I have always thought a small car-mounted drone could be incredibly useful. Even if it could not be used above say 10MPH, just something that could pop up a few hundred feet in the air to give you a quick overview would be awesome.

Especially for finding parking.

I wish my car had a drone for instant scouting of traffic-jam alternates.

You do, it's called the Waze user that is ten minutes ahead of you down the road, mixed with many road sensors reporting traffic flow rates.

If you are using navigation many mapping applications automatically route around traffic issues (including Waze). I personally just have it up while driving, not really using navigation but just to keep an eye on traffic rates and issues. I've turned off many a highway before to avoid a Waze reported issue and taken a pretty obvious alternate route you could see at a glance on the map.

For anyone that has not tried leaving modern mapping applications open with traffic status enabled, I highly recommend it - just get a decent car mount so it's easy to see the display. I recommend Waze in particular only because it's one of the best at taking in user reports as to police or road hazards (like chair in right lane! just one example of something I have reported in the past).

It's probably impossible to know until you are actually in the same situation.

It's possible to know because you know how it is from the side of people noticing things. I find artificial hands immediately obvious, as much so as a robotic hand would be.

I think either would fare just as well in terms of not attracting notice when covered by a glove. Why not, then you would just look a little odd in summer...

Sure, but it doesn't really change anything. In fact, most people become elderly so it only stands to reason that most people are going to need insurnace, and the money they pay in when they're young makes up for the money they take out when they're old.

True, on its own it isn't. ACA does include subsidies for the poor which is a form of socialism, though limited in scope.

Well, they don't have to under a system like this if it is done right (aside from inflation, or rising levels of service). I don't think the ACA was really done right - it was a compromise all-around. The US health system is a nest of problems, and ACA really only hits a few of them. There is no one thing that you can do to fix it.

Biofuels are about government subsidies and nothing more. All the talk about biofuels and the environment is just to trick the rubes.

Over and over and over, never stopping, regardless of how many people are hurt with each attempt, climbing a mountain of misery toward an always elusive utopia.

The evils of alcohol vs. prohibition.

It's not society this time. The sickness here is all in the government schools.

But remember this: even though government schools do a bad job of teaching children in poor neighborhoods, we can't have non-government schools. Because poor kids wouldn't get a good education with non-government schools.

Perhaps teaching kids that use of guns and violence in schools will not be tolerated is a good thing?

Perhaps you're a blithering idiot. Oh, wait: there's no question about that.

-jcr

The first space station was designed by private industry (what, you thought NASA did its own design work?).

Apollo and Shuttle, which provided transport to Skylab and ISS, were designed by private industry.

And the only reason taxpayers are footing the bill for rockets to ISS is that NASA is the one that wants supplies sent up there. And can't do it on its own, since it has no spacecraft capable of reaching ISS.

Dragon is beginning its man-rating tests this year.

I keep thinking of places down south who need all the water they can get, and we're just wasting a whole reservoir full. That saddens me.

To put it in perspective, this is about two minutes worth of water use by the State of California. It's a long way from a significant amount.

rough estimate, about 60 times the volume of the 3 main Library of Congress buildings combined

36 million gallons is about 140 million liters, or 140,000 m^3. 1/60th of that is about 2000 m^3.

Are the three main Library of Congress buildings really as small as 700 m^2 (call it 7000 square feet) combined? Or did you drop a decimal somewhere?

So that's a good solution It's unenforceable, by which you mean not everyone who does it is caught though some are caught, so let's just not try to stop it. That's like saying "rape is going to happen anyway we might as well make it legal"

No, it's more like saying "rape is going to happen anyway, so we might as well make penises legal".

If someone 3-D prints a gun, and takes it to the range, I have no problem (well, other than wanting to be at a different range that day).

I DO have a problem if he uses it to rob a store or kill someone. The same problem I have if he buys a gun at a gun shop and then uses it to rob a store or kill someone.

In other words, punish criminal use of the weapon, not the existence of the weapon.

Its worse than that. They do not understand that everyone that trades benefits when trades are a choice. The "Free" in "Free Trade" means Liberty. You are also Free to not trade. These are not ironically the same people that complain about things that they are willing consumers of....

I don't think that its the "socialist" philosophy that has turned them into "fuckwits" as you say -- I think its simply that they are Statists. See their calls to confiscate Google properties. "Nationalize them" indeed.