We can't do both? Mightn't researching how to terraform an uninhabitable planet lead to valuable insights into how to "unfuck" ours?

I wholeheartedly agree! Venus is a much, much better target for terraforming. Mars can't even hold an atmosphere, Venus already has one. We just need to fix it.

Although it would really stink for the first colonists.

I thought it was a size issue. Well, a mass issue anyhow. Mars not having enough of it (so not enough gravity) to retain an atmosphere for very long.

One of the reasons I think Venus is a better planet to terraform. It has an atmosphere, we just need something that will break down carbon and sulphur dioxides. The first is easy, and I bet we could engineer something to do the second.

What if girls are more likely to get more out of the toy if it is painted pink, and boys more out of it if there are explosions on the box?

If making cosmetic changes so you have two versions of the same product, one targeted for boys, one for girls, means both will want it and use it more, then that is the way to go. Complete gender neutrality might not be all that appealing, which means the toy will sit on shelves gathering dust instead of getting kids interested in anything.

Why pretend that men and women aren't different and shoot ourselves in the foot by making things less efficient, when working with those differences can improve outcomes?

Yet if you present a child with both sets of "gendered" toys from the start, the majority will prefer those for their own gender. So far as I know it is not well studied. The fact that Larry Summers lost his job running Harvard for suggesting it was worth studying may have had something of a chilling effect. But, he tried it with his own children, from birth, and his son went for trucks and his daughter went for dolls.

That kids will play with anything they can imagine as a toy doesn't mean they don't have preferences that might not be satisfied by the available options.

This isn't about reinforcing gender stereotypes, it's about presentation! Boys and girls like different kinds of toys. If you want a kid to use an educational toy, it had better be a kind of toy they will be willing to play with. Giving a boy a doll (well armed action figures don't count) probably won't work, nor will giving a girl a gun shaped toy.

If you don't give kids toys they will be interested in picking up, any educational value is meaningless.

You absolutely shouldn't. It's total nonsense. It's like saying you should pay a tobacco tax when you purchase a lighter, because it could be used to light a cigarette.

Offer them a "deal" - one for $500k, both for $750k

Why worry? Federal law requires that providers allow you to use your own hardware. You'll probably have to tell them, maybe rent a card, but past that they have have to shut up and take it.

What about the federal regulations requiring them to allow you to use your own hardware?

This pleases me greatly. I'm sick of having to uninstall that crap from all my workstations.

after all, we generate power from microbial respiration! We just call them mitochondria.

Well, there is a lot of space up there. ~1,292,613,096,000 km^3

The FCC's regulatory authority doesn't extend to space. I'm not saying SpaceX shouldn't tell them, it's the polite thing to do, but asking for permission?

I suppose they know what they're doing, but if the FCC says "no", I think they should consider responding with the finger and a launch.

Sure, given a good key manager, but what about a human? The practical impossibility of breaking modern cryptography goes out the window once you factor in human vulnerabilities. Why brute-force a key if you can trick somebody into giving you a head start?