I don't know, I hear that Zeus is a heavy user of Google maps for pinpointing lighting bolt strikes.

Not sure about all the other gods, however.

"We should ban pens and paper so it doesn't happen again."

Oh, it's YOU. I was there that day. I would have been dead if I hadn't had a pen in my coat pocket to write "emergency exit" on the wall behind me.

So, no, I disagree. Pens don't kill people, aneurisms do.

I thought the idea of big data was that looking at ALL the data obviated the need to sample the data and all the attendant issues that come with that. Ferreting out bits and pieces of the big data set is a step backward from the idea of big data. Real numbers people can jump in here and set me straight.

However, my biggest hope for what is after big data is no one ever again having the title "Data Scientist."

Self-penalty: no posting to Slashdot for at least two weeks.

If you do actually Google "where does space start" you'll get a popular definition of 100km, so yes, quite a bit short.

I'm also not sure yet about the claim that they had the previous record. If you visit http://www.fai.org/record-glid... you'll see that in 2006 the late great Steve Fossett has a claim to a little higher than the Perlan claim. The Perlan claim doesn't even show up on the site.

Dammit. I got n+1.

Wow, you really ARE new around here, aren't you? I'd be OK with you calling it Obama's Torture Chamber if I thought you were just as aware that it was also Bush's Torture Chamber.

Hm?

Following are just a few sources are located on "the internet." I'm not sure who owns them but I do know they do not toe the part line. Whether you think they are valid or not, they ARE out there.

http://www.motherjones.com/
http://www.theguardian.com/us
http://www.kpfk.org/

"So no, it's not at all accurate to speculate that Von Braun was a Nazi or into that whole ideology."

No, he was just a guy who used up the lives of prisoners to meet his ends. He may not have been an ideologue, but he was a sociopath.

Because articles aren't just for those who can answer them. The rest of us are curious and want to learn new things, but when one keeps the subject shrouded in esoteric jargon (to this crowd mostly) that makes it hard to do.

"...and get yourself a job at a big corporate."

Ugh. Well, I'm not a hipster, but I guess I'll have to buy some hipster clothing if that's the only other option. At least the hipsters are allowed to use their imaginations.

"Visa wakes up, takes a dump, then wipes its ass with $300,000 dollars."

This must be the reason that all those money laundering schemes exist.

And Mussolini made the trains run on time?

I don't know. I was busy looking at the bottom of the page for the footnote to the asterisk.

"You think this began with THIS president?"

No, but many of us were hoping it would at least be reduced by this president. I am finally getting it through my head that Romney or Obama would have both basically done the same job of letting our rights slide down the tubes. This goes for any Democrat or Republican candidate. As long as Americans are fooled into not-voting or into voting for either of the two big parties nothing will change.