Good news?

It's not happening, though. This year is really, really close to last year so it's more like a 2 year rebound from a new record low. If we're really lucky, 2012's minimum extent record will stand for a decade or longer. That would be good news for us, but I don't expect it to.

Using KH-11? ;-) It's close enough, anyway.

You've just publicly proven that you're a moron. Does that make you happy?

Based on your "logic", you don't. Otherwise you wouldn't be trying to hide something using perspective from across a room. You also nonsensically talk about "close-ups" when pictures of objects taken using lenses of different focal lengths can actually have the same dimension in the photos, with only the amount of perspective being different. Perhaps you need a refresher on geometry?

If I'm not mistaken, the parallax explanation would require a distance of the button side of no more than 35 cm from the lens' front principal plane. Doesn't it at least suggest that they tried fairly hard to consciously push the perspective? The usual 100mm macro lens would only be able to fit it in diagonally, I think.

Yeah, I'm sure the postdoc herself would prefer a somewhat more polished text.

It's the Dawg Star, but navigating with it will be difficult. Too dim.

And you're puzzled by that? It runs Linux! ;-)

The Orion capsule's extra shielding for BEO flights is useless mass for LEO flights, not to mention the extra cost.

They taught you a quantum of English necessary for relativistic writing?

and am soooo pleased to be rid of the other ISPs I've been stuck with in the past.

And of course *the moment* Google rolled out in this area, a bunch of other ISPs magically offered a competitive 1Gbps fiber plan as well.

Too late—you had me. And you pissed me off. And now I'm gone.

This is a pretty transparent proposal to immediately cap speeds, then approach platforms for extortion money based on user demand.

In short, it's exactly the same thing. The words have changed, but the idea about what to do with the cables is the same.

Orion is overengineered for ferrying stuff to LEO and back. Too much propulsion, too much life support, etc. Why would anyone pay the extra costs for the capsules and for the heavy launchers just to provision a LEO space station?

Narrowly, IF you count the unpiloted test flights. Otherwise it's 6 LEO flights vs. 9 BEO flights, unless I'm missed some. And NASA used Apollo for LEO flights because the last Moon flights got canceled and they had to use up the stuff they had for something else (including the design and tooling, given that a new design would have been even more expensive).

If you were not an Apple user, your argument, indeed your wants, might matter. But you have chosen your "walled garden" and you must enjoy it. The theme music for your "walled garden" is the latest U2 Album. Enjoy your Bono.

You can always buy a portable HF/VHF transceiver with some nifty digi modes. When disaster comes, what else is going to work anyway?