A drop of water can self-form into a sphere by surface tension alone. If that is dropped off in space, it becomes a planet??

Not in my view. That isn't implied by what I said, either. I said mass, and I meant mass. If you dropped your putative drop of water off in space, by the way, by which I mean in a vacuum, I don't think it would be able to hold itself together by any means. I suspect it'd most likely sublimate before you even had a chance to really get into admiring it.

Oh, by the way, our sun orbits the galaxy, does that mean we aren't a planet here on earth because we orbit around something that has its own orbit?

Not to me. Again, I said nothing of the sort, and I implied nothing of the sort.

If not, then why do moons get to be moons when many of them are bigger than the "planet" Pluto, when they orbit around something that has its own orbit around another body?

Moons get to be moons in the context of a solar system; once you step beyond that level of organization, most of us (apparently not you, but that's ok) use different terminology to indicate groupings of stars, gas clouds, supergroupings, and so on.

But hey, don't let me get in the way of your irrational ranting; you've got a good head of steam going there, be a shame to see it peter out too soon.

We see articles about how few people are scientifically literate, and so many on Slashdot decry "We are geeks, we understand science!"

Appearently, nope!

Actually, my dear fellow poster, it is you that does not understand science. Science is a method. Information gathered and suppositions constructed are both data. Such data, particularly when the scientific method is applied, may give rise to (hopefully) more accurate metaphor(s) (more data) as to how nature behaves, and that in turn may let us go a little (or a lot) deeper next time around. Science is a very simple, and beautiful, method.

Back to data. Data is subject to naming, among other things, and those names are (a) abstracts selected for the convenience of the various users, (b) significantly arbitrary, (c) quite often of a dual or more diverse nature (and still 100% correct), for instance "daisy" and "bellis perennis" and "flower" and "that thing that makes me sneeze" and (d) often extend into the metaphorical and allegorical realms in order to further-, and/or better-, and/or simply re-define the issue(s) at hand. This most definitely includes one's own personal or sharable naming conventions and specifics.

When something is controversial or simply not static, we will often see the naming structure(s) and/or system(s) undergo permutation, mutation or even outright replacement. Brontosaurus, apatosaurus, brontosaurids, etc. Those are good examples of names that changed for some pretty good reasons (wrong head on the body... the "brontosaur" was an apatosaurus that mistakenly got a camarasaurus head on it, lol. Now "brontosaurids" means, hand-wavingly, "those long-necked ones" and not much else.) These nomenclature mutations are part of the process of integrating the data into our best-approximation of knowledge about the world, which, coming back around to square one, is not "science" either. Science is a method that we "do." Knowledge is not science itself, although it can and should be used in the undertaking of science.

Further, as the users of the data, objects, information vary, often so goes the terminology. Programmer: "Time for za!" Secretary sent to get it: "Can I order a pizza, please?" counter person: "pie, cheese" artisian: "yet another culinary masterpiece!"... they're all correct. It's not a problem. It's normal and natural. It is still normal and natural if someone in a particular household begins to call pizza "magic goo"... and who knows, it could be what everyone calls it some years down the road. I still kind of twitch when someone says "you suck", because when I was a teenager, that was a deadly insult, worthy of an immediate fistfight. Means something quite a bit more casual today, something absolutely unrelated to its original meaning. And so it goes. Naming is by its very nature a malleable domain. As it should be.

The bottom line here is, just because a few astronomers (and it was very few, btw) voted for a particular usage, does not mean we have to, or even should, comply if we don't agree. I'm sorry if that seems too chaotic for you, but that's really the way it is, and likely always will be, too.

But to decry that because you learned something one way, therefore that convinces you forever, that's just plain stupid.

Well, good thing I wasn't doing that then, eh?

Cheers! :)

A protostar, given it's in a seriously pre-fusion state, will (as far as I know) be large enough to have quite decisively pulled itself into a spheroid. If it is orbiting another star, I'd say that at that point, it is a planet and a protostar.

As I see it, protostars seem to refer to a class of planet, just as do gas giants, balls of frozen gasses, molten worlds, rocky, airless worlds, and earthlike worlds. That namespace is a very rich field to till, I think.

Once it lights off, I see it as a sibling (binary, trinary, etc.) by virtue of being stars in thrall to one another's gravity. The star with the greater mass I'd call the primary, the next most mass the secondary, etc.

If it is just sitting out in space by itself, I'd designate it a (rogue) planet and a protostar.

Sure, planets can radiate all kinds of things, for all kinds of reasons. Aurorae, ionizing radiation, IR, UV (some high energy electrical storms do this here), atmosphere, monkeys in tin cans... :) ok, that's pushing the indirection a little hard, but... lol

At this point, I'd say that anything that had lit its fusion lamp gets the designator, quite possibly qualified, of "star." There are various kinds of post-fusion states; neutron stars, black holes, perhaps even just dead cinders and fragments, and of course gassy / radiative remnants resulting from their destruction. Probably lots of other things too. The world, Horatio... etc.

That's all just my own outlook though.

QI chargers, already used across the Nexus line, and I _think_ some Samsung phones?

Im personally happy, since all my phones/tablet support Qi.

This is how audiophiles talk. If you have one as a friend, it is best for everyone if you simply never talk about music.

Well, you don't seem like the original poster, but I think you answered my question.

Earbuds:
1. Fit in a pocket
2. Are more than adequate for most pop music produced in the last 75 years.
3. Are more than adequate for most mobile listening environments.
4. Are more than adequate for podcasts.
5. Can passively cancel ambient noise without looking like Princess Leia.
6. Might, depending on personal preference, be more comfortable.
7. More amenable to wearing during physical activity.
8. Starting cost is around $1.

But yes, they completely suck for all purposes.

I don't see why, when another planet is discovered, we can't admit it.

So... "the problem"... doesn't strike me as a problem.

I don't know -- I think it's about 13 right now? Could be more or less.

Why?

Just to be explicit, I wasn't complaining about the number nine. Just the very weird and arbitrary demotion of pluto from planetary status. Which I do not go along with.

I like a nice, sane, consistent definition. :)

Covered it. Read my post again.

Look at the bottom edge. EXACT SAME placement of headphone, charging port, speaker grill...

Come on. Man up and at least admit that part alone is a direct copy.

And how do we know that the real benefit doesn't come from hitting yourself with birch branches?

Great link. I was thinking of nearer objects (like a plane) with a powerful $300 laser, but it's interesting to see how much further you'd have to go to have a visible effect on the moon.

Obligatory XKCD.

As of January 2015, the U6 rate is at 11.3%, from a high of 17.1% in 2009-10. U6 includes discouraged workers (U4 and up) and even "underemployed" workers (part-timers that would prefer to be full time), and so is probably a bit high if you're talking about actual unemployment. No, we're absolutely not at record levels of unemployment.

Moreover, no one uses "percentage of working age people not working" as an unemployment metric (unless you want to inflate the figure), because that includes people who choose not to work, such as spouses of full time workers, students, or those who retire early.

How about the baby boomers? Awesome, more wildly inaccurate statistics. It's not great news, but it's a far cry from what you indicated:

* 33 percent of Boomers have put aside less than $50,000
* Baby Boomers have saved an average of $262,541, about a third of the $805,398 they predict they’ll need at retirement.

I'm not claiming things aren't tough out there, but just pulling made-up statistics out of the air isn't going to inspire confidence in your arguments.