The people I've been talking to who can afford ultrabooks have been avoiding them because of the SSD drive rather than the price. Max hard drive space on an ultrabook with SSD is 256 GB, which isn't enough for people who have gotten used to having 500 GB to 1 TB on their laptops.

Having said that, I love my ASUS zenbook - especially when travelling.

If I ask a Catholic about Catholicism, they'll tell me the truth, if I ask a Muslim about Islam, they'll tell me the truth, if I ask a Hindu about Hindi, they'll tell me the truth, etc.

When I add all those truths together, I'll realise that none of them can be correct without falsifying the others, and so it is unlikely that any of their statements can objectively be considered truth. Especially when there is no existing external evidence to support any of these truths.

I know about the three and the eight witnesses, and other people in this thread have debunked them adequately- including the reasons why they didn't recant. You may be a nice person, and I'm sorry that you base your morals and ethics on a foundation that has no basis in fact. For the record, my statement was about the Mormon religion, not the Mormon people. I don't blame people for holding beliefs that they were indoctrinated with from an early age. However, I believe that people can have sound morals and ethics without appealing to a supernatural authority.

A bigot is someone who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief or opinion. As a strong atheist, I am a bigot about religion in much the same way I am a bigot about my mathematical belief that 1+1=2, that is, there is no question about the facts.

I don't believe that religions should get a pass when being analysed under the spot light of critical thinking, and I certainly don't think that they should get tax-exempt status. It is a pity that so much of the world labours under the misconceptions of their religious belief. I can only hope that one day, with enough education, religions will become as rare as they deserve.

Well Mormonism includes all the christian/catholic double think, and then adds the extra levels of Joseph Smith double think. So by definition I guess that it requires more .

Exactly. On top of this - every actor, actress, musician on the planet is allowed to voice their opinion on politics, religion, etc - but if a technical guy such as Linus does, it is unprofessional?

And just for the record - Mormonism is batshit crazy. It takes an unprecedented level of double-think to believe Joseph Smith's story about the golden plates that no-one ever saw, and his excuses for why he couldn't translate the same transcript the same way twice.

Linus shouldn't need to apologise for a statement that is objectively and obviously correct.

I doubt it. Surely the last thing the TSA wants is a whole bunch of motherfuckin' snakes on a motherfuckin' plane.

I was just thinking that there is a slightly less iPhone astroturfing on Slashdot compared to the iPhone launch in previous years. In the past you would get 3 or 4 stories in a row on the iPhone here.

So IMHO things are improving.

PETA is a terrorist organisation, members of whom have made credible death threats to close friends of mine because PETA disagreed with the morality of the animal research that my friends where doing.

I do hold PETA activists in far lower esteem than I do your average corrupt politician, because the majority of them are dangerous lunatics.

Amano isn't bad for something made in the US - but you should head over to Italy and give Amedei chocolate a go before making a call as large as that.

Clearly, if they don't like you, everything you say will be considered trolling, and you will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, if they do like you, everything you say will be considered witty, charming, innovative and magical.

My understanding is that this device bypasses the retina completely, and stimulates the optic nerve directly - it is essentially an array of diamond spikes shooting electricity into the optic nerve. They are hoping that they can then retrain someone's brain to "see" images based on the electric signal they supply

Are you saying that the neurons in the brain completely change their behaviour as a retina degrades, making this technique useless? If so, is this true for all forms of retina failure?

Note that tfa refers to a woman who is experiencing what she calls "flashes of light" from the device. Do you think it will be impossible to arrange those flashes into images?

I don't work for or with CalTech, but I am currently active in the field of MEMS/NEMS biological and chemical sensing. I'm happy to hang around and answer any general questions people might have about this technology.

Yeah, there is also the plethora of dummy security cameras that have been around for ages to act as a deterrent: http://www.ebay.com.au/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p3907.m570.l1311&_nkw=dummy+security+camera&_sacat=See-All-Categories

I'm pretty sure I've seen personal jetpacks around as well.

Yep, here's one: http://martinjetpack.com/