Hmm... this is very encouraging news for the eventual construction of my so-cliched-it-hurts landed gentry type library at some point in the future. I can see the overstuffed chairs now, nestled in the curve of Misty's tail.

Look at the earlier reply from Brent Rose to me. The original version of the article didn't include the word "stateside", and it was only because I pointed out the rather glaring problem the article was corrected. Perhaps, instead of leaving it, you should have checked to see if perhaps 80 people over the last year…

Look at the earlier reply from Brent Rose to me. The original version of the article didn't include the word "stateside", and it was only because I pointed out the rather glaring problem the article was corrected. So not only did the author speak to me, he thanked me for pointing out his error. Who, exactly, is the…

Look at the earlier reply from Brent Rose to me. The original version of the article didn't include the word "stateside", and it was only because I pointed out the rather glaring problem the article was corrected. Western hemisphere only referred to the size of the dock, not its ability to build carriers.

Look at the earlier reply from Brent Rose to me. The original version of the article didn't include the word "stateside", and it was only because I pointed out the rather glaring problem the article was corrected. And somehow you managed to miss the 70 other people who all made the same mistake over the last year. Who…

"I'll stick on my parents' cushy plan (they're both federal employees) until I'm 26"

They did. The first burn to de-orbit was successful. The second burn at subsonic speeds to slow the rocket to a safe speed for splash-landing introduced "unplanned aero-torqueing", which spun up the booster to the point the fuel was pulled centrifugally, starving the engine and resulting in a flame-out.

Methadone (and other opiate-replacement therapies) have been illegal in Russia. They're only now looking at suboxone as an option, but there's a strong cultural bias, from the Kremlin on down, against what they think of as giving an addict addictive drugs. It's only things like the Krokodil epidemic that are slowly…

"the massive 700 kilowatts of power". 700kW isn't tiny, but I'd hardly call it massive. For comparison, that's a few hundred hair dryers, about two and a quarter Tesla Model S's, or 1/4 of a medium sized wind turbine. The LHC, in contrast, uses ~120MW of power, of which ~22MW are directly used by the experiments,…

I have to wonder what went through the head of the designer of that White House expansion.

1,350' tall and 40' wide?! Either they have some serious engineering mumbo-jumbo going on, or the residents had better really love dramatic diagonals as interior design elements, because I can't even imagine the sort of cross-bracing it would take to make that feasible.

Just going high doesn't actually save all that much fuel if you're trying to reach orbital speeds (which Virgin Galactic most certainly isn't trying to do). For a nice illustrated example, see http://what-if.xkcd.com/58/

Kind of amazing how, even through the lens of Japanese aesthetics, you can still really tell those buildings were built in the 60s. (Actually I might have gone as late as the early 70s, but whatever). Turns out concrete is concrete is concrete.

DC-10: 100,000 lbs

The site you cite has since raised their estimate (look for the big red "We've Updated" banner at the top) to 17 lbs CO2/mile. Even then, it's a theoretical estimate based on high school physics, carried out by MBA students as a school project. The EPA actually measured the numbers they use. Of the two, the latter…

So many problems with your math.

"x-ray vision"

Oh, same. If I hadn't like them so much I wouldn't care about what happens next.

Just, the whole thing. Probably the first series I read that stopped dead in the middle with no hope of resolution, and it still bugs me on occasion. (And makes for good guilt material with the friend who gave me the book, and didn't warn me.)

Vitamin D is more an exception that proves the rule. Most people in developed countries are deficient and it's relatively easy to test for, so it ends up being pretty much the only vitamin doctors will actually write prescriptions for, outside of some very specific circumstances. (Thiamine for alcoholics, Vitamin A…