I don't think it's possible to make something "illegal tender", at least in the US. If I want to trade you one thing for another thing, it's hard to see the government saying we can't do that. "legal tender" is something that must be accepted for all debts, public and private. Trying to say that something cannot be used even in barter, is pretty tricky.

I got mine mostly for a xbmc media player and occasional gaming. It took a little while for them to work the kinks out with the xbmc folks, but it's pretty stable now. We play games very rarely.

I think their policy that all games must have a free trial of some kind may be hurting them, and encouraging in-app purchase games, which I can't stand. I think it would be a great market for retro-classics, but I really don't want to think about someone making Pac-Man with a trial version.

Click through some of the articles above and you'll discover that for the one emergency EVA they've done since this incident they installed snorkels, although they actually go down towards the midriff. They also installed an absorbent pad in the back of the helmet. Notably this was all MacGyvered up from equipment they had on-board.

Linky: http://www.space.com/24027-nas...

A minor correction to that. We don't have adequate materials for a space elevator from Earth. There are several existing materials which are strong enough for a Lunar Space Elevator (including kevlar). If we want to settle the moon and get experience building space elevators it's an excellent option. Here's wikipedia's page on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

I'm not finding any calculations for what it would take on Mars, but since it's only about 1/3rd Earths gravity it should be more feasible there as well.

Agreed. I'm reading through these and thinking that very little is applicable to my 2nd grader, who loves libraries (school and public) for the incredibly quaint reason of just checking out books. On the other hand, her school has a dedicated computer lab. She gets computer lab 1 day a week and library one day a week. She greatly prefers library day.

As far as I am concerned a library should foster a love of reading and imagination. "innovation and technology" are alright, but they aren't the most important things in the world.

Keep in mind that in general, half of elementary school is about learning to read. The transition from "learning to read" to "reading to learn" is generally around 3rd grade. There is definitely a case to be made for a more technology centered area in middle & high school, but I don't really think that is the case for elementary.

The problem with that specific implementation is that URLs are not necessarily stable. Between mergers/buyouts and website upgrades/redesigns you really can't rely on them. It's a perfectly sound idea though, and I'm guessing you can use something other than a URL if necessary and just have to type or copy+paste it over.

It says they have a plug-in form Chrome and IE (plus iPhone, Android and basically almost any remotely common platform).

Beware of Donkey Man! I have no idea what power he possesses, but he's still way cooler than Puma Man!

You'd think that mentioning who is in charge of fixing it should be mentioned. That's just a quick google away and his name is Jeffrey Zientz. There's not a lot of information out there, but what is there seems reasonably positive. Here's npr's article: http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2013/10/23/240283860/white-house-turns-to-rock-star-manager-for-obamacare-fix

Here's Washington Posts: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2013/10/24/who-is-jeffrey-zients-and-why-is-he-qualified-to-fix-healthcare-gov/

There are lots of benefits to cops driving their cruisers home. Most simply is that the city/state or whatever doesn't have to pay for a massive parking lot in what is often prime real-estate areas. It also helps them be able to respond immediately to a crisis when necessary. It may help somewhat to make neighborhoods feel safer if they know an officer lives nearby. This is one privilege cops have that I think makes a lot of sense.

There are no more individual assessments under the ACA either. You sign up for the exchange and with very basic information (age and whether you smoke I believe) you get the prices. No inquiry as to existing problems, past problems or family history. Everyone is buying into one big group plan. There's a similar process being worked on for small businesses to join them into one large risk pool so they get the same prices as the big employers. I actually consider it one of the best parts of the ACA. It has been delayed due to technical difficulties, but it will come around sooner or later.

I bought my latest color ink-jet 2 years ago and color lasers were getting very close to reasonable then. I just checked Amazon and there are HP, Ricoh, Brother, Dell and other decent brands for less than $200. That seems like an extremely reasonable price.

They are somewhat bigger though, so you're right about the space issue.

I think you have a great idea for a T-Shirt or Bumper Sticker there.

If you're not opposed to mult-player space combat I strongly recommend freeallegiance - www.freeallegiance.org. It's an impressive blend of space combat with RTS, and is completely free.

"not as efficient?" These seem a whole lot more efficient than wings to me. A single one-time expenditure of energy and they go for miles. There are downsides to this method of course, most obviously that they don't have any control of where they go. But if you accept that limitation this seems to be a nearly optimal method of flight.

While it's not entirely clear, the discussion in the link appears to be entirely about a Mars Colony, which I do tend to think is going to be non-profitable for a long time. He may be more open to asteroid mining.