Gravity slingshots and curvature. It's very ineffecient to travel in a straight line from Earth to Mars.

No, the likelihood of getting bricked is really small, although the likelihood of misaligned or damaged equipment failure is much greater.

"Bricking" is really small because there is always a known, good image that preceded the update. In the case of a failure, these spacecraft go into a "safe hold" mode (there are actually several different safe hold levels). The lowest safe hold level ensures that the operator always has access to a low-level monitor. This monitor allows the operator to select which image is booted, so there's always a way to get back to a known, good state.

The operator can really brick the vehicle if instruments and antennae get misaligned, but that's a cascade failure (multiple things have to go wrong) that could be fixed by a higher safe hold level.

There's a lot of redundancy on these vehicles.

Is it me, or do the vast majority of environmental activists seem to be stuck in an Armageddon scenario infinite loop? To be sure, nuclear energy presents issues, like everything else, but I'm not sure that engaging in maximalist interpretations of all events is helpful.

Consider the United States Navy's nuclear program. Other than the Thresher incident, the USN's nuclear program has had remarkably few incidents or major mishaps (caveat: these reactors are designed to generate power, not weapons material.)

When I install a Linux distro, I generally just adapt to the default desktop environment, although my preference tends to be KDE.

My largest problem with GNOME is not its modularity or architecture, but the shear bulk of repitition of doing a single task. GNOME has become its own worst enemy and a victim of its own success -- open source (check!), lots of options (check! check!), even more options because someone forked (check! check! check! check! check!)...

Glass-Steagall was repealed at the end of the Clinton administration. It's effects were felt during the Bush-43 administration.

My customers ask this question all of the time -- who's better? The answer isn't which is better, but which CAP properties do you want. You want consistency -- go with SQL and get the data model right to optimize performance. You have situations where availability and partitionability are important -- let's develop a matrix of noSQL solutions based on what data you're going to ingest. XML, you say? mongodb is probably the best fit? Trawling over metadata? Key-value stores are better. Etc. Etc.

The one place where there is a substantial difference is geospatial indexing -- noSQL databases appear to do this a lot better than the SQL databases. YMMV, though.

The software wasn't written by the USG, it was written under contract to be delivered to the USG. Subtle difference, but no, the software is not in the public domain because it wasn't written by the USG. See the "Software System Acquisition 101" post below...

Joe Taxpayer doesn't get access to the GWA software or source code as the result of how the FAR rights and data rights work. Moreover, Bo Zhang committed theft from his employer, not Joe Taxpayer.

Software is acquired from a contractor, so the Federal Acquisition Rules and various tailored versions, e.g., DFARS, apply. It is not developed by the USG, unless specifically talking about something that a USG civilian employee (__not__ a contractor) authored.

The government purchases systems, writes contracts to acquire systems. Source code is considered data -- so the applicable FARS and DFARS are technical rights to data. Data rights are negotiated separately from software (system) rights and source code is delivered as part of a separate contract deliverable requirement list (CDRL) item, if the source code is even delivered. In 99.999% of contracts I've seen, source code is never delivered and when it is delivered, the most restrictive data rights are applied.

A lot, though, is changing through the DoD's Open Architecture initiatives (formerly the Navy's Open Architecture Program). Source code is expected to be delivered as a CDRL item with unrestricted rights as the default. And it turns out that the GPL is a version of a unrestricted license (I know because I spent a week with the SFLC and a Navy IP attorney collecting the information), so there's some hope on the horizon.

Bad news for those of you hoping to get a major weapons system's source code: The USG is the owner of the conveyed executable, so only the USG gets the source code.

Software is acquired from a contractor, so the Federal Acquisition Rules and various tailored versions, e.g., DFARS, apply.

The government purchases systems. Source code is considered data -- so the applicable FARS and DFARS are technical rights to data. Data rights are negotiated separately from software (system) rights and source code is delivered as part of a separate contract deliverable requirement list (CDRL) item, if the source code is even delivered. In 99.999% of contracts I've seen, source code is never delivered and when it is delivered, the most restrictive data rights are applied.

A lot, though, is changing through the DoD's Open Architecture initiatives (formerly the Navy's Open Architecture Program). Source code is expected to be delivered as a CDRL item with unrestricted rights as the default. And it turns out that the GPL is a version of a unrestricted license (I know because I spent a week with the SFLC and a Navy IP attorney collecting the information), so there's some hope on the horizon.

Bad news for those of you hoping to get a major weapons system's source code: The USG is the owner of the conveyed executable, so only the USG gets the source code.

Even if the sub reaches crush depth, the reactor itself is very heavily protected. Note that I'm not saying that exposing the reactor core to seawater is impossible, but given all of the safeguards, it's highly unlikely.

Closed loop system. Never exposed to outside water sources.

Sure, uranium could leach into the ocean. But at what concentration? And at what expected half life?

Uranium has a long half life, so the risk is tolerable. Estimates have been that more uranium is in sea water than will ever be mined. Good reason for some people to stay put of the water, More space for the rest of us to play, I guess.

I'm always surprised at the number of people who think that long lived isotopes are more dangerous than short lived ones.

Clearly you don't understand Ayn Rand or you only understand the usual dizinformatsia. She never said that one shouldn't care or be empathetic to others. What she said was that one needs to take care of oneself first before helping others. Living in a society or culture where others' needs come before mine (altruism) means that I must cede my self determination to the whim of the collective.

As much as Steve Jobs wanted to be countercultural, without the uniquely American version of self determination, he would have never achieved the success that is Apple.

Heck, you can find any number of Ayn Rand fans who also do a lot of philanthropic work -- but you have to have the personal means to be philanthropic first.

Disclaimer: I'm an Ayn Rand fan and Freemason (yes, for you objectivists, that's a contradiction -- but where do you think the ideas that became the United States came from?)