But probably not the reason you think. :D They cost that much so that some CIO can cover his arse when something goes terribly wrong with the corporate database... "we are waiting for Oracle support to tend to our ticket."

It's actually the best kind; there are two types of code, code that's almost certain to work and code that's almost certain not to work...

I will assume your question is serious. Posix never isolated processes. One process can see other processes' files, ports, and even the processes themselves. That is what containers are about: your web browser cannot see your email client's files and vice-versa (so a vulnerability in one process cannot give you access to the content of the other).

Hey, I hang out with a lot of creative people. Not Elon Musk, but Steve Jobs for more than a decade, and lots of people at least as smart that you don't know. They can be really brilliant, and successful, and they can still make really stupid mistakes and sell them to the rest of us pretty well because they believe in themselves completely and they have a track record. I've done that too.

That's the hyperloop. Something Elon never meant to stand behind (and still really isn't), just put out there to torpedo a worthy project that he didn't believe in.

Anyone who looks at the hyperloop design can see it's not a no-brainer. It has safety issues up the wazoo :-) It's going to take a long time to get right.

Meanwhile, little Switzerland can have incredible trains everywhere and the United States can't get it together, and unlike with rockets and cars Elon's not helping this time. And I am not sure that the "lease" part of his solar business is a great thing for the world either.

Although the hyperloop is possible and might even be practical someday, let's please be honest about the reason it was created. Elon Musk just wanted to kill the California high-speed rail.

That might have been OK if there was a hope that we could actually replace it practically with a hyperloop. But given the history of bleeding-edge rail - ride any maglevs lately? We haven't even had much success with monorails outside of theme parks and Las Vegas - we don't really have any working system to replace high-speed rail. Hyperloop should really be called "Pipes that carry People" and we need decades of work on it before considering intercity lines.

Well perhaps the IGDA will put their money where their mouth is and advocate for some form of unionization for these exploited workers?

http://www.flashnetworks.com/E...

Apparently, the article has a photo of a synthetic spinneret-like thingy that does that now.

Well, actually, EVERYTHING increases the risk of accidents. And "without problems" is really an euphemism for "cars already kill thousands of people per year, so we really don't want to think real hard about what causes those >"... http://www.monash.edu.au/miri/...

Yeah, you are speaking WRONG! :P

Russia would like for us to continue gifting them with cash for 40-year-old missle motors, it's our own government that doesn't want them any longer. For good reason. That did not cause SpaceX to enter the competitive process, they want the U.S. military as a customer. But it probably did make it go faster.

Also, ULA is flying 1960 technology, stuff that Mercury astronauts used, and only recently came up with concept drawings for something new due to competitive pressure from SpaceX. So, I am sure that folks within the Air Force wished for a better vendor but had no choice.

Thank you both for putting some actual discussion in this otherwise really noisy pile of ... comments. Not sure where the moderators are.

This ends a situation in which two companies that would otherwise have been competitive bidders decided that it would cost them less to be a monopoly, and created their own cartel. Since they were a sole provider, they persuaded the government to pay them a Billion dollars a year simply so that they would retain the capability to manufacture rockets to government requirements.

Yes, there will be at least that Billion in savings and SpaceX so far seems more than competitive with the prices United Launch Alliance was charging. There will be other bidders eventually, as well.

In almost thirty years as a professional, I can say I have *NEVER* never never ever being to a productive meeting. A meeting that soothed some insecurity by a boss or client? Sure. A meeting where real decisions where taken after meaningful conversation and discussion? Nope.