Well - if they had the original 200k people to send on the mission -- maybe 40 would still be alive when the spaceship arrived.

As for financing - they plan to sell all of it as a Reality TV show. Here's an NPR writeup from 2013 "This one-way trip to Mars is brought to you by": http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetw...

No new technology? Pretty sure there are several "known unknowns" that haven't been figured out. Gamma Ray protection tops the list. I remember one of the moon astronauts describing the strange flashes of light that they would see during the trip. Leaving earth's protection completely is expected to be even worse.

I remember hearing an interview on the radio with an "expert" after Prez Obama made his Mars declaration. This expert listed some absolutely fascinating problems, even basics, that still need to be solved. Some of the issues were things I wouldn't have thought of - ever. Wish I could find that interview - it was also on NPR but I can't remember which show.

Is he accused of damaging these AT the trade show or in a store? Or was LG buying the products and returning them to their secret lab to poke/prod them?

I guess I'd be mad if my flagship products failed at a trade show - only to find that somebody had put sand in the tank overnight.

This reminds me of an old Click & Clack episode where a caller had purchased a used VW...and while cleaning the trunk had found paperwork indicating the car was owned by the Chevy (Ford?) proving grounds. Tom & Ray assured the caller that some test driver was comparing the competition had driven the car to within an inch of it's life - and that the caller should either purchase the extended warranty or trade the car in ... now! They also suggested that the test driver had purposely left the evidence behind as a warning to future owners.

wait - knowing all of that is... simple? ;-)

My condo has a long corridor that opens to a living room... all without any light switches. So to walk through my house I have to turn the kitchen light on - walk across the room - turn on the stairwell light -- walk back turn off kitchen light... you get the picture (who designs this stuff?!)

I wanted to buy a wireless switch of some kind and make a three-way system. Adding a light switch to one wall is almost impossible. I looked at battery operated systems, wall-switch like devices, and others. I couldn't find anything that was slim, or could work with an existing lamp, or the costs were $100+.

A $5 nightlight that senses darkness is my automation solution to the problem. $0.02 per year electricity and I'm all set.

nah - even modern dimmers are digital too.

I see where you're going with that thought. A pulmonary doctor probably wouldn't make a good heart surgeon. But should know what the heart is and some of the basics around it. Expert? no. That it exists? probably. What about the nervous system? or cancers across the whole body? Brain?

It comes down to what we consider the basics. I self studied cryptography enough to know that I don't know enough - those who hack think differently than I do. In this day and age would I expect developers of web based products to understand that security is important? yes. Know how to do it properly? no.

If security was extra important to me - I'd hire a few experts with varying roles and have them define the standards that other developers need to follow.

When I started (20+ years ago) I didn't know what a database was, or how to attach to it. Heck - HTML didn't exist yet. Now I'll bet I could give the best of them a run for the money. Cryptography? I know it exists - and would hire an expert. Could I learn it? Absolutely.

How much you payin' and when do I start?

NoFlyZone is like those 800 "who-calls-me" web sites. Maybe they will raise issue awareness - but like who-calls-me there isn't anything they can do about it. Its just a place for people to complain.

Better yet - it looks to be structured just like the DoNotCallMe database.

I like that an advertisement for a "who-calls-me" like service made it onto /.

Seems that is how the off-market auto parts works. Steal the whole car (or parts - like just Xenon headlights) and chop it up. Hard to sell the chassis because of the VIN# But you could sell the airbags, radio, tires, wheels, fenders etc for big profit. They became so good that these stolen parts made it into the regular supply chain. Next time your cellphone screen cracks - will you send it back to the manufacturer or take it around the corner to the cheap(er) repair shop?

Supply & Demand meets The Innovators.

Nowadays even the airbags have chips in them.

That article was - eh - short. I'm not sure I learned anything from it, maybe I'm having a TL;TR day.

But if the requestor really wants 13k documents - let'em crowd fund it and make the case to the public.

I'd be humored to find out if the gov't would even do the work if $1.4m showed up in their bank account. Hah - pay them in cash with amounts under $10,000 to trigger the IRS monitoring of drug crimes.

Why is this news worthy of geeks? Apple - may or may not be doing something - but it is too early to tell what - and they may not actually be doing it, and if they are it may or may not be with an iDevice. But we can't tell.

Look - Apple Watch!!