Yes, you should require a prescription for "garden-variety vitamins".

Not because it's dangerous, but because it's useless. It would save a lot of people a lot of money.

Most people have zero deficit in vitamins. A certain, very specific amount of vitamins is needed for the body to function. Excess is either leaving through urine (harmless like vitamin C), or gets accumulated in fat (which can get dangerous if you take too much of it). No serious study (i.e. placebo controlled) has ever shown that taking more vitamins than the required amount has any health benefits. None.

Supplement "experts" and such will say they use a different, higher scale for vitamins than medicine. When you dig, some will do their own investigations and adjust to their own knowledge/personal experience, but it's clear that most of the info comes first from supplement companies themselves.

Some people do have specific deficits, and that can easily be seen on blood tests. Most obvious one are vegans, since B12 is only found in animals, not plants. So vegans have to take their B12 somewhere else, as there are high risks in a B12 deficits. However, many products are B12 fortified already, so not all vegans needs extra supplements. Another example is that pregnant women should take folic acid. There are tons of very specific example where vitamins/minerals supplements are needed.

Up north in Canada we used to have deficits in vitamin D during winter - but many products are now fortified in vitamin D so it is much less common now, but not uncommon.

Finding a vitamin/mineral deficit is the easiest thing to diagnose for a MD: a simple blood test. So a "wrong" diagnostic is very unlikely. You either have a deficit or not.

That's why, yes, you should get a prescription for simple vitamins/minerals. Even if you eat tons of junk food, frozen lunches, fruit juice, but still somewhat diversifies, you should be able to get your quota most of the time. Unlike what supplement companies are marketing, deficits are not directly liked to bad eating habits or lack of exercise or whatever is the trend currently to make you feel bad and buy some.

Well no, as no actual doctors would prescribe a OTC multi-vitamin (see above). Taking specific supplement for a specific deficit is one thing (and needed in some situations), but multi-vitamins is just completely useless, could even be dangerous, and are clearly a marketing ploy (over 50 active multi-vitamins - what!?).

So this is it for vitamins/minerals, which are 100% required for your body and must be taken in specific instances with a clear diagnostic. As for other supplements and such, it's another (somewhat similar) subject, but I wanted to focus on your "garden-variety vitamin and mineral" argument to discredit proponent for more supplements control.

Of course big pharma are big corps looking to make big buck, but so are supplement makers. In the middle of all this, there is still science and medicine. However evil Big Pharmas are, they are strictly controlled based on science and medicine. Why shouldn't supplement companies be controlled that way too?

PS: not an expert in any way.

Indeed, NH is not in an heliocentric orbit and cannot currently attempt to come back inside the Kuiper belt perimeter at current velocity with its remaining delta-V from thrusters, or at least get to any usable heliocentric orbit. It would need a massive object to further alter trajectory. There might be other flyby targets possible, but they would always be farther away.

You can see the current NH trajectory here:
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/

I still find it interesting that people are still, today, willing to bet against SpaceX. Hype machine? I mean, I'm ok to be cautious, the BFR is quite a project, but damn did SpaceX deliver on the Falcon, and it looks good for the Falcon Heavy. But betting against them and saying all is hype? Other than BFR, I'd like to understand where that comes from. They'll do nearly 18-20% of all rocket launches this year. That is HUGE.

Falcon heavy could do nearly all unmanned missions we could want for the forseeable future that is outside of LEO or for larger payload. Obviously, launching people to the Moon/Mars is above its capabilities, but that's a pretty big portion of the market and problems the Falcon 9 and Heavy can cover. It's now what, 64 ton to LEO? That is 3x the Delta Heavy, so this gives quite a bit of playroom for missions. They can easily have a transfer stage with hydrolox or whatever is needed for the mission as payload, even if the main launcher is only Kerolox.

I mean, it's not perfect, there might be some profiles it wouldn't be able to handle, sure, but it's here now and usable. The SLS is, well, the SLS - everyone has an opinion on that. The first configuration is even planned to be slightly more powerful than the Falcon Heavy. For me (I'm not american so I'm not paying for it) I'll believe it when I see it - it could be the next Saturn V or just never see the day. That is still hype, as BFR is also, but SpaceX still delivered a combo that can handle tons of mission profiles by now. I do not personally have as much info on BO as the SLS and SpaceX.

For me, all these new launchers and development is exciting!

Speed is not necessarily the issue here, but as you said chucking a large object on a random heliocentric orbit is not the same as refueling in space.

Space maneuvers and orbital mechanics are another beast completely, there is no comparison to any earth-based phenomenon - it's not easier or harder than refueling a plane, it's simply something completely different, there is nothing comparable. It's like trying to compare recipes to algebra - there are easy and hard recipes, and easy and hard formulas, but you cannot compare them.

Kepler is more or less immobile (relative to an object trying to dock with it) Docking with something "immobile" in space is both extremely complex and quite "easy" to do now. It's one of the more difficult maneuvers you could do in space (probes landed on the moon before the first docking in space), but like anything, it's easier when you've done it hundreds of time, and have technology and algorithms on your side to account for comm delays and such, calculate precise trajectories, etc. Still, I do not believe we attempted automated docking outside of Earth's orbit ever - I'm sure we could attempt it, and the theory is pretty close, just that we have no practical experience and it's expensive to attempt.

You cannot use Kepler to slow down the refueling crash like a planet/celestial body, so you need to rendezvous with it. A rendezvous with the ISS is "easy" as it can be intercepted at specific interval from Baikonur, so you need minimal fuel and maneuvers to change plane and such. Now, Kepler is on a heliocentric orbit, so to be able to launch and "eject" the refueling craft on the same plane as Kepler takes fuel. Depending on timing and parameters compared to Kepler's launch, it could take either more fuel, or we'd have to wait for a good window (not sure on the timing here). After that, you get an object on the same plane but a very different orbit than Kepler/Earth that must match Kepler's orbit, which an take a lot of fuel and a lot of time.

But wait!! Kepler orbit is not exactly the same orbit as earth, and actually is slightly "larger", so Kepler is "slower" than earth. By now (10 years) it's incredibly far behind Earth. To slow down an object to reach it, you would need tons of fuel (accelerate, wait, then decelerate), or wait years and years to reach it with minimal fuel. If we double the "speed" of the refueling craft vs Kepler, we need to slow down equally after and it would still take 10 years to reach Kepler, for a lot more fuel than Kepler used.

Then, you get there... and you are correct on your second point - refueling in space is hard (no gravity). Refueling the ISS with people assisting and having very large equipment available is much much easier than an automated refueling being done remotely with small crafts, much longer communication delays and such. Then Kepler was not made to be refueled...

So yeah, not an easy feat at all. Oh, and you want fuel remaining to "ditch" the refueling craft, you don't want it interfering or risking collision.

Why do you care if it's normally "hard" to figure out the gender, ethnicity or any other variable? How does that change anything?

The only argument you seems to be making with that comment is: "It is your own damn fault if people found out you were XYZ".

That is exactly the issue they are talking about - you should not have to hide. You say it's ok for new coders to "out" themselves, and community should address it and be gentler and such... but on the other end, God forbid a female or Indian developer outs themselves - they should just stay anonymous and they'll be ok.

That's kind of the whole issue.

CCG and sports cards are pretty much the definition of gambling if cards have different values for the same occurrence - In MTG all Rare cards have the same occurence, but they have vastly different values. This means boosters have different values, and gamble a fixed amount.

Worst case, it's a gray area, but clearly, we can't deny it's pretty similar.

Also people do not realize this often, but right now SpaceX has done 8 flights this year. The total worldwide is 38 at this time in 2018. This is 20% of worldwide flights. Last year was also around 20% worldwide. They launched more often than Soyuz, and more often than Long March LVs in 2017 (both have multiple type of vehicles, config and profiles, while the Falcon is mostly a single design). Of their 18 launches last year, 5 were reused, so until they are all at block 5 we won't really know the impact of reusability. But man, they are getting contracts after contracts and can launch at a pretty fast pace. Any normal corp would sit on this cash cow, but they are still pushing for reuse, falcon heavy, BFR and not slowing down.

Even if on the fence about reuse, or outright think it is foolish for any reason or are vocal again Elon/SpaceX (and yes, some criticism are valid), if you remove those from the equation, they have a pretty nice launcher: fast deploy, can do a lot of mission, incredible primary mission success rate. Sure they did not invent anything new in rocket science, but they still got here quite fast.

As a non-us citizen, what is the distinction between an ATM and a Debit card for you? Here they are one and the same, I could always pay with the card I used at the ATM/Bank with my PIN. Maybe because we have a national debit network here.

Since you mentioned Visa/MC, do you mean a visa/signature "debit" card that does not need a PIN? Or simply an ATM card can only be used to withdraw cash at the bank and you are not able to pay anything with it?

Absolutely right, I agree with you and also stand by what I said. I will add all other sorts of concerns for the N1 like them being unable to test the assemble stages beforehand due to size/transportation issues, and such.

I'm not saying it was a bad approach, it was pretty smart of them to attempt it (and I've heard the control program for the engine was probably the most awesome piece of software/hardware at that time) - but it was too soon/was a gamble. It took longer, caused delays, then that allowed the US to move ahead as you pointed out. It was a strategic failure in my mind, they bet on something more complex and lost the upper hand.

Obviously SpaceX does not have all those concerns, but back then you cannot remove the political and strategic part of the equation and focus only on the technical aspects unfortunately. Had they time and backing, I'm sure a finished N1 would have changed the landscape a lot. Unfortunately they could not make it, making it a huge failure for such a great space program.

Yes, but at the same time it's more complex. I think today we have the tech for such a thing, but if we look back at the Soviet who tried (first? don't quote me) this approach with the N1 moon LV - well it failed miserably. There are a lot more risks and much more complexity, which is to the credit of SpaceX!

So saying "Duh, it's obvious" is a bit shortsighted. Redundancy and scaling is hard, especially when you're talking about a rocket. Pumps, fuel, precooling, spin up, and all that are non-trivial. Even if you take like 9 engines in a square, if one fails, yeah you have 8 remaining, but the thrust is reduced by 1/9, the LV is now unbalanced especially if more than 1 goes down on the same side (e.g. engines themselves must compensate with gimbal or vernier needs to do this, I'd like to see the software to control this, surely a beast!!), to achieve the same final delta-v you need to burn the engines longer, so they need to be rated for much longer burn time if you still want to make it to orbit, which means more chances of failures, engines overheating, and then if an engine explodes it could take out others with shrapnel, and I go on...

And that does not take into account the R&D necessary to relight the engines twice AFTER the initial burn for the re-entry and landing! So yeah, quite an R&D achievement for SpaceX to have such reliability!

Mad props.

I do not understand it either. "Saturn V was more impressive, blah blah..." but that's EXACTLY the point! They did tons of awesome things decades ago, but it kind of stagnated - obviously tons of incremental improvements, new fuel mixes, new processes, and so many more. But the vision was lost.

It was 40 years later and nothing changed in the space industry, it was still the same old players with billions from governments, SpaceX simply said that there must be a better way. He's trying to make up for nearly 50 years of "stagnation" - that's not his fault.

Now, the race is on, and in 10 year we'll have surpassed the Saturn V exploit I'm sure. We'll learn tons and discover tons more.

In the meantime, he democratizing space launches for everyone. 17 launches in 2017 of 80 total launches world-wide. That's huge.

Obviously right now it's incremental improvements - we've sent probe to outerspace before, we've put them in orbit of other planets, heck we've landed probes and rovers too, so we know the challenges already. As he said last night before the final burn (I'm paraphrasing) - Assuming the the fuel does not freeze, the LH2 does not boil off, the avionics are not fried in the Van Allen belt, the calculations are correct, and other challenges - the burn will work. Even if you know how, it does not make it less complicated, or simpler.

It's like a contrast to the Foundation series - in the book, civilization just forgot how to do things, they simply maintained what was done before, without understanding how to do it again. In contrast, SpaceX said: ok, let's do it from scratch and relearn everything to try to make it better. How many years it took to perfect the Soyuz, the Proton-M, the Delta series, the Ariane? He's racing from zero to catch up on nearly 70 of experience of different space programs, to go past what is know and into the unknown. Obviously he's being trained and learning from the best at NASA and other agencies, he has to capitalize on that incredible knowledge and achievement.

At the end of the day, it's the path he's on that is impressive for anyone knowledgeable, not the technology he's using himself - obviously we already knew how to make a LOX/LH2 tank... but how much was it costing before and how much it it costing him now? How fast can he build it now? How many avionics in the past coasted for hours through the Van Allen belt and worked flawlessly afterward? How fast could LV components could be reused before for other launches?

You still have to be somewhat impressed in how fast he's catching up without hundreds of subcontractors and bureaucrats, and where this is leading. It's not what he's doing today (or any of the startup are doing now) that is impressive, it's the pace we're going to get to brand new challenges that is impressive.

Not only that, but in 2017 they did 17 launches with Falcon 9 variants. Seventeen!!! If you think that it's not that much, there were... 80 total launches world-wide last year. 17 of those 80 were SpaceX launches. They are not even yet fully reusing them (they are waiting for Block 5 which will be the final iteration to fully reuse them), so they can pump them out pretty damn fast to do 17 launches in a year. And the cost for a Falcon 9 is 60 million I believe, compared to 90 million for the Heavy if I remember correctly from last night's press conference from Elon.

Also, they do everything themselves, they don't have dozens of subcontractors, so they have a pretty efficient supply chain comparatively. Can't wait to see what the other new comers will bring to the table, but space launches are starting to get heavily democratized - in 1-2 years you'll see more and more startups relying on satellites because of that. Exciting times.

There are not many ways to look at this and not being impressed at least a little bit, whether you like Elon or not.

Sure it was a publicity stunt, but that was not the primary, secondary or even tertiary objective, they simply took the opportunity to use a Tesla instead of putting a block of water or metal for mass simulation. Sure, some people had a pretty cool job of making that work and a little extra challenge, but I'm sure it's nothing compared to the rest of the effort required. Anyway, he said they had no followup plan, he will not try to milk that stunt himself, they have better things to worry about now.

As another said, it's hardly stupid. There are soft (Wikipedia) and hard consensus (Jury). Most consensus are not unanimous, because what is or isn't a consensus could be different in a smaller or larger community. Whatever side you are on, climate change is a world-wide consensus, man-made climate change is one in scientific circles, but it is not one for the US public opinion, and some circles have a strong consensus against. A Jury is a strong consensus, unanimous even, since this is the total size of the relevant community, anything outside of the Jury means nothing.

If the EFF had been alone and it came down to it VS the rest, I would still see that as a consensus and I do not believe the EFF would have left in that situation. This was hardly the case.

Exactly. The issue is not about a vote, losing, or the majority; W3C works on consensus because a majority vote is not good for everything in life and that's why the W3C works on consensus, and the EFF is right in taking a stance. This is not a "we're at B and need to know if we move toward A or C", it's a "We're at 0 and should we chose 1 instead", it's not a vote, it's a binary choice. You can only be pro, against or neutral on that issue. It came down to 58% something pro, the rest against or neutral (not sure if any were).

This reminds me a quote a saw that I find pertinent: "The far right is fascist, the far left is anti-fascist, so the middle ground is to be moderately fascist" or some such. That just does not make sense (I believe both sides would agree), at some point it becomes a stance, and DRM is such an issue - the process could not come to a compromise ("moderate DRM" is not a thing, they found no possible middle ground), so the W3C said fuck it, let's ditch our values and process, and implement it anyway. It's a real step back, and they are losing my trust. Whether it's to please big corps or hippies, the process was eschewed, period.

Imagine if Wikipedia did not work on consensus at all and it was simply a majority vote. Whether you like the current state of Wikipedia or not, it's easy to see what this would lead to - the "strongest" community wins, opposing viewpoints are suppressed. Exactly what happened at the W3C. Some processes simply are not compatible with a democratic process, but are critical to a democratic society (e.g. a jury)

I have to say that, after waking up this morning, I realize my point about innovation is flawed. You cannot innovate on top of a patent, you are absolutely right. You can try to make something covered by a patent differently (and innovate in parallel) but then again, you do not even have to own the patent for that.

The rest of my point, that defensive patents are silly, is still valid. There's one kind of patent: offensive. You want to make money out of it (either by buying a patent you know you infringe upon or sue someone infringing). You cannot innovate with it (if you got the patent yourself you already innovated) and cannot retaliate against a patent troll since they don't have any products. That doesn't leave much "defensive" actions.