Tell me about it. I'm East Coast as well and I am trying to remember the last time we had good weather to see such an event.

I do remember we had good weather just long enough to see the transit of Mercury, but aside from that, I'm at a loss.

shoots a laser at the moon and bounces the beam off of five retroreflectors.

Big Bang Theory quote time:

Zack: One question. How can you be sure it won't blow up?

Leonard: The laser?

Zack: The moon.

how dare you expect the rest of us to pay for your health care because you don't want to.

Such as the smokers, the obese, alcoholics and drug users who can continue with their merry lifestyles, safe and secure in the knowledge everyone else is forced to hand over their money so they don't have to take personal responsibility for their actions, right?

Obamacare (as well as Romneycare) does nothing to lower health costs or ease the burden on the system so long as people are not forced to live healthier lifestyles. All they are doing is extracting money from people simply for the sake of extracting money and giving it to insurance companies who have gotten a huge financial windfall.

Considering how people on here rant about big bad corporations, this point should have been obvious, but I guess when you can take money from people, simply because you can, that never enters into the equation.

any vehicle with relatively low ground clearance is going to have trouble in this sort of scenario

That's why when I'm driving through a parking lot and some ricer with their "ground effects" car is grumbling behind me, I speed up just slightly so they're paying attention to me and not the speed bump which they can't see because they're so close to me.

I always get a pleasure hearing a sustained, "CRUNCH!" as their car scrapes over the bump.

Astrology should be banned,

In my U.S. states, astrologers must use some form of, "For entertainment purposes only" so people (the ones not so gullible to visit an astrologer) are warned astrology isn't real.

as it probably affects human relationships in an even more negative way.

You mean more than preventing someone with a serious affliction for getting real medical help?

Homeopathy does not, and has not, ever worked. Under any circumstance. The best that can be said about it is it gets people to drink water (which conveniently "remembers" whatever substance was diluted in it but not the piss, shit, radioactivity and dead carcasses that have been lying it).

Exactly. And as far as we know, he wasn't forced to resign. He did so so the company could move on as his presence would have been a distraction.

I do remember that time but the difference is the Japanese actually did implement better products. Witness the historic rise of Honda (and their recent epic fall) in the auto industry.

The same with camera lenses. Even today there are people who ask where a lens is made for Nikon or Canon, preferring those produced in Japan over those in China. Whether there is a true qualitative difference is debatable, but the perception remains. On this same subject, I'll leave out Zeiss and their lenses because they explicitly design high-quality lenses and the costs reflect that.

The difference, however, is that the Japanese do make quality products whereas Chinese made products are, for the most part, of inferior quality with either shoddy parts or lax quality control. Or both.

The same with Russia. While they might now be able to mass produce products, their quality is nowhere near what the rest of the industrialized world produces (with few exceptions).

Where I live in the U.S., I have two choices: Comcast or Verizon.

Both charge $75/month for 15/5 which is the package available.

You will this situation in many parts of the country where competition is defined as two companies charging the same high price for the same slow speeds.

Personally I was trying to find pictures taken from the drone. From what I can tell the pictures were taken on the ground of the drone and a bit of the countryside.

This article presumes people give a rat's ass about saving fuel or driving safely. As those of us who drive on a regular basis can attest, more and more people seem to be of the mindset that no matter what, they will accelerate as hard as possible just so they can slam on the brakes as hard as possible at every opportunity.

This morning I had a guy literally on my rear bumper (less than 1 meter) and when it looked like there might be an opportunity for him to jump into the lane next to get around around me, he tried to take it. Unfortunately for him he misjudged the line of cars in that lane and had to swerve back behind me.

He wasn't going to get anywhere faster as there was a red light for us (a left turn), and he would have only gotten one car ahead, but by golly he was going to use every drop of fuel he possibly could just to try and do it.

I, and others, can relate story after story about people like this, and the only thing this proposal will do is add costs to vehicles (and those driving them when the system breaks down), cause more people to try and beat the red light which means more accidents, as well as people slamming on their brakes when they misjudge the timing, also causing more accidents.

Once again, we are trying to find a technical solution to a human problem rather than fixing the human problem.

Wouldn't want these folks making a pinky swear when a petri dish of genetically modified super-virus goes missing after they crossed Ebola with the common cold.

All because people are too lazy or too fat to turn around in their seat and look behind them or check their side mirrors.

I can't count the number of people I see every week who, when backing up, only look in their rear view mirror to see what's behind them. It is a rare sight indeed to see someone do what they're supposed to and turn around both ways to look behind them.

This is the result. Another piece of useless cruft shoehorned into a car just waiting to implode and cost the owner hundreds of dollars in repairs.

The reason I mentioned vaccines is because of people, including some on here, who continue to trot out this disproved notion.

As the article relates, whatever is happening to cause autism happens long before the kid is born and given a vaccine.

To me it seems just another genetic defect like Down's Syndrome or ALS so what we do as far as vaccines would have no effect since the person is already afflicted.

Last week the BBC had this article on autism which says whatever is causing autism happens long before birth.

From the article:

Patchy changes in the developing brain long before birth may cause symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), research suggests.

In other words, vaccines have NO relation to who does or does not develop autism.

when people who claim to be conservatives are front and center in efforts to invade people's privacy or their lives in general.

Whether this situation, the banning of books at libraries, abortion or anything other matter involving one's personal freedoms, conservatives seem to go out of their way to be hypocrites when talking about freedom.

I guess it's easier to talk the talk than it is to walk the walk.

Sort of like when businesses decry government regulation or intrusion into their practices then turn around and come to the taxpayer asking for money.