The good thing about this technology is that it's also jamming-proof. If the U.S. and Russia ever get in a war, the first thing either side would do is knock out the other's GPS satellites with anti-satellite missiles, or conduct a cyber war. At that point, communications and positioning will be critical, making it important not to rely on a centralized network. Sure, GPS has multiple satellites, but if a cyber weapon knocks enough of them out, subs would have to go back to navigating by the stars and compass!

Lt. Jenna D'Sora: Kiss me.
[Data obliges]
Lt. Jenna D'Sora: What were you just thinking?
Lt. Cmdr. Data: In that particular moment, I was reconfiguring the warp field parameters, analyzing the collected works of Charles Dickens, calculating the maximum pressure I could safely apply to your lips, considering a new food supplement for Spot...
Lt. Jenna D'Sora: I'm glad I was in there somewhere.

Surely a computer would not get bored while waiting for human input. It could run Seti@home during its spare CPU cycles, if nothing else!

Is your book available in print form? I only see the kindle edition. Also, it would be great if you could put your email address on your profile so I don't have to reply to your comment in order to contact you :P

Skynet and The Terminator are definitely coming. But what about the economics of machine intelligence? This article makes an interesting case: http://hanson.gmu.edu/aigrow.p...

LaTeX to generate documents is pretty resourceful. How do you manage drafts that need to be exchanged with a client or opposing counsel when they ask for a "track changes" version? What font(s) do you use?

I hate Word and its auto formatting more than any other program, so I use InDesign. Templates, high precision, access to pro-level graphics placement and text wrapping, preflight, customizable PDF output, and more. I use Courier Final Draft (sinful, I know) because monospace makes it easy to do tables of contents and authorities. But I'm debating whether to use Century Schoolbook in the future.

The Reddit front page is hopeless. It's like the Firehose on this site. The Subreddits are where the action is really at, and most seem to have enough moderators who are interested in the specific subject matter to handle the large number of dupes, bin spam, etc. that get posted. Here are some examples of great parts of Reddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu/ popularized Rage Comics. Anyone can make a comic and the moderation system works pretty well for those.

http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/ provides interesting trivia facts

http://www.reddit.com/r/science/ has far more relevant and interesting content than the Science section here. Same with the http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/ section.

http://www.reddit.com/r/LetsNotMeet/ was created to let users share true stories of creepy things happening that are just too personal or random to share elsewhere.

http://www.reddit.com/r/JusticePorn/ provides users with interesting legal developments.

http://www.reddit.com/r/AbandonedPorn/ provides a community of explorers a place to share cool photos.

And many, many other sections that I've never seen.

Anyone can create a Subreddit and assign moderators. It's a Darwinian system where the best content (theoretically) makes it to the top with minimal intervention by the moderators; it's based primarily on up voting and down voting by the entire user base.

The disadvantages of Reddit are many; for example, regardless of how cool you think your own story, picture, etc. is, it often gets only a couple of up votes and never appears anywhere significant. Depending on how you sort comments, you only see the ones that occur early on and never see interesting comments that might have been posted well after the story was submitted. Because anyone can submit a link, but links can usually only be submitted once, someone might post a link to a news story before you but the story gets no up votes and so effectively you can't post it. There seems to be a significant desensitization to gore and NSFW posts-- you never know what the link you click on will show when it's just a random URL on imgur.com and could be a horrific injury or death, child porn, disease, surgery, etc. There are sections of that site that you don't even want to know about. Imagine a section devoted exclusively to truly disgusting shock porn, like TubGirl x 1000. It's /r/spacedicks. Trust me, don't ever go there.

Overall, I find Reddit a better site. The news is fresher, the comments are just as good as here, and there are way more comments to be read on Reddit than on the typical stories here. They don't have the "first post" problem because those posts immediately get down voted into oblivion. Also, Reddit has separate sections for people of opposite views on many subjects, such as /r/atheism (constant Christian bashing) vs. /r/Christianity (constant bible thumping). They also have less tech-savvy users, which provides a better cross section of internet users in general and allows better discussion of non-technical subjects. But there's also better information on technical subjects. For example, http://www.reddit.com/r/space/. Or, the time a Canadian astronaut randomly did an AMA (ask me anything) about his visit to the International Space Station, and the result was great discussion on space-related subjects not found anywhere else: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/gm8rh/iaman_astronaut_who_has_been_to_space_twice_and/

Let's be honest, Slashdot is a fading site. They need to do better to compete with Reddit in many areas.

> the nerd in me would pay 0.99 on iTunes to fund their Super Collider music...

Are you aware of Les Horribles Cernettes and their song, Mr. Higgs (2007)?

It's so bad that it's good! Incidentally, they were the first band on the world wide web.

By the time the mission launches ten years from now, there may be more advanced broadcasting methods and codecs available. It doesn't need to be and probably can't be live with today's technology, whether due to the number of cameras or amount bandwidth/editing required, so maybe the astronauts would do some of the editing while there. Or, there could be automated camera switching/editing triggered by personal locators or simply sensors in the portions of the habitat where someone is actively working so bandwidth isn't wasted filming empty rooms or whatever. They also could hold regular meetings which would be a highlight of the TV coverage, or have a scheduling system. It doesn't need to be high definition, just something of YouTube quality.

> Is the following statement morally reprehensible to you? "I know you've had a long day but...."

No. Much is asked of those to whom much is given. I would gladly take this opportunity.

In other words it will be just like The Shining (1980) but in space! What could possibly go wrong?!

HEEEEEEERE'S JOHNNY!!!!!!!

On that note, the sexual dynamics among a group of two men and two women isolated from the outside world for at least two years could create quite a firestorm on reality TV, not to mention extensive fodder for gossip magazines.

Yep. But I've done web apps on the side for the last 12 years or so.