Right... I suspect that intelligence continues by spawning new universes with properties amenable to life and ultimately intelligence. Obviously the disproof that "Eventually, it all must end" is that something and intelligence exists now! The OP hypothesis contains an implied assertion in that this known universe is a one-off event that happened and now is just sputtering itself to its inevitable end - totally egocentric. If it were the case that entropy is inexorable, in an infinite time line it would have already happened and there would only be homogeneity.

All those who sign-up to live and work in orbiting colonies get age-reversal therapy for free. The primary economy will to be build more and better colony ships to handle the influx of long lived people. Within a generation or two the entire Earth will be most emptied and the federation of human colonies will declare Earth a "National Park" available to visit on vacation - just pick your continent.

Yeah Python is the new Perl... younger folks tend to snear at Perl. However being a long time Perl programmer I have learned Python just to see what all the buzz is about. I would recommend the subject of the OP to learn Python but they do occupy the same solution space and most anything can be done in either language with the same ease and elegance. However with that said Mod_Perl Apache modules rocks for customizing Apache.

When the Sun in low on the horizon the spectrum is shifted towards the red and hence less blue light.

High performance flat screen monitors with inertial sync'd real-time videos flying at light speed through the cosmos being chased by Vulture Droids... I will be looking forward to my compute.

Ceres has 1/10 the gravity of our Moon... why go to Ceres vice our own Moon?

Superconducting coil around the equator power by solar panels seems feasible.

Do you really think there is no difference in terms of freedom of the press in Russia and the US?

You will be modded into oblivion for pointing out the inconvenient truth here on slashdot.

Snowden demonstrated his naivety when he willingly went on the Putin propaganda hour and asked softball questions. Remember that?

You are thinking too small... I think that is what the moon is for. Hollowed out, with equatorial particle accelerators for propulsion - it is a perfect intergalactic space ship.

The clueless naivety of some slash posters can be hilarious.

I suspect Islamic religious conservatism was behind this. These cowardly idiots shoot a middle school girl in the head because she blogs. When is Islam going to experience the equivalent of the Enlightenment which softened and matured the Christian world? How long must we wait.

In the same way Rumsfeld accepted responsibility for Abu Ghraib

And maybe mitigate or eliminate a possible extinction event down the road.

The quest for life in the universe is perhaps one of the more important endeavors of our time... I wish this search would take on more emphasis then the say the next weapon system. Collectively humans spend more on carnival cruise ship or Hollywood movies then we do in searching for life and intelligence beyond earth. The thought (as noted by Arthur C Clark) that either we are the only intelligence in the universe or we are not and there are other forms of intelligence out there - are equally powerful motivating forces towards an expansion beyond this little fragile womb.