Checking #6 at the second link, they're clearly using Fortran. After seeing "Xtr" used to condense "Extra", I was surprised to see "idays" and "nweeks" instead of old-timer "idys" and "iwks" in the subroutine. As a Fortran snob, I hope the poor use of indentation and lack of whitespace is simply a result of the conversion to HTML.

This reminds me of the coverage surrounding Madison Priest's "magic box". Do the Google, or check these two articles (sadly no pics in the archived articles).

It means the Slashdot prediction is at least a couple of hours later than the official predictions.

People communicate in Welsh?

(sorry...I've been busy)

Also important are that there are fewer small debris at GEO and the debris-encounter velocities are much lower. There's some interesting stuff in the beginning of NASA's "History of On-Orbit Satellite Fragmentations" (like figures 1.3.2-2 & -2). This and other docs are linked here.

Yup. Apple is in the driver's seat and it's their car. If they don't like what you're doing, they simply push you out the door.

Skynet went online on 1969. It continues to serve the UK military to this day. They're up to series 5, but it doesn't seem self-aware yet.

Heh. That also reminds me of the cartoon where Daffy Duck gives up his prize of "ONE MILLION BOX!"

My monoliths said never to trust your monoliths...

Shoot, you beat me to it...

I had to click through to read about that 'possum immune system. I'd heard (at a presentation about wildlife rescue) that possums don't carry rabies because of their relatively low body temperature.

The wikipedia article also says that opossums *are* mammals, marsupial being a sub-set ("infraclass").

How about: In a world where death is nearly impossible, only the most cunning, persistent, X-TREME individuals reach that final destination, that light at the end of the tunnel. Cash Darwin Awards!

You make a good point, but do you mean "dirigible" rather than "derringer"?

So the cut-in-half response should have come from someone from South Carolina?

That is a funny one... Not as common as the ubiquitous millibits and millibits per second.