Please, for FUCKS sake, can you guys please stop bitching over Beta? We all don't like it, but I guess /. got the message now.

Now, back on topic: Good choice Debian. Seeing Canonical ruins all projects it gets its fingers on, implementing Upstart would've been a baaaad idea.

I was once forced to do a project in Labview. The end result: spaghetti-code. Making code that someone else will be able to understand in Labview is nigh impossible. Wires, boxes everywhere. Any attempt to understand the application logic will result in having to trace spaghetti across your screen.

The article on Medium says the following: There was a time when astronomers would have immediately ruled out this possibility as well. But last year, astrophysicists calculated that sun-like stars can produce superflares of this size about once every 3000 years. There are certainly hints in medieval texts that something interesting occurred in the atmosphere at that time. Which would hint at that the Sun is most likely indeed the culprit.

Indeed, this does not seem very unlikely. In fact, shouldn't the chance be roughly 50% that something like that happened in the last 1500 years?

Why are some developers obsessed with performance? The user probably isn't. They don't care whether something loads 2 seconds quicker, or whether something has beautifully concise code.

But you're right, sorry, terms cancel each other out, so increasing area is not gonna do a damn. Why can't I just edit a post on slashdot. Sigh.

I'm not an expert in batteries (biologist here), but I guess that you might be able to do this in a porous substrate, thereby making the potential surface area huge. Although they didn't use that. Figure S2 shows their setup, it looks like bulk to me (15mL tube with the bottom functioning as the cathode). They do add carbon nanotubes to the anode (why??), perhaps that somehow increases practical surface area? (I have no clue here lol).

It's per square centimeter. If you'd make a layered battery (a bit like puff pastry of sorts), you might get higher/workable voltages.

If you would simply read the damn abstract (no money needed for that) it already states the following: a maximum power output of 0.8mW/cm^2 and a maximum current density of 6mA/cm^2. Now you have Power (in W) and Amperage (in A). Simply divide to get Voltage (V).

So what? You're going to launch an all-out war on hipsters because they've taken over your neighbourhood coffee shop? Do we then need a new set of Nuremberg Laws to define what 'hipster' even means? You know, you can also make coffee at home. Cheaper, quicker, and no need to order a venti soy-latte-chocolate-chip-cookie-caramel-inverted-frappucino.

Well, I think your kind of people are exactly the problem. Companies have been screaming for years that education does not align with the work field. It's all very nice for the student to learn how to write beautiful academic essays and what not, but that's all bullshit to companies. They just want people that know how to do X - without having to entirely re-educate these people. I think the western world has been living far too much in the "oh, i can do everything I want, and still be rich"-fantasy world. No, you can not become everything you'd like to. All very nice that you can perfectly communicate in esoteric ancient Babylonian, but it's not fucking useful!. The Germans have found an elegant solution to this problem, which is a win-win situation for all involved; they call it ausbildung: in stead of university, students take courses at a company for about 2 years. The company pays all the bills (the student even gets paid). After finishing the courses, the student is almost certainly guaranteed a job at said company, and the company has exactly the type of employee it wants/needs.

^^ this, should be modded +999 Insightful.

The chance of life parameter is very measurable. We can now find the spectrum of exoplanet atmospheres. A dead giveaway of life is free oyxgen; ever find free oxygen in the atmosphere of an exoplanet and it's sure to have a biosphere. Free oxygen reacts too quickly with just about everything to be caused by geologic processes. Sure, this approach won't find those planets with life that does not run on oxygen, but it will find those with a biochemistry somewhat similar to our own.

Have you ever seen these fantastic inventions? Self-scan. You scan your own items, and when you're finished shopping you just zip your card through a machine. No lines. No unfriendly lady at the checkout. No fondling with cash.

"dates that public transport is not running?" ... ermm... short of some kind blizzard - in which case you also won't get very far in a car - there are no dates when there is no public transport. Besides, ever considered that the core network runs 24 hours a day? Live in a dense enough place, and capitalism itself will automatically make 24h/day every-5-or-10-minutes-a-train schedules profitable.