20TB of music and movies? How many of those could be downloaded again tomorrow? My guess is "most." The only thing that's really "mine" on my computers, and not backed up, is my own pictures. I upload those to image sharing sites on the internet. Most docs are done on Google Docs for portability reasons, and other things I've created are already on Dropbox.

I experienced a catastrophic hard drive failure a year or so ago. After replacing the hard drive, and about one day of downloading and installing the programs I needed, I was up and running again. It took 24 hours to download enough of the series that I was watching to pick up where I left off again. And if I ever get a hankering for watching something I've seen before, well, I can get it from the internet again in a matter of hours or days.

"Your car requires a mandatory update. This update will take 1h 16m, and must be installed within 7 days. Please click "OK" to install this update now. Click "DELAY" to defer the update to a later time. Note that after 7 days, the update will install automatically, with no further opportunities for you to delay it."

Would you guys contest that "light is transmitted by fluctuations in the ether" is a scientific theory? It was believed by many scientists, and for a long time. The answer to the question posed in the survey depends not just on the definition of "astrology," but also on the definition of "scientific."

One of the things that I keep parroting to the creationist crowd is that a scientific theory must explain past events, and predict future events in a way that is testable. Nothing in here says that it has to be true. In fact, many theories that we now use are expressly not true at certain limits. Nope - explanation of past events, and prediction of future events in a testable manner. Those are the qualifications.

So let's apply this to astrology. Does it explain past events? Well, it certainly tries to. Does it predict future events? Check. Does it predict future events in a manner that is testable and falsifiable? I think that a controlled experiment would certainly do so. The controlled experiment would fail, and that would prove the theory of astrology false, but that doesn't make it "not a scientific theory."

Given that logic, I'd have to answer "sort of scientific" to this question. But if I were asked "do you believe that the position of stars and planets govern our day to day lives," that would get a resounding "no."

I don't understand this kind of argument. What would have happened when automobiles were first invented if someone said:

Show me a car that can reproduce by itself, and only needs to be fuelled with grass that I grow on my own fields for free, and then maybe we'll talk.

An electric car does not need to match all of the performance specifications of a gasoline-powered car. All it has to do is meet the needs of the consumers. And if you sat down and thought about it, you probably don't _need_ the things you listed. Those are specifications derived from your actual requirements, under the assumption that a car is gasoline-powered.

For two things only:

-E opens up the file browser (aka windows explorer)
-R opens up the "run" dialog box, so I can launch calc, or cmd, or mspaint (useful when snapping and cropping screenshots) without navigating through six layers of menus

Abiogenesis is the proper term for the beginnings of life. The scientific theory of evolution does not apply there at all. Abiogenesis is a completely different field of study than evolution.

As far a species to species evolution (what I would call "speciation", rather than "macro-evolution") _has_ been observed in laboratory conditions and in the field. And even more than that, the scientific theory of evolution predicts that it would happen.

What's that, you say? A scientific theory made a prediction, and that prediction was found to be true? Damn.

And not only does the theory of evolution make predictions about future speciation events, it makes predictions about those that happened in the past as well. There has not been a single case of transitional fossils found that contradicts the theory of evolution.

Please take your tired, ad-hominem rhetoric home.

Scientific Theory: Something that describes the current state of the world in a way that makes testable predictions about the future. Useful in furthering our knowledge. Should be taught in science classes.

Colloquial "Theory": Any explanation that potentially describes the current state of the world. Not testable. Makes no predictions about the future. Potentially useful in exploring moral or ethical quandaries. Should be taught in philosophy classes.

Please learn the difference. Teach creationism if you want, I don't give a rat's ass. But don't teach it in a science classroom. It is not science. It never will be science.

That's what he concludes at the bottom of the article. He starts the article by saying that standard deviation should only be used by physicists, mathematicians, and mathematical statisticians. If I'm not mistaken, "physics" and "math" covers a whole lot of different fields, including most of the STEM fields that (largely) define the users of this site.

I know in my particular field (physics based), standard deviation is a hell of a lot more useful than mean average deviation. And easier to use.

Bah. I call poor summary.

The Ampere was only chosen as an SI fundamental unit because it was easier to measure than a Coulomb. To me, an Ampere will always be 1 Coulomb per second.

And since the electric charge is 1.602E-19 Coulombs, we can just invert that number to find the number of electric charges (ie, electrons) in a Coulomb.

Trick question! Any country claiming to be superior by being humble is demonstrating their non-humbleness.

How tall are his prints, though? The only thing that the resolution of the camera contributes to is the height. The width of his prints is determined by the number of time-slices that he assembles together into a single image.

He could make a 16 foot wide print by recording for twice as long.

Really, this guy didn't need a "slit-scan" camera. Any linescan camera would work. They're not rare. They're used everywhere for industrial inspection. You can find them on eBay for under a hundred dollars. Yes, you'll need to put a lens on it as well, but most are compatible with normal camera lenses. You'll just need a mount adapter.

Heck, you could even do this in post-processing using a normal 2-D camera that's capturing a movie. Just snag a single column from successive frames and stack them into a single picture. Sure, your frame rate will be limited, but it's technically feasible, especially if the 2-D sensors allow for windowing to increase frame rate.

With the cut-offs in my HID projectors, 100% of my light emission is at or below the bumper level of a car in front of me.

Wow. So tell me, how do you see roadsigns?

Psh. I stole the TARDIS. What makes you think I would bother having a license to fly it?

Bitcoin is an _alternative_ to fiat currencies? Citation needed, mostly because I can't believe anyone would be that delusional.