactly a military organization (in a strict sense), and since the NSA is known for using applied science, it would know that torture (or more specifically pain driven interrogation such as water-boarding) doesn't give reliable results when it comes to intelligence gathering. It's a fine line. Overt torture causes the subject to say whatever they think will make the torture stop. Too mild, and the subject won't give up the goods. Legitimate interrogation methods are far more effective than torture in secret, when it comes to getting information vital to national security. It's been discussed in many venues and on multiple occasions that torture isn't effective in helping intelligence organizations do their jobs.
The NSA has been so corrupted by the mandate of its task that it has decided to "gather all intelligence" but this is both simply infeasible (since one-time-pads and horribly inconvenient methods of encryption exist), and ultimately a waste of energy and time.
They can record everything they wish, but I'm not sure it will make a difference in fighting terrorism carried out by those who have a moderate education in information security and encryption. Granted it's not particularly easy communicating in a way that's secure against a government organization bent on destroying all semblance of anonymity, privacy, or security in one's person and effects, but it's certainly not impossible.

Sorry if I'm being too literal here. I just hate ambiguity. So I'm defining my terms.

Mod this guy up. The NSA may not be looking for you specifically, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be mad as hell that they're violating everyone's rights. They aren't torturing you at a black site now, but they could if they wanted to, because they have conspired to make themselves above the law.

http://www.copyright.gov/1201/

I assume it's illegal to make a copy and give away the original while retaining the copy. But what is true is that it is legal to make copies for personal use. Every 5 years the librarian of congress reviews requests for exceptions to the DMCA and this last time decided to allow copies for personal use and backup of DVDs as an exception.

that is a marginal loss to the owner of the copyright

You can't assume that's true. The friend the disk was loaned to may never have bought the movie. It's not a loss if the purchase wasn't ever going to happen. And like you mentioned, it might equally be considered a marginal gain, because the borrower could recommend the movie to others, and cause purchases that otherwise may not have happened.

Are you serious? Or trolling? You can copy the DVD image super easy, bit-for-bit, without breaking any encryption using a program like ImgBurn, and right now it's legal in the US to do so for personal use. You can then play it back on your computer legally using an ISO mounter like DaemonTools, and a legal DVD player program like PowerDVD. This is a legal chain of use. It's legal to backup a DVD by making a bit-for-bit copy of the disk. It's legal to mount the ISO of that image. And it's legal to playback that ISO with a piece of decryption software that is correctly licensed for it.

They can sue if they can show that your work is a derivative of the Disney work

Not exactly true either. They can sue without of the evidence of infringement if they're so inclined. They'll lose if the evidence is against them, but they'll still put a heavy financial burden on the party they'll sue. If Disney thinks they can bankrupt the defendant, and it's worth the cost, then they can sue with practically no standing.

That's why corporate ownership of copyright is a financially asymmetrical and unfair legal allowance. The richest media companies can buy up whatever properties they want and then tie up smaller parties in a civil suit subsequently incurring disproportionate expense on the defendant. They can then offer a settlement deal, and give the smaller party a cheaper option than winning in court. If Disney loses in court, it's objective is still realized by the bankruptcy of the defendant. If the defendant instead settles, they promise to censor their work irrespective of whether or not the work was infringing. If Disney wins, it gets to expand the scope of its intellectual property and bankrupt the defendant. Its a no-lose situation for Disney if the value of the defendant's property is equal to or greater than court costs.

Titan's not a planet, but it's fairly nearby (ie within the solar system), and has rain and mud. As long as you count liquid methane and ethane falling from the sky as rain, and tholin tar as mud.

My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it. -Abe Simpson

As far as I know, modern cars are designed to crumple, and smash externally in order to dissipate shock in an accident as much as possible.

For instance, if you have a very rigid-bodied vehicle and a crumply-bodied vehicle, you'll most likely experience more acceleration in an accident with the stiff bodied vehicle, as the crumply vehicle takes more time to come to a complete stop. Going from 60mph to 0mph in 100 milliseconds exerts ~27.34G on the occupant. If you can double the period of acceleration from 100 milliseconds to 200 milliseconds, you can half the G load to ~13.67G, which is much more survivable.

I don't know how much the crumple zones and pliability of the frame contribute exactly, but in life or death situations every little bit counts, as far as the highly risk averse public is concerned.

Oh, so it's just like Windows Server class at technical school?