Linux: Only two possible pronunciations, both easy.
There are a lot more than two possible pronunciations, although there are two that come to mind to most English-speakers readily, neither of which is "correct" (in the sense of how the creator said it).
You'd be amazed how many Americans are Canadian.
(Most Americans are amazed to find out how many famous "Americans" they know are actually Canadians...)
In any case, it's NASA. They hire from around the world. It would be surprising to find any working group in the agency that was 100% American. It would be silly to assume someone's nationality based on the fact that they work for, with, or in NASA.
You just made my point.
So by "you can't use a wrench", you meant, "you can use a wrench if you have something to hold onto." Gotcha...
...choosing rather to go down the bad science "it's denser so it must magically suck harder because that's how gravity really works" route.
Could you quote the passage in question? I read the article and didn't see anything saying that. They did say, "Any planetary system that was once in orbit around the star will be severely disrupted during the red giant phase...", which while less explicit is more or less what you said the article "mentions none of".
Well a synchrotron can fuck you up. But thats more then neutrinos. =) The reasoning I had about neutrinos being harmful is that over time they would damage the heavy metal shielding used on the reactors. The reactors I suppose are shielded more to keep machinery in good order than the people around them. A short burst would probably do no harm.
I guarantee you that a lifetime of constant exposure to neutrinos has little ill-effect. The Van Allen belts, the atmosphere, even the planet itself do nothing to shield you from them (that's why be build neutrino detectors underground -- that shields out all the other radiation, leaving just the neutrinos to look at). If anyone ever invents a substance capable of shielding neutrinos (other than literally light-year thick lead walls), I suppose it's possible they'd damage the shielding over time, but the heavy metal shielding used by reactors today are not damaged by the neutrinos, for pretty much the same reason that they don't stop them, either. The neutrinos simple don't interact with them. How do the detectors even see them, you ask? Because there are so many of them passing by that occasionally one does hit something. That's right, as we speak, you are currently being bombarded by a ridiculously huge flow of neutrinos. Trust me, it's mostly harmless...
Sadly, self-disqualification is exercising rational thought; something I think you'd want lots of in a mission like this.
This is not necessarily the case. You seem to be confusing rationality with instinct. The desire to continue to live in an instinctive one, and can in some circumstances be a quite irrational one. At most times, though, I would not call it "irrational", but it is at most times arational.
What do *you* do when you're driving and there is direct sunlight in your eyes, or you encounter rain/fog?
If it's a route they drive often, the typical human answer to this is "use the force"...
The Hubble's got 486 processors in it, for example - which they could have easily replaced during service mission 3 or 4B, but NASA couldn't permit it.
What would be the point? Any 486 around today can run exactly the same software it ran when it was new exactly as well as it always did. Processors only become "obsolete" when newer software comes along that cannot be run well (or at all). A satellite doesn't need to run the latest release from Redmond. It doesn't, in fact, need to run any software that isn't already installed. Upgrading its processor would be worse than pointless -- at best, it would have no effect, and the possibilities go downhill from there...
What do they have in that crappy little window...
You should check them out these days, since you obviously haven't looked at them in a couple years. There's a full screen option, and many videos (most? Most that I view anyhow...) are available at 1080p.
dd if=debian.iso of=/dev/usbdevice
Not exactly rocket science. Actually it's even simpler than writing it to a cdr.
I love linux install instructions that assume you already have linux installed. xD
Friction is a drag.