"John, when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together." - Asimov, The relativity of wrong.

It always amuses me that Mendel's pea plant experiments would not get past peer review these days.

Contrary to popular belief we have no explaination for gravity, spacetime, or the other fundamental forces (eg: try and define "time" without the definition becoming circular). What we have are models that predict how these "miracles" behave and interact in most situations.

This is competition 101 - adapt your site to the new environment or it will die.

The solution is a simple technical one that was designed for this exact purpose, ie: don't serve the images unless the referrer is your own site. The only problem here is your unwillingness to modify YOUR site to meet YOUR requirements.

The irony here is that the GP's innate theory of mind is assigning attributes to you in the same way yours assigns attributes to Bugs Bunny, God, or any other character, regardless of whether the character is fictional or real.

Religion is a way of feeling, not a way of knowing.

Instinct is an example of an alternative way of knowing, many religions simply document moral instincts and then claim to be the sole source of morality. Morals are as innate to humans as their physical senses, until very recently science had no idea (and no interest) as to where they came from, religion has always provided stories to fill that gap. Stories are more powerful than people assume, the mind of the worshiper creates a character called god based on the story, it then asks the character questions and favors. The practice of prayer simply reenforces the character by asking you to regularly converse with the character you have built. Now the real hook is when that prayer is "answered" your mind highlights it and attributes it to the god character, like gamblers who keep pulling the lever, worshipers will keep on praying every night.

God is not the only character in your head, it's just as easy to imagine yourself talking to Obama (re: Clint Eastwood and the empty chair). The conversation you have will be based on personality attributes you have assigned to him, some of those attributes might even match the real ones since Obama can be observed. Every human is born with a basic "theory of mind" that "explains" why things behave the way they do, it instinctively assigns personalities to everything both animate and inanimate. If you doubt that then listen to yourself the next time you try and explain to a mechanic what is wrong with your car, both of you will use words that describe the personality of your car, theory of mind is deeply embedded in our language because it's deeply embedded in humans.

Combine the "theory of mind" with he fact that human societies are always hierarchical and it's kind of obvious why humans tend to create a mother/father personality that oversees the entire universe. In the early days of human society that personality was obvious and real, it was simply the big ball of fire in the sky that from direct observation could be seen to regulate all life.

You appear to be confessing your comprehension skills are below that of a "stupid fucking troglodyte".
First sentence - "In a move that might dampen the popularity of Airbnb's site for Amsterdam, the city government is now using the accommodation listing service"
As for the mod, "redundant" would be more appropriate.

The attitude displayed in the parent post is why I'd much rather live in Amsterdam than Huston.

Not really.

The domino effect also applies to car makers such as GM, they go under and a gazzillion local businesses go down with them. I like your comparison to organics, large companies are like keystone species, remove them and the micro-environment they provide also disappears. Now you could say "don't let a company get that big in the first place" but then you are giving every other nation an "economy of scale" advantage you ideology won't allow you to use.

Why do people insist on repeating obvious nonsense they hear from political hacks, humans have been speculating in currency since the first caveman carried a sea shell into the mountains and traded it for a shinny rock.

The root problem with US politics is the number of people who are willing to give credence to the kind of myopic bullshit you just posted. You and your ilk are fearfull because you project your own meglomania onto others and then without a shread of evidence conclude that they will act the way you would (if given the chance).

So enlighten us.
- How does one teach understanding?
- How does one measure the progress of students?
- How does one understand something without remebering it?

"Rediculous" is the highest level of ridiculousness, there's also "Yellowdiculous" (a bit silly) and "Greendiculous" (sober)

Wonder why the global software industry is worth trillions of dollars?