The enemy would be terrified by the noise, but I suspect wouldn't risk much from the gun, as a projectile exiting the barrel (or whatever passes for a barrel in a railgun) at 5000 mph instantly vaporizes when it hits the atmosphere.

My experience (which may have worked only for me mind you) is that employers don't give a toss about how much you know about stuff, but how flexible, adaptable and quick to learn you are.

In the 20-so years I've worked, I've held 4 positions in fields that have absolutely nothing in common. I worked as an employee, I worked self-employed, and I have my small business on the side.

Whenever I meet a potential employer, I am proud to say that I can learn anything quickly and become proficient on my own, and now I have a fat enough resume to prove it. Yes, I have an engineering degree, but the only thing it proves is that I'm patient and dog-headed enough to sit through years of boring classes, and that I'm clever enough to understand how teachers want the exam questions answered (which is not necessarily the correct answer). The rest of what I did in my life was self-taught, and employers seem to appreciate that much more than what I learned at school.

Wonder what Brahms would make of the insanity that passes for copyright today.

Dunno about Brahms, but we all know what happened when Bismark found out about Franz Ferdinand's bootleg copies of his hit song "eis eis baby".

Never underestimates the capacity of politicos to make decisions and pass legislation based upon a knowledge of the subject at hands poorer than that of a 3 year old. Especially high tech subjects...

I don't really have a stake in the US elections as I'm not American

Everybody in the world has a stake in the US election: if a nutjob was to be elected again, the entire world would suffer. It still suffers from the last one...

Not that the average American has any real say in who will take office, being that, as South Park eloquently put it, the choice of candidates will be between a douche or a turd.

When on earth has the US actually cared how large the debt gets.

Before the US quit paying it back regularly or keeping it in check, essentially after the New Deal policies were put in place in the 1930s.

What we need is a new cold war, to play who's-got-the-biggest-balls with another superpower and fund a new, bold space program.

No cold war = boring old reality with a national debt to repay.

The French do the same thing (try to protect their culture/language), but ultimately isn't it up to the PEOPLE of France and Canada to decide what their culture will be?

If you let the people decide what their culture should be without trying to preserve existing things or invent new ones, we'll end up with reality shows passing for art, and Justin Bieberlake running the country.

So essentially, they buy the stuff they sell from China because it's super-cheap, and now they're trying to get people to give them product ideas because designers and engineers are too expensive, to save on the cost of product development.

No way I'm giving the cheap bastards any of my brainpower so they can make even more profit.

(Mind you, that's exactly what Google does too...)

Aren't spy satellites considered weapons too?

They are if you cunningly deorbit them so they fall on somebody's head