"Monoblock" or "the primordial monoblock" is a term for the presumed state of the presumed material comprising the presumed universe just before it presumably exploded. Everything, no exceptions, including space itself, all in one tiny... something, (tiny with respect to... something), that did.... something, and then [waves hands] Big Bang! Try this google search.

Science can trace the expansion of the universe backwards quite a ways, within the bounds of our understanding of physics as it stands and it makes sense, albeit some very strange and difficult to swallow sense. But go back far enough, and a point is reached where our physics simply do not serve to describe the previous state. At all.

I liken it to tracing a pitched ball backwards, not having been around to witness the pitch, but analyzing the arc of its trajectory and theorizing that the ball erupted spontaneously from the ground in order to arrive where it is. We can't account for such a spontaneous emission, but after all, hey, there's the ball, right? The immediate and obvious objection is that "but physics tells us that can't happen"... well, physics tells us the exact same thing about the big bang. That's why I consider the comparison apt.

I'm not saying the big bang theory is wrong; I'm just saying it is definitely unproven, and that there are severe and fundamental problems with attempts to prove it at this time. Tomorrow, we have new physics, and that may resolve everything very nicely. But until or unless that happens -- until someone shows how the "ball could erupt from the dirt, spontaneously or otherwise" -- personally, I'm reserving BB theory acceptance.

Six more weeks of winter? Brrr.

Or perhaps, like the lack of compliance with known physics of the purported monoblock, this is another indicator that the big bang theory is simply wrong.

Just perhaps.

Budget cutbacks.

In careful consideration of this, and in light of the seriousness of the problem, I have determined that the appropriate reaction is to seize Canada. I'm pretty sure that congress will determine the commerce clause covers it, anyway. I'm writing my crook^w legislator this evening.

In Kill BIll, the "highly trained human" was either the director, or the SFX person, depending on your perspective. :)

But... you have castles!!!!!

If a bear eats a Zombie's brains...what will happen?

I can finally stop worrying about my picnic lunch?

Having used both removable batteries and external battery bricks, the external battery brick is FAR more useful.

Probably so. Luckily, there's a much better way to go. Throw out the original battery, replace it with one that has several times the capacity, replace the back with the supplied replacement, and buy the appropriate hardshell if that's how you roll.

Result? More battery life than a brick, no having to plug in all the time, and no need to remove the battery until it dies, which will likely be some years down the road.

When I bought my Note 3 (SM-N900V), it wouldn't last a day. I'd have to turn it off (not use apps, etc.) before bedtime if I wanted it to have enough juice left to receive a call, text, IM or email, etc. -- it would hit 5% by 9pm or so. Once I replaced the battery, I just pop the thing on the charger about every other day while I'm sleeping and have no worries. It'll go three full days of use, but that does put the battery down to about 20%, so I tend to avoid it.

This makes the phone thicker and heavier. I don't mind a bit. But some people would.

The use case for easily replaceable batteries is pretty weak.

Not until the phone can run for several days of hard use without a charge, it isn't.

A replaceable battery costs more upfront and is incompatible with thinness. Most people get a new phone long before the battery dies.

After buying my Galaxy Note 3 (SM-N900V) and using it for a little while, I learned that the battery would hold up about 14 hours under the kind of use I made of it. So I replaced the battery with one that has about 3x the capacity, replaced the back of the phone with a back that would properly contain the new, much thicker battery, and got myself a new case for the resulting assembly.

The resulting phone (which I am delighted with) is not thin. In order to make me happy, the battery had to be replaced well before it died. The cost of the extra battery and case and hardshell added quite a bit to the bottom line cost of the phone. But the result was the best phone I'd ever used. I gave my iPhone to one of the kids and have never looked back. I do have a late-model iPad, but I rarely use it any longer other than to continue to play some long-standing word, chess, carcassonne, and upwords opponents. My desktop machine is a mac.

Based on my experience, I'd at least take a look at a new Samsung before any other Android platform. I'm no longer willing to consider Apple at all.

[Optimism] is something, the author argues, that is sorely missing from the new J.J. Abrams movies.

Every bit you can get closer to reality is what tends to separate better SF from worse SF. I look around me, and I see very little reason for optimism. I see no reason for optimism in ST:TOS, either, it was sort of invasive. ST:TOS was a litany of "everything that can go wrong, will go wrong, and the expendables (red shirts) are gonna die. ST:TNG, the same, except also, if IRL you appeared in Playboy, you're gonna die. ST:STE was dark as hell (and frankly, with that huge story arc, for me, the most enjoyable, despite what I perceived as a rather wooden captain in the first few episodes. Hoshi, Phlox, Trip and T'Pal made up for that, and then some.)

So. He may be right -- optimism is missing -- but I see it as a feature, not a bug. I look forward to the possibility of more of the franchise.

With zombies, you have a pathogen which is fast acting and has very high fatality rates, but continues to spread through a reservoir (the zombies).

They could have just modeled stupidity. Replace high fatality rates with low performance, and you have the same set of conditions.

Wait... I thought the first proper zombie movie was Romero's Night of the Living Dead, set in Pennsylvania.

Although they're technically vampires, I'm still going to go with Richard Matheson's "I am Legend" (1954.) Other than the fact that they weren't specifically after your brainz, Matheson's hordes of mindless, aggressive, human-seeking infected pretty much cover all the bases.

Besides, you have Triffids... be happy with that.

I agree. Also, they had giant wasps -- Keith Robert's "The Furies." Awesome book.

Bloody greedy UK types.

I doubt the modeling took into account that here in the South we defend our homes via the second ammendment against foreign invaders, tyrannical government AND zombies!

It's the tyrannical foreign government zombie invaders that'll get you in the end. They can feel the hate. And they want your brainnzzz.

Yes. Speaking as a Montana fellow, and being quite familiar with Glacier park, I can confidently inform everyone that if you try to live up there in the winter without a well-insulated and extremely well supplied domicile away from any steep slopes (locations for which there is a very limited selection, btw), Glacier park will calmly, without any particular effort, make you dead. For that matter, given the terrain and some of the species still wandering around up there, I'm none too sanguine about anyone's chances through the other seasons, either. And a bunch of people? You'd just kill each other.

No zombies required.