"...fast internet speeds unencumbered by fast lanes or other tiered systems are necessary to keep residents and businesses happy."

just like rest of infrastructure in the city. Need good roads, schools, water, etc.

great post, my mod points expired yesterday otherwise I'd give you some.

I know someone who joined the Navy in 1970s, he learned proper military posture and attitude very quickly. He answered "yes" and was slugged in the gut. He was told to answer "Yes SIR!" and followed by "On your feet boy! and I mean like now!" He managed to get up, and stand up straight (cough cough, yes cough sir cough).

in many ways it already is, i.e. contractor workforce. Much of Army jobs (mess hall, janitorial, guards, etc.) is contracted out. So much for standing guard duty at some gate that rarely has visitors, put on KP for next 30 days, cleaning floors with a tooth brush. that's why military budget is so huge and yet a very small percentage of all people have any involvement with military services (ask anyone what's the difference between a SSGT and a LTC? Googling is cheating).

oh this joke is as old as the T-10 parachute.

from Paul Spudis, "the Potemkin Village “commercial space program” is trotted out to demonstrate that we are accomplishing something."
http://www.spudislunarresource...
Well at least Elon had some hardware built instead of just PPTs. But some argue commercial space companies, "To be fair, probably about 25% of New Space does have some minimal substance, but over the past decade the clear majority of them have never amount to anything beyond a press conference where they make grandiose promises and then beg for money from investors and NASA."

but do they show the good stuff? how about technie stuff but understandably they hold this back, proprietary info. SpaceX has been known to cut the live feed when something goes wrong. And the landing of Dream Chaser when landing gear failed they cut that part out but they claim the landing test was a success (if it's so great then why not show the vid?). I heard the craft did not tumble like the M2F2 (as shown on opening of Six Milllion Dollar Man) but if they're taking govt money (tax payer) then I cry foul when they do a Soviet Russia.

I asked someone that follows commercial space (he also invested some money into xcor) of how SpaceX, SNC, Scaled Composites, etc. have done something that should have been done decades ago. His reply was this is result of wealth inequality which a few billionaires can spend lots of money on something very dubious of making any profit. Reminded me what Donald Douglas (I think) answered how does one make a million dollars in airplane business, "start with 10 million" or some answer like that. Now there is all kinds of interpretations of what SpaceX does or does not, lots of articles, etc. We may not know the ***real*** answers until years from now (i.e. like it was not really known by most decades later how we beat the Soviets to the Moon). Also note none of us know what SpaceX does except what Elon says at press conferences.

Sometimes the article goes on and on with multiple webpages but occasionally someone will summarize the topic in a brief comment. Or mention the person that wrote the article gets almost all his consultant fees paid by Monsanto. Not always i.e. a comment begins with insightful items but then concludes, "I was able to make $100K in one week! See gogetbids.com for more!"

from TFA:

and transmission had only three settings: Forward, backward, and neutral. There was a pic showing one that broke in two because didn't spend time to engineer for steel contraction in very cold water. Must have been terrible when (if it did happen) at sea. Interesting comment from previous post, "Kaiser actually built one in four days in a carefully-choreographed stunt...two or three weeks was typical." Another benefit was Kaiser created employee health benefits as perk to attract workers. Companies did have to compete for employees in those days.

Interesting to compare South Korea to North Korea (ok, not much in comparison as so vastly different). What we have is a small nation that is a manufacturing economic powerhouse. I heard when they built their high speed rail, part of govt specs is components have to be made in SK as final assembly may seem way to go in terms of providing jobs in the country. But most of value is the parts manufacturing, and US buys HSR components and systems from SK. I remember 1988 Olympics when SK showcased their modern city Seoul while NK insisted they were the superior Korea and attempted to complete Olympics facilities. However, I read someplace it was not always like that after 1953 Korean War. For couple decades NK had better roads, rails, infrastructure etc. that was built by Japanese during their period of occupation as NK was industrial portion and SK being mostly farmland. But it was in 1970s, while corruption was rampant, the SK govt figured they better modernize into 20th century. Now I don't claim to be authority, too lazy to look up the facts (if they can easily be found, I rarely consult wikipedia), but then building huge ships is impressive, just think of all those boatloads of cheep Chinese stuff coming into Los Angeles and Oakland.

President and Congress direct NASA to carry out such and such programs but fail to provide enough budget. Yes, same whiney post like everyone else.

You can get a DeLorean but Mr. Fusion will never make it to commercial markets because of ITAR.

Interesting read about this Mk-54 (Davy Crockett) with 10 or 20 ton yield. There was a program on History Channel back when they had documentaries on history which described this beast and footage of it being fired. You fire the cannon (actually recoilless rifle) and then jump into a ditch to avoid radiation exposure. I was thinking what if cannon charge was a dud and only throws it 100 feet. One of the people they interviewed said Davy Crockett was "as practical as an atomic grenade." Can't throw it far enough.