From Wikipedia article on anti-ship ballistic missiles:

China doesn't need an aircraft carrier. There is every indication they have a ballistic missile that can take out an aircraft carrier, and I don't believe that the US has any defense against this missile. Plus they have diesel electric Song class subs which have a proven ability to penetrate a US aircraft carrier's…

Insurance companies carefully research how much the average person will lose in a year, and then charge double or triple or quadruple that for the annual premium. So, with renters insurance, where the max claim is going to be a few thousand dollars, you can be pretty confidant that over the course of your lifetime you…

Come up with a coding project, teach yourself how to do it as you go, and stick with it until you are done. By the end you will know whether or not its something you would like to do professionally. If you had a blast and felt disappointed that it was over when you finished because you were having so much fun, then…

The appropriate response to the initial proposal of the formula would have been "well that sounds like it could be a reasonable formula, but without seeing all the numbers filled in and what the final value is I can't really say whether or not it makes sense to me." Never agree to anything in the abstract because when…

My dream is that once they finish a lightweight and streamlined iPad version they will port it back to Windows and Mac OS X so we can finally have an unbloated office suite.

"When the ship on which Curiosity is being transported reaches an altitude of 1.6km above the surface of Mars, a special descent stage with two rockets at each of its corners will separate, carrying the rover."

There are lots of animals peeing and pooping in the ocean already; adding some primate pee and poop won't make much difference.

It is odd Gizmodo didn't mention the image was made using a coronagraph.

+1. Three and four star reviews are the most useful.

I also base most of my buying decisions on Amazon reviews. Everyone is biased one way or the other, including CR, and I find the best way to get an accurate sense of something is to evaluate the opinions of a range of people.

"Unless someone mixes up the test tubes, a DNA test is pretty much guaranteed to tell you exactly who fathered a child.."

Amazon offers one essential service that bricks and mortar stores don't: user reviews and popularity rankings. I am so used to carefully checking reviews (for quality) and rankings (for value; the best values tend to be the most popular) before I buy something that I no longer feel comfortable buying new things (as…

"Caveat: inflated carbon footprint guilt."

I used to make that stuff as a teen (Got the recipe from Farnham's Freehold by Heinlein). When dry any slight pressure will make it explode so don't let significant quantities of it get dry.

Japan never wanted to conquer the USA. They just wanted us sidelined so they could continue their conquest of Asia.

I think they felt that Japan's survival required acquiring resource rich territories in Asia and the SW Pacific, but that the US would never let that happen, so they had no choice but to try and take out the Pacific fleet and hope for the best. In other words they knew it was a long shot, but felt they had to try.

The Nazis were bumbling fools and it was only a matter of time before they self destructed

Total spending = Total income (ignoring imports and exports). If nobody spends, then nobody has any income.

Um, spending equals economic health by definition: GDP = annual spending less net net imports.