I'm glad to see that in all the variety of Slashdot, we do have someone here to represent the communist or socialist viewpoint.

While you leap to assumptions and base beliefs on probability (I'm glad I don't, the probability was that I'd never accomplish what I did in life), I just love your wording of "An intelligence manipulating things to prevent us from detecting the true origins of the universe."

Excellent point. If Creationism were true, then a consequence of it is a God who intentionally misleads or allows us to be misled and who hides the truth.

I'm quite well off, I've been retired since I was 45 and spending all my time writing and ballroom dancing. I'm ecstatic, right now, because the tax law change lets me move, literally, millions, into irrevocable trusts so nobody can get at it by suing me or through other ways. Yes, this time, the votes did help me and the wealthy.

But even though I worked my ass off to get where I am (running a software based service company that ran on my custom software), you'd be surprised at how often Congress and the President, even Bush, has screwed me over along the way.

I've worked hard, but because I don't make as little as you, I'm limited in what I can keep or do with it in ways that, unless you've gotten into estate management and similar topics, wouldn't know about.

Ah! At last I understand what you've been working on for all these years, Hari Seldon.

"Liberal" is just the word the extreme right has made up to describe anyone they disagree with. It's a label, almost a pejorative they've created so they can just say, "He's a liberal," instead of dealing with something a person has said that has any validity. It's a way to call names instead of dealing with the facts.

It's been so distorted by people that think there is their way and the wrong way that it really doesn't have any meaning any longer.

Considering how they ignore science when it's inconvenient to their agenda, like the recent memos on global warming, for example, they've shown they can intentionally distort science as much as they distort politics.

That's almost by design. The Fox News bias is from the original founding idea: studies showed most vocal conservatives (as opposed to real conservatives) didn't want facts and didn't want to learn. They wanted to hear only what re-enforced their already limited and slanted viewpoints. It was consciously created with that in mind. Some of the "talent" involved have even made comments, off camera, at social events, like, "Oh, that's just the act, get over it," or, "It's what I do for a job, who believes that crap?"

Interestingly enough, surveys also show that those very same people, when presented with facts that disrupt or disprove what they want to believe will ignore those facts and will become even more emotionally entrenched and committed to what they want to believe is true - even after seeing proof it is false.

It'd be wonderful if you told us what it was, so we knew why it was useful. Even the link doesn't tell us a thing about what it does.

Do you think everyone here knows about everything on Sourceforge?

I've been using them for years. Very little in terms of upselling or pushing products. Simple to work with and easy to navigate.

Hello? Hello, Dimitri? Listen, I can't hear too well, do you suppose you could turn the music down just a little?

Oh, that's much better. Yes. Fine, I can hear you now, Dimitri. Clear and plain and coming through fine. I'm coming through fine too, eh? Good, then.

Well then as you say we're both coming through fine. Good. Well it's good that you're fine and I'm fine. I agree with you. It's great to be fine. (laughs)

Now then Dimitri. You know how we've always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the bomb.

The bomb, Dimitri.

The hydrogen bomb.

Well now what happened is, one of our base commanders, he had a sort of, well he went a little funny in the head. You know. Just a little... funny. And uh, he went and did a silly thing.

Well, I'll tell you what he did, he ordered his planes... to attack your country.

Well let me finish, Dimitri. Let me finish, Dimitri.

Well, listen, how do you think I feel about it? Can you imagine how I feel about it, Dimitri?

Why do you think I'm calling you? Just to say hello?

Of course I like to speak to you. Of course I like to say hello. Not now, but any time, Dimitri.

I'm just calling up to tell you something terrible has happened. It's a friendly call. Of course it's a friendly call. Listen, if it wasn't friendly, ... you probably wouldn't have even got it.

They will not reach their targets for at least another hour. I am... I am positive, Dimitri.

Listen, I've been all over this with your ambassador. It is not a trick. Well I'll tell you.

We'd like to give your air staff a complete run down on the targets, the flight plans, and the defensive systems of the planes. Yes! I mean, if we're unable to recall the planes, then I'd say that, uh, well, we're just going to have to help you destroy them,

Dimitri. I know they're our boys.

Alright, well, listen... who should we call? Who should we call, Dimitri? The people...?

Sorry, you faded away there. The People's Central Air Defense Headquarters. Where is that, Dimitri? In Omsk. Right. Yes. Oh, you'll call them first, will you?

Uh huh. Listen, do you happen to have the phone number on you, Dimitri? What? I see, just ask for Omsk Information.

I'm sorry too, Dimitri. I'm very sorry. Alright! You're sorrier than I am! But I am sorry as well. I am as sorry as you are, Dimitri. Don't say that you are more sorry than I am, because I am capable of being just as sorry as you are. So we're both sorry, alright?

Alright.

(From "Dr. Strangelove)

I did, too. And I think excluding the dead or those who are older but kicked ass when they were younger isn't fair, either. But, then again, we're talking 3rd grader logic here -- and I really do sympathize for the kid. I remember what it was like when I was in third grade, back about 1970 or so and I thought Captain Kirk was cooler than Keith Partridge.

A) You're also talking the much rarer cases, ones that don't come along but every so often.

B) Name one of these that was considered cool or looked up to by 3rd graders.

It takes less training (in terms of time and years) than it does to make a name in other fields.

Physical shape is an issue in space flight, just like in sports, so age is, again, a factor.

His friends are all looking at sports heroes and you're looking at people with long careers. There's a big difference.

Athletes only have a few decades in which they'll do well, then they retire. So it's easy to find a younger athlete as a hero: as they get older, they lose it.

But almost all the other professions take time to get experienced in. They require learning and years of experience to excel, other than something like astronaut, which can include younger people.

Too bad you can't include people like Chuck Yeager or Wiley Post.

You mean you don't welcome our new disaster-warning-texting overlords?