I get the feeling he’s trying to describe a string-of-pearls of repeater satellites, possibly inspired by the use of Mars orbiters as relays for the Mars landers. And it could help with conjunction, for sure, but he’s completely ignored the orbital precession problem; to jack up the bandwith that much, you’d need a…

A relay system would be very troublesome, given that it’s not like Earth and Mars are waypoints. The relay satellites themselves would also have to be heliocentric orbit, so would not spend a great deal of time in the optimal positions to serve as relays in the manner he’s describing. I mean, even if the absurd…

Yeah, it was . . . an experience. I was expecting a Ford Transit, and then there’s this huge monster sitting there..... Literally the only truck they had left to rent out. It was either that, or hauling all of my mom’s enormous collection of books in our cars back and forth for hours and hours. *sigh* It was December;…

Seems like a pretty sweet deathtrap. I’d possibly buy it if I won the lottery. :-D But it should really have a vanity plate reading “KAR120C”, unless some other Lotus 7 already got that.

There was a horrendous tragic accident a number of years ago where most of a big extended family died when their huge articulated RV (rented, apparently) went off the road. A 17-year old was taking his turn driving. Not for fun; it was just his turn. Everybody in the family with a license had taken a turn, in the…

Everything up through Class 6, IIRC, requires no special license, as long as you’re not a commercial operator. I once drove one of those things because they were all out of the smaller trucks at Penske. I was *extremely* glad it was a very short distance that I had to go, because I didn’t feel very well equipped with…

My uncle was badly injured working as a highway worker. Nearly died. He was alone at the time; sometimes a worker is out doing some task out in a remote stretch of rural interstate, so if something goes pear-shaped, there’s nobody to call for help. I’m not sure the exact circumstances, but he got his arm pinned under…

$100,000 is for damages. The rest is for his pain and suffering. (Also, it’s a starting point for negotiation. Never start at the point you want to end at, and typically these lawsuits are capped at just under a million, so they usually start at just under a million.)

Yeah, the typo amused me too. :-)

What exactly is the point of this? I mean, you get a dually so you can use your truck to tow in a fifth wheel configuration, and not really for any other reason. Cybertrucks are luxury vehicles (let’s not pretend otherwise), so this isn’t going to be a working vehicle. It’ll be towing toys. Campers and boats. But its…

Also convenience. I like not having to walk all the way around the car just to fill it up, especially in the winter. I live in Minnesota, and in late January, it usually gets a little bit chilly here.

Yeah, I get the comparison because it’s all angular, but I’m not sure I’d lump it in with Brutalism. Maybe if it was made out of concrete and the frunk was, I dunno, cantilevered out sideways or something? ;-)

People are waaaaaaay more casual with property that isn’t theirs.  Just ask any hotel cleaning staff anywhere.

As a certified Space Nerd, I have to go with Subaru. “Subaru” is the Japanese name for the star cluster called the Pleiades, and that’s what’s on the logo. It’s somewhat stylized; the current logo is not a very accurate depiction. Earlier variants of the logo were a bit more accurate to the positions of the stars in…

Murals have definitely made a big difference to the graffiti problem in St Paul’s West Side.  That part of the city is absolutely gorgeous now.

“Then you have a Musk who just makes shit up and is over so many companies there is no way they know what is actually going on at all of them nor do they care.”

That’s exactly what I was thinking. The courts do have ways of clearing a person’s schedule in a hurry.

Voyager status page, showing current distance and light speed communication time:

This. They aggressively pursued firm fixed price contracts because those look super appealing to customers, who like the idea of knowing exactly how much they’ll have to pay. And they deliberately underbid them, knowing that would help them capture the business. The fact it then made it impossible to execute them on…

Maybe. But that doesn’t give the contractor license to charge whatever they want. The Truthful Cost or Pricing Data Act (formerly the Truth in Negotiations Act, or TINA) is serious business. There are a couple of possibilities here. If that gargantuan markup was incorporated into the original offer, as you describe,…