I don't know, I think flying a pig in a hat or 5 emperor penguins would be pretty good bragging rights.

There are some difficulties when it comes to scaling aircraft. Very simply:
Lift = Air_density * Velocity^2 * Coeff_lift * Wing_Area / 2
Drag = Air_density * Velocity^2 * Coeff_drag * Wing_Area / 2
Coeff_drag = Parasite_drag + (Coeff_lift^2 / (PI * wing_span_efficiency * wing_aspect_ratio))
efficiency is a number in the order of 0.85 to 0.9

So, whilst you only have to increase wing area linearly with mass (or increase speed to the square root of mass), doubling your speed quadruples your drag, and doubling your lift quadruples your lift-induced drag.

I can't do the numbers at the moment, but it should be quite easy to determine scale at which an electrically powered aircraft is not longer possible (using current technology)

Myself and a friend came up with a solution slightly similar to outlaws - human rights points. When you are convicted of a crime a number of human (or constitutional) rights points are removed from (proportional to the crime) for a period. The criminal is required to decide which human rights they has to give up, and is therefore directly responsible for their sentence. Note that just because you've lost points, doesn't mean that people are free to attack your with repercussions.

A rapist might, for example, lose his right to being innocent unless proven guilty. He would have to prove that he was not guilty of rape. You don't lose the ability to defend yourself, just that the odds are now stacked against you.

Other losses:
* Right to free speech
* Right to bear arms (although I think that's already applied in some states)
* Right to travel (ditto)
* Right to bear children
* Right to a state appointed attorney

There's a difference?

Vaccinations stunted my growth - when I was a kid I was less than 5ft, now that I've stopped getting vaccinations I'm 5ft 11. Coincidence? I don't think so.

It's a perfectly cromulent pastime.

The best euphemism I've heard of is "achieved room temperature".

This is why I loathe the euphemisms for death. I realised this when the man I sailed for (for over a decade) died. It wasn't a massive surprise, but still a shock. To most of us it was the end of an era. What struck me was that most of the others talked about "him passing", whereas I simply said " he died", and I caught a couple of glances when I said it like that.

As another example - my sister was with friends (in a marina on a friend's boat - we like our sailing) and a guy walks down the companionway and said "X is gone". My sister stops talking (people come and go from marinas all the time), and then continues talking. The guy says " are you stupid or what - X has died ", making her feel like a shit.

People die, it happens, but dispense with the euphemisms - there's nothing to be gained from them.

Yeah, but they're insanely good fun to drive - no traction control, no ABS and power-to-weight of more than 300bhp/tonne (483 for an Atom). You do have to accept that if you get hit by anything larger than a 4x4, you're probably not going to come out alive, so it certainly improved my driving technique: visibility, visibility, visibility & never assume that people realise how fast you can accelerate.

No, what he's saying is that 71% of everything is crap. Society would crumble without cat videos.

Ariel atoms weight about 600kg (1350lb), my old Westfield weighed 425kg (according to the DVLA), but now comparing it to the atom I'm not so sure. Is was probably more like 640kg.

According to this website, their FW400 with a carbon fibre monocoque was 400kg.
http://westfield-world.com/inf...

Right click on the Firefox tab in the task bar and close all windows. Using keys only - I have no idea.

You do realise the investigation into the deaths is related to a Tory MP from the 80s, don't you? It has no relation to the palace or Jeffrey Epstein.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...
Your comment shows how badly this Anonymous campaign can go (if they actually bother to do it) - people find it a lot easier just to fling accusations around with no attempt to even do a simple fact check.

You joke, but I remember working in Dublin - there was a pretty steep hill I used to cycle down on the way to work - one day it was so windy I had to pedal hard to get down the hill. Was the wind the same direction that evening - like hell it was. So, does that count?

The root password - what desktop distro has one of those? Debian says "Enter your password for administrative tasks" when it needs to be elevated. I agree the Google Earth package is terrible, but it's pretty much the only one I've come across that doesn't manage its dependencies properly.

It's not the sparing 2 minutes, it's the fact that an installer looks (or says) like it will take 10 minutes to do something, so you walk off. When you come back you find a dialog asking to be clicked covering the progress bar that is still at 5%. This doesn't happen often, but it does enough to be incredibly annoying.

Another issue I have with Windows is the fact that the UAC window sometimes doesn't grab focus, so you sit there like a zombie waiting for something to happen, and then realise the UAC dialog has appeared behind everything, and the only notification is an extra icon in the task bar.