If you need a 20-30ms initial access time, and then a constant transfer rate of 20-50MB/sec, that makes tape completely useless as it can't fulfill initial access time, and it makes SSD pointless as it overdelivers without added value for everything above that. IE, for bulk data that gets streamed, such as basically any large datasets like video, price per TB is the factor that overshadows anything else.

IOPS is of course hugely important for the average utter crap database written by an intern that devolves into 512byte random access read/write patterns, which seems to be what 'enterprise solution' means these days. But the disasterous consequences of that usually keep the data sets into whatever fits on a comparatively small and cheap SSD as anything beyond basically using processor L1 cache will make the application too slow to use.

Indeed. And when reaching larger capacities, it's quite likely that you're dealing with largely sequentially accessed streamed data, ie, video, where you have a maximum needed transfer rate which the HDD is entirely capable of fulfilling which means the SSD gives zero added value for the price premium.

Well, the Samsung 3.2 TB drive claims that you can read/write the entire drive every day for five years before failure. It's my understanding that at one point, SSDs were notorious for gradually declining over time, but that today's generation of SSDs basically has reliability out the wazoo. I can't quote you stats on it, but anecdotally, I've had a couple of SSDs in my computer for several years now, I leave it on 24x7, and I've never had a problem.

...Yet. YMMV.

The laws of probability suggest humanity is doomed, at least in our current form. We as human ponderers are roughly a sampling of the average human pondering their existence. About 60 billion humans have come before us, which suggests roughly just 60 billion will come after us since we are most likely to be in the middle of the pack rather than near the beginning or the end of the pack. (Roughly the Copernican principle as applied to human population density and time.)

If most of our future is to be Borg-like, then we'd more likely be Borgs contemplating our existence, not humans. But us (here now) being at such a coincidental position would be violating the Copernican principle. Either way, we are either doomed to end soon or become Borg-like, neither is a pleasant thought.

Of course coincidences do happen and we may indeed coincidentally be at the start of the human expansion curve; but if I were in Vegas, I wouldn't bet on it. We're doomed, guys.

It's far cheaper to the beat the holy sh8t out of somebody rather than create these disease and aging simulators.

Indeed. Fear and paranoia are often the main ingredients to colossal disasters.

USA's post-9/11 fears drove us to invade Iraq for no decent reason whatsoever, and create a power-vacuum that haunts us and the Middle East to this day. Saddam may have been a jerk, but he served to stabilize other jerks (Iran gov't, ISIS, etc.). We upset the Balance of Jerks (we lost Jerk Jenga).

"Let's throw Terminators at the problem. What can possibly go wrong, go wrong, go wrong, go wrong, go wrong, go wrong, go wrong..."

Of the estimated 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe, only one in 10 can support complex life like that on Earth

10 percent of 100 billion is still 10 billion galaxies. That's a lot of real estate. Even if you apply all the other characteristics that give rocky planets in the habitable zone of their star billions of years to evolve life. There are features like having a Jupiter in a circular orbit instead of an elliptical orbit or a moon that creates tide pools. That's a lot of habitable planets and a lot of potential for intelligent life.

Netflix has a really interesting series narrated by Laird Close called Life In Our Universe that covers the topic in great detail.

...a Bill Cosby shirt [ducks head]

I assume you are jesting. It did have RTGs.

The main antenna folded similar to an umbrella when in launch packaging. It failed to open all the way, perhaps due to the lubricant hardening in storage caused by the launch backlog from the first shuttle disaster. A back-up omnidirectional antenna was used instead, which produced a usable signal of something roughly like 1/200 of the intended primary antenna.

Except it's apparently only more transparent on the English-speaking Internet (actually more specific: English-speaking and not Australian-focused), not on sites in other languages.

Too bad Galileo had antenna problems. It could have taken far more snapshots from far more angles with less image compression. Overall it was a successful mission because it had other powerful instruments, but was light on the imaging side.

looks like a mammogram

"There may be times when they want the cars to drive them, but they won't be buying autonomous-only cars."

A future where people can opt out of buying an autonomous car sounds great but it's not feasible economically. Traffic lights and traffic signs are all things needed for cars being piloted by humans, autonomous cars don't need them. At some point we'll be spending billions maintaining human-readable infrastructure and road rules when there are fewer and fewer actual humans driving.

It's just like the Sunpass you use out on the tollway in Florida. There are fewer and fewer options for driving on the tollway when you don't have a sticker. It won't be long before it's mandatory. It's the same with autonomous cars. Once cars start to take over the day will dawn when we don't want to collectively maintain the signage, traffic lights and human readable infrastructure.

Elon Musk isn't just daydreaming, those are product announcements. It would have taken NASA 15 years and billions in contracts to create a reusable booster, it would have crashed more often than Musk's prototype and ended up costing more on a per-launch basis than one-shot boosters. NASA is why we can't make big steps into space.

The proof of that statement will be when Musk comes sailing in with a reclaimed booster in tow.

No, it just means you can add "...on the internet." and get a patent on something that was otherwise old news.