I really enjoyed this movie as a kid. Quite frankly, Maximilian was, and is to me still, one of the scariest robots ever created. Given the era, it's very surprising DIsney produced a movie as dark as The Black Hole. In addition to Maximilian there were the zombie-like laser-lobotomized humans running the ship. And no, there was no happy ending for any of them - the best they got was to eventually die. Yeah, it tried to go right by the checklist of what made Star Wars a huge success (lasers, robots, and even a "force"-like ESP thing), but it was still quite original in a number of ways. They even had a fairly decent go of zero-gravity behavior in the space ship at the beginning.

Never ascribe to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest. She's not disconnected from reality, she's trying to disconnect you and me from reality.

She doesn't seem to be very good at it.

I'm sure it's doing more than that. It has a payload bay like the space shuttle. Certainly it is doing spying, but it's very likely that it is actively testing new technology that has to make up for the loss of capability that the Space Shuttle provided. More than likely it launches micro satellites, then locates and tracks them, and finally recaptures them. It could also be launching a larger payload of some kind, then manipulating the payload with a robotic arm, etc.

According to a CNN article, they were leaving the secure area, not entering. A quote from an official said they failed to follow proper safe EXITING procedures. Another major news site said that a gun and cocaine were found in the vehicle. It's a large complex and a lot of people live in it. Sounds like drugs were being ferried in or out, and it didn't have anything to do with the NSA or secrets.

This makes sense for a number of reasons. First, it will keep scalpers from buying up so many devices and selling on eBay. Makes it much easier for Apple to keep track of these people. Second, it will reduce the number of impulse buys for people that don't really understand what the device can, and more importantly, can't do, thus reducing the number of returns and increasing overall customer satisfaction. Sure, it has downsides, but I think the upsides probably win out in this case.

Russia has heavy lift capability, and that's basically it. I tried to find the last time they actually did exploration (as in probes, rovers, etc) and didn't see much of anything since the Soviet Union. Right now NASA, ESA, Japan, China and even India are all ahead of Russia as far as exploration goes, as all those organizations have active probes in space doing science. Russia is basically just hauling stuff into orbit.

For one brief moment I thought this was actually newsworthy - AKA it was implemented in Javascript using WebGL and Web Audio API - while in reality it runs in 3rd party plugin which is a native executable running directly on the system. Yawn.

"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time," and that's all a politician needs.

I don't vote party, except that I avoid both D and R whenever there's a candidate who doesn't want to put half the people I know in prison for smoking pot.

If anyone but Bruce Rauner had run against Quinn I would have voted for the Republican, becuase Quinn just wasn't a good governor. I think Rauner will be even worse, maybe even as bad as Ryan(R) or Blago(D), both were crooks. I don't know if Rauner is a crook but his policies are terrible. There were only two named on the ballot, so it was indeed a choice between two evils.

Look, Republicans are against the Social Security I paid into all my life and am now enjoying, against unions, without which I would have no pension, against the single payer health care system which has countries with it in place enjoying half the costs we face with far less infant mortality and longer life spans (Obamacare is really Romneycare in disguise); against the Medicare I again paid into and will get in a couple of years; against food stamps (that's simply un-Christian, yet they claim to be Christians?); against taxes (again, an un-Christian stance). Tell me, what Democrat views that the Republicans don't share are detrimental to me, a middle class retired guy?

But both parties are against pot legalization, for our insanely long copyrights, and quite a few more where there really isn't a valid choice.

Well, when a child says bye-bye, it sounds like a contraction (b'bye), but bye-bye is not a contraction. It's more like Cory Doctorow spells sidewalk: side-walk. Wnat contraction uses a hyphen instead of an apostrophe? Not bye-bye, it isn't a contraction of anything.

As to "SyFy", that's a trademark, not a word. It only applies to that bad cable channel. Hi-fi and sci-fi aren't contractions of high fidelity and science fiction, but new words made out of old ones.

I guess that could argue the validity of e-mail and e-books, though.

Yes, if I were in college I'd certainly only lug one book around -- my notebook computer. I'd keep all the schoolbooks on the computer.

As to elderly eyesight, when I was a kid, all the geezers wore glasses, but few young people. Now all the youngsters have glasses and few geezers do. Why? The young are ruining their eyesight with computers, tablets, and phones much like I ruined mine with books.

But when I was a kid, cataract surgery was still rare. The patent on the CrystaLens should expire around 2023, so most oldsters won't need any glasses, since it not only cures cataracts but nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism. It won't be long before I have to get the other eye done.

We now have a "right to work" billionaire as governor of Illinois. He's calling for "right to work" zones, fortunately the legislature isn't going to let him.

If I weren't retired and lived in a "right to work" state, I would demand that the state's government supply me with employment. After all, if it's my RIGHT to work...

"Right to work" is a flat out bald faced lie, and any working person who supports it is a moron.

The difference is that a middle class or poor person who votes Republican is voting against their own interests.

Here's there scene I'm talking about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

This new Magic Leap video... same poor interface concept, slightly better graphics.