Basically, the x-rays will ignite the surface of the asteroid instead. If the material in the asteroid is sub-optimal for this purpose, there have been designs of turning a nuclear bomb into a kinetic weapon that should work in this regard. Basically the bomb sits in an x-ray reflective shell, and when the bomb explodes, the x-rays bounce around the shell before the exploded bits of the bomb destroy it and exit an aperture. At the end of the aperture is a large, dense block of x-ray absorbing material. This material is vaporized by the x-rays and is all traveling in a similar direction as the x-rays were all going in that general direction. This plasma moving at relativistic speeds then slams into the target like a nuclear shot gun blast. IIRC, this design was built for using nuclear bombs against space ships and it was estimated that it could direct 95% of the energy of the bomb at the intended target.

Using a Kueurig is sort of like using a rental one person self driving car instead of just buying a normal car, except you still have to park it someplace and use special, throwaway gas tanks. Now they are talking about developing the equivalent in trucks and planes for when you need them.

Not really. For most of history, women, and non-whites in the Western world, were prevented from participating and even when they did often had their achievements ignored or claimed by those in power, i.e. men. Claiming that history is gender neutral is a bit like claiming that the South, pre and post Civil War, has been race neutral.

This goes into why there are women's and other 'person's studies'. From my discussions with my friends that are sociology professors and the like, when discussing things like sexism and racism academically, the critical aspect of such is who holds the power in the relationship. To put it very simply, racism in such discussions are not just the case of one race/sex treating another race/sex differently, but one race/sex having power over the other race/sex in society and using it to dominate.

Hitler happened because it was a time of conflicting ideals. Monarchism was dead with WW1 and the 20's and 30's was a three way battle between fascism, communism, and democracy across the world. The debts put on Germany for WW1 may have helped Hitler take power, but the foundation of the national Socialist party gained reputation for aiding in fighting off the communist coup in Bavaria in 1920, while fascism was also won out in Spain and Italy with its own movements in Britain and the US.

It is when you really are a loser who can't tell that your attentions have been unwanted and you have been given subtle and possibly not so subtle clues to leave her alone for quit some time.

Personally, I fell for a workable web browser and decent screen on a phone I could move my photography portfolio to after using other people's iPhones.

Although I haven't seen the math or read the articles yet, the above sentence makes sense to me. Instead of inputing energy to fuel and kicking out the back, they input the energy to the virtual pairs that are in all space. That gives the drive it's thrust as they are pushing against the virtual pairs which then recombine and cease to exist. However, when they cease to exist, they should still have a higher net energy over free space which would result in EM radiation being released when the virtual particles cease to exist. They might not cease to exist and thus the new particles never recombine and become actual particles, but the energies of the two particles (minus what was inputted into them) would be opposite of each other.

Mac OS 10.1? No. Especially since it was just a free bug fix for 10.0. and improved upon by later dot updates. I've still seen 10.4 in the wild and have my own 10.6 computer for older hardware or Rosetta support. Go out to some still running F5 firewalls, and people would probably be scarred as to what version of Linux is being run.

They were probably getting the same thing that my company is paying and getting which is security fixes. They are still being created and sent out to customers that pay. Windows update is not working, they'd have to be installed individually or via the domain management.

Because a 3D printer opens up a lot of opportunities for the other options. In my case, I used it to make the prototypes I used in making the molds for lost wax bronze casting. As it was the class was me using it as small batch manufacturing and a bunch of clay sculptures looking to make their sculptures into bronze. In the place where I did my 3D printing, it was used for several of the other items you listed in making custom cases for electronics, robotic pieces, and art. It's also a good introduction into CAD/CAM.

Not really, Most of Seattle (~300-440'), Dallas (430'), and St. Louis (465') are in the same category. Most of the country is under 1000' which can be reached in a 10 minute drive from the shore in Seattle.

Because all the standard depictions of accretion disks are art, not real depictions.

Nim was one of the chimps I heard about, I think. I specifically remember a story about smoking marijuana. The actual phrase was "stone smoke". The story went that guy telling the story was working on a grad paper on w weekend the chimp was living with him, and the chimp came in and was signing something like "make stone smoke" but he had to finish the paper so he kept telling him later. After a while he realized he hadn't see the chimp in a bit so he went looking and found the chimp who had not only found his stash, but was about halfway through rolling a decent looking joint.

It was 20+ years ago, but there were other chimps including Washoe, or at least I remember hearing the name. Not sure if it was Fouts I listened to, but here's his web page,Washoe's move to OK. There were more chimps involved and more grad students. I forget which one I heard stories from but he ran a shop on campus corner which had a picture of a bird drawn by one of the chimps.

Careful what you ask for. I knew some of the people involved with an old program at OU teaching chimps sign language. They eventually had the vocabularies of human 3 year olds. The program was eventually cancelled and the chimps split up to other research facilities. I've heard the stories from the grad students involved about how they would go visit those chimps, and they would sign "I'm in pain. I want to go home." while in the cages.