From TFA (2nd link): "Your CEO, and each officer, may be fined up to $1,000,000"

Now that's refreshing! Corporate misbehavior resulting in personal fines for the management. I could think of a few more cases where that would be a good idea.

"I know people who are losing two hours of their life a day commuting each way, "

I commute well over 2 hours, 4 days per week. I don't see it as lost time. I'm reading slashdot and other sites in the train like now (plenty of space since I travel after the peak hours). In addition, 15 km of cycling per day, which is my only exercise. Fortunately the climate over here allows cycling.

But the idea of driving a car for 2 h/day horrifies me...

I don't think you quite understand.

Wood is an excellent engineering material, it's widely used in construction, and can and has been very successfully used for ships, aircraft etc. During WWII, even when aluminium alloys were available, British designers used wood, to make very highly successful, fast, and very robust aircraft like the de Havilland Mosquito.

Yes, of course you have to consider multiple properties, but actually, wood is very good under lots of different properties, particularly compression, and wood in general and balsa structures in particular have *surreal* rigidity. See this table:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

so by weight, balsa is the most rigid material known, by a long, long way.

"just start charging per ip $1 per ip per year should be sufficient"

And who should benefit from the $4B/yr revenue? The American government because ICANN is in the US?

Actually:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Look down the list for stainless steel... then carry on down to 'balsa'.

Yup. Wood has a better strength to weigh ratio than stainless steel. (Only along the grain though but plywood fixes that, and you can put the strength in the direction you need it.)

Although they're not in the table, other woods are similar, but more dense.

Carbon fibers are five times stronger than steel and about a third the weight, so in a head to head competition, no way.

Still, it could compete with (say) steel if it's easier to work, cheaper, and less polluting.

Actually, the fastest dragster, albeit unofficial, ever was a rocket car powered by peroxide.

Rocket dragsters were basically banned for being too fast/dangerous.

Rocket engines very typically ARE internal combustion engines.

The definition of 'internal combustion' is that the pressures from the combustion gases cause the motion. (In external combustion engines, such as steam engines, the heat from the combustion goes through a heat exchanger and the working fluid on the other side of that does the work.)

In a rocket the exhaust gases push directly on the exhaust nozzle, and the interior of the combustion chamber and causes the motion, making it an internal combustion engine.

Some rockets (such as nuclear-thermal or solar-thermal rockets) do have a heat exchanger, and are not internal combustion engines, but not the common ones.

A3 = A6 * B6 + C8

versus:

sum = numberOfItems * costOfItem + salesTax

While you can *force* a spreadsheet to work like that, it's not the default, and the default makes it so very much easier to fuck up.

Yes, isn't believing in the truth of something that has been rigorously proved part of scientific literacy?

What would happen if the ones that don't believe humans evolved were forced to deal with some of the unequivocal data that backs it up, like genetics, would they still deny it and cause practical problems?

Further it raises the question as to who is trying to change the test, and why ;)

OK, replace "scientific community" by "anyone literate and educated".

There are well known midieval symbols for a sperical earth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

The notion of a spherical earth dates from around 400 B.C.

When a patent is filed, I believe the USPTO keeps it confidential for a long time (a year?) until it is well along in process, to avoid revealing its secrets long before the patent is decided.

In the standard procedure, the application is kept secret for 18 months; then the application is published; the USPTO will then wait another year or so (depending on the back log it could be much more) before deciding whether or not to grant the patent. In this time slot between publication and decision, competitors could point out relevant prior art to USPTO, which would affect the decision.

In the US system, one can also file a provisional patent application and wait 12 months before filing the final application, which will essentially stretch the confidential period from 18 to 30 months. This was the case here. The final application can differ from the provisional application (errors corrected, more examples provided, reworded claims, etc.). In case of relevant prior art that was published between the provisional and final application, the provisional application will count.

You don't understand, a lot of the people who are pro-executions don't want a painless peaceful death; not even when the statistics show that about 1 in 20 people are innocent.

> only rocket-powered plane ever built

Um... Opel RAK-1, and have you heard of the X-1? X-15?

Rocket planes are a thing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

"a big portion of what you experience with regards to a temperatures bearability is based on humidity. In a very dry climate, 40C won't feel bad. In a very humid climate, you can start sweating at 16C."

In addition to that, the temperature is only sampled at one point. There can be quite a difference between temperature of supply and exhaust. I think a normal office should be ventilated at 100 m3/h

A human, with computer and lighting (250 W) can generate 8 C temperature increase. If you're unlucky with the airflow patterns, you could have people sitting in zones on both ends of that range. Moreover, between summer and winter, the walls may have different temperatures, which will affect both the local air temperatures and the energy balance of thermal radiation between warm bodies and walls.