The universe probably finds some convenient way to force things to reasonable values. The density going to zero was just an example of a particular case. And quantum gravitation? Show me before you tell me where it kicks in. The universe is going to do what it's going to do, and it's generally well behaved, despite what happens where theories break down.

And how much of that is due to the elevation difference between SLC (~1288 m) and Sochi (near sea level). I'm too lazy to do the math for all of them, but based on my experience in cycling at sea level vs. 1500 m, those look like substantially attributable to the elevation. Add in differences in ice quality, and you might have all the difference. A more appropriate comparison is to look at how they've been doing against all their international competition over the past year, looking at performances at the same venue on the same day, and extrapolating.

This article: why higher elevation is better even points out that the final training for the US team was done at elevation. Training at sea level and using hypoxic tents at night might have been a better idea.

And the machines still make it unfair- if you homogenize the machines to that extent then you end up homogenizing the people who can be competitive, as well. Staying with your example, small cyclists tend to have high power to weight, but low overall power, so it makes them more suited to climbing. Putting them on bikes with "all the possible gears" at the expense of weight means that the machine is a larger fraction of the rider+weight than for larger cyclists, thus using the machine to take away some of their real physical advantage. Even racing in a very controlled environment (i.e. a velodrome, where it's essentially dead flat), where riders are allowed to choose any gear they want (but only one gear), riders in a given race will choose different gears depending on their riding and racing style (spin vs mash, breakaway for laps vs. sit in and sprint). Sticking everyone in the same gear will likely put some of them at a disadvantage (which is intentionally done in junior racing, for both physical and fairness reasons).

There are singularities all over physics, even in something as simple as the velocity field of a classical vortex (v ~ 1/r). The world doesn't go all goofy at them-- the universe tends to take care of them in relatively convenient and pedestrian ways, like by sending the density to zero where the velocity goes to infinity. It's all fun to be a theorist talking about naked singularities (probably as close to naked anything as many of them get...) but if someone figures out a way to actually observe what's going on there, it will probably be interesting but probably won't be anything particularly magical.

Most POD systems are capable of producing all standard sizes up to 8.5x11 as a normal part of the process. It's on the order of a penny per page, plus a little under a buck for the cover, depending on who does your POD. A good deal of backlist titles are produced via POD in order to avoid large print runs while still keeping titles in print. Commercial POD is actually at a point where it's cheaper to print and ship a galley of a book to use for editing or review than it is to print it as a "manuscript" with a desktop laser printer.

The 1366 W/m^2 (plus or minus a bit) is the instantaneous incoming radiant power density on a surface at 1 AU, not the insolation. There's no accounting for day/night in it. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_constant )

The insolation is the time integral of that, and does account for the day night cycle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insolation )

You think you're joking...

I have to drive to work (about 35 miles each way) temporarily in LA, and it's about 1.5 hours there, 1.5 to 2 hours home. I just got a Cmax hybrid (with the little battery, not the Energi) and because I live in the San Gabriel Valley I can almost EV all the way to DTLA (it's all downhill) and get there with a full charge. It can easily take 45 minutes to an hour to do the ~10 miles or so to get to and through DTLA. After that it's much quicker. The gas motor runs on the way home though.

My regular commute, when I get back to it, is 4.5 miles each way on a bike.

That expired in California a few years ago. Now you have to have a full electric to drive solo in the carpool lane, or pay a few bucks via transponder if you're on one of the roads that allows that.

I have a colleague who has two electric cars (a Leaf and a RAV 4) and does this with the solar panels on his roof. The Fresnel lens saves a little conversion loss, but at a reduction of system availability for power production as well.

It could easily be a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.

In the Reynolds case that established the state secrets privilege of the executive branch, the government fought hard to not disclose the accident reports that the widows of civilian contractors were trying to obtain to show that the government had been negligent in maintenance of the aircraft and that they should therefore receive substantial awards. The case started in 1949, and ran into 1953 before it was finally closed by the supreme court in favor of the government.

In the meantime, a routine review in 1950 declassified the disputed reports from "secret" to "restricted", which is the equivalent of FOUO, which would have allowed the use of the reports in the case. Everyone involved in the case, from the plaintiffs up to the supreme court, and including all witnesses, was unaware of the declassification, which wasn't discovered until the 2000's. The case ran to its conclusion with everyone involved continuing to believe that the documents were classified. The case went on to be the legal basis for all future claims of state secrets privilege by the executive branch.

ref:http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?civilliberties_patriot_act=civilliberties_state_secrets&timeline=civilliberties

There are some really impressively short ones on the 110 freeway in LA. Basically a stop sign that feeds into a freeway lane, and the exit ramp is the same.

Clarifying the conditions of his crashes is very important. A former clubmate of mine did a study of non-reported bicycle crashes some 5-6 years ago. He surveyed the entire club (a few hundred riders ranging from recreational to frequent racers) to list and describe the conditions of and injuries resulting from all the crashes they'd ever had. Unfortunately I can't find a link or a reference, but will keep digging. When I listed mine I discovered something interesting: I crash about once per year, and only under two types of conditions: racing or extreme weather. Both types of crashes are easily avoidable by avoiding the conditions. The racing crashes mostly were solo crashes from either getting a front wheel taken out, or in later years from racing madison (look it up). The bad weather crashes were all solo slides from riding in snow/ice, or in a few cases heavy rain that caused me to slide out on the paint in crosswalks. None of the crashes involved motor vehicles, despite at that point ~15 years of bike commuting in traffic in 3 states. None required more than treatment for road rash, either.

My general position is that if you ride predictably and reasonably defensively following the rules of the road and basic rules for group cycling (if you roll that way), you really shouldn't ever crash on a bicycle.

Well said. Hydrogen is really no more dangerous than gasoline, which is quite flammable and in vapor form is quite explosive. The Hindenburg really gave it a bad rap, but that was due as much or more to the coating on the envelope as to the hydrogen.

Your point B really is the key though, and as you say, it's an issue with all cars, largely due to what one might call "parasitics". The object of transportation is to move a masses of stuff from one place to another. For personal transportation we seem to have decided that it makes sense to move an additional few thousand pounds of vehicle in moving each few hundred pounds of person. That's a lot of mass to be accelerating and decelerating, and it tends to have a large cross section in the wind.

Those "craft capable of bringing a launch to LEO" are paid for by other agencies (e.g. NRO, USAF) and built by private contractors (Boeing, Lockheed, Orbital). Recon satellites are generally built by private contractors with little or no NASA involvement (a few people on review panels maybe), except where NASA has particular technology capabilities that aren't available commercially. The launch market is pretty much all private industry at this point.

I live about 100 yards from a national forest, and it remained open until we had a red flag warning (hot, high winds, extremely low humidity, high fire danger). It's still open for many uses-- major roads are open, and the few privately run concessions (a restaurant and a snack bar) are open. A few of the minor, primarily recreational roads are closed, but they also close them for fire danger when the government is open (people pull off the road and their cars start fires). I'm free to hike or mtb on the fire roads and singletrack. I haven't been up the main road, but it sounds like gated picnic/parking areas are closed.