Although you do still get 50% of the force from sunlight hitting a dark PV cell as opposed to being reflected. Probably not a big factor here, though.

I'm wondering if a solar sail could still work after having an Ask toolbar install itself across the top. Can the information coming back from the sail be used at all if it's being proxied through binkiland.com?

Bill! Bill Nye! Is this you? Big fan!

Exactly. I don't come here to read about horses! I'm more interested in Chinese doctors doing head transplants on mice!

OTOH, it's easier to retain employees who only know "your" language.

And that has been Tesla's argument for the last ten years, yet they still lose about $9,000 on each car they make.

"On" each car, or "for" each car?

"On" makes it sound like their marginal costs are negative -- that, literally, producing one more car increases their losses by $9K. Were it "for" each car, then they're losing money only after fixed costs, R&D, etc. are taken into account.

That latter makes considerably more sense -- folks can legitimately decide to back a company investing in itself rather than taking out a profit; indeed, Amazon has done that for years.

Tried Parker Quink, or the Noodler's Bernanke series? Both are quick-drying.

I'm actually a right-handed overwriter (rare thing that is), so I feel at least some subset of your pain.

please enlighten us as to why the fountain pin and/or feathered quill is superior to the free pens I get from the bank?

Y'know, I actually don't mind giving this a serious answer.

You don't need pressure to write with a fountain pen -- at all. (The modern competitor is a rollerball, not a ballpoint; rollerballs don't give you amount of flexibility on nib grind or opportunities for flex and shading effects that you get with a fountain, but at least you're not forced to use tons of pressure). Allows different, more comfortable grips.

Also, they're refillable with water-based inks -- meaning that they're not disposable, and that you have a huge amount of choice in terms of color and properties of your ink. Want an ink that's still viscous in below-freezing weather? I've got a bottle on my desk! Want an ink that changes from yellow to red depending on how much you're putting down on the paper? That too! Want an ink that responds to ultraviolet and is completely waterproof you can mix in with other inks that are water-soluable, so you can see where writing that's been washed away used to be under a blacklight?

Lots of room for geekery. :)

We can make modern flex nibs better than the old ones!

(Good flexible fountain pen nibs are pretty much all circa 1950s or prior right now; it's a sad, sad state of affairs).

I heard a story about a nun who had anorgasmia- meaning she couldn't experience pleasure of any sort (not just sexual). Someone did VNS surgery on her and had the implant send pulses to her pleasure center. That produced major changes- she was super happy, quit being a nun, decided to become a prostitute, and went to Venezuela(?). Eventually her pleasure center couldn't take being hammered by electricity anymore and she started to find it annoying. Eventually she had them remove it.

You misspelled "armature".

Hydrogen gas was used by the Nazis too...

Far opposite from the truth. I'm no vegan myself -- but growing meat animals requires vastly more inputs (grain, water, etc) than would be needed if skipping the (delicious) intermediate step. Humans consume less grains in sum when consuming them directly, rather than via an intermediate layer.

"Climate change" is a term that fell into vogue after focus group studies discovered that people would worry less about "climate change" than "global warming". Can we call you a "Global Warming Denialist" instead?

Well it is interesting in so far as knowing when the companies think they need to have human operators still.

Actually, having a licensed human operator ready to take over is a legal precondition for putting an autonomous car on the road (in all US states where they're legal at all).