The paper looks very interesting and should be another reason for a full grid upgrade, so we can use smarter power systems. It's a pity Edison's idea of local power stations never took off. Such a system would be much more fault tolerant and scalable. The same thing could be done now with pebble nuclear reactors.

Well, not exactly. Once the petition is signed by more than 500 signatures the government has to make a response. However, you are right in that the response is usually worthless.

I've seen similar birthday plans scheduled for October 29th (first hard link) or even December. It's one of those unknowable things, but an entertaining article nevertheless.

At least pick one that works.

Actually I suspect not. Intel traditionally has been quite cagey about releasing exact specs while being very free for generalised bullshit about morphing materials and the like. If they are saying they will reach 4nm they probably have already figured out either a way to do it, or the method they will use to do it successfully once they've built the materials to do it with, within the time frame. It leaves them a lot of wiggle room later on of course, as you pointed out.

You're not alone.

Apparently Bill Gates had a screaming row with Paul Allen after Allen bunked off with two workmates for 24 hours so they could get down to watch the first shuttle launch.

No, none of the participants knew until they arrived at the site. She was relatively low down on the food chain but they were (presumably) security checked, given orders of where to turn up and then told and ordered to sign the act. Apparently this was the case for the high end code breakers themselves as well.

A fascinating piece of history, I'm glad she's getting what she deserves.

She was a little bitter, but the main reason was that for 40+ years she wasn't even allowed to tell her family or husband what she had done, which caused some unpleasantness for her among people who assumed she'd slacked off during the war. Then when she could no-one understood the significance of what she had taken part in.

I see your point on this, although their work did enable many servicemen and women to come home alive.