If you had said Bits and Chips, or maybe BoredAtWork I think I would have understood. I'm afraid I don't understand Duckpins...

Hopefully I can get away with making it an exercise in appreciating beauty, and not get high centered trying to push the cart one way or the other. Not that Spitzer is, but it is something I'm personally worried about.

It is good to see you too. I wasn't expecting anyone to be around.

I hope you are doing well, friend.

I was remembering all the fun we had in the book of Genesis as I'm pondering making a YT video with this premise .... Is Genesis 1 useful for teaching kindergarteners about the big bang? Kindergarteners being a good modern approximation of stone / bronze age people and what they would have thought if they had a view of the history of the universe.

The answer is surprising, it is more useful in giving a picture of the early universe up through the Eocene than it was when I was growing up. Strikingly so, even.

For instance, light wasn't just a spark at the beginning, but it filled the universe for hundreds of thousands of years until the great inflation cooled things down enough. Then it would have looked something like a vast twilight that we can still see in the cosmic microwave background radiation. And that is just the morning and the evening of the first day. It actually seems to play pretty smoothly through the rest of the days as well.

Thanks for commenting. It is good to hear from you again.

https://www.technologyreview.c...

"After years of declines, Germanyâ(TM)s carbon emissions rose slightly in 2015, largely because the country produces much more electricity than it needs. Thatâ(TM)s happening because even if there are times when renewables can supply nearly all of the electricity on the grid, the variability of those sources forces Germany to keep other power plants running. And in Germany, which is phasing out its nuclear plants, those other plants primarily burn dirty coal."

The whole nuclear debate shows that the left can be just as "anti-science" as the right. Because of scaremongering, nuclear power plant construction and development has been hamstrung for decades. It produces less radiation than coal and scales a lot better than solar or wind. For all the money and jobs in solar it still produces a small percentage of power, even in places like Germany (less than 8%). Wind and solar combined only produce only 22% of energy in Germany.

If you believe that global warming is about to end the human race, we should be increasing all our options for non-CO2 polluting energy. Especially if you anticipate a huge need in energy as we shift cars from petrol to electric.

Abandoning nuclear is right when we need it the most is just stupid.

You just tiptoed up to a point that I think is most interesting.

Why would we assume the Russians would do this to support Trump, instead of the candidate who is a self proclaimed socialist, on the eve of his last logistical chance of getting the nomination, who was the one who was directly hurt by the exposed actions?

Now I might have my reasons but to take this question one step further, why would Hillary or the DNC assume this was to help Trump and not Bernie?

The depressing part of all of this is that it is obvious she is guilty, but it really doesn't matter. The politically powerful, whether the Goldman Sachs or the Clintons, will always be able to get away with whatever they want. Meanwhile our prison population is overflowing with "little people" who lack the political connections necessary to be free of the ire of the Federal government. Host an illegal mail server that is easily hacked. No big deal. Actually blow the whistle on Federal crimes and corruption. To prison with you!

Wrong, wrong, you could not be more wrong. The First Amendment to the Bill of Rights (which doesn't even apply here obviously) is the legal mandate of the Enlightenment concept of Free Speech which goes far beyond what I could describe in a short reply.

It is sad and sickening to see so called liberals slowing becoming the greatest opponents of a marketplace of ideas, of free discussion and debate, of taking and understanding rather than mandating like the worst fascists of the 20th century

Star Trek couldn't even get rid of the concept of money in the show. This led to various inconsistencies throughout the various Star Trek shows and movies, even within the Federation. See http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.c...

If consciousness is mere illusion, who is the illusion fooling?

While you shouldn't necessary pick a major based on the hottest job, you definitely need to pick something in consideration with how you will use it. And you sure as heck should go to college to learn and make yourself better--not just to receive a piece of paper. Racking up 5 or 6 figures of debt without learning anything of value is a terrible idea. Unfortunately, we haven't given students the tools or perspectives to understand the consequences of the decisions they are making. Everyone is always warning athletes coming into college "the chances of you making it as a pro are extremely rare". And yet, the chances of someone making it as a tenured history professor at a major university are probably just as rare. At least the athletes aren't going into massive debt.

Add onto the fact that we have massively watered down many majors to the point of uselessness. The reason liberal arts majors get a bad rap isn't that it is a useless subject. If people came out as hard working critical thinkers they would be valuable contributors. Unfortunately, it is filled with people who just want a piece of papers and do the minimum to get by. This is a generalization, of course, but I believe is backed up by stats on plagiarism http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...). And the courses are watered down to be worthless. For example you can graduate from Yale with an English without having a Shakespeare course (http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/04/23/skipping-shakespeare-yes-english-majors-can-often-bypass-the-bard/). So in 4 years of education in English, you don't have to actually take a course in the most influential English writer in history. But, you know, he is challenging to read and understand. As an alternative you can take a course in Literature for Young People http://english.yale.edu/course... which includes J. K. Rowling and Dr. Seuss.

At least with Engineering/Math/Hard Science you have to demonstrate via projects and tests that you have actually learned something.

And startup investors invest a large sum of money for that ownership. You aren't going to get ownership for 5-100 bucks.

This sounds like the mad rantings of a Freshman Gender Studies student who have never touched a video game, not the news director of a gaming website! It is nothing more than sexist, ageist, name-calling. It sounds like she not only hates her job but also hates the industry she is covering. No wonder Intel pulled their support, I can't imagine any corporation would want to be associated with this.

The problem is that government is being used to choke out the competition, especially at a local level: http://www.wired.com/2013/07/w...

Comcast uses government regulation as a shield to block competition. So yes, the libertarian solution would be to remove these blocks and open up the options.

And you are naive to think that anyone in government, especially Democrats, will regulate Comcast. Obama has been in bed with Comcast for a while http://thehill.com/policy/tech.... And Comcast owns NBC, which owns MSNBC--the Fox News of the Democrat party.

Sorry to bust your Government/Democrats good Republicans/libertarians bad bubble.

Your sig is ironic since your opinion is quite bigoted. There is a great deal of pseudoscience belief on both sides of the isle. The left has irrational beliefs on nuclear power, GMO foods, etc. There was an article in the Washington Post about Democrats believing in horoscope and astrology more than Republicans/Independents: http://www.washingtonpost.com/...