@funstraw: The Moon is quite far away and the two lasers are close to each other by comparison. So yes, the laser beams are almost perfectly parallel to each other as they head towards the moon. However the observer is standing near one base and far from the other, and beneath both. Her viewing angle is…

From an operational standpoint; when you're sitting on the toilet, your pants tend to be down around your knees or ankles. That would make pedaling a trifle difficult.

@ktdidnt: I think the message is "Cook my dinner, clean up this mess, lose a few pounds, and look sexy doing it".

@theSleeper: Earth is neither Roman nor Greek. It's Anglo-Saxon/Germanic and is not the name by which everyone on this planet refers to it. And I would say we certainly have a vested interest in the Earth.

@alexLmx6: That's my point. It will have some catalogue name. But the public will want something more user friendly. And thus school children from all over will suggest "Unity" or something schmaltzy like that.

Nope. Too geeky.

Yeah, but when we find it you just know that there'll be some world wide elementary school competition to find a name for it. And of course it will end up with some awful name like "Hope" or "Pax"... or worse yet, "Heart" which has both that cheesy love/peace connection and is an anagram of Earth.

Among the issues pointed out in the article and by other commenters, I have two observations I would like to make.

@Arken: By that logic, we should all only do things to help feed starving people.

@StupidSimple: Well, we don't know what he'll do with the money (if he wins it). I doubt he'll put it beneath his mattress. Remember, the X-Prize is intended to work as an incentive and then provide some financial support.

Save on shipping costs?! What about the 1334 Bottles of wine that it's gonna take to fill that thing back up after Jean and Janine Consumér have at it?

@sukha54: In order to prevent this the company recommends that if the user remains idle for more than a few minutes, then they should stare at flying toasters, starfields, or a bouncing beach ball.

@rjw2116: Quite right, but a man's got a right to his privacy.

@Wwhat: Well, if he had actually taken out the loan then the cops would have had to arrest the bank for robbing him.

Been saying it for years:

This isn't really representative of world cultures. It's representative of different classes of broadly divided ethnicities within America (looking for love). I'm sure not all of the people on OKCupid are American, but clearly most are. Do you really think that white women in Ireland and Belarus like the Red Sox? …

@Rabid Penguin: Whenever I get a group of cartographers together we ALWAYS have a few shots before licensing Ordnance Survey map data.

@natelock: "People can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. 40% of all people know that."

@Hooray4Zoidberg: Remove the Feeding tube?!?! But- but- that's playing god.