Saw the question, and immediately this book came to mind. Lots of ways for things to be depressing. Endings, subjects whatever. This one is depressing in every way. I never have been able to bring myself to watch the movie. I read the book, and while a superbly done book, it is mightily depressing in the extreme. Yikes!!

I conjured up visions of a small asteroid that might have been a real big event if it collided. I am sure 23 feet in diameter would have made for a heck of a meteorite show. Thread to tremendous death and destruction on earth it isn't however. What is the official lower limit for an asteroid?

The Limits to Growth folks haven't been wrong. In fact they have a much better record than most anyone else using other methods. I think even they have been surprised by this. You might try reading some of their actual information on the models instead of listening to what other people say about it. Especially when those people don't like the results. So is the opposite of your pro tip that when someone has been right so far, we should pay attention as they might continue to be right?

Actually not sure how the Club of Rome just never gets respect. It hasn't been off in its dates. It only predicted to the nearest decade. And it seems to have been dead on so far, if you actually read it for yourself. Further, it has been updated with new info, additional modeling etc. etc. each of those decades. The essential predictions haven't changed. Further their most likely scenario (the offer several depending on how things might go in the future) doesn't say there will be a big problem mid 21st century due to population. It says environmental degradation will cause so many varied problems a big overall decline will occur. And all this if we don't change some of our paths (which we definitely have not done). The environment is having some problems, it is probably going to cause problems feeding the increased population, energy is getting harder to keep up with demand, and global warming due to carbon emissions is likely going to be the straw that is just too much (if things don't change). Seems CofR was incredibly good with their modeling. It is a model and they never claimed any surefire predicting ability anyway. Just an eye into what might change, and how it might go otherwise. Furthermore, the model has always indicated increasing prosperity, growing economies, and population right up until it doesn't.

Used Gnome 3 Fedora 16 since release on a netbook and laptop. It is characterized as a tablet OS. Sort of is, but not a good one. Too many keyboard shortcuts. What does a tablet lack? A keyboard. Sure touchscreen keyboard is available, but just one more step away from what you want. So if a tablet OS, it is a neurotically ill conceived one. I tried Unity for two weeks and Gnome 3 is definitely preferable. Still, it just isn't good enough. I don't see it as a good tablet OS, Win 8 beats the pants off it for tablets. It has been crippled as a desktop OS. It simply even now months later feels like I am always fighting it to use it. No good OS makes you feel that way. It is stable and solid, just a terrible GUI. Then there is the example of the shutdown. Suspend is available only, actual power off is hidden and not mentioned. I am sorry, that is hard headed dumb assed BS. Why not offer suspend and power off? Only takes one more line, and even on a phone there is plenty of room for it. The developers making these decisions aren't listening. In the end that hard headedness will rightfully cost them. All of these tablet OS's are pitiful. General purpose computers really took off when they were able to allow multi-tasking. Win95 is when PC's became highly useful. Going to APP-centric focus on only one task is a step backwards. Even smartphones will soon have plenty of power for real multi-tasking even on a small screen. This rush to go backwards for most mobile use is stupid. The amount of effort wasted on it is appalling and disturbing.

I do believe that was a young Kurt Russell in that commercial. We know how he ended up. Snake Plissken, or that guy in 'Soldier' or the guy in Stargate or even (maybe worst of all) an Elvis Impersonator in "3000 miles to Graceland"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxZu_Y_m8i4 I have, actually still have, one of these. Worked with a tight vortex at least over room distances. Didn't put pepper spray in mine though. In college worked on a larger version. Larger volume blast of air and more air over greater distances. Not too hard to scale up and optimize for pepper spray use. Probably not too bad a non-lethal weapon. All things considered maybe safer than tear gas grenades normally used. Less chance of injury, no fire hazard etc.

He explained it to NASA over 40 years ago. There is no life on Mars because life would effect the atmosphere in ways discernible to us. There isn't any need to send missions to figure that out. It of course wasn't the answer NASA wanted from him. There could of course be evidence of life in the past, but it looks unlikely to have ever been the case. Still the missions to Mars on a hopeless search for life are cool.