StringJunky

Yes, as the electorate, we need to make sure that Apple et al don't get stuck between a rock and a hard place by the security services. I think they might have to go to court to bring it out into the open, so that everyone is listening and judging the situation. When I say 'we' I mean the European and US population..... we have common cause for concern because all the services are .snooping each other AND up each others arses at the same time.

Yes, it's either bullet-proof or it isn't. I missed that link! Read it now, cheers. What concerns me is that Teresa May and her US counterparts always say "Terrorism!" but they actually want access to much minor stuff, like social security fraud for example, for which I don't think unfettered access to device/ISP data is a proportional response to the basic loss of an individual's right to privacy.just for stuff like that. It has to be very serious stuff that might cause societal instability or a threat to lives. Each case must be sanctioned by an independent legal authority. At the current time, I think the sophistication of NSA, GCHQ technology and resources vastly outcompetes Islamic State; it's more than enough. I think the focus on the terrorist angle is just a smokescreen for unlimited access to Joe or Josephine Public's data. The more data, even seemingly inocuous, an organisation has, the more profiles it can make the more control it will have... not good. The only way for three people to keep a secret is if all of them are dead. We cannot be trusted.

Is Apple ethically correct to take up this stance or is the government's need more important?

That's what I was saying, it's not all-encompassing. It works if they are different but not if they are the same.

If the chirality (right or left handedness) of certain amino acids or sugars were different to that, which is common to life on Earth, might be one way. Isotopic composition of certain elements might be another. This idea would be nullified If the chirality from the two planets was the same, then one might propose that life's basic ingredients was 'imported' from somewhere else rather than started on that particular planet from scratch. The same conclusion could be derived for isotopic composition.

This was the essence of the OP.

Yes, I agree, I suppose this subject is quite closely associated with the "What is America's biggest problem?" thread, as a possible cause.

This post was inspired by the death of Antonin Scalia and the apparent overt political leanings of his profession in the US which can ultimately decide policy. I'd like to focus on the weight the judiciary carries in political policy via test cases. I found this UK article about the appointment of a then-new UK Supreme Court judge in 2011. He had a lot to say about the importance of the judiciary's influence on government policy. Do you think that this approach that government should make policy and not by judges? Here's the thrust of what I'm on about. It's worth reading the page for more detail: Note the difference (bolded) between the required political impartiality of judges in the UK vs their American counterparts, who wear their affiliation like a banner.

OK.

Nice. What was his part in the project? I quickly read up on him that he's a GR maths specialist.

In the same sense that a magnetic field is not material, for example, but is measurable, and the same for energy. I should make a thread about it if it still bugs you.

I learnt it from you about energy-density distribution.. It took me a long time to get my head around the fact that it's not material.

Spacetime, I might be wrong, is a mapping of energy-density distribution around masses and between masses. Ripples in spacetime from a BH merger describes a particular energy-density pattern and propagation

Does it help towards setting limits on the dimensions of the granularity of space for quantum purposes?

I find it all amazing. The signal and it's visual interpretation is so clear for amateurs like myself. There's an explanation of the animation if anyone wants a bit more detail. Click "Show more" under the video at this LInK. Does this help pave the way for a better quantum description as well?

Nice animation. Note how the event is correlated with the signal trace at the bottom through time.

Umpteen million people are probably thinking the same.

All Hail Albert!

I was idealistic and naive once. Gilead, Valeant, - Drug prices; Google, Apple et al -endemic tax "efficiencies"; Volkswagen; device manipulation etc. The corporate rot is coming at us like pent up diarrhoea.... the emerging list is getting very long.

True, can't argue with that. In the UK the Liberal Democrats (centrist between Labour and Conservative) have pushed for PR since I can remember but the electorate here seems to prefer a first-past-the-post system. We don't tend to get major reversals of policy with each party that's elected though... it's more subtle.

Proportional representation would probably lead to a slower pace of change.

Are you reasonably confident that they exist?

One could verify this by a surprise compulsory search of said politicians pockets for poppers!

Whether the words are spoken or written you still have to digest and absorb what has been said and, with science, you are only going to get so far without maths;. this will always be your limitation, no matter how good you are, I think. I think you are looking at many years of concerted effort to 'get used to' the hard stuff like GR, QM etc... there are no complete classical equivalents that we can use to visualise at this level. The other thing is scientific knowledge is in constant flux, scientists have to be in this state to. I wouldn't let it get you down, as long as you enjoy it and find it interesting and useful that's all that matters I think Richard Feynman once said nobody really understands QM.

Very good. An influential proportion of Americans need to realise that no country, like no person, is an island that can act or be affected without consequence to themselves, or them to other nations. It's becoming quite clear that those formerly isolated nations, Russia and China, are gradually acknowledging ,via their responses to events, that they too are not islands.