It has to do with use of the word "World", and the assumption that it always involves the actual world rather than an expansive term applied to a parochial event.

What, like in World Series?

A solar powered air ship is probably more the go. Greater surface area, less power required. But it would need to fly above the weather, and the low speed combined with daylight operation would yield a very low range. Probably in the same category as a solar powered submarine.

I rather suspect the motive here might just be to make the non-coders be awestruck with how dazzlingly clever and amazingly admirable the coders are.

Sorry - correction: they're not looking for "deep" pools of money otherwise they'd be going after GOOG and MSFT as well. They're looking for modest pools of money.

I got hit by a patent troll a few years back. I used the same technique that I'd used when MSFT once approached us and said they thought we might be infringing on their IP and could we prove that we're not. And again when another large company said we needed to change our logo because it looked like we had dotted a capital 'i', and they owned that. Just ignore them. We got one additional letter from the patent troll, and that was the last ever heard. As someone else has said, these people are looking for deep pools of money.

In the first instance, ignore. If they demand that you must do something by some certain date, ignore. When they send the follow-up, ignore. If they come back a third time, then send a really badly written letter produced on a manual typewriter or written in crayon with a hand-written envelope telling them what they're claiming isn't applicable, but provide no details. Make yourself look small, impoverished and hard work.

EPIRB for sure, but also AIS. The big ships don't even have someone looking out the window, and rely on AIS alerts to avoid bumping into other big ships. Active AIS not only tells you whe the ships are, but more importantly makes *you* show up on their displays. Probably also add some forward-looking sonar because in many parts of the world, you can't rely on your GPS plotter to match what's actually there.

Either that, or he needs help, or he's approaching to warn you of some hazard, or offer you some fish, or just to be friendly. Yeah, you go ahead and pull your gun. Or better still, just stay home.

+1

It's not quite as simple as this, but the answer to your question is "because fuel is really really cheap, and flight hardware is really really expensive".

I think they're talking about how he discovered Cuba

From the Wired article: "Capsules, being more streamlined, must shed just 5 percent as much energy as a winged transport while re-entering the atmosphere. That makes them safer."

Arrant nonsense on all counts. But other than that, quite informative.

Its a common misconception, but the "great southern land" Cook was tasked to find was not Australia -- it was another large continent in the south pacific. Cook criss-crossed the Pacific sufficiently to establish there was not room for another continent to be hiding. Having *not* discovered the great southern land, the next part of his mission was to go map the east coast of Australia. Everyone knew it was there, and had done for hundreds of years. But nobody had any accurate charts. He "charted", did not "discover".

I lead them along, then thank them profusely, then tell them god has a special place picked out for them, then ask if they believe in god (interestingly, 100% of them feel unable to duck this question and willingly admit they believe), then I tell them they're a bad, bad person and that god will send them to hell. To hell, I say.

Free entertainment.