Damn it. I want Tesla to succeed. But if this is straight dope, then they deserve to die. My car is old tech. Quaint. Buggy whip.

But I can park it for a month, even after driving it hard, and not worry about turning itself into a paperweight. That is simply fucking inexcusable. Either use a power supply that doesn't care if it's discharged, or make it so that it can't get fully discharged. Solarpanel, an emregency capacitor, a goldern anti-brick fuel cell, something, anything. Cuz this is as stupid as a battery operated device with a big high current lamp that comes on to let you know when you've turned the power off. I guess I'll hold out the hope that this is anti-tesla agitprop until further notice. It ain't like I have to worry about it personally...

It's pretty much the only government program that's paid dividends. too bad they didn't have a better PR hack 30 years ago.

The good--it's a hard impossible to burn secure site with a spring. The Bad -- It's in Arkansas....

I'd say something like "oh there's no chance this'll get msused" but using this crap as they intend to is misuse from the start, sooooo....

I think it basically comes down to having insufficient knowledge or appreciation of the entire manufacturing process, just like the pushers of the "information economy". Just cuz it's old don't make it simple, or primitive, or able to be bested by software and any manner of hardware that plugs into a 110v wall socket. Some processes simply require more energy that you can get outta yer wall socket, yo. Moore's Law just doesn't apply here.

Claiming rights to the output you make on thier software. Wow. Just wow. So they think that by using thier crap program, that makes you an employee of the company, where they own your output made on company time and resources. Let's see if they stick that clause in the eula for macbooks and ipads... and they call Microsoft evil?

Bogus, man. "To get to the other side" wasn't even mentioned...

Did you show me this guy, or did I show you, or neither? In any case his page is one o' my favorite links.

heh... I just get paid to set 'em up and light 'em off, no need for me to look at invoices. However, the smallish (hand-fired, not electric shot by computer) show we've been doing the last many July 4th's is around 15 to 17k worth of lights in the sky and noises, around 4 to 500 3" to 5" shells. I'd love to go with bigger stuff but there are minimum distance requirements and the site in question can't legally accomodate anything bigger than 5" shells for that reason. Last time I checked a typical single break 6" Chinese shell was around ten bucks. A 10" carton of 4 can be had for around 30 but that's a 100carton min. order. Not that it matters. You can't just go online and buy this stuff. 1.3g display fireworks is regulated more than somewhat. My (state issued) license lets me set up and shoot 'em, but does not let me buy 'em or make 'em, and I have to have a CDL to transport the stuff to the display site. Geeze getting on 30 years I've been doing this and hain't gotten bored of it yet! DHS and other such entities are making things more difficult with no other real effects, but it's still fun, and I'll keep doing fireworks displays till they pry the highway flare from my cold dead fingers...

PS I haven't been able to find out how much this 4 footer costs, but I did find that it weighs 450 kilos... holy crap. The info I had on how much lifter charge is needed to get that thing up in the air may be inaccurate... a 6 or 7 lb bag of fff powder. Other sources say more like 50 lb, with lots of wadding twixt the charge and the shell to keep it from coming apart in the gun. In any case, getting 450 kilos ~2700' up in the air on just a black powder explosion has my undying respect.

I wonder if they still fire those old school. When those 4 footers first started being made, not all that long ago, they'd lower a 6 lb bag of lifting charge into the mortar, then the shell, and then then a monk with with full regalia of prayer robes and some embers. He'd do a big ol' ritual down in the gun on top of the shell, and they prayerfully get the hell outta Dodge. I'm guessing these days it's an electric squib but I don't wanna underestimate the inscrutableness of the Far East...

yeah, saw that. Whod'a thunk it...

Shit I KNEW that link was gonna point to the idiiot in the Veyron...

Does nothing to dispel negative notions of the abilities of Asian drivers. Or rich assholes that can buy fast cars but not driving ability.

"I wonder how they deal with abstract concepts, like distance or time." Since studies have shown that we cannot even think without turning to symbols, I don't know if we could ever know the answer. Maybe that's (one of) the next steps in this translation effort

Despite living in a supposedly less varied environment than ours, I'm starting to think that dolphins' language is richer and more detailed than ours, after reading this. Kinda like Egyptian pictographs, but motion 3d video broadcast right into your brain in real time, 'steada carved in rock. i wonder just how detailed thier mental sonograms are. I bet they rawk and rawk hard. The tie-in to SETI at the end really makes me think...what would an announcement signal look like to our radio telescopes that comes from a dolphinlike ET that has no need or concept of symbolic language? Their idea of what constitutes an "obvious" announcement signal might be so different from ours that despite our shared assumptions about things like the 21cm band, monochromatic broadcasts etc, that we could pick something up that sounds just like static but is in fact the encyclopedia galactica we've been looking for. Crikey maybe they find monochromatic broadcasts far too limiting.

Better there than rule 34 on, say, Hutts....

Very cool that the launch was successful but am gonna hold breath till landing...

That's the sort of behaviour I wanna see get splashed alll over social media such that the perps go tits up for doing it...

What, you mean it ain't like dustin' crops, boy? :p

Hmm. What I get from this is: Navigating a relatavistic space ship is gonna be one bitch of a job.

Whover shows the most "humane authority" will prevail. Hmm. I don't see much of that attribute from either party, but most especially not from China...

I don't find that the font, Comic Sans, or otherwise, diminishes the holy-shit factor by even the tinest amount, really. I'm not sure that even kittens could sugarcoat a near miss of this magnitude.

Well ok. Maybe really cute ones.

"Awwwww, lookit cute kitty, with soft cuddly news about how close the planet came to getting fucking sterilized"

Nope, that don't work either!

Really? Oh you are in for a treat. Google 'Worlds in Collision"but beware... He makes that, who's that guy that wrote all the space aliens built the pyramids books, von daniken or whoever, look like a learned scholar...

It's been taking far longer than anyone thought, but real, modern housing, modern buildings, may finally arrive. Look at how far cars have come in a century, look at how far cel phones have come in a couple decades, and look how far house construction has come in like ever.

WRC needs to do a round in China, just to use that road...