The problem is that Americans are highly susceptible to groupthink. Groupthink says that science is not "cool". Groupthink also says that there are no jobs available, and that even if there were jobs, they would only pay an average amount. Diversity is what America makes America great, and groupthink destroys diversity. So, to put it simply, we are basically facing the problem of overpopulation. We need a new land to expand into, but there are no more new lands, in the traditional sense. Thus, there are two possibilities: war or space colonization. We are already engaged in the former, and I suspect it will only get worse, since the second option requires real leadership, and there is no real leadership right now. It's the blind leading the blind.

This is just another example of quantum trickery. No fundamentally new principles have been derived. The potential applications are probably in material manufacturing, electronics, and perhaps astronomy, as most quantum applications are. As for "implications" for the macroscopic world, there are basically none. From what I understand, they basically used electromagnetic fields to play quantum tricks. In my opinion, nearly everything you can do with QM is basically like playing with shadows. You can make all the bunny rabbit and alligator shadows you want, but the basic physics of light is still the same.

You're damn right. We need an amendment to our constitution which specifically prohibits corporations from entering into politics. They are not people, and they have no rights under our constitution as it stands, but yet we allow them to trample all over our rights as citizens. Frankly, I've had enough of it. If we don't do something about it now, we'll all end up cyborgs under the complete control for the Evil Empire or Google.

And I wonder when somebody will think of a better waste of time, energy, and computer cycles. I think the LHC is pretty much a Black Hole for money that gets pumped into various "projects" that otherwise would not get funded. Other than that, it doesn't serve much scientific value. A little blip, in a sea of particles is not enough evidence to verify anything.

This has to be one of the dumbest comments I've ever heard. I don't know how you are measuring what a "mess" is, but photosynthetic plants are a natural and mathematical consequence of the evolutionary processes on Earth. Only when intelligence comes into play can "messes" occur, because intelligence attempts to simulate nature internally, and fails at capturing all of its aspects. Apart from intelligence the term "mess" has no meaning. Things simply follows the laws of physics. Although, intelligence too can be though of as a natural consequence of physics. The difference is, we judge "messes" according to our intelligence. Perhaps, some super-intelligent aliens might think that everything we have done here on Earth is a natural consequence of evolution on a grand scale that we, as humans, cannot comprehend. However, I cannot speculate what super-intelligent aliens might know or comprehend, or even if they exist for certain (the Great Filter hypothesis is seeming increasingly plausible to me).

Oh, come on! You've got an admin password and an IP. Any good hacker could figure out what to do what that.

I strongly disagree. And, I know I'm not going to win this one, because people on this site don't give a damn about the truth. They care about keeping their jobs as security administrators. You know that's what this is all about. It's all about money.

And that "precedent" is what, 15 minutes old? Furthermore, the U.S. does not base its laws on the laws of other countries.

That's great, but what does that have to do with the United States? You have so many leaks because your laws reward hackers. If there's, for example, a $5000 dollar fine, and the government want money, what do you think they'll do? They'll pay hackers to hack your databases or communications.

Computer "security" is one the biggest lies ever sold, second only to religion. There's no such thing as "security" and there's no such thing as "God".

Every society that exists is based on trust. Otherwise, we would all simply attack each other, and societies would never form. The thing that gives us the ability to trust is intelligence. We realize that we have a choice. We can either help each other or fight each other. What do you teach your children? To get along with other children or to fight other children? Why? Most humans on Earth have more than enough intelligence to understand the concept of trust. The problem is that we don't use that intelligence. And we somehow think that is the way things are supposed to be. We think its okay to let some people stay uneducated and others be educated.

I completely believe in a free society, but only when all of its members are well educated. Our "public schools" are a sad excuse for education. In fact, they are not education at all. They don't teach logic, and logic is the only true education. Furthermore, many of our colleges and universities do no better, especially in Arts and Humanities. Consider what would happen if we eliminate all schools. Do you think trust could exist in such a society? There's not a chance. It would be mass chaos.

I realize this is philosophical, and not want many people want to hear. As painful as the truth is, it's true. We can hide behind churches and religion as we have done, or we can step up to our responsibilities. It's our choice. However, I have no doubt that we will step up to our responsibilities, and embrace trust, in this century. It will happen either by choice, by necessity, or by force. One way or another, because the continuation of humanity depends on it, we will embrace trust.

Oh, the IP is: 216.34.181.49

Okay, hotshot. Here it is: Ikd6BmEs9v. Good luck with that!

For every planet with intelligent life, there are many other planets that have not been depleted of the resources, and are much more easily colonized. Furthermore, any civilization that is capable of interstellar travel must also be capable of advanced Artificial Intelligence. Any civilization that is capable of advanced AI is probably peaceful or it, most likely, would have destroyed itself long before it was capable of interstellar travel. Splogic dictates that any civilization capable of interstellar space travel will be peaceful.

I second that! All this security stuff sounds "cool" and "hacker-like", but the fact of the matter is the entire purpose of security is distrust. A society based on distrust will eventually destroy itself, due to accumulation of power. We must have an open-source society. We're headed in exactly the wrong direction right now, except for OSS.