I recall a month or two ago some rumors about Google preparing to launch airships & blimps to achieve this same purpose.

Now I wonder if that was a misinformation campaign intended to keep competitors and Wall Street guessing.

Huh ... don't look now, but Google is already putting hundreds of cameras in the sky, daily. Various aircraft, even some satellites, are devoted to Google imagery. Having a new fleet of balloon-based "craft" providing imagery could easily fit into Google's M.O.

If it means those 10% will be able to use it to defend themselves from the other 90% - as opposed to being defenseless - that sounds like a small win.

Sure. Then you wait a few years, and suddenly the 90% have access to your technology, and you're worse off than before.

Gnucash is a delightful piece of software, comparable to Intuit's Quicken ... but, naturally, Gnucash is free.

Keeping an eye on your budget and watching the graphs is indispensable in terms of helping you manage your money. After all, you can't make tweaks if you don't know what's going on. Obviously you want to live below your means if you want to be successful, and you want to trim categories that seem to be out of control ... but this can only happen if you are proactively aware of where your money is going.

I've heard it explained this way: "managed money goes farther". If you make a budget (a plan, really) for your money, you're telling it where to go. If not, it'll easily disappear through behaviors you're not aware of.

Many people have said that when they finally started budgeting and making a plan for their money, it felt as though they got a raise. Of course, no new money came in because of the budgeting, but the act of making and following a written plan led to far less waste, achieving the same effect.

Since congress, the administration and NASA have all but given up on manned space flight ... I have a hard time being excited about a new class of astronauts-in-waiting.