Ankaios

  Snapchat, written down 25% by Fidelity ($31 -> $23)

Unfortunately that's probably not the correct way to estimate Snapchat's value based on Fidelity's assessment. Since Fidelity probably has a liquidation preference—and a recent one, at that—the implied new valuation of the company is much lower.

Depending, of course, on a whole bunch of details about the investment and Fidelity's assessment that I personally don't know.

I'm not even sure it extends to defending the government.

At least not fully enough, given the OPM breach.

I'm intrigued, too, but I'm planning on drinking the Kool-Aid only after someone figures out how to sanely include support for late binding of dependencies. If that happens—allowing security updates without explicit action for every package—I think I'll be in.

The important metric isn't the ratio of what we spend on the military to what others spend. It's something more like a ratio of the effectivenesses of the militaries, however you'd like to formulate that.

I'd prefer a lower cost, more effective military.

Quantity has a quality all its own, regarding both aspects.

At least for my fields of interest, encyclopediae are never considered appropriate references for college student papers—Wikipedia is not exceptional in that regard.

That said, Wikipedia is untrustworthy. It's a great way to quickly learn about ideas and vocabulary in a field, but it's riddled with misconceptions, misinterpretations, deceptive slants, and other errors. It's important to treat it with a healthy dose of skepticism and base research work on original sources instead. Regardless, though, it's an amazing resource that I'm sure has accelerated research productivity at all levels.

Any sale—not necessarily a fire sale.

As adamrt said, this won't kill off spam. It might reduce it a bit, though.

I keep thinking instead about something that works more like a refundable bond:

To send a message to you, I have to include some amount. (I don't know how much. Not a penny, though. Maybe $10 or $100.) If you want to keep receiving messages from me afterward, you return the bond. If not, you keep the money.

And after a couple of minutes of Googling, I just found a name for schemes like this: Attention Bonds.

Thank you, Mr. Lessig.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10138724

Yeah, there's loads of great analysis of lunar resource use from that era, and propellant for use beyond the Moon is a major motivation for the current interest in lunar polar volatiles. For them to act like the notion that lunar resources could be valuable for trips elsewhere is a major revelation is ridiculous.

You don't necessarily need to be a US citizen. (Not speaking of SpaceX specifically, but commercial space activity in the US in general.) It's possible to get an "export license" which allows you to participate in ITAR-controlled discussions, even if you are a not a citizen or Green Card holder. (My understanding is that it takes some effort, though—it might be hard to find a company that would jump through the hoops without a strong motivation.) Another option is to participate academically through a masters or Ph.D. program—some are well connected with the commercial-space world.

  “This is completely against the established common wisdom
  of how to go to Mars, which is a straight shot to Mars,
  carry everything with you,” de Weck says. “The idea of
  taking a detour into the lunar system … it’s very
  unintuitive."

and later...

  “Assuming you can extract these resources, what do you
  do with it? Almost nobody has looked at that question.”

Give me a break. People discuss this sort of approach all the time. They don't necessarily publish their conclusions, though.

There's no need for a supercomputer. :) Trajectory calculations of that sort are relatively routine, even including the use of ion propulsion, and can be run on a desktop in a reasonable amount of time. (Not to say you can't come up with trajectory calculations that wouldn't benefit from a big cluster, though.)

Also, the computer in the movie was Pleiades at NASA Ames.

I expect that they will be acting in concert.

The buck stops with the shareholders.

They may not be revenue generators, but they can be profit generators, by reducing costs.

  And the inhabitants think that's a good thing.

There have been moments when I could commiserate. Less shoveling.

Makes me wonder if any other tool chains / compilers have already been co-opted in the wild.

If there's an issue you care about, call your congressional rep's office and ask to get on the schedule for a meeting. It might take a while, but you'll probably eventually get to talk with staffers. Be prepared when you talk with them, and be ready to tell them exactly what you would like your representative to do.

That's assuming you're in the US, but I expect it's pretty similar in all the other Western democracies.

Yeah, that's my understanding of the reasoning. If someone admits to doing one of those things, the US doesn't let them in. If someone denies it and the US catches them lying, it's one more justification to give them the boot and / or prosecute them.

The Nazi question is still relevant, if barely. There are still a few of them around.

Why do you think those questions are stupid?

If it makes you feel better, if you're interested in helping get people to Mars and elsewhere in the solar system, there are almost certainly more productive uses of your time than camping in Hawaii for a year. :)

I think his agenda is great. (I might quibble about things like ranked-choice versus approval voting, but that's immaterial for the moment.) I just think he's going to have to govern while trying to achieve that agenda, and I suspect he can do that successfully, so I'd like him to run for real rather than planning to quit after he's done.

   If Lessig were to step down and hand power over
   to the vice president, then couldn't the vice
   president freely appoint a new cabinet?

Lessig would have to govern until he finished enacting his agenda. That could take years. Plus, selecting a good cabinet would off-load distractions from him, allowing him to focus more on his core objectives.

  Even if we got stuck with a crappy cabinet for
  four years, it would be survivable

A "survivable" term isn't the threshold I personally use when voting for candidates. :)

I think it's great that Lessig is interested in running, but I think the intent of being a single-issue "referendum president" is, to be polite, misguided.

It's not actually the choice of the president whether a single issue is the only issue, regardless of how much he might want that to be the case. If elected, he would have to run the executive branch, which means he would need to select a cabinet, unless he is planning on just hanging on to the previous guy's choices until he has finished his quest. We're going to judge him on his perceived ability to do that, as well as everything else a president has to do.

Further, if he is perceived as competent enough to do all that, why would I vote to hire him as chief executive of the nation when he has stated he is going to quit soon after he is elected? His running mate will have be chosen far more carefully than normal. Also, why would I be willing to leave the decision about the replacement vice president to a bunch of people in Washington? By pledging to quit, he is effectively eliminating our direct voice on half of the ticket.

Mr. Lessig, if you want a chance at my vote you have to run for real and commit to serving your full term to the best of your abilities. I hope you do—I think you are up to the task.

A kilocorn?

Sorry, everyone.

And accelerometers & gyros. Also processors & GPUs, as my uncle comment sent. All of these being cheap and high quality is why personal VR currently has a shot at happening.

The academies are indeed open to "just anyone," but grades aren't the only consideration. Members of Congress have processes for requesting the nomination letters, and anyone can request one. There is strong competition for nominations.

I've had a few friends who attended West Point and the Air Force Academy, and they were all "normal," middle-class high school students, but with great grades, athletic achievements, and evidence of leadership ability.

Have any other examples of political influence in astronaut selection?

In this case, it seems like there's a reasonable argument for asylum.

There's no such thing as overkill.