Everybody seems to have forgotten that there are two additional space stations currently in orbit besides ISS.. They're the Bigelow Aerospace Genesis I/II habitats, that were launched WAY back in 2006/2007. http://www.bigelowaerospace.co... Bigelow is right here in North Las Vegas, and those habitats are still there and certainly could be commercial staging locations for Mars missions, with SpaceX getting everything into orbit. The ISS is great and all, but its encombered by too many governments.. To use ISS for staging an essentially commericial mission to Mars would be a lesson in futility.. If Musk/SpaceX got together with Bob Bigelow, at Bigelow Aerospace, great things might happen....

With the current government (and the last couple also) the "rule of law" is dead.. not just on life support, but dead and begining to smell....

I'm the defacto tech support for my church/neighborhood. I've installed Ubuntu on quite a few of these users, especially ones whose older machine was running XP, and they did not have the recovery disks to restore from, and the machine was crufted with malware such that it would take more time than it was worth to clean the system. In the first case, I gave them a 3-way ultimatum, spend $75/hr for at least 3-4 hours for me to clean the system, OR I would backup their docs, nuke XP from orbit, install Ubuntu, and life goes on OR they buy a new system with Win7/8 on it.. After seeing a LiveCD demo of Ubuntu, and my explaining to them that they would not be plagued with the endless malware and its slow down of the machine on Linux, they smartly opted for the "nuke/pave" option. Since then, word of mouth has spread and I've done quite a few more systems in the neighborhood. Quite a few of these were essentially unneeded upgrades, in that the user was not seeing any real slowness on the system due to malware, they just wanted their machine to perform better than it was under XP. These original "upgrades" were done using Ubuntu 10.04LTS as they were done in the 2010-2011 timeframe. Since the turd that is Unity/Ubuntu 12.04 (and above) I've switched to Debian Mint for these upgrades, as the "focus group" I tried on Ubuntu 12.04LTS with Unity were unanamous with their scorn for Unity. What with XP patches/"support" coming to stop in April, I figure with a little local advertisement on the imminent un-support for XP, I'll get a nice uptick in business doing these upgrades.. Mayhaps even enough work to hire some help...

I try not to reply to ACs, but I stand behind the "grandma will stop calling with all those support questions"... I've upgraded several former XP users to XUbuntu, and while I used to get calls from them all the time while they were on XP, now I get blissful silence.. I also get comments from them like "This machine is soo much faster now..", *this* machine being an HP laptop circa 2005..

I'm capitalizing on the fact that XP is going un-supported in April.. I've started a business here installing Mint Linux to replace XP. I'd started slowly a while back, simply catching people with malware-crufted XP installs, and who only did simple tasks on Windows. The first couple were "forced" *upgrades* since the owner of the machine did not have any recovery disks, and there was so much malware that it would have taken many hours to clean. I showed them a LIveCD of Ubuntu, and gave em a ultimatum.. Linux or a new system, since the old system was not a candidate for Win7/8. They grudgingly accepted, and since then, when I see the client, she's happy, with no more slowness due to crap on the system. In fact, the new few "upgrades" were by word-of-mouth from this original user. I'm gonna put out flyers explaining whats gonna happen in April and I and my partners stand ready to give their machines new life withOUT the risk of Microsoft products...

Sorry, sparky.. if you don't want to read "hit pieces on Microsoft", you can very easily skip them..
As for me, I'm fed up with the "crack smoking monkeys" from Redmond, and I enjoy reading about
them getting bashed..

Wouldn't that actually be Lisias@Earth.Sol_System.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Virgo.Universe.org??

Just a nit I thought might need to be picked...

CBS is an integral part of the new US Department of Propaganda. You will never hear/see ANYthing on any of the official government "mouthpieces" that the government does not want you to hear/see. Places like Youtube are, for the moment, the one of the few places to still get "non-government-approved" news/information.. In the case of Rand Paul, he is one of the VERY few members of Congress who seem to actually have the people's best interests at heart. I'm thankful we have him on our side.. Obama-bots, feel free to mod me down... You *know* you want to...

I'm not a Republican, nor a Democrat, I'M AN AMERICAN!! AND I'M PISSED!!!!

Dice's response to the crap that is beta is surrealistically like EA's response to the mindless rollout of the latest SimCity.. I find it difficult to see what Dice brought to the table when they bought Slashdot.. unless their plan was to destroy it, in which case they're doing a bang-up job... You Go!! Dice..

Obligatory.. FUCK BETA!!

I don't know about that.. I smoked in my early 20s, during the 8 years I was in the Army, and for about 2 years after I got out, for a total of about 10 years. One day, I reached into my shirt pocket, by habit, to grab a cigarette, and I had an epiphany.. I asked myself.. "WTF are you doing to yourself???" I wadded the nearly full pack up and threw it away.. All of my friends smoked heavily and when I told them "I QUIT!", they laughed and said "nah, you'll be back..." .. Well, here I am, 40+ years later, and I've not had another cigarette since... Thanks to the "cold turkey". In fact, the smell of burning tabacco so revolts me, I get sick to my stomach when I have to negotiate the flocks of smokers puffing away outside many stores/coffee shops today.. In my last physical, last year, nothing about any COPD or emphysyma or .. (shudder) cancer... Guess I'm the exception...

Hell, they could have done a better job with a rewrite by simply using WordPress.... Oh well, a roll of the Dice, it comes up snake-eyes... users lose!!!

damn.. forgot the main thrust of my post...

FUCK THE BETA!!!

Apparently Dice subscribes to the Microsoft/Canonical "Do what we want.. FUCK the users of our product" schoool of thought.. Witness Windows 8 for Microsoft, and Unity for Canonical/Ubuntu... "We know what's best for you, and you'll use it and LIKE it!!".. ummm... No we won't.. For my (shudder) occassional use of Windows, its Windows 7 till hell freezes over, and, though I used to swear by Ubuntu, now I swear AT it.. Moved without regret to Debian... Wonder where I'll go when Slashdot takes the "dirtnap"... Been here since 1998 or so.. Lost my original account, thus the larger UID...

You're a little behind the times, US people are subjects now, too.. Our 238 year old Constitution has been run thru the shredder by the last several administrations and many of us are sick and tired of it...

Here's a quick fix.. Move OUT of that bat-shit insane state.. Then let those insane asylum inmates running that state try to shut you down.. These coding academies are pretty much web-based anyway, so all they have *in* California are the offices.. Those could quickly be moved out to say, Texas or Nevada, with little or no impact on the company.. I was born and raised in California, but the wife and I got out of there in the mid-90s, and moved to Nevada. Unfortunantly, we still have relatives there, so I have to make trips yearly to that nuthouse...