Heheh... case in point ;) Not an easy one though. Sometimes I guess analogies don't cut it. Not even car ones.

It's 8.3 million.

The Universe still has an ambient temperature of around 3K I believe. Because of this, no black holes anywhere are actually shrinking, as their temperature is much, much lower than 3K. The ambient temperature of the Universe will not be low enough for black holes to evaporate for a very very long time. I believe we're talking something like ten to the fifty years or more. Also because of this we wouldn't detect hawking radiation because the signal will be utterly swamped by other sources.

Never understood all the fracas about cold fusion when we have perfectly functional overbalanced wheels to fulfill all our energy needs well into the far flung future.

If we simulate the brain we could create AI without knowing how it works. So understanding it is not necessarily a pre-requisite to making it.

Congratulations, you're incapable of nuanced thought.

Think of all the getaway drivers they've assisted. Christ.

This amused me. Thank you kindly. ;)

Yep. If you don't find it interesting scroll past and don't post. Pretty simple eh. ;)

If a photon had rest mass, it would not travel at c (the speed of light). Neutrinos have a very small rest mass and travel close to c. If you research it, you'll find it is not semantics. These are technical terms with widely-accepted definitions.

Photons have zero rest mass.

You certainly kan..!

Just to clarify, are we talking about the article entitled "Senate Republicans block USA Freedom Act surveillance reform bill"?

While I hope my cynicism is misplaced, I personally don't think they give a fuck about security. If they did, they'd do the math and realise there are higher priorities in terms of preventable deaths. What they give a fuck about is power. Specifically, getting it, keeping it, and increasing its scope.

You don't see how mass Internet and telephony surveillance is relevant news if you're a nerd? You don't see any relevance with respect to the NSA weakening encryption algorithms and putting backdoors in network gear, and hoarding zero-days?