Ah, yes. Actually, I've heard the term "antiseptic" used relatively more often than plain "septic" :D It always brings a smile to my face :)

Interesting to see Merkin also now mentions that it's used as a pejorative in the UK. I've seen a couple of comedians use it in their gags (Rory Bremner comes to mind), but haven't come across any day-to-day usage as such.

No, I used eugenics because of your mention of "son/daughter of two other recognized geniuses". I'm insinuating plagiarism and/or foul play rather than genetic or environmental advantage.

As long as we agree :)

Well, I'm not talking about eugenics ... hence my use of the quotes around the word guided. I am not insinuating that this is what has happened here with Andraka, but it's definitely a possibility that the parents of kids in science fairs provide a lot of assistance beyond moral support and a suitable environment.

.. from what I have seen of these fairs where kids invent/discover things seemingly beyond their mental, physical or financial means, they are inevitably "guided" by parents who are professionals. In the case of Andraka, his mother appears to be an anaesthetist at a hospital and his father might be an engineer ...

It's nevertheless a commendable result.

oh, dear. Nice straw man dude. In many ways, you have just clinched the matter for us due to the confusion between pound-mass and pound-force. All the more reason for this shit to just go away.

Oh, I don't mind using Newtons either.

Where am I using the UK as the standard? They are just as ridiculous with their units as the US. I want a metric system to be used as the standard everywhere.

I see that I've been marked as a troll by all the american mods :D I for one could not envisage the scale of the machine thanks to the units used.

.. I wish America (and all other non-conformists) would get with the metric standard. Did anyone else sigh at the following statement?

What sets the Fifty apart is its extraordinary scale. Its 14 major structural components, cast in ductile iron, weigh as much as 250 tons each; those yard-thick steel bolts are also 78 feet long; all told, the machine weighs 16 million pounds, and when activated its eight main hydraulic cylinders deliver up to 50,000 tons of compressive force.

According to WP, there are different "tons" out there. The terse "ton" or "tonne" should mean 1000kg everywhere. When used in terms of poundage, the appropriate terms are apparently "short ton" (US, 2000 lb) and "long ton" (UK, 2240 lb).

It makes it all the more annoying when people steeped in science and logic continue to pander to these archaic systems instead of phasing them out :S

In this information age where data-mining, credit/reputation ratings, etc. are the norm, why do people who are aware of its draconian privacy aspects, potential for misuse and the time sink that it is, continue to use FB? This is a serious 87 billion dollar question.

LMAO! Yes, I recall that scene now :D Roshi gets up to other hijinks as well. That said, I suspect that the american version of the manga is probably edited; I'm pretty sure that young Goku's wiener was air-brushed out in the US anime.

There's also manga for younger children such as Doraemon. If the kid enjoys Spider-Man, then he will surely enjoy Dragon Ball (the manga).

While I'm not sure how well Yotsuba&! will go down with the 3 year old (as it is about the antics of a 5 year old), but it'll make for hilarious reading for the parent (and everybody else). Highly recommended :)

"LOL, Skype killed us." is what I see when I visit the site. IP ban?

Most of the software that people use nowadays work within a browser. Setting aside Google Docs, Libreoffice is virtually identical to Office for the rudimentary tasks that most people require it for. Many apps such as Picasa run very well under Wine. It really isn't that much of a problem any more. There are of course many niche apps that might not run, but that is the case with Macs / Windows as well.

It still is Ubuntu. The benefits of Mint over Ubuntu are more or less cosmetic. Ubuntu's benefits over Debian are a little more substantial than that. But *ubuntu, Mint, Debian are in many ways the same distro. The fact that there are 5-odd distros to choose from is not a problem IMO. It's choice and choice is good. It's only the remaining 95 that can be confusing when taken into consideration.

Sorry, my point should have read "Power users WHO are happy with Windows/Macs ..."; IOW, people who are comfortable with an OS recommend that OS to others. Then there's also fanboism :S