Or maybe say this radio signal was bait/chum and we (or perhaps our planet) are the game in someone else's sport.

Apparently nobody has a clue about these so called FRBs, so nobody can prove us wrong ;^)

On the other hand it appears that these signals are pulse compressed a bit by some kind of intergalactic dispersive media (electron gas?) so if someone was actually looking for some thing in the intergalactic void, this is a pretty plausible analogy to deep seismic sounding the cosmos...

Actually, it may be like that... tuberculosis and pneumonia are quite capable in ravaging through our population if unchecked.

In the years right before the wide availability of antibiotics in the US (1930's), just these two bacterial infections were responsible about 20% of all deaths in the US (not including other bacterial infections). If you've seen someone suffering TB, perhaps it might be considered your weird snotty epidemic...

Also, those mushroom-based antibiotics aren't the ones of last resort. The nasty antibiotics with all the nasty side-effects are the modern ones (that are basically injectable pesticides that doctors often hold back as last resort). If we don't clean up our act we might be going back to something more akin to a pre-anti-biotic Victorian era with people dying of consumption (not some quaint 60's ampicillin pill-poping rehash).

Then there is Canadian Football which has two "50-yard" lines resulting in a 110 yard playing field + two 20 yard end zones being 150 yards.

This, of course, is a result of Canada being a metric nation ;^)

But when you say football field, many folks think of a 100-110m FIFA compliant field which is just about matches American football field + endzones which seems to make some sense. On the other hand, I don't have any idea what the Canadians were thinking, except that nobody is going to play their sport except in stadiums in Canada.

It isn't as easy to spot the "fakers" as you might imagine. Especially if you don't speak the same "language".

A personal example come to mind when I say this. A very good friend of mine has a very deep background in math and statistics, but from an economics background. My math and statistics background is mostly physics and control theory based. Over time we've worked with quite a few people and although I was quite able to tell people that were faking through the math when we talked an engineering language (e.g., ergodic process IIR filtering, numerical stability, etc.), but when we started talking about that same stuff from an econometric point of view (e.g., ARMAX modeling), constant translation between the two in my head made it much more difficult for me to tease out the subtle clues that trigger my BS meter...

Earlier in my dealings with my friend, I found my BS meter triggering all the time with his econometric spin on statistical modeling, but as I got to know him better, I realized my BS meter was just faulty. He knew the statistics stuff as well or better than me, but he was speaking a different language to describe the same mathematical concepts, and the papers he read had different set of seminal authors and the common data regularization procedures went by different names. I eventually took the time to learn his econometric vocabulary, but I can say I doubt I will ever be fluent in his way of talking about statistical mathematics. Having experienced this constant translation issue over time, I can say it really makes it hard to have an effective BS meter because you are constantly questioning if your own translation is accurate enough...

FWIW, I'm pretty sure have met a some real 1%-ers in my time at Caltech, and yes some of them are so out of my league that they could been BS-ing me and I still wouldn't know it. One of my classmates would sometimes look at our homework and then come up with some proof that applied some far out algebraic principle and later grin and say, well just kidding, I made that up I don't know if that proof is true, but doesn't it sounds right. Who knows if he was BS-ing or not, as he could talk circles around us in Algebraic-Category theory (and he also managed to learn how to juggle 20+ balls and ride around on a unicycle which was also way beyond me too). However, we never let him divide up the restaurant bills though as we never did fully trust his arithmetic abilities when it came to actual money ;^)

Actually, your response exemplifies the issue...

You mentioned that you met folks and felt you didn't measure up.
In my experience, many men in the same situation wouldn't factor in if they thought they measured up in their decision making.
If they wanted to get into that field and they thought they had some aptitude, they would simply adopt a fake it until they made it approach.

I think that is the part has to do with gender.

Not that it's totally of biological gender origin, but probably mostly gender social conditioning in our society (although there may be some statistical gender bias when it comes to risk taking or blind confidence that is inherent in the fake it until you make it approach to life).

As I've come to realize over time, there are quite a few people that appear to speak a language (say like math, or computer science) but sometimes are just faking their way through it with only a cursory understanding... Sadly, it's sometimes hard to distinguish between them in a general conversation (say like a 45 minute interview or in a social siutation)...

Actually, the option that I pick is that there are similarly "radical Christians".

E.g., the IRA, the LRA, the Nagaland rebels in India, Lebanese Christian Militia groups, the US based Christian Militia groups such as those involved for Ruby Ridge, and Waco, and even some lone-wolf radicalized persons such as the ones responsible for the 2011 Norway attacks on top of the the clichéd plethora of abortion bombers...

Just not finding them discussed by the daily talking head mass media makers dominated by Judeo-Christian populace doesn't mean they don't exist. Pretty much every other mass religion has a high enough quantity of deluded followers to cause potential substantial misrepresentation of a religion (even if the mainstream opinion media doesn't drill it into our collective talking points)...

Like many religions, over time they tend to branch and secularize and sometimes these sects evolve divergent and potentially violent belief that are not held by the majority of adherents. You many dismiss the studies of theologians as merely pandering to the extreme fringe that you see in the over-reported in the media but that itself is a dismissive and radical view. It gives too much weight to the media who appear sometimes to have inadvertently conspired with the media to hijacked the narrative... Okay maybe that was a bit tin-foil hat, but hopefully you get the point ;^)

I'm not sure you are entirely on logical footing here. Theologians are those that study the bible as a professional career, probably not a large overlapping set of folks to those that are Christian criminals (unless you think most theologians are criminals, or that most Christian criminals are christian theologians). When I claimed most theologians interpret these things, I meant those that study the bible as a professional career.

Again, as cited by the article you linked, you conveniently omitted the opinion of Muslim extremists on the internet qualifier, as if they were somehow representative of all Muslims or Muslim clerics.... Citation of statistically valid poll required please... (to paraphrase your rules).

I don't think you are understanding the origin of the Koran correctly if you use the word of "has made his". Mohammed was an illiterate prophet who allegedly received the word of god and communicated it to scribes which is recorded as the Koran. You can choose to believe what you wish, but I suspect many followers of Islam might use this slip up mischaracterization as a signal that you really have no idea what Islam is about or what the motivation of followers are.

BTW, I am not Islamic, or even religious in the slightest (now or in the past), but have studied the Bible quite in depth in the past (grandfather was a minister) and the Koran more recently just out of pure curiosity and contrast.

You are comparing the common practice of westernized Christians to that of radical Muslims.

FYI, the christian bible is somewhat ambiguous on the tenant of following secular law vs god's law. As I remember it, although much of the gospels deals with the idea you bring up about submission to the laws of man, in Acts 5, the apostles clearly state that "We must obey god rather than men." when confronted by authorities with illegally prothesizing their new Jesus worshiping religion. The take-way by most Christian theologians on this topic is that the bible says you should always honor the laws of man, but you must fear and obey God's word when it conflicts.

That kind of pulls the rug out from your so called saving grace depending on how you interpret God's word. If you think god is telling you to stone someone, you should "fear god" and obey, but if it's something simply described that someone else stoned for some specific reason in the bible and God didn't tell you to do it, well, perhaps you should honor to the laws of man (this is a paraphrase of Peter 2). Kind of a slippery slope for a radicalized religious type isn't it?

In case you aren't aware, the reason the Muslim and Christian (and Jewish) religions seem to be so close is that they hold several common old testament scriptures as canon. It is these old testament books that have the aformentioned description of religious law and punishments. The main difference of Christianity is the identification of the prophet of Jesus and how he may or may not be the embodiment of god (depending on how the Christian sect interpretation of the trinity, etc). The gospels which recount the early days of the christian church and the Revelations about the second coming and salvation are really the only "technical" differences in the basics of the religion. The details are really in the interpretation of the same texts and unsurprisingly track each other very closely (e.g., like halal and kosher foods, similar but not the same)...

FWIW, providing much of the information about institutions such as graduation rates, student debt, etc is already required by Title IV... Except for faculty pay and overhead.

Although that information might be interesting for a typical community college, that information is likely silly for a typical private prestigious research universities. Basically private universities charge whatever they want and don't even bother computing the fraction of pay for "teaching " for hot-shot faculty members (who are basically hired as research grant rain makers), but still teach as part of department rotations (or even for "fun"). Also splitting the administrative costs for research and teaching at these types of institutions would be difficult at best. List price tuition at these types universities are basically funny money. Nearly every student pays a different amount due to private grants given to gross up loans and required parental contribution to the full tuition amount.

For most prestigious private schools, I suspect if they were required to do this crap, they would simply opt-out of the loan programs and finance loans through their endowments. This wouldn't impact their application rates, nor the tuitions they charge at all, it would likely only punish middle class students (who rely the most on these programs). The ~$5000/year cap on most of these programs is a drop in the bucket for the institution, but a big deal for the middle class family trying to put their kids through these types of schools. Once free of federal direct loans, all your other proposed requirements would then be moot for those institutions.

As for your loan repayment suggestions, I suspect you already realize this means it isn't a loan you are getting (with someone fronting the money and expecting to get paid back with enough interest to make it worth the risk). This would make it basically more like an entitlement program (like social security or medicare or unemployment insurance, or worker's comp) which needs to be funded somehow by a combination of fees (getting payments from those that can "afford to pay back") and taxing others to make up the difference. Not that this is wrong, but you should call a spade a spade. It is no longer a student loan, but a progressive tax you pay for taking advantage of a reduced cost education.

Leviticus 24:16

And he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the LORD, shall be put to death.

Although you can probably label every born on earth as ignorant to make any case, I suspect all such behavior by religious "moderates" (including Christians) is simply explained away by suppression of cognitive dissonance.

For example, the GPL (in abstract) vs GPL v3, vs what they do in their day job for their employer. Some people will happily work for a company that chooses to for a MIT/BSD license (or perhaps closed-source license), yet privately support a more radical GPL v3 position and occasionally hope for a more radical change. In fact over time, their radical views might mellow and reject GPL embrace a more moderate MIT/BSD philosophy yet still promote the GPL out of fear of persecution by their comrades.

There's no need to call these people out as being "ignorant, in denial or just lying -- either out of fear of persecution or to advance their cause". It's simply a common behavior hedge in a social environment. We are all ignorant, in denial and often lie to our selves or other people and fear persecution and privately root for things that advance our causes which generally causes cognitive dissonance. It's just a matter of degree and how much we are able to suppress the discomfort associated with it.

I think you are confused. Actually, filming a real bank robbery (even if you film it yourself) is perfectly fine. The mere act of filming your action (e.g., the bank robbery) does not make the crime legal, however. I doubt that such a film can even be excluded as evidence against you by self incrimination since the camera is not you (although it may be more difficult to establish a chain of custody). People get caught on "tape" by their own security cameras all the time and that is not problem as far as I know.

For the most part, there is no laws in the US to control what people should make movies about. The only filming that appears to be out of bounds today from a legal point of view is child pornography and sadly the laws against this do not stop it either...

FWIW, it appears from the paper that this extra "mass" is an artifact of analyzing entangled particles in a linearized gravity framework and observing a stress-energy tensor term that seems to appear higher for entangled particles and radiated away as particles move to decoherence. This perhaps might be considered the mass of the entanglement.

On the other hand, wouldn't it be cool if the reason for the observed equivalency of gravitational mass and inertial mass was somehow related to quantum entanglement? (yes I know this is unrelated to this phenomena, but still)...

Although I only have access to public information, AFAIK, it isn't Apple that invested in Corning, actually it is Samsung that invested in Corning (~7.4% stake which makes Samsung the largest single shareholder of Corning).

Although in the past, Apple had made an investment in Samsung Semiconductor to ensure flat panel technology availability, I believe they no longer use Samsung flatpanels nor hold that investment.

For their semiconductors, their relationship appears to be a foundry deal only. Samsung has made investments themselves on fab capacity based on being an Apple supplier. Of course as industry practice, Apple likely makes component pre-payments based on forecast demand on a discount basis (which gives Samsung funds to finance it), but that's not the same as an equity investment.

On the other hand, Apple apparently has invested a few billion in Sharp as their new flat panel supplier. There is also a rumored multi-billion dollar Foxconn investment (for expanding iphone production capacity), but I can find no public evidence of a Corning investment.

That's not to say that Apple and Corning don't collaborate very closely on gorilla glass production, but there doesn't appear to be this billion dollar investment in Corning that you are referring to.

Apple didn't spend their own money on production of their "special" glass (it is purchased gorilla glass 4 from Dow Corning)...
On that whole GT advanced technologies sapphilre disaster, they attempted to purchase their own production labs (and lease them back to GT for production), but apparently that ain't gonna happen now...

Actually Nvidia, Apple, AMD, Qualcomm and Xilinx are major customers of TSMC's advanced processes and all are subject to the whims of the supply and demand for wafers at TSMC. It's just that Apple is a bigger and newer customer and generally customers in that position get preferential treatment to win their business. FWIW, at a capital cost of about $2B, I don't think Nvidia and AMD are going to get back into the fab biz any time soon. Then their is the whole poly silicon suppliers and wafer suppliers and Applied Materials steppers, etc, etc... Companies are all highly independent on specialized suppliers. This is not unsual in this business (or any other modern enterprise). Very few companies are totally vertically integrated these days...