...then sift through it to file tax evasion charges, but somehow keeping email backups for top IRS employees is beyond them because the hard drive crashed and they had to recycle the backup tapes.

Right.

You've discounted one of the linked articles (for a reason I understand but don't entirely agree with). What about the other? Does finding a reason to discount one piece of data allow you to discount all of it, in your opinion?

 

One word of caution about proclaiming the involvement of these pesticides in bee deaths is recent findings that these pesticides are not found in the reproductive regions of plants:

http://entomologytoday.org/201...

Here's another study from last year which found no link between pesticides and bee deaths:

http://www.producer.com/daily/...

It's a popular and appealing story, but recent data suggest that it may not be true!

Ok, you just blew my mind.

I remember never quite getting the whole "empathy box" idea in the book. It seemed unlikely and quite foreign. But you're right: that's what Facebook is. People sharing their good and bad news in order to participate in some group emotion. And, just like Rick's wife was "addicted" to it, lots of people were addicted to checking Facebook (at least for a while, the interest in Facebook seems to have waned). So Philip K. Dick was prescient about that after all.

...and you want to prevent those nosy congressmen pawing through your emails looking for felonies...

I don't think you quite understand.

Wood is an excellent engineering material, it's widely used in construction, and can and has been very successfully used for ships, aircraft etc. During WWII, even when aluminium alloys were available, British designers used wood, to make very highly successful, fast, and very robust aircraft like the de Havilland Mosquito.

Yes, of course you have to consider multiple properties, but actually, wood is very good under lots of different properties, particularly compression, and wood in general and balsa structures in particular have *surreal* rigidity. See this table:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

so by weight, balsa is the most rigid material known, by a long, long way.

Actually:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Look down the list for stainless steel... then carry on down to 'balsa'.

Yup. Wood has a better strength to weigh ratio than stainless steel. (Only along the grain though but plywood fixes that, and you can put the strength in the direction you need it.)

Although they're not in the table, other woods are similar, but more dense.

Carbon fibers are five times stronger than steel and about a third the weight, so in a head to head competition, no way.

Still, it could compete with (say) steel if it's easier to work, cheaper, and less polluting.

Actually, the fastest dragster, albeit unofficial, ever was a rocket car powered by peroxide.

Rocket dragsters were basically banned for being too fast/dangerous.

Rocket engines very typically ARE internal combustion engines.

The definition of 'internal combustion' is that the pressures from the combustion gases cause the motion. (In external combustion engines, such as steam engines, the heat from the combustion goes through a heat exchanger and the working fluid on the other side of that does the work.)

In a rocket the exhaust gases push directly on the exhaust nozzle, and the interior of the combustion chamber and causes the motion, making it an internal combustion engine.

Some rockets (such as nuclear-thermal or solar-thermal rockets) do have a heat exchanger, and are not internal combustion engines, but not the common ones.

The NBA is a private association with it's own governing charter. It's a billionaires club. If all of the other members of the club hate you because you have a LONG HISTORY of being a total racist, cheapskate, and litigious dick, it is within their right to throw you out. Additionally, his wife had him declared incompetent, so legality is even less of an issue. As for the "baiting", even if we ignore his long history of bad behavior, he insulted Magic Johnson - one of the greatest players of all time, and the guy who's statue he walks by every time he enters the Staples Center - IN HIS APOLOGY. Yes, he said he was a bad influence him for HAVING HIV. Yes he said he could be "doing more" for the community - the guy who opened hundreds of new businesses in black neighborhoods across LA. Oh, and that apology took him a week, and in the meantime, he said he should have just "paid her off". Also, BOTH teams (including his own) were going to refuse to play (in the playoffs) if the commissioner didn't act. NO ONE liked him, not even those who worked for him. If you want to talk about freedom, how about the freedom to not have to deal with this jerk? I believe they always had the legal authority to kick him out, but his history of litigious dickishness would have cost them billions in legal fees and bad PR. Carpe Diem. And Ballmer (not famous for his likability) will be a HUGE upgrade.

"Bright Future Jobs, the Programmers Guild and WashTech."

Who, who, and who?

As of August 1999, the Programmers Guild had 400 members. Mighty important organization there, if you can't be bothered to offer membership numbers from this century. Which, to be fair, looks to be the last time their web page look was updated.

As far as I can tell, "Bright Future Jobs" is one person Donna Conroy.

WashTech is a union. No thanks.

I suspect that IBM, Infosys and Manpower won't even notice their "boycott."