Perhaps we should have a system for funding drug development in some way other than per-pill prices.

If 10,000 people have a deadly disease that can be cured with one pill, and one of them is Bill Gates and the rest are poor, then you could maximize profits by charging a billion dollars for the pill, and letting the other 9,999 people die. That is clearly a market failure. This is an extreme example, but is similar in principle to how medicine is actually priced.

Yes. Quite a few satellites measure the Earth's IR emissions. Much of the sunlight that falls on the Earth is absorbed and re-emitted as IR. That is sort of the whole point of this search. An uninhabited star system will have only a very small fraction (maybe a billionth) of its light absorbed by planets and re-emitted as IR. But an inhabited star system, surrounded by a Dyson Sphere, will emit far more, or perhaps all, of it energy as IR. From what we understand about thermodynamics, this is impossible to avoid, so any civilization that uses energy on a solar or galactic scale should be detectable.

The problem with this argument is that you've just listed the only things he will be missing with a budget purchase. Ideal viewing times for these come rarely, and at the magnifications required he would also need a very expensive tracking mount in order to really enjoy them.

Astronomy binoculars have many benefits in the budget arena. They are rugged, low maintenance, both eyes is nice, and most importantly portable.

The other reply had mentioned that a downside is that they are hard to hold steady. Thats what a tripod is for.

The problem with reflectors is that they are not low enough maintenance for children. They are cheaper for the same light collecting ability, but you absolutely cannot expect a kid to be able to collimate one and they are not nearly as rugged as you would like.

This means the parent becomes the gatekeeper of reflectors. The telescope only gets used when the parent is willing to set it up.

Refractors cost a bit more for the same aperture, but they are so much closer to point-and-look rugged and low maintenance. 90mm refractors can be had for $150 which are more or less equivalent to 100mm reflectors in regards to light collection. If the tripod gets knocked over by the child you will cringe but it is unlikely to be damaged unless this happened on concrete.

Someone above had mentioned low-magnification large-lens binoculars and I think that they are probably a much better introduction, as they are also rugged and low maintenance but have the added advantage that they serve useful purposes in daylight. Many are made especially for astronomy and come with tripods (a critique of one of the replies was the incorrect assertion that telescopes have tripods and binoculars dont.)

Low magnification isnt a downside. There is very little to really see at high magnifications unless you have a telescope with really good optics, which is not happening on a budget and isnt recommended for children. Sure, rings of saturn... a few moons of jupiter.. and then nothing else really benefits from high magnification on a budget. Meanwhile the sky is filled with nebula...

They are for sale on hundreds of sites, and hundreds more sellers on eBay. Not a "niche" market at all.

No way. That is 20 cents each. The lowest price, from eBay sellers in China, is $2 each. There is absolutely no way that a 90% margin could be maintained in a competitive market. If they wholesaled for 20 cents, someone would be hawking them on eBay for a 10% markup, or 22 cents. Maybe less.

Seldom accessed HDDs can be spun down, or even completely powered off.

Do they? I have seen estimates of 10-15 years for recorded BluRay, but that assumes they are kept cool and dry. If they are kept in a humid environment with big swings in temp, the lifetime might be much shorter.

Also, you are assuming the replacement price of a new HDD five years from now would be the same as now. This is almost certainly not true. HDD prices have historically fallen much faster than Moore's Law. So in five years, you may be able to get 20GB for what a 4GB HDD costs today. Historically, optical disc prices have fallen much more slowly.

Facebook does not use "enterprise grade" HDDs. There is no evidence that "enterprise grade" HDDs are faster, or more reliable. "Enterprise grade" is really just a label slapped on some drives to give stupid people something to spend their money on.

A quick on-line search show a spindle of fifty 50GB Blu-Ray discs (2.5 TB) retails for about $100. A 4TB HDD costs about $140. So HDD is actually cheaper per byte of storage. Maybe wholesale price ratios are way different from retail, but I see no reason to assume that. So BluRay doesn't win on price, volume, or access speed. The concerns about moisture and big temperature swings seems odd. Are Facebook data centers exposed to the weather?

Shhhhh!

Don't let the liberals in on the consequences of their beliefs. It only affords them the opportunity to think up incorrect excuses much sooner.

Except that the site was NOT required. Most states did NOT implement their own site, and either default to the federal site or formed a regional partnership.

For a 3-4 year old, that is true. For a 9-10 year old, it is the other way around. They should already be familiar with gears, cogs, and shafts, and will learn a lot more by figuring out resisters, diodes, and integrated circuits. Then they will never again consider a PCB to be a incomprehensible "brick".

Why the China bashing? It is not illegal to write a story about guns in China, and I have never heard of this sort of political knee jerk reaction there. An American is FOUR TIMES as likely to be arrested and imprisoned by their government as a Chinese citizen.

and people who didn't earn the money want to spend it.

You are the problem. Stop trying to police everyone. Stop trying to be everyone's insane busybody mom. Mind your own business.