...I'm ashamed to be associated with this article/author in any way. I've been a lefty since day one per my parents - there was never any doubt. Was it easy growing up learning to write, use tech, etc.? Yeah, actually, it was. A child's brain is highly plastic. Additionally, my kindegarten and first grade teacher (same woman) was lefthanded so I had that advantage as compared to all the other unfortunates in my class hehe. And now that I'm an adult I do just fine. Yeah, I mouse with my right. And by some miracle I can actually use standard scissors - the horror! I don't think I've ever known anyone who couldn't. I do have a dexterity advantage in operating a motorcycle though as the transmission controls are fully on the left side. :D

LS is full of it. I used to do testing of this nature for the Navy. I know many of the people who would have done this testing for the USAF. Never in 6 years of working in that field did we ever require a contractor who had submitted equipment for test to do so with no knowledge of what the test would be. They are blowing smoke to cover their asses in the hope that "the right people" won't know any better.

And just where do these people think the funds are going to come from to pay for these books in this all but bankrupt state? Oh I know, let's raise the sales tax and vehicle registration fees again. What a joke.

"...a post oil economy."??? Right. I imagine that their increasing use of oil is a sign of this then? "China's demand for oil will grow 6.2% to 483 million tons in 2011, predicted PetroChina Co (NYSE: PTR, SHA: 601857, HKG: 0857), the nation's biggest company. China consumed 455 million tons of oil in 2010, said the PetroChina report..." http://thechinaperspective.com/articles/china039sdemand-8134/ Yep, looks like a post oil economy to me. I imagine that building entire cities for no one to reside in is your impression of their sustainable economy going forward? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2005231/Chinas-ghost-towns-New-satellite-pictures-massive-skyscraper-cities-STILL-completely-empty.html

SPNKR all the way.

You need a better helmet my friend. I certainly don't have that problem. My Shoei X11 is great at high speed - only gets a little squidgy in high crosswinds which we have here in the high desert quite a lot in spring and fall unfortunately.

Problem with that is, can they do anything OTHER than CS? What if you asked him to change the air filter on his car?

You're assuming there's a method by which they can reduce prices by changing a part to a cheaper version, by new technology that makes production cheaper, etc. I don't really think that's a possibility here.

I'm guessing you missed the big DARPA logo that appears on the info screen at 0:56? DARPA = Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

"They wanted me to build them a bomb, so I took their plutonium and, in turn, gave them a shoddy bomb casing full of old used pinball machine parts!"

Based on freely available specifications (http://www.spaceandtech.com/spacedata/elvs/atlas5_specs.shtml) for the Atlas V-551 launch vehicle, the density of aluminum you stated and a best case estimation of the payload weight (just over 18,000 lbs based on the above site), I calculated $6084/lb, which comes out to $1789 to launch these little guys. HOWEVER, with the dimensions of a minifig from here (http://snively.blogspot.com/2009/04/lego-minifig-dimensions.html) and here (http://snively.blogspot.com/2009/04/lego-minifig-dimensions.html) the volume of a minifig is closer to 0.59 in^3 so the total works out to just about $1054. And by the way, you had a typo in your result up above, though your answer is correct.

$250M additional expenditure and a two year delay is hardly a "major disaster" in the scheme of things. They still got the system, and it will eventually meet requirements. It could be a hell of a lot worse. For example, the A-12 debacle. Canceled in 1991 and STILL working its way through the court system. Multi-billion dollars of expenditures for zero useful product. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_A-12_Avenger_II

What you fail to understand however is the economic impact of cutting that budget. Yes, let's reduce defense spending. Which will lead to fewer contracts. Which will lead to fewer contractors. Which will lead to higher unemployment. Which will lead to greater entitlement spending. Which will lead to...suffering. HA! Take that, Yoda. It's a very delicate balance.

Sorry but that's absolutely not the same thing. Not even on the same planet.

I know this is /. so you obviously didn't RTFA, but the articles pointed out that these were older D-series trains that only travel around 100 mph (the articles said they top out just shy of 100 mph).