No, think back a few years to the massive blackout in the Eastern part of the US. That was an accident, but that's the kind of thing a well-run attack on SCADA could do. Then if you want to kill people, as part of the attack, attack hospital utility systems. You know, like the stuff that brings the backup generators online when the mains fail. There are all sorts of regulations about keeping patient data safe, but it wouldn't surprise me if the utility systems are just as secure as a lot of the rest of them. (not very)

You and MickeyTheIdiot in this post http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3386471&cid=42603673 are saying essentially the same thing, from two different perspectives.

But it basically boils down to this, for the most part, TPTB simply don't like the peer-to-peer nature of the internet, precisely because it is egalitarian and empowering.

By design, internet access really ought to be a utility, serviced, managed, and regulated just like electricity, POTS, natural gas, etc. For one simple reason, that's because the last mile requires monopoly infrastructure just like all of those other utilities. Some level of regulation is actually more important because internet access is far more susceptible to neutrality abuse.

At the same time current ISPs are already those regulated incumbents, and they REALLY don't want to be running yet another regulated utility - they see the big bucks and they want to grab their share. Cable TV and POTS are both regulated monopolies, but once those providers become ISPs they can sell corresponding streaming video and VOIP services, and better yet those options are unregulated.

So to the ISP the internet becomes primarily a content delivery system, and one that has already solved the content-ordering problem for them. Yet once the internet pipes exist, the ISP has no monopoly over the streaming video and VOIP services, unless they can break network neutrality.

The company sees the internet as a great communications and distribution capability. My employer had something very internet-like, minus the graphical stuff, over 10 years before the internet really hit the scene. They were also spending money developing and deploying that internal network. The internet gives it to them for "free". (Not really free, but at least at lower cost.)

In both cases, the internet is a tremendous advantage for incumbent TPTB. But in both cases there's no particular advantage to the peer-to-peer, egalitarian, empowering nature of the internet. In fact that nature is really only good for ordinary people and entrepreneurs trying to create or break into a market. For TPTB enabling entrepreneurs to break into their market is a disadvantage.

Oh come on... The duct-tape patch is old news.

As one who happens to be 6'4", I'll say that on Earth a 6 foot ceiling is very different from a 20 foot ceiling. I'm not normally claustrophobic, but every now and then I just like to have some space around me. Skylab was interesting, in that respect, including the open framework floors.

Never having been in microgravity I can't tell how I'd respond, if being in a space 6'x6'x tens of feet would be sufficient for me, when I'm capable of moving in any of those dimensions.

psychology....

Have you seen any of the videos sent back from the ISS? From what the videos show, that thing is basically a maze of tunnels. There are a few (tiny) "rooms" off to the side, the cupola being the most notable and most different. (and biggest?) What's the long-term psychological impact of living in a "warren", and how great would the benefit be of having some real rooms?

The way I heard it, the TransHab (inflatable module) had some really serious enemies in Congress. That is, enemies to the tune that the NASA budget was written to explicitly forbid any money for TransHab development. So NASA sold what they had to Bigelow, since they were legally forbidden to do anything else with it. (Just checked Wikipedia, and there is at least some level of confirmation for this.)

Bigelow has 2 TransHab-based test articles in orbit. Last I heard, they were planning their own "Space Hotel." I wonder what they'd charge for "Hundred Mile High" certificates, apart from the launch and on-orbit fees.

Interestingly, everything I'd see on TransHab had the floors perpendicular to the axis. The photos in TFA have the floors parallel to the axis.

So when are they going to add a planet for rishrathra?

My immediate guess would be that some percentage of attrition is chalked up to forgetfulness, and some to "Gave up on the long line and walked away." The latter would clearly be a yellow flag to TPTB, because too much of that and it's an indication that customers aren't having fun, and may not come back.

It really depends upon when the cost of barium becomes greater than the cost of keeping you in some sort of minimal care/cost sh*t-wait facility. Note that no such facility exists today, but if relative costs change...

I'm also under the impression that antibiotics leave the body in urine and feces. How much antibiotic resistance is because of misuse, and how much is because of uncontrolled introduction into the environment through our wastes? Such a facility mentioned above might also be worthwhile for our antibiotics-of-last-resort, for instance.

Which brings up the point - none of this barium has actually left the Earth - it's all around here somewhere. The medical barium all came out in the end, and depending on what's done with solid sludge from the waste treatment plants, we know where it is. However since only a small portion of the population is ever getting this procedure at anyone time, it's probably quite dilute. This of course suggests one possible measure, and that's keeping barium patients around the hospital a day or two longer, and having special bathroom and waste treatment facilities for them.

This really comes home on the Jungle Cruise ride in the Magic Kingdom. We went on the ride on our honeymoon, and thought it rather corny. On the previously mentioned Labor Day trip (almost 30 years later) we decided to revisit the ride.

This time the tour guide was a young woman who did part of the ride in the previous corny style. The rest of the ride was schtick about being stuck here as a college student, and about how PROUD her parents were of her, college educated, guiding this corny ride, how valuable those years were to her, etc.

It sounded inspired by Weird Al's "Tour Guide on the Jungle Cruise Ride", and I rather suspect it really was. The ride was corny over 30 years ago, probably incapable of being rendered anything but, so they decided to go for the gusto, and Weird Al showed the way.

(To be fair, I don't know which came first, Weird Al's parody or the change to schtick on the ride.)

I mentioned elsewhere on this topic - they want you on their property and spending money. But at the same time, they want you to have a good time, so you'll keep coming back and spending money.

Disney already collects a ton of information about how their parks are running. It's just not noticeable during normal times. My wife loves WDW - a few years back we went the day after Labor Day and the part was practically deserted. The information collectors were much more visible without the big crowds to hide them. Twice going on the Haunted House ride we got the "wait-time measurement passes" from one of the information people. He gave it to us, and we handed it to the last attendant before the Doom Buggy started into the ride. On this occasion it basically measured our walking time and the delay in the little room.

We also got a chance to chat with one of the information collectors while waiting for a bus. He explained how most visitors felt the day's experience was good if they'd gotten on 6-8 major rides, and they do what they can to make sure everyone has a good experience. After all, that's what gets you back and spending money again.

Really that's their goal - to get you into the park, spending money, and feeling good about it so you'll do it again. (and again, and again, ...)

I won't argue with the validity of your point.

Another point of taxation would be the tires. Tires reflect the weight of the vehicle, and I'll presume that as the tires wear on the road, the road wears on the tires. It might affect the cost of your tires, but if you barely drive your heavy pickup, your tires will last longer, and you'll pay that piece of tax less often.

It's worse than just "weight" - I've heard that road wear is proportional to axle weight to the 4th power. You know those semis that have the sign, "This truck pays $XX,XXX yearly in road use taxes"? Compared to the road wear they cause, they're still under-paying.