OK, I realize I may skew a little older than many Slashdot readers, so here. Consider this your Easter gift:

http://youtu.be/ftgAG3Vnif8

Do you think you can use adamantium in a 3D printer?

Asking for a friend.

I had an uncle with a wooden leg and I thought it was a big deal until I found out my aunt had a cedar chest.

Unlike every previous launch, however, we the taxpayers are paying a fixed price to SpaceX, instead of the bloated cost-plus contracts that are large part of the reason why there hasn't been much progress in manned spaceflight in the last four decades.

Well, it's theoretically less expensive, but not yet. If you extrapolate out 50 missions, you start seeing SpaceX making an actual profit instead of a projected profit based on a fee stream.

My problem is that the entire thing still relies on government. If there is value in a "private" space industry, it hasn't been found yet.

Further, none of the profits ever materialize if you look at the external costs of the federal government already having done the hard work. Unless you believe SpaceX started with a clean sheet of paper and didn't make use of the past half-century of government space programs.

At best, you can say that there's a place for government and private industry to work together on the really big things like space travel. Without the government over-spending, there's good reason to believe we'd never have seen any space program at all. Or, convince me that without the initial public investment, any private company would have done the basic research required to send the first satellite into space.

Sorry friend, the design of the NASA space stations were done by NASA. They had private industry do the industrial part because they wanted to reward big political donations.

Either way though, it's a good thing we didn't wait for "private industry" to go to space, or we'd still be in the Sputnik stage.

The first space station went up in 1971. Forty-three years later, private industry figures out how to send a rocket up there. With taxpayers footing the bill.

John Galt is half a retard.

Tablets

You mean the 10 Commandments kind?

Thou shalt not take thyself so seriously that you think you have to save everything.

Your having been to space is no guarantee that you're not crap-on-the-floor looney.

I would have thought that we've learned better than to pay too much attention to former astronauts. They might well be right about the asteroids, but I still think we should go ahead and get a second opinion on this.

ecosystem

You use words the way hillbillies use corn cobs.

Are you certain that you know what's happening in Ukraine and why?

That U.S. crotch you're cheerfully kicking might not be able to bail out your "actual civilized" buttocks from the next war.

I'm pretty sure Europeans are more worried about the US starting the next war.

The thing Europeans like best about the US military is all the coin we drop having bases there. Unless you count Serbia, where the US military is about as welcome as a bladder infection.

north korea is the westboro baptist church of countries

they want to offend

like an internet troll, every negative reaction is positive reinforcement

came here to say this

that pipeline is going to be shut off once a year in march or april, until running capitalist dogs pay attention to the psychotic state and pay a ransom

Small employers have ripped me off a few times now. Whenever they want to pay you as a contractor (handled by the 1099 form in the US) instead of as an employee (the W2 form in the US), watch out. Mind, though, the W2 isn't proof against employer cheating either, it's only a little more protection than the 1099.

Startups will share the risks without properly informing their workers and getting consent to do so, and at the same time arrange not to share the rewards, should they be successful. The first official word you may get that the company is failing is that they can't make payroll, and this of course occurs when they owe you a month of pay. They knew money was running out and that if sales didn't pick up or more like start, they would be unable to pay everyone, but they refuse to talk or think about that because that's defeatism. Just before the end, they will likely crank up the stress levels, try to drive everyone to work extra extra hard. They're deluding themselves that mere hard work can get through the crisis, when the problem is that their idea was actually not much good. When it doesn't work, the crying and wailing comes out of the closet. How can you whine about the month of pay they owe you, when their precious business failed? Can't you see they're hurting more than you? Oh, and they'll beg you to keep working for free. Surely the business will succeed with just a little more time and effort.

Only way I've found to avoid getting screwed by a failing startup is to read between the lines. If it's not going well, get out before the money runs out. If they're lying to themselves, they sure aren't giving it to the workers straight. The government can't help you. Yeah, you can sue the employer, and win, but if the business really is broke you will get nothing. Compared to collecting, suing and winning is easy.

Life isn't fair that way. Hard work often isn't rewarded. The Protestant Work Ethic sometimes is a cruel delusion. All those conservatives who think "get a job" is the magic that separates a good citizen from a lazy mooching bum ought to experience failure after failure.

You're not really going to humiliate yourself by continuing this, are you?