Wait, if he's not up for re-election... could that mean he's genuinely interested in engaging younger audiences?

The implications boggle the mind!
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This is why I've been pushing to argue in favor of reducing fossil fuel use not from an environmental point of view, but from an economic one. People can bury their heads in the sand when it comes to science, but people always listen when money is involved.

Even though the US imports about a third of our petroleum, that's still equivalent to hundreds of billions of dollars per year leaving our economy. If we transition to renewable energies, that money stays around a bit longer.

Renewable energies might have a larger up-front capital cost (but not by much, and it's getting better every day), but the long term costs are overwhelmingly favorable.

With the current crash in oil prices it should be clear that our economy is in the hands of foreign interests. We are hostages to international petroleum markets. Let's develop domestic sources to free ourselves from foreign influence. Remember: There's no reason why oil couldn't have been this cheap all along, and the price only went down right when we were posed to start reducing imports in favor of domestic natural gas production. We're being played!

(Oh, and if we happen to mitigate the environmental damage we're doing in the process and avoid global catastrophe, I guess that'll be a bonus...)
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...to "Yahoo!". Easy to change back, though. :)

modem connection sounds
horse and buggy sounds
cranking noises of hand-started cars
records skipping
tv channel 'end of broadcast day' message
ticker tape machine
pagers
mechanical cash register sounds
mimeograph machines

But we're talking about the here and now, and here's the difference: someone like Eric Robert Rudolf kills in the name of Christianity, is summarily denounced by 99% of Christians, and is hunted, caught, and convicted - largely by Christians. Something like what happened today happens, and some fraction of Muslims cheer it on, a large chunk of Muslims say nothing about it (split between quietly agreeing and approval of what happened and people fearing for their own life should they speak out against it), and a tiny fraction that speak out against it... and placating denoucnements like "we denounce the killing of innocents." Of course, to radical Muslims, non-Muslims are not "innocent."

I'm not particularly religious myself, and I find a lot of preachy Christians pretty damn annoying, and they have little problem trying to control how I live my life... but at least I'm not in fear for it.

Well, no. The Shuttle's SRBs were a lot more than just a tube full of explosives.

They had thrust vector control; hydraulic power units, gimbal nozzles, control hardware. Electrical subsystems. Self contained navigation hardware. Range safety hardware. And of course everything was triple or quadruple redundant for reliability.
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The Shuttle's SRBs were reusable, and they reused them (or at least parts of them) pretty much every launch.

The big orange liquid fuel tank was not reused, though.
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I think you're misconstruing what is actually meant when physicists talk about the universe possibly being a hologram.

They don't mean the contemporary "Star Trek Holodeck" type of hologram. They mean that all of the information about the 3D volume of the universe can be contained and encoded within a 2D boundary.

This is not a mathematically rigorous concept of the universe, but if they can nail it down it might have some application in explaining how gravity works and the ultimate granularity of the universe (e.g. how small the smallest possible fundamental particles can be). But in no sense would this prove, or even really be evidence supporting, the notion that our universe is a simulation within some "larger reality."
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Several of the Roadster's limitations (and I suspect aerodynamics falls into this category) resulted from the design process, which was basically starting with a Lotus Elise and then modifying, and modifying, and modifying... It imposed a lot of constraints, and Elon Musk later admitted it was a mistake not to design a new vehicle from a blank sheet of paper.

It's so hard to keep those C64s running these days!

No, it doesn't. The mall could have been attacked at any time with no announcement at all. The only difference is now you know somebody out there has an axe to grind.

Knowing the odds does not change the odds.

In fact, I'd argue that you might actually have a slightly LOWER chance of being killed or injured if the the intent to attack is announced. They could be bluffing. Increased security could ward off or apprehend the attackers. Law enforcement might be able to intervene and prevent the attack.

The most realistic outcome of this scenario? The mall would be closed and your appointment canceled... but assuming for the sake of argument that doesn't happen, you might as well go because your odds are certainly no worse than at any other time.
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