Einstein was purely a theoretical physicist. He knew the state of the current experiments (Young's, various astronomical observations), and the state of the current math (specifically Maxwell and Boltzman). Beyond that, he managed to figure out brilliant thought experiments that pointed his math in the right direction, and was able to work with new interpretations of existing phenomena (such as his statistical interpretation of light phenomena). Actual lasers were first demonstrated in 1960.
The reasons schools gloss over the engineering aspect are that it takes a very long time, a lot of people and a lot of tedious, small increments to go from a new physical effect to a working application. There's very little to be consistently learned about the engineering process that isn't already known.
As for an interesting property that hasn't found an application: quantum entanglement. Yeah, we're kinda seeing baby steps, but consider how long people have been working on it, and how many supposed breakthroughs we've had. There isn't a gadget you can buy at radioshack that uses this.
Re:NASA shutting down manned exploration doesn't h
on
The Real Science Gap
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Robots are fuckin' boring.
I found the Mars Rovers a million times more fascinating than the ISS. It might have had something to do with the Rovers actually doing stuff, rather than hanging out in space, swapping out CO2 scrubbers.
That's true, but it's still possible that the relative values to the company are being miscalculated. If you fired that sales guy, could some other sales guy paid half as much sell the product just as well? My guess is that often the answer is "yes".
I don't know. I've seen some of these sales people, and listening to them, *I* was getting excited about their software and services - until I remembered that I was actually providing the customer support or had to install them, and knew exactly how much of what they were saying was utter crap. And yet, for a split-second, they had me going.
That's the skill of a good salesman, and that's why they will always be more important than engineers to the bean counters. There's no product that will sell itself - but a good salesman can sell even a turd. And in the end, that's what's on the balance sheet: Salesman Slimeball added $1 Million to the bottom line this quarter, while Gearhead Gearloose cost the company about $200k.
Is that kind of revenue analysis dangerous? Yes it is. Does it happen more often than it should? Yes it does. And the payout is the reason why so many people go into sales instead of engineering.
I haven't seen a link that supports that, but it jibes with the way that ESPN has been offering events on the internet: only through approved ISPs. For example, to watch the World Cup live on ESPN.com, you need to enter the account information for an ISP with which ESPN has a deal. If you have the big ones (ATT, Comcast, etc), you're golden. If not, say goodbye to watching the World Cup on ESPN.com. The same deal was in place for the Vancouver Winter Olympics.
Honestly, I hope that this practice dies a sudden death. I don't care about the Internet turning into a glorified TV, complete with channels and viewing schedules.
A large quotient of luck. Bill Gates had average business savvy, but happened to be in the right time at the right place. P.T. Barnum managed to get rich because the schemes he cooked up happened to work, against every prevailing wisdom of the day.
If you want to see how luck plays a very large role in getting rich, check out the follow-up ventures of people who strike it rich - Paul Allen being the poster boy for that. Yes, there's a good chunk of skill, intelligence, hard work and sociopathy involved - but to argue that anyone who has the traits will get rich is ignorant.
Oh hey, look, I was wondering when you're going to show up again. I'm not surprised it's on a topic that's dear to your heart. And you've even managed to not completely and cravenly defend an undefensible government action.
As for your question as to what is supposed to be classified: that's ultimately up to the will of the people, through the method of election of representatives who enact the will of the people. Or so it goes in theory. In practice, rules have to be bent, and will be bent - in both directions. The court of law is exactly the place where this is supposed to be, and will be, hashed out.
Yes, and there are some environmentalists who think the LHC is going to destroy the earth. That doesn't mean that anyone who supports the environment thinks that the LHC will destroy the earth. Similarly, "Sortir du nucleaire" opposing ITER does not mean that everybody who falls under the same umbrella denomination of environmentalist is a science wacko. Not to mention that I find Greenpeace's stance fairly reasonable: so far, ITER is indeed a massive boondoggle where even the scientists who are involved aren't sure that it is the best way to achieve commercial fusion.
Your phrasing was an ad hominem because it didn't identify the groups who made that claim,and instead preferred to make an unsubstantiated generalization.
I can't help to ask what makes you think we humans are so much more special than dinosaurs that we deserve to survive as a species
Absolutely nothing. This is merely self-preservation talking, just like for every other species. I'm pretty sure if dinosaurs could write, we would have found loads of discussions around the theme of what to do with the dying, the cloud ash, and how to survive the dark and burning skies.
Reality is simple: Nature is tough, and we have but two choices: deal with it, or check out.
Spot on. I'd prefer not to check out. Which requires dealing with nature, which in turn requires making sure that nature has a place for us in it. Unfortunately, we haven't figured out how to survive without nature (see the failed Biodome experiments), so we're stuck with making sure that we don't need a biodome.
And to be very specific, I don't think you, or anybody else, is going to die because one species of tuna collapsed in the North Atlantic.
Very true. But at some point, the accumulation of species extinction is going to hit us, and especially if that species happens to be a keystone species. God help us all if krill happens to become extinct. It'll be Soylent Green for all of us.
The point is that arguing that a) in the long run, it's all a wash and b) it's just one species manages to both be way to far-sighted and way to short-sighted. The collapse of the blue-fin Tuna has to be seen in the context of the collapse of a lot of other fish species. It's not that it is just one species that might disappear, it's that it is another one in a long line of species.
Finally, the big problem is that disappearance of one species indicates that more issues might be afoot in the environment, which could cause more species to disappear.
For us to think that we have some right to alter the environment to suit ourselves at the cost of other potential species is hubris.
We're already doing it. It's not a question of right, but merely of fact.
The idea that we have the capability to do so is laughable.
What do you think a city is?
You're not for the environment, you're for your current cushy lifestyle.
Correct. I'm also well aware that my current cushy lifestyle depends on a nice, stable environment. It seems that you merely don't understand what constitutes a nice, stable environment.
An unknown, big change is just as likely to be good for humans as it is to be bad.
Argument from ignorance - specifically, argument from ignorance about the state of knowledge about biology, climatology, physics and game theory.
Ask me if I care that the ecosystem rebounds in a few million years. Really, do ask me. Or ask the people whose livelihood depends on a healthy ecosystem.
Can we stop with this idiotic argument that the universe will survive just fine without humans? No shit, Sherlock. Way to state the obvious, Capt'n Obvious. In the meantime, I'd like to make sure that my life is nice and cushy, and that of my kids as well. Unfortunately, that requires a stable ecosystem. And a hallmark of a stable ecosystem is a diverse ecosystem.
Simple solution to the downside of expensive gas: create a public transportation system that works. You can even fund it from a nice gas tax. Kinda like Europe does it. It's pathetic that the only places with a public transportation system that is worth taking is NYC and Boston.
Obnoxious ending aside, parent is right, and not a troll. The assertion that the rich world is not increasing its energy consumption pretty much flies in the face of the fact that it keeps building energy generators - be it dams, wind turbines or coal-fired plants. I'd like to find a citation that shows that the people who upgrade their plasma screens also improve their insulation. I doubt there is one, because most Americans have not heard squat about insulation. Even something as basic as a double-pane window is rare anywhere but the extremely cold areas.
That said, grand-parent is correct in his second statement, if we ignore the hyperbole. The biggest danger to the lifestyle of the rich world is the rest of the world trying to imitate it. The world simply cannot support an India, China and Africa that consumes as much energy per-capita as the US or even Europe. Not unless we dramatically change how energy is created. In the meantime, India and China are trying as hard as they can to first consume as much as we do, and won't worry about their energy consumption until more people in their countries are suffering from it.
Why? Because one division is harder than one multiplication? Not to mention, a division involving a two-digit number and (frequently) a one digit number?
Sigh.... did you not pay attention to what people were blaming Bush for? Here, I'll list them out: 1) Putting a guy in charge of FEMA who had been kicked out of his commissioner position at a Horse association 2) Telling the head of FEMA "Heck'uva job, Brownie" when it was patently obvious that FEMA was bungling what little responsibility it had.
So far, the person in charge of the government organization that was supposed to monitor BP is gone, and there isn't anything legal that Obama can personally do to fix the issue. Unless, as others said, you suggest he put on a snorkel and plug the leak himself.
So: what is exactly that you mean by "coming out fighting against BP" and "proactive"? Cross-reference with what has already been done and what is legal. Thank you.
Which doesn't do squat to begin with. Do you really think that the booms are some impervious, permanent barrier to the oil? Even if we assume that we're just trying to stop the oil on top, you do understand that there are waves on the ocean? Current? Wind? All of which conspire to move the booms, and to move oil over and under the booms?
It's like all the people who pointed at the school buses after Katrina and said "Why didn't they just put people in buses and drove them out?" Where exactly would they have been put? Out in a pasture somewhere?
Jindal is a grade-A politician who knows everything about looking busy and nothing about actually solving a problem. Granted, I'm also blaming BP and the Feds for not properly employing booms to corral the oil into an area where it is removed from the water/beach, but still - booms alone aren't the answer.
And yes, this suggestion for booms alone is just Monday-Morning Engineering at its finest: people with no clue, no insight and no information pontificating and assigning blame for a situation in which they have no skin and no responsibility. Even Jindal has no skin in the game, because he can always blame someone else for his hare-brained ideas going wrong.
There's a point at which you're so reviled that any attempt to make yourself look less despicable only feeds into the negative view the public has of you.
Damn, and I just ran out of mod points.
This is the feeling I and everyone I know gets when we see BP commercials about how they're fixing stuff. "STFU and get back to work." No one wants to hear BP talk about how hard they're working. The only thing anyone is interested in hearing is "The leak is plugged, the oil has been skimmed, and life is returning to normal." Anything else just backfires and makes BPs image worse.
If I were in BP's shoes, I'd buy ad space and show a live 30-second feed of the rovers, the meetings and engineers cranking away in cubicles and on boats.
Sigh..... while you're mumbling legalese, I'd like to point out that the you're pretending to refer to only applies to economic damages, and only if the accident happened through no fault of the owner of the rig. Sheesh, you'd think that if you know the terms, you'd get the law right, too.
However, it is still true that BP will pay out far less than what Limewire is being sued for. I don't care at what stage of the legal process we're at, but there's something seriously wrong if copying bits is considered worse than the destruction of entire ecosystems and state economies.
Read the Nature article that was linked, and you'll see the following statistic: From January 2006 to November 2009, these SPOT officers singled out over 232,000 people for further inspection. Of these, 1,710 were arrested. Of THOSE, zero were terrorists.
Which is a meaningless statistics, because we don't know how many people who were flying were terrorists who want to blow up a plane. Wait, we do: 2. Quite frankly, 2 out of several hundred million people is a little tough to make a test that is that specific.
Honestly, I agree with another reply to you: The solution is to accept that there is a risk in flying and move on.
And when the risk becomes too big because the target is too soft and terrorists regularly poke holes through it, flight traffic will crater, as will a lot of business that relies on plane travel. Are you willing to let the terrorists win that easily? In that sense, security theater is important: it raises the comfort level of the general public to fly from zero to an acceptable risk.
There has to be security. Yes, it has to be real security, and only security theater won't work. Will there be abuses? Yes. Proper procedures include procedures to report abuses. Knee-jerk reactions of any security procedures is just as stupid as knee-jerk acceptance of any procedure.
I was going to mod you up, but instead I wanted to congratulate you on your post. This was, by far, the most entertaining and insightful anti-government rant I have read in a long time. No, this is not sarcasm, I'm dead serious. Yes, there are a few flaws in your argumentation, such as generalizing from specific cases. But overall, you nailed one of the issues that a representative democracy will always have: if you're an asshole, you can enact laws for the sole benefit of yourself. And to run, you kinda have to be an asshole to begin with.
Fine. Observing passengers for potential cues is security theater. Then explain to me, how exactly is airplane security is going to work? You can't possibly strip search everybody, no one would fly. Having everybody fly naked is not an option either, as is having everybody be sedated and tied to their seats.
As securing all passengers with 100% failproof methods is far more intrusive than what's currently proposed, we need to look elsewhere. We know that the no-fly list is bogus because it is secret and non-appealable. We know that removing all liquids is dumb as well, because you're a) always behind the curve in what terrorists will try, and b) because most of the hare-brained ideas won't work anyway.
So what's left? We are pretty much left with SPOT: the observation of human behavior to indicate who gets special treatment. It is the only thing that can work, because it keys on the only thing common among terrorists: their plan, and the impact on human physiology of planning a suicide. Will innocent people be subjected to extra searches? They sure will. But behavioral observation - if done correctly, and yes, that's a big if - is the only real profiling technique that has any chance of not falling into obvious traps.
Finally, for an insight into how and why it works, look at the security at the Tel Aviv airport. They have some spectacular saves that would have failed with any other technique short of getting lucky with a random search.
The only thing that Market cap tells you is how much people think the stock will go up in the (near) future. These days, it has very little correlation with actual, current performance in a given market. For an example, see your list above. Apple's market cap is starting to be disjointed from reality. I won't even touch your generalization of a company offering server software to being "big in IT", which is like saying that Toyota is big in commercial trucks.
For the umpteenth time, only economic liability is capped to 75 million dollars. And that is only if BP cannot be found to be at fault for the spill. Even if it is found to be completely faultless though (rabid dolphins sabotaging the BOP, for example), BP is responsible for every cost associated with the clean-up.
We can place the root of the blame on our congress for failing to allow for the free market to have prevented this.
What? "failing to allow for the free market to have prevented this"? Ohhhh.... I get it. Even if the government regulation is a net positive, it's all because it's actually the free market at work. So if it's good, it's the free market working, and if it's bad, it's the government interfering. Got it.
Slashdot Mirror
Einstein was purely a theoretical physicist. He knew the state of the current experiments (Young's, various astronomical observations), and the state of the current math (specifically Maxwell and Boltzman). Beyond that, he managed to figure out brilliant thought experiments that pointed his math in the right direction, and was able to work with new interpretations of existing phenomena (such as his statistical interpretation of light phenomena). Actual lasers were first demonstrated in 1960.
The reasons schools gloss over the engineering aspect are that it takes a very long time, a lot of people and a lot of tedious, small increments to go from a new physical effect to a working application. There's very little to be consistently learned about the engineering process that isn't already known.
As for an interesting property that hasn't found an application: quantum entanglement. Yeah, we're kinda seeing baby steps, but consider how long people have been working on it, and how many supposed breakthroughs we've had. There isn't a gadget you can buy at radioshack that uses this.
Robots are fuckin' boring.
I found the Mars Rovers a million times more fascinating than the ISS. It might have had something to do with the Rovers actually doing stuff, rather than hanging out in space, swapping out CO2 scrubbers.
That's true, but it's still possible that the relative values to the company are being miscalculated. If you fired that sales guy, could some other sales guy paid half as much sell the product just as well? My guess is that often the answer is "yes".
I don't know. I've seen some of these sales people, and listening to them, *I* was getting excited about their software and services - until I remembered that I was actually providing the customer support or had to install them, and knew exactly how much of what they were saying was utter crap. And yet, for a split-second, they had me going.
That's the skill of a good salesman, and that's why they will always be more important than engineers to the bean counters. There's no product that will sell itself - but a good salesman can sell even a turd. And in the end, that's what's on the balance sheet: Salesman Slimeball added $1 Million to the bottom line this quarter, while Gearhead Gearloose cost the company about $200k.
Is that kind of revenue analysis dangerous? Yes it is. Does it happen more often than it should? Yes it does. And the payout is the reason why so many people go into sales instead of engineering.
I haven't seen a link that supports that, but it jibes with the way that ESPN has been offering events on the internet: only through approved ISPs. For example, to watch the World Cup live on ESPN.com, you need to enter the account information for an ISP with which ESPN has a deal. If you have the big ones (ATT, Comcast, etc), you're golden. If not, say goodbye to watching the World Cup on ESPN.com. The same deal was in place for the Vancouver Winter Olympics.
Honestly, I hope that this practice dies a sudden death. I don't care about the Internet turning into a glorified TV, complete with channels and viewing schedules.
And how did their parents get rich?
A large quotient of luck. Bill Gates had average business savvy, but happened to be in the right time at the right place. P.T. Barnum managed to get rich because the schemes he cooked up happened to work, against every prevailing wisdom of the day.
If you want to see how luck plays a very large role in getting rich, check out the follow-up ventures of people who strike it rich - Paul Allen being the poster boy for that. Yes, there's a good chunk of skill, intelligence, hard work and sociopathy involved - but to argue that anyone who has the traits will get rich is ignorant.
Oh hey, look, I was wondering when you're going to show up again. I'm not surprised it's on a topic that's dear to your heart. And you've even managed to not completely and cravenly defend an undefensible government action.
As for your question as to what is supposed to be classified: that's ultimately up to the will of the people, through the method of election of representatives who enact the will of the people. Or so it goes in theory. In practice, rules have to be bent, and will be bent - in both directions. The court of law is exactly the place where this is supposed to be, and will be, hashed out.
Just adding my support for Chu Chu Rocket here. It's the ideal XBLA game: small in size, easy to pick up, and a mind-bending multi-player.
Yes, and there are some environmentalists who think the LHC is going to destroy the earth. That doesn't mean that anyone who supports the environment thinks that the LHC will destroy the earth. Similarly, "Sortir du nucleaire" opposing ITER does not mean that everybody who falls under the same umbrella denomination of environmentalist is a science wacko. Not to mention that I find Greenpeace's stance fairly reasonable: so far, ITER is indeed a massive boondoggle where even the scientists who are involved aren't sure that it is the best way to achieve commercial fusion.
Your phrasing was an ad hominem because it didn't identify the groups who made that claim,and instead preferred to make an unsubstantiated generalization.
Ignorance on display is always a sad spectacle. Especially since ignorance tends to be so loud. Bonus points for the cussing.
I can't help to ask what makes you think we humans are so much more special than dinosaurs that we deserve to survive as a species
Absolutely nothing. This is merely self-preservation talking, just like for every other species. I'm pretty sure if dinosaurs could write, we would have found loads of discussions around the theme of what to do with the dying, the cloud ash, and how to survive the dark and burning skies.
Reality is simple: Nature is tough, and we have but two choices: deal with it, or check out.
Spot on. I'd prefer not to check out. Which requires dealing with nature, which in turn requires making sure that nature has a place for us in it. Unfortunately, we haven't figured out how to survive without nature (see the failed Biodome experiments), so we're stuck with making sure that we don't need a biodome.
And to be very specific, I don't think you, or anybody else, is going to die because one species of tuna collapsed in the North Atlantic.
Very true. But at some point, the accumulation of species extinction is going to hit us, and especially if that species happens to be a keystone species. God help us all if krill happens to become extinct. It'll be Soylent Green for all of us.
The point is that arguing that a) in the long run, it's all a wash and b) it's just one species manages to both be way to far-sighted and way to short-sighted. The collapse of the blue-fin Tuna has to be seen in the context of the collapse of a lot of other fish species. It's not that it is just one species that might disappear, it's that it is another one in a long line of species.
Finally, the big problem is that disappearance of one species indicates that more issues might be afoot in the environment, which could cause more species to disappear.
For us to think that we have some right to alter the environment to suit ourselves at the cost of other potential species is hubris.
We're already doing it. It's not a question of right, but merely of fact.
The idea that we have the capability to do so is laughable.
What do you think a city is?
You're not for the environment, you're for your current cushy lifestyle.
Correct. I'm also well aware that my current cushy lifestyle depends on a nice, stable environment. It seems that you merely don't understand what constitutes a nice, stable environment.
An unknown, big change is just as likely to be good for humans as it is to be bad.
Argument from ignorance - specifically, argument from ignorance about the state of knowledge about biology, climatology, physics and game theory.
Ask me if I care that the ecosystem rebounds in a few million years. Really, do ask me. Or ask the people whose livelihood depends on a healthy ecosystem.
Can we stop with this idiotic argument that the universe will survive just fine without humans? No shit, Sherlock. Way to state the obvious, Capt'n Obvious. In the meantime, I'd like to make sure that my life is nice and cushy, and that of my kids as well. Unfortunately, that requires a stable ecosystem. And a hallmark of a stable ecosystem is a diverse ecosystem.
Simple solution to the downside of expensive gas: create a public transportation system that works. You can even fund it from a nice gas tax. Kinda like Europe does it. It's pathetic that the only places with a public transportation system that is worth taking is NYC and Boston.
Obnoxious ending aside, parent is right, and not a troll. The assertion that the rich world is not increasing its energy consumption pretty much flies in the face of the fact that it keeps building energy generators - be it dams, wind turbines or coal-fired plants. I'd like to find a citation that shows that the people who upgrade their plasma screens also improve their insulation. I doubt there is one, because most Americans have not heard squat about insulation. Even something as basic as a double-pane window is rare anywhere but the extremely cold areas.
That said, grand-parent is correct in his second statement, if we ignore the hyperbole. The biggest danger to the lifestyle of the rich world is the rest of the world trying to imitate it. The world simply cannot support an India, China and Africa that consumes as much energy per-capita as the US or even Europe. Not unless we dramatically change how energy is created. In the meantime, India and China are trying as hard as they can to first consume as much as we do, and won't worry about their energy consumption until more people in their countries are suffering from it.
Why? Because one division is harder than one multiplication? Not to mention, a division involving a two-digit number and (frequently) a one digit number?
Sigh.... did you not pay attention to what people were blaming Bush for? Here, I'll list them out:
1) Putting a guy in charge of FEMA who had been kicked out of his commissioner position at a Horse association
2) Telling the head of FEMA "Heck'uva job, Brownie" when it was patently obvious that FEMA was bungling what little responsibility it had.
So far, the person in charge of the government organization that was supposed to monitor BP is gone, and there isn't anything legal that Obama can personally do to fix the issue. Unless, as others said, you suggest he put on a snorkel and plug the leak himself.
So: what is exactly that you mean by "coming out fighting against BP" and "proactive"? Cross-reference with what has already been done and what is legal. Thank you.
Which doesn't do squat to begin with. Do you really think that the booms are some impervious, permanent barrier to the oil? Even if we assume that we're just trying to stop the oil on top, you do understand that there are waves on the ocean? Current? Wind? All of which conspire to move the booms, and to move oil over and under the booms?
It's like all the people who pointed at the school buses after Katrina and said "Why didn't they just put people in buses and drove them out?" Where exactly would they have been put? Out in a pasture somewhere?
Jindal is a grade-A politician who knows everything about looking busy and nothing about actually solving a problem. Granted, I'm also blaming BP and the Feds for not properly employing booms to corral the oil into an area where it is removed from the water/beach, but still - booms alone aren't the answer.
And yes, this suggestion for booms alone is just Monday-Morning Engineering at its finest: people with no clue, no insight and no information pontificating and assigning blame for a situation in which they have no skin and no responsibility. Even Jindal has no skin in the game, because he can always blame someone else for his hare-brained ideas going wrong.
There's a point at which you're so reviled that any attempt to make yourself look less despicable only feeds into the negative view the public has of you.
Damn, and I just ran out of mod points.
This is the feeling I and everyone I know gets when we see BP commercials about how they're fixing stuff. "STFU and get back to work." No one wants to hear BP talk about how hard they're working. The only thing anyone is interested in hearing is "The leak is plugged, the oil has been skimmed, and life is returning to normal." Anything else just backfires and makes BPs image worse.
If I were in BP's shoes, I'd buy ad space and show a live 30-second feed of the rovers, the meetings and engineers cranking away in cubicles and on boats.
Sigh..... while you're mumbling legalese, I'd like to point out that the you're pretending to refer to only applies to economic damages, and only if the accident happened through no fault of the owner of the rig. Sheesh, you'd think that if you know the terms, you'd get the law right, too.
However, it is still true that BP will pay out far less than what Limewire is being sued for. I don't care at what stage of the legal process we're at, but there's something seriously wrong if copying bits is considered worse than the destruction of entire ecosystems and state economies.
Read the Nature article that was linked, and you'll see the following statistic: From January 2006 to November 2009, these SPOT officers singled out over 232,000 people for further inspection. Of these, 1,710 were arrested. Of THOSE, zero were terrorists.
Which is a meaningless statistics, because we don't know how many people who were flying were terrorists who want to blow up a plane. Wait, we do: 2. Quite frankly, 2 out of several hundred million people is a little tough to make a test that is that specific.
Honestly, I agree with another reply to you: The solution is to accept that there is a risk in flying and move on.
And when the risk becomes too big because the target is too soft and terrorists regularly poke holes through it, flight traffic will crater, as will a lot of business that relies on plane travel. Are you willing to let the terrorists win that easily? In that sense, security theater is important: it raises the comfort level of the general public to fly from zero to an acceptable risk.
There has to be security. Yes, it has to be real security, and only security theater won't work. Will there be abuses? Yes. Proper procedures include procedures to report abuses. Knee-jerk reactions of any security procedures is just as stupid as knee-jerk acceptance of any procedure.
I was going to mod you up, but instead I wanted to congratulate you on your post. This was, by far, the most entertaining and insightful anti-government rant I have read in a long time. No, this is not sarcasm, I'm dead serious. Yes, there are a few flaws in your argumentation, such as generalizing from specific cases. But overall, you nailed one of the issues that a representative democracy will always have: if you're an asshole, you can enact laws for the sole benefit of yourself. And to run, you kinda have to be an asshole to begin with.
Fine. Observing passengers for potential cues is security theater. Then explain to me, how exactly is airplane security is going to work? You can't possibly strip search everybody, no one would fly. Having everybody fly naked is not an option either, as is having everybody be sedated and tied to their seats.
As securing all passengers with 100% failproof methods is far more intrusive than what's currently proposed, we need to look elsewhere. We know that the no-fly list is bogus because it is secret and non-appealable. We know that removing all liquids is dumb as well, because you're a) always behind the curve in what terrorists will try, and b) because most of the hare-brained ideas won't work anyway.
So what's left? We are pretty much left with SPOT: the observation of human behavior to indicate who gets special treatment. It is the only thing that can work, because it keys on the only thing common among terrorists: their plan, and the impact on human physiology of planning a suicide. Will innocent people be subjected to extra searches? They sure will. But behavioral observation - if done correctly, and yes, that's a big if - is the only real profiling technique that has any chance of not falling into obvious traps.
Finally, for an insight into how and why it works, look at the security at the Tel Aviv airport. They have some spectacular saves that would have failed with any other technique short of getting lucky with a random search.
The only thing that Market cap tells you is how much people think the stock will go up in the (near) future. These days, it has very little correlation with actual, current performance in a given market. For an example, see your list above. Apple's market cap is starting to be disjointed from reality. I won't even touch your generalization of a company offering server software to being "big in IT", which is like saying that Toyota is big in commercial trucks.
For the umpteenth time, only economic liability is capped to 75 million dollars. And that is only if BP cannot be found to be at fault for the spill. Even if it is found to be completely faultless though (rabid dolphins sabotaging the BOP, for example), BP is responsible for every cost associated with the clean-up.
We can place the root of the blame on our congress for failing to allow for the free market to have prevented this.
What? "failing to allow for the free market to have prevented this"? Ohhhh.... I get it. Even if the government regulation is a net positive, it's all because it's actually the free market at work. So if it's good, it's the free market working, and if it's bad, it's the government interfering. Got it.