and so begins an endless cycle of back and forth between pirates and shipping interests, until in a galaxy or time far far away, the poverty ridden state of the country is improved and the pirates all become salarymen.

the ship captains now without a decent challenge, decide to hunt for white whales

'Potentially' racist? You are being tactful I presume :]

I dunno about how useful a biometric this would be considering how sensitive OAE's are to hearing loss.

If you have a conductive (external/middle ear) hearing loss emissions cannot be detected even if they are present. Also no emissions are seen with larger degrees(~>35dB) of sensorineural (inner ear) loss. A lot of older people have a small deterioration in hearing that they probably dont notice.

You all talk like its obvious that wired transmission would not work...could someone please explain why not?

Space elevators seemed somewhat viable for a while, wouldn't this be easier still? High voltages are transmitted across land without too much hassle... have a balloon lifted power station on the way!

anyway pls elucidate why wired == not work

This probably wouldnt work because not all debris is metal but could you not deflect a lot of it using some very strong magnets placed at either end of the shuttle?

They could pulse on detection of debri with calculated strength to deflect metal debri. Perhaps place the magnets on booms to give distance from the shuttle?

this is an absolute laymen idea but hey, you never know.

An OS is supposed to make things easier...windows is effectively committing seppuku with moves like this.

My only regret about it is the downtime before another/existing OS takes its place. (I use windows for games.)

its the freedom and variety that makes this look like such a good mmorpg. i felt the same way about ultima online..unfortunately i have played neither.

can anyone tell us what eve online is like?

Maybe this guy would get some respect if he wasn't such a little bitch.

Who cares if people don't respect your industry, are you SO hungry for approval from people you have nothing to do with that you lose sleep over the gaming industry being dissed or misunderstood?

How is it even a bad thing to be making things for kids? Its a fantastic thing, if not necessarily the case.

God, when will i stop asking rhetorical questions?

This is the most boring slashdot submission ive seen Zzzzz. So i've decided to jazz it up with a few emoticons..

^_^ japanese cartoon :) standard smiley (not very edgy any more)
>_> - - - - - c[_] guy staring at coffee mug

For people doubting that it could be considered something of an instrument, a la synth, give '20 Dollar' by MIA a listen. Check the backing vocals..

I chose MS word just to troll you sons of bitches.

Ew keep them seperate...thats like getting a big mac meal and putting the whole thing into a blender and....hmmm

*runs to mcdonalds

I personally have had no trouble driving after a smoke. I dont dive into it though, i take a break beforehand if i have to.

The only thing approaching a problem is that i will occasionally 2nd guess my actions on the road...but the result is more cautious and probably safer driving than when sober!

You guys give it a hard time but once kanye releases an album made ENTIRELY with songsmith it will become cool.

And people will be afraid to diss it because then he will whine like a little girl so expect to be hearing a lot of it.

And how come they haven't detected us and come to say hello if they are so advanced? If they do exist we can conclude that they are quite rude.