And tranquilizer darts probably do not work well through bullet proof vests and other similar protections.

Terrorists are trained by the A-team and Mac Guyver.

I do not think that you realize how big is 3x10^48.
Let's imagine that a magic technology would allow you to store one permutation per atom of hydrogen.
One mole of hydrogen is 6x10^23 atoms or 12g.
So 3*10^48 atoms of hydrogen is 12*(3*10^48)/(6*10^23) = 6*10^25 g = 6*10^22 kg
That's is almost the mass of the moon (7.34*10^22 kg)

Ramdisks are a not a stupid idea. They are just not useful in most cases.

Putting temporary files (e.g. /tmp) in a ram disk can be beneficial but only if you have significantly more ram than needed. That can significantly speed up tasks that are known to create lots of temporary files (e.g. compilation). This is also very interesting to prevent your (old) ssd or flash disk to wear-off too quickly.

On Linux, it is not uncommon for /run to be a ram disk (of type tmpfs). This is where most services will put small temporary and special files that need be accessed very quickly.

No! I would say: FORTUNATELY I don't think that's going to happen.

2000MB/s is still one or two orders of magnitude slower than DDR3/4 (between 20000 and 60000MB/s) so I clearly don't want direct mapping.
Let the OS cache the SSD sectors in RAM pages and everything will be fine (and from the user point of view, that won't change anything)

MAME is a nice application but the problem is that most games were not designed for fun but to make you lose as fast as possible. Simply speaking, a cabinet game will be a lot harder than the same game for console or PC. When I was young, playing cabinet games was fun partly because I did not have a lot of money. In MAME, I can just play a few minutes, die, insert a "free" coin and continue the game to die even faster ... Boring!

MAME is still interesting for people trying to beat their high-score but not for casual gaming.

UTC sucks. I am going to switch all my computers to TAI

The more I think about it, the more I feel that this leap second system is bogus on the long term. The problem is that the 1.7 milliseconds are cummulative.

This is of course not true but for the sake of simplicity, let suppose that a second was defined according to the day length of 1900.

Around year 2000, so after 100 years, each day is now 1.7 ms longer so a whole year is 365*1.7ms = 0.62s longer. A leap second will be required every 1.6 years on average.
Around year 2100, so after 200 years, each day is now 3.4 ms longer so a whole year is 365*3.4ms = 1.24s longer. A leap second will be required every 0.8 years = 9 months on average.
Around year 2200, so after 300 years, each day is now 5.1 ms longer so a whole year is 365*3.4ms = 1.86s longer. A leap second will be required every 0.53 years = 6 months on average. ...
Around year 2900, so after 1000 years, each day is now 17ms longer so a whole year is 365*17ms = 6.2s longer. A leap second will be required every 0.16 years = 2 months on average.

There is of course no easy solution to that problem. Ideally, the second itself should be redefined regularly according to the day length.

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

> If other effects were ignored, tidal acceleration would continue until the rotational period of Earth matched
> the orbital period of the Moon. At that time, the Moon would always be overhead of a single fixed place on
> Earth. Such a situation already exists in the Pluto–Charon system. However, the slowdown of Earth's
> rotation is not occurring fast enough for the rotation to lengthen to a month before other effects make
> this irrelevant: About 2.1 billion years from now, the continual increase of the Sun's radiation will likely
>cause Earth's oceans to vaporize,[11] removing the bulk of the tidal friction and acceleration. Even without
> this, the slowdown to a month-long day would still not have been completed by 4.5 billion years from now
> when the Sun will probably evolve into a red giant and likely destroy both Earth and the Moon.

Anyway, your formula is wrong for several reasons. The first being that slowing down the earth rotation does not reduce its day length but increases it.

So assuming that the rate of 1.7 milliseconds every 100 years will remain constant, daytime will increase by 17s every million years. That's about 1700s ~ 1/2 hour every 100 Million years or 5 hours every 1 billion years.

So when the Sun will destroy earth in 4.5 billion years, one (hot) day should take about 24+4.5*5 = 46.5 hours.

or maybe I shall pay a visit to the closest nuclear power plant to see it explode. I was so frustrated at Y2K

61s in a minute! I will definitely try to beat my best laptime on Mario Kart Wii.

I could be wrong but Khan was more a title (e.g. King) than a family name.
Even assuming that Khan would have been a family name inherited from son to son, I seriously doubt that this name could be used to identify the lineage in a reliable way.

With a very optimistic value of only 5% of illegitimate children (various estimates are more between 10% to 40%), the probability that a Khan of the 30th generation is a legitimate descendant is 0.95^30 = 0.21 so 21%.

With 10% of illegitimate children this number falls to only 4% and that doesn't even take into account adopted children and people changing name for whatever reasons.

I am afraid that your mothers and grand-mothers were naughty girls :-)

Simply speaking, anyone telling you that his genealogical tree shows that he is a descendant of is very likely to be wrong. People with the genes attributed to Genghis Khan may very well be an exception to that rule (assuming that GK was effectively the source of the mutation).

Nice post. It reminded me this wonderful quote from Genghis Khan that, IMHO, should be taught in grade school:
  “The greatest happiness is to vanquish your enemies, to chase them before you, to rob them of their wealth, to see those dear to them bathed in tears, to clasp to your bosom their wives and daughters.”

Most of the stories about that tombs are probably myths but, unlike Noah, Genghis Khan was a historical figure that was very likely buried somewhere.

I would not bet my saving that this "modern day indiana jones" will ever (or never) find Genghis Khan tomb. After all, Schliemann found Troy, Carter found Tutankhamun while plenty others failed miserably. Hard but not impossible.

The study claim that the observed mutation occurred around the time of Khan and that it spreading speed is too fast to be explained with the standard models (especially since it does not appear to provide any genetic benefits).

Generally speaking, statistical analysis like those can be quite accurate. However, I am a bit more skeptical about the evaluated age of the mutation. An error of a few hundreds years could push the mutation several generations before Genghis Khan and in a violent civilization were the winner gets all the women that could make a big difference.

Finding Genghis Khan body (and of some of its ancestors, descendants and unrelated compatriots) to analyze their DNA could of course provide a clearer answer.