Clearly this is a system where a few people get to dictate scarcity and inflate prices to keep competition out of the market. I'm glad it's being turned on its head.

I got distracted by the crazy link bait crap at the bottom of the page. Come on slashdot... I've been a member for nearly 15 years but you're about to lose me. I don't mind a banner ad here or there but I see one more "10 foods that'll make you old" I'm going to scream.

Oh yeah, so the intersection of a crazy and computer science brought this to life... oh great.

Really? The US is now a net producer of energy and our economy is the healthiest in the world by a large margin. What's the downside to the US to continue to punch Russia in the gut? We mainly import raw materials from Russia that we can gladly import elsewhere or get domestically.

Currently Soyuz is the only way to get to the ISS, but once SpaceX gets the DragonRider fully man rated, then we don't Russia for that either.

If I was Russia, I'd be looking at the current situation in a state of horror. The crashing price in oil, the Europeans quiet but steady reduction in their dependence on Russian gas. I think the next five years in Russia are going to be interesting (as in the Chinese proverb)

I came here to make this joke but found it already made. Thanks!

I know this is crazy but what if we just addressed the mental issues that were causing people to run into schools and start shooting. I imagine in the long run this is a better solution that deploying mechanisms to stop shooters. What's next? Ceiling mounted turret guns to neutralize shooters? Remove all the windows and build the school as a bunker?

At some point this becomes a perfect attacker / defender death spiral?

I agree whole heartily. As a white guy in IT with a BS in Comp Sci. Here's what I've seen.
1. In a class of ~500 CS majors, we had maybe 10 black students. Of that number, I *think* only 2 or 3 graduated?
2. In my ~15 year career as a devops IT guy I've worked with exactly two black co-workers who've been in the same org-chart as me.

Why is it that other racial/ethnic groups aren't attracted to STEM? Unfortunately, I don't a good answer.

Moffett is the place that Mythbusters conducts their more messy experiments such as crashing cars, etc. I wonder if google will still be amicable to them blowing up /crashing / setting fire to stuff.

Likely they won't have access to the giant hangar anymore...

Is to not play at all.

The Russian government while claiming one thing does something completely different? We can't even throw stones in that regard around here either. It's been long known that being openly gay in Russia is very hazardous for your health.

How is this surprising to anybody? Exactly, it's not.

It seems that when these guys have a choice between transparency and something that would make them look like even bigger autocratic police state thugs, they choose to double down on thuggery. Who ever they've hired for a P.R. firm needs to be fired...

It would appear the only choice this police department is going to have soon enough to be completely dispanded and taken over by the state police. Then an entirely new group of officers with new commanders and a new chief need to be put in place.

If these officers would like to apply for positions in other communities they are more than welcome, but not in Ferguson.

Awesome. Now get back to make my Apple stock worth more!

Can't I have both? Rocking out to Phil Collins while playing R-Type and Phantasy Star sounds awesome!

Let's swap out all the sand with brown sugar and all the scorpions with gummy bears and the venomous snakes with licorice!

I'm surprised it took this long! While not a PHP programmer, I've looked at some bits of the code and it's a bloody mess.

php should get a new motto: "Please Hijack our Platform"

Which version of Genesis would you like to go with? You do know the bible contains multiple conflicting versions...

I do like how you've taken the Ark story and turn it into a bastardized panspermia myth. The idea that earth was colonized by super beings from outer space sounds awesome! I'll put on the shelf next to my book of native american creation myths.

As for the bible, it's a train wreck. You can take the bible and make ANYTHING out of it. It's theological mess, it's a moral mess, it's self contradictory mess. This is why we've got X denominations of Christians who can't decide on any single part of the bible. For every part that you like, you'll find some other group who has issue with it.

However, our fossil record does not contain any evidence of alien origin. We have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to transitional fossils and genetic evidence and radiometric dating that shows that genetically and chemically we're all related. You have lots of DNA in common with an oak tree, and a bunny, and a fish, and a chimpanzee, etc. I'll grant you that maybe some comet crashed to earth 4.5 billion years ago that had a strand of DNA in it and whole process got kicked off. However, until we start catching comets and examining them for evidence of genetic materials or the precursors therein, it's just a hypothesis without any evidence.

Making the argument that the Earth as been geo-engineered for humans is preposterous. 2/3's of it is covered with water we can't drink! Large swaths are covered with desserts and mountain ranges. There are earthquakes and volcanoes, etc.