As others have pointed out, you wouldn't need to describe a human to a molecular level. You could create a biological clone using just the DNA- the human genome is some 24 gigabits (3 gigabytes?). That'd be something like "a few hours" to transfer over a standard home internet connection. Arguably, there are big chunks of that genome which will be common across individuals, so you wouldn't even need to transmit the whole thing every time.

Transferring a human's consciousness would be more difficult. As far as I'm aware, there are no serious estimates as to how "big", in bits/bytes terms, the human consciousness might be. Even if you could scan one, and it was a reasonable size for transmission, I can't even imagine how you'd go about "implanting it" into another human body (e.g. a clone). Without that, there's no "I'll just download into a Martian clone and have an explore".

We have perhaps 100 trillion years to fill before the stars have gone out. The universe is only 13.5 billion years old. That means we are so far only 0.0135% of the way into the lifespan of the universe, with 99.9965% left to go.

Might as well do something to fill the time!

Growing clones is hardly magic (and that is all "printing humans" means in this context). We can already do it with provisos (i.e., with the right embryonic cells and so forth)- there's no reason to assume we won't learn better methods as biology progresses. Animals grow new animals in their wombs out of nothing but carbon and nutrients all the time- can't be impossible to replicate.

The "magic" bit is transferring consciousness of one human to another human body. Nobody has the foggiest how that would work. But then, if all you wanted was a populated colony, who said you even need to do that? Grow the little humans to adulthood and raise them using robotic machines, and voila- one new colony, without the hassle of transporting 100's of humans 10's of light-years through space.

It is disingenuous to count XP's support period from its first release date, considering that each Service Pack represented as big a change to the OS as each Ubuntu release (for example).

Support for original XP (without a Service Pack) ended in 2005- only 4 years supported. The last Service Pack, SP3, was released in 2008- giving it a respectable 6 years supported. If XP had exited support when it was scheduled to (2012- it was only extended due to a Microsoft product-line-up cockup at the hight of the netbook craze), it would have had 4 years in support too- less than any of the others you named.

Even if you stubbornly disagree with what I'm saying about SPs and wish to count it all the way from SP0-SP3 end of support, might I also reiterate above that support was only extended at the last minute due to a Microsoft cockup- namely, that Vista was wildly unsuited to the then very popular netbooks. The standard offer from Microsoft is 10 years support (which is what you might reasonably expect to receive from Windows 8). This is the same as Red Hat, and comparable with other Enterprise-market OSs.

Morally, no. Legally, yeah it's still wrong. There are pretty strict laws against vigilantism. At its simplest, you've got the principal of "innocence until proven guilty" to contend with- you THINK he did it, in fact you think you KNOW he did it, but no court has been persuaded of that fact. You're pretty damned sure that the laptop you took is yours (pretty bloody damned sure- they're easily identifiable items)- but unless you've persuaded a court that it's yours, you're still in the wrong.

It sucks, but it's life.

I tend to trust Snopes on this one:
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/...

Sadly.

Goldfish shoals, nibbling at my toes

Debatable, but I would bet the long-term money on LibreOffice. Why? Licensing. LO is under the LGPL, while OO is under the APL. LO is able to reuse any OO code that they like, nicking any cool new features Apache develop. OO cannot- the LGPL will not allow it. So if OO develop any cool new features or improvements, they'll turn up in LO one release later. If LO develop any cool features or improvements of their own, it remains an LO exclusive.

Cost of a PC monitor = the cost of a TV to use with a console. Do you count the cost of the £500 TV in your lounge when you count the cost of your PS4? In my case, I've had the same two monitors (dual screen) hooked up to my PC for around than 10 years now- and one of them was free second hand in the first place. My lounge TV, on the other hand, I chose specifically and spent good money on not so long ago.

Cost of a router applies equally to both console and PC. Both of them need to connect to the internet, and both of them will have the same "advantage" in reduced latencies, if you're so inclined.

So the cost of my PC which could be fairly compared to a console would be- the PC itself and all internals came to around £500. The mouse was £50, but it is getting towards 10 years old now (was a good Logitech MX518, and is still going strong). The headphones were about £7.50. I own a joystick, and although I hardly use it I'll include the cost- it was around £25, bought in an offer along with X-Wing Alliance back in 2000 or so (Microsoft Sidewinder, still works perfectly). Keyboard came bundled free with the PC case (as did a decent mouse which I don't use). So total cost- perhaps £580 or so, ignoring the fact that several peripherals have survived multiple PCs.

More expensive than a console with a single controller, sure. But not exactly breaking the flipping bank.

People say that Slashdot has fallen a long way...but that's just sad. A thread about a AAA game which is being released on Linux- with no mention in TFS, nor the chosen TFA, and only a tiny comment batch discussing it.

Even Reddit managed better coverage of the fact this is a Linux game than Slashdot. If I was just relying on Slashdot for my news, I wouldn't even have known this WAS a Linux game.

Depends where you draw the positive/negative lines on the crappy poll answers. I'm reading it as "Keep it away from me"/"Not terribly interested"/"I'll evaluate it when they're out" as being negative (the last one because it's essentially "not enthusiastic yet"), and that equals 50%. Positive answers are "Looks amazing"/"I'm interested", which are only 30%. The remainder are "Vaporware"/"What year is this"- which are more negative than positive, although for different reasons.

If you put the "I'll evaluate it" one in the positive camp, that still only brings positive and negative to level pegging. And I'm of the opposite opinion to you in terms of what being pre-release does to these things. Your view is that people are positive about it without having seen the product, and their enthusiasm will go up when they've got something in front of them. I see it the other way around- that getting excited by hype is easy, and a lot of people's enthusiasm will wane when they see it in action- not to imply that it won't be good, but that it won't be good enough in reality to justify the expense and hassle. Just like 3D.

But you're right, I am jaded by novelty toys- they never live up to expectations. But I've got no control over anything- I'm just a guy writing things on the internet. We can wait and see what happens when it happens.

I used to have relatives who owned a pig farm. Boiling the slops was a standard part of their routine.

They actually used to have arrangements with all of the local pubs and restaurants, which every day would collect all of the plate scrapings, left overs and kitchen offcuts into slop buckets. Every morning my uncle would go around collecting the slop buckets and take them back to the farm, where they would all be emptied into a big vat and boiled for a number of hours. The end result would be a mushy stuff with the texture and smell of vomit, but which would be sterile of any nasties that could harm the pigs. The pigs loved the stuff. Filthy buggers.

Chucking a few jars of peanut putter into the mix every day would have been easy enough.

Of course that wouldn't even be strictly necessary, seeing as the manufacturer of the peanut butter seems to be swearing blind that the product is uncontaminated and fit for human consumption. If the farmer were happy with this, they could go nuts and just feed it straight to the pigs.