And I doubt that anyone is "pulling down 300 terabytes a month on a $50 connection". Now, as far as real numbers are concerned - 3GB is a tiny amount of bandwidth that gets smaller every day.

He says he has independently carried out some tests and thus has arrived at a somewhat specific figure which is what you all wanted to know [why he said 23 and not 25,50,75 or even 10,20,30,...] - so whats the problem?

They're not all going to solve it. One of theirs, chosen by the clouds, will fix it - how else can a population of mystics have cellphones to begin with? It was the will of the gods. In the meantime they will probably be denouncing science and technology with text messaging.

Why would I send the asteroids at a lower speed, they would have the same propulsion system as the ship. The ship would probably be a similarly equipped asteroid. The real problem I see is sustaining that rate of acceleration for a sustained period of two years - the asteroid itself would have to somehow be the fuel and the expent fuel couldn't be in the path so it would have to create a tunnel with it's expulsion pattern as opposed to a trail. I am not suggesting going the speed of light which is why I went to the trouble of saying "appreciable fraction of" and you still heckle me over this like by reminding me it is a "limit" as if I want to break the speed of light. Not even what I said. So what is the point of the mass increasing to a factor of 2-7 anyways, of course you and your craft are going to have mass - so explain without being so patronizing what is wrong with that. Or better yet, why don't you use your imagination to propose a solution to travelling 44light years which is the discussion.

Since there is little friction in space what is there from stopping us from reaching an appreciable fraction of the speed of light? I was reading that we might attain lightspeed in about 1 year at 1G acceleration rate which only adds a couple of years to the trip..

I would first launch a volley of asteroids towards the planet to clear a path, then the equipment, and then follow in their wake.

In this case you simply have to carry on without the lens, like when your radio quits working, or you run out of your finite supply of ammunition.

My guess would be - for the experience.

I think entertainment producers will one day be paid in advance for proposed entertainment in a kickstarter fashion. They will leverage whatever following they have based on their past performances. The more popular, although not necessarily best, themes will be capable of demanding the most.

In some ways I wish the 'artificial scarcity' rights holders would win and no one unauthorized could see their content or use their software, I already don't. I could care less about the movies and music being produced in recent years, but then again I play music and have an imagination for those other times.. when that isn't enough, I try to learn new things to help fuel my imagination. I can't even understand how someone would waste the time it takes to find this content illegaly, risk getting their computers infected with hacked software, sorting through entertainment that might be fuzzy or have bad sound... or even taking the legal risk of being harassed by the rights holders. I've already quit playing most games or certain OSes due to the hassle of legitimate ownership and I have a personal belief that they only use these overly restrictive methods of requiring you to enter cd keys and switch cds in and out for 'authorization', requiring internet access, regristration, etc. would occur no matter what because of the psychological implications that these cloak and dagger procedures cause your perception of the value of their product to escalate. Good riddance to all of their manipulative bullshit if they can't make money anymore.

Youtube! Youtube, youtube youtube... youtube? Youtube youtube youtube youtube.

This is a nice thought but independent authors will never be able to compete legally and that's a shame.

Not transferrable and owned by an actual person, that would be interesting.

On the surface reddit seems noisy and digg-like but there is more to it. Whatever is popular at any given moment is rife with memes, jokes, bickering... but off on the side you can find people having meaningful exchanges in related subreddits. It is as if the popularity of anything at a given moment behaves as a magnetic diversion, like feeding sick livestock to piranhas to keep them at bay. Also, they have regional subcategories where people can practice being civil or various SIG's which provide some potential beyond posturing for discussion. Slashdot needs to get with the times, I mean, where is slashdotgonewild, etc.?

"On Democratic message boards...", guess what.. Democratic message boards, republican message boards, etc. are inhabited by irrational people who simply root for their team; they're like sports fanatics. Consider a democratic or republican core value and then locate some people who are discussing actionable solutions that don't involve convincing some nebulous opposition to admit that they're wrong and you're right and instead doing something to improve the quality of life for other people. Now what percentage of them think everything was Bush's fault and Obama can do no wrong or vice versa?

Actually they're contributing to their own kernel which happens to be linux. They can't just stop contributing unless they're happy with the kernel and it's natural pace of development. They get paid for their contributions by not having to wait around for drivers.

Lots of things are addictive. Coffee, cigarettes, alcohol, internets, gambling, video games..

It should be legal so that the FDA can check it for mold and pesticides. It should be produced locally so we can go after the real criminals selling low grade stuff processed by underpaid labor. Those taxes could fund addiction centers or some such.