there are exactly zero community colleges that have accredited astrophysics programs. they simply don't have the funding, equipment, or facilities to carry out the experiments and other "hands-on" curriculum.

what's really interesting about this post:

is that all the course numbers start with 0. This is usually a sign of either a) remedial courses or b) non-accredited programs.

I understand that graduating with any sort of college degree at the age of 11 is very impressive, but this is simply NOT a degree in astrophysics, and doesn't really even approach it. Another dead give away that this is a totally bogus degree is that it's an Associates Degree of Liberal Arts. Physics, in any form, is NOT a liberal art. Being that it's not, at the very least, an Associates Degree of Science (which is still pretty shady for "astrophysics" since it's VERY theoretical) raises a huge red flag. I would be very surprised to find that even half of the credits for the courses he took are accepted at any 4 year university offering a Bachelor's of Science in Physics.

When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold

http://www.myspace.com/atmosphere

There are no parental controls or disclaimers" on personal ads in newspapers, and some of those are even less discreet than the "erotic services" ads.

gooba? scoogle? scooble?

just attach cameras to aquatic lifeforms and let us swim the depths of the oceans from our computers... no chance of being stabbed in the heart by a stingray, either!

Take the number of batteries in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.

I guess X was large.

What's really going to suck is when all those ads start showing up in other sections of craigslist, cluttering it even futher. They actually made the problem worse. Whack-a-mole, yes, but in this case, after you whacked the mole, it just splattered all over the place and it's even more of a mess than it was before. At least with the "Erotic Services" section, the problem was condensed and confined to one single section, at least for the most part.

Seems like buying a SATA-USB bridge with a case and a 1TB hard drive (totaling less than $100)would be much more cost effective, not to mention durable, than buying a $50 disk.

I can see the merit in having a single disk being able to store 500GB as a technological advancement (perhaps towards large capacity microSD cards and their ilk), but I fail to see how this works on a practical level as-is.

...it's called a "locked room" with "security cameras". Deny physical access = deny vbookit 2.0. "Design problem" solved.

Manufacturing costs, including parts and materials, direct labor, indirect labor, plant/equipment depreciation, and energy are ALWAYS approximately half of the retail cost, on average. The most common model estimates it to be 40% of the retail price. The other half comes from Engineering costs (15%), R&D (5%), Administration, Sales and Marketing (25%) and an assumed built-in profit margin of 15%. Of course, this varies by industry (die-casting has a razor thin profit margin, only about 2%).

...focus on value. That's why we run Mac or Linux. Microsoft sounds more like Dunder-Mifflin everyday. "Yeah, we're more expensive, but to us you FEEL like a valued customer, not just another number." In this economic climate, people don't have the luxury to care about how their feelings about the product they're buying, they want to not be broke. Also, Microsoft's customer service blows... even though you aren't a number to them. You're a product key, which makes you an alphanumeral.

How much energy do you think it would take to have any sort of meaningful effect on a hurricane we're actually worried about? I mean, how much energy would it take to reduce Katrina to Kat? I'm more concerned about the possible corruption of this technology... Real Genius^10. If this thing can really reduce the power level of a hurricane, what's to stop it from being used to vaporize human targets or entire CITIES from space. Missle defense system? Check. Giant energy beam defense system? I don't think we're there yet...

...and when the bartender asks him what he would like to drink, the guy says "I want what I always get, but I don't want you to actually pour the drink, just help me search behind the bar for the liquor I want, and the hand it to me without seeing what it actaully is, and charge me correctly without any knowledge of what it is you just helped me find."

My understanding (I'm not a lawyer) is that taxing interstate commerce is prohibited by the constitution (the root of all US law).

There are essentially two parts of the constitution that apply here:

Article I, section 8 (the enumerated powers of the legislative branch) states one of the powers of congress is "To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;" which indicates that legislation could be passed to specifically tax internet commerce as a form of regulation on trade between states. However, Article I, section 9 states that "No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State".

Essentially, there are two conflicting sections of the constitution that are applicable to internet commerce. Of course, the "Necessary and Proper" clause ("The Congress shall have power... To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.") of the Constitution allows congress to pass laws as needed to deal with specific situations the arise unforeseen by the founders.

So, basically, Congress can pass a bill taxing internet commerce, and barring a Presidential veto, it will enacted as a law. This will cause a flurry of lawsuits to be filed, and the case will end up in the Supreme Court, where it will be decided whether the law is actually constitutional. The debate will likely be a heated one, due to the two conflicting paragraphs (when applied to this situation) in adjacent sections of the Constitution.

Apparently they used the "Jeb Bush" vote counting method.

Agree with the above.

Being a "guru" has historically meant you will get paid well for doing a job that isn't all that difficult.

I once heard a story (can't cite a source sorry) about a computer tech working in an office for a cable company. Another computer tech from a different office had shown up, and something prompted one of the ladies in the front of the office to reboot her computer. The computer tech from the other office told the lady he could help her reboot (read: windows 98 was the OS), at which point the lady almost had a panic attack and said that John (the computer tech from this office) was the only one that could reboot the computer. John is called on the intercom, comes to her workstation, fiddles with the underside of the keyboard, the back of the computer, and finally restarts it. When asked later why he did all of that just to hit Start->Shutdown->Restart, he replied "job security."