I think we can safely say that such a system will completely eliminate brute force password-guessing attacks. What's Hindi for "social engineering"?

Meanwhile, any suggestions for what to say to an IT department who, every time a phishing message comes round saying:

"Your account may have been compromised, please go to <a href="http://blackhats.phish.ru">www.youremployer.com</a> to confirm your security details."

...respond by sending round a message saying

"if you think you may be affected, please go to <a href="https://www.youremployer.com">www.youremployer.com;</a> to confirm your security details."

...because the people who fall for these know how to spot a dodgey hyperlink, right?

Eh? "Bootcamp" is straight Windows. It isn't a virtualiser like VMWare or Parallels. Its just a point and drool wizard to set up a 'dual boot' system. If you want to do it manually I'm sure there are instructions out on the Interweb.

Last time I looked, Bootcamp Assistant had an option to download the Windows drivers as a disc image.

Well, this is a UK law and I don't think we have Comcast here (unless some eejit has let them buy a stake in BT or Virgin Media).

Strangely, although the amount of regulation in the UK and EU is already enough to give a US libertarian complete apoplexy, we do mostly get something resembling choice when it comes to internet and phone service providers. Not brilliant, but the more I hear about the US mess, the more I appreciate what we have...

(Apologies to the good people of Kingston-on-Hull, of course).

Nope, people who don't have range anxiety just have a use case where the range isn't an issue for them.

I'm not moaning about range because I don't want an electric car: I'm moaning about range because I would quite like an electric car, but paying 50-100% premium over a comparable ICE car (far more than you'd ever save in fuel costs) and then having to plan journeys around re-charges, or keep a second car or rent for long journeys just doesn't make sense.

No - your suggestions are all better. Unless they're going to download new laws of physics to the cars, the sort of incremental range improvement that a software update might bring is hardly going to end "range anxiety". Range anxiety isn't so much about the absolute range - its about the scarcity of recharging stations c.f. petrol, the time taken to recharge, the uncertainty of the quoted range and the need to be towed to a recharge station if you do run out.

If US society is so squeamish over the exact method of execution, it sounds to me that they're not really committed to the idea and probably shouldn't be doing it.

Really? I thought the object of hanging was to break the victim's neck instead of strangling them, in which case this sounds like a resounding success - or did the baying crowds want to think that the victim had "just gone to sleep"?

I'm not a doctor, but I believe that pointing something called a "gun" at the subject and pulling the trigger a few times does the trick, is typically less unpleasant than many natural/accidental deaths and is already widely accepted as a method of dealing with foreign teenage conscripts who's governments threaten the stability of the oil market. Alternatively, every properly-run abattoir in the rest has a variety of efficient methods for killing large mammals with the minimum of suffering. If that's not acceptable then it suggests to me that you're not really 100% at ease with this whole "death penalty" thing and probably shouldn't be doing it.

Any society that wants the death penalty needs to be satisfied that "the end justifies the means" and understand that (a) there is no nice, guaranteed painless, dignified way to execute someone that won't go wrong from time to time and (b) you'll end up executing innocents occasionally. If you're not OK with that, don't do it.

Personally, if I were (rightly or wrongly) condemned to life imprisonment I'd like the coward's option - but not the USA version where, it seems, you rot in prison for a decade or two anyway and only then get dispatched by the sort of bizarre, theatrical method that a movie super-villain might dream up.

I think we can be pretty confident that selective memory is a factor in homeopathic theory :-)

Here's a tip - homeopathic speaker cable - buy about 10 lengths of cheap doorbell wire. Then sneak into a HiFi shop and rub one piece against a length of $500-per-foot premium speaker cable. Go home and rub the first piece of cheap cable against the second piece - continue and then hook up your speakers with the 10th length of cable.

What happens is that the quantum entanglement caused by brief contact with the high end cable forms a virtual conduit for the frequencies blocked by the cheap cable. You will immediately notice the refined, fluid sound, with etherial shades of intonation and redefined rhythmic elements transformed by the absence of ionic turbulence in the cable, with hints of leather, liquorice and hollyhocks.

NB: you can also save money on expensive homeopathic medicines by simply choosing the right drinking water: Avoid mineral water that might have been sitting isolated in some underground aquifer for aeons - you want the stuff from the tap that fish have fucked in - its a near certainty that at least one molecule in that glass has been within 10 degrees of Kevin Bacon of whatever substance is causing your illness.

Last I heard, Thunderbolt 3 was going to need a new connector anyway.

Meanwhile, USB-C seems to have ambitions to replace DisplayPort cables as well. If I'm reading it right, it can use some of the physical wires for DisplayPort while leaving the rest for USB3 - c.f. Thunderbolt which either switches the entire connector to legacy DisplayPort mode or requires a TB controller at the receiving end to extract the DisplayPort signal. So we might see USB-C displays with integral USB hubs, webcam, microphones that can also charge your laptop, all over a single cable. OK, Thunderbolt can do most of that, but it can't power the computer and AFAIK after 4 years of Thunderbolt there are a grand total of 2 Thunderbolt displays on the market (Apple's which hasn't been updated since 2011 and doesn't even have USB3, and one LG model that just offers a USB3 hub).

From what I've seen, though, Apple's Lightning is often built into speakers, stereos, alarm clocks, car mounts etc. as a 'dock' (that does happen with microUSB but not so often). Replacing those is rather more annoying than having to buy new cables or chargers.

Except the Mac Mini includes a built-in power supply, while the NUC needs an external power brick half as big as the computer.

Maybe this new processor will mean the future return of the quad-core mini, though.

Go look at the folder icons in Windows 7. If you're not convinced by the simple fact that they don't suck at your eyeballs like isometric or oblique drawings always do, switch to "extra large icons" view, and trace back the top and bottom edges of the folder cover. The lines converge. The facing edges of the sheets of paper in the folders are slightly shorter the further back they are in the view. That's perspective, that is.

Hello oblique projection! Here's to the white heat of progress, they've made finally Windows 10 look as graphically sophisticated as Q*bert.

Maybe in another 20 years they'll re-discover perspective.

I don't think people are seriously worried about someone scanning some priceless marble figurine, printing a copy and selling it for $100,000,000 to some very stupid collector who doesn't notice that it is made rather roughly from plastic.

They're more worried about someone scanning a $20 Popular Cartoon Character(R)(C)(TM) doll and printing a copy for their sprog, without the House of Mouse receiving their rightful tithe under the 2016 "lets keep Mickey copyrighted forever" act.

Mitochondrial transplants: Seems to be driven by doctors and scientists genuinely trying to help (I'm assuming that the drug companies would make more money out of sick children). Risk: A few kids are born sick, or go on to have sick children. Tragic on a personal scale, but the world doesn't end. Humans are at the top of the food chain, so its not going to fuck up the ecosystem any more than humans have already fucked it. You're only moving DNA between humans, and with a small number of people. Benefits: parents with bad mitochondria can have disease-free children.

GMO food: driven by Big Agrochem trying to make shitloads of money, acquire copyrights and patents on key food crops and 'bundle' their own special seeds with their own special pesticides and weedkillers. Risks: you're fucking with the bottom of the food chain - screw up and the results will affect everything further up the chain (including us). You don't even want to take a tiny, tiny risk of killing off pollinating insects or having 'terminator' genes or antibiotic markers jump species. Benefits: only if you own shares in big agro (unless you think buying expensive seed and complimentary chemicals from multinationals and not being able to re-plant harvested seed is somehow going to cure third world hunger).

Great - I'll choose Usain Bolt's mum's mitochondria then. As for intelligence, I must have been asleep the day the great nature vs. nurture debate was finally resolved on that point, and even if my kids don't grow up to be 7' I'm pretty sure that improved "batteries" will be good for the development of bones, muscles and brain (and the inclination to use them). Musicality... well, it depends on whether they want to play the triangle or the trumpet, really.

You know, I'm broadly behind this idea and it seems like the real scientists have done a risk/benefit analysis, but some of the comments from the pro- lobby have been just as stupid as the ones from the FUDdites.

Oh, yes, however you try to split these hairs, these babies will have genetic material from 3 people, and female babies will pass the mitochondiral DNA to their own children, so mitochondria are for life, and beyond, just for Christmas.

Like I said - I'm in favour of this but it needs (and if you sift through all the nonsense in the media, it seems to have received) careful thought.