No, the design and planning were rigorously thought out - certainly rigorously enough to withstand five minutes of bewildered pondering from a Slashdotter after the fact.

The actual problem here is that landing on a comet is really hard.

Ask the guys at ESA. They could probably explain in great detail exactly what the probe is and isn't capable of and why they took the decisions they did after years of planning and cost-benefit analyses. They probably even have graphs.

Whoever it is - if there is anyone - they'll be relying on people having exactly that attitude to get away with it.

No he isn't. Who started this stupid trend of headlines that think they know you?

The answer, of course, is "not at all."

What a bloody stupid headline.

Wow. Life was tough in frontier fin-de-siècle Paris, huh?

Nein!

Now I don't have to read the books.

Come to think of it, they may well have done exactly that.

But what if one of the guys is called Mark? He could get distracted.

Rather than sparking rapid evolution, maybe the high O2 concentrations led to (or allowed) the development of hard tissue in existing complex organisms. Ocean acidification dissolves the shells of clams, corals, etc. and increased O2 levels could coincide with decreased CO2 levels (probably because the organisms creating all the O2 had to get it from somewhere).

This being Slashdot (and the link being paywalled) I have not bothered to read the linked article. Hell, I've barely bothered to read the summary.

Is it? Is it really?

Are you sure it's not only considered as such by a tiny but vocal and offensive minority?

There's an unintentionally hilarious scene in Godzilla where two soldiers practically scream "1... 2... 3!" in each other's faces, then turn their keys. Firstly, because they're shouting even though there's nothing loud going on, secondly because the keys are placed so close together it would have been easier for one of them to turn both.

Also one of them should have said, "wait, wait... on three, or after 3?"

I wonder if there's a specific regulation on that.

Timely:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worl...

Well, I guess you'd better call paleontologist Jason Bourke and his team of scientists at Ohio University and tell them what a bunch of idiots they are.

It was really hot yesterday. I put a sweater on. I got even hotter! Therefore sweaters are always useless.

Yes, but it's not so reasonable to equate "intent to cause" with "knowing that your actions are likely to cause."

The former implies the latter, but not the other way around.

..d your underpants?