Long-time government contractor with a history of blowing budgets and under-delivering gets new, lucrative NASA contract. Newsflash: SpaceX was never going to get that contract.

Sure you would. Because you've been programmed to think that everything that's built in a factory is nothing but "interchangeable parts" like Lego. The reality of the situation was quite different in WWII, and remains different in places where things are built by hand and not by computer. Do you think Bugatti has "low-skill" schlubs following instructions to build a Veyron? By that same argument, I can say that "most programmers are low-skill because they're just following instructions and linking code libraries together" (not true, I know).

A couple years ago, I decided to learn the art of building custom bicycle frames. I'm a smart guy, how hard could it be? Turns out, it's pretty fucking hard. Welding, machining, etc. != low-skill job. It's just a different skillset than what you use.

I have a boxer engine (horizontally opposed pistons) in my Subaru. The fuel efficiency on a four-cylinder sucks balls, to put it mildly. I go out of my way to drive conservatively and I'm still lucky if I can squeeze 24mpg out of it. To make matters even more entertaining, maintenance is a nightmare -- most pro mechanics want to charge me exorbitant prices because they have so little experience working on them, and when I've had to do routine things like changing the spark plugs, it takes a couple hours because I have to gut the engine compartment to get to the side of the engines where the plugs are located. Nifty idea, and sure it probably increases power output and reduced friction as advertised, but fuel economy and maintenance considerations are shit, in my experience.

And when you configure the Zino so that it's specs are on-par with the Mini, the price exceeds $400 and the processor is still piddly compared to the Apple.

"and impressive sales in India, Europe, and the US."

Funny, I work at one of the highest-volume bike stores in my state. Do you know how many electric bikes we sold last year? I'll give you a minute.

That's right. Zero.

You know how many electric bikes we sold in the last five years?

One.

So yeah, sales are "impressive."

I was going to ask if I could crash someone's launch party, but I'm pretty sure it'll crash itself.

I've always been fond of the clicky keyboard -- the old IBM PC keyboards with the mechanically switched keys allowed me to type significantly faster than the newer stuff.

I found the Matias Tactile for my Mac a few years ago, and was willing to shell out the $100 for it. Have never regretted it, either.

"The researchers plan to connect several chips to create a circuit with a billion neurons and 10^13 synapses (about a tenth of the complexity of the human brain)."

Does anyone else think that it's a particularly bad idea to build George W. Bush out of hardware?

If Ciamillo's design work with bicycle parts is any indicator of his talent as an engineer, they'll pull this one off.

I'm fortunate enough to have a pair of his Zero Gravity (0G-Ti) brakes on my road bike, and they're insanely light (the pair weighs less than a Dura-Ace front caliper) and have been pleasant to work on, and require very little maintenance.