doesn't gravity and light travel at the same speed?...
If they discover the graviton, the answer to that will likely be yes. But atm, it is unknown.
I don't see how it can be so though, according to my armchair physicist understanding of relativity. Gravity is the 'shape' of space-time. In other words, it's made out of the same thing as height, width, depth, and time. If that is the case, then gravity doesn't have to 'travel' anywhere; it was already there.
That would mean gravity is instant. However, it seems to be an academic thought exercise, since gravity is the deformation of space-time by mass, you will never catch it going faster than light. The waves they refer to aren't gravity propagating outwards; but variations in the gravity, and thus space-time itself.
ACs generally annoy me too, but there are good reasons to post as AC, such as inside info on some current event that is on its way to court.
Speaking of that, it seems that the level of discussion has improved here lately. Perhaps most of the people to leave/. recently were the loudmouthed kids who grew bored with insightful and informed discussions.
Conde Nast has hurt Ars a lot more than Dice has hurt/. They insist on injecting politics into most of their science, and they have roaming posses who dogpile anyone who dares to question, well, anything. It is impossible to have an interesting discussion there anymore.
I like the sentiment, and we are far to wedded to our parties lately. In a 2 party system, you have to be willing to cross over and vote for the other side.
Republicans voted for FDR and Kennedy. Democrats voted for Eisenhower and Reagan. Those presidents were what we needed at the time, and people did what they had to do. Both to advance whatever particular politics, but also to keep their side honest, and bring them politically back towards the center, when they get to far out into the weeds.
Realize that at this point, it will likely be the Republican party that gives us a good progressive presidential candidate. Not because they are better or anything like that; but because they lose so much lately. They are practically the 'opposition' party these days. When they get tired of losing so much, and are forced to get their heads right on taxes (close) and abortion (far away) and net neutrality (no idea really), they may give us another Teddy Roosevelt. I certainly don't see it in the current crop of front runners, but there's always hope.
If they give us a real progressive like the old Bull Moose, I hope you will allow yourself to vote for him (or her), and not lock yourself into one of these authoritarian liberals that redefine themselves as the new progressive.
He has, and it remains to be seen what Steyn will get in his case.
A favorable ruling here would have helped him a bit in his case, and of course the data itself may or may not be a help to his defense. Couldn't have hurt him though.
It is an interesting question, and one that we must ask.
I'll never be convinced the mass of the universe came from nothing. I think that even beyond 4 dimensional manifolds and relativity, whether you're talking Star Trek science, or before the Big Bang; the conservation of mass and energy will always hold. The universe came from something. That assumes the Big Bang theory holds; it always had a pseudo-religious feel to me. I wouldn't be shocked if the steady state universe makes a comeback in our lifetime.
I wouldn't say Sagan gave 'the' answer; he simply posited his thoughts on the matter. If we are going to talk about things that are beyond the state of our science to test and understand; then we can't be afraid to get a little dirty when we are out in the weeds of philosophy.
Come on man, the police only quit him after somebody ordered the snipers to open fire on the crowd. And the police/army didn't even do anything to him except go home. Nobody overthrew or dragged him out or anything; he fled. They stripped him of the Presidency for abandoning his post. I'm sure we, or Russia, or any other country would do the same, and appoint a temp President that same day. (Did they have a Vice President?)
One thing that tells me that the Maidan was legit was their behavior in the hours after he fled. Everything was wide open, and they didn't loot shit. That was real grass roots, and just because Western powers stuck their fingers in it, doesn't make the protesters any less noble.
And Yanukovich was crooked as shit. You don't contest that, do you? He was Russia's man, and even Putin doesn't want anything to do with him now.
But speaking of Putin, and why I'm replying to you; I must admit, I really like him. He speaks clearly; he makes sense; he's not obviously lying to me through the TV like most of my Presidents have. He might be lying, say, about those guys that weren't Russian servicemen in Crimea. But all I've really got is known liars accusing him of lying. Russia should have gotten Crimea, unless we're really considering giving it back to Turkey. They tried to vote before, but Kiev put them down, and Gorbachev/Yeltsin was in no position to do anything about it. I wish Russia would have bought it, and let the Ukrainians vote on it (Yes, a bought vote is still a vote. They could have traded their gas bill.). But I think Yanukovich's pussiness in fleeing really caught Putin off guard, and he had to do something very quickly. Whatever happens to Ukraine, Crimea was never on the table, and it's been critical to Russia's security, and a part of Russia, for the entire modern era. What we saw in Crimea was what Putin could come up with in a week. One Ukrainian died I think.Not bad actually.
And I must remind Americans that if it were Mexico we were talking about, and not Ukraine, we would be freaking the fuck out. Kind of like we did in Cuba.
Face death (numerous people called for him to die) or life in prison returning to the US.
You can justify anything by making up BS like that.
Liar. Feinstien did say he should be killed. The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
If he stayed in the US he would have a trial and he would have been able to make his case for doing what he did.
Again, you either lie, or perhaps live in a dream world. Legally, he could have made no case for the defense of what he did, nor had a public trial. In the secret trial he would have eventually had, his defense would have been limited to personal stuff; Constitutionality is not a permissible defense here.
In addition he has plenty of supporters and he would have had A LOT more, including myself, if he had not inflicted a mortal wound on his credibility
Right there, your BS becomes clear. He never had any credibility, before or after (actually he does have some now, since federal judges and others have agreed with his premise); he's just some dude. The credibility is in the leaked documents; either they are true, or not. Anything beyond that, especially disparaging the messenger, is only intended to obfuscate the truth revealed in the documents, which he did not create himself. In these parts, we call that an 'Ad hominem'.
by running to countries that are doing the exact things he complained about but 10 times worse
And what the hell does that have to do with us and our Constitution? It tells me that he had 2 goals: End our surveillance state, and keep as much of his life as possible. Goal 1; he did what he could, and as to goal 2; there are exactly 2 places on this Earth where the CIA won't touch him. He went first to one, and then the other. No one else would take him. (And as far as the security of the West goes, I'm far less afraid of Russia than China. He made the right choice between the two.)
and allowing himself to be used as a propaganda tool against the USA.
As if the leak itself wasn't a 'propaganda tool', yet his simple question is. But exactly what propaganda was there, in either his question, or Putin's answer? His question was legitimate, and he obviously believes in the cause enough to give up a cushy life in the US to live as a house slave on the outskirts of Moscow.
And Putin's answer wasn't propaganda either. He said plain as day that they don't have the money or the gadgets to do it, and that it also would be against the law. All 3 of those things are true in Russia right now. We are so quick to throw the propaganda word around, I think we forgot that it's supposed to mean something when we say it.
I know you want to tell me that Putin would if he could. That has what to do with what?
Seems like a weightless environment would make it a lot easier to make longer nanotubes. And, NASA needs a mission. Surely you see where I'm going with this.
Go ahead and put a nanotube research station in geosynchronous orbit. When they drop that cable, the researchers can come home.;)
The guy above you gets it: The earth is in a perfect position to receive net power from the sun. The containment vessel for the sun was free, and already here when we began to use the power.
It annoys me when people use the sun as proof that Earth-bound fusion is the way to go. It proves no such thing.
I already commented, so I can't mod you up. Shame that.
There's nothing I can add to your flawless analysis, but it does seem to be a good time now, to point out a broader, basic reality.
There are exactly 4 real sources of power.
Geothermal. It's unlikely we could ever tap enough heat from the mantle to actually hurt the planet. So, unlimited; but hard to get to.
Solar. Easy to get to, but overall the weakest, flakiest, quite limited power source. We only get it in little daily drabs.
Carbon. Moderately easy to get to. Too bad we have to chemically release the carbon to get the power, eh? We'll just leave this one out, in the context of this discussion.
That leaves thorium and uranium, the stored power of past supernovas. No pesky carbon involved. Taken together, practically unlimited; but I'll give it a 'difficult to get to' rating. But not impossible, and it appears to be held up more by politics and ignorance than science.
There is no doubt that science can eventually solve every problem of mankind, including overly dangerous nuclear reactors. I realize that statement also includes clean fusion power, and that will come,...someday, in the land of warp drives and tasty hats.
If you mean better off as in somewhat cheaper, then sure.
But I'm a bit of a greenie myself, and I don't think we should leave some of this truly nasty stuff laying around.
And I didn't say "all"; yes there will always be some leftover, but you can get the volume down considerably. And yes some of the leftovers last longer, that's the point; the longer it lasts, the less radioactive it is.
Well, the example was the Sun, not the hydrogen bomb. And btw, most of the boom in a hydrogen bomb comes from fission.
But let's look at the net power produced from that bomb. It was one of the cleaner, more fusiony bombs ever set off. Around half it's power came from fusion, iirc?
So start with the energy required for the farms to feed the thousands (or even hundreds) of workers that built that bomb. How much effort and power went into refining the uranium and deuterium or lithium or I forget what they used in that one. You don't get that stuff at the Walgreens. Account for all the energy that went into that bomb, and then tell me the fusion from it (don't count the fission) is an efficient power source.
Anyway, the fusion plant you're thinking of does not have 'unlimited fuel'. It will have to be expensively extracted from sea water
(and really, with your low uid you gotta be like that? keep to the science man.)
One, we need the power. The greenies can take their country-wide windmill blanket and shove it up their ass. If you take offense that, then all birds and bats hate you, just so you know.
Two, we've got thousands of tons of highly radioactive waste witting all around the country right now. And we have no plan on what to do with it. New Mexico ain't taking it, and in the long run; that's probably for the best. The only thing that can be done with it is to burn it up in a nuclear reactor. New designs; not old ones.
We have no choice. The longer we delay, the harder we are going to have it in the interim.
You got that right. I do absolutely nothing to stay secure; I fool with computers enough on the job.
I've got XP SP3 installed with no updates, and only Avast protecting it. It finally occurred to me that my home computer is really just a Chrome & Warcraft display appliance. I bet the same is true for a lot of folks.
"Of course Apple, and several others, have managed to blatantly hijack the patent system"
You're missing Apple's game here. They are doing more to get our patent system fixed than anyone else.
By going as far as they do (rounded rectangles, $2B latest demands), they force lawmakers to look at the issue, and indeed; there is legislation pending. It's not great, but it's something.
I had really hoped that they would get a big win before Christmas on the last one, and it would have been known as the "Christmas without Android". At that point, public outcry would have been overwhelming for new, sane legislation.
Here's the thing: Apple would do just fine in a world without software patents. Far better than they do now. They rarely (ever?) use newly invented hardware, as in, stuff that should be patentable. They are about integration, design; bling if you will. Throw your own insult in here if you want, but what they are not about, is fierce competition for bottom lines. And people will still buy Apple stuff in a world with several knockoffs. As long as it's still illegal to stamp an Apple logo on your knockoff phone; that's all Apple needs to do well in the market segments it is in. Market segments that it often invented. You don't need patents for that.
I said Apple's game; it's really Steve's game. Remember, they didn't play the patent game before, and Microsoft took everything from them, and gave them a dollar. That, at a time when a Pepsi salesman was running the place, almost killed Apple. Turns out, you can say you're not playing, but then you're just playing badly. Now they play to the most extreme degree possible, and they are going to end up being the main catalyst in getting the rules changed for all of us.
World of Warcraft (and I guess other mmos) do this already - the one second global cooldown. It's the great equalizer. Pretty much everybody (unless you're in Iraq) has the same latency. Of course, in WoW, most people want things to be fair; even the ones that live across the street from Blizzard.
There's no real incentive on Wall Street to be "fair" though.
It's never wrong to attempt to apply science to, well, everything in the universe. The summary mentions those beliefs that have been scientifically tested and failed to show any repeatable results. It's likely all those things have their foundations in faith, imagination, fear,... rather than some particle or wave that a scientist could test for. But...
"4. Claims which cannot be proven false."
I guess these Schmaltz and Lilienfeld guys are teachers, and not scientists; otherwise they would have never penned a sentence like that. I think everyone here knows the scientific method, so I won't go into that, and maybe I'm being a little pedantic; but if we are talking about the classroom, then the details need to be right. And the science classroom is not the place to mock the ignorant, and even though the last paragraph says as much, it uses a whole lot of words when the phrase "learning the scientific method" would have done.
But I do see why some would be hesitant. Take ESP for example. They apply the scientific method in some controlled experiment. They have a narrow sample of 30 kids, so they are going to have to repeat the tests and take averages. But they only have 55 minutes. They don't have the resources to pursue a course of research if the initial results are... interesting.
So out of, say 15 science classes that day, most will find the ESP test results are about the same as the random control, a couple will find that ESP is significantly worse at predictions than random, and one that finds that ESP significantly increases accuracy over the random control. The bell rings and those kids have to go to PE. You've sort of proven, to 30 out 450 kids, that ESP is real...
Slashdot Mirror
And even if their collective intelligence won out, it may still take them 10,000 years or so to actually fly out of it.
From our perspective...
Siphons stop working *on water* if the atmospheric pressure is too low, because the water boils in the tube and physically breaks the siphon.
The article is right; air pressure has nothing to do with why a siphon works.
(Don't let the fact that ambient atmospheric pressure has some effect on siphons, and all other physical objects, confuse the issue.)
I know. Isn't he great? I wish I could vote for him.
(Elon, not the AC)
How do they have standing to sue us? Are they even a real country? I believe we owned that test island at the time.
And that particular explosion saved us all from a hundred years of a world wide communist dictatorship.
You're welcome.
doesn't gravity and light travel at the same speed?...
If they discover the graviton, the answer to that will likely be yes. But atm, it is unknown.
I don't see how it can be so though, according to my armchair physicist understanding of relativity. Gravity is the 'shape' of space-time. In other words, it's made out of the same thing as height, width, depth, and time. If that is the case, then gravity doesn't have to 'travel' anywhere; it was already there.
That would mean gravity is instant. However, it seems to be an academic thought exercise, since gravity is the deformation of space-time by mass, you will never catch it going faster than light. The waves they refer to aren't gravity propagating outwards; but variations in the gravity, and thus space-time itself.
My favorite phone yet was the Razr. Second to that was the Star Tac.
Although I will admit I didn't text much back in those days.
ACs generally annoy me too, but there are good reasons to post as AC, such as inside info on some current event that is on its way to court.
Speaking of that, it seems that the level of discussion has improved here lately. Perhaps most of the people to leave /. recently were the loudmouthed kids who grew bored with insightful and informed discussions.
Conde Nast has hurt Ars a lot more than Dice has hurt /. They insist on injecting politics into most of their science, and they have roaming posses who dogpile anyone who dares to question, well, anything. It is impossible to have an interesting discussion there anymore.
I like the sentiment, and we are far to wedded to our parties lately. In a 2 party system, you have to be willing to cross over and vote for the other side.
Republicans voted for FDR and Kennedy. Democrats voted for Eisenhower and Reagan. Those presidents were what we needed at the time, and people did what they had to do. Both to advance whatever particular politics, but also to keep their side honest, and bring them politically back towards the center, when they get to far out into the weeds.
Realize that at this point, it will likely be the Republican party that gives us a good progressive presidential candidate. Not because they are better or anything like that; but because they lose so much lately. They are practically the 'opposition' party these days. When they get tired of losing so much, and are forced to get their heads right on taxes (close) and abortion (far away) and net neutrality (no idea really), they may give us another Teddy Roosevelt. I certainly don't see it in the current crop of front runners, but there's always hope.
If they give us a real progressive like the old Bull Moose, I hope you will allow yourself to vote for him (or her), and not lock yourself into one of these authoritarian liberals that redefine themselves as the new progressive.
we are sold.
He has, and it remains to be seen what Steyn will get in his case.
A favorable ruling here would have helped him a bit in his case, and of course the data itself may or may not be a help to his defense. Couldn't have hurt him though.
It is an interesting question, and one that we must ask.
I'll never be convinced the mass of the universe came from nothing. I think that even beyond 4 dimensional manifolds and relativity, whether you're talking Star Trek science, or before the Big Bang; the conservation of mass and energy will always hold. The universe came from something. That assumes the Big Bang theory holds; it always had a pseudo-religious feel to me. I wouldn't be shocked if the steady state universe makes a comeback in our lifetime.
I wouldn't say Sagan gave 'the' answer; he simply posited his thoughts on the matter. If we are going to talk about things that are beyond the state of our science to test and understand; then we can't be afraid to get a little dirty when we are out in the weeds of philosophy.
Come on man, the police only quit him after somebody ordered the snipers to open fire on the crowd. And the police/army didn't even do anything to him except go home. Nobody overthrew or dragged him out or anything; he fled. They stripped him of the Presidency for abandoning his post. I'm sure we, or Russia, or any other country would do the same, and appoint a temp President that same day. (Did they have a Vice President?)
One thing that tells me that the Maidan was legit was their behavior in the hours after he fled. Everything was wide open, and they didn't loot shit. That was real grass roots, and just because Western powers stuck their fingers in it, doesn't make the protesters any less noble.
And Yanukovich was crooked as shit. You don't contest that, do you? He was Russia's man, and even Putin doesn't want anything to do with him now.
But speaking of Putin, and why I'm replying to you; I must admit, I really like him. He speaks clearly; he makes sense; he's not obviously lying to me through the TV like most of my Presidents have. He might be lying, say, about those guys that weren't Russian servicemen in Crimea. But all I've really got is known liars accusing him of lying. Russia should have gotten Crimea, unless we're really considering giving it back to Turkey. They tried to vote before, but Kiev put them down, and Gorbachev/Yeltsin was in no position to do anything about it. I wish Russia would have bought it, and let the Ukrainians vote on it (Yes, a bought vote is still a vote. They could have traded their gas bill.). But I think Yanukovich's pussiness in fleeing really caught Putin off guard, and he had to do something very quickly. Whatever happens to Ukraine, Crimea was never on the table, and it's been critical to Russia's security, and a part of Russia, for the entire modern era. What we saw in Crimea was what Putin could come up with in a week. One Ukrainian died I think.Not bad actually.
And I must remind Americans that if it were Mexico we were talking about, and not Ukraine, we would be freaking the fuck out. Kind of like we did in Cuba.
Face death (numerous people called for him to die) or life in prison returning to the US.
You can justify anything by making up BS like that.
Liar. Feinstien did say he should be killed. The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
If he stayed in the US he would have a trial and he would have been able to make his case for doing what he did.
Again, you either lie, or perhaps live in a dream world. Legally, he could have made no case for the defense of what he did, nor had a public trial. In the secret trial he would have eventually had, his defense would have been limited to personal stuff; Constitutionality is not a permissible defense here.
In addition he has plenty of supporters and he would have had A LOT more, including myself, if he had not inflicted a mortal wound on his credibility
Right there, your BS becomes clear. He never had any credibility, before or after (actually he does have some now, since federal judges and others have agreed with his premise); he's just some dude. The credibility is in the leaked documents; either they are true, or not. Anything beyond that, especially disparaging the messenger, is only intended to obfuscate the truth revealed in the documents, which he did not create himself. In these parts, we call that an 'Ad hominem'.
by running to countries that are doing the exact things he complained about but 10 times worse
And what the hell does that have to do with us and our Constitution? It tells me that he had 2 goals: End our surveillance state, and keep as much of his life as possible. Goal 1; he did what he could, and as to goal 2; there are exactly 2 places on this Earth where the CIA won't touch him. He went first to one, and then the other. No one else would take him. (And as far as the security of the West goes, I'm far less afraid of Russia than China. He made the right choice between the two.)
and allowing himself to be used as a propaganda tool against the USA.
As if the leak itself wasn't a 'propaganda tool', yet his simple question is. But exactly what propaganda was there, in either his question, or Putin's answer? His question was legitimate, and he obviously believes in the cause enough to give up a cushy life in the US to live as a house slave on the outskirts of Moscow.
And Putin's answer wasn't propaganda either. He said plain as day that they don't have the money or the gadgets to do it, and that it also would be against the law. All 3 of those things are true in Russia right now. We are so quick to throw the propaganda word around, I think we forgot that it's supposed to mean something when we say it.
I know you want to tell me that Putin would if he could. That has what to do with what?
No doubt.
Seems like a weightless environment would make it a lot easier to make longer nanotubes. And, NASA needs a mission. Surely you see where I'm going with this.
Go ahead and put a nanotube research station in geosynchronous orbit. When they drop that cable, the researchers can come home. ;)
"Logically crafting an MMO simulation of it allowing in depth investigating of the personal interactions ..."
If I could do it as a feral druid, I'm in.
Heh. You made me look up electric universe.
The guy above you gets it: The earth is in a perfect position to receive net power from the sun. The containment vessel for the sun was free, and already here when we began to use the power.
It annoys me when people use the sun as proof that Earth-bound fusion is the way to go. It proves no such thing.
I already commented, so I can't mod you up. Shame that.
There's nothing I can add to your flawless analysis, but it does seem to be a good time now, to point out a broader, basic reality.
There are exactly 4 real sources of power.
Geothermal. It's unlikely we could ever tap enough heat from the mantle to actually hurt the planet. So, unlimited; but hard to get to.
Solar. Easy to get to, but overall the weakest, flakiest, quite limited power source. We only get it in little daily drabs.
Carbon. Moderately easy to get to. Too bad we have to chemically release the carbon to get the power, eh? We'll just leave this one out, in the context of this discussion.
That leaves thorium and uranium, the stored power of past supernovas. No pesky carbon involved. Taken together, practically unlimited; but I'll give it a 'difficult to get to' rating. But not impossible, and it appears to be held up more by politics and ignorance than science.
There is no doubt that science can eventually solve every problem of mankind, including overly dangerous nuclear reactors. I realize that statement also includes clean fusion power, and that will come, ...someday, in the land of warp drives and tasty hats.
If you mean better off as in somewhat cheaper, then sure.
But I'm a bit of a greenie myself, and I don't think we should leave some of this truly nasty stuff laying around.
And I didn't say "all"; yes there will always be some leftover, but you can get the volume down considerably. And yes some of the leftovers last longer, that's the point; the longer it lasts, the less radioactive it is.
Well, the example was the Sun, not the hydrogen bomb. And btw, most of the boom in a hydrogen bomb comes from fission.
But let's look at the net power produced from that bomb. It was one of the cleaner, more fusiony bombs ever set off. Around half it's power came from fusion, iirc?
So start with the energy required for the farms to feed the thousands (or even hundreds) of workers that built that bomb. How much effort and power went into refining the uranium and deuterium or lithium or I forget what they used in that one. You don't get that stuff at the Walgreens. Account for all the energy that went into that bomb, and then tell me the fusion from it (don't count the fission) is an efficient power source.
Anyway, the fusion plant you're thinking of does not have 'unlimited fuel'. It will have to be expensively extracted from sea water
(and really, with your low uid you gotta be like that? keep to the science man.)
"new fission plants"
That's the key right there. For 2 reasons.
One, we need the power. The greenies can take their country-wide windmill blanket and shove it up their ass. If you take offense that, then all birds and bats hate you, just so you know.
Two, we've got thousands of tons of highly radioactive waste witting all around the country right now. And we have no plan on what to do with it. New Mexico ain't taking it, and in the long run; that's probably for the best. The only thing that can be done with it is to burn it up in a nuclear reactor. New designs; not old ones.
We have no choice. The longer we delay, the harder we are going to have it in the interim.
Heh, so you think the sun actually makes power, do you?
All that gravity counts as power. There is no net power gain in the Sun's 'working'.
You got that right. I do absolutely nothing to stay secure; I fool with computers enough on the job.
I've got XP SP3 installed with no updates, and only Avast protecting it. It finally occurred to me that my home computer is really just a Chrome & Warcraft display appliance. I bet the same is true for a lot of folks.
"Of course Apple, and several others, have managed to blatantly hijack the patent system"
You're missing Apple's game here. They are doing more to get our patent system fixed than anyone else.
By going as far as they do (rounded rectangles, $2B latest demands), they force lawmakers to look at the issue, and indeed; there is legislation pending. It's not great, but it's something.
I had really hoped that they would get a big win before Christmas on the last one, and it would have been known as the "Christmas without Android". At that point, public outcry would have been overwhelming for new, sane legislation.
Here's the thing: Apple would do just fine in a world without software patents. Far better than they do now. They rarely (ever?) use newly invented hardware, as in, stuff that should be patentable. They are about integration, design; bling if you will. Throw your own insult in here if you want, but what they are not about, is fierce competition for bottom lines. And people will still buy Apple stuff in a world with several knockoffs. As long as it's still illegal to stamp an Apple logo on your knockoff phone; that's all Apple needs to do well in the market segments it is in. Market segments that it often invented. You don't need patents for that.
I said Apple's game; it's really Steve's game. Remember, they didn't play the patent game before, and Microsoft took everything from them, and gave them a dollar. That, at a time when a Pepsi salesman was running the place, almost killed Apple. Turns out, you can say you're not playing, but then you're just playing badly. Now they play to the most extreme degree possible, and they are going to end up being the main catalyst in getting the rules changed for all of us.
World of Warcraft (and I guess other mmos) do this already - the one second global cooldown. It's the great equalizer. Pretty much everybody (unless you're in Iraq) has the same latency. Of course, in WoW, most people want things to be fair; even the ones that live across the street from Blizzard.
There's no real incentive on Wall Street to be "fair" though.
It's never wrong to attempt to apply science to, well, everything in the universe. The summary mentions those beliefs that have been scientifically tested and failed to show any repeatable results. It's likely all those things have their foundations in faith, imagination, fear,... rather than some particle or wave that a scientist could test for. But...
"4. Claims which cannot be proven false."
I guess these Schmaltz and Lilienfeld guys are teachers, and not scientists; otherwise they would have never penned a sentence like that. I think everyone here knows the scientific method, so I won't go into that, and maybe I'm being a little pedantic; but if we are talking about the classroom, then the details need to be right. And the science classroom is not the place to mock the ignorant, and even though the last paragraph says as much, it uses a whole lot of words when the phrase "learning the scientific method" would have done.
But I do see why some would be hesitant. Take ESP for example. They apply the scientific method in some controlled experiment. They have a narrow sample of 30 kids, so they are going to have to repeat the tests and take averages. But they only have 55 minutes. They don't have the resources to pursue a course of research if the initial results are... interesting.
So out of, say 15 science classes that day, most will find the ESP test results are about the same as the random control, a couple will find that ESP is significantly worse at predictions than random, and one that finds that ESP significantly increases accuracy over the random control. The bell rings and those kids have to go to PE. You've sort of proven, to 30 out 450 kids, that ESP is real...