Except that nothing was stolen. It is like downloading a movie. Copying is not stealing. Countries spy on each other, friend or foe. It is normal and expected.

Not everyone that opposes corruption does so for political advantage. Some of them actually really believe in honest, transparent government. Many of the most outspoken critics of the NSA spying have been Democrats. Such as Ron Wyden the Democratic senator from Oregon. If you look at his record, he is about as from a "teabagger" as you can get.

You use a derogatory term to refer to anyone that would suspect Democrats of abusing the national security apparatus for political ends, while stating that it is nonetheless reasonable to suspect future (presumably non-Democrat) administrations. If you study history, you will learn that the most dangerous authoritarianism is that which is cloaked in righteousness.

That means the funding is going to come from someplace other than my taxes.

The market is already fixing this. Helium prices are rising. The primary reason for this is shale gas. Helium is a byproduct of natural gas production. Some gas wells in Texas contain as much as 4% helium. Gas wells outside the USA contain very little helium, making America the dominant producer. But America is switching to shale gas, which contains very little helium, and the helium producing wells are being shut down because they can't operate profitably with historically low gas prices. So helium prices are climbing, and frivolous uses are being curtailed. Disneyland Tokyo has already stopped selling helium balloons of cartoon characters.

How do you know they are not using hydrogen? TFA does not say what gas they are using. So maybe they are using hydrogen but don't want to say so because of the idiots that associate it with the Hindenburg or hydrogen bombs. Thousands of people drown every year in a liquid that is 2/3 hydrogen, so there is no denying that it is dangerous stuff.

The Romans ate bread, not pasta. Noodles were invented in China, and didn't reach Europe until the late middle ages. The first record of pasta being made in Italy was in 1154.

That is NOT what they said. Read the quote carefully. It simply says that the speaker has no knowledge of the justice dept doing it, not that they didn't do it. This is a classic example of a bureaucratic waffle. It sounds like they are actually saying something meaningful, but if you parse the sentence, it is basically vacuous.

It might be impressive, but it would not be new. Flying bicycles have been around for a while. The Gossamer Albatross was pedaled over the English Channel in 1979, a distance of over 22 miles.

The hard part is not getting a bicycle to fly, but to get it to hover with human power.

There are lots of things that work in the lab, but are impractical in the field. Will this battery work at -50F in Fargo, ND? How about at 120F in Las Vegas? Will it handle 3000 discharge cycles? Will it be safe if it ruptures in an impact? Will it degrade if it is left fully discharged in an airport long-term park lot for three months? Very few batteries meet these criteria.

One problem with nerds that are living in the age of Moore's Law, is that they end up believing that other technologies enjoy the same sort of exponential improvements as semiconductors. In general, they do not. There will almost certainly be some incremental improvements, but I wouldn't bet on any big breakthrough in battery technology. If you look at the periodic table, there just isn't anything to the left or above lithium, except hydrogen which isn't practical for a number of reasons. It is extremely unlikely that we are going to discover a new alkali metal between lithium and hydrogen.

Of course, someone may invent "Mister Fusion", but that is not a battery.

MySQL had already been owned by a corporation for more than a decade before Sun bought it. That corporation was "MySQL AB", incorporated in Sweden.

A tsunami big enough to cause much damage is unlikely to be generated locally, so there would probably be an hour or more of warning. The biggest danger would be a tsunami generated by the fault-line of the "ring of fire" passing through Indonesia. That means it would most likely come from the east, so an obvious defense is to build the hotel on the western side of the island. The article doesn't say, and Google maps doesn't show an island named Kuredhivaru, so I don't know if that is what they are doing. But I am sure they thought of these things long before we did.

Or it could be a lack of genetic diversity in the coffee trees. The fungus can spread through vast plantations of genetically similar arabica trees. The reason the rust has difficulty infecting wild trees may be because of their diversity, as well as their dispersion.

Disclaimer: I am a tea drinker.

You probably already have bugs in your diet. Did you ever eat cherry yogurt? Check he ingredients. It probably lists carmine, which is made from beetles.