But, really, there has to be a degree of cognitive dissonance between the hope you'll do well and be super rich ... and the actual reality that, it's a tough slog, you might not get there, and you might have to trade away some equity to someone else to get there ... in which case your payout might not be as big as you hoped.

The difference between con-man and entrepreneur can be a thin line.

I've known a few people who fancied themselves the latter, but had worked themselves into such a feverish pitch trying to get there ended up as the former.

Sometimes people convince themselves things really are going to work out OK, even when completely unfounded. The human brain doesn't always like lying to itself.

If they can stay up for 80 hours, they should be able to do a "round-the-world" flight too.

It's going to take several days to fly from Japan to Hawaii. In the process he's beaten the record for longest solo flight ever.

P.S. Are you 12?

Are you asshole? Or do you just play one on the internet?

It's a single person aircraft, travelling at an average speed of 50 to 100 km/h (31 to 62 mph).

Yes, it's not a continuous flight. But it will, nonetheless, be the first time a solar powered aircraft will do it, and every leg is pretty much an epic task.

It's still circumnavigation.

So, boo hoo, you disagree with the terminology. Nobody else gives a damn.

I don't care about a plane making a series of relatively short flights under optimal conditions (daylight), and I don't see why anyone else does either.

Well, that doesn't seem to be what is happening:

Solar Impulse 2 took off from Nagoya, Japan on Sunday for its audacious five-day flight across the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii with Swiss pilot and Solar Impulse co-founder Andre Borschberg at the helm. It has since stayed in the air for three days and nights without using a single drop of fuel, grabbing the distance and duration records, 5,663 km (3,518 mi) and 80 hours respectively, in the process.

This isn't some jet engine which does this in a few hours.

You can whine all you want, but the records are real.

They're for solar aviation, which means it's a lot harder and a lot slower.

Call us back when you've done better.

Well, should that happen, then all the people who have been demanding their 2nd amendment rights be recognized will know what to do.

Yup, if we showed you the level of abuse we'll be doing you'd get scared off and not use our service, and our IPO could be in jeopardy.

For now they're trying to pretend they won't start acting like assholes as soon as they can.

Can't tell you how many times a day I hear or say "The 9".

You mean the Nazgul??

I always thought IBM was evil, but I never expected that.

I have no idea if it was the government or not.

I'm just no longer willing to dismiss out of hand that it was, and no longer wiling to accept the dismissal of the government being involved as crackpot.

As I said, stuff which used to be tinfoil-hat-crazy is now pretty much a daily reality.

Do I think they're beyond sowing some fear to be allowed to declare it under their control? Not even a little.

In fact, given everything else we know has actually happened, it's disturbingly plausible.

You simply can't be paranoid enough these days, because reality keeps trumping fantasy. And what used to sounds ridiculous is now pretty much established as fact.

Honestly, things which 10 years ago would have been the domain of crackpots is now 100% fact.

These days it seems like no matter how paranoid you are, what is really happening is even crazier.

When law enforcement commits perjury in the form of parallel construction, when they withhold knowledge of their surveillance technology, when they lie about what they're doing without a warrant, when they lie about how many times a technology has led to an arrest .. honestly, it's hard to not assume shady dealings by a three letter agency.

You can't make up stuff anymore which is as crazy as reality.

And given that these guys have cut into everybody else's telecomms ... why wouldn't they be doing it here?

It really is hard to dismiss "crackpot" these days, because the reality is shit like that is actually happening.

Horseshit.

When the tray icon appears, there is no dismiss. There is no "piss off and go away".

There "upgrade now" and "reserve your copy". There is no description of WTF not reserving my copy does, there is no dismiss. There is "I am going to sit here reminding you to upgrade to Windows 10 until you do".

The average user is going to read that and think "Oh, I guess I have to do this". It took me 20 minutes to identify the source and figure out what I had to remove.

When that crap is presented to you, there is NO indication it is optional, that you can cancel it, that you can choose not to do it .. in effect it presents itself with two choices "now or later".

And it means Microsoft is acting like they own the machine, and it's up to them to decide when to make changes to it.

They're doing more than advertising it.

In Windows 8.1 they pushed out an update which put an icon in the task tray which said "upgrade to Windows 10, now or later?"

They're not pushing it as optional. They're installing stuff which is going to do it to you, and isn't giving you a way to decline. You end up needing to uninstall an update (KB 3035538).

I'm sure they'll do it again.

Microsoft seems to have decided they own the computers, and the networks they're attached to. Which is completely bullshit.

And, don't forget, once they have all those juicy passwords they can pass 'em off to law enforcement.

Microsoft have always been assholes, but this takes the cake.

Basically Windows Phone and Windows 10 are gaping security holes, and Outlook.com is now acting as malware.

No, someone needs to be shot.

This is the most idiotic thing I've heard of in a long time.

Microsoft has said "fuck security", and once again have decided to "innovate" something which stupidly becomes a gaping security/privacy hole.

What shithead thought of this?

These passwords aren't Microsoft's to share, and decreeing that anybody who hasn't changed their SSID to opt out has consented.

Fuck that.

How bout we charge Microsoft with hacking and enabling unauthorized access to computer networks?

Fucking idiots.

So Microsoft has taken it upon themselves to share the network credentials with anybody it sees fit?

Fuck you, Microsoft. How about you help us make networks more secure and not less?

Not only will I stick with my Windows 8.1 install, but no Windows 10 device will ever get my network credentials.

This has to be one of the stupidest things I've heard of. And, of course, since Microsoft will centrally store your passwords, law enforcement can subpoena them.

Microsoft are too fucking incompetent at security to be trusted with this. And then to have the nerve to suggest we have to change our network names to opt out of their shit?

Fuck you, Microsoft. Fuck you very much.

In theory, it can do the job of the A-10, F-16, F/A-18, and Harrier Jump Jet (to name a few)

That's crazy.

So, tank-buster/ground attack, fighter jet, carrier launched fighter jet, and close air support.

There is simply no way in hell to replace the A-10, in terms of armament of hardening. Because the A-10 is ridiculous in terms of those things (and I mean that in the most awesome sense of the word, because it's legendary for survivability and that huge canon).

It can't replace the F-16, because it's not nearly as good at the same role, and can't beat it in the air.

If the F/A-18 is also a fighter I'd be curious to see if the F-35 can even touch that.

And a VTOL close air support aircraft, which is armed to the teeth and can do many tasks ... well, at this point I'm skeptical.

I'd be curious if there is a single aircraft this F-35 is supposed to replace, which it can actually best in that category.

If it is inferior in the specific features of the stuff it's replacing, it's pretty much a terrible aircraft.

WTF?! When was the last time you've ever heard of a dogfight?
The days of air-to-air combat are long gone. And where air-to-air combat is still needed, long range missiles take care of it.

Well, the reality is, like shock and awe, you can't just pretend you don't have to cover certain parts of warfare.

So, bombing the shit out of stuff and thinking people will become demoralized and welcome you with open arms ... utterly useless if you can't put boots on the ground. For the same reason that bombing ISIS only goes so far.

And, likewise, if you can't maintain air superiority in an up close and personal manner, you can't do the roles like close air ground support. So if you do have boots on the ground, you can't keep them safe if you get your ass kicked.

People can pretend this will never be needed again. That doesn't mean if you ever found yourself in an actual war you wouldn't.

So, if the people you're up against have things which can beat you down in a dogfight, you could quickly find yourself realizing you're ill equipped for a given situation.

Somewhere along the line they decided to make the Swiss-Army knife of aircraft, which it turns out is terribly suited to most of its applications.

Which is moot, because the plane is so late and over budget it should never go into production .. in which case it's years of wasted money and effort to come up with a solution which doesn't work.

Which, sadly, was what people said from the beginning.

This damned plane has been a big scam from the beginning.

It was going to be all things to all people, but in reality it was a way to get other countries to pay for the R&D of a huge wishlist of things which was never going to come true.

As someone who lives in one of the countries who got suckered into the F-35, this program has been nothing but lies and bullshit since it was announced.

This was the military listing a huge wishlist of things, including a pony, they were going to do.

Instead, it's underperforming, not up to the claims, over budget, years behind schedule, and still a crappy replacement for the things it was supposed to be doing.

Everything about the F-35 has been a pile of lies of bullshit since it was announced. And it seems like everybody (except the people selling it and the people who got conned into signing up for it) has know this for that entire time.

I hope everybody says "piss off" and walks away from the contract.

This plane is proving what people have been saying for the last decade -- that it was never going to live up to the promises made.

As a supposed air-superiority platform, this is an utter failure. I bet they don't even have the VTOL version working yet.