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WalterBrighton NASA’s Mars Sample Return mission is dead

You're trying to compare 2 tiny communes to 36 million businesses.

You could envision all kinds of things. That doesn't mean they'll work.

The free market US has done much better environmentally than socialist countries.

Anyone wanting research funding is going to have to justify it, regardless of the system that is set up. Just imagine you set aside $1 billion and opened it up to anybody with a research idea and no vetting of their ideas. The money will disappear in a moment, and you'll get zero research results.

WalterBrighton What California is learning from solar panels built over irrigation canals

BTW, in the Bellevue area across the lake from Seattle, walk into a bank. There will be ordinary counters which the tellers are behind.

Now go to a bank in downtown Seattle. The tellers are behind thick bulletproof glass.

WalterBrighton Seattle City Council votes to ban surveillance pricing in sale of groceries

I, too, have been threatened by a gun. Once by a cop, the other was a mugger.

WalterBrighton Seattle City Council votes to ban surveillance pricing in sale of groceries

The White House has always chosen which press could be on the grounds. It's not a 2nd Amendment issue.

Do you think you or I, frequent posters on the intertoobs, would be allowed into the press room under any Administration? There's no right for us to be there.

WalterBrighton What California is learning from solar panels built over irrigation canals

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/only-suck...

Of course, there's a case that the Seattle Times itself is a source of low-quality information.

https://mynorthwest.com/kiro-opinion/seattle-grocery-crime-p...

"One million dollars will be set aside for the theft and upgrades, which are backed by Seattle Police crime data that is helping determine which stores get the funding."

https://bottomline.seattle.gov/2026/09/20/mayor-katie-b-wils...

https://www.kuow.org/food/2026-09-18/seattle-launches-plan-t...

"Supermarkets experiencing high theft will be provided one-time security and facility upgrades."

WalterBrighton What California is learning from solar panels built over irrigation canals

I read in the paper that 90% of the riders on the Seattle busses don't pay the fare. Grocery store looting is rampant.

Seattle has become a low trust society.

WalterBrighton What California is learning from solar panels built over irrigation canals

It would be better addressed by jailing the thieves.

WalterBrighton NASA’s Mars Sample Return mission is dead

So where are these 20,000 communes that are not privatized? Do you think that 100 people in a commune with massive turnover shows that communism works in a country of 350,000,000?

> So I don’t think it’s fair to claim it’s sustained by constantly tricking new members into turning over assets.

Thanks for the correction.

WalterBrighton Seattle City Council votes to ban surveillance pricing in sale of groceries

Once people manage to bypass the 2nd Amendment, the next one to go will be free speech.

WalterBrighton NASA’s Mars Sample Return mission is dead

Good idea! Although solid fuel rockets cannot be throttled or turned off.

WalterBrighton NASA’s Mars Sample Return mission is dead

I doubt it would be practical to pump fuel to another rocket. The obvious thing to do is store the fuel in orbit with its own rocket engine. Then you only have to dock with it and turn on the engine.

WalterBrighton NASA’s Mars Sample Return mission is dead

When the Kibbutzim lost their government subsidies, they became capitalists.

The Twin Oaks community has a population of 100 and annual turnover of 20%. That's pretty high. I suspect Twin Oaks' only success is being able to constantly recruit new members and get them to turn over their assets to the commune. Then they get disenchanted with communism and leave.

The Bruderhof communities average around 120 people. I couldn't find any statistics on how long people stay in them.

Congratulations, 2 communes out of 20,000 have survived! It still rounds to a 100% failure rate.

WalterBrighton How do traffic signals work? (2019)

The cyclists also tend to wander out of the bike lane into the car lane, without looking, and I've had many try drafting off of my bumper.

WalterBrighton NASA’s Mars Sample Return mission is dead

The Israeli Kibbutzes communes are subsidized by the state, as they cannot make it on their own.

REI is not a commune at all. Neither is the Amana Society.

Communes have a 100% failure rate.

WalterBrighton NASA’s Mars Sample Return mission is dead

Yes, but that's a lot less fuel than a return trip from Mars.

WalterBrighton NASA’s Mars Sample Return mission is dead

There have been 20,000 voluntary communes in the US. They all failed. Communism doesn't work, whether it is forcible or voluntary. No commune or centrally planned economy has ever managed to feed itself. Hence the suffering.

WalterBrighton NASA’s Mars Sample Return mission is dead

Doing one-off robots is incredibly expensive. Building clones costs very little.

When I worked at Boeing, sinking a die for a forging cost $250,000. Forging the part cost a few dollars.

WalterBrighton NASA’s Mars Sample Return mission is dead

> it’s the communist “people owning the means of production” that gets capitalists really worried.

Everyone suffered under people owning the means of production, not just the capitalists.

WalterBrighton NASA’s Mars Sample Return mission is dead

It would possibly be more practical to store the return trip fuel in orbit around Mars.

WalterBrighton NASA’s Mars Sample Return mission is dead

NASA could simply put up $1 billion to anyone who brings them Mars rocks. There are a number of private rocket companies spinning up.

WalterBrighton How do traffic signals work? (2019)

I often hear that the lights are timed. I've never encountered a street where they were timed.

WalterBrighton How do traffic signals work? (2019)

There are many bike lanes where I live, all installed in the last few years.

The bike traffic remains 1% of the car traffic, and 0% when it's cold/rainy.

WalterBrighton How do traffic signals work? (2019)

I'm sorry, but that all sounds like excuses. None of it looks like it should impede using AI-developed algorithms.

Heck, an AI isn't even needed. A simple cost function could be easily developed, where each car accrues priority as it waits, and the lights go green on the ones with the highest priority.

WalterBrighton How do traffic signals work? (2019)

A parameter that gives a max wait time for cross traffic is needed.

WalterBrighton How do traffic signals work? (2019)

The traffic cops greatly improve throughput.

Imagine how much gas would be saved if the city spent a little effort on the traffic lights.

WalterBrighton How do traffic signals work? (2019)

There's a major arterial near my house. One day, the power went out in the area, and the traffic lights went dead. I discovered to my amusement that throughput on the arterial and its crossings increased dramatically, as drivers simply cooperated with each other.

There are already cameras on top of all the lights. How hard can it be to hook them up to AI that is instructed to maximize throughput? The current system will block 3 directions while having a green light on the 4th which has no traffic.

I once complained to a friend about this, and he told me that the traffic engineers were experts and I was lying. The next day I was driving on that road, and got a red light. You could see on down the distance 3 greens. There was no other traffic, and no cross traffic. So I sent him a photo. He conceded :-)

WalterBrighton How SpaceX streamlined the Raptor engine

I cannot imagine anything more dastardly than collecting his best engineers together to design & build a device to save the kids.

WalterBrighton Singapore’s National Library Board offers micropayments to build reading habits

95% of books (and I'm being generous) are not worth the paper they are printed on, let alone the time spent reading them.

And then, there are the gems: War of the Worlds, and Lord of the Rings.

WalterBrighton Singapore’s National Library Board offers micropayments to build reading habits

In fourth grade, I went to the library and noticed a book with a tripod on the cover blasting people with a heat ray. Of course I checked it out. I didn't know what scifi was at the time, and had never heard of HG Wells. Anyhow, I loved every word in the book, and devoured scifi ever since.

Another seminal book for me was Lord of the Rings, which I read in 6th grade.