Coax is half-duplex too

No, it's not.

With proper impedance matching networks and reasonable termination at the ends of a run you can send separate signals at the same frequency/band of frequencies down a cable in each direction. (Impedance discontinuities DO reflect some of the signal going one way back the other way, causing some interference. But even that can be "tuned out" by suitable corrections if it's too severe to just ignore.)

You can do it on a balanced pair, too. Telephones have done this with audio for more than a century, and I recall encountering a simple hack to do it all the way down to DC back in the days of discrete-transistor logic. (And it has nothing to do with two wires being involved, either. With N (= any power of 2) conductors and "phantoming" you can have up to N-1 balanced and one unbalanced two-way transmission lines on N wires.

Time Domain Reflectometry does this to FIND and MEASURE discontinuities in a cable, essentially firing a pulse down the cable and listening to the reflections, radar-style.

Go to Mars? Easy. Live with other people for 12 weeks? That's hard.

So you didn't have to strain yourself to think of an Earth-side example where this worked. I imagine it'll work for a Mars voyage for similar reasons.

Sounds like Musk doesn't want to go the Moon.

Because you don't have a colony without people, by definition.

The music business is doing fine

HOW they are doing fine, I have no idea. I know I sound old, mainly because I am, but I am quite astonished what my nearly-teen daughter listens to. It's not that I don't get it... some of it catchy. But so much of it is just terrible in every way. I pull songs off of youtube for her, mainly because I can then monitor what she listens to and I can look up the lyrics as well. Also, she listens to things like parodies of songs and other things that aren't necessarily under the thumb of the music industry.

The other reason I can't believe they doing fine is because the entertainment industry has never really embraced digital music. If they had done so back in '98, '99, 2000, etc. they would have been able to capitalize on the desire for it. Instead, they fought against it. Just like VCRs, cassettes, CDR, DVDR, etc. They just can't loosen their grip on trying to maintain complete control. This is no different.

And I will say, I do listen to youtube at work, it's easy to just pull up some music. And if there is a particular old album out there that I don't have... it wouldn't be inconceivable to just download it from youtube, rip the audio, and run mp3splt with silence detection to get individual tracks.

My wife was looking over my shoulder when the "Cisco Blamed A Router Bug on 'Cosmic Radiation'" headline went by, and asked:

"What's their next excuse? Global Warming?"

Gotcha, didn't I? But to answer your question. Worse off than if Obama wasn't "helping". Weaker job market and higher health insurance costs. But sure, I'm doing better than I was in 2008. But I could be doing better.

Ah, the awesome burdens of the virtue signaler. Well, if you ever learn what "social MORALITY" is, you please let us too!

As to your money, do whatever you like with it as long as it doesn't hurt anyone. Donate it, hoard it, buy a shiny boat, same difference to me. I have yet to care. But what exactly did Obama do to get that money for you?

Can't say I'm in the top 2-3%. And I'm not playing the charity game. I loathe this sort of grandstanding as I've indicated before.

I notice here that you are heavily implying that any economic progress, no matter how painfully slow is only due to Obama helping it along. This sort of reasoning ignores that the US could have done absolutely nothing about the latest recession and still see an economic recovery by now. I think it'd be better than present due to an absence of "help" from a certain president, but opportunity cost is invisible.

Sure, we were, Mr. "I listen to people who just so happen to agree with me". Out of curiosity, how many of those knowledgeable, international, coworking groupthinkers you like to brag about thought Obama was hot stuff in 2008 and not so hot today? There's a problem with listening to ignorant political opinion even when it's sincere. Maybe you could figure out what that problem is.

Also, we don't have the social status thing going on in game play which you do have in an office setting. What's going to happen to the sap who professes that Trump may not be entirely utter crap? How much respect is that coworker going to get from you or the rest of your office?

My view is that listening to the opinion of people who don't understand US politics and who don't share the interests of US citizens, is pretty iffy. When you throw in a groupthink situation like an office or online echo chamber, then it's pointless to try to get relevant opinion.

And THREE IN FOUR believe whatever polls tell them. Polling results tell you nothing about whether the poll was accurate, games played with biased polling questions, issues with sample size, or the strength of any beliefs. And if ONE IN FOUR AMERICANS actually believed the Sun revolves around the Earth (for the particularly crackpot claim from your list, which would actually require a radically different viewpoint of the world), you'd think someone other than a pollster would have found them by now.

That's a lot of people who somehow can't be found. In comparison, I've had no problem finding people who would profess some vague and inconsequential belief in magic, ESP, or "something more out there".

Exactly my point. There's a lot of pretentious grandstanding here. Not a lot of communication. Game playing gets away from that.

Sorry, but you've already been judged guilty of heinous crimes in my courtroom. I built it out of legos by my sofa. I'd upload a picture of the judgment - it's a really good scene, but my Geocities webpage isn't working at the moment.

As to your request, unfortunately, I don't have any ideas or links. But keep in mind that we're speaking of one of the sleaziest business schemes ever developed by man. It's not surprising that they're a protected ecosystem.

Norway has massive oil and hydroelectric resources per capita which completely explain its relatively high standards of living. Germany is slowly destroying its future (such as the doubling of electricity and elimination of nuclear power). I wouldn't be so hasty to emulate them.

That's an strongly worded and woefully misdirected effort. If something is unknowable, then it's not worth the brain cells to talk about it. All this talk of hypocrisy is pointless since you haven't shown the earlier poster was inconsistent in any way.

There's a lot of butthurt over Brexit and it hasn't even happened yet!

But don't let that slow you down.

Or a lazy person who hasn't read the article. Yes, I hear we do get those.