I'm not so sure this really means anything much. I'm no expert, but my understanding was that the creation of mini-blackholes was always a longshot, predicted by only one fairly left-field formulation of string theory.

AIUI there are basically two broad classes of string theories - there's the "Brane" theories that holds that we only experience 3D+time out of the possible 10D+time because the other six dimensions form a Brane - a large (possibly universe sized) structure where all quantum particles are constrained to a 3 dimensional "surface" and cannot move in any other direction (except for possibly gravitons). Think in terms of a large piece a paper where everything can move freely across its surface but cannot leave it.

Then there's the second class of string theories which says that the other six dimensions exist in the universe we live in but are somehow "wrapped up" into a tiny volume around each quantum particle rather than being "unwrapped" like the three we're familiar with.

Only this second class of string theory predicts the mini-blackholes. Not only that but the blackholes are only predicted if a least one of the six dimensions are "loosely wrapped" to about a millimeter in size. Most physicists AFAIK already considered it far more likely that all the six dimensions are tightly wrapped to somewhere around the Planck length.

You sound like someone who's read http://yosefk.com/c++fqa - which I highly recommend to anyone who hasn't seen it. I don't necessarily agree with 100% of it - but it is a very thorough critique of C++ and well worth reading if only to get a more rounded understanding of the language's flaws.

It's certainly true that many of these flaws can be worked around using some combination of RAII, Smart Pointers, Boost, QT and now C++0x features - but the point is you shouldn't have to deal with all this - proper high-level languages take all this off your hands.

I think you'll find that's 576 in a single run if you halved both width and height ;-)

The slashdot community has been called many things, but "polite" isn't one of them ;-)

My own fantasy communication medium is Neutrinos. Since they go right through the Earth, they are almost impossible to jam or block, and line-of-sight isn't a problem.

The only minor drawback, trivial really, hardly worth mentioning - is their tendency to also pass right through your receiving equipment... I suppose you don't know anyone with about a trillion tons of dry cleaning fluid going spare by any chance?

If there were such a mythical beast as uncrackable DRM (and publishers have been searching for that since the 80's when we had things like LensLok and that coloured card thing for Jetset Willy that you used to copy with your felt tip pens in class) - then you might be right that some extra people might start paying - but certainly not 90%, most of whom don't have the disposable income to buy every $60 game that comes out. If in addition this perfect DRM was completely transparent to users and didn't piss them off by doing things like requiring you to be online all the time even in single player mode and killing your session if there's a glitch in your internet connection ... then you might not lose any of your existing customers either.

It's just a shame that it's actually impossible for DRM like that to exist...

It does if, by spreading the word about what a great game it is, they help to increase the pool of people who are prepared to buy the game.

It doesn't matter a damn what percentage of people bought your game - what matters is the number of actual units you sold. If a whole bunch of people who would never have bought your game anyway have a reason to extol the virtues of your products for free, that's not called "lost sales" it's called very effective promotion

There's no "done" in science - part of the process is to keep collecting evidence to increase the confidence in your conclusions (and refute those that disagree with your interpretation of the existing evidence)

Then we don't disagree, since determining the correct/best solution is exactly what I was referring to!

I don't think very many people these days are seriously doubting the GW bit, it's just the Anthropomorphic bit they're not entirely certain about. This is the context behind people looking to see if the earth has been through this kind of thing before.

If you tend to agree that the warming is mostly caused by humans (and FTR that includes me too), then clearly at least part of your strategy has to be "lets stop doing that and making it worse". If you're still in the camp that thinks it's all natural your strategy is going to be "it'll get better on its own if we can just live through it". Picking the wrong strategy ranges from "wasting time and energy trying to stop the unstoppable which could be the difference between surviving or not" to "trying to wait for the warming to end whilst continuing to make it worse". So it's important we're as certain as we possibly can be that we've got it right!

It's a matter of figuring out the best strategy.

It's important to determine with a reasonable degree of confidence that the current warming is caused by humans, rather than having some natural cause we have no control over. If it is the former, maybe (just maybe) we can change our ways and stop it getting worse. If it's the latter, then there might be nothing we can do except figure out how to survive through it.

please see my comment above

Or failing that ... below ;-)

That's not the case ... please see my comment above. The new rule is in addition to the motion of no confidence, which still stands.

I think it will stay together for the full term, firstly because they are going to change the rules so that 55% of the MPs need to vote to for a dissolution.

To any independently minded person, it stinks of gerrymandering to change the rules of democracy in order to keep yourself in power. Like some third world dictatorship.

This is a source of confusion for many people. The 55% rule to dissolve parliament is in addition to the existing "motion of no confidence" which still requires only 50% + 1 MP to pass.

In a motion of no confidence, parliament is not automatically dissolved - the Prime Minister gets to decide that, and can choose to resign the government instead which results in the Opposition taking over automatically without an election (assuming they have enough seats to form a majority government or can form a coalition of their own to do so).

The new rule (which I think has now been revised to a higher percentage) allows MPs to force a general election - which is a power that they haven't had before. It gives dissatisfied MPs from across party boundaries another option, where they might not agree on a motion of no confidence since not all of them would necessarily want the opposition to take power without a general election to decide that.

Funny thing ... it is possible to imagine a society that is both free and non-capitalist. It's not a straight up choice between capitalism and communism y'know.

That would have been Tom Baker's Doctor talking to Leela. Since Leela was a primitive savage, the Doctor's explanation was as if explaining to a small child.

By all accounts Moffit had originally planned to cast an older actor for his Doctor, to support the River Song story arc, until he was bowled over by Matt's audition. That necessitated a bit of a rethink as I understand it.