...ignoring the fact that the parent is obviously an offtopic troll: you're forgetting the part where it says his only son rose from the grave. If this claim is true, who's to say anything in the rest of said book is absurd? Besides, who said the Bible is without morsels of wisdom? People have turned to far lesser literature for their life lessons.

Anyhow, to get back on topic, this whole "nostalgia" thing is pure, unadulterated silliness, simply because it's a nostalgia of something that never really went away. The web just got diluted by "normal" people who don't have as much interest in fiddling or tinkering with the Internet as they do with utilizing the systems and services developed by those who were. Nothing's keeping anybody from tinkering with the Internet.

In other news: have a Merry Christmas!

...namely the Firebird series. I really like the way she control of information and reveals plot-lines. That and she tackles some very interesting moral issues associated with human augmentation.

Ouch, my hairs, you have split them! I agree, but the point still remains that science deals with belief, not knowledge or facts. I reiterate: it's easy to delve quite deep into epistemological arguments to claim otherwise.

Oh boy, I think you've got me all wrong. Assuming a modicum of philosophy, I'm trying to say that there's less of a difference between science and religion than we'd like to think. They are both systems by which we establish belief and they are both prone to error and misinterpretation. Descartes and Newton, for instance, both created extensive philosophical and religious writings which mutually benefited their theories of mathematics and physics. Scientific theories are a collection of discrete data points, but we live in a continuous universe. Dare I say, to be a good scientist, it takes a certain amount of faith-based value to fill the gaps between and beyond the data, of which there are an infinitude. For the atheist, that value might come in the form of believing science will limit to absolute knowledge. For the theologian, that value might come in the form of believing in the existence of an omniscient being.

...nor is good sophism a substitute for thinking for yourself. I never mentioned or alluded to "which is more valuable," so, once again, you've completely misread. Whether our nervous system is prone to "fooling" us or not, there's only so many things, 4 to be exact, our physical bodies can directly interpret: visible light (sight), audible sound (hearing), appreciable physical interaction (touch, including heat) and significant chemical concentrations (smell/taste). Everything else stringently requires we engineer methods of translating into those 4 media. My question posits that, if there is something which we cannot actually perceive, neither directly nor indirectly, science would not be able to extract beliefs about it. Dark energy, for instance, although not exactly entirely imperceptible, has no real perceivable quality; it's just a massive fudge-factor for a discrepancy in our predictions of the universe's expansion rate and the data. Eventually, our theories and paradigms will shift enough to accommodate this discrepancy. But what if there's something that truly is imperceptible by our senses? If we can't perceive it, we can't take data. If we can't take data, we can't use science to refine our beliefs regarding it. That is the question I'm proposing.

Yes, but remember that science is merely a structure for generating beliefs about the observable universe. Whether we can call it knowledge or factual is an exercise in epistemology. A fun philosophical question of the devil's advocate: will there ever be a point where our belief in the validity of the scientific process is shown to be wrong? We may never know, as science is so deeply rooted in our own abilities--or inabilities--to perceive.

But, more on the topic: what bothers me is that people even consider "religion" and "science" to be at odds with each other to begin with. Some of the greatest men in science have also been great men of faith; a prudent and sober approach to faith can guide theories and paradigms accordingly, and vice versa.

It appears that the OP merely wishes his side of the battle to be a little more enlightened about hypocrisy. I, for one, am inclined to join him at the wishing well.

If you can see it, so can an electric circuit. You see, there are these fancy things called photodiodes... I mock, but in all seriousness, if you can map a measurable physical state to an unmeasurable physical state, then you might as well just skip the step and say, in this situation, something like "liquid chemical composition is measurable." The form the measurable information takes is irrelevant relative to the ability to measure it.

The point the article seems to be making is that the power output is a function of the mass involved in the reaction, similar to the phenomenon of critical mass in a fission reaction. More mass means more chance of a proton hitting a nucleus means more average energy released per proton means more energy per time means more power.

You've obviously lost your edge as a physicist, because this is coming from an undergrad Physics student...and software is also my hobby.

Aye, but my point is, although the article proposes only that one theory, it never claims that it's the only one.

That's not bias. It's called context and the Scientific Method: the theory that the article is basing its conclusions off is as the article states. Our understanding of the human brain is rather pitiful, so claiming a theory here as "unfair" is unfair to the theory itself.

Don't assume bias simply because a theoretical conclusion that is made doesn't agree with your own hypotheses. Science is full of opinions that evolve and shift, and this may be no exception. However, taking insult based upon a theory is exactly what ruins Science as a field; ignoring models because they violate "political correctness" is just bad Science. Maybe PC needs to step it up and join ranks for a paradigm shift.

The article reconciles what you see as a discrepancy with the line:

Now I'm completely confused what you're trying to argue.
Your previous argument provides no appreciable evidence beyond an inkling of anecdote in attempts to seal the convenient assumption that "most honest and intelligent people are left leaning", hence the "No true Scotsman" reference. The same can be said for the association between /. and "honest and intelligent people" and "what has happened over the years..." Actually, I'm pretty sure the entirety of your original argument is convenient assumption on top of more assumptions.

In case you're missing out and not just trolling, I'll take the dive on the obligatory wiki link...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

XNA, as a framework and development tools, is completely free (obligatory Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_XNA). However, the XNA Creators Club, the only way to distribute XNA games developed for the Xbox, requires a yearly subscription.

Isn't that what Shuttleworth is trying to assess?

I'm pretty sure you mean arxiv.org (the 'x' is the greek letter "chi", hence why it's procounced like "archive")