On that note: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/w...

This is extremely and wildly not true. The most basic part of doing literature review is following original sources and everyone I know does this. You have to, because reviewers pick this stuff up. Even when I couldn't find a pdf or physical copy of an original source, I'd still cite it. Also, you're fooling yourself if you think that just because something was done 30 years ago, there's no point in citing more recent sources. A lot of more recent work is nothing more than just repeating old ideas but with slight modifications that nevertheless reveal new insights. Finally, when writing a paper, there is no need to cite everything that has been done right back to ancient Greece. The audience of a scientific paper is assumed to be the scientific community which is already familiar with the body of work.

> and the history of humanity seems to suggest that effective weapons, once developed, will eventually be used.

Yes and fact is, a lot of international policy is currently based around the assumption that nukes are no deterrent to direct confrontation. The US/Israel reaction to N Korea and Iran's nuclear program, for instance. Or the very real threat of nuclear terrorism via stolen warheads. MAD isn't a principle that applies here.

Nuclear weapons are more relevant than ever and even though Russia may not want to use them, there are a lot of people who do.

We've had nukes for about 70 years, and over half of this time period was spent with world leader's fingers trembling nervously over the launch buttons. The past 30 years have seemed relatively peaceful but is it because of nukes or general worldwide economic progress? Supposing a causal relationship between nukes and peace seems bordering on magical thinking.

They only cause hearing damage at high volume levels. A lot of earbuds have good bass reproduction. It's true, though, that they aren't sanitary and that they can irritate the ear and cause earwax buildup/blockage (the reason I don't use them).

It's important to define a common vocabulary in science, because the less ambiguity you have in communicating your intent, the better.

If you think this is just something that's done in astronomy, you're incredibly wrong. Mathematicians and physicists and all other types of scientists put in a lot of effort in naming and standardization. It's important.

I agree that it's a *bit* rare to change terms that are already in wide use. But in this case they had to. Their hand was forced because of all the new KBOs that were found.

I'm just going to concentrate on your last point as all the rest have been taken care of by Your.Master.

> This sounds a bit lame as justifications go... lose efficiency? Since when are scientists in the business of conserving syllables? In astronomy especially they seem to be preoccupied with naming things after _all_ the principals who discovered them.

It's not just scientists, it's human beings. Language evolves towards better efficiency. That's why the word for 'house' isn't supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, and you use the word 'me' to refer to yourself, not 'pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis' (that's an actual word).

There is such a tight relationship between how often a word is used and how long it is, that you can actually use that as a metric for discriminating natural and non-natural languages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z...

Even in science, over time people tend to abbreviate and contract words. In scientific writing, you don't write "The force is 11 Newtons", you write "The force is 11 N", or just "f = 11 N" and most other scientists know what you mean even if you don't explain those symbols.

Holy balls, how many times have we had this conversation? Will you people ever give it a rest?

First of all, the IAU's definition is for technical and scientific discussions/communications. If you want to call Pluto a planet on your blog or whatever, go fucking wild. The IAU neither has the power (nor the desire!) to dictate language for all human beings for all time.

Now about technical language. The purpose of technical language is to provide a common agreed-upon vocabulary that is consistent, precise, and efficient. If you named everything a planet, you'd lose precision. People would inevitable invent a new set of categories for the eight 'big' planets and the other 'smaller' planets. Some people's new terms would conflict with other people's terms. It would be a mess.

On the other hand, if you named the 'big' planets anything other than 'planet', it would lose efficiency. They are the planets that are talked about most often, so it makes sense to give them a short, concise name.

Yes, the IAU's definition of planet WAS DESIGNED explicitly so that the eight 'main' planets would be the ONLY ones in our solar system called planets. There are very good reasons for this and the IAU did its job quite well in this regard.

Pick up a book on beekeeping. If you want 'free honey for the rest of your life', prepare for a lot of going out and finding bee swarms (no, bees don't magically enter beehives and no, bee colonies don't have unlimited lifespan).

3 is fair point. As for 2, you don't take all the honey but you do extract all the honey from a comb once you've extracted it. As for 4, I don't see that working as the basis for a continuously-operating system.

1. You can already get local honey most places in the world where it's possible at all to make honey. And you can get several year's worth for $600 (probably longer than this device will last).

2. Facepalm. No, fluids don't always run downhill. They especially don't run downhill when they have to overcome pressure. Which they do here.

3. Yes, bees do occasionally uncap honey cells and add more honey... but I can't see that as a basis for a continuous working system, not the way that it's being advertised here.

Bullshit on everything but 1.

1. As I said, way too expensive.
2. Nope, that's literally impossible and is false advertising. Now I *know* they are full of shit. Even if honey weren't viscous, that would still be impossible, even with free-running water.
3. Again, bullshit.
4. Are you telling me the bees *uncap* a *capped* honey cell, take off the cap, and refill it?

Aside from not being good for the bees, there are a bunch of other problems I can think of, even assuming the whole thing isn't another crowdfunding scam (a la hoverboards and solar roadways) and works as advertised.

1. The system can't be cheap.

2. There's no way it can drain all the honey from the hive. I'd be extremely surprised if it got even 50%. Most of the honey is going to remain in the comb and stick to the tubes. There's no way you could flush that out without ruining the honey.

3. Commercial honey extraction involves multiple centrifuging and filtering steps to get a nice clear consistency. Crystal-clear honey on tap sounds dubious.

4. What happens to the hive after extraction? Bees produce honey cells and cap them with wax. This system apparently drains the honey from behind, without uncapping. Great, but then you're left with a bunch of half-full combs that the bees won't touch again. Seems like you'd have to remove the combs from the hive and uncap 'the old-fashioned way' anyway if you want the bees to keep producing.

I can't imagine this system being useful for anything other than small-scale, one-off, hobbyist honey production. And, again, that's assuming it works as advertised.

TTL? What is this, 1969?

Again, it's not the 'C' bit that needs to be reconsidered. It's the 'MOS' bit.

> After reading an account of doctors fighting to save the life of a child who was given a *teaspoon* of milk - in a controlled hospital setting - I have a new appreciation for the fear these parents have.

There is a world of difference between giving someone with milk allergy milk and getting some peanut dust or butter on someone's skin. Namely, the latter could cause you to die, but the former won't do anything except in incredibly rare circumstances.

Not all allergies are the same. Not all methods of exposure are the same. The refusal of the allergy nuts (see what I did there?) to acknowledge this fact is why they should be ignored.

And I'm sorry that you're unable to realize that protesting the rules isn't always anti-social. Sometimes it's pro-social and anti-idiocy.