And you get hit by a ton of patent lawsuits, if it looks like you will be succesful :-(

In Finland, every publisher is required by law to submit a copy of every printed work published in the country (not just books, but newspapers and magazines as well) to the National Library and a few other university libraries (so the system has redundancy). This has been going on since 1829. I suppose many other countries have similar laws.

I guess the biggest one is a much cheaper track: Just a concrete through, which probably does not have to be built to as exacting tolerances as a maglev track. Heavy rain might be an interesting problem to handle. The track cannot have too large drainage holes in it, otherwise the lift disappears.

Thanks, the second picture nicely answers my question about how to supply electricity to the train.

This might be a good idea, if they can figure out how to supply electricity to power the flying train. Tricky, because there is no ground contact, unlike a regular train, and the track itself does not propel it forward, like a maglev track does. Otherwise it has to carry its fuel, which might negate the advantages of the idea.

Exactly what I was about to post! He is a character that is foremost an engineer. Professor Calculus is from the Tintin series by Herge (in the French language originals he is named Tournesol), and the character is supposedly based on the great real-life inventor and explorer Auguste Piccard (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_Piccard ) On the other hand, most of the characters in the article were unknown to me (a Finn), so continentalocentrism cuts both ways.

well, I will trust a German "Stiftung" more. Mainly irrational reasons based on images of German work ethic., etc. Just donated 25€

As an owner of a plot of land in one of the cities mentioned as beneficiaries, the article made my day... That ought to take care of my retirement fund :-).

During my latest 64-bit Mandriva Linux upgrade, I accidentally nuked the previous 64-bit plugin beta version, and I was dismayed to find Adobe no longer provided it on their site. After this /. article I rushed to the site to grab it just in case some corporate strategist makes it unavailable again... Works fine with Mandriva 2010.1 on Pentium D @3.2Ghz (don't laugh, I got the board cheap and the performance is more than adequate for my needs). Much better than the 32-bit plugin version with nspluginwrapper. Not sure if I should thank them or not, though. Giving something, then capriciously taking it away, then giving it again would be bad behaviour in a real human.

"Half-assed hologram taken"? I wonder if you have seen a real, well-made hologram of a person? They are spooky in their combination of 3D, extremely high resolution (almost infinite, in fact) and absence of motion and color. Nothing else is like them ("death masks", casts of a deceased persons faces, might come closest).

You are probably right, but it still does not answer the question. The lump of lead is still much cheaper, so there has to be a good justification for using funds on the gold and platinum, instead of more or better instrumentation, more propellant, or other such costs of the project.

(There is also a PR angle: the use of such classic luxury materials sounds extravagant to taxpayers...)

Wouldn't a lump of lead work as well and be cheaper?

Suppose for very important standards, the governement (probably would have to be several, " a coalition of the willing") would buy all patents relating to it, and freeing them as far as said standard is concerned (costly, but less so than a minor war, for example).

There is precedent: Daguerrotype and the French governement. From wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daguerreotype)
Instead of Daguerre obtaining a French patent, the French government provided a pension for him.[6] In Britain, Miles Berry, acting on Daguerre's behalf, obtained a patent for the daguerreotype process on August 14, 1839. Almost simultaneously, on August 19, 1839, the French government announced the invention as a gift “Free to the World.”

If what you say is true, my interest in Blu-ray dropped to zero. It means the format is useless for storing user-generated HD content so that it can be conveniently played back by off-the-shelf consumer equipment, like DVD does for SD content. In other words, kills the use-case of sending clips of grandchildren playing to grannies, in a format they can play conveniently. Or an amateur theatre group filming and distributing their show?

Am I missing something? Sony cannot be that stupid? Do they really want Blu-ray to be authored by serious professionals only?