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And yeah, my parents wrote books for a living, what they wrote wasn't even art (they didn't write novels), no kind of social engineering was needed to find that out, only asking, but hey, whatever floats your boat.

Not even asking was necessary for that, since a simple Google search turns all that up. By the way Michel, happy belated birthday, and I hope you're enjoying Ireland and didn't get too much of a culture shock from leaving France. I also hope you're doing well with the French tutoring. Despite the lack of a college education, you seem to have a decent handle on the basics of DSP, although it sounds like you still have quite a lot of math to learn before making it a career - this book might be quite helpful to you in that regard. It's quite a good book, and I speak from personal experience with it. As regards your royalty checks, who'd have guessed that names would be so interesting to so many people?

You seem to be a smart guy, which makes it all the more a shame that you've been such a tool during this whole discussion. Maybe you'll grow out of it, but don't ever forget that the Internet is forever, and what you do or say will likely follow you for a long, long time. And still nothing changes the fact that here in the U.S., copyright exists only by virtue of the Copyright Clause, not as a natural right.

You were extremely careful NOT to mention the greatest complaint that users have with Vista: it's dog-slow.

At anything.

Sure, if you throw enough CPU and memory at it, it will be "fine". While XP, on that configuration, actually boots quickly, performs quickly and is overall really fast and responsive. Quick, fast, responsive is what users want, and Vista takes that away, and leaves them with "fine" or "acceptable". So, some users said screw that, I want XP.

Ever tried running Vista on the Eee PC? It's a disaster - compared to XP or Linux. But HP decided they will release their Mini-note (similar hardware specs as the Eee PC eccept it has 2GB of ram, while the Eee has 512MB to 1GB), and well, they got themselves a nice shiny turd of slowness.

I never bothered to listen to the soundtrack, it's easy to overlook a soundtrack when it's instrumental backing to a movie but I previewed it, it's great, especially the two songs you mentioned. I bought it up on Amazon's MP3 site ($9 for 256kbit MP3s), check it out guys.

http://www.amazon.com/Wall-E/dp/B001B0C48E

there's mixed bag "inspired by" tracks at
http://www.amazon.com/Wall-E-And-Eve/dp/B001BNG9XC

I never bothered to listen to the soundtrack, it's easy to overlook a soundtrack when it's instrumental backing to a movie but I previewed it, it's great, especially the two songs you mentioned. I bought it up on Amazon's MP3 site ($9 for 256kbit MP3s), check it out guys.

http://www.amazon.com/Wall-E/dp/B001B0C48E

there's mixed bag "inspired by" tracks at
http://www.amazon.com/Wall-E-And-Eve/dp/B001BNG9XC

With fears of a license change and close-sourcing, why shouldn't I buy some PostgreSQL documentation and start learning to work with the other major project?

An EULA is a licence contract between 2 parties. It is clearly spelled out, presented both before and after the sale

You mean that if I visit this page (which unless my browser's search function doesn't work, appears to not contain the word "license" anywhere; in every way it appears to offer an item for sale), click on "Add to shopping cart," and then "proceed to check out" (other sales terms), then before I get to the screen where I give Amazon my credit card number (note that I'm dealing with Amazon, and have not yet conducted any business with Apple), the transaction is going to be interrupted by Apple (the party you're claiming I'm about to enter into a contract with) and they're going to show me a license?

Wow. Amazon.com must be a really complex web site.

this is no different from the DMV, or a credit card company.

Really? I remember signing some forms from both of those entities, before they gave me a card. I had quid-pro-quo agreements with my DMV and credit card issuer. In fact, every single contract in the rest of my entire life -- every single business or person that I am somehow bound to -- had some sort of direct transaction like that. I've either met them or at least sent 'em some paperwork with my signature, or damn, at least sent them an email (things are getting a lot less formal/provable here, but as a matter of honor I think it's fair to say that a non-forged email is your word) or at least made an http post to their server. I mean, there's at least some sort of interaction between the two parties.

But somehow, software publishers are a special case, huh? They are the one type of business, within all of the realm of humanity's economic endeavors since the dawn of history, where the usual rules and customs don't apply, huh?

The ramifications of undoing licence use..

Nobody's talking about disallowing software licenses. My former employer used sales contracts where the customer signed a piece of paper before they received the software, and if there was ever a dispute over who agreed to what, we had that piece of paper as reference/evidence.

What we're talking about here, are fake licenses, that one (sometimes both!!) of the so-called "parties" weren't really a party to any agreement, and there's no evidence that an agreement (or even any communication at all!) happened. This is a meeting of the minds?!?

..will cost the US BILLIONS in trade.

Fraud is not a type of commerce that I value. I'm sure there are some people in Nigeria who would argue that failing to legalize their scams is costing the country some trade, but that doesn't mean anyone is going to take them seriously.

Copyright law provides an excellent, if imperfect, solution to dealing with the rights of software publishers and users. If Apple isn't satisfied with that, then they are free to start using sales contracts. Sure, that will cost them most of their customers (because it's incredibly inconvenient) but that's the price of greed -- of wanting more from their customer than money -- more than what most software publishers (and music publishers and book publishers, everything covered by copyright) need.

A simple Amazon search turned up quite a few models. Some have optical out. One has an iPod dock.

Though I imagine the "eww..." factor would be pretty high, I'm surprised NASA isn't interested in developing a stillsuit-like technology a la Dune , where body fluids could be quickly converted to usable water for drinking or other purposes.

Well, then why don't you buy iWoz (ISBN 978-0393330434). I have both and preferred iWoz. It's a good read but the author tends to eulogise a bit... http://www.amazon.com/iWoz-Computer-Invented-Personal-Co-Founded/dp/0393330435/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216234368&sr=8-1 -Chris

True enough, but be honest with yourself. If there's are books about not collecting stamps, organizations dedicated to not collecting stamps, and websites all about how to not collect stamps, and movements to preach the greatness of not collecting stamps, guess what not collecting stamps has become?

"West of Eden", by Frank Rose does a good job of covering Steve's earlier period.

http://www.amazon.com/West-Eden-Innocence-Apple-Computer/dp/0140093729

Here: http://www.amazon.com/iWoz-Computer-Invented-Personal-Co-Founded/dp/0393061434 - I don't think that's a referral link, and apologies in advance if it is.

The book never says it, but the short end of the story is that Jobs would be where he is without Woz. The opposite is also true, but to a much lesser extent.

Win2k8 is going to be cost prohibitive as a desktop os for the vast majority of people.

Is that so?

(Note: I posted this in another thread, but I'm reposting it here because it's relevant.)

You can apparently buy an HP OEM copy of Windows Web Server 2008 for U.S. $140.91, supposedly $157.76 after shipping (to California). I'd never heard of the seller, pcRUSH.com, but it looks pretty legit based on the Shopzilla customer rating page); this is the best price I could find, but it seems rather low so I'm somewhat skeptical.

Or you can buy Buy Windows Web Server 2008 for U.S. $362.49 with free shipping on Amazon.com; this is the second best price I could find, and looks a bit less fishy considering the price is closer to retail and the seller (Amazon) is well-known.

I searched shopzilla.com and pricegrabber.com and the prices above were the best that came up.

Anyway, these prices are not really that much higher than what Vista costs. Amazon lists Vista Home Premium for $94.99 and Ultimate for $277.49 (note that the latter is just $85 more than Amazon's price for Windows Web Server 2008). Assuming pcRUSH's price for Windows Web Server 2008 is accurate, you can actually get it cheaper than Vista Ultimate!

I'll provide links since you didn't. =)

Download Windows Web Server 2008 trial (or if you prefer, you can get a trial of a different version of Windows Server)

Buy Windows Web Server 2008 - apparently U.S. $140.91 ($157.76 after shipping according to shopzilla.com) from pcRUSH.com (I'd never heard of this company, but here's their Shopzilla customer rating page); this is the best price I could find, but it seems rather low so I'm somewhat skeptical.

Buy Windows Web Server 2008 - U.S. $362.49 with free shipping on Amazon.com; this is the second best price I could find, and looks a bit less fishy considering the price is closer to retail and the seller (Amazon) is well-known.

Feel free to search for better prices. I tried shopzilla.com and pricegrabber.com and the prices above were the best that came up.

In case you're wondering, the reason why I singled out Windows Web Server (as opposed to another edition of Windows Server) is that if you're not going to actually use the OS for the server features, it doesn't make sense to buy a more expensive edition. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

In various science-fiction novels, such as Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars , old booster rockets are put up into orbit and linked to form space stations instead of just being throw away. Why has NASA never realized that idea? We'd have all the infrastructure in orbit we wanted, and for a very low cost.

This just shows how much Slashdot is geared towards software engineers. Mechanical engineers like me have been playing with 2 gigs of video memory since the Onyx 3000. Honestly though 2 gigs of memory would be pretty sweet I use a Firegl 7300 series sometimes and it still lags with some of the more complex assemblies I've tinkered with.

Not surprising, really, if you remember Once More, with Feeling.

Remember it? In my house we sing it!

Bunnies...it must be bunnies!

Why not just get a decent battery charger and batteries?

Seriously, is it much trouble to swap a set of two AAs once for every twenty or so hours of gameplay?

Not surprising, really, if you remember Once More, with Feeling .

I try really really hard not to.

Not surprising, really, if you remember Once More, with Feeling .

- Greg

By Ian Lawrie:

http://www.amazon.com/review/product/0750306041/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?_encoding=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

is an excellent overview of the key ideas in 20th century physics, with an eye for the unifying mathematical principles that underlie them all.

In your situation I think it would be very useful, because it gives you a big picture of what the main concepts in physics are like, rather than dwelling too much into the details of any one topic. Give it a read first, and then move on to a few more topic-specific books like others recommended here.

If malware based on this "attack code" got into the wild, it sounds like one of the attack vectors would be malicious Web sites (which is nothing new). As many security researchers have been recommending for years, turning off JavaScript and other active content by default will greatly reduce the potential for infection, even from many kinds of as-yet undiscovered exploits. A good way to do this with Firefox (without ruining compatibility with trustworthy sites) is to install NoScript, which allows you to whitelist trusted sites while allowing you to block scripts, Java, Flash, Silverlight, other plug-ins, etc. on every other site by default.

Of course, if the flaw lies in the microprocessor, then there are certainly other potential attack vectors than just malicious Web sites.

Someone pointed out that Intel processors are BIOS-upgradeable. What about computers based on EFI instead of BIOS, such as all the Intel-based Macs?

Also, as someone else pointed out, the headline is extremely misleading. The security researcher Kris Kaspersky is not affiliated with Kaspersky Lab or Eugene Kaspersky, but he's apparently the author of a number of books on programming and other computer subjects.

I think the best TED talks have been Steven Levitt talking about crack dealer business, and Paul Collier on the Bottom Billion.

All the technology in the world isn't going to fix developing countries where the laws, regulations, and corruption will keep the economies from growing to the point where the technology can be used efficiently. Once those barriers are gone, it isn't like people are stupid, they'll immediately use the appropriate needed technologies.

I suggest:

Michael Walker talking about his work on the Economic Freedom of the World index, and how economic freedom correlates with GDP, life expectancy, and other variables.

Karol Boudreaux from GMU's Mercatus Center talking about African governments bear much responsibility for driving formal-sector entrepreneurs out of the housing market and for driving their citizens into slums.

Robert Anderson on his book Just Get Out of the Way: How Government Can Help Business in Poor Countries.

Tyler Cowen form GMU on almost anything in economics: the future of culture in a globalized world, How to Use Incentives to Fall in Love, Survive Your Next Meeting, and Motivate Your Dentist, and much more.

Don Boudreaux from GMU about the issues he has interviewed people for on Econtalk: car salesmen, signaling through educational diplomas, whether the gold standard is a good idea, challenges in health care, and much more.

Arnold Kling on Crisis of Abundance: Rethinking How We Pay for Health Care

Or a Nicholas Stern versus William Nordhaus debate on global warming costs versus benefits and their viewpoints on appropriate discount rates for the calculation?

I think the best TED talks have been Steven Levitt talking about crack dealer business, and Paul Collier on the Bottom Billion.

All the technology in the world isn't going to fix developing countries where the laws, regulations, and corruption will keep the economies from growing to the point where the technology can be used efficiently. Once those barriers are gone, it isn't like people are stupid, they'll immediately use the appropriate needed technologies.

I suggest:

Michael Walker talking about his work on the Economic Freedom of the World index, and how economic freedom correlates with GDP, life expectancy, and other variables.

Karol Boudreaux from GMU's Mercatus Center talking about African governments bear much responsibility for driving formal-sector entrepreneurs out of the housing market and for driving their citizens into slums.

Robert Anderson on his book Just Get Out of the Way: How Government Can Help Business in Poor Countries.

Tyler Cowen form GMU on almost anything in economics: the future of culture in a globalized world, How to Use Incentives to Fall in Love, Survive Your Next Meeting, and Motivate Your Dentist, and much more.

Don Boudreaux from GMU about the issues he has interviewed people for on Econtalk: car salesmen, signaling through educational diplomas, whether the gold standard is a good idea, challenges in health care, and much more.

Arnold Kling on Crisis of Abundance: Rethinking How We Pay for Health Care

Or a Nicholas Stern versus William Nordhaus debate on global warming costs versus benefits and their viewpoints on appropriate discount rates for the calculation?

Err, Kris Kaspersky has a good reputation and does write pretty good books.

Im sure his Anti Virus will stop it :)

I initially made that mistake too, but Kris Kaspersky != Eugene Kaspersky

Kris is a security researcher and author.
Eugene is the guy behind Kaspersky Lab.

I wish the article had made the distinction, since some people are more familiar with Kaspersky the anti-virus creator and not the author.

Though this does remind me of the urban legend that anti-virus companies are behind all of the anti-viruses:
http://xkcd.com/250/

I don't specifically know about the concept of number, but it appears that the concept of arithmetic was driven by the needs of farmers, apparently predating even the Babylonians. There is an interesting account of this in Unknown Quantity: A Real and Imaginary History of Algebra, which I just started reading.

To be perfectly fair, if you were to buy a PS3 you would be buying a media format that you would indeed be using. PS3 games are put on Blu-Ray discs. Plain and simple. Much in the same way as back in cartridge days. You make a choice to buy a system with whatever media storage you want... provided it is available.

So, while your argument most definitely stands about M$ making you buy ludicrously overpriced storage, Sony does not make you buy anything 'unnecessary'. Overpriced? Perhaps... But it certainly is required to have a Blu-Ray drive on a PS3. Saying they 'make' you buy a Blu-Ray player is akin to saying they 'make' you buy the power adapter, or the Cell Processor it contains.

And if you think the HDD on the 360 are bad, check out their memory cards. At that price you'd have to spend $2000 for the same space as the 20GB HDD. Compare that with 8GB SD memory prices. At current flash memory rates you would need only spend about $60 for 20GB. How's that for getting shafted?!

It *used* to have a standard UI. The Windows Interface Guidelines was the bible of user interface work. Once upon a time, that is.

Programming Windows used to be fine - you had Windows Controls and the standard message passing architecture. It worked, and you could write apps that all looked the same and reused the same set of windows. I think it helped Windows adoption in a time when UI development had a 'whatever you wanted' approach.

However, that was then. Now Windows is a mish-mash of Win32 controls, embedded HTML, Vista-alike pretend-browser windows, WPF, Windows Forms, Silverlight, and I'm sure there are more. Its a huge mess, and I'm not surprised considering their push for "more new stuff" to keep developers from going elsewhere.

So, yes, if Linux could point to a fast development system that provided a better user experience... businesses would have a good reason to migrate. Something about standard UI = lower TCO if I recall the Microsoft marketing machine's reasons why Windows is better (oh the irony).

I have to confess that sometimes the gentlest intoductions were the best. The most expensive book on my reading list was Astronomy: The Evolving Universe, by Zeilik. I still love reading it to this day. Yes, maybe too many pictures for those that like the heavy stuff. If you really want to understand the basic principles - introduced in an absolutely clear manner - you won't get better.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0072472170/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&seller= I always recommend this book to the beginning Physics student, and I get thanked by my students often. Another bit of advice: Quite a few of my fellow astronomers have never spent much time actually looking at the night sky, either with the naked eye or through a telescope. Doing so will round out your education. (Of course, if you become a radio astronomer, as I did, you can play frisbee inside your telescope!) Good luck in your new endeavor.

I would go for an older edition (e.g. the 4th edition) of H&R's Physics, rather than the watered down Fundamentals of Physics.

I would recommend any of the books by A. P. French in the MIT Physics series. These are all beautifully done and very readable.

Also, the Berkeley Physics series is good.

And the Feynman Lectures are essential.

These two books were texts I found particularly good through my course:
http://www.whfreeman.com/universe5e/ - Very good easy to read
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Modern-Astrophysics-Bradley-Carroll/dp/0805304029 - This one's heavier reading, but very comprehensive.

Even after finishing my Astronomy masters, I'm finding new insights in this book. It doesn't go into the heavy math though.
http://www.gravityfromthegroundup.org/

A couple of things I've not seen are:
http://www.amazon.com/Classical-Mechanics-John-R-Taylor/dp/189138922X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215991937&sr=8-2Clasical Mechanics

and since you're a mathematician and haven't seen errors:

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Error-Analysis-Uncertainties-Measurements/dp/0935702423/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215992101&sr=1-1Error Analysis

And this should just be obvious:
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Modern-Astrophysics-Bradley-Carroll/dp/0805304029/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215992235&sr=1-1Modern Astro

A couple of things I've not seen are:
http://www.amazon.com/Classical-Mechanics-John-R-Taylor/dp/189138922X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215991937&sr=8-2Clasical Mechanics

and since you're a mathematician and haven't seen errors:

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Error-Analysis-Uncertainties-Measurements/dp/0935702423/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215992101&sr=1-1Error Analysis

And this should just be obvious:
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Modern-Astrophysics-Bradley-Carroll/dp/0805304029/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215992235&sr=1-1Modern Astro

A couple of things I've not seen are:
http://www.amazon.com/Classical-Mechanics-John-R-Taylor/dp/189138922X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215991937&sr=8-2Clasical Mechanics

and since you're a mathematician and haven't seen errors:

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Error-Analysis-Uncertainties-Measurements/dp/0935702423/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215992101&sr=1-1Error Analysis

And this should just be obvious:
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Modern-Astrophysics-Bradley-Carroll/dp/0805304029/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215992235&sr=1-1Modern Astro

ObPlug: Paul Polak's "Out of Poverty" program. http://www.paulpolak.com/ He has a deeper-than-surface understanding of 3rd world micro-economics. He introduced simple but effective technologies in many places which have completely transformed the lives of whole villages. Drip irrigation, cheap water storage, treadle-pumps, etc. He also has a book at amazon. Haven't read it yet, but it's on my wish list.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1576754499/ref=ord_cart_shr?_encoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance

On a related note:
(IMO) our universities must become more than diploma mills for the children of the wealthy, they should (primarily) be incubators for real, functional change. MIT and a few other universities take this seriously and (most importantly) fund it. (See recent articles on break-through solar technology.) I hope they will open-source the fruits of their research.

We somehow need to shift focus from getting-rich-quick to saving a world that needs it. We can't afford to let the 21st century really can't be like the 20th.

I think you will find this one is right up your ally.

Pricey but worth it.

Oh, I forgot - I wanted to comment on the rest of those books and add a couple.

Re: Griffiths books - they are both really good as intros to these topics (both are amongst my favorite "pleasure" reading physics books), but in the field they are often considered too elementary to be "serious," for better or worse. It's not that they are wrong, just that they are a little too user-friendly, which to me is a good thing.

If you can manage to wade through the extreme density that is that Shankar book, that should rectify things for QM - I have to say, though, I did not particularly enjoy that book, which surprised me since I adored his "Basic Training in Mathematics" book (likely too basic for a math major, I'd guess) and found him to be a fascinating lecturer (I never took one of his classes, but I occasionally slipped in and watched while between other classes). I think it's just too difficult to be so brutally thorough and remain interesting throughout an entire tome like that.

Jackson's E+M book is really the gold standard for classical E+M, though I'd really recommend hitting the literature if you're into stuff like self-action and all that.

Actually, I just noticed that the Griffith's recommendation was for his particles book, not QM, so scratch my QM comments - though if you find Shankar's book too weighty, pick up Griffith's QM book as a start, like most of his books it's very digestible (should take just a couple days to get through). If you find Griffith's particles book too light, which you hopefully will after a couple reads, you'll want some real field theory. The "standard" here is the Peskin/Schroeder book. That can be a little tough if you don't already know something about it; as a slightly more basic step in that direction, check out Zee's Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell, which I was very pleasantly surprised with.

You'd also be remiss not to pick up something that Feynman has written on field theory, as I don't know that anyone else has understood it in as straightforward a manner as he has - there's always his various QED papers, which you MUST read all of, but as an astrophysicist, your thoughts will likely turn to gravity, in which case the often overlooked Feynman Lectures on Gravitation are definitely worth your time. Take the later chapters with a grain of salt, as some of the claims about stars are wrong; that said, his approach is quite interesting, and his approach to the Einstein equations is freaking amazing (he starts with a "bare" spin-2 theory, figures out how it's "wrong," and "fixes it up" until it "works," and lo and behold, Einstein's equations pop out of nowhere; those quotation marks hide all of the hard work required to get there, of course!).

Er, and also, I kind of hate to dump another 1000+ page monster of a book on your list, but as an astrophysicist you probably ought to read Misner/Thorne/Wheeler's Gravitation. It's great, though I can't promise it's just a few days work. The Wheeler stuff at the end is too speculative and flowery for my tastes, but the rest is pretty useful, and it's definitely worth keeping in your bookcase to intimidate anyone that might enter!

Robert Wald also has a great General Relativity book that might be less threatening; IMO, you should definitely own Wald and MTW. I'd suggest you avoid anything written by either Einstein or Dirac on the subject like the f***ing plague.

Also, check out http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Administrivia/rel_booklist.html for Joh

Principles of Physical Cosmology by P. J. E. Peebles
Full of theory and implications with excellent explanations and problems worked out. This isn't going to have the latest and greatest but it solidly presents the basics of modern cosmology. The big bang, Einstein De Sitter solutions of General Relativity, universal expansion, the cosmic background radiation, the distribution of galaxies, baryon creation, etc.
My math is no better than Diff. Eq. and Lin. Alg. and I found nothing in this book that was over my head.

To say that we can't monitor phone #'s found in a captured jihadi's notebook because one person on the line is in America or merely that their communications pass through America without the approval of unelected judges who appear to give terrorists more privacy rights than YouTube viewers is insane.

What's so onerous about taking the notebook to a secret court and having a judge sign off on the wiretaps? While you may object to the fact that unelected judges can tell other parts of the government that they are breaking the law, our entire legal system is built on the idea that unelected judges interpret the law. Its worth noting that law enforcement and intelligence personnel are not elected either.

What makes civilian judges qualified to rule on military matters? Moreover, they aren't held accountable when America's enemies succeed, the elected branches are. If you think that the law enforcement and intelligence personnel under the President's command are abusing their authority and aren't being held accountable, vote for a different President or even ask your Congressmen to impeach him but understand that not everyone is going to agree with you and many of us will interpret your actions as undermining the Commander-in-Chief in wartime. We tried using the civilian courts to prosecute terrorists and the man who led the prosecution of the 1993 WTC bombers says it's the wrong approach.

Civilian criminal lawyers and judges are tasked with prosecuting crimes after the fact. Intelligence gathering is designed to intercept enemies before they act, before they've broken the law and/or committed acts of war. Civilian courts are the wrong tool for the task at hand, unless you think that losing a few city blocks now and then to terrorism qualifies as acceptable losses. What scares me is that I've talked with people who believe that it is. I'm not looking forward to the Iranian theocracy acquiring nukes.

The Constitution is not a suicide pact. Thomas Jefferson said: "[a] strict observance of the written law is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to the written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the ends to the means."

Wonder how long it'll take this post to be modded down like my last one. But we all know that the left doesn't censor...

I can't wait for the first samples from Mars to be returned, though at this rate I'll be a grey old man. I've always loved the description of the planetary landscape in Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars , especially his account of how astronauts would have to deal with "fines" (ultra-small dust particles that seep everywhere). Even if I could only see a marsrock in the Smithsonian, it would make me feel so much closer to the Red Planet.

Try Straumann's General Relativity: With Applications to Astrophysics: http://www.amazon.com/General-Relativity-Applications-Astrophysics-Mathematical/dp/3540219242/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215965048&sr=1-1

Sometimes the truth hurts.

For number 4), probably your best choice is Steven Weinberg's books: The Quantum Theory of Fields. It is a three volume set, and can be pretty pricey, but its a gold standard for sure. Many of the studies of Cosmology and Astrophysics are these days bound with QED and QM because quite often you are looking for undiscovered particles hanging out in space. Beyond that, the mathematical systems that explain quanta of fields for instance obviously extrapolate to vast expanses by way of symmetry! Get this book and understand it, you will thank me later!

Two of the books I kept after graduating in nuclear physics might help to get a quick rough overview in about 10% of the pages of the Feynman lectures. None of them replace the other suggestions, but they might work well as a kick start and quick reference.

-From Newton to Mandelbrot. The fractals section is probably completely out of fashion now, but the first 2/3rds of the book are a lightning fast course through most of theoretical mechanics, electrodynamics, relativity and quantum physics

-Princeton Guide to Advanced Physics--a 400 page almost pure math romp through all kinds of physics. It's ok for getting a quick overview. Be a bit careful with this one, all the content is sound, but the editing is fairly sloppy. But it's the only place I know where you can get, for example, the basic equations for fluid dynamics in 15 pages, rather than 150.

Or Physics for Scientists and Engineers by Tipler and Mosca. I used a previous edition of this book for AP physics in high school, while the regular physics students used Halliday, Resnick, and Walker.

I don't have much ground to compare the two texts, but I can say that Tipler is a solid textbook. The exercises have a broad difficulty range; you'll probably want to skip the first few in each section (trivial "do you have any clue what this section is about?" questions) and go directly to the harder exercises, some of which are quite challenging.

I will recommend three books at three distinct levels. First, to give you a basic familiarity with the night sky, I recommend, Nightwatch: A Practical Guide to Viewing the Universe, it has been one of my favourites. No astrophysics in this one, just decades' worth of experience in star gazing. Also, for a familiarity with the solar system and planetary geology, I recommend Moons and Planets. Finally, for rigour, I recommend Introduction to Cosmology, it is clear, concise, and introduces elements from general relativity without much of the required differential geometry. These books were all part of required classes in my undergrad and I really enjoyed them. Hope they serve you well!

I will recommend three books at three distinct levels. First, to give you a basic familiarity with the night sky, I recommend, Nightwatch: A Practical Guide to Viewing the Universe, it has been one of my favourites. No astrophysics in this one, just decades' worth of experience in star gazing. Also, for a familiarity with the solar system and planetary geology, I recommend Moons and Planets. Finally, for rigour, I recommend Introduction to Cosmology, it is clear, concise, and introduces elements from general relativity without much of the required differential geometry. These books were all part of required classes in my undergrad and I really enjoyed them. Hope they serve you well!

I will recommend three books at three distinct levels. First, to give you a basic familiarity with the night sky, I recommend, Nightwatch: A Practical Guide to Viewing the Universe, it has been one of my favourites. No astrophysics in this one, just decades' worth of experience in star gazing. Also, for a familiarity with the solar system and planetary geology, I recommend Moons and Planets. Finally, for rigour, I recommend Introduction to Cosmology, it is clear, concise, and introduces elements from general relativity without much of the required differential geometry. These books were all part of required classes in my undergrad and I really enjoyed them. Hope they serve you well!