I'm guessing you are not a native English speaker. If you were, it would have been obvious.

About as native as it gets.

Alas, I've seen too much actual stupidity posted here for a good simulation of it to be obvious.

Why would you install Windows? Oh, sure, I get there might be some Windows-only apps you want, but put a reasonable VM on the box, install on that once, and just move the VM to successive new machines. You can allows throw more virtual hardware at it.

But there is no other party to vote for? It's only a meaningful vote if it is for the party who wins!

Please, do us all a favor and never go near a voting booth again. That has to be one of the most stupid things I have ever read. By your logic, we should only have one party if votes are to be meaningful, and clearly that is the opposite of the truth.

You've been utterly brainwashed by the two big parties, who fear votes for third parties more than they fear votes for the other major party. We could use a little more fear of the electorate in the big parties. If you must enter a polling booth, please vote third party. Any third party. Sometimes it actually does some good. (Even if third party doesn't win, it can shake up the Republicrats and Demicans enough that they change their policies.)

(And if you were kidding, please include a tag next time.)

For the benefit of the reading-ability-impaired AC's posting above, let me extract the relevant phrases:

Mass-media influences cultural evolution [...] They cannot understand life, except as something that generates politics and "human interest" stories. [...] They [...] work to maintain our limits to growth since it places their skills at a premium.

Which is an interesting, and quite possibly valid, point.

I just don't see what it has to do with SpaceX or anyone else using Pad 39A.

The crawler - transporter is so incredibly cool. Something that big actually moving.

I see your point, but back in the day it was transporting something larger that would be moving orders of magnitude faster, straight up, seconds after lighting the engines.

(As an aside, there were originally plans for a Pad 39C, and the VAB was scaled to allow simultaneous stacking of up to four Saturn Vs. Sigh, the space program we almost had...)

There are so many things to explore right here, you disgusting navel-gazing autistic psychopath. [bold added]

LOL! Who is navel gazing, now?

While the Outer Space Treaty has some things to say about it (the Moon Treaty was never ratified, or even signed by many of the players), historically the rules of precedence for establishing claim over new lands has been:
1. First to spot it.
2. First to plant a flag on it (which historically implied setting foot)
3. First to set up a base or fort on it
4. First to establish a settlement (ie, permanent habitation) on it.

With "right of ownership" proceeding in the above order. Robotic flag planting as we've had since the mid 1960's might be step 1.5, which is where China is at. USA was at 3 for a brief time in 1969-72 (since the later Apollo missions had surface stays of several days) although disclaimed it with the "we came in peace for all mankind" verbiage on the landing plaques.

If/when China establishes a manned base on the Moon, is there going to be anyone in a position to argue about it (beyond stern words at the UN and threats to remove "Most Favored Nation" trading status) if they claim ownership?

Dust? Seriously?

This is high vacuum we're talking about. Lunar dust is just tiny rocks, they get kicked up and immediately fall back to the surface. It's not as though the dust is going to float for days (or even minutes) in the (virtually non-existent) lunar atmosphere. (Sure sign of badly written SF or shot-in-a-studio movie footage: dust on the real Moon doesn't cloud, it sprays then drops.)

Sure, the exhaust plume gases will stick around for a bit. That will give LADEE something to help calibrate its instruments against, since presumably the reaction products are known.

They don't always shut down the company.

Sometimes they just arrest the COB/CEO. You don't really imagine there was zero connection between Joe Nacchio of Qwest refusing to give NSA customer records without a court order (this back in 2001) and his being arrested and jailed for insider trading, do you?

(He may have engaged in some questionable trades but nothing that other corporate execs have done without getting hit with such severe penalties.)

Goodbye A-10 Thunderbolt.

The Air Force has being trying to get rid of it forever. It's for close air support, not a role the USAF is fond of. The Army would love to take it over but they're not allowed fixed-wing aircraft.

Stupid turf wars.

Who is *that* dumb?

Alas, most people.

Sales and marketing types have spent a lot of money on studies into what motivates buyers. Yes, most people react (more at an emotional level than a cognitive level) to that first significant digit. They don't "think" of $299.99 as closer to $200 than to $300, but they react that way.

Otherwise stores wouldn't price stuff like that.

(NB, /. readers are a self-selected atypical sample. You and I may not see $299.99 as $2xx.xx rather than $3xx.xx, but enough people do that it's worthwhile pricing things that way.)

Free world? You mean Antarctica?

Alas, not free either. Go ahead, just try setting up a mining facility there. (See Article 7 of the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty.)

Although I don't see anything explicitly prohibiting the set up of a data center, and you wouldn't have to worry about cooling. Power and connectivity would be a bitch, though.

Ah, thanks.

I'd mod you up but I've already posted in this topic. ;-)

Okay, this may be a stupid question, but I only count 10 leads in the pictures of the device, so where/what are the other two? Grounds?

Well, it's true that if you smoke Mary Jane you will eventually die. Absolutely certain.

Don't be so sure. A statistically significant fraction of the people who were ever born haven't died.

Although I suppose "eventually" could extend to the heat death of the universe.