A person can read the "tells", or body language and mannerisms, of another player. The computer cannot. Presumably the computer has no "tells" of its own, but an experienced player should usually win - because poker isn't a game of math, it's a game of psychology. Or rather, it's only PARTLY a game of mathematics and probability.

You're right; all of the people who go to Mars will die.

Of course, all the people who stay here on Earth are ALSO going to die. And while it's quite likely that the ones who go to Mars are likely to die sooner than the ones who stay behind, that isn't quite so certain - and we'll learn lots of stuff about Mars, and about ourselves, in the attempt.

In his book "The Right Stuff", author Tom Wolfe noted that all of the streets at Edwards Air Force Base were named for dead test pilots. Getting out of bed and leaving home, and going into space, or out to sea, or even across town; these things can be dangerous. We can't attempt to avoid all risks and still remain human.

If it's that important, rent a small safe-deposit box at the local bank. Copy as much as you like onto a portable hard drive, and put it in there.

Our substantial magnetic field may be due to the merging of the iron cores of the Proto-Earth and Theia. Earth is the most dense planet in the solar system, and from what we know of Mars and Venus, we suspect that our iron core is far larger than the other terrestrial planets.

Venus has a super-thick poisonous atmosphere; it's at least possible that our large Moon has, over a period of 4+ billion years, "skimmed away" enough of our atmosphere to have protected the Earth from a similar fate.

Of course, we only think that our atmosphere is right because we evolved here, in this atmosphere; if the atmosphere had been different, we would have evolved differently, and (had intelligent life developed at all) we'd think that THAT was the right sort of atmosphere.

Why should the material composition of Theia have differed all that much from the Proto-Earth? They formed from the same planetary nebula, and at relatively similar distances from the Sun; shouldn't they have been similar in composition? And how can anyone state with any certitude, 4+ billion years later, how much of the merged Earth's crust was from Theia, and how much from the proto-Earth, and whether the lunar material was one, the other, or mostly mixed? It was a long time ago, and the Early Heavy Bombardment period would have stirred things up further. In fact, it's not unlikely that the Early Heavy Bombardment material was long-period debris from the original collision.

If Theia had formed substantially closer, or substantially farther away from the Sun, then the debris from the collision could hardly have remained close enough that the shards would coalesce to form the Moon. The differing orbital velocities would have seen to that.

" In short, removing it from the Internet would be impossible."

Not true. It would merely be "very difficult".

Finding a single actual THOUGHT inside the brain of Diane Feinstein; THAT would be impossible. That ancient bint has enriched herself stealing from the American treasury by persuading other government officials to overpay for her husband's corrupt thievery. She is the epitome of the self-serving crooked politician.

I realize I'm being quaint and old fashioned, and that nobody in D.C. cares at all about that ancient parchment, but I cannot see that "revenge porn" is anything that could be affected by the eighteen "Enumerated Powers" listed in the Constitution. These are the only legitimate powers that the Federal government has.

Of course, 80% of what the Federal government does violates the Constitution, so feel free to ignore me. But I think the STATES should prosecute "revenge porn" viciously.

Give them American citizenship, for this reason if for no other; when Belgium and Germany and France are all consumed by the Islamic State, when it imposes sharia law, they'll have someplace to flee to. Yes, it's possible that Belgian citizenship might get them entry to the US when darkness falls (and it may still happen here anyway) but the USA hasn't got the best record for accepting political refugees from Europe.

If they are American citizens, they're part of the family. And as Erma Bombeck once wrote, being family means that when you knock on the door, they have to let you in. (And if that wasn't Bombeck, it should have been.)

Perhaps it's unlikely - almost as unlikely as Islamic terrorists shooting up a French magazine office and a kosher deli. But it's worth considering.

That's part of it. The other parts were talking tough about Assad in Syria (and not DOING anything), and killing Khadaffi in Libya.

Vietnam: Crashmarik is exactly correct. The United States _won_ the war in Vietnam. The North Vietnamese were powerless, and the US left. But then the Soviets spent 2 years giving the North everything they needed, and then the North attacked again. The Dems in the Senate banned any additional military aid to the South. The South fell to the communists.

That's one of the reasons why ISIS is so fierce now; they know that the US is an inconsistent ally, especially with this administration. We're not going to do anything about it. (Of course, that's what the Germans and the Japanese were counting in in 1940 and 1941.)

Only a thousand? There should be a thousand A DAY.

Medical "science" is finally approaching what ought to have been obvious; that the "epidemic" of asthma and allergies are most likely our own doing. Our homes are TOO CLEAN for children!

Babies have fairly primitive immune systems; like every other part of a baby, it needs to be trained. When babies crawl in the dirt and get exposed to "nature", their immune systems come to recognize what's normal. At some age - about a year or so - their immune systems begin to react to "new" things in the environment, and begin to fight them. So dust or pollen become a problem, especially if mommy has been keeping the house spotless and immaculately clean. Never rolled around on the floor with a dog? Never ever eaten peanut butter? By age 4, you're going to be deathly allergic to them.

Mothers; take your babies out into the yard! Let them crawl in the grass, like us old folks did when WE were babies. They need the vitamin D to prevent rickets, and they need exposure to earth so that they don't develop allergies to the Earth.

Science fiction writer L. Neal Smith has suggested that our descendants born on orbital habitats may never be able to come to Earth; they'll be allergic to it. It may be a matter of shipping a few tons of dirt and dust up to spread in the air filters, just to ensure that our grandchildren can come visit!

Fascinating! Why has the Flashlight app used 6.5MB of data? I've now turned that off. Thanks!

Neither Bush nor his team created the banner; the "Mission Accomplished" was for the SHIP, whose deployment had been successful. You lacked context, so your error is understandable.

Granted, for the President to give a public speech in front of that context-less banner was bad politics, but we've experienced far worse from the incumbent. For example, failing to send a representative - even the otherwise useless Sloe-Joe Biden - to Paris after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, but flying himself to Saudi Arabia for the funeral of the king of the Saudis, Definitely bad politics - and bad international policy, as well.

More free expression is always better, and censorship is generally wrong. And self-serving.

But your other statements are flat-out hallucinations. Bush never claimed that the war was over, but for a couple of years, the level of violence in Iraq was at least dramatically reduced. ISIS didn't come into existence until Obama declared that he would withdraw all troops by a certain date, no matter what. Now that ISIS is doing whatever they please, Obama is waging a pinprick war against it, and trying to appease the real aggressors in Iran.

If I had mod points, I'd mod this up. Excellently said!