That is one of the reasons I chose to use percentage of income paid in taxes rather than income. We are told constantly how the wealthy only pay 14% in taxes and the rest of us pay much more. This would discourage that sort of maneuvering to some degree or give the middle class more influence.

I want to use percent paid in taxes on your TOTAL income not your taxable income. So Mitt Romney might get 14 votes but someone single guy earns a paltry 80K or something might very well end up with 20.

I think it's unlikely that this is the only (or first) planet to have life, bot otoh so much has to be just perfect for it to begin that I do think it's rare.

But no way am I certain one way or the other.

It takes no thought or reading to glance at the speedometer, it does with a GPS. The speedometer takes your eyes off the road for a split second, GPS takes both your eyes and mind off for several seconds. After all, if you know where you are you don't need GPS and if you don't, why are you moving?

Yes, with FLAC you need good output transducers.

some headsets boost certain frequencies.

I don't want any frequencies boosted or attenuated, I want a flat frequency response. I don't want it to "sound good" I want it to faithfully reproduce the original performance. I want it to sound like the musicians are in the room with me, and you won't get that with MP3s.

ah, I see, you are from the 'B' ark.

Unless your headphones are wireless, water won't hurt them, they'll dry. Of course if there's a battery and electronics getting them wet isn't a good thing.

From reading that National Geographic article I suspect this kind of thing is more common than they think. It wouldn't even need a collision, just a close call with a larger body.

When I listen to the 1812 Overture, I want the cannons to rattle the windows. When I play rock music I want the neighbors to think there's a live band in my living room!

Um, no.

I'm not a Halloween kind of guy and kids keep knocking on the damned door wanting candy, so I just take my notebook to the bar.

I'm not so sure about that. From TFA:

So could the planet have formed in a wider orbit and migrated inward? This is another improbability, say the researchers. âoeIt couldnâ(TM)t have formed further out and migrated inward, because it would have migrated all the way into the star. This planet is an enigma,â Sasselov added.

That is in opposition to this:

âoeWhat Iâ(TM)m going to say is really absolutely crazy,â he said at the start of a recent seminar. âoeIf we publish this, my career might be over.â He could have made the same remark back in 2004 about what is now called the Nice modelâ"the hypothesis that he and his colleagues, including Alessandro Morbidelli of the CÃte dâ(TM)Azur Observatory in Nice, developed on the basis of dozens of computer simulations.

In essence Levisonâ(TM)s team proposed that our solar systemâ(TM)s four giant planetsâ"Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptuneâ"had started out much more closely packed together, on nearly circular orbits, with the latter three closer to the sun than they are now. Early on they were embedded in the disk-shaped solar nebula, which was still full of icy and rocky debris. As the planets absorbed those planetesimals or flung them away after close encounters, they cleared gaps in the disk.

Because the planets were also tugging on one another, the whole system was fragileâ"âoealmost infinitely chaotic,â Levison says. Instead of each planet being linked only to the sun by a brass arm, itâ(TM)s as if they were all linked by gravitational springs as well. The most powerful one linked the two biggest bodies, Jupiter and Saturn. A yank on that spring would jolt the whole system.

And that, the team believes, is what happened when the solar system was about 500 million to 700 million years old. As the planets interacted with planetesimals, their own orbits shifted. Jupiter moved slightly inward; Saturn moved slightly outward, as did Uranus and Neptune. Everything happened slowlyâ"until at a certain point Saturn was completing exactly one orbit for every two of Jupiterâ(TM)s.

Because the planets were also tugging on one another, the whole system was fragileâ"âoealmost infinitely chaotic,â Levison says. Instead of each planet being linked only to the sun by a brass arm, itâ(TM)s as if they were all linked by gravitational springs as well. The most powerful one linked the two biggest bodies, Jupiter and Saturn. A yank on that spring would jolt the whole system.

TFA is framing the question in a sensational way. What the scientists are saying is "this is an exciting puzzle, it shouldn't happen according to what we know.

Perhaps. The question we would want to ask is what is the cost? If there are genes that predispose people to being a math genius, and being a math genius is advantageous, then why aren't we already all so predisposed?

Because that's not how evolution works. As long as you fit your environment well enough to live long enough to procreate, you have won the Darwin game.

Hmm, maybe you're right. Do mathematicians get laid much?

I'm fairly certain that with bigger antennas... you would be able to do this trick at 300 feet

Radio doesn't work like that. For optimal transmitting/receiving you need the antenna to be tuned to the frequency being transmitted. Try to use a two meter antenna for wifi and you'll be lucky to get a signal at all. The antenna needs to be the same length as the frequency's wavelength (or certain multiples; I've forgotten a lot).

Headphones? Give me a 10" sub-woofer instead.

<Crocodile Dundee>Subwoofer? You call that a subwoofer? (Pulls out Marshall stack with 30 inch woofers)<Dundee>

Ten inches isn't a subwoofer, kid. Ten inches is pretty lame for a woofer. Hell, my twelve inch 3 way JBLs only go down to 30 Hz (the old 777s that I used to have that were stolen from me in a burglary had fifteen inch woofers and went down to zero Hertz, but were only flat down to 20 Hz).

If you want good sound (especially bass) don't buy your speakers at a stereo store, go to a music store where they sell instruments, amps, and professional speakers. They'll be cheaper in cost and much higher in quality than high-end living room speakers.

Jees, you kids...

These modern cars are safer in high speed collisions, but at a large cost in value.

Crumple zones are far cheaper than surgery, and burials aren't cheap, either.