Sure but by that point the bits of management that made the cuts have a good chance of working for someone else.

"A team of sceintists and engineers spent many years and millions of dollars to land a spacecraft on a comet -- an unprecedented achievement in human history."

Nope. Deep Impact managed the first landing. Philae managed the first, second and third softish landings.

"Feminists and gender warriors decided that landing a spacecraft on a comet wasn't important -- their supposedly hurt feelings about the pictures on the shirt were the only thing worth talking about that happened that day."

Err no. There was some criticism of the shirt yes but there was no suggestions that the wider landing shouldn't be talked about (although since at that point the ESA were still keeping the initial data from the landings under wraps there wasn't much to discuss).

"Rather than telling the gender warriors to go fuck themselves (or, more appropriately, to go achieve something themselves before coming back and making demands), the scientist was forced to make a tearful apology."

No he wasn't. I assume the PR people told him to apologise but the tears were entirely optional. Of course given that they were trying to spin multiple failures into a success story there not completely slick handling of the matter can be forgiven.

I don't think so. Museums have put in bids in that region and we aren't seeing the kind of ticks used by the art as an investment crowd (as far as I'm aware no apple 1s are in free ports).

Computers are a big obvious part of our civilisation at the moment thus people take an interest in early examples. The apple 1 is probably the earliest example that:

1)turns up on the open market on a regular basis (are there any Ferranti Mark 1s in private hands?)
2)people have heard of (Kenbak-1 anyone?)
3)Is a reasonable size (Ross Perot may be prepared to give space over to a few ENIAC cabinets but not all collectors will).

While there are other options that fulfil some of the requirements the apple 1 is probably the only one that fills all free.

Wikipedia thinks at least 63 of the things exist. Compared to some other early computers that is pretty common. While there is probably enough demand from archives to support that number I wouldn't get too concerned until the number droped to 20 or so.

There are already at least 4 in museums (Smithsonian, Sydney Powerhouse, London Science, Henry Ford Michigan). From the POV of museums they make a nice item. The name is recognisable (first apple computer is going to get more attention than say a OSI Model 500), its a convenient size (which is why a lot of british museums have a ZX Spectrum on display while the APE(X)C is in storage) and history of computing galleries are pretty much a must for any science/technology museum at the moment

Last time they wore silly shirts they messed up the landing. I fail to see why they should be given a second chance.

>This exact same line of reasoning is being used at this very moment to remove all pictures and mentions of pigs in children's stories and textbooks in the United Kingdom because some Muslims might be offended.

You appear to have believed something you read in the Daily Mail. Unfortunate.

In practice one of the most popular character's aimed at children is Peppa Pig. Perhaps you don't know anyone with young children so aren't aware of this fact. In which case I'd suggest you avoid expressing opinions on the matter.

>Short answer: Reproducibility. The image is one of several which have been commonly used in the literature for decades.

If we are going by that standard we would probably have to use something like BBC Test Card F

>Also, it's actually, it's a really good photo for testing various types of computer vision algorithms - complex backgrounds (including a mirror), varying textures and colors (e.g. the hat feather thing), and a simple grayscale conversion works well.

Not really. Firstly we don't have great documentation on the hardware involved. The hardware involved is also highly non typical by modern standards (if your system is designed around drum scanned film and its 2015 you are doing something wrong). Using an image produced by a digital camera using Bayer filter would be more fit for purpose (the most obvious difference is that you will get more information on the green channel that the red and blue channel, this doesn't happen with film) . It would also avoid the rather messy copyright situation around the image.

Its not 1973 we are not short of digital images to use for testing any more. Chosing one that doesn't come from playboy is a reasonable choice.

Will the first issue is that about the only thing we would have got out of the Large Hadron Collider is confirmation of the Top quark.

Various space probes would also be rather limited. For example MESSANGER would be limited to stuff that had previously been found from earth or Mariner 11.

In fields like chemistry the overwhelming majority of studies produce results that are pretty much what you would expect so there is little reason not to accept them (other than the yield always assume the yield is inflated unless it is a process optimisation paper).

In a field like archaeology not only are most findings pretty uncontroversial (we found some surrey whiteware at Stafford Castle) but repeating an excavation is only going to work so well.

I think most people would accept that placing limits on knowingly buying stolen goods is allowable within a free society.

European countries use various options. Some US derived:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

UK did look at getting proper prime ministerial transport plane but the idea proved unpopular.

It turns out that in this day and age 2-3 m class telescopes aren't that expensive compared to launching and running the things. They also really really want to get the James Webb Space Telescope up there before spending money anything else.

Compared to the european budget carries probably. Until the US opens up its market though we won't really know.

Because the police are the ones out and about in the small hours of the morning. If you are outside for sustained periods it doesn't need to be below freezing to be unpleasent enough to reduce your effectiveness.