This book chapter, by Kip Thorne and others, plus a heavy does of vector calculus, will get you there: http://www.pma.caltech.edu/Courses/ph136/yr2004/0424.1.K.pdf

In a nutshell: Penrose (and others) believe (or used to believe) that gravity can cause spontaneous wavefunction collapse, basically something simpler than decoherence. The "speed" at which this collapse occurs should be dependent on the mass of said object; the "characteristic speed" of consciousness, on the order of 0.1 seconds, would be generated by sub-cellular sized structures and which he links to structures called microtubules within neurons. You'd have to read his books if you want any of those details filling in.

The injunction applies to people who know about the injunction, i.e. not necessarily only those who it was served to. Your average Twitter arguably knows about that injunction (although from Nth-hand rumour), and is also arguably publishing libel (although with little/no damaging consequences).

Obviously you are not familiar with Capita's reputation for "mis-managing" (read: excessively profiting) government projects. http://davespartblog.blogspot.com/2006/03/why-it-gets-called-crapita_21.html

If you read other people's comments you will quickly see why, although this is a Good Thing prima facie, it does have worrying implications that need to be addressed (e.g. the storing of "secret" URLs).

They're not detecting individual molecules, but an amount sufficient enough to noticeably absorb certain frequencies of light. You'd understand if you had RTFA. Cows have chips in their ears and farmers keep a tally of them, unlike immigrants. You'd understand why if you DRTDFM (Didn't Read The Daily Fucking Mail).

Methinks you're acting a bit OTT - not that that's a bad thing, natch - during a 2 week visit to China a couple of years ago I quite openly slagged off the government in e-mails (routed through Gmail) and nothing ever came of it.

For basic, "free" analysis you could try the Wifi Analyzer app on the Android market (perhaps one of your friends has an Android phone if you don't?) http://www.androidzoom.com/android_applications/tools/wifi-analyzer_bgn.html

Ok, but this begs a simple question: how is the information describing the file formats itself encoded?

Right, and if we could launch a powerful enough laser into space, I think some people (i.e. the Chinese, Russians, in fact anyone in the world) would be very unhappy about the potential for this thing to be turned into a weapon. I'm trying to remember what program/website has a satirical idea about using such a device to shoot the homeless.