Most of these people will not be able to get good enough fast enough to keep up with people who are already in the field.

In the long run we're all dead, so I wouldn't worry too much about the truly long-term prospects in any field of work unless I'm giving advice to kids.

Boss: What paradigm should we utilize to synergize our efficiencies and provide sustainability to the cloud?

Smart Programmer: We need to use the best paradigm for each sub-problem. I would recommend the Python programming language, because it has a large number of libraries that address the sustainability in the cloud.
Boss: That doesn't sound very innovative. We really need to think outside the box on this one and future-proof our social media content. Big data is a real value add here and I'm telling you it's a game changer. We should reach out and ping some subject matter experts on industry best practices.
Smart Programmer: Python really does allow you to think outside of the box. You can switch gears really quickly with all of the libraries that it has for things like social media content and big data. Many experts would say that using Python is currently a best practice when working with big data.
Boss: That's interesting, but I would prefer Java. We have to deep dive and figure out the most dynamic way to add value and monetize this opportunity.
Smart Programmer: Java is a great choice, but we could cut our development time in half if we use Python, which would save us a lot of money and let us address our big data potential faster.
Boss: Al right, I'm going to ask some other experts about whether we should go with Java or Python. Thanks for your input.

Yes, but in addition to that the trade-offs are inherently different for re-usable rockets. Embrittlement is probably a pretty big problem if you intend to re-use your fuel tank many times, like SpaceX intends to.

If SpaceX fails to make their second stage re-usable I would not be surprised to see them switch to hydrogen for that stage at some point down the line.

The government needs a frame in which it can legally operate. For instance you don't want the government to get into iron mining, steel making and knife making just so it can run hospitals. It's fine for a government-run hospital to buy surgical knives from private companies.

The horror example where this separation from government subsidies never happened is the airline industry, where you have two giant corporations, Boeing and Airbus, that leech billions off of various governments.

Steel cans in low Earth orbit. Things have not really change much since the 1975 in terms of scale.

If we're talking about the scale of space habitats, the two factors in the equation are:
1. Cost per unit of weight from Earth to orbit.
2. The ability to mine, refine and manufacture in space.

Increase one of those and things might get interesting.

Nuclear has a gigantic upfront capital cost. Here's the deal:

You start investing hundreds of millions of dollars per year in planning and construction, starting today. The plant comes online 15 years from now and starts to make money back at a fairly low rate. That is, unless gas, solar or some other technology has managed to cut costs in which case you make nothing.

Any takers?

Sounds like you should buy a MacBook Air before they discontinue it, then. Their margins are probably a lot higher on this new and less powerful product.

It's amazing that nobody has managed to make a decent clone if the Air. It's been what, 5-10 years since Apple released the first one.

I think it's basically this:

1) I don't know how something happened
2) Oh, but wouldn't it be exiting if there was a great over-arching story behind it all?
3) Therefore the government did it and is covering it up

Yeah, one day a company like Netflix may no longer ship physical discs, but instead rely on digital streaming over the Internet. Remember where you heard it first!

Python works almost as well for this learning stage.

This is an example of a valid 2-line Python program:
x = 1+1
print x

Here is another valid program:
def oneplusone():
        return 1+1
print oneplusone()

This next program will crash at line 1 with "NameError: name 'oneplusone' is not defined":
print oneplusone()
def oneplusone():
        return 1+1

The one stumbling block with Python is that indentation matters. Copy-pasting your classmate's code into your program can easily break it.

From the screenshot it looks like the work could be done in less than a second on an 8-bit 20 MHz MCU.

It's an error in the summary and/or article. Elon still claims that the Model 3 will sell for 30k before subsidies.

You must have been using a sub-par encoder then. A single layer DVD disc usually allows a significant step up in quality compared to what you would get with an LD disc.

That's called an immersed tube tunnel. The way it's done is they dig a trench at the bottom, lower concrete tunnel elements to form the tunnel and then cover the structure with rock and sand. This method has been used many times in the past and will be used in the future, for example here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...

Immersed tunnels aren't always cheaper than boring or blasting through rock. For one thing, it is cumbersome and expensive to dig a trench in deep waters.

I do think it is plausible that it could have been -44 in the middle of the night, but the daytime temperature on a day like that would be something like -20.