...certainly we had obtained the relevant permissions to take biological samples in Mexico. Not exactly.

I would guess the most successful (i.e. published) amateur science is done in coordination with professionals.

Wow. This is amazing information!

It is, kind of. One might think the area around a pulsar would be fairly cleaned out and you've got to wonder where the asteroid came from and what kicked it in. While we've detected planets and asteroid/dust belts around stars, this might be the smallest extra-solar object ever detected.

I thought about this too and decided to skim TFA:

The model simulations were carried out on the supercomputers of the Advanced Centre for Research Computing at the University of Bristol. They were not funded in any way, and were set up in the author 's spare time.

I wouldn't argue this was a waste of resources as one's weather models should be tested for reasonable results in 'alien' settings. The amount of information and research methods have come a long way. It's not meaningful to compare the environment fifty years ago.

Public institution doesn't mean its resources are available to the general public for use as they see fit. His taxes are spent there to educate students. Slaking your thirst is not the same as slaking the thirst of your lawn, car or other personal property. That being said, the arrest was a waste of resources and a simple warning was in order.

Is it similar to different races? In light of the recently (too lazy to look it up) revised unification of what were once thought to be different human ancestor species, could the whole interbreeding thing simply be the first signs of larger scale population migrations?

You'd think there would be some estimate of the advertising pie and how much thinner the slices get when coming up with a valuation for companies following this model. You'd think.

America essentially turned into a nation of sheep dogs for democracy after Pearl Harbor. Though at the same time there were internment camps for Japanese-Americans. "The United States has employed a number of paranoid tactics that delegitimize its democracy" at least going back to John Adams. It's not something that's going away anytime soon. Yet, in America's case, it manages to get corrected.

An admin requesting your password raises flags, but it's possible many provided it because they didn't want to argue. That being said, you'd think at least one of the 20+ would have gone to their local security person as a follow up.

Attractive women in combat is hardly a paradigm of right-wing militarism.Nor was the gore which could easily have been aimed at Hollywood. I thought parody was the clear intent when I first saw the film on cable many years ago.

My admittedly limited understanding of the business is that margins and profits are very tight. I can't image something like this pulling its weight in terms of cost-benefit.

While the contracts may be more complicated you've got to wonder whether the right incentives are built in. Perhaps the gov't could have tied payment (or penalty) to certain post delivery metrics such as average time to sign up. What are the incentives that make e.g. Amazon, Google and Facebook software deliver a better user experience and how can they be incorporated into the contract?

Sometimes a toy is just a toy.

Using phones during red != continuing to use phones after change. If the tickets had been given after the light turned green there wouldn't have been a story.