That's why at the start of the war... If they survived 25 missions, they got to go home. Statistically they were unlikely to live that long. Many re-upped though, just because they couldn't walk away and leave everyone else behind to continue fighting without them.

typo... hate it when that happens (and autocorrect "fixes" it)

Bah. You kids these days...

Back in my day, we didn't complain about the cold and lack of oxygen. We rode in unpressurized planes with open gun ports. Sure, it was cold -- we wore fur lined jackets and liked it. Our oxygen masks smelled like engine exhaust and we were grateful. You didn't here us whine about 'being crushed by landing gear' or 'being thrown from the plane'. We were being shot at. Hell, we were lucky to have landing gear at all when we got back.

So, stop your bitching and get off my damn lawn.

Written for my grandfather who manned a gun in a WWII bomber.

California and Texas need to learn two words: De-Salination. yes, it's expensive. You got choices... Thirst and dead crops or spend money on desalination plants. Well, there are two more options... (1) Invent a method to alter weather patterns and steal someone else's rain. or. (2) declare independence and go to war with the U.S., annex neighboring states and pipeline water from the Mississippi directly to Texas.

This. It would talk longer to build the refinery than it would to build a transcontinental pipeline. In addition, if you think they're having problems trying to build a pipe from Canada to Texas to flow crude oil, wait till they try to build a large refinery in ND and then build the pipeline to carry the processed output across country. You'll have people pulling the NIMBY card for the refinery. The same people trying to stop the crude pipeline, trying to stop the gasoline pipeline. And lots of others complaining about the increased truck and train traffic carrying the hazardous chemical secondary production outputs and byproducts.

ironically, yes. If his car uses an electric motor driven by batteries, and the batteries are charged via a connection to his electric utility, and the utility generates electricity by burning coal.... Then his car is, indirectly, steam powered.

Most science fiction says it happens this way:

After the asteroid impact... Humanity pulled itself from the breach of collapse and rebuilt. Once they could regain a foothold on space, they made it a priority to put in place the necessary resources to make sure it would never happen again.

OK, so, while it is fiction, sometimes literature provides insight into the human psyche. Frankly, I doubt you'll be able to convince the world governments to put any real money into an asteroid defense venture... that is until an impact happens and does sufficient damage to wake up all the people in power up. Most think that it will never happen. Most also believe they have more important issues to deal with in their local district and can't concern themselves with global issues.

While that's true, you would not be carrying 100 pounds of weapons grade uranium in one 2.4 liter sized container. If you tried, everyone would know where you were standing at the time you attempted it.

Why yes it is. However, additional details became available with recently declassified documents. So, the story line is being updated.

There have been substantial periods in the past where Microsoft web servers ran Linux.

Yeah.... about that. It won't matter much where the reactor is located if "a giant rock or snowball from outerspace hits..." and creates a tsunami. You think Fukushima was bad, wait till the giant tsunami you speak of inundates coastlines across three or four continents.

Don't forget the white cat.

Who told you that lie? Several reactors have suffered a melt down / loss of primary containment event where fuel slumped to the bottom of the pressure vessel and burned through. TMI is an example of such an event. This was always a possibility in Generation II PWR and BWR designs. It's one of the reasons we need to be building Generation III+ replacements.

There was a drawing visible in the video for about 10-15 seconds. Mind you, it's not a lot to go on... The reactor itself was shown below the water level. The design appeared to be similar to designs I've seen which use passive convection cooling. In addition to that, the outer containment was labeled as "flooded with sea water" or something to that effect. To your other point, the shape of the outer containment was a cylinder. The appearance was similar to some Generation III+ designs that flood the building and rely on passive convection cooling to keep a reactor nominally within safe limits, should something serious go wrong with the primary and secondary systems. Again, that's based on a 10 second glimpse at a sketch in a video... so not to be taken seriously.

Mercedes isn't in financial trouble, not at all; and, Tesla is not going to have any measurable impact on Mercedes sales. That's not what I'm referring to. The curtain is hiding the fact that Mercedes themselves are using Tesla technology.