Sure, it flies high, but according to Wikipedia top speed is about 500 mph, and it's very unstable, it would definitely not be doing any fancy twists and turns. So you're talking about a tiny object flying fairly slow and straight at 70,000 feet. I don't see it attracting a lot of attention. The whole point of the plane was that the Soviets couldn't detect it(didn't work out so well, but most civilians aren't walking around with high-powered radar arrays)

I have a 4S, 2+ years old, iOS 8, works great. I have to power cycle it once every few months, no big deal. Mine has spent its life in an Otterbox, maybe that makes the difference.

I played the Giant series of modules mentioned in the article, but never heard of Quagmire. Can't believe they couldn't come up with a better title. Still, fun to see what was going on behind the scenes at TSR.

Great comment. Do you have a newsletter? :-)

As far as I know, most minorities have access to electricity, water, and telephones. But treating internet like a utility will somehow keep it out of the inner city? And the free market will soon be bringing low-cost internet to the poor that's just as good as the overpriced connection I pay for? What planet do these guys live on?

We used to have DSL, but we're so far from the substation that streaming video....didn't. So it's overpriced comcast or nothing. Yay free market!!!!!

I will say Comcast's service has gone from pretty good with frequent patches of crappiness, to mostly pretty good. Which it damn well should be, for what we're paying them.

Also, the prosperity gains from the previous transformations seem to be pretty short lived. It's almost as if those at the top rig the system so they get all the benefits.

Bought a new coffeemaker last year, it has an oh-so-helpful alarm to let you know when the coffee's finished. Which can't be switched off. So when I get up early on Saturday to a nice quiet house, my frickin coffee-maker has to emit 5 piercing beeps to let all the sleepers know I'm making coffee. Really nice when someone is crashed in the living room.

We need a coffee luddite movement.

Yucca Mountain is the best we've come up with, and it's a disaster any way you look at it. And plan B is...what exactly?

Fire departments do a lot of EMT work. This would be a great tool for getting a medic to an injured person in rugged terrain. But aside from that, I'm not seeing it either. And your medic will need to be well-trained in flying this thing, or he'll need a medic. Training is expensive, combined with the cost of buying this thing the market for these seems pretty limited.

In short, I don't see sales of this jet pack taking off.*ducks*

My high school did not have computers. The junior college I attended did, for those that took programming classes. Radio Shak was selling the TRS-80, we'd hang out at the mall and play Star Trek on it. So no, computers weren't everywhere, but they weren't hard to find. I have to confess I'm not familiar with PLATO.

Earth's gravity is roughly 10m/s^2, so the the comet's gravitational attraction is about ten thousand times weaker than ours. Disclaimer: I am not a physicist, and yes, I know "ten thousand times weaker" is crappy phrasing.

I do love the fact that the thing has what appears to be a functional rear derailler.

" 66,734 attempts to distribute credit-card information..and 345,342 attempts to distribute social security numbers."

Is there a definition of distribute that I'm not aware of? If I break into a bank, I'm not trying to distribute a million dollars. Who are these hackers, Robin Hood?

They give plenty to both parties . No reason to think Democrats are in their pockets any more than Republicans.