I think permafrost wouldn't be quite an issue if you think that for large parts of the antarctic it's nearly 2000m thick - just make sure it's still got bedrock beneath it & not water ;-)

As for the endless nights, well same goes for the antarctic, just offset by 6 months but then they'll use the downtime for maintenance

If you work in the UK & Commute on the rail network you're definitely worse off especially as most people didn't get a pay rise.

Saying that it's not always just the rail, for me just getting to the local train station has gone up almost 2x that of the rail into London!

Yes I meant to say (at least I was thinking) the last slingshot wouldn't need to gain momentum, just change the trajectory - the momentum being gained from any previous encounters.

If this is a telescope then you don't necessarily want extra momentum just a change in trajectory out of the plane of the ecliptic - although the timescales involved even this wouldn't add to much when you think how far both Voyagers have got since they were launched. Even they are power starved now so any telescope out there wouldn't last as long.

As for parallax observing the other issue there would be the time to wait for a full baseline observation of a specific object - would the instrument still be in operation when the second observation is to be made? Possible but again it's down to power consumption

That's true but then you can do both, hitch a ride on a survey craft to say Jupiter & Saturn, then when passing Saturn use it's gravity well to slingshot the craft - with telescope attach in a perpendicular direction.

Thinking about it, the Voyager's are in such a trajectory, both leaving the solar system away from the plane containing the planets.

http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/images/interstellar_1.gif

I answered 1 as it's my own laptop.

However I could easily have said 3 - iPad, android phone - so do touch screens count?

Also what about door entry systems or cash machines?

It varies on how much I use it and/or on the quality of 3g signal.

In the past I have run it dry within 6 hours with normal use when the 3g signal has been really poor. I now carry a backup battery pack just to make sure I last the day.

When I start getting low on AA & AAA batteries I buy them in bulk - boxes of 25 at a time, hence voting 21 to 50 as thats generally the average.

NB: I stay away from the cheapo ones, the good brand alkaline batteries last for years when not in use so are better in bulk

That's not the problem, the problem is the oils excreted by the skin. For some people the amount is higher than others so for some people their tablets will appear dirtier simply because they are unwittingly depositing more oil for dirt to attach to.

It's the same reason why with older blackberries the trackball's fail faster than others - it's easier for gunk to clog up the mechanism.

I suffer from the same problem so a continual problem with tablets that I don't see going away.

yes I did & obviously this is a prototype so it would be big.

Thing is when it gets to a production model - will batteries cope with a dual core phone? A lot of current phones have problems especially with low signal areas draining the batteries regardless of 'optimum' conditions they tend to use when stating battery life.

Well the way everywhere else was hinting it sounded like it was. If Intel can go it alone (they're big enough) then it may succeed. Time will tell

but that will improve.

Saying that this sort of thing will happen eventually, with Meego being mothballed after Nokia defected to Windows we need a good Linux based OS other than Android

I know I'm running beta - thats actually why I'm running it.

However not seen the release notes as I was not given a choice - it was upgraded automatically from 4.0b8...

I've been running FireFox 4 Beta for some time, however sadly it updated itself to the latest version yesterday and since then it's been virtually unusable.

Anything running Javascript or Flash produce either blank screens (sometimes just by scrolling the page) or even the window title bar flashes (which it is as I type this).

4.0b9 is definitely a regression - I want 4.0b8 back...

I should have and just have.