I'm not forgetting, I'm just saying that spontaneous combustion isn't a rare event for old stuff in space.

Just a ballpark number, but larger optics are trickier to keep on target than smaller optics.

Whoops. But with your point about the coating, I'm only off by a factor of ten...which kind of puts the laser within the realm of the possible. The next item on the agenda: how much power do we really need on target to make it overheat given that it's designed to cycle between daylight and night, even if it is in whatever sun synchronous orbit it's in.

Uh huh. Do some math for me. A 1um laser fired out of a 1m aperture spreads to an 800m circle at an altitude of 800km. If you want to heat something 1m across with 1W, you need to have a total power output of 500kW continuous from the laser. The US Navy's laser program expects to top out at about 100kW (http://www.wired.com/2011/02/unexpectedly-navys-superlaser-blasts-away-a-record/). And you're telling me someone out there is firing a 500kW laser into space from a secret mountain lair. Possibly one that launches capsule-eating rocketships too? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Only_Live_Twice_%28film%29)

What no obvious reason? Either the batteries overheated and exploded (fuel and oxidizer packed close together and sitting for 20 years) or the fuel tank vapors exploded on their own (tends to happen with monopropellant--no need to additional oxidizers, just a random injection of energy). Russian rocket bodies used to explode in orbit from time to time from fuel vapors (undesired bipropellant mixing) until they were convinced to burn off all their spare fuel after they deployed their payload into its orbit.

I'm sure there are, each with their own quirks and "language extensions." Kinda like C++11. A program that grew up around gcc's implementation needs to be ported to microsoft's implementation, even if it links in no libraries. Example: __asm__ vs asm(...); Neither is in the language spec, so both are extensions, and surprise! linux kernel code can't just be copy-pasted to windows kernel code.

Except that the emotional BS about pushing grandma off a cliff in her wheelchair and the soldiers and the retirees came after and, as usual for lefty "counterarguments" about fiscal discipline, failed to acknowledge the core point about 47% of people not having skin in the game on federal spending.

Doesn't matter. The point is they have no skin in the game wrt federal taxation, and given that the federal government has gradually crept up to about 25% of American economic activity and is 1.5 years worth of GDP in the hole, the fact that nearly half the people have nearly half the vote but zero financial obligations is unhealthy and potentially dangerous not just to the other half.

that the new TLDs were a stupid idea and the only reason they were implemented is that the beancounters are in charge instead of the car guys.

Check your privelege my friend. I know the poor don't pay taxes. As Romney famously said, the bottom 47% of the economic ladder pay no net taxes, which is to say what they get deducted from their paychecks (if any) they get back in welfare and subsidies.

No, but I do think all tax rates (personal, corporate, and capital gains) should be flat and equal.

Peo[le have freedom of association and freedom of speech. The 1st amendment actually lumps them together as peaceable assembly. Corporations are a peaceable assembly of board members and/or shareholders. Therefore they have speech and property rights like people, and tax burdens like people.

No dude. They don't want to end up in court for running a high speed line for a paying customer who wants equipment on both ends connected to the public internet but only their traffic allowed on the pipe.

Parallel line internet protocol. Get ahold of a floppy drive for your main PC and put a micro linux distro on it, including the module for the plip protocol. Then boot off the floppy. It'll take like 3 or 4 disks to hold the full kernel, but once you're there, you can rsync your drive to something else with a parallel port or a parallel port dongle.

And the difference between having that happen with a robot and a human caregiver is...

The problem isn't one of ethics. The problem is one of people with no understanding about how robots work, are designed, and are programmed to act pontificating from their armchairs.