You're right, but all those lifeforms you describe, if they are intelligent; I don't want to meet them.

The length of the civilization bugs me. It's one of the variables. It's measured in some thousands of years. The only one we know of is around ten thousand years, but as far as aliens listening to radio waves are concerned, it's closer to a hundred years.

But having a number there also places an upper bound on the timespan, and that does not reflect reality. As far as we know, civilization lasts forever, once started.

That's a big infinity in the equation. I'm just sayin'.

Obviously, that wouldn't work. You would have to carry your local region of space with you.

You assume the gravitational constant of a relative, local region is unchangeable by any conceivable science.

You are in error.

Presumptuous maybe, but TFA is flawed as hell; planets move after they have formed, and generally inwards. They make no mention of this fact anywhere.

In our case, we had the Jupiter - Saturn duo that stabilized things, and prevented Jupiter from crashing into the Sun, taking the inner 4 planets with it.

It's entirely plausible that decent planets with atmospheres exist within the habitable zones of small stars, with crazy shit like 50 day years, and the dark side of the moon melts a little when it swings close to the sun. Heh.

But, a planet that formed close in to a star early on, and has remained there the whole time the system has cooled down, is likely to be a barren rock. Agreed. And a bit obvious...

You know, something else just occurred to me. This was an already existing computer class, that I bet is an elective course.

In that case, girls that choose to enter a more advanced computer class are more likely to be hotshots than the more common boys. Skewed sample?

Yeah I was wondering if the kids were allowed to share and over what timespan the project ran. If there was downtime between sessions, the girls are more likely to collaborate and text and share good stuff. The boys are more likely to guard a good secret, because they want to 'win'.

A group of girls is always going to be less competitive with each other than a group of boys, unless, of course, they are competing for boys...

True. My point was though, that those have the potential to melt down like a merf if not properly attended to. Not a turn-key type of black box delivery. That is true, no? I believe the Russians have similar subs, and without a similar Navy, they ran at least two into the ground pretty badly. I bet we had similar situations, that were handled and we never heard about. Not because our plutonium or even scientists were better, but because our Navy was better.

I don't think running those types of super hot instant on reactors is easy, nor something I'd want in my backyard. A molten salt reactor reactor, on the other hand, would be okay. As long as there was some nice shrubbery ...

That's not really fair, to Mitt Romney I mean. He ran a business junkyard; that's what that investment company was/is. Companies were already broken and failing by the time his group touched them. The closest he came to taking over a company and running it, was the Salt Lake Olympics, which turned out to be a decent entry on his resume.

I'm not saying Romney would have done a better job running HP, although it's hard to imagine him doing any worse. But to his credit, he never tried. He seems to stick to his core competency pretty well.

Yep. I've lived in two places like that, and both were wonderful, cheap, good service... One was city owned, the other was a rural co-op. The co-op was dirt cheap; the city was not so cheap, just reasonable, but had excellent and instant service. The mayor saw to it personally. :)

Now I have Duke; I reset my clocks one or more times a month, and it's the most expensive power I've ever had.

You win the internet today.

Heh. So no easy answers. I advocate a middle ground...

Why would they? Companies exist to make profit. Their greed is the same as your greed when you cash your paycheck, or whatever it is you do for your profit. Adulterated or no.

They are doing only what they are supposed to do. And the part where they generate and sell power for a profit is wonderful. There's no real limit to the number of power generators that could compete in a 'free market'.

But that ain't the grid. How is it that the public doesn't own the grid in the same way they own the interstates? There's no freedom; there's no market; there's only the one freaking grid.

There is no way a private for profit company can be financially responsible for the grid in any satisfactory way. The problem is political, and completely our fault.

I don't think you can black box them like that. In fact, they are not really all that 'safe'; they run weapons grade plutonium in those things. All you have to do is bang two fuel components together, and you've made a nuke.

I think the perception of them as safe is more because our Navy is just that bad ass.

To elaborate on Mr Reed's point, why not shoot up a rocket whose payload is a rocket? After you attach the rocket and get the rock stabilized, then you spray on the heat shield where it needs it. De-orbit gently, and fall into a giant mattress dump that you've been building up, just for this purpose.

If that idea sucks, then maybe that's why they didn't hire me. But the point is, it is possible to drop a big rock to the surface at less than species ending speeds.

There is a way. If it's a small mountain made half out of gold, and the other half is rare earth metals, it'd be worth it, right?