And the additional red tape can be used to further reduce our Scandinavian sanitation budget.

The answer is facepaint.

It was a combination of reactor design, the design of the test, and lack of knowledge about previous nuclear accidents in the USSR.

The root of the problem was the initial power spike caused by the flawed graphite-tip control rod design that displaced coolant before the neutron-absorbing boron carbide component of the rods entered the reactor.

But managers hadn't been told of a previous identical accident at a different power station, because all USSR nuclear workers were told that not a single accident had ever occurred at any Soviet plant. (There had been 19 IIRC). And it was this lack of knowledge that led to a chain of mistakes following the initial power spike.

...or its an intentional act of provocation.

Two commerical reasons why it isn't going to dry up anytime soon:

Autodesk Maya
The Foundry's Nuke

Unfortunately Adobe don't seem to be on board:

Hopefully as OpenCL matures, Adobe will see the advantages.

And this has been the response of the entire visual effects industry, worldwide, too, for about the last 8-10 years.

Almost 100% linux based pipelines. And now almost 100% Nvidia Quadro. Because of driver support, not the cards themselves. But it's a problem ATI can remedy for themselves. I think re-establishing, and putting meaningful funds into their open-source driver project is the first step.

It's still got to be better than Linux ME

There are beautiful 720p films of other observatories from the same photographer on vimeo

And Sidereal Motion from the Bailey-Salgado project is also very interesting.

This reminds me of the classic 'second life sucks' dialogue:

Chaotic Hermit: This avatar does not meet the requirements to be here
Chaotic Hermit: Change it or leave please
Chaotic Hermit: 1 minute to eject
Hunter Pearse: OK, I'm back. What exactly didn't meet the requirement?
Chaotic Hermit: Height
Hunter Pearse: ?!
Chaotic Hermit: 4 foot 9 minimum
Hunter Pearse: Are you kidding?
Chaotic Hermit: nope
Hunter Pearse: Why is that?
Chaotic Hermit: children are short
Chaotic Hermit: look it's a beach rule
Chaotic Hermit: comply or not
Hunter Pearse: My friend that is just weird
Hunter Pearse: Do I look like a child?
Chaotic Hermit: you need to follow the rules to stay
Chaotic Hermit: all of them
Hunter Pearse: I'll stay out of your beach
Chaotic Hermit: no you look stupid
Chaotic Hermit: But that's not the point
Hunter Pearse: Yes, I look stupid. I'm a fucking alien
Hunter Pearse: later
Chaotic Hermit: you can look how you want as long as your 4 foot 9
Hunter Pearse: "you're"

Although hopefully, here in the UK, more attention will be paid to this ruling than the retention of innocent citizen's biometric data ruling made a short while ago.

Speaking as someone who lives in the United Kingdom, I can assure you that we've had a significant nuclear accident here!

Bad ass septuagenarian mutherfucker

You mean "When you use Windows without Chrome, Burson-Marsteller can't claim we track everything you do", and use that information to make money?

Dennis Hope/The Lunar Embassy Corporation?
Saudi Arabia?
The 'Citizens of Earth'?

It's only an arbitrary question at the moment because the costs of exploitation are so high. There's an assumption that oil companies would want to diversify as reserves run out. But if another form of fuel takes its place, is it right to assume that the company, or country, who bears the cost of developing the technology needed to exploit the fuel should also own that fuel.