Not sure how UnknownSoldier knows that. It certainly doesn't jive with what I've been hearing for the last 20 years since I was in school for physics. Current theory is that the proto Earth was hit by a proto Moon about the size of Mars. Part of the proto-Moon ejected from the collision, unfortunately, the heavy metal cores of both the proto-Earth and proto-Moon stayed with the Earth so the moon does not have a similar metal core and is mostly mantel material. Also, the proto-Moon ejection formed two bodies which re-collided fairly non-violently as things go with the other bit now smooshed onto the back side of the moon.

Have everybody turn it over voluntarily and refrain from such because they think it is an outmoded and barbaric practice, essentially Star Trek. Sure, there will be detractors, but society won't really be set up any more for them to take advantage and exploit such. They'll be pretty much eccentric hobbiests at best and at worst probably be visited by a counselor to see if they are mentally stable but still allowed to go about their business so long as they are not hurting people past a certain point determined by law. Sort of like people who enjoy acting out Gor novels in the privacy of their own homes currently.

If the Chinese expats of CA were screaming for an embargo against China and large enough to sway the vote of the state, we might see an embargo against China. As it is, until the population of the swing state of Florida wants the embargo lifted, I doubt it will be.

Yes, they could have just payed less to have the announcers call whatever the teams were using "Microsoft Surface Pro tablets" and avoided all this mess.

3d6

It doesn't necessarily contradict your statement, but from living for two decades in the "hipster part of town", I can pretty much say that a hipster is pretty much any early college age person doing what all the other 20 somethings are doing, just like they pretty much always have. The title stays the same as the looks, clothes, and music all continue to change. The people that most often use the term are usually no longer 20 somethings who are not in touch with youth culture any more, if they ever were.

We still have the original meaning, but it is has pretty much been limited to college logic classes for most of the last century. Giving pedants and excuse to bitch on the internet has probably boosted the original meanings usage an order of magnitude. If anything, the new meaning has probably saved the old meaning from obscurity and erosion.

The Republicans, the party of Lincoln that preserved the Union, has never been a small government party. The only RINOs are the Dixiecrats that joined the Republican Party under Nixon, were cultivated for their money and votes by Reagan, and now call themselves the Tea Party. How else do you think there came to be a Republican party that rules the South, claims to be state's rights, and is angry there is a black man as president?

They had one. They were called the Dixiecrats. Nixon invited them to join the Republican party as part of his campaign plan.

Found a record of the interview: "Rickover tells one applicant he has 10 seconds to make him mad or flunk the session. The midshipman hears Rickover tick down the seconds, then suddenly sweep’s half the contents of Rickover’s desk onto the floor. “I’m mad,” Rickover concedes before hiring the young officer."

I think I would have just answered the questions, even if to say I didn't want to answer them due to personal nature. They were pretty simple questions and if somebody can't answer them pretty simply, they probably aren't the person for the job where they might want thinking outside of the box. Reminds me of the story about when the navy was looking for a captain of the first nuclear sub. Figuring that the needed somebody who could think quick on their feet, the admiral's interview was non-standard and timed as "You have five minutes to make me angry." Most interviewees fumbled and didn't know how to act with a superior officer demanding that they make him angry. The guy that passed looked around, grabbed an award off the admiral's desk and smashed it on the floor.

At this point, while there might be some sort of MOND out there to describe what is going on, currently it would be such a bizarre and complicated theory that nobody can come up with a theoretical set of equations that fits current observational data, let alone could be otherwise tested. And trust me, there are plenty of grad students and other people working on the issue, that would love to find such and get their Nobel if not just playing with it as a mental exercise.

In one of Stross's novels, it's computonium, a material that absorbs energy and uses it as computational power. The sun is surrounded by successive layers of Dyson spheres with each outer layer absorbing the waste heat of the layer inside of it and radiates off increasing wavelengths of radiation. Subsequently, each outer layer runs at a slower rate than those father towards the interior and are the slums of the virtual society that exists inside all those layers of computonium.

I have college professor friends that have discussed things like this because we also have Evergreen College in the area where all their degrees are like this, all coursework is worked out as the student basically designs their own degree. Yes, it has the reputation for being a useless degree and lots of hippies and similar people go there and end up with underwater basket weaving degrees. The funny thing is that they highly recommend it for the exact opposite type of people, namely those like police officers and military personnel that have self discipline and are taking continuing education for their career path. In such cases, a college where professors help you to form you own course work to fine tune it to exactly what you want and need would be perfect. Meanwhile, they are trying to direct pot smoking teenagers into the normal colleges because they need to learn some discipline and structure before hoping to actually achieve a degree.

What they are talking about wouldn't get you out of such requirements. What they are discussing is breaking up courses into more and smaller courses. You'd still need 3 credit hours of humanities that you filled by taking sociology, but now, instead of one course worth three credit hours, you'd take three courses of 1 credit hour. That way you could hopefully at least take something dealing with sociology that you might use or at least find interesting.