Without some major improvements to the actual hardware to make it less trouble to put on and wear, and less making you look like a semi-evolved lab rat, it's going to stay in the lab. And as everyone else has pointed out already, the societal concerns all over the map.

I would throw more science at it. All we know now is that the junk is within and without us at an increasing rate. What we clearly do not yet know is what effect it is having on living things, especially humans. My gut feel is we need to science that shit ASAP, and I would not be surprised of we will need to start remediating it but given how handy the plastics are, I dunno.

Feels like we need Dr. Who to come and once again save us from the plastic monster. Maybe the Bad Wolf can help.

There is, I am fairly sure, only one phenomena that behaves like both a wave and a particle and that is a Soliton.

Also, from my very limited understanding of the non-linear dynamical equations that would describe such waves, there is no a priory way to derive what equations would fit our particle physics observations. It's like the behavior of cellular automata, we can explore what behaviors arise from different rules but can not extrapolate or predict for other rules.

I've read that Einstein himself, in his latter years, had started looking into this. I'm not sure of the details but it was something like he was looking for EM wave solitons that would fit with our particle zoo.

Since it says they are using wood laminates, I have some concern because if production of that is anything like what a friend experience at a factory in Ukiah California, then production is very toxic to the local environment around the plant, from both liquid and gaseous pollutants.

I tried to just call the company that handles my waste to find out what they do with the Plastic I so carefully prepare by cleaning and removing all but the one type of plastic that is the main container.

At first the office person said she thinks they just sell it to whoever they can find, when they can. Ever since then they have put me off with promises to call and of course the supervisor is never able to answer ever and never calls.

I recently dropped off some cardboard and then asked the lady that was there handling drop offs of things like bottles, cans, batteries, misc electronics, etc, and she kept deflecting my questions about where the plastic goes after they handle it. She did mention they have about a hundred people there sorting plastic and then it is compressed into bales.

Some recollections

My first Mac program was developed on the MacXL, I think it was a repurposed Lisa. The program was used at CSUN for some psychology experiments.,

Back in the 80s I worked for a small company doing upgrades to the original Mac. It was a glorious hack, add an extra board and a hard drive.

Indeed this is being seriously looked into. For instance NASA (my latest gig!) and the FAA.

Check out the Google an Amazon whitepapers here.

Maybe a good fit for JP Aerospace and their Airship To Orbit project

If only certain key congress members would stop dictating NASA design and build a big ass rocket that will be too expensive to use and really not needed, the resources NASA already has could go into Nautilus-X.

Due to a disabled partner i've had to work from the living room Lay-z-boy a fair amount. They don't make the model we have any more (pity), the closest now looks to be The Carlyle Low Recliner/. Get a board that spans the arms and is deep enough, makes a fine desk to hold a laptop, though you will need to hold up your arms a bit maybe. Workout while you code.

FYI if you run into back issues or just want to relax even more get a LapDawg X4 and set it up to hold your laptop above your chest at an angle while lying on the floor, with a pillow behind your head. Best to have an Ottoman to prop up the feet. Worked great when I was recovering from a bulging lumbar disc and been great to stop that from coming back.

Solitons, or at least soliton-like equations. That's my bet.

Einstein was working in that direction but the math for non-linear equations was not up to it back then and even now it's not clear exactly what set of non-linear equations, in three space dimensions + time + whatever else, gives Solitons that behave exactly like the observations. Also from what I have read he was not taking into account the strong and weak nuclear forces. Plus back then quarks were unknown?

Perhaps string theory is another sort of approximation that makes the math easier, but it might be too approximate to fit the observations. Time will tell but smells to me going from a zero dimensional particles to a one dimensional strings, vibrating in N dimensions, is the wrong approach. Feels to me better to take on that three spatial dimensions etc and find what works.

In a way it feels to me not unlike Wolfram's explorations into cellular automata, emergent behavior that we can not predict, only catalog and compare. That's discreet math but hey, not a bad analogy?

There has been some explorations into continuous automata, which looks like another sort of approximation, maybe more relevant to soliton-like phenomena.

I have not studied any of this deeply, just an intuitive feel.

Some references for the curious:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
http://www.applet-magic.com/pa...

The problem with our space program is not the goal(s). No, not at all that. It is the short sighted edicts from certain key members of congress (and their staff) forcing NASA to build the slow motion train wreck pork rocket to nowhere that is the SLS (Senate/Shelby Launch System).

If the vast resources on that program, especially the ones in said senators district, were re-purposed to manage and support a multi-vendor fix price milestone based competition like commercial cargo and commercial crew to station but this time with the goals to:

1: Provide deep space launch services

2: Develop and deploy deep space habitats and propulsion systems

3: Deliver logistics to these mobile outposts

We would have a sustained and robust infrastructure to explore the asteroids, the comets, Mars, Venus, etc.

NASA has tremendous talent and resources that can do so much more if only the policies and direction were in line with the fact that launching to LEO or even GEO is now a road well traveled, and beyond GEO is not such a leap if we just leverage what we have so far and build on that.

No need for a big fracking rocket done the old way as if it was never done before, with cost plus and an army of oversight.

Now when we get to needing new stuff like in space nuclear rockets and reactors, building really big outposts, or outposts on new worlds, we'll be in uncharted territory.

The in space outposts are not such a big leap from ISS except:

1: Extra stresses due to propulsion
2: Way more radiation beyond LEO
3: Long duration may require artificial gravity (spinning)
4: If something goes wrong your on your own, it's a long way from home

All these are solvable we just need to put the resources on them for real and make it happen.

Yep we need those resources set lose to address these issues now. Not a decade or two from now when SLS grinds to a halt giving us a rocket we can't afford.