When nuclear power came out, one leading economist predicted that the spread of nuclear power would effectively reduce the cost of electricity to zero. Just like long distance service now, people would only pay for the service fee.

#corrections: There may also be a black swan development in energy, with the introduction of something new (like fission)

I would think that the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam would be more like candidates than NYC, Cuba, and the U.K. And I'm pretty sure that the U.K. would not want to become Yankees. And I'm absolutely sure that the U.S. would not want to create an enormous voting block that could basically control domestic decisions.

This is only one personal experience, but I just had a really hard time with Vista. Not so much driver issues...my only one was my printer which was too old anyway...but really slow performance and CTDs. The exact same programs with no additional patches having given me almost no problems on Windows 7.

Like someone else mentioned, all the matter in a particular "slot" in the solar system disk collapsed into one planet. In addition, the large mass planet tended to sweep all other matter from its orbit by either slinging it out of that orbital slot or by consuming it.

Since you don't believe me, and I'm an aerospace engineer and a naval aviator that has been flying for 14 years, I'll just leave these here.

wagnerrp: I don't think you and I are agreeing on the term statically stable. To me a statically stable aircraft is one that flying in a steady state condition will tend to maintain that steady state condition until an outside force is applied. By that definition, no U.S. modern fighter aircraft is statically…

No, ScyBy is correct. Most modern fighter aircraft are dynamically unstable...meaning that once you create a divergence, it will never get back to equillibrium and will continue to oscillate until out of control.

Samberg, Parnell, and Wiig were the only funny people on that show. If it wasn't for Samberg and his videos, SNL would not be even remotely relevent today.

True story. A bunch of my co-workers and I were waiting in a hotel room in Dubai before going out to dinner. We were watching cricket on TV...again. Finally, one of us said, "you know...enough with this B.S. Somebody Wiki cricket so we can finally learn the actual rules".

The thing that no one has mentioned yet is that SpaceX is not a public company. Meaning, it has no share holders to appease. If it wanted to blow its money on a Mars landing, there's not many people that could say no.

I stopped watching the trailers after like the 2nd one. I thought even the 2nd one gave away too much.

I hate Sunshine on so many levels it's not even funny. Intrguing science was nothing more than unplausible premise to set up a contrived plot.

I still don't understand why people did not like the ending of Lost so much that they now hate the show. I wish things would have been different for some of the characters, but since it wasn't my show, I can't really complain on how the creators ended it. And it was done well, and I was emotionally involved until…

I love the fact that this list is still on the internets. I 1st came across this list way back when I was still using my 33.6 baud modem to log into the Isca.bbs.

Except they particularly asked not to disturb the footprints. Items that only a human could have made. I had the opposite reaction of "I bet the moon landing nuts are quietly weeping at this article".

I get the joke, but in case you didn't know Canadarm1 was the arm on the shuttle.

I've now read two books by Banks. "Use of Weapons" and "Player of Games". I really wanted to like Banks...he was highly recommended and I wanted a new author to follow.

I felt the same way. Man was I depressed with that ending...the hopelessness of it all.

Elizabeth Smart seems like she has been able to move forward in her life. I know she'll never be 100% ok, but she's proving that life doesn't have to end after trauma. And if she could do it after what she went through, then there's hope for everyone.