If it comes down to military force stopping loss of assets for failure to pay debt, then you're saying "stop all international trade with me this instant".

Russia imports nearly 40% of its food. So, say hello to the largest famine of this century.

GDP comparisons:

Major pro-sanctions players:
US: 16,8T
EU: 17,5T
Japan: 4,9T

Major anti-sanctions players:
Russia: 2,1T
China: 9,5T

Just ignoring the whole fiat currency issue and controlling the global banking system which act as large multipliers, China is simply not comparable to the economic pressure being levied against Russia.

China's in this thing with Russia for precisely one thing: China. They're taking advantage of a weakened Russia to strike deals that they never would have gotten before. A good example is the "Power of Siberia" gas pipeline deal that they signed for a few years back. China's been trying for years to get Russia to bite at bargain-basement prices that leave almost no profit for Gazprom (perhaps even a slight negative that would have to be somewhat subsidized by the government's gas royalties), and Russia had been refusing. Then they sign the exact same deal they'd been refusing a few months ago and herald it as a great victory.

China has Russia in an excellent position and is going to squeeze every drop of potential profit out of their bad situation that they can. And Russia will herald it as a glorious blow to the west all the way down.

That said - even China's GDP doesn't compare to the sanction imposers (US + Europe + Japan + misc), all the leverage multipliers of global banking and fiat currency that the sanction imposers have aside. Even if China's goal was to break sanctions - which it's not - it's just not big enough, it's a third their size. And Russia a trivial fraction of that. And the multipliers of controlling the banking system and a fiat currency are very real. Throw trade into the picture, forget it - Moscow is closer to Newfoundland and Liberia than it is to Beijing. There's a giant barren wasteland between the two. They have a border but it's more of a barrier than a facilitator for trade.

As the very article linked by Slashdot put it:

"In the current conditions, any help is very welcome," Vladimir Miklashevsky, a strategist at Danske Bank A/S, said by e-mail. "Yet, it can't substitute the losses of the Russian banking system and economy from western sanctions."

So Kirk didn't have to steal the Enterprise in... whatever movie that was.. he could just have replicated it?

$$$$$$$$$$$$$ (I would have put more, but Slashdot believes the dollar sign is a 'junk character')

'Star Trek' on the poster sells better than 'Generic Sci-Fi Action Movie #57'

I would actually pay to see those.

Just not very much.

I watched the reboots, but I honestly don't remember anything about them, except there was some time travel stuff and that guy from Shaun Of The Dead. And I think there was lens flare. But I may be imaginging that.

Everything else was just Generic Hollywood Movie Of The Weekend.

The free market gives people what they want. If there was money to be made selling pre-censored Internet, the service would exist.

But, no, you and Dave say, since the service doesn't exist, companies must be forced to create it, and the vast majority who don't want Davenet must be forced to pay for the few who do.

Those people are free to install filters on their PC or router, or find an ISP that will filter the Internet for them. You're the one forcing your 'choice' on the other 96%, and making them pay for other peoples' choices.

And we know how this goes. We've seen it all before. When it turns out that almost no-one has switched from the Internet to Davenet, you and Dave will announce that 'The Internet is not safe for CHILDRUN!' and now the filter will have to be compulsory. Right?

Which is pretty clear proof that pretty much no-one wants their Internet pre-censored.

And, last I read, something like 4% of people had chosen to have their Internet censored. They're probably the ones who clicked 'Yes' by mistake, thinking it meant 'Yes, I want the Internet, not Davenet'.

Britain has three parties with insignificant differences. So at least voters have slightly more choice than America, where there are two parties with insignificant differences.

Both Tories and Labour are censorious asshats. No-one knows whether the Lib Dems are the same, because they change policies as soon as they get any power.

Hint: probably 99% of all ebooks on Amazon use a minus sign instead of a hyphen, because the hyphen doesn't exist on most (all?) keyboards.

The difference with a 3d moulder being that, instead of taking a couple hours to 3d print a mould, then stop your production line and manually install the new mould in place of the old, then start it back up again you could effectively instantly form 3d mould (via microactuators or whatnot), do a 15 minute production run and make a couple hundred parts, then move on to mass producing the next part you need with no break in-between. Your "factory" could be in full production mode nonstop yet have a single line produce many dozens of different types of parts over the course of a day.

When one thinks of space colony applications, it quickly becomes clear how essential such a thing will be. Even if you try to simplify, you're still going to have tends to hundreds of thousands of types of parts that will wear out with time. Let's say 100k unique types of of parts with a mean lifespan of 3 years - that's probably pretty realistic for a colony. That means you'll have to produce a new type of part every 15 minutes nonstop - with quantities varying from one-offs to the tens of thousands, depending on the part. Now think of how big your typical production line is and how much mass that means transporting from earth. Clearly, rapid production flexibility is critical! (same applies to all steps of the chain, including robotic assembly)

(and yes, I know a single moulder or whatnot cannot achieve all possible production jobs, real production lines involve many types of materials and many processes... it's just an example of a common production mechanism :) )

(as another side note, it should even be possible to make 3d moulds for metals. Carbon fiber cloth - or better, graphite fiber cloth - can tolerate temperatures hotter than many metals, but still has stretch and could be shaped with an array of actuators).

Are you saying the government would be more efficient if they set up the National Courier Agency to deliver their parcels, instead of paying a few bucks to Fedex each time? Or that Fedex becomes less efficient if it gets business from the government?

If NASA is going to operate ISS, it should do so at the lowest cost to taxpayers. Which comes from buying the cheapest launch services on the open market, not from building a rocket of their own that flies once or twice a year.

After the one actual Soyuz launch abort, rescuers took nearly a day to locate and reach the crew.

So are you actually claiming that governments didn't block Concorde by banning supersonic overflights, or what?

Hint: that's REALITY. Who paid for those supersonic aircraft is irrelevant, when you're claiming that we can't go into space because we don't have supersonic airline flights. We don't have supersonic airline flights because governments banned them on many of the most profitable routes.