OK, I realize I may skew a little older than many Slashdot readers, so here. Consider this your Easter gift:

http://youtu.be/ftgAG3Vnif8

Do you think you can use adamantium in a 3D printer?

Asking for a friend.

I had an uncle with a wooden leg and I thought it was a big deal until I found out my aunt had a cedar chest.

Unlike every previous launch, however, we the taxpayers are paying a fixed price to SpaceX, instead of the bloated cost-plus contracts that are large part of the reason why there hasn't been much progress in manned spaceflight in the last four decades.

Well, it's theoretically less expensive, but not yet. If you extrapolate out 50 missions, you start seeing SpaceX making an actual profit instead of a projected profit based on a fee stream.

My problem is that the entire thing still relies on government. If there is value in a "private" space industry, it hasn't been found yet.

Further, none of the profits ever materialize if you look at the external costs of the federal government already having done the hard work. Unless you believe SpaceX started with a clean sheet of paper and didn't make use of the past half-century of government space programs.

At best, you can say that there's a place for government and private industry to work together on the really big things like space travel. Without the government over-spending, there's good reason to believe we'd never have seen any space program at all. Or, convince me that without the initial public investment, any private company would have done the basic research required to send the first satellite into space.

Your entire argument ignores the fact that the support of the Upper Middle class as a whole -- the entire top 10% -- is the most vital component of the general support for the top 0.1% and 0.01% of the population. Without the consent and indeed approval of the highest half quartile of the population, no regime will last very long. The present one retains this high support, and will do so until such time as the pension pots of the top 10% are raided wholesale, or wiped out by inflation.

The additional $41,950 is allocated towards sunk costs including

• - Cosmetic designs of a hand like-prosthetic to prevent adults staring uncomfortably and children exclaiming "cool"!
• - Insurance/class action insurance for when the prosthetic ends up injuring/irritating one or more users or people, or things, or otherwise perishable or damageable entities the hand interacts with.
• - Robustness to last through more than, say, 10,000 cycles before snapping into brittle plastic shards.
• - Salaries and children's college funds for the scientists, designers, and MBAs running the prosthesis companies
• - Salaries and children's college funds for the academic and medical researchers involved in prosthetic studies, both mechanical, psychological, and sociological

Meanwhile, the 3D prosthetic hand has only the following sunk costs to cover.

• - ~$10,000 investment in quality 3D printer
• - The time taken find and to add the most saccharinly kitch music to 3D printing application videos on Youtube.

It's important to remember to keep the background details out of perspective... or in perspective, depending on whichever context you'd prefer to hock.

Sorry friend, the design of the NASA space stations were done by NASA. They had private industry do the industrial part because they wanted to reward big political donations.

Either way though, it's a good thing we didn't wait for "private industry" to go to space, or we'd still be in the Sputnik stage.

The first space station went up in 1971. Forty-three years later, private industry figures out how to send a rocket up there. With taxpayers footing the bill.

John Galt is half a retard.

Tablets

You mean the 10 Commandments kind?

Thou shalt not take thyself so seriously that you think you have to save everything.

Your having been to space is no guarantee that you're not crap-on-the-floor looney.

I would have thought that we've learned better than to pay too much attention to former astronauts. They might well be right about the asteroids, but I still think we should go ahead and get a second opinion on this.

ecosystem

You use words the way hillbillies use corn cobs.

Are you certain that you know what's happening in Ukraine and why?

That U.S. crotch you're cheerfully kicking might not be able to bail out your "actual civilized" buttocks from the next war.

I'm pretty sure Europeans are more worried about the US starting the next war.

The thing Europeans like best about the US military is all the coin we drop having bases there. Unless you count Serbia, where the US military is about as welcome as a bladder infection.

The data gets off it via bluetooth to a more powerful device. So yes, no UI at all.

The trick to wearables is not to have a UI. Everyone has a powerful computer with a great UI in their pocket. Wearables should leverage that by providing absolute minimal controls (no more than 1 or 2 buttons/knobs, no more than a small digital watch like display) and should transmit their data to the users phone via BLE. Then an app on the phone should provide more advanced control and display of results. The value of wearables is in providing additional sensors for apps, not in UI.