That class proved to me that I was not, in fact, a chemical engineer.

If so, taking it wasn't a mistake because it kept you from spending years learning something you weren't really cut out for. And, if you count in the tuition money you saved, it may have been the best thing you ever did while at Rice.

Armor tends to be heavy...

Armor designed to protect against impact gets heavy, very fast. Armor against lasers, maybe not, but I think we need to think in terms of shielding, not armor because that includes ablative protection which may not be as massive. And yes, there's a trade off, as shown by the fact that the bursting charge in an armor piercing shell is much smaller than what's used in a bombardment round. The problem, of course, is working out the optimal balance, and I have no idea how that's done, but I'm sure that the people designing these things know how to decide how much shielding is enough.

Part of penetration comes from mass and momentum. That's why the fuse of an armor piercing shell is at the back and has a time delay. Assuming that the impact velocity isn't lowered, more mass means more momentum. And, of course, if you can't increase the velocity, the only way to increase the impact energy is to increase the mass, which is why musket balls were so big.

I think we're both in agreement here that armor piercing isn't the main issue any more, although I'd be willing to argue that maybe it should be. I'm just trying to explain why I think that some sort of shielding, either reflective or ablative (if not both) isn't a waste of mass on a missile that's going against a laser defense.

'Most' Missiles are a hell of a lot lighter than a 16" shell.

Well, yes. Of course. I quoted those figures simply to show the difference (both in total mass and bursting charge) between an armor piercing and a bombardment round because I happen to know them. And, BTW, I'm not sure if the max range is quite right because back when I was in Uncle Sam's Navy, they were listed as reaching out to 25 nautical (not statute) miles. That 38km might be right, I just don't have either the time nor the inclination to calculate it for myself and it's not exactly important. Just thought I'd mention it.

You miss my point. Shielding on a missile isn't wasted mass. Either it protects the weapon from the laser or its mass does extra damage to the target. (You can think of it as extra shrapnel if you want.) Within reasonable limits, it's a win-win situation. I gave the details on the 16" shells just as an example.

Not all of the damage is done by the warhead, some of it comes from mass and momentum, and any shielding that survives until the missile hits just adds to that effect. In fact, most of the weight of a classic armor-piercing shell is simply a mass of metal in front of the bursting charge (with a time-delay fuse) that's intended to batter its way into (and if possible through) the target's armor before the warhead detonates. As an example, a 16 inch armor piercing shell weighs 2700 pounds of which only 150 pounds are HE. Bombardment rounds are 2200 pounds, including 500 pounds of HE.

If you think that's bad, the 1969 hoax, Naked Came the Stranger was a best seller and remained popular even after the hoax was revealed. The story, such as it was, had no cultural, social or literary merit but was filled with gratuitous sex scenes. In fact, parts of it had to be heavily edited because they were too well written.

I don't know how things are done now, but back when I was in school, we were assigned to write essays by word count, not page count for exactly that reason. And, that's why writers talk about how many words they've written recently, not how many pages because page counts are much easier to inflate than word counts. (Double spacing, large fonts and bigger margins can make the same number of words fill more pages.)

That would be appropriate, especially if one of the co-authors was Gracie Bermudez.

Nobody can predict the future...

I beg to differ. Anybody can predict the future, and millions of people do it every day, when they buy a lottery ticket, bet on a horse, play the stock market or put money into a retirement plan. What I think you mean is that nobody can accurately or reliably predict the future.

If I were to say, "that's clearly begging the question: where did she go?", and you assumed a definition of "assuming the conclusion of an argument" in that sentence, what would that even *mean*?

It would mean that your question assumes that she went someplace but that it hasn't been established that she has actually gone anywhere. It's kind of like the old question, "When did you stop beating your wife?" Not only does it assume that you are married it also assumes that at one time you were in the habit of beating her, neither of which facts are generally established before the question is asked.

But where the hell do you think I should plug in a few dozen dongles?

If they're built right, you daisy chain them. Back in the Good Old Days before USB, dongles were plugged into the printer port and each one had another parallel port on the back. That way, you could have as many dongles as you needed plugged in, and still use your printer. No reason you couldn't do that today, including having the last item in the chain being your USB printer.

Ethics and journalism do not belong in the same sentence without negation, e.g., "There is no ethics in journalism."

Shrug! For me, at least a much better game is Oh Hell. The fact that the number of tricks never equals the number available means that somebody is going set on every hand. Not only that, but a hand can change from being underbid (at least one trick nobody wants) to overbid (not enough available) in the middle of a hand without warning because a player can't make their bid and is trying to "take company."

Measuring the sides of a triangle only proves that it does or doesn't conform to the Pythagorean Theorem. To prove it, you must demonstrate that correctly describes all applicable triangles.