Oh my lord.

“Regulatory barriers” is rapidly becoming the fall guy for every problem at every one of Musk’s companies — and I am rather concerned to see how it is starting to become the fall guy for problems at SpaceX. That company has managed to keep ahead of the burnout curve for an impressively long time, but it does seem that…

I now demand to be chauffeured by Robert Picardo.

My guess is to be able to carry consumables -- range extension is about more than just carrying more batteries for the rover, after all.  It’s also about carrying more oxygen for the crew.

Well ya know, if you let criminals go free, you’re just sending a message that we don’t care anymore.  Or something.

I think the cops do make a reasonable point that it’s very hard to use lethal force accurately on a moving subway car.

I’m sure driver inexperience will end up being a factor.  If nothing else, it will definitely contribute to the brown-trousers-level, which has a tendency to addle the brains a bit and cause a person to overlook what’s otherwise obvious.

Oh, and there are absolutely ways to structure things so that you are protecting the assets of the able-bodied spouse while allowing the not-able-bodied spouse to go on Medicaid. My grandparents were exploring those options when my grandmother first started needing long-term care. In the end, my grandfather ended up…

My husband and I just qualified; we’re around 50, and for the two of us together it’s over $100K. It is a little like life insurance, and if we don’t use it, our estate will get it back. But both of my parents have dementia. There’s no family history of dementia otherwise, but it made us very concerned to not have to…

The seeds of war bear fruit long after....

Regarding social security, I believe the “lookback” period is five years, and it is no joke. If the government gets wind of any attempt to hide assets, even after your death, they can and will go after you or your estate to try and claw them back to repay any social security that was paid out which they feel you were…

Heck, at 8', I’m impressed the hole hadn’t caved in.  He is indeed very lucky.  So many ways this could’ve gone so, so, so much worse.

“Presumably the review won’t mention how a significant number of people will be laughing at you while you’re driving it”

It’s absolutely for weight; every gram of mass they can save is mass they spend on something more valuable, like instrumentation. The mass budget is incredibly tight. That said, NASA was pretty shocked by how quickly Curiosity’s wheels took damage; they’d designed the wheels based on how previous rovers had performed,…

The crucible deteriorates with repeated uses. Depending on the quality of the product required, you may not be able to tolerate any degradation at all.

Overconfidence is likely a big part of it, but also keenness to prove that he was right and everyone else was wrong. And, of course, there’d be no better way to demonstrate to investors that he really did know what he was doing than to get in the thing himself. Sometimes making the huckster get into their contraption…

That thing is hideous. It screams “I am a poser”. It has an exterior that cosplays ‘roided up military tough-guy and an interior that screams “don’t you dare come in here with all that mud, you savage”. I mean, at least the Cybertruck pretty much is what it is is. It’s unique, and for all the mockery it’s earned, it…

Well, technically speaking, you can. You’re just not supposed to. ;-)

At a checkup, a nurse once started by asking my baby brother how he was feeling. He responded by vomiting all over him. None of us had any clue he was sick up until that moment, but it was an astonishingly simple yet eloquent answer to the question. ;-)

If you ever really got sick, you’d wish otherwise. Trust me.