Bill gates is going to be around for the next millennium? ... I think that would give the borg claim credence.

Zuck lies. It isn't even clear that he has the legal right to sell the company to begin with.

This is patently false. You can draw an almost perfectly smooth line plotting the top societies with economic stability. If your point were true we'd make our best steps forwards right before the country collapses into economic depression. Progress takes money and time. Without stability you have neither of these things.

20% of the us earns an avg 10.5k/year. That is 900/mnth. If you need medication you often are choosing between food and the meds. I imagine a decent chunk of those 20% also have kids.... they also aren't free.

I'm not saying that there aren't morons that spend themselves into poverty situations there DEFINITELY are. Just try to remember that isn't the case for many of the poor people you do see at walmart.

It felt so good hitting the x for expert-sexchange :/ they took that away from me.

If you want to whitelist only a few sites and do the same set all the time you could just stick some javascript into a favourite...

Code button:
javascript:q=document.getSelection();if(!q){void(q=prompt('Looking%20for:',''))};if(q)location.href='http://www.google.com/search?&q=site%3Asuperuser.com+OR+site%3Astackoverflow.com+OR+site%3Aslashdot.com+'+q

Substitute sites as you want. (Just make a shortcut or favourite and plug in the code where it says url...)

Classy engineers do. Just not around work. It doesn't have that 'Scotty' feel to it like hard liquor.

*erring ... I don't normally reply post to myself but I saw the mistake right after I hit post and it is rather egregious :S

"the effects seem to consistently outrun the predictions"

Here he is referring to the IPCC reports. And I doubt you can find anything that says they haven't undershot everything. But then they were expected to since it was a sort of airing on the side of caution (people still called them crazed alarmists mind you).

Aahahahahahahhahahahahahahhahaaaaaaaa

*gasp*

hahahhahahahahhahahahaaaaaaa...

*regains composure* There is a small chance that you are being overly optimistic.

Since that was from 2004 and still talking about the Falcon 5...

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_channel.jsp?channel=space&id=news/awst/2010/11/29/AW_11_29_2010_p28-271784.xml&headline=NASA%20Studies%20Scaled-Up%20Falcon,%20Merlin

From another post about super-heavy rockets. Musk said that he'd personally guarantee he could go under 1000$/lb (At the very end of the article). This could happen in only a few short years. So he does seem like he's moving towards the 500$/lb price point.

There is a down side to having so many moving parts mind you.

As peacefinder pointed out, SpaceX is so badass they post the prices on their site. But I'd like to point out that Musk has said: "Ultimately, I believe $500 per pound or less is very achievable."

http://www.spacex.com/press.php?page=10

So who knows what we'll be seeing in the next few years.

I think most politicians treat NASA like a nice big juice pig. The only thing many care about is that things get done in their state.

SpaceX is the only one doing launches and not based on military contracting or ICBMs. They are also making progress at an insane rate. And doing this while profitable ... because the whole program costs less than a couple shuttle launches and I'm talking nothing->today.

But to be fair the F9heavy doesn't exist yet. And likely won't for 3-5 years.

They have the Falcon 1e to build test and improve. And they will likely be producing a F9e as well. In addition they are going to be working on recovery of the 1st stage, and looking into 2nd stage recovery. Plus they will be working on getting man rated and the upgrades to the Dragon required to do that. So they do have a lot on their plates at this time. That said, I hope to see a Falcon super-heavy by 2020!