Except that do you really believe the 6th grader (as implied by the article title) intended to do this by doing a science fair experiment? I'm sure she had no idea at the time this would turn out to be this big.

Likewise I'm sure the father, initially, didn't think so either.

Seems to me the blame lies not with…

The character Pratchett created in Myria LeJean really intrigued me, to the point that, well into adulthood, I wrote my first ever fanfiction around the character.

Yes! Yes! A thousand times yes!

Agreed. @Czol might check out 1491 by Charles Mann:

I suspected you were trolling, appears I was right.

... "when the Europeans came. " FTFY ;-)

Yup. They actually declared a state of Deseret around 1850 in the West before becoming Utah.

I laughed. Now I feel dirty and will punish myself.

Booooo! Hissssssa!

@Prest0 is just reviewing history, not saying it would have been better.

Dat soundtrack. Dem fects.

"You're a monster."

It does indeed depend on the sect. But only the most arrogant of my fellow Christians believe that they know without doubt the meaning of each chapter and verse and are entitled to call others "false Christians".

And so it begins...

That is true, but not quite what I meant. Are you familiar with the paradox of My Grandfathers Axe?

Semirelated topic. The ISS is supposed to be decomissioned in 2014. Can someone explain why, after spending the obscene amounts of money and dV to orbit something like the ISS, you would decommission it rather than just swap out modules as they age?

Trudat.

I reject your reality, and substitute my own.

I'd characterize it as:

"Did the Primary Damper Panel just fall off my gorram ship for no reason?"