Sounds like BS to me; conventional GCMS can resolve differences in molecular weight to a fraction of a proton's mass. And these techniques are used very heavily already, I think any mysterious "proton-scale differences" (sounds like quackery in itself) would have been noticed.

BTW whilst there aren't any isotopic diseases - unless you count cancers due to radioactive isotopes of otherwise fine elements - there is burgeoning interest in isotopic drugs, although it's questionable how much is genuine benefit and how much patent trickery.

Of course you're not physically compelled, by some supernatural force, to give them any information. Just as you're not physically compelled to pay your taxes, to drive at the speed limit or not to murder your mum.

This would make sense if the sentence you would expect to receive for witholding the keys is less than the sentence you would expect for giving access to the data (or if handing the keys over would endanger compatriots for instance). Otherwise it's a way to go to to stick by your principles.

Of course it would make sense to use an encryption system which gives you plausible deniability in the first place, or hide incriminating data within a load of legal stuff which you might reasonably want encrypted (accounts or somesuch).

You've not read the comments on TFA then. Sensible move.

I also enjoyed:

...which conveniently misses out (a) that people have been living in houses like these for centuries, and (b) that China is not communist in any meaningful (at least economic) sense, and it's much closer to an unregulated rampant free market economy. Which is why it has very, very poor people and very, very rich people.

(posting to remove accidental negative mod).

Not only not an Amiga, but not remotely in the spirit of the original Amiga platform.

Sticking some off the shelf hardware together and running Linux on it is nothing special in the slightest. The Amiga was special because it was designed as a coherent whole - it had lots of co-processing going on (Fat Agnus, Denise et al), powerful graphics abilities and a multitasking, inherently GUI-based OS which was for the most part an absolute pleasure to use.

Also, although AmigaOS was loosely based on UNIX type systems in the way the filesystem worked, it feels much more transparent somehow - largely because the hardware was controlled by Commodore so that there was no need for the layer upon layer of abstraction of modern Linux (NB: I'm not a programmer so this may well be bollocks). Of course this also meant that upgrades could be a pain - notably graphics cards which were not supported by 95% of programs which did not run on the Workbench. FTR, I now use Linux which I enjoy but I do miss the simplicity of AmigaOS.

This was my first thought - what's the advantage of an aircraft rather than a ship (or buoy)? Two or three strategically placed should minimise the chances of weather putting the service offline. Also - using Raspberry Pi? I'm not in IT, but I'm thinking that the server power and bandwidth required by TPB is in the order of "quite lots".

The underground length is about 22 km, i.e. around 44 km of tunnel (one for each line). 3 years gives enough time for the tunnelling and ancillary work on the underground parts. Once that is done there's still building the stations (including connecting to the underground), laying the track etc, a lot of work on the existing suburban stations required, and aquiring the trains (something the Department for Transport are notorious for; the invitation to tender has only just been released and it's likely to be a touchy issue for the government) - hence the estimated 2018 date.

Actually, the power saving for road lighting are negligible at best, or negative at worst. Low pressure sodium lamps currently in use produce up to 200 lm/W, compared to 100 lm/W for the better white LEDs around. There's not much that can compete with LPS for pure lighting efficiency, partly because the light emitted is near the maximum sensitivity of the human eye. Of course, LPS lamps produce monochromatic light which means they're not so popular for lighting urban/pedestrian areas, as people feel safer in a more "natural" light where they can see colours. But for roads alone, there's no need to see colours. Also, LPS is the least objectionable form of light pollution to astronomers, as being monochromatic it's easy to filter out (and there's not a lot of glowing sodium in space, so you're not blocking out anything of interest).

I think they've got the relationship wrong. The number of 'o's is inversely proportional to the IQ of the target audience.

There's something strangely attractive about this idea...