Science tells me that its understand of the laws of physics stops at a black hole's singularity? Does that mean I disbelieve the singularity exists because science has no way of describing the singularity?

It means you don't make any factual claims about the nature of the singularity that you can't support with an evidence based model. We can say it exists, because the model we built to fit the actual observations we made predicts that it does. There are no such models that predict the existance of a God.

Superstring theory tells me that 10 dimensions of spacetime exist and bosonic string theory 26. Is it then possible that, if true, we can't (yet? ever?) comprehend events or life that takes place beyond our 3 dimensions of existence or that events from these dimensions can affect the reality of ours?

If the events inside those dimensions affect us, we can measure the effect. So far, all effects measured have followed fairly simple rules, at least on the relevant scales. There's no room for miracles in a world ruled by mathematical physics.

Why is it when we speak of entangled quantum particles separated by billions of miles affecting each other instantaneously as a valid theory

Because there is experimental evidence for quantum entanglement. Just because you find the reasoning incomprehensible doesn't mean that everything incomprehensible is equally valid.

yet the very real experiences a significant amount of humanity have had and can only explain that it was God (does it matter that they call that experience Buddha, Jesus, Marduk, or Zeus?) as ignorant ramblings?

Further, there is no experience any human has had that can only be explained as God. Trancendental experiences are simply altered states of mind, a slightly different configuration of the biological computer in our head. Trancendental experiences are no more evidence of God than schizophrenia is evidence of the devil.

That is, why exactly hasn't religion gone away after all this time?

Because it's a meme with a lot of selective advantages. None of which have to do with it being true.

Personally, I choose to keep a more open mind to possible explanations of reality than Dawkins and (insert religious fundamentalist figurehead here) choose to.

Do you think anyone would have come up with wave particle duality if scientists weren't open minded? We're willing to consider anything, if there's evidence. If there's no evidence, then why waste your time?

Not all questions are resolvable by empiricism and scientific method

That's true. But there are zero questions resolvable by faith. Not if you care about accuracy. There are lots of things that are going to be unknowable. That's OK, we don't need to make up answers.

Epistemology is far wider than that. Is rock music good? Prove it.

That's an opinion. The theist makes a factual claim.

First, the teapot doesn't prove God doesn't exist. There could in fact be a God, just as there could be a teapot in orbit around the sun. Or maybe not a teapot, but a thermos, or perhaps a rubber chicken with a pully in the middle. The point is anything *could* be true. If we believed in everything that can't be disproven, we'd be very confused indeed. But if you do it the other way, and only believe in that which can be proven, the world makes much more sense.

Second, you bear the same burden of proof when you try to convince yourself of something. Anything less is being dishonest with yourself.

+1 hilarious, who would ever have that happen to them on Slashdot, besides slashdot?

Different customers are going to feel differently, but in my experience doing releases, a different thing matters more.

The key is to make sure that each release is an improvement over the previous release. If you do that, your customers will be happy, and won't worry much, as you build trust and confidence over time. In your situation, if a particular customer requests the change logs, I would give them, but a general release is not important.

The real problems come when your releases break things. After an especially bad release, your customers might not be willing to upgrade for two or three years (see: Windows Vista). Make sure each release is better than the previous. That is crucial.

Your customers are lucky, they get to know that something changed. If you were making 'cloud' software, they wouldn't know anything changed until they logged in one morning and things are broken.

The depression was a result of a lot of bad decisions, you can't blame it all on one bailout/lackOfBailout/ or any one decision. It was a tightening of the money supply coupled with bad loans along with bad decisions on trade, etc.

Anyone who tells you there was ONE reason for the depression is spreading propaganda. It was a whole compound issue with many facets.

Oh please, think of all the free targeted advertising you could get, and once you consider the benefit of the NSA knowing exactly how much laundry detergent you use it's just unbelievably good.

Honestly, I don't think that is a reason Obama worries about.

They should have broken up the banks that needed bailouts and sold off the parts. That is what Paul Volcker (and other smart people) have suggested.

Theoretically the bailouts were necessary, but the survival of those banks was not.

I'm way ahead of you --- I haven't submitted any manuscripts to Nature or Science ever --- I'm decades ahead on this boycott thing! ;)
But, yes, I'll try to take ethical considerations like this into consideration when publishing (so far as I have the ability to convince other co-authors). I also happen to tend more towards "precision measurement" experiments than "big flashy discovery," so my research is usually safely on the "boring but, I hope, solid" side anyways (that wouldn't be aimed at a "luxury brand" journal).

He does continue to keep contributing --- to online, open-access journals without the adverse motivations of the "luxury brand" publishers. This way, alternative journals get to build the reputation of attracting top scientists and publishing good-enough-for-a-Nobel-prize-winner research, which can help change the perceptions that make publication in the "luxury brand" journals necessary for scientific careers.

According to Schekman's argument, journals --- specifically the highest-impact-factor "luxury" journals --- do play a causal rather than merely symptomatic role in the process. Such journals court papers that are "flashy," which will get lots of citations and attention (thus lots of journal subscriptions), possibly because they are wrong and focused more on attention-getting controversial claims than scientific rigor. This provides feedback on the other side of the tenure-seeking "publish or perish" culture to shape what sort of articles the tenure-seeking professors are pressured to churn out. If a scientist wants to establish their reputation by publishing ground-breaking, exciting discoveries, there's nothing a-priori wrong with that; the failure comes when joined with impact-factor-seeking journals applying distorted lower standards for scientific rigor for "attention-getting" work (while rejecting solid but "boring" research papers).

Indeed, the higher density of the early universe may shift the balance of odds during that brief 1M year window. However, whatever life that may have existed then has little applicability to the genesis of life on Earth roughly ten billion years later (after that early hot universe life had been frozen over, then autoclaved by massive supernovas long before our own sun was formed). So, panspermia as a model for the distribution of life through the present universe still faces the same difficulties with interstellar distance scale.

Since you're repeating yourself on your opinion that they're "almost identical" (and, I can't argue that that is your opinion...), I'll repeat myself on the key difference, and elaborate a bit more (so maybe we can go around in circles forever!).

Panspermia places its claims within the realm of science. The origin of life is pushed back to common physical processes of known chemistry, just occurring at a sufficiently low rate than the rate of life traveling between planets is comparable or larger than the rate of original life initiation on planets. This produces testable hypotheses: a few more generations of Mars rovers (and maybe some Europa/Io missions), and we'll have empirical data to answer questions like "was Earth-like life present during the past wet and potentially life-hospitable eras on Mars?".

ID places claims outside the realm of science: an entirely new "layer" of hyper-complex beings, which tend to be non-falsifiable. ID is often pushed to not only explain the very early initial origin of the simplest single-cellular lifeforms, but also to explain the range of later complex lifetimes for which there are already extensive scientific explanations. The historical development of ID's conceptual framework comes from a lot of extremely intellectually dishonest wankery by religious fundamentalists attempting to dress up crude Biblical literalism and anti-Evoltuion propaganda in "sciencey sounding" terms.

As a Christian, I happen to believe in a God who created the universe (and don't see this as incompatible with observable scientific materialist descriptions). However, I can certainly see a large difference between (speculative and perhaps implausible) scientific hypotheses like panspermia, and non-scientific (and dishonestly constructed) "intelligent design" theories.