Sadly, yes, studies have shown that every time you include an equation, mathematics, or scary looking numbers in an article, you loose a percentage of the readers. Editors for popular articles (which Nature, desipte it's prestige as a science journal, is at heart) know this, and edit accordingly.

So, having read the links, it sounds like they want to replace a layer 3 protocol with a layer 4 protocol. This won't work -- you'll still need unique identifiers for source and destination that's machine-translatable for routing, that's aggregatable to avoid routing table bloat, and which interfaces nicely with both layer 2 for transport and layers 4-7 for functionality. Sure, this sounds like a good replacement for the rather awkward DNS lookup and non-intuitive URL syntax, but as a replacement for TCP/IP v4/v6 it is lacking in the necessary functionality.

So, how long do you think it will be before Kessler syndrome finishes the job all these anti-satellite weapons and tests start? As one professor back in college (the class was 'War in the Nuclear Age') pointed out, you could take out all of geosync orbit with a large bag of sand if you got it going in the opposite direction from Earth's spin. LEO and MEO are both crowded enough that we could get a spontaneous Kessler syndrome even if we don't keep blowing the satellites up there into shrapnel. I suppose we can start replacing the critical satellites in inch-thick titanium, but when every launch requires a heavy lift launch vehicle we're going to lose a lot of satellite functionality.

According to rymskviða , Thor dressed as a woman in order to reclaim Mjölnir from the Frost Giants. Perhaps this change is just for a retelling of that tale.

I'm pretty sure removing the arcades back in the 90s and oughties was a deliberate strategy by the Malls to remove the unwanted guests -- teens and tweens. They certainly villianized that demographic in other ways, often enacting policies to discourage that demographic from hanging out in the food court, loitering in the mezzanines, sitting quietly on the benches . . . having an arcade just attracted them like flies to roadkill, so they had to go. Since the demographic was viewed as not having much to spend, particularly at the big-box anchor stores, and what they did mostly going to the arcade, food court, music store, and maybe an alternative clothing store, out they went.

I'm looking at solar for my house, not just to lower/remove electric bills, but to also get some backup power as my house tends to be cut off from the grid at least a couple of times a year. I figure some solar, a small battery farm, and an inverter will see me through most such outages.

So the secret courts will issue broad secret warrants with attached gag orders saying that for National Security purposes all cell phones will be tracked and the tracking information made available to certain government agencies. Achievement Unlocked! Problem Solved!

On the contrary, Tutankhamen's tomb was broken into before the modern era, though sealed back up again, and was quite thoroughly raided in the early 20th century, admittedly by archeologists using the best accepted practices of the time. I've heard modern archeologists and Egyptologists complain bitterly at all the lost opportunities because the tomb was discovered before current best practices were standard.

I suspect Cisco's shareholders will insist they move production out of the US, and start doing final assembly of devices locally for their biggest foreign markets. The US will lose more jobs, costs will go up due to inefficiencies, and the NSA will start trying to get into the code (if they're not already.) If this sort of thing goes on, they may stop being a US-based company entirely, and move corporate offices, development, etc off-shore to avoid the stigma.

Nonsense, all it would take is 4 or 5 EMP (200 - 400 miles up) bursts, each taking out a large chunk of the electrical grid and killing anything with a microprocessor for a radius of 500 to 1000 miles (depends on size of nuke, strength of the Earth's magnetic field, height, and probably stuff still considered Top Secret to avoid civilian panic.) One on each coast of the US, a couple to fill in the gaps and take out Alaska and Hawaii, and the US is done -- no food, no fuel, no electricity, famine virtually guaranteed unless the government is a lot more prepared than it seems to be. And, yes, such EMP bursts are in every first-strike plan, as it's the quickest way to disrupt enemy communications.

To legally use an automobile in most of the US, you need a state-issued license that has training and testing requirements, a state-tracked title to the car, a state-tracked registration for the car, clearly viewable identification tags, and usually safety gear (seatbelt, airbags, crumple zones, etc), insurance and a key. To legally use a gun in most locations, you need a gun and ammo. All these requirements were legislated into existence by "leftist" politicians over the loud protests by the right, usually claiming that they would destroy the automotive industry.

Unlike a nuclear weapon, meteors don't go boom at a planned optimal height to cause damage, and release their energy in stages. The Chelyabinsk meteor, for example, is estimated to have had the equivalent of a 500 kiloton nuke in terms of energy when it first entered. It weighed an estimated 12,000–13,000 metric tonnes and was moving at about 30km/s before it hit atmosphere, but the largest piece recovered was only some 654 kg, and most smaller pieces of the meteor hit the earth at terminal velocity after breaking up some 23km above the surface. Wikipedia says that some ~90 kilotons of energy equivalent was lost as heat as it entered, the rest in a series of 3 explosions as it broke up, the largest initial blast mostly being absorbed by the atmosphere.

Welders certified in welding to certain specifications can easily make this much, particularly if they own/run their own shop. Not common, certainly, but someone with their own equipment who can go onsite to a wellhead, oil platform, or nuclear reactor and make certified repairs on demand can pretty much quote their own fee. Welding certifications are very specialized, being able to TIG 1/4" stainless doesn't qualify you for 1/2" stainless, or 1/4" aluminum, etc. As a hobbyist, I find welding to be fun, but suspect the skill required to do larger projects to an ISO or Federal specification would be quite the reach.

Or, better yet, if enough people were actually interested in this sort of thing, we could get the day after such a late-night event a holiday, so we could all guiltlessly stay up late and party with other interested friends, then sleep in in the morning without having to worry about work or school. Also, imagine if we could get people to turn off their lights enough that you don't have to go out into the country to be able to see this sort of event clearly.

I wonder how much of this is caused by the inevitable invasion by missionaries, injecting memes into the local population that conflict with the indigenous culture and cause conflict, confusion, and the other symptoms of Christianity. Not to mention the purely physical diseases they bring with them. I know they mean well, but everything I've read about post-missionary contact of isolated tribes shows an increase in depression, aggression, and lowered quality of life.