They're doing this because they don't want to delay their landing trials until they get cleared to fly the stage back to the launchpad.

Basically they don't know how long it'll take for the government to issue a permit (and the government probably doesn't know either).

It's actually pretty common for the founder to be someone who doesn't have any technical knowledge or any knowledge of managing the finances of a business. The founder could be a person who brings money and ambition to the table. (I'm not sure if this applies in this particular case, but it would not be unusual).

The most important decisions then are usually the first 2-5 employees that they hire. The first person must be an experienced, ambitious, loyal and tireless person with the right technical knowledge who for some reason prefers to work for a tiny startup instead of a larger, more established company.

Best of luck!

The first picture on that page shows an ominous-looking and unprecedented (in the 2000-year period covered by the graph) temperature spike over the last 150 years. This coincides with a rapid rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration. Even if that is just a coincidence we still have to face the fact that we are probably headed for CO2 concentrations in the 1000+ ppm range, a range where the atmosphere has not been since the Jurassic.

We can hope that the warming will be significantly less severe than the models predict, but it would be good to have a plan B and a plan C when the stakes include all coastal cities around the world.

There was a 30-year period in the mid-1900's when there was significant cooling. That does not negate the fact that the trend over the last 150 years is, by human historical standards, rapid heating.

Now, do you think that 20 years of little to no warming disproves the connection between CO2 and average temperature?

I think it might be the creative aspect of it. The social climate of these conspiracy scenes seems to revolve around the idea that everyone will refrain from debunking each other's theories, even if they clash logically. So you get to invent your own take on the course of events and underlying motives of the different actors in the conspiracy and nobody gets to call you out on it.

When I was maybe 10 or 11 I used to enjoy fantasizing about secret tunnels and stuff run by ancient secret organizations, so I can kind of relate.

It helps to meddle with creative hobbies like visual art or music, or indeed creative writing if that's what you like.

Internet of Things: Yeah, but the industrial applications will be huge. Imagine a factory where each machine, or every subsystem in every machine, has a health status that updates in real time, based on sensor input (I imagine this is already in place in many factories). With a sufficiently advanced setup a lot of workers could probably be laid off.

Parallel Programming: Already in use by most of those who benefit from it.

3D printing: Already in use, but could have a lot of niche applications.

Web APIs: Massively in use already.

Embedded systems: Massively in use already. Whole classes of consumer-oriented embedded systems have come and gone, including mp3 players and feature phones.

This thing that you're describing is called sleep paralysis. Sleep paralysis is a state where you are still dreaming, but you are also partially aware of your surroundings (mainly through hearing) and here is the scary part: you are strongly convinced that you are not dreaming and that you are in fact awake. This combination of dreaming while thinking that you are awake can make for some pretty strange and frightening experiences...

Sleep paralysis is often posed as an explanation for the widespread phenomenon of people experiencing nightly visits by evil entities such as witches and (in modern times) aliens.

The first of those videos (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXgToM8cbBI) shows the smoke trail dispersing and becoming difficult to make out within about half a minute. The missile is launched at 1:20 into the video and the root of the trail is half gone at 1:50. I'd say there's maybe a 90-second window (at most) for anyone with an average smartphone camera who want to gather evidence of a launch with this missile system.

You also have to factor in that an unsuspecting civilian who is standing a couple of miles away will hear the launch about 10 seconds after it has happened and will most likely be confused by sound reflection and refraction against ground objects like houses and trees, which will make it difficult for them to locate the source of the sound quickly enough to get a good picture.

Alright, time for some back of the envelope calculations!

A maglev line between Chicago and Atlanta through Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Louisville, Nashville, would stretch about 1200 km.

Assuming a top speed of 500 km/h and a time penalty of about 10 minutes per station along the route and a 5 minute penalty for the departure and destination stations, the ride would take 1200/500 - (5+10+10+10+10+5)/60 = 3.23 hours, which would be quite competitive with air travel, based on travel time alone.

I'm afraid the numbers would get rather bleak once we start to talk about the financial viability of the project. Generally, you get the most societal benefit from infrastructure projects that offer attractive options for day commuting, so any tax subsidies ought to be focused on such projects and not on projects that merely offer attractive options for weekly commutes or one-off journeys.

I don't think ESA would ever be cleared to handle plutonium, let alone launch it into space. For starters, I don't know who would have the authority to clear ESA to use plutonium.

What?

But it has a handy little write new email to no specific person button in the bottom right, where your thumb is. I start writing emails to no-one in particular all the time! Okay, maybe not...

But at least all the other features have been optimized to be as far away from your thumb as possible (assuming you're right-handed), in the top left corner. But you can also swipe right from the left edge to open the menu, and this will only sometimes cause you to delete emails from your inbox...

Actually, maybe you have a point. But the old version of the Gmail app was only slightly better.

Never fear. TFA says:

"The Chinese researchers mention the question of privacy, however. That’s an issue that would make this kind of tracking difficult in democratic countries, or at least the public acknowledgement of it.

See that? Companies that make apps would never dare to ask you to let them access your location if you live in a democracy.

Okay, but they apparently missed the signs that Mexico was entering failed-state territory.

The police allegedly just shot up 43 protesters and handed them over to a so-called drug gang, one of the paramilitary proto-governments that are waiting in the wings to attempt to take over if the Mexican government fails completely.

If that analogy holds in more than one way then I suppose that specialized AI models will appear earlier in history, will be vastly more numerous and resilient and long-lived than more generalized AI models.

The more generalized AI:s will probably want to reach for a specialized-AI swatter every now and then.

Remember when you could learn to be a HTML/CSS "coder" in a couple of months and, if you were lucky or knew the right people, get a fairly well-paying job? That must have been around 1996-1998...