I do not really get this line of reasoning.
I cannot recite the list of mammals or higher primates. My unability to do so has no influence on the definition of these orders.

You seem to have missed this peculiar characteristic of the 2006 definition of a dwarf planet: it is not a category of planets. Have a look here:

The IAU members gathered at the 2006 General Assembly agreed that a "planet" is defined as a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.

This means that the Solar System consists of eight "planets" Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. A new distinct class of objects called "dwarf planets" was also decided. It was agreed that "planets" and "dwarf planets" are two distinct classes of objects. The first members of the "dwarf planet" category are Ceres, Pluto and 2003 UB313 (temporary name). More "dwarf planets" are expected to be announced by the IAU in the coming months and years. Currently a dozen candidate "dwarf planets" are listed on IAU's "dwarf planet" watchlist, which keeps changing as new objects are found and the physics of the existing candidates becomes better known.

So this definition actually enrages three kinds of people:
- People who think Pluto should be classified as a planet for historical reasons.
- People who think Pluto should be classified as a planet, precisely because as you said, they are many categories of planets which are quite different (terrestrials, gas giants...).
- People who think it is gramatically incorrect for "dwarf planets" not to be "planets".

Yes, it's about the same for me. I see it predominantly gold and white. However, I can see it black and blue if I first look at this white and gold dress, and then I scroll the image from the bottom. I guess it's because most of the orange illumination "hints" are in the lower part of the image.

Wait until they get Treasure Adventure for the Wii. It basically makes the sound you hear when you are about to get trampled by a herd of elephants. :D

Oh by the way, I an atmospheric scientist and I work with computer models every day. I have serious doubts about how well we can simulate the future climate of earth in 10 years, let alone 100 years into the future. We just recently began incorporating micro-biology into the climate models. They are very crude and in my opinion, it's these very organisms that over the long term, will play an ultimate role in the carbon/oxygen balance. Until we have these features much better modeled, we cannot say with any sort of certainty what the earth's temperature will look like in the long term. At this point, there is still a lot of variability in the outcome, by make very minute changes to the model initial assumptions.

Yes, of course. The current models point to a strong global warming. They might very well be wrong.
The matter at hand is actually quite simple. Knowing that the current models predict a salient danger, would you rather:
- Act now to reduce carbon emissions, given corrective actions are very expensive and might turn out to be useless at the end ?
- Wait for more information before acting, knowing that delaying the corrective actions might have very nefarious results in the end ?
The choice is not straightforward. If it was, there wouldn't be such a debate.

What is the purpose of signing the card when I already signed a paper saying that I agreed to the terms and conditions in order to get the card ?

They do not authenticate.
The point is that you usually know when your phone is compromised, because you do not have it anymore.
Meanwhile, you usually do not know when your password is compromised.

Using "literally" in that way is just a very common hyperbole. It is not a new usage, and I doubt advertising or marketing have anything to do with it...
It is just like people saying they have a ton of work to do.

I think the point of the poster was that the car could accelerate hard with near silence.

You just have to mandate a decreasing amount of noise over the years, so that you will eventually get silence, and so that people will have enough time to get used to silent cars. As you do for almost every transition.

Personally, I would rather rent a car than have the train haul the mass of the car around. For an energy saving point of view, this does not make a lot of sense. However, the convenience does attract people, as about half of the chunnel passengers are transported in a car shuttle.

I do not remember any local hero saving the day during the latest shootouts in the US.
Besides, you might want to gather more information on the police response before talking too much.

I would also like to know if there is really a "widespread use" of polygraphs. I understood they were almost exclusively used in the US, and that most other countries actually forbade its use as evidence in courts - which would make the use of polygraph a local idiosyncracy rather than a widespread practice.

You read technical articles and code listing at bedtime ?
In that case i'm not sure that this study really applies to you. The studied case is reading books within one hour to bedtime, for which refresh time or color do not matter at all.

The Uber paying service will be banned starting from January the 1st, according to the French governement.