Who says development must proceed down the same paradigm? Sure 10-12yrs from now the business side of the gaming industry sure hopes so (cause costs of doing the exact same development with basic increments in innovation == higher profits).

"5000 TFLOPS Sweeney thinks will be needed for the 8000x4000"

For all I know 10yrs from now:
a. games will be headsets or beamed into your head (4K resolution, mind that resolution in general makes no sense)
b. I sure some new algorithm will solve the 5000TFlops issues, likely reduce it to 1TFLOPS, cause that's what game research is all about, the algorithms....)

Tim's not thinking "out of the box"--which is what innovation is all about. Just sayin'...

Human nature == Supply and demand.

NASA generates so much knowledge from pure research and a decent amount in applied research that there's no market to leverage it.

Back in the day, there was a market, the old silicon valley, bell labs, IBM R&D, HRL, Corning, etc... There was a demand aspect of corporate facilities and research universities not associated with NASA that would leverage output from NASA. Today, NASA is tightly coupled with tenured funded professors (i.e. no real cutting edge research), there are no big corp labs, and silicon valley is more interested in advertising bucks or how you make fake money (i.e. social gaming).

NASA can continue to innovate a lot--that they actually still do, but the outlet to absorb it is just not there.

Depends, most business printers and new printers are WiFi connected.

The USB connection is there, but why use it when you can connect via wireless.

And connecting to anything wireless usually requires a passphrase, key... or root.

Billionaires rule our education... schools are the means.

Billionaires practice the business paradigm: costs, risk, reward == money.

Billionaires can be philanthropic and give their funds to schools for facilities--and set requirements.

Billionaires invest in hedge funds and investment vehicles, which invests in the education system for R&D--and set requirements.

Billionaires has access to the highest levels of gov't, heck even run for president--and set requirements.

If you think Silicon Valley is the pinnacle of knowledge, technology... who runs that? Billionaires, which control those universities for cheap ideas and labor (e.g. grad students, think Google, Facebook) indirectly by fueling the culture with venture capital and... "fortune".

Look at all levels of K-12, University, Academia: buildings and halls are named after Billionaires to remind the academics who they work for....

Hence, they not only control the schools (via economics), but in essence, dictate the education standards in this country. There are exceptions as always, but this is the norm at every big ivy league, tech powerhouse school.

and Billionaires can get away from their mistakes, usually a hand slap and fine.

The HS601 and its XIPS system is technically electric since it is an Ion propulsive device. The above FTA is more about plasma thrust, but again all these concepts have been around for 50yrs: it's well known higher specific impulse == more acceleration for space flight == a better engine (and ions have more impulse than anything chemical)...

Should have used a autopilot with a plane+PTZ camera flying circles vs. a multicopter.... much hard to shoot something down going at 30mph...

The military figured that out with the U2 (hence the SR71 was developed).

Imagine this:

1. a bunch of stationary satellites/vehicles with rockets, laser, whatever. Cause aggressive maneuvering in space hasn't been done yet, so the Math/control systems aren't there yet, nor the MechEng problem is beyond the scope of current tech.

2. a bunch of guys in a room somewhere in Vegas, with 60" LCDs hooked upto a bunch of computers and joysticks, cozy armchairs, and NOC-style environment... operating the space vehicles virtually. Oh and a big radar dish in the backyard and FOXNews playing on the background TV.

THAT is what space combat will be like. Stop listening to those creative Hollywood types.

"Why not just settle disputes by actually playing video games"

Already done, it's called Congress: kids arguing with on another, collecting credits ($$$), having re-dos (reelection), cheating, and playing mind games.

If everyone is remotely fighting, instead of building up this huge infrastructure: wouldn't it be easier to just pick up the d*mn phone and settle it?

Can't defy the laws of physics people--this will never work from a remote aspect (think latency).

The Gundam approach is the way to go.

Keep it cheap.

And that's why open source hardware guys have these unspoken rules. They/we don't have access to a $20million dollar custom fab house or a $100million design studio.

If you keep it cheap, you make money (really, it all comes down to this) by volume, and the 1st guy that makes his fortunes is OK, since all the OS hardware guys use the same cheap hardware (it's limited fellas), so everyone can make some cash. And they all work together since any day MS or Apple can get into the game and wipe (or buy) everyone out (e.g. Kinect)

It's not a "dominate" the competition as with MS, Apple, HP, and Google, were desired profit margins are unreasonably high. So, that a win-win in the OSH community. Also, there is no "race to the bottom". I mean name me one open source hardware developer building a improved Arduino for $900 (when we know a iPhone sold for that amount retail, unlocked)?

"What will it take for humans to live beyond this limit?"

Simple:
Cyborg Technology.

"does more to integrate social networking and file-synching into a personal computer than any other OS."

a. Mt. Lion it's not out yet.
b. Have you seen Windows 8 preview?
c. Have you used Chrome OS (on paper it can be called a PC)?

Of course, It's getting better everyday in time and distance.

On second thought, IMO, Francis is off track, multirotors are cool, but don't fit the use case. That's why the Japan Ministry Of Defense's flying sphere has temporary hover capabilities, but it designed to fly horizontally, which is more efficient for long distance--its design fits the search and inspect use case. Now for search and rescue, a multirotor maybe more appropriate.

Well if you were in hi-tech back then, it made sense.

From the link:

"This system was aimed at high-end government imaging applications which were done by dedicated systems produced by the aerospace industry which cost a million dollars a seat

Having been there, yes, they were that expensive!

An election is essentially crowd sourcing. Stop reinventing the wheel with a new buzz word folks..

People just hate to vote in the end.

Then again, what do people like? As the saying goes: sex, love, and money--oh and include food too.