Climate change discourse is highly politicized and not very realistic, IMO. Even the idea of a "tipping point" is a little misconceived in its implication. If we consider the climate to be a self-regulating, complex, and dynamic system, it will be characterized by numerous possible states of stable equilibrium. The…

I think Tom Cruise the person is insufferable, but Tom Cruise the actor has been in mostly above-average and some classic Hollywood movies. The fact that he does many of his own stunts is what makes his action movies really exciting. The same could be said of a lot of the best action movies. There may be safety…

Did he ever run in Top Gun?

It's the 80s retro thing.

I didn't realize that gradual, incremental climate change was a viable hypothesis to begin with. It seems like every dynamic, self-regulating system is characterized by the possibility of sudden, "catastrophic" events. Physiological systems are the simplest examples of this phenomenon.

I'm inclined to say no, because a negative result won't prove that he didn't use marijuana before a certain time frame. He might have used marijuana every twenty minutes of every single day until abstaining for the last year or three of his life, and the test result would be negative.

I kind of wish they had made Fallen Skies a TV series mash up, with Noah Wyle playing Carter from E.R. and Brian from Wings playing...Brian from Wings. Then they could have cameo appearances by George Clooney and Tony Shaloub, who could alternately play Monk or the taxicab driver from Wings.

There has to be some product placement somewhere in this.

...because there's nothing more reassuring than a nuclear reactor attached to a balloon.

We can just make the atmosphere denser instead.

I bet that you could sell a screenplay just on the basis of calling it "Swampy Grimacing Penis Hymn."

Thanks, I found those to be very interesting.

@ aLynHall

It's not particularly a study about religious beliefs any more than scientific beliefs. It's more a study about how memories are partially organized by beliefs. But, if beliefs have anything to do with anything else, than it should be possible to show that beliefs perform an organizational role in terms of those…

Well, if you consider the planned vs. actual performance of Spirit and Opportunity, the potential performance of Curiosity should be quite nice.

Not realizing that my sound card was just malfunctioning, I actually watched the 11-minute video without sound, and let me tell you, it's much better with sound.

I suppose the rover's mass prevents them from using the previous "encase it in balloons and bounce it across the landscape until it stops" method of landing.

The plot development and pacing of this episode of Voltron Force are terrible.

I'm also kind of interested in seeing what Bay has done with 3D, after hearing what James Cameron had to say about the 3D camera-work.

I suppose the article goes into some alternate hypotheses that they considered. But... couldn't this finding possibly indicate that birds don't need to mate at night? If that's the case, then there would be no selective pressure on plumage coloration in the UV range (based on the underlying theory that mating…