You're an idiot, right? Or maybe a 17 year old with limited brain power. Grow up.

Because there is a space calorie limit or something? Go beyond 2000 calorie a day requirement and the whole universe does a divide by zero function and disappears?

Fist off, the caloric requirements are likely to be quite diverse between flight and time on Mars. If physical exertion is needed, even tiny women can burn a lot of calories. Which beings up the second issue.

On a trip where failure of food sources means starving to death between here and Mars, there had better be a lot of redundancy. And each step of redundancy dilutes that 1000 calorie a day difference.

The psychological aspects are interesting also. The most competent females I know, my wife and a some co-workers, are wildly hated by their female co-workers. These are all professional, job first, females, who are the equal of any man in the office doing the same work.

But the other women in the offices hate them with a passion. "Who'd she screw to get that job?" "She's such a bitch!" My wife was tall and slender, and battled years of bulimia/anorixic comments, and one of the others was into lifinting weights, and the other a very outdoorsy person, so they were called "dykes". All are physically attractive, which just made things worse for them. All were completely accepted by the men they work with, and ostracised by the other females. And each one is a very nice person to boot.

Now I won't be so bold as to declare that the problem is a normal state, but imagine if that situation erupted on board a female-only Mars mission.

The unfortunate thing is that since such a mission if undertaken, would have to select for women who were hated by many other women.

Who might then complain regardless, as the psychological requirements kept them out of the job.

You speak wisdom AC. I know it isn't fashionable, but my experience in the workplace is that a mix of the sexes would work much better than an all female crew.

Over 30+ years, we had a lot of differnet ratios of gender mix. When we got too many females, it could get very interesting, as there would be a lot of fighting. We had three separate women at three separate times that bitched up the department big time.

When near equal, the men would tend to clean up their act, the women would bring a different perspective, and everything was a lot more harmonious.

We have to remember that while it is fashionable to blame every inter-gender problem on the male of the species, it would be unrealistic that assume that the female of the species has no faults. Put them together, and you can get synergy. And one thing you really really need, millions of miles away from home, is synergy.

Wow. And people still want to be in office? Must be nice in Canada. In America, no one in their right mind would get into politics unless it means a lot of money. The people of America are so hard to please...

Think of the children godamn it!!

The problem with these scenarios lies in the following:

Some years back, AOL had a feature to allow people to click on messages as spam. Say a post is spam, and boom, whoever you called the spammer couldn't post to anyone on AOL again.

And you know what some people considered spam and checked on? Simple disagreement. Simple things like my reply to you. Some people in groups became spam police, and you didn't even have to be conversing with them.

Hell, even today, there are some religiuos folks in some groups who will turn you in for TOS violations based on disagreement.

So while it sounds all very well to talk about all the threats of violence or bomb threats (which should be simple terroristic threats not as trolling), the idea of criminalizing trolling leads to a nasty world where you can be the subject of a police investigation for simple disagreement.

And I don't know how it is in Great Britain, but here in America, a DA trying to prove he is tough on crime will be happy to send your sorry patoot to prison to prove he doesn't put up with any crap.

It would be a slippery slope if there weren't examples of it already happening.

Not that I think they're all important, but they have a significantly higher level of involvement in the local state of things than you appear to be giving them credit for. There are good and bad teachers, true, but the over all significance of their job is one of the most important in any society; certainly up there with police, fire fighters, city workers... (if you don't think that these jobs are more important than programing, then you're fooling yourself)

I agree that the old "think of the children" has been used in many incorrect ways, but that doesn't mean that it's not a valid statement. When it comes to teaching children the difference between "do" and "do not" it's extremely important that the teacher be informed, and able to inform in a way that applies to each kid - this isn't as easy as it seems like it should be. However having a care about this, makes the difference between people growing up as civilized people, capable of getting along with others, and barbaric people incapable of almost anything that doesn't involve them being given something.

Gotta suck to live in China. Er, wait...

You're totally correct (in terms of normal context), but totally wrong (in the context of what burning man is). Burning man is about living in a temporary space where normality doesn't have to be in the context at all. Think in terms of 'people peddling ice' vs 'having a place where you have to get ice'. They each create a specific experience, but one is more in tune with what how Nature provides.

Also let us not forget that the author of this article went once, and during a time when there was only one line for ice (judging by his writings, he didn't have a good time, missed the whole point of it, and will never go again). Normally there are at least three ice lines. The ice line should be a place that gets fit into the schedule. Otherwise the whole "burning man" experience (the experience that you should both loath and enjoy) is set into the same context that our daily lives are stuck in. Then, why go do something like burning man?

Disclaimer: I've never been to burning man.

No. If we all get a job at slashdot, who'll be the silly idiots that read/comment on the crap that we'll post? If you want slashdot to stop posting shit stories, then stop reading slashdot. If no one reads slashdot... well you know.

Not that there aren't already like 50% bots here now. Ever wonder why the CAPTCHA is usually along the same lines as what you're posting? Maybe the bots are editing the site by now, who knows.

Since DICE obviously isn't going to stop him from blogging here, can we at least make him an editor so he can post them himself and we can block him specifically?

Sitting around the prison yard...... What did you do man?

I raped a woman.

What did you do?

I murderd my little sister

Hey new guy! What did you do?

I typed "You mad bro?" to someone.

Holy fuck, man - you're hardcore!

Ad revenue.

SlashDice isn't about supporting anything which doesn't generate revenue for Dice.

Tell that to HP. My laserjet 1012 doesn't have any drivers for 7, yet it works if I force it as a 3055.

Manufacturers should be required by law to provide drivers for at least 5-10 years. All the perfectly good and working hardware that gets recycled or trashed is mind boggling...

If it can't be done with a Smartphone, it isn't worth doing