The trebuchet has the advantage in that it can fire anything...
Which is scarier?
"SCREEEEEEEECHMM"...BOOM!"
or...
"MOOOOOOOOOOOOO... SPLAT!"
or... (for dramatic effect)...
"Are those HEADS they're throwing at us?"

snoopy laugh... seriously.

Agreed.

Stop the fear-mongering.
It's called "acceptable losses".

It's just the flu.
And we really need to keep the "just" in there.
Over the last few weeks we've seen that '08 and '09 seasonal vaccine doubles the chance one will get H1N1,
that those LEAST likely to die are MOST likely to get the vaccine, at the expense of those MOST likely to die.

I swear, it's almost as if some people WANT this thing to become a planet-killer.
They either want billions dead; or if that doesn't happen, they'll just say "you only survived because of us... er... we mean the vaccine".

Granted, I'm glad the public is finally becoming aware how unsanitary doorknobs, elevator buttons, and handshakes are.
I've been complaining about that for decades where I work, and NOW they finally care.

Side note: I'm gravely allergic to the flu vaccine. The years I've received it, I've been horribly ill for almost a month afterwards, usually losing around 20% of my bodyweight; and then I end up getting the flu a few months later anyway... and instead of only being out for 2 or 3 days kinda achey, was knocked the fuck out for 2 to 3 weeks.
However, I can't get a doctor to confirm that because they believe in the necessity of the flu vaccine too much, so all that is just in my mind,,, quit puking in the garbage can, you're imagining it.

Didn't say they should operate at a loss.
They can already operate at a profit, just not as big a profit as they'd like.

The last few bits at the end of the article seem to be the most important...

"It's going to take the right engineering solution with the right species to make it commercially viable,"
In other words, it it's not "perfect" (for varying degrees of perfection), we're just not going to do it.
I find it interesting that they want to find the perfect organism first, rather than get close first, and then refine the process.
And seriously, "extracting its oils without degrading other parts of the algae that can be made into side products and sold as well"?
What is their core operation? Getting the oil, or merchandising the left-overs?
Do the first, well, first; THEN work out the second.

"It's never going to get off the ground without a helping hand,"
translation: we're shell companies set up by multi-billion corps. Give us tax money.

Yeesh... It's no wonder people home-brew this stuff.

But, does California count? ;)
How about Ohio, Iowa, Florida, Colorado, or DC?
All of which are fairly different culturally from Chicago.
Most people don't think about just how BIG America is, and how varied.
Ever tried going across it by train or bus?
Wow... seriously.
It's bigger, and more eccentric, than you expect.
It's no wonder most of us here don't even have a passport (but still sad).

I would like to go visit some other countries though.
I just applied for a passport so I can visit some of my extended, ex-pat, family.

I'd love to see an ARM netbook.
With a 9-cell battery,,, granted, the screen and mechanicals are the biggest drain, but still, that'd waste the Atom.
(especially since MS insists producers use inferior versions of the Atom. Read my history, know that I think using anything less that the 330 is a horrible sin).

I'd also like to see....
These things use HOW much power? (or better yet, how little?)
How many can you fit on a PCI card?
How much power would it draw?
Think it could give Larrabee a run for it's money?
I'm not concerned about video, just processing.
Give us a good API for it, similar to CUDA/OpenCL, then sell it as a co-processor
(if it's doable, I do confess a decent amount of ignorance of the basic ability of this chip, but no shortage of ideas).

DON'T TURN THE DAMNED THING ON RIGHT IN YOUR FACE!
(well, that and spending an extra $5 for a metal showerhead).

Seriously, who does that anyway?
You have to get the temperature right first, flip the switch, THEN you can get in the shower.

Seriously, if this has no benefits towards a cancer cure, I don't care...
Because it looks like a promising step towards helping auto-immune disorders.

Cancer either kills you, or you live...
auto-immune, you live, and suffer, and live, and suffer, and live (goddamn it).

I've known people with auto-immune disorders for over 25 years,
And it's only NOW that some of these disorders are even being recognized as a disease.
(coming in from the fringe to "real" medicine).

I have eczema.
Yeah, doesn't really sound bad does it.
Imagine having the skin on your fingers swell and split open, and your forearms be red and "popeye-ish" and they just radiate heat.
I've been lucky enough to figure out some of the triggers for it (MSG and onions, mainly), but it never quite goes away, except when I get a hard cold/flu, then it totally clears up.

Too many auto-immune disorders are still considered to be "all in the head".
Hopefully this helps bring them more mainstream attention.

It's still another attempt to make reality match "legality" instead of the other way around.
'If someone else copies your file, you will be punished by loosing that file'...

Fuck. That. Shit.

The current (and as it has always been) paradigm of free copying of data, is the best and most honest way of dealing with data.
"He who lights his taper off of mine does not diminish mine"... Jefferson, IIRC.

Whoever came up with this idea should lose their computing licence.

I remember reading, 10 FUCKING YEARS AGO!!!
That 90% and higher of US currency tested positive for cocaine.

I guarantee you, cops will set the limits on these things as low as they're allowed.
Because of current civil forfeiture/seizure rules, which the officers' departments get a part of, and which the party they steal from has basically no rights to contest, this will be a huge money grab, especially for smaller municipalities.

The war on drugs needs to end. Immediately.
I don't care about trying any of them (just the smell of pot makes me puke, and I hate needles), but I'm sickened by how people are treated due to it.
From Nixon to Regan to Bush I, the rules got tightened, then Clinton pushed up enforcement, hard...
He had lots of ex-gulf war military that could easily be funnelled into law enforcement, and anti-discrimination laws meant the limiting of the "old blue-boy's network", where you might get off because they knew you weren't a danger, because now they have to check everyone for everything.

Here's the cure to all of this...
End the war on drugs,
get rid of civil forfeiture laws and everything associated with it and the war on drugs,
mandatory firearm ownership, plus, mandatory carry, no FOIDs, no registrations, no limit on what you can carry except that you can control it when you fire it (FOID, registration, National Firearms Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Firearms_Act are all unconstitutional).
REQUIRE citizens to grab their guns and run out onto their front porch when people start shooting, and defend themselves and their neighbors...
Do that, and you will have the following happen:
Violent crime will plummet to barely existent levels
All law enforcement orgs could be cut in half, lowering taxes.
What are gangs actually going to fight over now? And how are they going to fight each other when everyone around them is armed? They're not... they'll just whither and die,,, or they can attack and die faster.

I also just watched an interview on TV, http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=6945913
The fact that he got out on such low bond means he probably got SOME kind of lawyer.
The fact that he did the above interview means either he or his attorney are missing a few cycles.

Also, it was said that he did this for a year...
How long is operator radio training?
How many here have had some kind of radio training?
How long did it take you to know the calls and codes?
I'm leaning on the side of stupid.

That's all we need...
An abandoned, horny bot-net with extreme daddy-issues.
That ALWAYS ends well.

Go ahead and go, go anywhere and everywhere...
But actually DO something once you get there, don't just go there to wave your dick around.

I'd really like to see a good sized radio telescope built on the far side of the moon, complete with relay lines to dishes at the terminus between near and far sides, so there's no accidental reflections from earth off of relay satellites instead.

Going further out than LEO would be good also...
I remember reading this PDF of a flight plan from around 40 years ago, where they wanted to send a crew further INTO the solar system, and actually intercept/orbit Venus, using apollo tech.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manned_Venus_Flyby

How about a small, self sufficient station at L3?
You'd need a couple of relay sats for comms, but that's a smaller cost than the station.

Alas, none of this will happen though, because we're too adverse to risk these days, and we wouldn't DARE send someone condemned to death out there instead, it'd de-demonize them (serial killer and first man on another planet?).
Plus, have you noticed that most of the studies about going into space for long periods of time involve seeing if people can do with limited to no social interaction?
Yeah, most of US can, but the ones they trust to send up there, CAN'T!
So we gotta settle for unmanned probes.

So fire off at least one every month.
Pick something to study: moon, planet, propulsion tech, comm tech, interstellar phenomenom (this one will take time and would need to be fast).
And if you need some tech to make sure it works (such as an RTG), and people complain about it, ignore them with extreme prejudice.

And more space telescopes!
Seriously, we have barely a handful pointing outwards, but probably hundreds (classified, guess, and hope you're not accurate) looking back down?

It's Fortran...
Except for when it's Cobol...
If it's neither of them, then it's C.
(every language after C is made to ameliorate one of the above three...)