LaWS is rather unique. Its just a proof of concept test to see if what they will encounter when they put a laser weapon on a ship operationally. This is a step past what they are doing with the X-47b. However, there are no 'X Planes' for lasers, really. LaWS ought to be viewed from that POV. OTOH, HELLADS is a step or two (or more) further along the technology curve than LaWS. Under current Pentagon procurement law, we'll have a laser weapon for ships and/or aircraft by 2020. If we didn't have to go through the insanity of that system, we could have one in a couple years. 2nd, I used to work at HELSTF. I regularly watched pundits claim things we did /that/ day were impossible with the current technology or that there was an easy counter to what we'd done (as if we hadn't tested that first). Talking heads, even ones which have some background in a subject, ought to be taken with a grain of salt. In fact, the BoAS has an axe to grind. Opposition to SDI-like weapons is historical at this point and ought to be taken in that light. Likewise, anything put out there by a defense contractor ought to be taken with an equally large grain of salt, especially one of the beltway bandits.

Disdain? The Internet as a whole has been applauding and attempting to follow, where it can.

How much longer will the community itself keep going on with the same memes? There's a lot more to Fark than memes.

I'm so sorry to hear that seeing 3 ads on a page hurts your brain so much, that you turn into a giant raging spewmachine.

And even then, all you can do is throw models at it and strategies to attempt to use on those models.

jquery makes an absolute mess out of javascript. Much of it involves DOM manipulation, which is something you generally want to avoid doing as much as possible. It's a pain in the ass to read, has a nasty learning curve, and it's slow as fk. Don't bother, unless you need to operate on existing jquery code, or have some other very specific reason to use it or interact with code that uses it.

... this shows how little you understand of poker. Primarily, that poker is a game played between people, and it does not involve the house. The house makes some money for providing the service of dealing the cards, but it is not involved in the game of poker.

Just playing the odds is an extremely exploitable strategy.

Heads-up or even 4-handed, you're going to clear 100 hands an hour on a single table.

I paid attention pretty thoroughly to offline poker, from '02 to about '10... and I've only ever heard of him as a guy that writes articles for Bluff. He's certainly not a name anyone I know would say is #1, when there's players out there who churn through (lose-win) more than this guy has made in his entire life, on a weekly basis.

No -- There is an absolute best way to win in chess, from every possible position, and it can be calculated. The human opponent can only screw it up for themselves. (yes, I am aware that the 100% absolutely perfect chess program has not yet been written, that will win when given a time limit, but given unlimited time, a computer will always win at chess. The only reason computers have not already done this is because of time limits. It's the same reason all casinos have betting limits -- in a game with near 50-50 odds such as perfectly played Blackjack, you can do Martingale betting, and never lose .. if you have unlimited funds. The moment you hit the betting limit and lose a hand, you are now losing, and not recovering)

In poker, particularly in No Limit Hold'em, you are typically up against up to 9 other opponents. The only way TO win is to figure out how to play each player individually, and adjust strategy based on that. (or figure out one really bad player and capitalize :-) ) If you play entirely on the odds, a good player will capitalize on that, and make it only possible for the computer to win if given a literally unlimited amount of time and money.

yup. I'm afraid the blackhole made by LHC ate your QP doll though. Sorry.

nah. Alpha Centauri A tried to shoot the eye out of Alpha Centauri.

From that POV, our existence is about one second in. at the most.

If you mean 'just started' to mean 'for 20+ years now,' sure. The nomenclature for stars has been around for far, far longer. Exoplanets are given their b-c-d-e etc designation - never a, btw - in the order of discovery, not the order in the planetary system as well. Its not a clusterfuck. Its just a different discipline's rules and they've been consistent for a generation at least.

An exoplanet should NOT be HD189733B. A capital B would denote a star. A lower case b denotes a planet. And, yes, you can have a HD XXXXBb. Alpha Centauri Bb is one of those. Its an S type circumbinary system. For those who are interested, I have a blog which links to the exoplanet papers are they come out, whether its from arxiv or one of the scientific journals.