I have no problem with Snoke being a new character (and I really hope it’s none of the possibilities mentioned in the article), but it also seems wrong that it would be someone who wasn’t in the upper ranks of the Empire before ROTJ. The surviving officers of the Empire who formed the First Order aren’t going to take…

A question regarding the make-up of the “last crew.” You’ve got the commander of VX-30 and I’m guessing the lieutenant commander of VX-30 on the flight. Makes sense so far. Who is the captain on the flight and why was he there? Same question with the lieutenant. How did a fairly junior officer get selected to fly the…

Exactly this.

I chose my sports car / pickup truck analogy because the uses for the vehicles are so different. A sports car enthusiast telling me that a pickup truck is kind of slow and doesn’t corner particularly well isn’t helpful. A truck enthusiast would likely try towing something, hauling something, playing around in 4WD on…

Is there a minimum size/yield for an H bomb explosion? Put differently, I’m assuming that there is some minimum amount of fissionable/fusionable(?) material needed to set of the thermonuclear reaction, and that minimum amount of material would result in an explosion having a particular yield. Do we know what the yield…

I agree with your last statement. I didn’t mean for my last comment to be derogatory toward cruiser riders. Maybe this analogy isn’t quite right, but it seems to me that the difference between sportbikes and cruisers is like the difference between sports cars and pickup trucks. If you ask a sports car enthusiast for a…

What is the riding “sweet spot” for this? What I mean is, as a sport bike rider, I always choose the twistiest, emptiest two lane roads for travel because they’re the most fun. Urban streets and highways are just boring on a sportbike. Do you find yourself looking for a different kind of road or ride to maximize the…

The reason the Prius is objectively bad is in your article - the people who drive them do so with indifference, in the left lane, doing six miles per hour under the posted speed limit. Your computing indifference doesn’t prevent me from playing Call of Duty on my computer. That Prius in the left lane or plodding along…

So would a headline stating “Rossi and Marquez publicly hug it out” be more or less believable?

Around 2001 or so, I was visiting a friend in Bethesda, MD. He had several motorcycles at the time, so we did a day trip on a couple of them out to Route 211 past Luray in Western Virginia - there are some pretty awesome stretches of road out that way. Basically, we just rode back and forth over this mountain that was…

I didn’t say that extra speed means extra range, at least from a physical perspective. What I’m talking about is real world flying. The HJ and the M2 may have the same range on paper, but that range is predicated on the aircraft flying at their optimal (i.e., highest or nearly highest) cruise altitude. If one of the…

I’m not disagreeing with you - just what I heard. 20-30 knots difference may not seem like much, but if it’s enough that a commercial aircraft has to slow down to let you in or let you through, ATC isn’t going to authorize it.

My understanding is that the 420 knot cruise speed is quite a bit faster than the VLJs from Cessna and Embraer. At first, my thought on this was “so what?” However, that extra speed provides extra range in a not-so-obvious way. Simply put, these jets all operate most efficiently at high altitude - the range will be…

About two years ago, I was driving to work in Greensboro, NC on the back end of a snow storm that came through the night before. There weren’t many cars on the road because there were several inches of snow on the roads. I came to stop at a three-way intersection as the light was turning red. After the crossing…

If Spaceballs 2 were to ever happen, it should troll the new trilogy by telling the story of how Dark Helmet became Lonestarr’s “father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate.”

Never never never get complacent. Ever.

The video includes footage of an F-35 releasing weaponry. I know it’s stock footage to show the weapon, but why not actually put the F-35 in the Syria theater against ISIS? I haven’t heard of any serious ground-to-air threats, so the untested platform would be relatively safe. It seems like it would be a good chance…

I’ve had the same experience in NC. Coming from the Northeast, I’m used to aggressive driving, but at least people are paying attention. I’m more concerned for safety here in NC where no one is paying attention to their driving at all. Everyone is on their phone, obviously texting while driving, or just spaced out in…

Our second year living in Boston, my wife and I traveled to my parents’ house in Pittsburgh, PA for Thanksgiving. My wife had to put in a half day at work on Wednesday, so the plan was for me to pick her up at noon and leave straight away. Normally, the drive from her office to I-84 toward CT is about twenty five…

Is there any fine print with these along the lines of “acceptance of these bribes gift cards waives your right to pursue additional claims against VW.”?