Not to mention crowd-sourcing the story development thanks to slashdoters' broad imaginations...

Lawyers...

I'm surprised nobody brought up the ram scoop yet. It looks like that'll actually kill two birds with one scoop if there's a way to use the collected particles as fuel.

In essence, we're looking at a sort of Post-Script for 3D printers, if I'm not mistaken. I can imagine how this might be slow especially for describing intricate, layered feature sets...

Are you describing the 3D model being printed as parametric cross-section(s) along the printers' vertical axis then?

Either, truly ; but I would think a built-in UV space could come in-handy here as well... The article talks about using parametric surfaces as a replacement to polys and voxels. It just sounds like trying reinventing the wheel to me as engineering, CAD and visualization apps have been doing that for years. As for the detail/resolution blending, it seems that having the shell of an object (or limit surface ;^) would be enough geometry-wise and have the lower resolution levels described mathematically should do, no?

What about just using NURBS and procedural surface displacement as is common in the film industry..?

The arts in general are the root of our modern culture. Cavemen were drawing how to hunt for future generations' reference before anyone began to write. Hieroglyphs anyone..? While I agree that pro sports go into the excessive, what is important here is to maintain a proper balance of everything rather than focusing on what is profitable for the next quarter. And make sure the real artists/scientists/engineers(...) get their fair share instead of their cut being withheld at the top. Astronomy is great and has been a daily human occupation since we could look up, other present wasteful occupations, not so much.

Anyhow, I wonder who could peer-review findings coming from a unique instrument...

If professors can't be bothered to write their own classes, then they're probably not worth their salt. Being one of the few that doesn't used canned lectures for my classes, I can tell you the students have much more respect and admiration when you're actually on top of your material and are obviously well versed in a topic. The fact that lazy profs get promoted because of these shady dealings makes me puke even more. /rant

from doing all these electronic raids over the Middle-East?

Some think the rising tension these 'accidents' are causing will build up to a nasty conflict between US/Russia/China...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beonoKiVYzY

How about setting up some solar panels instead?

That dark matter isn't so dark anymore in the IR range apparently.

One could also ramp up $35 mil. in debt and become the first bankrupt pauper to make it to space...

There are no illegal immigrants, only illegal governments.