[QUOTE=Xyzzy;383799][URL]http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/09/24/hundreds-colorado-students-protest-proposed-history-curriculum-changes/[/URL][/QUOTE]

Right On! :tu:

prime numbers mentioned on NOVA
 

[url]http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/rise-of-the-hackers.html[/url]
tonights NOVA on PBS
they stated the largest known prime has 17 million digits
meaning M(57885161)
full episode will probably be on website in a few days

[url]http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/09/25/boston-lion-head-copper/16196805/[/url]

An NC reader describes this story as "Big Brother, unsafe at any speed":

[url]http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/dealbook/2014/09/24/miss-a-payment-good-luck-moving-that-car/[/url]
[quote] As the ignition devices proliferate, so have complaints from troubled borrowers, many of whom are finding that credit comes at a steep price to their privacy and, at times, their dignity, according to interviews with state and federal regulators, borrowers and consumer lawyers.

Some borrowers say their cars were disabled when they were only a few days behind on their payments, leaving them stranded in dangerous neighborhoods. Others said their cars were shut down while idling at stoplights. Some described how they could not take their children to school or to doctor’s appointments. One woman in Nevada said her car was shut down while she was driving on the freeway.[/quote]

A fun way of understanding Einstein's General Theory of Relativity
 

[URL="http://phys.org/news/2014-09-fun-einstein-theory-relativity.html"]http://phys.org/news/2014-09-fun-einstein-theory-relativity.html[/URL]

[QUOTE]That looks like this: 7,760,000,000,000,000,000 or roughly 7.8 septillion Joules of energy.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_large_numbers"]Quintillion 10^18 10^30 ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓[/QUOTE]

someone needs to review there numbers before describing relativity.

millions 10e6, millards 10e9, billions 10e12 , billiards 10e15 , trillions 10e18 , trilliards 10e21 , Quadrillions 10e24, Quadrilliards 10e27, Quintillions 10e30...
wait what?

[quote]Thus, concluding our little mind experiment we find that just one human being is roughly the equivalence of 1.86 MILLION kilotons of TNT worth of energy. Let's now put that into perspective, just to illuminate the massive amount of power that this equivalence really is.[/quote]
Uh, no - the way the author figures things, one human being is exactly the equivalence of one human's-weight of TNT worth of energy, no more, no less.

(Hey, if he's gonna be cavalier about 'what form of energy release are we talking about?', so am I.)

Also, he could've at least given a passing mention to m being *relativistic* mass, which at least gives a hint as to why the formula is not incompatible with the known fact that massless particles have nonzero energy. (Even if one must use an alternate equation to compute said energy in that case).

[QUOTE=ewmayer;383849]An NC reader describes this story as "Big Brother, unsafe at any speed":

[url]http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/dealbook/2014/09/24/miss-a-payment-good-luck-moving-that-car/[/url][/QUOTE]And just why are people letting their cars be remotely accessed? Oh yeah, for their protection from terrorists and paedophiles of course. Think of the children. :loco:

[size=1][color=grey]I bet they allow their computer to be remotely controlled with JS/Flash/Active-X/Java also. Suckers![/color][/size]

This is a growing phenomenon. Wait until you can't choose to service your car at your local garage anymore (keeping money in the local economy) but are forced to go to one which pays a large subscription to the manufacturer in return for engineering level access to the computer controlling all the car's functions.

[YOUTUBE]8sXLwLRXkEs[/YOUTUBE]

[QUOTE=ewmayer;381832]Re. crazy headwounds, check out the late Mr. [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage]Phineas Gage[/url]. Yes, the dude survived -- in fact he was walking and talking almost immediately after the accident. The Wiki article is fascinating reading.

There was a famous article in [i]Science[/i] a few decades ago which did a computerized reconstruction of Gage's skull wounds. IIRC in House MD, House has a reproduction of that cover image on the shelf behind him as he sits at his office desk.[/QUOTE]Selection bias, but two audiobooks that I've listened to in the last two weeks have gone into Gage's story: [URL="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17737025-my-age-of-anxiety"][I]My Age of Anxiety: Fear, Hope, Dread, and the Search for Peace of Mind[/I][/URL] by Scott Stossel, and [URL="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/353340.Happy_Accidents"][I]Happy Accidents: Serendipity in Modern Medical Breakthroughs[/I][/URL] by Morton A. Meyers.

The first is a better than normal medical survey by a layman on anxiety. He moves the book forward by interspersed episodes from his own life. Those incidents were a bit overwhelming and I felt it better to listen instead of read because I'm sure the turmoil would have led me to put the a book down. I found it easier to just let audio passively roll on.

The second is a paean to serendipity in quite a positive sense.

In fiction, I'm currently listening to Robert Rankin narrating his book [I]The Brentford Chainstore Massacre[/I]. He is like Douglas Adams but with quirky turned up to 11. I'm trying to decide if I like him.