'Well ... in the unlikely event of it going seriously wrong, it ... wouldn't just blow up the university, sir'

'What would it blow up, pray?'

'Er ... everything, sir.'

'Everything there is, you mean?'

'Within a radius of about fifty thousand miles out into space, sir, yes. According to HEX it'd happen instantaneously. We wouldn't even know about it.'

'And the odds of this are ... ?'

'About fifty to one, sir.'

The wizards relaxed.

'That's pretty safe. I wouldn't bet on a horse at those odds,' said the Senior Wrangler.

-Terry Pratchett et al., The Science of Discworld

...non-Joulian magnets, how do they work?

Here's what one great SF author thinks about Tolkien's literary style:

http://www.lordotrings.com/boo...

"Three very large persons sitting round a very large fire of beech-logs. They were toasting mutton on long spits of wood, and licking the gravy off their fingers. There was a fine toothsome smell. Also there was a barrel of good drink at hand, and they were drinking out of jugs. But they were trolls. Obviously trolls. Even Bilbo, in spite of his sheltered life, could see that: from the great heavy faces of them, and their size, and the shape of their legs, not to mention their language, which was not drawing-room fashion at all, at all."

Especially this bit, from Voluspa:

There was Motsognir | the mightiest made
Of all the dwarfs, | and Durin next;
Many a likeness | of men they made,
The dwarfs in the earth, | as Durin said.

Nyi and Nithi, | Northri and Suthri,
Austri and Vestri, | Althjof, Dvalin,
Nar and Nain, | Niping, Dain,
Bifur, Bofur, | Bombur, Nori,
An and Onar, | Ai, Mjothvitnir.

Vigg and Gandalf | Vindalf, Thrain,
Thekk and Thorin, | Thror, Vit and Lit,
Nyr and Nyrath,-- | now have I told--
Regin and Rathsvith-- | the list aright.

Fili, Kili, | Fundin, Nali,
Heptifili, | Hannar, Sviur,
Frar, Hornbori, | Fraeg and Loni,
Aurvang, Jari, | Eikinskjaldi*.

The race of the dwarfs | in Dvalin's throng
Down to Lofar | the list must I tell;
The rocks they left, | and through wet lands
They sought a home | in the fields of sand.

There were Draupnir | and Dolgthrasir,
Hor, Haugspori, | Hlevang, Gloin,
Dori, Ori, | Duf, Andvari,
Skirfir, Virfir, | Skafith, Ai.

*Oakenshield

http://www.sacred-texts.com/ne...

Support for the current Government reaches EOL next week and currently seems unlikely to be renewed. However, it looks like an upgrade supported by multiple vendors for five years may be in place shortly after:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...

These guys have designed a really absurd parody site that mocks many of these design elements (I especially love the ridiculous horizontal scroll bar):

http://www.dhigroupinc.com/

It's a bit too silly to be believable (e.g., what are they actually supposed to be selling?!) but it'll still probably fool a fair number of people.

I'm not sure this one is entirely legal, though:

http://tiffzhang.com/startup/?...

Girlfriendable. The Evolution of the Girlfriend.

'Girlfriendable is a peerless girlfriend service that makes it easy to turn your girlfriends into cash.'

Only if you ignore the 15/86 = 17.4% of the original series that didn't survive the process.

Microinjection with CRISPR/Cas9 constructs is a completely different technology to using retroviral vectors. The result is 'unexpected' because the off-target event frequency was apparently much lower when CRISPR was previously used to edit genes in mouse embryos or differentiated human cells. It's currently unclear if this result is due to some property of human embryos in general, or just of the non-viable 'tripronuclear' embryos used in this study.

...and hopefully not die:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu...

We get the same nonsense in the UK, where they've set a '50% digital' listening threshold for analogue switch-off. Right now DAB accounts for under a quarter of radio listening, but they can boost that to over 1/3 by throwing in the other digital platforms. I don't really see the point of buying a DAB set for my home use - there are half a dozen devices around the house that already do a better job of it via IP or Freeview DTV (which carries the national radio channels).

I do have a pocket DAB radio, which drains batteries at an alarming rate and, while small by DAB standards, is much bulkier than the FM equivalent. It generally stays at home while I actually use the FM tuner in my (much smaller) mp3 player, or an IP radio app on my phone.

The powers that be have also decided that the UK will stick with the antiquated original DAB system rather than DAB+, so we have a lot of poor quality low bitrate broadcasts (often worse than FM). In 2015, it's a bit like decreeing that LPs will be phased out in favour of MiniDisc. Of course quality and 'choice' isn't the Government's real concern - they just want to shut off FM so they can sell off the radio spectrum to the highest bidder from the mobile phone/data industry.

Hardly a fair comparison. Scholarly editions of major religious texts are not secret, and their prices reflect their academic market (Reader's pass for the British Library or Library of Congress - free of charge). The Vatican doesn't ask for $380,000 just to read the standard version of the Book of Revelation. Even Lucasfilm only wants $90 for the Star Wars saga on Blu-ray, including the apocryphal prequels (though to be fair, the original master tapes of the Holiday Special are as closely guarded as OT IX and X).

Cost of reading the most sacred beliefs of all major religions: free online, or $10 for the paperback. Jedi may also need to invest in the DVDs.

Cost of reading the most sacred beliefs of CoS: $380,000 (2006 pricing: http://www.xenu.net/archive/pr... ). Discounts available by signing a billion year contract and working full time in return for food.

Other sources are reporting that the preset time can be anything from 5 to 20 minutes - not sure if we know the actual setting in this case. But given that everything was over in 10 minutes, it's probably only a question of whether he had to set the lock once or twice.

Interesting that they originally partnered with Endemol, who previously produced this:

'Space Cadets': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

"The series described itself as the most elaborate hoax perpetrated in television history...A group of twelve contestants (who answered an advert looking for "thrill seekers") were selected to become the first British televised space tourists, including going to Russia to train as cosmonauts at the "Space Tourist Agency of Russia" (STAR) military base, with the series culminating in a group of four embarking on a five-day space mission in low Earth orbit...However, the show was in fact an elaborate practical joke...Unknown to the "space cadets", they were not in Russia at all...and the "space trip" was entirely fake, complete with a wooden "shuttle" and actor "pilots".

In the last episode, I recall the presenter joking that the next series would be called 'Mission to Mars'...