How do you function without knowing the meaning of common words?

altruism (n): the principle or practice of unselfish concern for or devotion to the welfare of others

One can be altruistic, and still gain wealth. You may be claiming that he is only funding Gates foundation as this is the best means of producing more wealth, but that would take a severe misunderstanding of investing & economics.

Oh, and still waiting on that evidence that gates's foundation is suppressing local farming....

Un bon mot ne prouve rien.

Neither do anecdotes.

Of course, you both realize, that it could be both

There may be few women in IT because:
a) the female brain is wired differently than the male
AND
b) the women who are interested, are mocked, ostracized, and outcast

However, I don't believe we should be bending over backwards to ensure the percentages of any group in any field. We should be ensuring that all people have the same opportunities and same encouragement in all fields.

i.e. Vigorously stamp down on (b). Ignore (a). Don't care about the numbers.

Or you could, you know, explain to the client why it's the wrong thing to build, with relevant data to support your argument. And be open to the possibility that (gasp!) you may be wrong, and it is in fact the right thing to build.

But it's much easier for many developers to go stick their head in the sand, madly code a project they know is doomed, then whine to slashdot about their pointy-haired bosses when things don't work out.

However, to get back on topic....yes, it was Oracle's fault. As the sole overseer of the project, if the specs were incomplete, they should have told the client that. If the specs were inconsistent, they should have told the client.

There is no excuse for building software that doesn't work

But do they have to collect tax from a 3rd party company that is, itself, also outsode New York, just because some completely separate partner is in New York?

That would be wrong.

No...they are not required to collect tax from 3rd party companies. They are required to collect tax from customers.

The 3rd party "substantial nexus" argument is that Amazon does enough business with 3rd party companies in New York to be considered to have a presence in New York.

Look at it this way: If I go to a New York store and order some widget, and they tell me "Oh, we don't currently have it in stock, but we can ship it in from our warehouse in California", then I pay New York state tax.

Amazon is claiming that if I go to their website and order some widget, and they ship it from their warehouse in California, then I shouldn't have to pay state tax.

I fail to see the difference.

I'm sorry but there's no difference between livestock (chicken, cows, horses, etc...) and experiment sujects (mice, chimps, dogs, etc...)

I agree. Free them all. There's no reason for an advanced, "civilized" human society to treat living, sentient* creatures as products to consume.

I disagree. Eat them all.

Wolves eat deer. Lions eat zebras. Homo sapiens eats everything.

Why would we hold ourselves to an objectively different standard than every other carnivore/omnivore on the planet?

How do you do a double-blind study on screens?

You could (sort of) do it by masking the true test.

We're doing a study on eye strain as related to age. Please read these instructions (either screen based or paper instructions), and complete the attached (paper) quiz.

The participant believes the quiz is designed to evoke the eye strain, whereas it's just masking the true test - the instructions.

There are probably better ways to do this, it's the first idea I thought of....

No.
What this theory says is that no matter how far up you look on the number scale, you can always find a pair of larger primes that are separated by less than 600.
i.e. for any number X you always find primes larger than X that are closer than 600 from each other

In the opposite direction (what is the maximum gap between primes), the gap increases without bound.
i.e
For any number X you can always find closest primes that are more than X apart.

Here's a proof:
Take any number N
N! = (N) x (N-1) x (N-2) x...x (3) x (2) x(1) (i.e. N times itself minus 1 times itself minus 2, etc....the factorial of N)
N! is not prime...it is divisible by all numbers from 1 to N by definition.
N!+2 is not prime...it's divisible by 2 (remember N is divisible by 2 and 2 is divisible by 2)
N!+3 is not prime...it's divisible by 3
.
.
.
N!+N is not prime...it's divisible by N.

That means none of the numbers between N!+2 and N!+N are prime, so we have a gap of at least N-2.

This is true for ANY number N, so we can always find a gap as large as we want.

That is, basically, the theory, yes

No, that's not the theory at all. The theory does not say there is always a prime within 600 of another (that's simply not true).

The theory says for any number X, there is a pair of primes larger than X within 600 of each other. That pair may be 2 larger than X, 12 larger than X, or 21,515,359 larger than X.

Everything else you said is pretty much spot on though.

No, that's not the theory at all....

The theory is that no matter how high you look, you can always find 2 prime numbers within 600 of each other.

i.e. For any number X, there exists a pair of prime numbers Y, Z where Z>X and Y>X and Z-Y600

It's entirely possible that having found Y,Z, there are no other primes anywhere near those two.

Flunked math didn't you? As a mathematician I won't even respond to your 'points' since you are posting gibberish.

Flunked kindergarten, didn't you? You know, the part about working and playing well with others.

As a person, I won't even respond to your "points" since:
a) You don't appear to have one
and
b) You're an asshole.

Please, stay off the interwebs. We're all full up on jerks here.

169 million standard cubic meters of Helium are produced a year

No. 169 million standard cubic meters of Helium are extracted per year.

Helium is not produced.

What is a *shielded* faraday cage? I thought faraday cage was *the shield* :-)

A shielded faraday cage is obviously a faraday cage inside a faraday cage.

A strongly shielded faraday cage is a faraday cage inside a strongly shielded faraday cage.

Turtles.

As a contrast, homicide rates have sky-rocketed in Sweden since the mid '70ies due to an extremely liberal immigration policy introduced back in 1975.

Strange, cause when I look at the firearm-related homicides for the two countries, I see over double the number of homicides per 100,000 people in Switzerland vs. Sweden.

Yes, Sweden has a slightly higher overall homicide rate (1.0 vs. 0.7 per 100,000), but it would be quite the stretch to deduce that this has anything to do with gun control.

It's amusing to me that you think outspending on health is bad and that outspending on education is good.

Given that the USA outspends Sweden on health, but the life expectancy is lower, the outspending by USA is a bad thing.

Given that Swedish adults outperform American adults on standardized tests, the outspending by Sweden on education appears justified.