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I also doubt a single beam actually cost 600 million.

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/shuttle-02d.html

[In passing I note Space Daily is about as reliable as the wind.]

I'm not an aerospace engineer, but I am an engineer. I'm an engineer who believes in redundant systems and simple solutions over "space hardened" systems.

There are lots of examples of guys building working systems on shoestring budgets that last well beyond their engineered lifetimes. Check out http://www.hypocrites.com/article2897.html for just one example.

I find it interesting that NASA always talks about how they fly the most complex systems in the world, yet somehow its the Russians with their 40 year old designs that have the most reliable systems.

Who precisely is safer and more reliable?

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/shuttle-02d.html

I doubt you are a engineer, let alone an aerospace engineer.

I'm not an aerospace engineer, but I am an engineer. I'm an engineer who believes in redundant systems and simple solutions over "space hardened" systems. There are lots of examples of guys building working systems on shoestring budgets that last well beyond their engineered lifetimes. Check out http://www.hypocrites.com/article2897.html for just one example. I also cite a story from the Apollo days when Joe Shea vetoed a crazy design for measuring the remaining fuel in the fuel tanks of Apollo spacecraft. Instead of using a nuclear detector to measure fuel in a weightless environment (page 8), he chose a design based on one found in his Karman Ghia. They installed reserve fuel tanks capable of getting the crew home, and always made sure that they were within their limits.

I find it interesting that NASA always talks about how they fly the most complex systems in the world, yet somehow its the Russians with their 40 year old designs that have the most reliable systems.

Funny because "bumbling idiot" gives me this result first:

http://www.hypocrites.com/article9025.html

• Improper storage of cocoa and marshmallows
• Posession with intent to distribute of a conterfeit Rubik's Cube
• Violation of a work visa (after the employer was ordered to fire him)
• Eating curry?
• Photographing Cheney's Hotel
• Finding sensors on public lan near area 51
• Bribing city officials to let customers touch topless dancers

If this was on SNL 4+ years ago it would have been some funny shit.

That already exists.

1. Find a lawyer willing to take on a civil rights case with a potentially huge payout.
2. Line up all your friends "of color," and have then drive through Manalapan.
3. Wait for one of them to have his or her plates run for wants and warrants.
4. Have the attorney bring suit, alleging discriminatory application of this law against people of color.
5. During the discovery phase of the suit, determine that Manalapan's cops are overwhelmingly using this to run the plates of blacks and Hispanics. Present this evidence to the judge.
6. The resulting whopping civil rights award will mean...
7. Profit!

Hackneyed e-business jokes aside...
...this looks a lot like a variation on the old game of dreaming up ordinances to give the cops the ability to run the "riffraff" out of town. It has appeared in various disguises over the years--with a variety of names, a variety of methods, but one single purpose: to give a cop plausible reason to stop a black or Hispanic driving through town, and tell him or her to leave.

Which is, of course, illegal. In a town with an obscene amount of money (note the statistic that there are 11 police officers in Manalapan, for only 321 residents--and they only have two or three burglaries a year) fighting a traffic stop through appellate procedures would be futile. But once they establish a pattern of stopping and harassing minorities, Manalapan will be a sitting duck for a lawsuit by any number of "public interest" groups like Jesse Jackson's Operation PUSH.

The site forbids image linking of images; you can see it here.

I'm all for mice with breasts if only because it would be somewhat less disturbing than this. (And no, that isn't a gag photo. Scientists are a strange bunch of monkeys.)

If the company is willing to fund Jesse Jackson, they sure don't need my dollars.

You don't know of enough tech sites to claim that "almost every tech site" banded together on something. No one does.