It makes me wonder how many aerospace/aerospatial engineers even have class 3 rocketry licenses? How many have built their own rocket motor? (this requires tons of sub-skills as you might imagine)

With the advent of portable CNC machines and fabrication devices that you can fit in your garage, a whole world is now open to many people.

Of course go to school. But also do what you want in the meantime. Spend as little as possible while getting the most out of your education. Myself, I took as many classes as I possibly could (almost 80 credits) at the local community college before transferring. Be lean, mean, and inventive, and someone will want to hire you.

The truth is that if you want to do something like that, you need to not make being a corporate lackey and cubicle-worker as your life's goal. You need to be of the mindset where you want to beat SpaceX and their incredibly top-heavy corporate style where they feel as if they are gods or something and you should be grateful to work for them (despite having few actual successes, as is the norm in this industry) at their own game. If you're not going to aim at making your own company or working with a few friends to make one of your own, then you're really not going to be valuable to any company or actually get into space. It's a bit of a catch-22, really.

Also, the best engineers that go places and do things are the ones that build things and basically, have patents. Schooling is worthless beyond a certain point unless you want to work at, say, a defense contractor or other government type job. What matters is what you can actually do and build. I'd be sure to take some classes in metalworking, welding, and fabrication in any case, as these are real skills that you'll need wherever you go. Also, CAD and similar software is good to know how to use.

Look at job listings and note what skills and certificates and so on that they want. Because skills can get you a job. A degree is optional, really, and only "required" because they want to weed out the rank idiots and those without any skills.
note - no job I have had actually cared one iota about my degree or used it as a factor - they wanted skills, pure and simple.

I'd also at the least, build your own home based fabrication machine and start working with basic designs. Also, start building your own electronic and similar designs as you can manage. Say, if you want to get into designing rockets and so on, having built a few designs yourself (how Scaled Composites got started, btw), is a big plus. And who knows, maybe you'll be the one to make some design breakthrough.

I'm not sure... Probably by syncing the clocks (obviously something akin to an atomic clock or similar) beforehand and moving them with the ships or whatever you're using for the test. My theory is that at some distance, there will either be a delay between the shifts, which will still happen, or the entanglement will completely fail at a large enough distance.

It might be light years or similar, though.... No idea, really. From what we can tell, though, it works quite well on Earth.

But... Photons always are a result of something else happening (trying to keep this as simple as possible for the non-science types here) , and as such, aren't actually just sitting around AT rest. Their mass isn't infinite since they never actually stand still. Well, maybe right before the Big Bang they did...

True. I was going to mention the same thing applies to Newton, but I thought that it was kind of obvious.

But it is neat how what we know to be true is being seen at work/in person. That is, that what is considered "the law" is merely once again just a basic step in something else or a more advanced theory. It's like how we went from flat earth and the earth at the center of our solar system to a round earth. Well, mostly rond - it's now *quite* round if you want to get technical. And so on and on it goes... So when I hear someone say something like "nothing can go faster than light" as if it's the World of God, well, it just sounds silly, given how painfully little we know about how the universe actually works.

But it is good for the "basic" stuff, as you put it ;) (which is more advanced than 99% of the people, even here, can deal with)

According to very recent tests, it does have mass as well, since photons by definition are never *at* rest, but are moving and interacting with other objects. If it moves, it has mass. If you do a search online for "mass of a photon", you get interesting results. The old adage of "photons have no mass" is apparently as dated as the old adage that used to be considered just as real, which was "neutrinos have no mass".

But nothing gets broken.

If we assume that a photon does have mass, but that we can't (yet) detect it because it's so amazingly tiny, then everything is good. Since light moves at different speeds through different matter, it might be that while its actual "REAL:" maximum speed is many many times greater (possibly as much as ~10^20 times greater), space itself slows it down. Like water does, as an example. To *us*, well, it's as fast as we ever can observe. Apparently what this test at CERN proves is that "a vacuum" is not actually empty as far as a photon is concerned. Because a neutrino, with a *vastly* larger mass can go through it "quicker".

Note - if the actual speed of C that's unencumbered by a vacuum/space is higher, it would also explain quantum entanglement. I suspect that if we someday separate a pair by enough distance, we'll see that it's not exactly "instant", but that there is a microscopic delay. Though, the pair might have to be separated by a crazy distance. (many light-years, possibly)

This is actually the most likely and rational solution, believe it or not. I posted this as well (it's taking time to read down this huge thread). A "vacuum" might actually be full of stuff, and as we have shown, light can be slowed and even stopped/frozen, given the right matter and space to interact with. If C is as fast as light can go in normal space, well, subatomic particles that don't necessarily interact with space the same way (and tend to go through it entirely) very well could travel faster. Exactly like how light travels through water at a specific speed. "Space" might be also be slowing it down.

Given the mass difference between a photon and a neutrino (yes, a photon does have a stupidly tiny mass, though it's calculated - and way beyond any of our detectors currently), the actual speed of light in a real environment where nothing is creating drag on it might very well be thousands of times faster.

No rules get broken. Einstein simply assumed (wrongly) than a vacuum was apparently empty when it's not as far as light is concerned. Note - even his theories are intact, as the "in a vacuum" clause still holds true.

A few people do have an idea of how to make such a "drive" work, but the amount of energy required is downright silly. As in our entire sun might not create enough power. I can't imagine what would happen if such a theoretical drive blew up. "Sir, we have a problem with the engine..." (entire solar system vaporizes in a supernova).

Anyways, none of this violates anything (obviously the universe didn't explode or anything). Einstein was simply wrong. As many, many physicists have suspected now for a long time. Of course the math required to explain all of this new information, well, that might take a very very long time to work out. I suspect that human minds won't ever get such a "unified theory" done. But AI might some day.

Remember that light does have mass, though. A very very very tiny one, but one nonetheless. (note - it can be calculated out to be ~1.8 x 10-42 g), which is generally just calculated out to zero as it makes no difference almost all of the time. But it does have mass. Everything does. Or else it would not exist at all. The problem is that our equipment is woefully crude when tasked with measuring such tiny numbers.

No rules get broken. Einstein just erroneously assumed that a Photon (light) was the smallest particle, and therefore the fastest. ie - it's now not "speed of a photon" but "speed of a neutrino" that is the new constant. Until we find something we can shoot faster, that is. But, "speed of light" is much nicer to say, obviously...

Note - "mass" at this kind of ridiculously small scale is greatly affected by what's around it. It might be that light may have a smaller "mass", but it might be more reactive and actually be traveling much slower. Kind of how light goes slower in certain mediums - it might actually be slowed a lot already, even in a vacuum(I imagine space actually being a bit "sticky" and creating drag on a photon) Neutrinos just pass through pretty much everything. So while you might not be able to force light to go any faster, but you might be able to get other particles to go faster. With enough energy, that is.

And what's interesting about that date is that it is only a year before the first Internet archives were started.

Apparently people at Apple and many other large companies are now hiring people who are too young to remember anything of the past, so they look it up. And if it didn't exist back in the early 90s, well, it must not have existed at all. So they try to patent crap that has obvious prior art and that was done by another company. (good example I know of is the attempted patent on chat rooms and so on like Facebook. The problem is, that it existed back in the early 80s and was designed by Digital. But since Digital was bought and passed around several times, only someone who used the technology would actually know about it or remember it. Because not one reference to it exists in any "Internet archive", which we all know is the only real source of information. Right? (sic for the impaired)

Why this is interesting is that both patents in question are actually part IBM's giant archive of patents. I think IBM might have something to say about this one.

Part of it is hubris and part of it is stupidity. Jobs is basically spewing smoke and B.S. at this point in an attempt to do anything that he can to hinder any competition. There's a real reason Apple kicked Jobs out the first time and why Wozniak to this day still won't deal with him.

Of course nobody has hard data for it, but the storyline is so well done that you can't wait to see how it ends. And the ending isn't against some super-boss, either, so it's absolutely possible for normal gamers to get through it. There's also zero mid-game grinding or side-quests. I'd be surprised if anyone who started it didn't finish it. There's a reason it's achieved near cult status.

The previews make it look like a bunch of FPS eye candy not a lot of true sneaking, intrigue, or the like. Maybe I'll be amazed. But I doubt if it'll stand out that much.

I've noticed, though, that there are a lot of articles that are made by the gaming "industry" that all are about basically trying to give the developers a way to churn out cheap crap at ever-inflated prices.

There is one game that comes to mind that shows how wrong they all are. Deus Ex. Now, this is an old title, but the main aspect of it that makes it a good game worth finishing (and I can guarantee that it has a nearly 100% finish rate) is that it has a good plot. It's not rocket science to write good dialog and make a game that has a worthwhile plot and some good ethical and situational dilemmas. But it seems as if ZERO developers these days are willing to actually hire a damn writer to develop the characters and story. And, like the crap Hollywood is churning out as well, lately, it's all about the story.

It's always "person in situation X has to fight their way to boss Y"(multiplayer only games aside, of course). They are just lazy asses who want to get people to be OK with cheap and by-the-numbers crap.

Deus Ex stood out because of the immense amount of writing and background bits that made it feel like a real world. Everyone should get a copy from Steam or wherever they like (IIRC, it's all of $5 now, pretty much everyplace) and open your eyes to how to design a proper game. Yes, I know that Ion Storm blew it with the next two in the series, so while it's possible, few developers do it any more. Which is a shame. Because it's NOT that hard to add a hundred pages of filler and background to a story (ie - if you pick up a book, it should have a bit of text in it). The answering machine should have a few messages on it. Simple stuff like that.

Knights of the Old Republic is also largely forgotten or unknown by many younger gamers. It gets everything right and finishing the game becomes something you want to see. Good plot, good characters, and probably the #1 modern example of how to make a proper game. It succeeds because the developers took time to make a game and flesh it out. BioWare gets it - and Mass Effect also is a solid title (though TBH, 1 was much better than 2, which felt more constructed and linear.

Comparing Red Dead Redemption to any of these is almost painful. Tons of eye candy, but honestly, zero replay value, paper-thin plot, and zero wow factor. "Critically acclaimed"? I thought it was terrible. Two years from now, it'll be yet another title that rots in the used bin that nobody cares about or remembers. That Rockstar wants to punk out and go the 12 year old console gamer route is nobody's loss.

Verdict: Doom 3 set in the Old West. I'd rather download almost anything from GoG than waste $40+ on rubbish like this.

Yeah, Bob Carver as a person is a whole truckload of ass, but the subs are acceptable if you're on a budget (I think it's that a sub is simple enough that even he can't screw it up - heh). Of course, you're right, if you have the money, build your own or get a better Velodyne or similar. It's surprisingly easy to actually make a speaker as most of the math and hard work has been figured out years ago and you can even get open-source software to do much of the work for you.

The metal Tripplite ones are good, but, yes, something's gone a bit off lately. I was looking at them for my son's computer a bit over a year ago you could tell that they'd jobbed the thing out to China or somewhere else to cut costs. Poorly formed plastic and pretty much hollow inside (no real weight to it). I suppose it will work, but I miss the days of overbuilding something so it never breaks. Everything is getting so sub-standard and cheap. And don't even get me started on the third-rate overseas rubbish that they call capacitors. (while other problem area lately - you know they are flat out lying and using substandard materials)

One of my uncles works for a defense contractor and half of their job lately involves taking components that they get and either upgrading the sub-standard parts in it or testing them to verify that they actually are built to spec. More than half simply isn't these days and they have to make it themselves or spend more time ordering the exact parts and reassembling the components properly. You have to even go to a specialty store these days to get simple things like well made nuts and bolts, because the junk you get at places like Home Depot and OSH, simply isn't the quality of what you are replacing most of the time. (case in point, I had to replace the exhaust on my truck a while back - the OEM bolt I had to cut off. The other two were replaced at some time in the past by a previous owner and were typical Home Depot stuff. I simply twisted them off with a wrench (exactly like taffy, just with metal (!)) Same specs and symbols on both of them. One was obviously properly treated and designed new steel and the other was recycled steel with a fancy coating to pass inspection.

I unfortunately see four things wrong with that statement. First, Creative. I'm sorry, but they aren't really doing anything much different than the same audio trickery that Bose is famous for. Crappy fiberboard boxes. Paper drivers. Bandpass designs. Fake accentuated bass. Holes in the frequency response that you could drive a truck through. Thin and nasty sound that lacks impact. Altec Lansing is similar. I can get better sound out of a bare 7 inch Kenwood car stereo speaker. One. Sitting in my hand, not even in a cabinet or enclosure. Now, if we were talking about a large NXT flat panel technology or similar (or perhaps some of the newer in-wall speakers that are out now), you might have a point. But the inMotion is a complete joke. I have a pair of little 20 year old Roland practice/feedback monitors that will crush these pieces of junk.

Second, MP3. Most MP3s are compressed to the point where while it might be fine to listen to in your car due to the background noise pretty much killing your ability to really hear high quality audio, but they are terrible compared to a good CD. Mostly because the typical person who does the encoding doesn't know how to properly set it up and what program (as well as codecs and similar) to use. With the right settings, you can recreate CD quality with MP3s, but the file size is 30-50% the size of the original. (or you can use a lossless compression format as well). The 128bit encoded crap foisted off on us by Itunes and other stores for years was a tragedy. Now that they've upped it to a somewhat usable (if barely) 256bit, you still have to re-download most of your songs to weed out the old junk. At that point, you might as well just go out and buy used the CDs. I've played old records of the same songs and my son as commented how he didn't even know that that part existed. (and vinyl isn't a great format, either) Simply put, MP3s are the modern equivalent of cassette tapes for your walkman. And just as underwhelming when it comes to serious listening.

Thirdly, Bluetooth. It might work fine for you, but putting a compressed audio file through a further compressed and prone to losses wireless link is asking for trouble. At that point, you might as well be listening to FM radio. I feel a bit sorry that you've either lacked real audio experience so far in your life or have been led to believe over all these years to honestly think that settling for one of these little pieces of junk actually qualifies as a good use of your money. Or even as acceptable audio.

And, lastly, I don't know about you, but my old stereo(s) still work fine and can shake the room I'm in if I ever feel the need to do so. "Sounds better" is highly debatable. Maybe better than a boombox from 30 years ago, but that little piece of junk in no way meets the standards set of any reasonable setup. Even one that's 30 years old.