Factors in. Not identical to. They might not have phrased that very well, but the point is that you don't need any relationship much more complex than personal acquaintance to fuel this kind of violence.

> But on the other hand,

> Iran still has enriched uranium, nuclear facilities and now they even have put in the agreement a recognition of Iran's right to seek nuclear technology.

You can figure out the goal. What you can't figure out is a goal that actually had a snowball's chance in an oil fire of being achieved.

The idea there was bombing to support the popular uprising that does the actual work. I think that might have been the fantasy here, too, but it seems like the window closed.

90% of the article is about the scientific advantages. You've chosen to fixate on the "sexism" part which is, as other commenters pointed out, mainly there to explain why things are done this way today at all. I don't think it's the article that's the problem.

No you're right, the subtitle that says "It's all because of a Frenchman who decided it was more convenient – for men" was definitely me reading between the lines, I can't believe I even attributed a gendered slant.

Pardon me for paying attention to the actual article instead of the subtitle likely written by someone else. And it's not as if you can credibly claim it's not relevant, since the first thing we want to know about any stupid practice is why it got started. So unless you have evidence that it's incorrect, you're just getting offended at... actual facts.

Not antonyms. Some good art goes viral on its own merits. But certainly not synonyms either.

I don't know what definition of "hostage" you're using, but practically speaking, a hostage is what you make of them.

It’s the one constant about this administration: you’re always wondering ”is this incompetence by not knowing what they’re saying or incompetence where they know what they’re saying”

What is this worth?

Dark comedy mostly.

> The mirror fleet does not increase the total power available to the project; Mercury still intercepts only a fixed amount of sunlight.

I think I must be missing something important, because this doesn't make sense to me. If you put your mirrors in orbits where they don't block the dayside surface (sun-synchronous?), then they increase the total surface area receiving solar radiation.

Yeah, orbital mirrors essentially expand the radius of Mercury, increasing the sunlight available. Terrestrial mirrors would ensure that light makes it from the sunward side to the dark side of the planet.

Also, the kind of satellites that aren't much more than mirrors, even with today's knowledge, they can be designed to change their profile/surface and thus reduce the absorption of the incident radiation, if they'd had to cross the space between the sun and the sunlight collector areas.

Isn't the point of mirrors to concentrate heat for mining, not to get more total power?

Not in orbit.

I guess it might. I wouldn't plan on it without a very detailed survey though, to say the least. Whereas solar is definitely right there. (And you still have to worry about cooling either way.)

co-slop. In the categorical sense, slop with all the relationships reversed.