On a similar note:

This is one of the few that I'd not heard before. I will be stealing it forthwith!

Deleted my share of this, as this one already has comments.

So apparently my naked underage ass is on some NSA hard drive somewhere

I'm really interested in how they get around that. Any law that prosecutes teenagers for the sexualised contents of text messages should by right apply to data collected by programmes such as this. The NSA has a pile of child pornography kicking around out there. Up to now, the public in the UK has been reasonably uninterested in the Snowden revelations - might this actually get them on board?

I'd love to think so, but I'm doubtful.

My wife doesn't talk to her father much, and would have been tremendously offended if I'd asked him for permission to marry her. Then again, she's independent to the point of obstinacy sometimes. I did once ask my now mother-in-law about a trip that I was planning, but this was quite early in the relationship.

On the other hand, the question is entirely moot because my wife asked me to marry her. And I'm not sure she asked my father's permission, or my mother's for that matter. :)

It's true, and it also means that you feel as in-control as it is possible to feel. Having clear priorities also means that it's easy to readjust should something unexpected come up (even if that readjustment is "I'm going to re-examine my priorities, and set a new goal").

I've been watching House of Cards recently, and I'm a little worried that I'm starting to sound like Frank Underwood. I'm not that committed or ruthless, I just like to know where I'm going.

Working in IT ($big_name_company), moving from Dublin, Ireland to the Pacific Northwest. Also moving from engineering to management. Very excited about the whole thing! :)

I was expecting a little more from the article. There was a point at which the author began discussing possible means of mitigating boredom on a long flight, and I wanted her to elaborate on that, maybe talk about ways that the lessons learned during the course of the research could be used in schools, or in industry to increase attention spans.

That said, I enjoyed it. I recognised some of the situations described - the listlessness that comes with low-level chronic boredom, being driven to try new things just to have something to do - and I was duly horrified at the notion that you might completely fail to recognise someone you'd spent 4 months in close quarters with. And I came to realise that were I given the opportunity to go to Mars, I probably wouldn't have the temperament to survive the trip with my sanity intact.

I do think that the human element is going to be one of the toughest things to solve on any long-range space trip undertaken in the next decade. Sure there are technical challenges, but humanity has a long history of taking on technical challenges and coming up with innovative solutions. Humanity has a less-stellar track record of changing behaviour patterns, though. Will be interesting to see.

Goal setting is a really simple, but powerful tool to help prioritise stuff. I was surprised the first time I sat down and made a list with a few goals. I discovered I'd been carrying around a sense of paralysis at the thought that there was so much that I could do, that I didn't know what to do. Since then, I've been setting goals with varying degrees of specificity depending on the time-frame, and I've been really happy with the results. I am starting a new job in a new country in a few weeks and that all stems from a goal that I set more than 5 years ago.

Thanks for the comment - This was my first submission, and I wasn't 100% sure what the etiquette was around that. I shall contribute more next time.

He also wrote a history of the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy called "Don't Panic", which was the first of his books that I ever read.

I loved the depth that was gone into, but I also liked the even-handed discussion of the content:

My telling of the rescue's story is not intended to criticize or damn NASA for its actions, nor am I attempting from a position of historical privilege to second guess the decision-makers who to this day must live with the grave consequences of the choices made.

They're definitely working on an iOs version of it, and I believe there was talk about integrating it into a chat protocol because apparently it's a pain to set up encryption for XMPP.