If we all strive to pull ahead the pack as a whole improves. Sure someone will always be out in front, but we'll all be better than we were yesterday. Why do most people accept mediocrity? I could just give in and be mediocre myself - believe me it would be much less frustrating.

Which explains exactly why they are 100% expendable and replaceable. But isn't it a shame that most people have zero interest in something that they spend 25% or more of their time doing, let alone something that feeds them?

Why is it taking people "years" to "learn to code"? That's the part that seems wasteful. You don't need to be a "computer scientist" to write useful code.

This is a problem with you - you have not established clear boundaries with your wife. My wife works from home and I know to leave her alone. She informs me of which calls are important so I take the dogs and keep them in the bedroom with me so that they are quiet if the doorbell rings, etc. Since I work from home too but I'm more flexible I make lunch at the time she agreed to have it (according to her outlook calendar for the day). I only start complaining when I see it's 7pm and she's still working... or when she allows herself only 10 minutes for lunch, but I know she won't change. But tell me - why doesn't your wife work? That way she'd leave you alone.

Maybe if you're a burger flipper. How about developing your skillset so that you're not just another drone? There are people who are highly sought after. My wife for example was made redundant at a Fortune 500 and another large company called her the minute they found out (about a week after her notification) to offer her an even better position. She didn't have time to work on her CV before she was on a plane to do the interviews. Needless to say she got the job. And there is no question of her working from home when she wants to.

Once Obama finally becomes President, that will be solved and the racial healing can begin.

It's not about any other country. The goal of the regulation is to prevent Americans from having access to 3D printed guns and to intimidate any American who would design one of these guns.

The best answer is for people outside the US to create these designs and post them online.

Increasing numbers of places - sports stadia, school plays and the like - ban video recording of the action. Sometimes the excuse is "don't you dare think of the children". Other times the more honest line is "we are filming it ourselves and you can buy the video for $ XXX." But in either case, finding a video of the event on YouTube is likely to result in a phone call to the land sharks.

That would explain why after the election it'll be governed by Kirchner's allies.

Soon you'll be crying out for a VR game allowing you to interact with a hoard of idiotic noobs. I know of IT departments that are already looking to outsource their hell desks to you, AND charge you for the pleasure.

Next season the "History Channel" will be running shows discussing possible extraterrestrial influences on Herbert's writings. :-)

If they're showing it next year, then it has been in production for about 6 months already, and they've probably finished main filming already. I wonder if they had the gonads to film at Armageddon (modern Meggido). Or more likely an important question - whether they had the budget for it.

No it's not, it's Japan.

After 21 days on the job (24x7 cover, typically 20 hour working day) I had to identify one saple of dark grey claystone from one of two possible other types of dark grey claystone. I decided one way, then went to pack my bags to crew-change with my relief.

The implications of deciding one way not the other were a million dollars worth of ironmongery (9.925in OD liner pipe) being run and cemented into the hole. That operation occupied a rig crew of 90-odd people for 8 days while I was on leave. When we drilled ahead, it became clear that I had been wrong. Total unnecessary cost was about 2 million dollars.

These days, I don't lose sleep for less than ten million. The fact that I still do work for the client suggests that they figure it's better to have me around than not.

A couple of years ago I got some grief for pointing out a problem on day 10 of a job, which people upstairs from me decided wasn't likely to be a problem. So they shelved the problem, told me in writing to shut up, and continued with the well. 3 months of work later, we'd made a beautifully-tuned geo-steered well ... and had to wait on weather for a major storm. And when we came back on location, the problem I'd been making a fuss about had come back to haunt us and forty million dollars worth of ironmongery and effort was junk. Several embarrassed faces upstairs, but all my fellow contractors knew who had said "We need to deal with this problem, now." when we were five million into the project. Who needs advertising?

someone want to tell me how launching from NZ, apart from political issues, is in any way advantageous over launching from the US?

If you're a non-US company (shockingly, there are such people!) then that may be a sufficient reason already. Before you even get into politics.

I see elsewhere that Rocket Labs have "recently become a US company, for VC reasons" (paraphrasing). Shrug. That'll make them harder to deal with for some customers. Say - an Indian telecomms company wanting to put up a series of satellites. Dealing with your (relatively near) neighbours instead of people on the other side of the world could be a very good start for a commodity like launch facilities, even if you're only using it as a bargaining chip to argue down the price with your in-country launch facilities.

Anyways, a couple of paragraphs from wikipedia:

More interesting to me from the same article (probably), is the compositions listed : zirconium, beryllium, titanium, copper, nickel, and more recently aluminium and niobium. From a health-effects and recyclability point of view, I'd watch out for the nickel and beryllium in particular. I don't have a nickel sensitivity myself, I think, but I've had enough contact with people who do have a bad response to anticipate problems, for a moderate proportion of users.

Which isn't a show-stopper, but it's an issues some people might need to be careful of.

Protect the screen of my smart phone? Isn't that why I put it in a fibre-board and PVC phone case? Oh yes, so it is. And does that protect my phone when it falls out of my pocket while I'm cycling down the road at 25kmph? So far, yes. And it cost a whole 2 Beers (in internationally translatable costs).

Interesting product. No sale though.