SpaceX has been profitable for several years AFAIK.

No, seriously. There is no food crisis. As a species we have a food distribution problem, and a food wastage problem and they're rather shocking at that, but we really have no issue with feeding the population of earth today without resorting to eating genetically modified photosynthetic aphids. Now, a long term lack of motor fuel, is a problem, but aphids don't really solve that either. Mind you, this is scientifically interesting, but there really is no need to tie every technically interesting scientific discovery to the end of the world. Believe it or not, some of us like science for science's own sake.

It doesn't work like this. When you change your name, you don't abandon all obligations. If that was the case, all GM would have had to do to get out of their financial problems was change the name on the corporate offices to "Specific Motors" and then say "Oh, well, GM is still a brand owned by us". Come on.

Am I the only one who doesn't see why suborbital point-to-point isn't a thing? Anywhere on the planet in 90 minutes, and less air resistance on the way.

I think you're both overestimating the costs of a manned mission and underestimating the costs of rovers. If we did a manned mission *right*, I would guess that the total cost would pay for something on the order of 50 rovers.

I'm sorry that I don't have mod points, but you should be ashamed of this post. You've totally ruined whatever argument you were trying to make by calling khallow "a big stupid poopy head".

The problem isn't that the manned program is not valuable, but that it's not funded or organized well enough to actually provide a return on investment. If you refused to give the planetary scientists anything bigger than a sounding rocket, the unmanned programs would look pretty worthless too. Understand that all the progress we've made since the 70's with mars probes could be done in one week with a manned mission -- and if it was done spacex style, it could be done on something close to the current budget. Hell, look at some of the alternative proposals that private industry came up with in the 70's for the shuttle, which were discarded in favor of the reference design shuttle.

Or the RIAA will be crushed under wave attacks. Either way, we win.

Not necessarily. It all depends on how fast said gold is going. After all, you punch a hole in the side of a tank using liquid copper.

I hate to be that guy, but is this marketing spam? I mean, it's not like it's some lost version of the game or some unreleased sequel. Its a late prototype of a widely released game that may or may not have the exact same ROM on it as the one that shipped. Rare? Yes. Interesting to anyone other than an high level (read:obsessive) collector? I doubt it.

"Cheating"...it's the "terrorism" of the gaming world.

Putting an end to Gamestop's business model is exactly what the publishers intended to do when they started moving to digital downloads. Add to that the DMCA which makes it illegal to circumvent such practices and the non-existence of the right of first sale for digital goods and Gamestop is up a creek without a paddle. And as much as I dislike Gamestop, so are we.

Unsurprisingly, a regular van is an even better choice, mileage aside. Even less surprising is how common regular vans are. It's almost like someone designed them for that purpose...or something. Unlike SUVs.

You know what's more "geektastic"? The shuttle actually flying to space.

No doubt that ASUS has no reputation for good customer service -- but I've been fortunate enough to not have to deal with them, yet. That said, Dell's consumer level CS is incredibly bad too. Their business class CS, however, was, as of last year, still really solid. I wouldn't hesitate to buy a Dell server, or even a desktop for employees, but I wouldn't touch their laptops with a ten foot pole. After all, the best warranty is the one you never use.