Shpaget

It doesn't matter, at all. Copyright applies regardless of the "updatedness" or even existence of that statement.

Format fixer to the rescue!

Does not compute. While I agree that more shoreline would offer more room for a very important part of evolution, deep oceans are just as important.

Well, we have historical data that contradicts this. Ottoman empire - they stole children and raised them to fight the very nation they were stolen from. They imposed their own moral and social values on the population on the conquered area and in just a few generations had a new source of warriors and workers. It worked quite well. It was the same story with pretty much any other long term conquest. Join us or die on the spot. Some opted to fight, but some allowed themselves to be assimilated and ended up fighting another man's war.

I'm guessing here, but that thing, with its short wingspan, looks like it's quite nimble and responsive in flight. Might be fun to fly it. Reading the wiki on the one seater variant, apparently it set the record for Time to climb to 3000 m (9,840 ft) at 18 min 5 sec, which sounded rather modest, until I realized that the max takeoff mass is 220 kg (that includes the pilot!!!), and that the engine is a tiny 18 HP thingy. Also, with the fuel consumption of 3,3 l/100km (85 mpg) it has a range of almost 1000 km! The more I read about it the more I like that little thing. Too bad I'd never dare to fly that. The propeller gets awfully close to the ground when landing. Also, for the Burt Rutan fans, this is an even weirder design. Scaled Composites Proteus Strangely beautiful, though.

We won't be completely safe ever. Also, I'd be more worried about biological weapons than nukes or chemicals.

I always had the impression that large Federation ships had vast libraries, stocked with pretty much all the technological knowledge of the Federation. So, when the Borg assimilates a ship, they get all the knowledge with it. They also get DNA from the crew. Since they, or some other species they had previously assimilated, have mastered advanced genetics, why do they need to further assimilate the same species? Can't they farm their own enhanced version of whatever species they already have and consider superior?

In your scenario it is likely that human like life would not evolve. The evolution would certainly take another path. Whatever life that may develop would find different conditions optimal, liquid water or no liquid water. Life does not necessarily need water. After all, we only have one tree of life to study.

The, so called, goldilocks zone is rubbish concept in this context. Any life that potentially develops would find whatever the conditions may be to be optimal. A emerging sentient species would probably praise the allmighty creator for providing such a well balanced world that offers a nice warm period perfect for growth and reproduction and a longer cold period "just made for" hibernation.

Afte reading ten or so novels from the Series of unfortunate events, I just couldn't stomach him any more. Too repetitive and predictable. Kids are incredibly (as in hard to belive) naive and unobservant, authoroties, which should have been involved from the start, nonexistant... The word explaining, while fun for the first three times, soon becomes annoying and condescending. Lack of characters...

Uh, yeah, I was thinking about both Robot and Foundation, since a large number of novels and stories are set in the same universe. When I read them quite a while ago I read them together, so the boundaries between the series are somewhat mixed up in my head.

Asimov's Robot series should keep you occupied for a while. It really is a must read for any sci-fi lover (and everybody else, really).

I remember watching a documentary about digging the Panama canal where the French thought the malaria was transmitted by ants, so they would put the legs of hospital beds inside cups of water so the ants can't climb up the leg of the bed. Obviously mosquitoes loved it.

Cubesats rarely have propulsion, and the ones launched from ISS are even less likely to have it. Yes, they end up in practically the same orbit as ISS, gradually decay and reenter.

It is also a lot more obvious. Also, it's not a nuke, it's an "Earth observing meteorological sat".

Why would a one time cost of a few hundreds of million be an issue when the first strike or retaliatory capability is at stake? USA is already spending more than 10 billion per year just to maintain the nuclear arsenal.

Sure they are, but would you be overly surprised if it turned out that one or two of the countless military satellites that USA and Russia have in orbit are actually a nuke?

Whatever your parents home nation, there already are plenty of nukes hanging over it, controlled by substaintially more capable and better equipped operator.

According to wikipedia article "Many modern solid fueled 'ramjet' powered missiles, such as the MBDA meteor, may in fact be air augmented rockets,[citation needed] and the distinction between a ramjet and an air augmented missile is rather blurred. Many solid fueled ramjet missiles seem to be solid fueled ramrockets in all but name." So, if the principle is so widespread among the military rockets carrying weapons, why has there been so little* research into, at least, sounding rockets that would be using the principle? *So little that this is the first time I hear about this. Also, from the picture of the MBDA meteor the air intakes seem to be quite unbalanced. Interesting.

Try it in vacuum.

That would be negative weight, not negative mass. Weight is a vector where the minus sign only means it's acting in the opposite direction of the, in this case, "down". There is no object in your supermarket that will drive a zeroed scale into the negatives when placed on that scale.

No, but we certainly don't suffer and are selected by whatever environment we come across. We modify it to our liking. We put on a jacket if it's cold, burn a tree or two if it's really cold, or install an air conditioning if it's a bit too warm.

@Rareden, what kind of telescope was this taken with? It's amazing! Also, what was the urban light pollution situation? How far from a city you needed to go to get this view?

L-Clock seems to do a good part of what I have in mind, but it's just another app I need to remember to check regularly, which I will, of course, forget to do. The calendar feed that is integrated with my existing calendar with existing events, birthdays, etc. takes no additional effort to check. Also, L-Clock doesn't seem to have other, ongoing missions highlights. Wouldn't you like to be reminded in just a few months about the Juno probe entering the Jupiter orbit or when Hayabusa 2 is about to take the surface sample in couple of years? I'll try to keep this updated, for at least a while, but I will welcome any input on the format. I would also appreciate if those who integrated this to their calendar would say so, just so I can get an idea of the number of people using it.

You just made a grown mans eyes water. I'm really sorry to hear that Charlie had to go through such hardship so early in her life, but the situation sure sounds a lot better for her now. I realize that growing up without parents is not something any child should face, but in this case it seems to be in her the best interest. You're a very good person to take her in and even try to do your best to further better yourself by stopping smoking, making a better environment for Charlie in the process. I know we here are a bunch of strangers, but if it helps you in even the slightest to talk to us, we're here for you. Say hi to Charlie and missus!