This happens a lot, and it's in the name of fairness and eliminating nepotism. It doesn't really work, though, if it's just a formality, and it wastes a lot of time and money on a pointless process.

It's a radio transmitter in a can. It would take an even larger departure from known physics to make it go boom. We have a good deal of experience with radio transmitters in space.

OK, I will try to restate in my baby talk since I don't remember this correctly.

Given that you are accelerating, the appearance to you is that you are doing so linearly, and time dilation is happening to you. It could appear to you that you reach your destination in a very short time, much shorter than light would allow. To the outside observer, however, time passes at a different rate and you never achieve light speed.

I am having an equally hard time thinking of how Earth is more habitable than Mars while atomic bombs are going off or impactors are impacting. If you wait a while, sure it's more habitable than Mars. But for that moment, no.

I had one a couple of years ago for which I expressed interest as I wanted to move to the area anyway. The guy wanted all kinds of info that was already on my resume, but also wanted my SSN, and when I refused to give him that, he wanted the last four digits. I don't know if it was an attempt at identity theft or he was just stupid, but that ended things right there.

Another one went but better at the outset but insisted that the interview had to be done over a video link. I kind of figured, OK, fine, whatever, but when I asked about Skype, he said I had to go to some particular office that was about 40 miles away and use their setup. I couldn't download software and use my camera, because it absolutely had to be done at one of the offices they contracted with, and I was to wear a suit and tie. That really broke it--there was really no need to do that when so many other options for web conferencing were available.

A friend did recruiting for a while. He's transitioned to a technical role now because he can't compete with the resume mills. I don't know what it will take to get past them and get some decent recruiters back into the fray, but it can't come soon enough.

Yes. The recruiters who troll LinkedIn must just search for one specific skill and spam everyone who has it. I always get offers for jobs I'm either not qualified for or would never willingly do.

Last year I realized that I'd never changed my LinkedIn job profile info to "not interested" after starting my new job a year earlier. I'd been getting a lot of pings from recruiters, and I thought that might discourage them. Nope. Saying I wasn't interested made the recruiters even more interested in me!

Which would be great if any of them had a job better than my current one, but they never do. Everything is more boring work I'm less qualified for, for less pay.

To an outside observer. I don't think it's the same in the inertial frame.

Before we call this real, we need to put one on some object in orbit, leave it in continuous operation, and use it to raise the orbit by a measurable amount large enough that there would not be argument regarding where it came from. The Space Station would be just fine. It has power for experiments that is probably sufficient and it has a continuing problem of needing to raise its orbit.

And believe me, if this raises the orbit of the Space Station they aren't going to want to disconnect it after the experiment. We spend a tremendous amount of money to get additional Delta-V to that thing, and it comes down if we don't.

The additional engines allow for engine-out orbital capability, as has already happened on CRS-1, allowing the primary payload to reach orbit (the secondary payload failed, however). The failures of the N1 (which actually had 30 engines, not 27) weren't so much due to the number of engines as to the general complexity of operating a launch vehicle of that size. Each of the four failures varied in cause, and in only one case was the issue tied to an engine. Other failures were a pogo-induced line break (which might have been survivable had the computer not cut the engines), an uncontrolled roll due to eddies in a fuel tank, and a hydraulic shock wave from a planned shutdown of six of the engines bursting the fuel lines.

I correct the McDonalds case more often than I should have to. One of the things that I try to do is add context to discussions. Most recently, this has centered on attacks on Obama and Democrats in general, but I did the same thing when Bush was in office. I especially focus on Supreme Court decisions (and sometimes just oral arguments, which seem to be the recent topic with the same-sex marriage arguments just the other day) which sometimes seem to fly in the face of common sense but which, when read, show that they generally have come to a thoughtful decision, even if I disagree with it. (One exception is the eminent domain case from a few years back--that was just badly flawed from start to finish, as even most seasoned observers noted. If anything gets a constitutional amendment next, I expect it will be that one after a few particularly egregious examples. But I digress.)

Going somewhat non-partisan, those who attack a president for "taking a vacation" really don't understand what it means to be president. That's four years per term of never once having a day off. They have daily briefings, conduct necessary phone calls, make decisions small and large, and most of the other things they do on a daily basis from the White House. The only difference is that they're in an area that's largely off-limits to the press, and they get a few hours to do what they want to do at a leisurely pace, whether it's Obama golfing or Bush ranching or whatever.

It generally costs more over time, but that's not the same as being less affordable. Affordable is when something can fit into a budget, and leasing provides that option. You compare it to renting, but that only undermines your argument. Most people can afford to rent a home; fewer can afford to buy a home, and far fewer still can afford to do so in cash.

Especially if Tesla wants to make this a game-changer the world over, it will be necessary to have that as an option. A ten-year warranty (with optional ten-year extension) means whatever replacements will be necessary are already being factored into the cost.

What is the average humidity on those 40/20 degree days?

Come visit my home in the Washington DC suburbs, in. say, August. After a week of 90/90 weather (90+ degrees F, 90%+ humidity) you'll be crying for AC too.

They will also offer an additional 10-year warranty that can be purchased at the end of the original for a comfortable 20-year warranty total.

They have a different product for utilities that will have longer service life and be available in much larger blocks of 100kWh that can be tied together. They wouldn't be used to replace pumped-storage or the like, but to help smooth out power. One of the constant complaints of those against wind and solar (which can include the power companies themselves) is that the varying input from short-term fluctuations is too hard to handle. With banks of batteries like this, it alleviates much of that problem.