Seems like the cooling relations between the US and Russia are already resulting in a lot more spaceflight initiatives. It's a shame that we cannot "yearn for the stars" out of wonder instead of conflict and competition.

Me: "Does your mother know you are an Internet scam artist for a living?"

-click-

This is the recliner you've been looking for.

You're welcome.

The last time I assembled a computer from individual electrical components was in 1982.

So they didn't get payment information, but they got everything they needed to apply for credit in your name. Perfect. It took me an hour to buy my last laptop in a retail store with my credit card in my hand because my card company was so totally paranoid about fraud that they put me through the third degree to ensure I was who I said I was. And it's just going to get worse.

At this rate cash will be king again. Oh no, wait, that can be fraudulent too. Essentially, it is getting impossible to spend your own money.

What you need are good processes and a common way of expressing how these processes are adhered to. Get yourself ITIL certified and make sure that either the person you hire is certified or that is the first thing you have them do. You don't have to be a big shop for this to be relevant.

On a day-to-day level you need to be the person who is accountable for any and all changes, which mean you must approve them. Yes, you are handing over the keys, but not permission to run roughshod over the environment.

Also, a good manager "inspects" but does not "micromanage". If you keep this principle in mind and establish some good processes, you will be golden.

He designs and builds electric supercars and rockets. When you fart it just smells bad.

My daughter forgot her iPhone 4 in a pocket while doing laundry (commercial-sized front loader in an apartment building). The door locks when you start these. She panicked when she realized (like all teenagers do when they are without their device for 10 seconds) that she didn't have it and that it was probably in the wash.

No amount of convincing could get that machine to stop or open up, so she sat their crying for the entire wash cycle (I could only imagine what the accelerometer was doing during the spin cycle). When it stopped and unlocked she retrieved the phone and it was fine. Still works today two years later. I suspect the iPhone 4 will go down in history as being a really solid device, although with 10s of millions of them I'm sure there are lots of stories to the contrary.

Thanks for posting this. I had a 15C which I gave to a friend when I got a 28S. The 28S is still on my desk and still works brilliantly. Both calculators are my favourites. The 28S takes "N" batteries which were for "cameras" when cameras still had film in them. So they are getting a little harder to find. It takes a few years for them to die, but I'm starting to stockpile them anyway.

I'm guessing the button cells for the 15C are a little easier to find.

I am totally trying this with body paint next time I go to the beach.

Except that the massive pickup behind me who is driving 3 inches from my bumper revving his engine and cussing has no idea why I'm driving as slow as I am. I drive a VW clean diesel and my fuel economy (on average over three years) is already over 50mpg from driving like this as often as possible. Trust me, this initiative will go absolutely nowhere until the cars are driving themselves. You can't change human behaviour like you are hoping to. Even when they can see the red light in front of them people MUST get there as quickly as possible so they can stop and wait.

"Once again, companies try to prevent competition through legislation "

Yep. Ever wonder why you don't see more good light-duty trucks in the US? It's because of the Chicken Tax, a law from 1963. I kid you not. And the American consumer is the looser.

What is new about the Tesla situation is that it is an American company getting squeezed, rather than protection from goods from foreign countries.

If I lived in Ohio I would be asking my rep how this is good for me as a consumer and whether he's heard of social media.

Too bad, I was hoping to buy it and become Waldo.

On a more serious note, I don't see the ISS as a single "thing" that can/should be abandoned or destroyed. It is a collaborative effort of many people and many nations and is designed to be built upon and "developed". Like a new community. I'm hoping that we as a species find the right combination of profitability and marketability from it to ensure it is still in the sky long after I'm dead and buried. Perhaps we should start thinking of it as more of a "place" than a "thing".

Get your SuperSoaker ready and snow your friends!

I can't decide if I should be thrilled that we have achieved some kind of intellectual enlightened society evidenced by our capacity to be pedantic in a globally connected ecosystem of information, or appalled that people don't have better things to do with their time.

Perhaps we should have a discussion about this. On-line.