The weight reduction from the helium replacing the air will be negligible. The reduced mass comes from being able to use lighter platters and arms.

D'oh, I meant insulated cryo cylinder.

Gas replacements were my second favorite service behind replacing the radiation source in PET scanners. For the gas, you get to look really important dragging around your case of Victorian-era looking tools and large gas cylinder, while the radiation source meant you had a great excusing for working in shorts and a t-shirt.

Truly, there needs to be a nail-biting, gut-wrenching, crazy-go-nuts crawler chase scene in a movie one day.

Well, gun in a relative frame. I guess "They have to advance the throttle level faster and to a higher setting..." just doesn't have the same ring.

It would have to be on a hell of an incline. The friction between the tracks and the suspension is enormous. I've ridden the thing a couple of times and they really have to gun the throttles to get everything rolling. After that, they throttle down just a bit to maintain a nice even pace.

Of course it is, but that doesn't mean it is accurate.

Coelacahths can probably thank that "unremarkable to humans" trait for a lot. The global Nautilus population has declined so rapidly due to fishing and slow breeding and growth cycles that I wouldn't be surprised if they pass in to extinction in the next 100 years or so.

While there are conservation programs in the works, they aren't working with a cute cuddly animal, so funding is sparse to non-existent and a huge portion of the human population in areas where the Nautilus is still somewhat common don't give much of a shit about conservation when a nautilus shell means the difference between feeding your family or going hungry.

With such a cynical attitude toward people, you've probably got an absolutely terrible HR department.

I'm in HR as well and I've never for an instant thought of my people as commodities.

I'm wondering if this is effectively trolling the RIAA through legislation. Many bills get introduced in to committee with no chance of passing in hopes that they can cause a specific group or industry to look horrible by supporting them.

This bill seems to do that as well. My impression is that it calls attention to the much higher rate paid by internet streaming and by suggesting that other groups pay the same price, we'll get to see who exactly complains and their reasoning.

I could be wrong though.

Ahh, and on further reading, the intent of the bill is to remove the royalty-free status granted to terrestrial radio and pay artists the royalties they are getting when their music is played over other mediums. Looking an the Congressman's legislation record, he has sponsored a number of bills that seek to collect royalties for artists when third parties are selling their work.

I voted Underwater City, and I'm talking full on pressure domes and recreational submarines and kelp farms and intelligent genetically engineered wise-cracking dolphins and house cat sized pet octopuses. You know, the pretty standard late 60's lets-all-live-under-the-sea stuff.

Of the things listed in the poll, it contains some of the brightest dreams that we've done the least about.

That was pretty depressing, but if you read one of the Exultant books you'll get the part of the story where we almost got on par with the Xeelee, but were too tangled up in our own past, unable to forgive what we had done.

Ok, now that I think about it, I see your point.

I don't know, I think the Xeelee books tend to be some of his more upbeat works. They tend to have a human doing something clever and saving the day, even if that means they're just one step closer to the Xeelee putting them away in a box.

My god, I didn't think that anyone else alive had ever finished that book.

Apart from the Xeelee Sequence books, most everything written by Stephen Baxter is depressing as fuck with a mild silver lining.

Evolution was going great till it got easier for humans not to be intelligent and we went back to the trees.

Manifold Space was going great till the paranoid government nuked the kids.

Manifold Time was going great till the super intelligent squid decided they didn't need us anymore.

Manifold Origin.. fuck, I don't even know.

Titan was going great till the Chinese dropped the rock.

Exultant was reading a lot like Hellstrom's Hive and that just sent chills down my spine.

Moonseed was going great till OOPS!

So, while I love his work, I tend to stick to the Xeelee Sequence books unless I'm really in that place where I can take casual discussion of the end of the entire planet.