Question is, would the more proper term be "disruption"? :)

True - though to be fair, the really old stuff was based on what they knew at the time (with the rest being based on theories and suppositions; e.g. where posited that "ether" existed in space, where we know hard vacuum exists today.)

It's still fun to read, though - anyone with sufficient knowledge on the subject and a love of the evolution of human thinking can see and appreciate how far we've come, no? For instance, I have a 2nd Edition copy of Worlds Other Than Ours, printed in 1870-something (forgot exactly which year - it's at home.) It even came with color illustrations of various planets that were known about at the time. A huge chunk of it is grossly and flat-out wrong about what our environment is like viz. the Solar System. Some of it is so far off kilter that it's funny that folks seriously thought certain things were true, but at the same time you can still see in those words the yearning to learn more, and to know more - even in a book that claimed to be authoritative on the subject.

So yeah - I wouldn't go too hard on those now long-dead folks. I just wouldn't take everything they wrote as gospel, either.

Depends on the troll...

In the bad/good old days, many of us did it for two reasons: one, to elicit responses and anguish (many of which were often hilarious), and two, to learn a bit more about the 'opposing' side, while forcing them to think harder as well (and not just rely on soundbites.) Many of the most classic trolls were witty, devastating, and sharp as a scalpel... enough so that even if you were the target, you often laughed your ass off in spite of yourself.

It was, sadly, nothing at all like the dreck you often see today.

Call it a nasty side-effect of Eternal September (the AOL/WebTV crowd) - along with the masses coming online, you wound up with their level of thinking. :(

FYI - the biggest reason for the price drop wasn't economies of scale, but because China flooded the unholy fuck out of the solar market, in a bid to dominate it since manufacturing solar panels isn't all that technically complex (at least not when compared to most other things).

It used to cost around $3/Wp, and China's backing of SunPower, SunTech and similar ventures glutted the price down to ~$0.90/Wp; however, last I checked a couple of years ago (I used to work for SolarWorld) it still cost around $1.25/Wp to manufacture a 250W panel, and that's not counting margins slimmer than even a PC OEM enjoys.

What sibling said, and in addition most stealth-based aircraft carry radar reflectors in peacetime to aid ATC as a safety measure (the F-117's reflectors bolted right onto the sides.)

Depends.

I once worked for a company that wrote web banking software. The laptops/desktops/etc of certain employees had a 'driver' that continually monitored the USB ports. If anything plugged into it that had storage on it but not the proper corporate auth key to connect as an approved storage device? It would automatically send an email to the IT department, immediately shut off the entire USB subsystem in the OS, and it stayed that way until the device was re-imaged (in many cases making the device completely useless). It also got you immediately perp-walked out of the building and freshly unemployed, unless you could immediately give them a reasonable (and provable) explanation as to why it happened.

Now in this case, I suspect that if the bad stick presented itself to the OS as a keyboard/mouse/whatever, it may circumvent that (I say "may" because I don't know if it would be able to dump any non-keyboard/mouse-related data onto the machine w/o presenting itself as storage.)

Either way, if you're that worried about it, then epoxy the USB ports shut (well, except on the phone for obvious reasons...)

...same way a lot of them made MCSE back in the dot-boom: braindump websites.

Wait - you can still work as a paralegal or in a similar support role until you pass the bar as a full-blown lawyer, no?

You kidding? I'd love to go myself - you see, some of us actually want to know what's out there, and to see it first-hand.

I meant "heartless" in the vein that they have no heart for it.

Give the physiologic changes that microgravity brings, I'd be surprised if sex was even possible without some engineering and pharmaceutical assistance...

Sadly, you're right. The same fuckers that make that decision are probably the same ones who think that artificial insemination is vastly superior to sex. Objectively they'd be right for the purpose of reproduction, but they're still a bunch of heartless assholes for basing public policy on it.

Agreed again - open the damn thing to commercial exploitation and see how fast NASA catches up.

Well, there's always the Core Installation... well, if you really like PowerShell.

(...and seriously, bash is 10 miles more flexible, effective, intuitive...)

Worse, really - even McCarthyism required some sort of evidence by way of associations, party memberships, and etc.

In this case, you don't even get that.

Well, not entirely "no point"... (and I didn't even have to bring up zones ;) )

...more like an awesome way for Google to grab a profitable patent in exchange for the prize money.

Seriously - if you can pop those kind of specifications, you can make a hell of a lot more than a million bucks from the patent alone.