Two main reasons I can think of:
1) Sea water is extremely corrosive. If your booster takes a dunk in the drink, it's going to be very hard to refurbish for another launch. Lots of components (electronics, valves, etc) would need to be replaced and the structural integrity of the tanks themselves may be compromised by rust.
2) Flotation devices attached to the booster = extra payload. It would be the canvas/dinghys AND compressed gas canisters for inflating them. This is arguably (a lot?) more weight than just landing struts + fins. Any extra payload on a rocket represents a massive cost and means less stuff you can haul for paying customers.
In addition to that the vehicle is extremely weak when lying on its side. I should think there's a good chance the tanks could be damaged by waves bending the vehicle.
Correct. Also the terminal velocity even with a parachute can be high, and if you hit a rising wave, even more.
Actually parachuting and fishing the stage from the sea was their first idea, but they never recovered a single stage that way, and moved to active controlled recovery, which is much much much better in my opinion.
Ascent trajectory is much different. Orbit is mostly about horizontal velocity, the altitude is just to get above the atmosphere and is the easy part. For the first stage to return to its launch site for landing, it has to cancel out all of the horizontal velocity it builds up while lifting the second stage and payload, then turn around and come back. A barge landing can use a more optimal ascent trajectory and have the first stage land several hundred kilometers away from the launch site.
You have to accelerate the rocket back to the launchpad if you want to land on solid ground -- there's no convenient landmasses at the right distance. That takes fuel.
How do I donate something to your cause to say thank you for the work you've already done (and for putting it online for free)? Paypal/Bitcoin would be easiest, but anything will do. :)
If you want to back that up with cash, the best way will be to buy a copy of the print version when it's out. Part of the magic of self-publishing is that I get a very large cut of the sales of that, so it's a good way to say thanks. (And you get a physical book out it!)
Actually, I think the idiot in the room here is you.
Read his response again. The author is asking why, if Chrome does not support gzipped images, it sends "Accept:/ Accept-Encoding:gzip,deflate,sdch" (in other words it states that it will accept any Gzipped content). This is the question no one in this thread is actually answering, instead choosing to nitpick on why the author tried to do something.
Also, calling someone an idiot because they lack understanding of a certain field in computer science? Really? Maybe you should lighten up.
2) Flotation devices attached to the booster = extra payload. It would be the canvas/dinghys AND compressed gas canisters for inflating them. This is arguably (a lot?) more weight than just landing struts + fins. Any extra payload on a rocket represents a massive cost and means less stuff you can haul for paying customers.