I call BS on your BS. Nearly all the stuff that made space flight possible were human achievements on the GROUND.

Most humans in space have been part of nearly ballistic trajectories or computer controlled robots. On many missions, human presence in space was largely for vanity reasons and the missions could have been accomplished with robots. However, there are a few times when humans were key parts of the accomplishment in SPACE which is what I was pointing out. That takes nothing away from other folks fine accomplishments on the GROUND which made it possible.

I think one of the candidates for the peak of human achievement in space is the Apollo 11 moon landing done on manual. Or perhaps the first space walk by the USSR...

The comet landing, however, is probably right up there with the other top robotic achievement in space. FWIW, the mars curiosity sky crane one of the other top 10 that comes to mind...

Actually the speed of light is just about perfect for the photon. At the speed of light, time dilation/spatial contraction allows it to be pretty much everywhere on its world line at the same "time". Thus space is certainly not too big for the photon (if you ignore inflation).

So the problem isn't that space is too big, nor that light is too slow, but how finite beings like us experience time (i.e., life is definitely too short)...

Sigh... Actually the way Obamacare is set up, insurance companies should *like* it. They theoretically get lots of new customers who are forced to buy their services and are pretty much guaranteed 20% of the premiums to run their business (80% has to go to medical reimbursement) and they are allowed to pick and choose the medical providers they will contract with... It's likely the patients that get the screw on this (other than the sorely underused HRA option which is another can of worms)...

Similarly, the large retailers would like a defined standard security coverage levels for POS transactions. The large retailers will simply pass this cost on to the consumers confident in the knowledge that nobody can undercut them in this dimension (as they have economies of scale). It's likely the consumers that will get the screw on this one as they will have to pay for the security upgrades for the smaller retailers...

I think people don't generally realize how much they are actually paying for the convenience of credit card transactions as the costs are cleverly hidden from them. In fact, until recently, the costs were mostly handled in a completely regressive manner (rich generally pay less, poor pay more). Interest payments subsidized the no-fee cards for those freeloaders (industry term) that don't carry monthly balances, Rewards cards dollars are extorted directly from the merchants (merchants have to pay a higher percentage to clear rewards cards than non-rewards cards). The money comes from the merchants so they charge higher prices, and the banks skim the money that is passed through them.

Consumers addicted to plastic payment are essentially enabling the banks to skim money from the retailers (and thus you the consumer)... Think of these two questions you might ask a random consumer...

Would like a convenient way to pay such that you will pay 3% higher prices to retailers so that large banks can get 50% of that money?
Or would you like a convenient way to pay if I gave you back 1% of your purchases volume so you can spend more money?

Clever, those credit card companies, aren't they ;^)

Of course you gotta be really die-hard to watch that Voyager series...
It will probably all start with a run-down shopping mall, using partially decommissioned airforce bases (like the Presidio) will come later...

And besides that, this is probably last season of Mythbusters. Major cast reshuffling (e.g., firing the on-air "B" build-team for probably budget vs viewership reasons) is a sure sign that they've been threatened with cancelation by the network...

Since Google simply leased the land and is NOT the owner, it wouldn't surprise me if NASA (aka the US govt) is still the entity on the hook for paying for the Hazmat situation at the hangar so that Google can redevelop it. Sadly that's how these private-public partnerships usually work out...

If you think about this more carefully, this last point may have derailed your whole position...

Perhaps we should simply just hold the parents responsible for their offspring.... *ducks*

Typical non-profit entities have grandiose goals such as eliminating poverty or feed orphans or some other goal that tugs as the hearts (and purse strings) of a dedicated and forgiving audience. They usually have no idea what they are doing and are making it up along the way. Of course they try really hard and maybe they accomplish a few things along away, but of course they never really "solve" the problem. If they do they find something else.**

Meanwhile, the principal of the organization get to earn a living doing what they enjoy with other folks footing the bill.

Take it for what it is people. People gotta earn a living somehow...

**for instance, the March of Dimes was started to stamp out Polio. After the vaccine was developed (none of their funding contributed to the Salk Vaccine, it was spent on palliative care), they had to find something else to do, they simply didn't wind down, which is why you have to start with a really really grandiose goal to make sure it doesn't happen to quickly

Location of first nuclear test (well, close enough)... Dumping ground for unsold ET cartridges...
Coincidence? Maybe they were hoping someone would nuke the site from orbit (just to be sure, of course) to remove all possibility of recovery...

Depends on what it was: a law enforcement honey pot for terrorist wannabes or a snot nosed trouble maker...

Well... okay, maybe you're right, it was a dumb choice either way ;^)

If your study was 100 folks and you gave 80 the vaccine and 20 placebo, you would only have a sample size of 20 to test the null-effect (e.g. how many folks naturally get better w/o the new fangled vaccine to see if the vaccine statistically helped the 80 folks or not).

To increase the placebo sample size to the same statistically significant level (e.g, 50 folks) you would now have to give your untested vaccine which may have potential side effects to 200 people (+120 more folks). Which would be more ethical?

You are assuming that the vaccine probably works and the side-effects are probably minimal. That bias has gotten many researchers in trouble throughout vaccine history. There is a reason for protocols.

Given that his wife speaks Cantonese natively, and speaking Mandarin with his wife might have been the bulk of his practice, that rating might be par for the course.

Some Mandarin speakers would rate any attempt of a Cantonese speaker at Mandarin at about 7-year old level (think of how a stuck-up French journalist might rate a person's speech who learned French from a Franco-Canadian, yeah)...

Wife speaks Cantonese, not Mandarin.

Mark's wife speaks Cantonese, not mandarin.

My wife speaks Mandarin, I speak a little Cantonese. We generally have to communicate in English...