I don't understand Warren, is she trying to one-up AOC or appeal to republicans who just want to "own the libs"?

For the record, NASA has always relied on contractors in private industry to build its mission components; the only real difference today is that companies have a bit more of a free hand to design systems (so long as they adhere to NASA's requirements) and to utilize them for their own purposes.

Adios, Via-a-Duck.
Hell-Lo, WALL of Buildings!
There goes our View.

Can we make them make them outta glass
or with view-cut-outs, for our Enjoyment?

I like to think we CAN.

@1: In what way does breaking up big tech companies appeal to Republicans?

"Is Bezos quaking in his boots?"

Nah. He knows "our" Lawmakers don't give a flying Fuck
about Monopolies Ruling the World. He's a
Multi-MULTI-Billionaire, for Chrissakes.

And He can afford all the lawmakers He needs.
It's the (New!) AMERICAN Way!
So, get used to it. Peons.

Or, just become a Billionaire, yourownself!
And YOU, too, can make whateverthefuck laws YOU wanna.

Unless -- your just lazy.

@5:

Oh, you can be lazy as fuck, too - if you have several billion dollars, why would you have any incentive to actually DO anything productive except what brings in more cash you don't really need and can never spend? You can STILL do whatever the fuck you want, because, in our current socio-economic system just about any problem can be solved if throw enough money at it - unfortunately, the problems actually BEING solved by the uber-wealthy tend to be only the ones that effect them directly and immediately.

"The next trip could be as soon as June, where they’ll simulate a malfunctioning thruster."

Hmmm. I'm sensing a Golden Opportunity for a Viagra-type advert on the sides of said thruster.

"Senator Elizabeth Warren wants to break up giant tech companies"

There is clearly a regained interest in applying anti-trust laws so it's clever campaigning from Warren. and she is right, oligopolies will have to be broken if we want to address inequalities. It's amazing what 40 odd years of more FREEDUMB will do to concentrate the economy into a few hands.

@4 trump loves to rile up his base with threats to Amazon, and I'm pretty sure he's not a fan of Google either. Also, I would assert that many tech company employees lean toward Democrat. I can only speculate, but I would expect that the idea of breaking them up would appeal to tribalistic minds.

Now we enter the period when candidates start to self-eliminate themselves.

Amazon has 5% of the retail market. Hardly a monopoly.

@11 Stupid point. Amazon has almost 50% of ONLINE retail. And that is the issue. Because that is the future.

https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/13/amazons-share-of-the-us-e-commerce-market-is-now-49-or-5-of-all-retail-spend/

"Amazon is set to clear $258.22 billion in US retail sales in 2018, according to eMarketer’s figures, which will work out to 49.1 percent of all online retail spend in the country, and 5 percent of all retail sales."

@9 He is only posturing as a populist when he talks about Amazon but big business has nothing to fear. Neoliberalism doesn't need democracy; it has shown it could thrive in authoritarian systems too

Curious why the connection of Trump to sex trafficker Li Yang _ owner of the brothels in Florida where New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft was arrested didn't make morning news?

The Brothel owner, Yang, is long time Republican donor (donating $42,000 republicans in Florida and $12,000 to Trump) and attended Trumps Super Bowl party where she took a selfie with the President and posted it to her social media.

This is yet ANOTHER connection Trump has to sex trafficking.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/433179-super-bowl-selfie-emerges-of-trump-with-founder-of-spa-where-new

@14: Technically she was the founder, not the current owner (she flipped a bunch of "massage" places).

Oh. Look. Yet another photo has emerged with sex trafficker Yang and Trump.

https://splinternews.com/heres-donald-trump-with-the-founder-of-robert-krafts-fa-1833150689

@15 - riiiiiight.

Why was Apollo 11 not listed in yesterday's "43 Movies Worth Watching in Seattle This Weekend" post?

@10 Well, Warren could appeal to a post ww2 conservative who acknowledged the role of government in the economy but clearly not to a modern free-marketeering wingnut so that ship sailed a long time ago for you. The understanding that oligopolies are bad for the economy and for democracy is hardly radical as shown by the fact that anti-trust is the law of the land

"And while the viaduct coming down will open up views, it will be replaced with what should be a busy, ground-level street that will be up to eight lanes wide in some southern points of the waterfront."

I haven't been to San Francisco in a few years so my I can't remember for sure, but I think the Embarcadero is only 4 lanes wide and it also has a median which breaks it up so it doesn't feel like a huge swath of traffic. Plus, it also has the very cool vintage streetcars running on it.

Seattle, of course, used to have its own cool vintage streetcars on the waterfront -- the "George Benson Waterfront Streetcars", beautiful trams from Melbourne built in the 1920s -- but, in typical pathetic fashion, Seattle was unable to keep them running (because Seattle lacked the will & creativity to keep the maintenance barn in place when the Olympic Sculpture Park was being built), and sold three of them to St. Louis (the other two are in storage.)

It will be interesting to see what the new Waterfront Park ends up looking like. It looks promising -- I especially like the Overlook Walk, connecting Pike Market to the waterfront (and scheduled to open in 2022) -- but I'm afraid that Seattle will manage to find some way to fuck it up and come up with something cheesy, the way it did with Westlake Park and the abominable Westlake Center.

https://waterfrontseattle.org/overlook-walk

@19: To you it's a cute word of the day (oligopoly). But out technical needs demand mammoth hybrid and cloud solutions for mammoth deployments, with awesome security and redundancy, where such things are typically met by mammoth companies like Microsoft and Amazon.

I think mammoth oligopolies are just what the doctor ordered to tackle our mammoth problem of global warming.

"Why was Apollo 11 not listed in yesterday's "43 Movies Worth Watching in Seattle This Weekend" post?"

Whitey on the Moon?

@14, 16: I appreciate that you include URLs with the news you're referring to. Some of the more strident folks here should take note.

@21 I have been pointing to wealth and economic concentration for decades while you were bleating for ever more deregulation so it may be cute to you but clearly not for me.

The central cause of our inability to deal with problems like climate change is precisely the lack of political will resulting from modern disparities in economic and political power brought about by free market religion, so suggesting that deregulated oligopolies as such are one of the solution to our problem is rather delirious. That is not to say that massive computing capacity isn't going to be key in our ability to face this challenge.

What Warren is proposing is about 10 years overdue. The tech sector is operating like it's the Wild West and there's no law in sight for a thousand miles.

I would heartily support regulation of the tech sector. Senator Warren just leapfrogged over all the other Democratic candidates for me. She'd get my vote.

Happy International Day, Women!

Interesting, isn't it, how 70% of us men think women get a fair shake
while LESS THAN HALF of the women of the USA think so.

Whoa

Awesome to see them shake it up in D.C. and elsewhere.
They're making rookie mistakes, but once they get their momentum
(should Republicans fail to find some [devious, likely] way to Stop them)
I believe they'll be a fucking Force to Reckon with.

It can not come soon enough.

@26 Purris and @27 kristofarian: Agreed, spot on, and seconded.
@27 kristofarian: Thank you and Bravo! I am most definitely part of that less than half statistic of U.S. women who strongly feels I don't get a fair shake. For the overwhelming 70% of men who think I do, I'd like to see them suddenly faced with endless obstacles and barriers, forever stymied, and hounded by people who insist on making all their choices for them, including health choices, regardless if their decisions are helpful or not. I feel confident that at least 95% of the men so stubbornly insisting we women have it so soft and easy would start crying and whining like babies before getting mad as hell. I would say GOOD--then they'd finally know how it feels, and hopefully wise up to see the error of their misconceptions. Then it would truly be a Happy International Women's Day, indeed. True progress and change for the better would stand a better chance of materializing.

@7 - Good idea! Although I think that the Viagra message would be more effective on the side of Blue Origin's dildo-shaped rocket.