I'm not sure why you think security cameras are a problem.

Let's study the behavior of a customer called Nefarious. He opens packages in the store, pocketing a handful of delicious Lindt chocolates here, and pouring half a pound of Starbucks beans into his other pocket over there. A quick checkout for his case of Bud and then he breezes through the exit doors.

Retail has slim profit margins. Grocery stores, it is like 1 or 2%. At Costco let's say it is 5%. But the cost of Nefarious's visit is beyond what he took out. He left a $9.89 bag of Lindt that is fit only for the break room. Same for the Starbucks bag -- all 5 pounds of it. That case of Bud only cost ...I have no idea, not having consumed alcohol for 30 years, but let's say $18. Rough calculation, the store made a buck on the Bud, and lost $20 or $30 on the other two items. How long can they sustain that?

A big part of store security is deterence. You won't stop everyone, but cameras, or store walkers, or receipt checkers will discourage many from abusing the system.

I want to shop at a place that deters cheat, crooks and scumbags. This is definitely a case where, if you are not breaking the law what do you have to be concerned about?

Getting back to your camera concerns...When you were going through the checkout, the cashier was watching you. If you pocketed something, or tried to slip something past them in the bottom of your shopping cart, they would catch it. Cameras "see" more but notice a hundred times less. IOW, on average no one ever looks at you on tape. It is there to settle the question of did someone put something in their pocket (or what did the guy with the cap gun look like)?

If you really want to be creeped out, go to a clothing store. The level of security and inconvenience there is very off-putting (to me anyway). Stuff is cabled together. Huge dongles hang off that T-shirt you wanted to try on. There is a limit on how many things you can try on in the change stall with 2 foot tall saloon doors. Etc.

Still, the only camera that would bother me is one (1) in a change room, or (2) in a toilet stall. I'm not aware of any of those...

I question the sincerity of your response, but can agree with the point that different inspections have different levels of gain for both parties.

Parents checking the texts on their kid's phone can learn quite a bit, and this is a good thing, even if the child would freak if she found out.

Your local auto repair shop is probably looking for extra work when they tell you your radiator could use a flush. But this is a relationship, that can work both ways. If they report stuff as broken that ain't, you find some other repair shop. If they are right about the radiator flush, you thank them (at least to yourself) and the relationship improves.

Your employer checking what you say on Facebook is not a bad thing. Them requiring you hand over your password is beyond a bad thing. Still, it also serves to tell you that you don't want to work for this company...and that is a good thing.

Not everything is a zero sum gain, denzacar.

That "inspection at the door" works both ways. On several occasions, Costco inspectors have noticed I forgot to pick up my Forever stamps, etc. Two of them are among the friendliest staff in the whole store, and if they catch someone taking stuff then that translates into them keeping MY prices down. Everything about Costco comes across as "a great and fair deal for all", and yet that is the only store I exit that checks my receipt.

First few seasons were quite lame, I'll give you that. But this is true of many ultimately good shows.

Luckily for me I had avoided STTNG until the STTNG pinball game came out. That hooked me. By then I think there were 5 or more seasons in the can.

There are some soap opera episodes, I will give you that. I constantly cherry-pick from the rebroadcasts. But then who doesn't do this?

I thoroughly enjoy the Data character (in addition to Picard) but I also like many "design" aspects of the series. Resolution usually happens at the end of an episode, "good guys win" (otherwise, what's the point?), intelligent use of special effects.

Best of all the ST series, to me.

Actually, aluminum corrodes (i.e. oxidizes) very readily. It just so happens that the coating -- a mix of Al & O atoms -- takes up the same space as pure Al atoms. So the surface Al oxidizes to Al2O3, and once the surface is covered with the oxide, O can not get through to react with the Al. End of "corrosion" but very much an oxide surface. Oxide surface = not attractive in jewelry (just like what happens to silver). Also, absorbing Al through the skin contact is not a good idea.

You forgot to mention gold's inertness. Yes, copper and silver conduct better than gold but both of them corrode like fiends. To combat this you have to alloy, or coat. You don't need this with gold, and combined with its "softness" (better described as extreme ductility), you can lay down a very thin layer indeed. "Atoms" thick, vs "fractions of an inch" thick. Ask someone designing a satellite which is more valuable. Or a jeweler. Or a circuit board maker.

Crude becomes gasoline (and other stuff) in two stages.

(1) Fractional distillation does the initial bulk separation
(2) Catalytic cracking of longer chain hydrocarbons into gasoline (i.e. octane).

I think that cat cracking is much more energy intensive, so some (probably most) octane comes from a more energy intensive method.

I'll bite. Are you considering wireless radiation as the cause of "metabolic syndrome"?

And more on topic:
The perpetual motion machine of modern physics is a great provider for those who get paid to speculate.

Probably a reason for it. I imagine they don't want people endlessly scanning and scrolling around a video. Massive files. Thrashing around them and serving random chunks not something they want to do endlessly.

YouTube does something similar, in that if you pause your video for too long you then have to refresh the tab to resume it later. Maybe they assign a machine to deliver the 'tube. You walk away and they reassign the machine. Firing off the cryptic "Error processing this directive", or running the endless buffering ruse, are just the kind of things that will make people stop doing what the big streaming companies don't want them to do.

Yes, a paltry 5% of the one billion cell phones sold in 2013.

5% of 1B...let's see...carry the knot...I make it a truly pathetic 50,000,000 units sold. Insignificant indeed. Especially when you compare it to the gargantuan sales of personal computers in 2013 (82M units). No comparison at all.

My last three laptops cost about $300 each. Last cell phone (Nexus 5) cost $400. No comparison there either.

Good singers very much know how to sing, and how to teach. I have received instruction from a number of them.

My father taught, and was very good at math. I also teach, and used to teach math to my fellow students in high school.

Being good at math is like being a good programmer -- iterative process, more than one way of doing things, things build on other things. Not something that everyone is good at, but not something that "you can't teach because you are good at it".

The U.S. is going away from fusion.

Replying to self: Okay, didn't read too well on just waking up.

"Theoretical calculations showed that a static universe was im possible under general relativity" ...emphasis added.

Wiki: "Theoretical calculations showed that a static universe was impossible under general relativity". So I'm not so sure about that remark either.

Later on that same wiki page: "Problems with the steady-state theory began to emerge in the late 1960s, when observations apparently supported the idea that the universe was in fact changing: quasars and radio galaxies were found only at large distances (therefore could have existed only in the distant past), not in closer galaxies. Whereas the Big Bang theory predicted as much, the Steady State theory predicted that such objects would be found throughout the universe, including close to our own galaxy."

No, it is how we stretch ourselves.

Every single person here learns word(s)...from everywhere, including this site. Are we supposed to jam them in a can under the sink?

Only a jerk would complain about someone trying to use a new word, a word they might not be intimately familiar with.

Someone used "dimensionful" and I proceeded to use it a bunch of times (in a physics paper) right after I read it.