Well as I understand it earth has gone through a number of catastrophic die-offs that killed most of the life on the planet like... 7 times? According to what I read, life on earth accelerated it's evolution and development after each cataclysm and progressed faster and faster. I never see THIS being taken into account for these sorts of calculations. We assume that the time it took for life on earth to go from primordial goo to space-flight capable humans is roughly the norm. What if our evolution is slightly or massively accelerated because of these die-offs and rebirths? What if some other planet had only 5 die-offs and is lagging behind us? We may not be the first (though we could be because of the aforementioned) but we could possibly be one of the early birds despite the youth of our star.

Seven atom transistors, quantum cryptography, nuclear and weather modeling applications and journals called "Nature Nanotechnology"...

Ladies and gentlemen, if this isn't the future then what is?

My instinct tells me you're being sarcastic, but if not... holy crap on a cracker you need to get out more!

If geography allowed it and it made orbital sense to fly over a populated area during every landing, do you think the general population might be more aware and interested in space travel?

If I had an orbital vehicle streaking across the sky every month or so, I would certainly be very aware of the pace of space travel and keep it in my head for longer then I do now.

Does the general reaction by the US government (and world governments) remind everyone of the bizarre tactics and theories thrown around about communist psychics threatening US interests?

"We don't understand the danger exactly, or if there even is one, but we must be sure to have a counter to it!"

If there isn't much in the way of radiation shielding for this new module why would the astronauts want to use it at all, let alone as a frequent place for R&R?

These weren't people doing any old day-to-day job and they are regarded as heroes or at the very least special and worth getting upset over for the reason reason Americans would get upset over the death of their president. Ordinary men perhaps but doing extraordinary things not just for themselves but doing a job specifically detailed as one that benefits all of humanity (or in the case of the president, benefits the USA).

I do understand that we don't lavish this same kind of attention on leading AIDS or Cancer researchers but admittedly their job doesn't have the same frequency of explosions sheer grandeur about them.

Mod parent up, seriously this is about the best thing said about microsoft on slashdot since... well I was actually going to mention a specific instance of microsoft doing something good and useful in order to get mod points but after about 10 minutes nothing came to mind.

Hmm, so we're measuring telescope resolution and fidelity by the ease at which we can look at rabbits on the moon? How many libraries of congress worth of data can these 1-rabbit-resolution telescopes transmit back to earth per hogshead?

They did this like two years ago! Either none of the /. editors knew or they forgot about it entirely.

Yeah it sucks to live in Canada for some things, Hulu too is happy to laugh in our face along with pretty much any 'convenient' or 'desirable' online method for watching TV shows. Pandora was GREAT while I was able to listen to it, very cool way to find new music, then I'm not allowed anymore because someone in a suit figured it wasn't a good idea to let Canadians (or anyone else) keep the happy status quo and that music was a bad thing to share.

Such a frustrating state of affairs for U.S. Citizens alone having to deal with complicated or over-the-top IP law in their own country let alone other people in other countries having to deal with the shitstorm that Copy"rights" are and Digital "Rights" management are as well.

When the technology exists to do something, people are going to want it and are going to take advantage of that new opportunity. Years ago back when dinosaurs ruled the land and the idea of a flat screen TV was still the twinkle in some engineer's eye... the only way to watch a show was to be there when it was on TV. That was it. Oh I guess you could buy the VHS box set but that would just be throwing money away. Nowadays I can click about a half dozen times on two websites and an hour later I can watch an entire series at exactly the pace I want to. This sort of on-demand service is already here and it's ridiculously easy. I can't think of any service or organization in history that, after making things *harder* to do would move on to success and glory.

For some reason I keep thinking about how the Gutenberg printing press made it easier to get a hold of a bible... that didn't exactly make it easier for the church to possess the hearts and minds of their followers, despite insisting that good Christians should not read a now easily accessible bible and instead leave the hard work of figuring out when and where the bible should be read to you to the goodly priests who knew better. After all, free access to knowledge* and information could be *dangerous* (but for whom?)

*Yes yes, I know that free access of information and pirating the latest episode of Desperate Housewives are not exactly the same thing... but I just wanted to rant about Pandora, that was awesome while it lasted :( (After all, we canadians need some hot music to stave off the cold and polar bears. Polar bears hate Queen, did you know? I do.)

The Ten Commandments != The Constitution

You ivory tower intellectuals must not lose touch with the world of industrial growth and hard currency. It is all very well and good to pursue these high-minded scientific theories, but research grants are expensive. You must justify your existence by providing not only knowledge but concrete and profitable applications as well.

Yeah but that's one month longer then Spore's DRM for example.

Alright, bad example. But the point still stands that it would likely be quite easy to shuttle a patch that removes the 1-month checkup from the program.

I would rather have a centralized DRM-Esque service such as Steam which has the easy capability to throw a kill-switch to unlock their game library in addition to an already very functional Offline Mode which let's you play all the games you have right now without even touching a Valve Server!

That to me shows that it would be stupendously easy for them to throw that switch.

But the original point I wanted to make in reply was that I would rather have a centralized company with a very good track record of customer service instead of a hodge-podge of hundreds of companies each with their own unique DRM with no clear plan on any kind of end-game scenario for unlocking the games.

While I agree an ideal world would be no DRM on any game or anything I don't think it's possible for the majority of the big game developers to EVER voluntarily choose to go that direction, the best that I think we can hope for is some reasonable and fair use of games.

I don't have the answer or the solution but I do know that I prefer Steam tremendously to other DRM systems I've encountered. Plus I like how Steam has a centralized list of my games both server and client side, so when I delete a game I was bored of last year and see it again a year later on my steam games list I can just install and play it rather then have to deal with a lost and departed game disc or having to download it on pirate bay or anything like that.

Steam IS convenient!