> "I'm a little biased, but I think the taxpayers saw very good value from this mission,"
I'd say that was biased. I personally would have rather $267 million be spent on something more permanent and practical. How about spending it on our Earth-based telecopes?
Not that I've seen. They went from the "the Columbine kids played Doom which is why they killed those people" more recently to "Guns kill people; We must get rid of guns", but even that is no longer in the news. The latest in the news is that conservatives want to shutdown the government and make poor people die without health care. But nothing about games.
If they want bad publicity to help sell it, they'll need to have something like beastiality with a donkey hidden deep in the game somewhere.
While I agree with some of what you are saying and I don't join in hipster hate, I think this is the main thing:
Any self-righteous style that tries to come off as cool and aloof that seem ridiculous to others is going to be made fun of. It doesn't matter what it is. Portlandia makes fun of hipsters. Zoolander made fun of high fashion.
Be yourself first and foremost: type on an old typewriter in the park, wear RPGs even though you were never formerly in the military, drink double Doppios from non-chain coffee shops, and break up with a girl because she said PETA stood for People Eating Tasty Animals. But being made fun of comes with that game.
> All it would take is for one major player to take a view on what was going to happen without hearing the fed data in an attempt to beat the market.
But why would they wait then? "Guessing" or working with known public information is perfectly legal. They should act upon that data immediately. A leak is much more likely, as they would be afraid of an investigation when they "guessed right". They were almost certainly trying to trade as if there were no leak, but they forgot to add the slight delay.
But, I personally think we should be exploring space and our oceans. We need to make it a top priority of all countries to fund energy and propulsion research to help make exploration cheaper. That means allocating adequate budget and raising taxes for something that the mass media and our government doesn't seem to give much of a shit about, because they don't understand the part of the world we currently are utilizing is running out of resources quickly and that we are constantly a stone's throw from mass extinction.
One of the things I read about high speed city to city travel is related to commuting, not just business travel. But yes, I was changing the subject to public transportation, which I think is a serious problem in the U.S.
And freedom. If you commute with a hyperloop, can you stop by the grocery store on the way home? Not easily.
But beyond cost and freedom, there is practicality. For a while I wanted to take the bus to work, but it would take 4 hours to get there (including 10 miles walking) and only 30-40 minutes in a car. They would provide a bus to make it only 30-40 minutes if there were enough people like me to take the bus, but how do they know? They never asked.
Here are the directions the government-sponsored online tool gave me for how to commute to work (miles rounded up):
03:04AM - start walk 8 miles from home address,
05:59AM - arrive at bus stop,
06:01AM - start first leg of bus trip,
06:15AM - stop first leg of bus trip,
06:17AM - start second leg of bus trip,
06:38AM - stop first leg of bus trip,
06:38AM - start walk 2 miles from stop,
07:09AM - arrive at work
I could do that if I had a collapsible bike and could shower and change at work, but I can't (and won't).