bell-cot

I'm thinking that very few folks, these days, have the mindset & skill set & finances & timeframe to build their own houses. And it wouldn't be just the currently-active NIMBY&#x…

Not an expert - but the legal/diplomatic/regulatory "attacks" would be slow and uncertain, and the US would obviously push back hard. Jamming is localized by definition. Direct p…

Seems like you could put the same area of solar cells on short poles along suitable bits of RR right-of-way, slanted at the optimal angle for the sun, and get considerably more watts. At a much lower …

> need to refund in full the purchase cost. In practical terms, the logistics of many-years-later refunds would be unwieldy at best. Do the purchase records still exist? What if I no longer have …

On the one hand - you're correct that "an apprentice with a grinder and a file" could not possibly produce a modern-era artillery shell. They're just too complex. But OTOH - nobod…

> What's so amazing is that... You, for better and for worse, are thinking like an honest person. Who wants to actually produce a badly-needed product. Please try to understand that General D…

One can argue whether, in abstract, this was a good idea. Back in the real world - any government or large org can do a genuinely good thing so badly that it would have been better if they'd done…

Musk seems obsessed with making socially valuable physical things which are extremely difficult to make. And (overall) he's darned good at it. Back when America's star was rising, that was …

I'm no ER physician, nor OSHA expert - but if 600 accidents with the sorts of heavy equipment and rocketry that SpaceX does every day included only one death, then my conclusion would be that the…

"Everyone has a price." - Pablo Escobar

What real-world expertise does Lucas bring to this issue? If he had somehow been able to foresee how developments in computer tech would play out in our society over the past couple decades, he'…

Only if the data center's task force of influencers, lobbyists, and arm-twisters are incompetent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_abatement (Yes, in general, they'll …

> The Mesquite factory was commissioned with a series of expedited contracts in 2022 and 2023... > The facility, in Mesquite, Texas, was brought online in 2024... > [now] the facility has yet…

THIS. To quote Wikipedia: > It is a common myth in the United States that DST was first implemented for the benefit of farmers.[40][41][42] In reality, farmers have been one of the strongest lobby…

Sounds like the "Milky Way" galaxy is due for a renaming.

Why would I spend $15.4k to boost my home's resale value by $3.1k?

I'd think that at least a few countries - hopefully, somewhere - have good consumer protection & privacy laws against this sort of crap. Anyone know?

> A layman can evaluate the craftmanship and care with which a builder constructs a house without much effort: but evaluating intellectual work usually requires... I call BS. Even if the "lay…

I could speculate about Redwood's tech being more expensive in other ways, or Japan having "not invented here" issues. But it sounds like 90% vs 95% is academic in today's Japan: …

> Is there any realistic... SCOTUS could hand down another surprise decision: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatrie_v._United_States …

Drones are cheap & reliable. Vs. blimps, balloons, and such have repeatedly proven themselves quite fragile.

Based on your title, should the URL be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itanium#Market_reception ?…

Back in the day, "Kessler syndrome" was a fairly good way to articulate the fears of many scientists - whose delicate one-off "flagship" scientific research satellites had huge cos…

> Why didn't the government try... As a broad generality, governments are utter crap at inventing/building/operating bleeding-edge technologies at giga-scale. Exceptions are general…

While there's a lot of truth to your "gutting most gov't functions" claim, you might want to compare SpaceX's subsidies and launch costs with those of the gov't's tr…

> discussed across a wide breadth of hard science fiction novels and stories. It's a cool idea, but the reality is centuries away. Three points to consider: 1 - Useful spacecraft are generall…

"He who has the gold makes the rules" is older than the pyramids.

I was thinking more of the Times and Guardian being in rather similar lines of work, and the opportunity to cast some shade on a rival.