A lot of the comments make the point that doing "real" science at home is pretty much impossible now due to the need for expensive equipment, and decades of experience. As a professional scientist I think that's nonsense. I think what people are missing is the shifting paradigm of how things are measured. I'm really excited by the possibilities suggested by (for instance) the next generation of smart phones, that hopefully might have many more sensors embedded (RFID, gas sensors, temperature/pressure)... and for the large scale distributed sensor networks that might result. The web of things, ubiquitous computing and widespread availability of cheap hardware that makes good enough (not excellent, but good enough) measurements over a wide scale are going to give professional (and amateur) scientists a whole new lever on the world. Additionally some scientific disciplines (like astronomy oddly enough) have become data rich in the last few years, I literally have tapes and discs containing data I'll likely never get round to analysing because I don't have time. Likewise for all my colleagues, who have similar piles in their offices. The arrival of the new generation of all-sky telescopes (like the LSST) which will give us access to the sky in the time-domain isn't really going to change that, it's only going to get worse in fact. All of which puts doing "real" science at home well in the reach of most (educated) amateurs.

Students are beginning to work with data sets like the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, the largest public data set in the world. The telescope takes detailed images of large chunks of the sky and produces about 30 terabytes of data each night.

Err no it doesn't, and no they aren't. The telescope hasn't been built yet? First light isn't scheduled until late in 2015.

Al.

I'm continually amazed what American's are prepared to pay for cellphones, landlines and broadband. I get all of the above on an 8Mb connection for 16 here in the UK, and I'm with an expensive provider that actually has decent tech support...

Oh right, the old "the social democrats started it!" excuse. Some of the right-wing politicians who passed this law actually used that one as a reason for not opposing it. While the observation is factually correct, it is not a valid reason to pass bad laws.

And as for your statement that "The opposition (the previous administration) used a law that enabled them to defer a decision for one year", that was done by the green party + the left party + the christian democrats. To refer to that as "the opposition" seems weird, since one of them are part of the current administration and the list excludes the biggest party of the opposition.

"The opposition" includes the green party, the left party and the social democrats. As for the social democrats I have no suggestion for why they chose to vote now, at least none that seems more likely than yours. But as for the two other parties, you have to consider their recent "no" in light of that they are the ONLY parties who have opposed this law all the way through the process. Maybe they really didn't want the law passed?

I object to the use of the word 'bragging' in the summary. I went to grad school with Darren (his office was 3 doors down from mine) and he was a great all-around guy. He was someone you could joke around with and I never saw any indication of him being a braggard. It's possible that he's changed significantly in the last 10 years, but I see nothing in TFA that would suggest this. He made what is potentially a significant contribution. Why shouldn't he be aloud to be proud of it?

GMD