That the thing about dark matter... it has a perfectly reasonable explanation (WIMPs). It's not that weird of a "thing".

Dark energy on the other hand, that's just WEIRD ;) It doesn't act like any "energy" as we know it, even though everything is clearly moving into a higher energy state. A question I've had for a while... if space itself is being inflated (or any sort of mathematically equivalent scenario) - everything inflating in all directions at all scales - wouldn't there be some sort of weak radiation signal from electrons expanding into a higher energy state due to dark energy and then collapsing back down? But I have trouble picturing how to reconcile an absolute, varying distance at the atomic scale with quantization of energy states, positions, etc...

Isn't this what one would expect if dark matter is WIMPs?

Sure there is: add this to the CPDLC standard and make all of the hardware modifications needed to support it:

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Message type: Revert flight plan and lock
Message arguments: TIME: the time of the flight plan to use
Message description: Revert to the flight plan that was active at TIME that had been approved by both ground control and the pilot; engage autopilot; and disable all pilot / copilot access to all systems. If there is no approved flight plan then the flight plan is to return to the nearest suitable airport in the most direct route possible.
----

Additional modifications: Make sure that the pilot can never disable datalink communications with ground by any means that ground wouldn't have time to respond to.

Result: Nobody is ever "remote controlling" the plane from the ground. A murderous / terrorist ground controller can't crash the plane, only make it autopilot itself on a previously approved or otherwise reasonable flight plan. A pilot behaving suspiciously can't crash the plane, as ground control will just engage the autopilot and lock them out. To abuse the system both ground and the pilot would have to agree on a suicidal flight plan.

Autopilot systems can and do fail on occasion. Or more precisely, the sensors that they rely on can be rendered inoperative, causing a failure or shutdown of the system. In most cases, you absolutely want the pilot to be able to manually override the computer in case something is obviously going wrong.

There's really no easy answer to the problem of potentially suicidal/homicidal pilots. Would you feel more or less safe without a human pilot on board? Even after this incident, I still want a pair of pilots up front able to use their own best judgment in a sticky situation, because the vast majority of the time, those two people are every bit as anxious to get back down to earth safely as I am.

TFA discusses this, and they are working on cadmium-free dots, but they are harder to produce. They use indium and phosphorus for those.

According to TFA, they are nanoscale semiconductor crystals that turn blue light into narrow-spectrum greens and reds.

I am April in Paris . . . .

I am just an ordinary man with a strange name

For DIY offsite backup I use crashplan. Their system lets you use their servers if you choose (for payment) but it also lets you use a remote disk you have over at a freinds house too, or one attached to your computer. I bought their software after using the free version for years. Besides being a nice automated backup system, the killer thing was the ability to backup offsite to a friends house. I do it mutually with them, each keeping the other's USB disk at our respective homes.

What's great about this is that if I do ever need to do a full backup, I don't have to try streaming it back through a soda straw over the web. I just drive the station wagon over, pick up the disk, and bring it home. Station wagons have very high bandwidth.

The disk is encrypted so no worries about peepers or what happens if my freinds computer gets broken into.

The payware version is a one time payment not a monthly fee. What you get for the payware version is more parsimonious differential backups and some other features about controlling backup times.

The software has gotten much better over the years too. Early on my complaint was the java bloated itself out to huge memory sizes over time. But now I don't even notice it is running.

Anytime I need to do a bigger than normal backup, I go get the disk and attach it locally, then take it back. That only happens when there's an unusual event. For example, if I make a major change in the structure of my file system, copy everything to a new disk or do something that touches all the files, then this could, in most backup systems, trigger a level 0 backup. So when that happens it's much easier to get things up to date then with any on-the-net storage system.

Again, what does this have to do with net neutrality?

It may not be a cytobot but the synergy is 110% buzz word compliant. We put a bug in an electrical field and it reacted in a way similar to an elastomer or sponge.

That's no surprising. While I enjoy looking at the booth babes, I tend to avoid them whenever possible since I know that they'll just subject me to obviously artificial flirtation while attempting to repeat marketing gibberish which they don't actually understand. I'd much rather speak to a sweaty bearded guy in a tracksuit who can actually explain the product and tell me how it can help my business.

I'm actually a professional videogame programmer, so I'm aware of the various disciplines involved. My point was this: if you're taking a C++ class, you're typically choosing the programming route (a CS degree), not one of the many other disciplines (designers, modellers, animators, texture artists, concept artists, writers, audio engineers, production, etc).

The implication of that post seemed to be that "I wanna make games" = "not serious", and therefore less likely to learn a "serious" language like C++. I just thought it was an odd thing to say when C++ happens to be the language of choice in the videogame industry.

That's sort of like proclaiming you want to be a mathematician and being put off by Calculus.

Seriously? First, your liability does not end where your coverage does. If you are under insured, it is you who us responsible. Second, the insurance company does not pay out of the goodness of their hearts, they pay because you pay them to. And if you have a claim, you will pay more.

The lower insurance rates with dash cams are more about fraud detection than dispute resolution.