I'm amused!

"caused a vibration throughout the observatory."

Nice way to say it hit the floor.

They include excuses in their apology! Omg

Joe Biden Formally Clinches Democrat Nomination.

Without the 'ic' at the end of the name of the party.

There is nothing remarkable about the way his nomination was secured, except maybe how disgracefully the party treated Sanders.

The conflation of the definition of an English word with the party politics creates a lexical ambiguity that should irritate anyone.

Shame is something long lost in politics.

This type of activity is called capitalism.

You can be sure a pharmaceutical company will be in play to capitalize on the pandemic with a shiny new vaccine. They may appear to not be price gouging only because govt paying the price will have negotiated something, perhaps secretly, and so nobody will really notice the multiples, or question too much.

The kicker is we all will get to become activists against new legislation making knee jerk reactionary vaccines mandatory.

And when the time legislation passes because legislators "see" compelling reasons for the greater good, we all will have become more socialist than we should be comfortable with. Higher taxes, more obligatory "fun", and all in the name of the greater collective good.

I prefer the capitalism.

:) a future holds where vehicles no longer have to be compromises.

A vehicle that has the efficiencies of a modern aerodynamic car, and the utility of a pickup. That is where this concept can go.

It is similar to the sports car paradigm; the model S is faster than a sports car without any of the negatives like poor fuel, or small cargo capacities.

They really are. We have just become used to them.

At first I was a bit weary of the angles. But I love the windshield into hood line; great visibility!

I'm not sure it needs to be that high off the ground.

Fair enough.

I think it's also a fair point to say that industrial espionage is not exclusive to the Chinese.

The engineering is the hard part. Thus you can also then say:

LOL look at the actual details of how they "opened" their portfolio, then you'll see why literally NO ONE was _smart_ enough to take them up on that offer.

The thing is China is "people rich" the amount of smart people they can throw at solving problems is incredible.

Of course some companies don't release their IP, rather they try to milk them for profit.

You just can't be taken seriously saying that Tesla was betrayed or that their IP was stolen when:

1. They released all the patents for everyone, and
2. Their goal as a company is to accelerate the onset of electric vehicles.

China is actually helping them with their company goal.

Ummm Tesla opened their patent portfolio for everyone to use.

What does squishy mean? That the earths core is compressible or that it is less viscous than thought? The article seems to think compressible.

Sounds like scientists have thought of a way to keep their theory alive and this is not the first time they have used this "fudge factor" technique. Just to mention a few other "new" elements added to theories recently as fudge factor elements that keep theories alive:

Black Holes - Gravitational theory and measurements of the visible stellar systems don't result in the working model of what is known about galaxies.

Dark Matter - Gravitational theory and measurements of the visible universe don't result in the working model of what is known about systems of galaxies.

Dark Energy - Gravitational theory and measurements of the visible universe don't result in the working model of what is known about systems of galaxies.

And now: the center of the Earth is in a non-liquid type of compressible pseudo-liquid/gas - all because measurements of the "visible universe" don't result in the working model of what is known about the planet earth.

The emerging pattern here is that the scientific community are ever willing to invent ever more non-scientific explanations involving invisible, dark, obscure un-measurable and fantastic elements and continue with their precious theories.

I guess the question becomes: Who cares? All we need is an education system that churns out minds willing to accept the spam while they continue to muddle away with their coveted derivatives until the next correction is needed.

Geo-engineering Mars to support earth type life requires that long term priorities to be defined clearly.

It seems to me that glucose production from Martian raw materials is critical for the sustainability of human life; that a long term priority is already presumed by NASA in this exercise. We are not geo-engineering by altering the environment but rather by containing an environment.

That means the primary engineering a technological solution which leads into the questions you ask.

Soil minerals obviously need to be substituted with "plant food". Once the initial generation of "tree" has grown, a portion of it is permitted to decompose to fulfill the nutrition gap requisite for the sustainability of the next generation.

Eucalyptus trees where bred near the Mojave desert so as to derive a strain that would hold up to the desert conditions.

A similar process could be used to derive a strain of algea that thrives in low atmospheric pressure.

A similar process to above, furthermore the light will need to be filtered as the greenhouse environment will necessarily involve sunlight passing through a transparent material of some sort.

Further up-concentration / transformation of solar energy can be done with mirrors or other technological enhancements.

The exact plant chosen has to do with efficient use of energy by the plant... A cheap solar cell is 10 times more efficient at gathering energy than the most efficient plant. The biggest external factor is the wavelength of light energy available; light outside the nominal 400 - 700 nm wavelength plants use is unavailable to power photosynthesis.

A technological enhancement may be to employ solar panels and lighting systems wherein the energy density introduced to the plant is maximized by way of utilizing components designed to enhance the suns energy spectrum.

It is noteworth to point out that a similar efficiency problem exists with regards to the amount of CO2 dissolved in the water and in that CO2 being in close proximity to the photosynthetic bio-agent. Greater pressures enhance the solubility of CO2 in the watery solution so perhaps breeding a bio-agent for low pressure environment is the wrong approach initially. Especially where technological enhancements are being applied.

However if sustainability of human life is not the primary objective, geo-engineering boils down to how can we change the energy dynamics on a planetary scale so as to advance the dynamic in the desired "direction".

For example, what would be the result of adding 0.0005% of sulfure dioxide, or hydrogen sulfide to the atmosphere? Is there a better chemical agent to introduce?

p>Another example, what can be done to enhance the magnetic field of the planet so that the atmosphere doesn't get stripped away during CME events?

The wireless access being put in without much care for the sake of ease of use the main issue, not that cars ECU's can be modified.

The performance tuning community depends on being able to do ECU modifications to bump up performance.

The debate about ECU security is actually about encrypting or otherwise hindering the ability of car owners to modify their tune. Locking down the ECU is relatively easy; the farm tractor manufacturers already use encryption and keys and will void a warranty if their ECU's are modified. This created an increase in demand for older farm equipment that could be modified.

This issue boils down to freedom to own and do what you will with what you own verses licence-ship and having to accept something with use limitation.

Nothing.

It is up to local checks and balances to meaningfully protect their journalists and combat corruption in whatever form it may take. And, let there be a local population that will take a stand for such measures rather than appeal to the corporation.

If a system requires the brutality and death of journalist or more open-speaking critics so that checks and balances occur, that is more a question of how local governments of those systems can improve in meaningful ways.

If Facebook or any other corporation do take measures, even while appearing to protect journalists, it may also create an element of noise wherein the voices and opinions being expressed may become suppressed or unheard.

Furthermore, while trying to protect freedom of speech or press, we all may see such measures as acceptable, but when faced with court orders to lift anonymity in face of copyright or some other investigative effort... Let's say that there are some amongst us that just won't care about journalists as much as their bottom line.

The problem is to broad for corporate policy to adequately address.