We knew what was going on when you ran your anti-IBM campaign, sometimes even positioning yourself as arguing on behalf of our community. It was a way to lend credence to IBM and MS arguments during the SCO issue. To state otherwise is deceptive, perhaps even self-deceptive.

Florian, you would not be devoting all of this text to explaining yourself if you didn't feel the need to paint your actions in a positive light. That comes from guilt, whether you admit it to yourself or not.

Go write your app, and if you actually get to make any money with it you can give thanks, because it will happen despite what you worked for previously. Keep a low profile otherwise because your credibility is well and truly blown and you can only make things worse. And maybe someday you can really move past this part of your life. But I am not holding out much hope.

The Daily Mail, really?

Hmm, now I'm curious. A fighter may have a takeoff weight of say 15000kg. Let's say that the "short lean female" saves 40kg over an "average male". With the other reductions - clothing, oxygen, etc - you probably get down to maybe a 60kg savings. That's a 0,4% reduction in system mass. The rocket equation (applicable here too) probably boosts that up to about a 0,5% benefit in many regards. Still not that much

However, if you can shrink the cockpit , then you're looking at a much bigger advantage - possibly 100-200kg extra weight savings and maybe cutting 5-10% off the total aero drag. That could actually be a big deal - relevantly faster accelerations, top speed, range, etc.

Good. Space suit design needs a modernization anyway.

There is no "how human societies have been organized". Some societies have had (and even continue to have) near complete segregation of the sexes except for reproductive purposes. Some have had full integration.

And "popular wisdom" is in general stereotype BS. It was "popular wisdom" that said that people of African descent were worthless for anything except manual labor and it's pointless to try to educate a woman, that gays are a social evil that needs to be obliterated, that burning witches is the only way to save the town, and that letting the races mix is tantamount to national suicide.

Males are not optional. ... Male aggressive creativity would be essential to survival

Strangely not creative enough to hide your gross sexism. Perhaps an aggressive retort would help defend your point?

You seriously think you can make a claim credited to a scientific study, and then when you can't show evidence that such a study claiming what you did was ever conducted, suddenly switch to a "but everyone knows" laden with old gender stereotypes and the standard lame appeal to darwin - and think that will fly?

In almost any sentence where people say "Women (verb)..." or "Men (verb)..." and it's about something psychological (as opposed to, say, something involving reproductive organs or a statistical difference in strength / height or the like), 99% of the time it's equally accurate to simply say "People (verb)..." The popular perception of differences between genders (including the effects of both brain structure and hormones) is often vastly different from the statistical reality. Screw Mars and Venus; men and women are from Earth. Psychologically, we're statistically virtually identical in most measures. And in many cases where there are differences that even manage to meet statistical significance, what differences there are may well be artifacts of culture.

How little are most of these "differences"? This set of graphs puts it into perspective.

Again: Either present your supposed "study" or drop the issue.

Okay, so I'll take this as "urban legend" until you can find backing.

Better yet, how about sending dead people?

Even more mass-efficient if you cremate them first...

So, I see this as rationalization.

The fact is, you took a leadership position, and later turned your coat for reasons that perhaps made sense to you. But they don't really make sense to anyone else. So, yes, everyone who supported you then is going to feel burned.

You also made yourself a paid voice that was often hostile to Free Software, all the way back to the SCO issue. Anyone could have told you that was bound to be a losing side and you would be forever tarred with their brush.

So nobody is going to believe you had any reason but cash, whatever rationalization you cook up after the fact. So, the bottom line is that you joined a list of people who we're never going to be able to trust or put the slightest amount of credibility in.

And ultimately it was for nothing. I've consistently tried to take the high road and it's led to a pretty good income, I would hazard a guess better than yours, not just being able to feel good about myself.

Meh, it's easy to find people with skill. With values, OTOH...

You have a point.

That is, of course, for a given radiation dose, which is independent of body cross section - which is relevant in real-world scenarios. If we assume an isotropic radiation exposure profile, an average male height of 174cm, an average female height of 161 cm, and asssume an equivalent profile, then a man presents a 17% higher profile to radiation exposurediation exposure, so if a woman has a 50% higher (150%) cancer risk, then it's only 29% higher for a fixed radiation flux per square meter.

However, let's look further at this. Given the smaller size of members of a female crew, you can shrink the spacecraft occupant space by 8% on each axis, or a volumetric decrease of 26%. Mass changes are more difficult to reckon. Life support, food, water, etc is dependent on metabolism, which the article shows is dramatically lower for women in space. Fuel needs are proportional to all other mass issues. Only a few things (such as computers and scientific equipment) don't trace back to crew member size and mass. Regardless, for a given launch weight, it's clear that you can afford the mass of a significantly increased amount of radiation shielding for a female crew due to the weight savings elsewhere, probably easily more than offsetting the cancer risk.

Beyond this, the average US astronaut age is 34, an age well after when most women are done having children (assuming that they even want to have children). Given that the article states the risk is from breast, ovarian, and utirine cancer, I wouldn't be surprised if many would consider full hysterectomy for the ability to travel to Mars.

I love the fact that Mars is the only planet known to man that is solely inhabited by robots