Like them or dislike them, the VA has had electronic patient records since the 60s. They've had this nailed so well their software is in use in many hospitals around the country.

The mainframe market is VERY lucrative.

Probably comes under wiretapping laws and would be a criminal act. Depends on the state. IANAL, YMMV.

That's kinda the point. This wouldn't be any different from putting hidden cameras in your house when the babysitter is over. You're not in a public place, so you should have a reasonable expectation of privacy. You don't lose that expectation just because you were invited into someone else's property.

I'd put a sticker on the window "car has recording technology installed" and maybe a notice on the dash when the car starts or goes into that mode. That's pretty easy to do. Well, not so easy after the fact. Maybe next model year.

That would be a valid point if the two orbiters were exactly the same. They're not. India is much closer to the equator than Florida, so launch costs are significantly reduced. Labor costs are reduced. Material may not need to be shipped as far and thus cost less. Maybe NASA and its suppliers have contracts for materials that are more expensive at a point in time, but avoid fluctuations over a long period of time.

I'd add that this isn't the first mission to Mars that NASA has made. They've been doing iterative approaches to get there for the past 40-ish years. According to Wikipedia, the Viking program (two orbiters, two landers) cost $3.8 billion in FY14 dollars. I think they've done a good job at cost reductions.

Well, and once you've designed one microwave, building the next one is very cheap since all the research and design has already been done.

The reason I compared a car and a truck is because they're built for different purposes. You wouldn't use a $5000 car to safely move all of your possessions across the country - most people would get an 18-wheeler to pack up their stuff and move it. That doesn't mean you can't drive across country in it, it's just not designed or built to haul your stuff. I wouldn't use an 18-wheeler to go get groceries - it's overkill for what you need.

If the orbiters were made to do the same things and one was cheaper, I'd agree with you. My point is they're not built to the same specifications or for the same purposes, so comparing on cost alone is just a waste. And I'm not disparaging what India did. I hope they and NASA are able to learn from what each did and make it even more cost effective.

Worse - she was put in danger by releasing her association with the CIA.

The article spells out the differences - the India probe took longer, weighed less, has fewer experiments, and probably won't last long. Meanwhile the NASA probe got there quickly, weighs 4 times more, has twice the number of experiments, and can serve as a communication relay for probes on the ground.

I can drive across country in a $5000 car, a $50,000 car, or a $500,000 truck. Each of them have different purposes and will get you there in different ways. To say NASA needs to only use the $5000 car isn't in our long term interest.

Sounds like the security researchers I know.

It varies by strain and number of people infected. Some outbreaks get to 90%, this one is closer to 60%.

No, far later than that. Slaves brought from Africa in the 15th and 16trh centuries came with Yellow Fever and Malaria. Since they either already had it as children or had better genes to handle the disease, they were usually okay, but Europeans who were in the colonies would get sick for a year and possibly die. They made a connection, but didn't do anything about it.

For those of you in the US, the PBS show Frontline had part of an episode dedicated to what's going on. While it is very hard to get, cultural problems there make it really easy (mourners touch the dead). People in remote villages are scared to tell doctors that they have symptoms since they'll be whisked off to the clinic, never to be seen again, just like almost everyone else that went to the clinic. In the larger cities, some nitwits are spreading the rumor that Ebola doesn't exist and the government is just trying to steal blood from the patients. So bands of people think that patents bleeding from every orifice needs to be rescued(!).