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Although I got the 1984 reference, I have no idea what ST:TNG you're talking about. I've still only seen two seasons. http://www.smbc-comics.com/ind...

That proves that things really are as bad as the mockery in this cartoon suggests.

...that while I have read Asimov's robot stories and can go on and on about the Laws of Robotics, I've never heard of "Almost Human" or "Transcendence". http://www.smbc-comics.com/ind...

The cost of the alternatives: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal strip 3105.

So much neater and easier than trying to sneak weapons through airport security.

You don't get the point of security theatre. Terrorists are eager to "beat the system", so they'll queue up with their bad intents and devices at the security checks. Sneaking a bomb into a plane in other ways would be cheating and cowardly. I am sure there is a section of hell reserved for people who try that, as opposed to the glory-suffused suicidal freedom fighters.

Oh, and Comic!

This is the flip-side to regulated utilities. When your profit is determined by the government, you always turn to the government to increase or maintain your profits, which in turn means you become quite expert at that game.

Which is not a problem, if the legislators, governor and regulators are working for the public. The public needs a grid and base generation capability, and the utility is guaranteed a safe and reasonable profit if it provides these things.

This is the flip-side to regulated utilities. When your profit is determined by the government, you always turn to the government to increase or maintain your profits, which in turn means you become quite expert at that game.

I don't object to a fair "base rate" that actually covers the maintenance overhead; seems fair to pay that even if you're a net seller to the utility. This may become another case where the "last mile" maintenance costs should be separated from the "content provider".

Relevant SMBC.

I think this SMBC comic is very appropriate as well: http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id...

Real actual skeptic here (I think). Is the internet reducing religious affiliation because people are being exposed to different opinions? Or is the internet addictive, and does it subsume all of its occupants' time? Atheists are so eager to claim success that they don't even remember to check for confirmation bias and apply occam's razor.

Religious affiliation is correlated with increased mental health and a strong local community. The outspoken minority of religious fucks make the rest look bad to the undiscriminating outsider (oblig).

From where I stand, it looks like people are getting more extreme than their churches. They want to subjugate and punish and judge, and go against all the good parts of their religions. So they are leaving the churches in droves, and taking their hatred and ignorance to the internet. This may be a result of sampling bias (see oblig link above), and begs for good science to be done.

Relevant SMBC.

Obligatory SMBC

"All these planets are yours except Europa. And Enceladus, I get my fish fingers from there."

Obligatory SMBC

They still have all the totalitarian trappings of Communism, is the thing. It's the dictatorial control of the people that bitcoin threatens, not the broader Chinese economy IMO.

All and all, that's not a bad thing... I wonder how better off the US would be if a FTC or SEC official had a say in all board meetings

Are you familiar with the concept of regulatory capture? It would get far, far worse. The power of money to corrupt the government is large, and giving the government more control of companies will be a terrible mistake for as long as that remains true.

Some of what they have is good (they invested in core infrastructure while here in the US, cars were crushed

The US manufacturing base has never fallen. Don't mistake manufacturing jobs for manufacturing capacity. Manufacturing is now coming back from Chinese workers to US robots - it's why the Chinese economy is on the rocks.

I raise you a more relevant obligatory SMBC http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id...

Surely they were researching the effects of massive consumption of whale meat in human population. For science!

You put it in, and it doesn't fit, so you turn it over.
You put it in again, it doesn't fit, so you turn it back over.
Now it fits.

That's because USB connectors have a quantum spin of 1/2!

Oh, and http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id...

Obiligatory SMBC (don't forget to click on the red button below the comic for the extra frame).

Obiligatory SMBC (don't forget to click on the red button below the comic for the extra frame).

Obligatory SMBC

How nasa should handle announcementsÃ

http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id...

SMBC is becoming almost as relevant as xkcd...

Mister Senator, I think we can explode Europa...before the Chinese.

From years ago: http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id...

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

I think this is appropriate here: http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id...

So who's the Weird Al of Physics?

My vote is Zach Weinersmith

Sorry, but if one agrees with "humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time", then then that person *is* by definition the most extreme form of evolution doubter, i.e., the young earth creationist. (OK, I guess there might be some old earth creationists out there that believe that life has continued for billions of years in unchanged form, but that makes about as much sense as the the young earth evolutionist.)

If you want to disagree with the actual results/methodology, fine, but as I've noted, these numbers are not out of line with other polls I've seen. But it's disingenuous to attack the wording of the question when so many respond affirmatively to a statement that is unambiguously equivalent to "the evolution of species never happened".

Well, it could be worse: it could have continued long enough for regulatory capture to set in.

Whenever I hear about a physicist who explains a problem from outside his area of expertise with a few simple equations, I think about this Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal cartoon: http://www.smbc-comics.com/com...

Obligatory SMBC

Obligatory: SMBC Developmental biology :)

Let's be clear; the NSA has not broken the letter of the law...

However; the NSA has certainly broken the spirit of the law....

Every National Security Overreach Hearing.

If the user interface is confusing, it's because you're stupid.

I'll answer in comic form: http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2855

I would also like to point out that my entrance into the conversation was purely in an effort to help excelsior_gr understand angel'o'sphere's calculation, not to try and prove a point. You are correct that Brazil paying $5B to the USA does lead to there being $5B more in the USA (less the cost of parts sourced from other countries). This whole discussion started when dkleinsc claimed that it would not affect her due to the fact that she is not employed by Boeing, but the economic impact spreads a lot further than just one company (and probably a lot further than you'd think.)

http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2516

Oblig SMBC

"Can I put a boner array in my butt loop?"

If programming isn't fun, you're doing it wrong.

One of the strangest things about the hexagon is that other gas giants don't see to have anything like it. And it rotates with the same period as Saturn's natural radio emissions, which is not the period of rotation of Saturn itself. See http://www.sciencemag.org/content/247/4947/1206. Also, relevant SMBC: http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=1930.

Proof that USB cables are 4 dimensional.

Apologies if this appears twice. It looks like slashdot ate the first attempt.

That's an SMBC comic. Number 1883 I believe.

I absolutely agree that geek mentality is formed way before kids hit college. And plenty of people are smart enough to pick up coding in their 30's even if they've never touched a compiler.

And yeah, fuck that gender stereotyping. Even that stuff like Goldieblocks, which is an honest effort to fix this sort of problem, falls into the role of assuming girls enjoy playing with pink ribbon.

Come on, Legos is gender neutral. COMPLETELY GENDER NEUTRAL. They are square blocks. As long as you don't fuck up the marketing, or do something balls to the walls crazy like releasing a minifig that looks like Barbie, it's a cakewalk for breaking that gender stereotyping pitfall.

But get this: understanding the problem with what toys and how they're marketed to children affects the cultural diversity of the various industries is LEAPS AND BOUNDS different then trying to "fix it". Seriously, now that we collectively know what the problem is, what do we do?

Make engineering toys that girls can play with? Good. Done. We do that. There is nothing stopping girls from playing with Legos and trebuchets.
Market engineering toys to girls? Good. Done. We do that. As long as you don't market exclusively to boys, anything marketed to children fits the bill.
Make and market engineering toys which are exclusive to girls? Uhhhhh.... That's a little weird, but yeah, there's a bit of that. I guess it pushes back against those gender sterotypes. Like scholarships for women. It's sexist affirmative action, but it's for the underdog so it's ok.
Encourage parents to buy toys which break gender stereotypes? hmmmm... That's a bit like trying to steer culture. Some people try to do this.
Force parents to buy engineering toys for their girls? Whoa there. That sounds evil.
Fine schools that don't have a 50/50 gender split in their coding class? Evil. You're attacking a segment of society that isn't even at fault here*.
Rip the doll from the crying girls hands and flog her until she solves soduku puzzles? Nope, stop, you've gone way overboard into evil-ville.

*You know, probably. Hey, there could be that weird CS professor that kicks girls out of his class. Fire that guy. But that doesn't appear to be the problem here.

There's a nature vs nurture debate about which girls will go into engineering and which won't, and if there is anything we can do about that. I dunno the answer. Encouraging the potential engineers to be engineers is a good thing because we need engineers. But once you start telling parents how they ought to raise their children it gets a little wonky. And once you hit the point where you try to raise the children against the wishes of the parent, or start forcing the parents to raise their children a certain way, the end-state better be on DAMN solid ground. I mean, we force parents to raise their kids not to be murderous thieving cretins. Anyone who does do so is held liable for said cretins. Forcing girls to be raised like they're geeks, when they are not, is probably a bad idea.

That's an SMBC comic. Number 1883 I believe.

I absolutely agree that geek mentality is formed way before kids hit college. And plenty of people are smart enough to pick up coding in their 30's even if they've never touched a compiler.

And yeah, fuck that gender stereotyping. Even that stuff like Goldieblocks, which is an honest effort to fix this sort of problem, falls into the role of assuming girls enjoy playing with pink ribbon.

Come on, Legos is gender neutral. COMPLETELY GENDER NEUTRAL. They are square blocks. As long as you don't fuck up the marketing, or do something balls to the walls crazy like releasing a minifig that looks like Barbie, it's a cakewalk for breaking that gender stereotyping pitfall.

But get this: understanding the problem with what toys and how they're marketed to children affects the cultural diversity of the various industries is LEAPS AND BOUNDS different then trying to "fix it". Seriously, now that we collectively know what the problem is, what do we do?

Make engineering toys that girls can play with? Good. Done. We do that. There is nothing stopping girls from playing with Legos and trebuchets.
Market engineering toys to girls? Good. Done. We do that. As long as you don't market exclusively to boys, anything marketed to children fits the bill.
Make and market engineering toys which are exclusive to girls? Uhhhhh.... That's a little weird, but yeah, there's a bit of that. I guess it pushes back against those gender sterotypes. Like scholarships for women. It's sexist affirmative action, but it's for the underdog so it's ok.
Encourage parents to buy toys which break gender stereotypes? hmmmm... That's a bit like trying to steer culture. Some people try to do this.
Force parents to buy engineering toys for their girls? Whoa there. That sounds evil.
Fine schools that don't have a 50/50 gender split in their coding class? Evil. You're attacking a segment of society that isn't even at fault here*.
Rip the doll from the crying girls hands and flog her until she solves soduku puzzles? Nope, stop, you've gone way overboard into evil-ville.

*You know, probably. Hey, there could be that weird CS professor that kicks girls out of his class. Fire that guy. But that doesn't appear to be the problem here.

There's a nature vs nurture debate about which girls will go into engineering and which won't, and if there is anything we can do about that. I dunno the answer. Encouraging the potential engineers to be engineers is a good thing because we need engineers. But once you start telling parents how they ought to raise their children it gets a little wonky. And once you hit the point where you try to raise the children against the wishes of the parent, or start forcing the parents to raise their children a certain way, the end-state better be on DAMN solid ground. I mean, we force parents to raise their kids not to be murderous thieving cretins. Anyone who does do so is held liable for said cretins. Forcing girls to be raised like they're geeks, when they are not, is probably a bad idea.

It is a bit subtler than that :

incredibly relevant SMBC

The problem isn't that girls are denied an opportunity to learn coding when in college. The problem is that they're denied this opportunity when they're younger, they're told it isn't for them. Here's a good illustration. To solve the gender discrepancy we need to go for its roots, not try to cover up the symptoms.

Well that, and there's the sexual harassment issue, but the same thing applies. Don't try to force girls into computer science; make the environment more comfortable and welcoming, and they will come on their own.

http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2999

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1869#comic

Seriously though, there are places where you shouldn't be putting your penis.

Reminds of this, of course: http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1605#comic

There is a reason for that

You'd die from the g force before that. You would die from old age since the closest black hole is light years away. And, if you were traveling through space near the speed of light, then you would observer yourself suffocating. Then you would stop observing.

"It's Ours, Bitches"

Srsly. I type my SQL in through a keyboard. My handwriting and OCR do not play nicely together.

obligatory