I'll have to say I agree - I think the movie would have been far cooler if they gave young Kirk command of a small ship with a storyline around that. Giving Kirk the Enterprise is like giving command of an aircraft carrier to a special forces guy who kicked major ass on a single mission. Yeah the guys a hero, but in…

Surgeons also use iPods to implant knees and hips http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/12/04/ipod-used-in-knee-surgery/1747017/

Somewhere (I forget where) I read that Einstein calculated the 6 days of creation as taking 15B years due to the effect of relativity. So somebody travelling at the speed of the universe's expansion would experience 6 days, while someone remaining stationary it would be 15B years.

This is what all humans do in mostly everything. Reason evolved as a post-hoc mechanism to communicate to others and convince others to follow or build a positive reputation. Most of what people think of as their own educated and enlightened opinions, are really only emotions/intuitions that are arrived at almost…

The motorola laptop dock is not only expensive, but it's a dumb idea. You tie up your phone when you use the laptop portion - for anybody who works remotely, this is a deal breaker since you usually talk on the phone while using your laptop for stuff. There's absolutely no purpose to it whatsoever, other than they did…

He took it for two years? Didn't it occur to him or his doctor to, um, STOP taking the drug when he suffered from the side effects?

In unicorn and fairyand, there is an endless pile of money and everybody works for free to provide unlimited services to all. In the real world, however, we have aging demographics, escalating health costs, fierce global competition which drives labor costs down, and a bond market which if rattled, will drive…

It was listed as "D or d" (without the spaces, "Dord"), representing what density would be in an equation.

Increasing taxes on the wealth raises $80B on a $1000B deficit. Not enough. I'll agree on healthcare, but i would adopt German/Swiss health system - 100% privatised health insurance with a mandate for everybody to buy, and subsidies for the poor. Refocus federal spending on investment in the future - increase funding…

I can't believe how uninformed people are in this thread. Like taking money from the military and giving it to NASA will solve the problem. I'll say it again. $1T deficit, meaning we spend $3.6T annually and can only pay for $2.6T. Soaking the rich sounds great until you realize that this raises $80B annually, not…

Sweet! That raises $80B a year on a $1T deficit! Problem solved!

That's great and all, but $1T deficit. All programs are unaffordable at this point. You can take money from the DOD and give it to NASA, but you still have a $1T deficit.

Well, we need far more than a few extra nickels. We need $1T to cover the annual deficit.

Ridiculous. The entire US miliary budget is $800B. Deficit is $1T. What are you going to cut to raise another $250B to cover the rest of the deficit and fund NASA $50B?

The bank bailouts paid for themselves, and the US government actually made money on it except for fannie/freddie (which essentially caused the mess in the first place by putting an implicit federal guarantee on risky debt).

No, it's not enough. The deficit is $1T, so cutting defense dramatically simply doesn't go far enough. Assuming you completely eliminate the US military, where are you coming up with the other $300B?

completely manufactured? Are you out of your mind? The debt crisis is very real - no serious economist would argue that US debt is not a problem. Bond markets price risk of default, and once debt becomes risky, interest on the debt rises, and you have less cash to spend.

No, there is not. We need to cut 30% of the budget. The money can't come from defense alone. A healthy portion, but even if you cut defense by 25% (which will never happen), that doesn't come close to closing the gap.

Letting the Bush tax cuts expire on the rich barely covers that doubled NASA budget. Far more needs to be cut.

There's a huge job ahead to bring the budget into reason, I'm all for cutting unnecessary spending but refuse to acknowledge any so-called savings that can be chalked up to "efficiency improvements" as they are too nebulous and too easy to fake. Specific and tangible cuts, on a huge scale, need to be made.