The problem here is thinking of trust as a binary choice rather than as a probability (float). Everybody, when they stop to think about it, realize that trust isn't all or nothing, but somewhere intermediate. But people often take shortcuts, and one easy shortcut is deciding trust as binary.

So, no, you shouldn't blindly trust an authority, but neither should you blindly distrust them. Each case needs to be evaluated separately based on the evidence you have on hand, and then given a temporary weight...which is subject to being changed when more evidence arrives. Unfortunately, this is not a good model for convincing people that you are correct, because you don't have the emotionally driving certainty. But even though that certainty is a great tool for convincing people, it's quite dangerous. You should immediately doubt whenever you hear someone being certain. This is a matter of self-protection, it's not that they are always wrong, or always malicious, often they aren't. But their goals are quite likely to differ from yours. And certainty is driven not be evidence, but rather by emotions, which are almost always self-serving in either a narrow or in an extended sense. (OTOH, life isn't a zero sum game, so their being self-serving doesn't mean that they are necessarily detrimental to you, your purposes, or your goals.)

Yes, it would be much lower. But that "much lower" would still be expected to be well above escape velocity. I mean the difference between 0.999...c (say 290,000 km/s) and 12 km/s is HUGE. (And I rounded the speed of the particle down, and escape velocity up.)
Even a 99.99% cancellation of velocities would still be well above escape velocity. It's true, though, a 99.999% cancellation would be below escape velocity. That kind of efficiency after a collision seems (to me) unlikely.

Why do you use a pejorative to describe

Awww, Pookie ... are you off your meds again? Or do you just think I care about your whining and sniveling?

If that isn't the case then its a broken business model.

That simply is not true.

The viability of the business model isn't how many servers you have to buy to be a cloud ... it's how much you can gouge your customers for it.

Gouge enough, and it's profitable. Don't gouge enough, and then it's a broken business model.

Pretty much like anything hired as a service.

I think it should be written like:

Cloud. Boom.
Drives Sales. Boom.
For Physical servers. Boom.

Throw in some wikiwiki noises, a phat beat, and some sampling, and you've got a hit record.

Practical consumer-level devices do well to hit 20%.
No, 80% efficiency is pretty much the bottom of the barrel in switching mode power supplies, 95% from 20-80% of rated load is doable for around $200 for 1kw loads.

Well, don't be a tease. Fill me in.

The original space race was a lot more about nuclear weapons fears and saber rattling than I think Neil appreciates. It may have been publicly perceived as a fun thing, but behind the scenes it was about military paranoia and a Cold War that came all-too-close to becoming VERY hot.

You're going to install a NEMA 14-30 and use a conversion cable to run your European kettle?

And what is the system efficiency of
Grid AC -> Battery DC -> House AC -> USB DC?

Well, it's hard to make a 3D analog requiring gravity without causing some other issues, so a pool table is probably the best way to explain it.

It's a freakin' black hole ... to say it's nothing like we know is a bit of an understatement.

By your body going into starvation mode. C'mon, it's not that hard to look up how to lose weight sensibly, it's all over the web. Some of those tips are even good. Hint: It's the ones that don't want to sell you their miracle cure crap.

Bar? If your chocolate is solid enough not to require a spoon because that's how it crumbles, it's not pure enough!

Mostly it exposes that people love to believe stories they like. And of course journalists love to publish stories that their readers like.

I just don't think that qualifies as news, though.