It's also nice not to have to take care of chickens ;) I am curious: When you raise free range chickens, do you need to provide food, or do they find enough on their own? I guess it depends on how many chickens and where you live, but it just occurred to me that "grass-fed beef" and "free-range chickens" are saying…

the spec sheet says "5 Volt, 2000mA (10W) Duplex USB Charging Receptacle, With

I believe one of the key words is "indistinguishable". Sure, you can assume everything is technology at some point, and you are probably right. But there are some technologies that could be magic, and you would be none the wiser.

I always imagined it was because of boats. We call boats by female pronouns, so it is natural to call space ships by female pronouns. We call space ships by female pronouns, so why not space robots?

Nuclear decay is extremely predictable. They have simply designed in heat dissipation for whatever heat will not be used for power generation. In this instance, I believe some of the excess heat is also being piped to scientific instruments that need to stay warm to function.

I have been using Google two factor authentication for a long time. It can occasionally be annoying to have to authenticate, but the peace of mind is nice.

Yeah, I use bike lube for this, mostly because I have it around. Not a great idea with oil or grease lubes, but wax or graphite works wonderfully.

My favorite picture from the mission so far wasn't from Curiosity. I am loving the picture of Curiosity going down on it's parachute. It is not visually stunning, but lets face it "Here is a picture of a nuclear robot the size of a car skydiving to the surface of another world, taken from space"

My favorite picture from the mission so far wasn't from Curiosity. I am loving the picture of Curiosity going down on it's parachute. It is not visually stunning, but lets face it "Here is a picture of a nuclear robot the size of a car skydiving to the surface of another world, taken from space"

Yeah, but not a cover you need to pull out. I am pretty sure the article is specifically referring to a cover that you must take an additional action to remove before you can access the port. In my experience, these are more annoying than helpful, and have a tendency of wearing out and breaking off, lowering the…

That might not end up being a successful product though. Without a bezel, people may find a tablet a little unwieldy. It is entirely possible that our current bezel areas are appropriate for the ergonomics of a held device.

Not surprising. As a scientist, I see plenty of papers I doubt. The peer review system is the first leg of scientific integrity, but reproducible results have to follow on it's heels. It is pretty common to find results that can not be duplicated; it is one of the reasons scientists are mostly annoyingly skeptical.

The first time I peaked inside a Volt with the instrumentation all lit up I found myself reminded of the Enterprise. It really is an apt-comparison.

Porcelain's abrasion resistance is not just about having a long lasting fixture; plastic and stainless steel will both be likely to acquire roughened surfaces during cleaning that will be more likely to harbor bacteria and make further cleaning more difficult. The hardness of the porcelain glaze limits this kind of…

Don't worry, there are still plenty of babies...

It would most likely not be all that hard, BUT it would still be more costly than current petroleum products. It would probably also be more costly than most available biofuels, which puts it in a somewhat limited category.

I like France, it is a great place. Doesn't mean we can't make fun of them ;)

It's nice when you have a mostly full bottle, but have to turn it over to get in a tight space. That is always really annoying.

What he meant is that most systems do not even connect to the mains. They only have batteries and the batteries last a very long time.

I have heard a million contradictory things about what makes a good resume...