And that is the main problem. When an inventor files a patent, it should be totally specific. If that patent is rejected, they should have two options: Argue that the patent as it stands is valid, involving the courts if necessary, or toss it out, and create a new, correct patent with a new effective date.

And if the way a patent is written could be read to cover some prior art, either before or after it is approved, then the patent is wrong and should be tossed, entirely, unless that prior art was explicitly listed in the 'prior art' section.

So this patent application should be the recipient of a junior-clerk's REJECTED stamp, because it doesn't explicitly list the Satoshi paper in it's applicable prior art section.

'If you were going to say one of these, STOP! you are being boring! Think of something original to say, or shut up!"

The US has gone to war a number of times (it is claimed) to prevent countries trading oil in currencies other than the Dollar. Some of those claims might border on conspiracy theories, but it remains that the tactics to keep oil trading based on the U.S. Dollar look remarkably like 'force'.

Etymology note: Petroleum is latin for 'Rock Oil' (Petra, rock + Oleum, oil, from the Latin for Olive.). When we created that abbreviation, Petrodollars, dollars for oil, all that was left of the oil was the 'o'. The word looks more like 'Rock 'o Dollars, doesn't it?

I'd give it -3 overrated. And this thread has been interesting - I have learnt a few things about this that I wasn't quite aware of - such as the actor's guild conditions that prevented the recordings continued use, and so contributed to their destruction. I was aware of the official programs to recover missing copies, but am not surprised at BigBadBus' notes below about archivists lack of concern for the official programs.

Namely, destruction of all extant copies.

BBC destroyed the only copies of most of those episodes decades ago. The only existing copies are some that were sent overseas and temporarily lost, so they were not recovered and destroyed. Others only exist in the form of home-made speaker-to-microphone reel-to-reel audio tapes.

You make this point yourself. If the developer of a closed source package gets bored of it, or it is not profitable (which itself is a high bar for a most producers!), or both, they will drop it. Anyone who came to rely on it is completely stuck, as they cannot fix the most trivial or sexy bugs. They have to live with it until advancing technology and other changes make the program fail completely, and they will have to retrain.

If it is open source, then at least you can recompile and/or port to a new OS. You have the option of paying someone to fix a problem. You have none of those options if the closed-source producer of a package arbitrarily decides to drop it.

That is exactly the system.

When a voter selects a vote above the line, they are choosing for their numbering of all the candidates to be as the party has outlined to the electoral office. It is a short-cut - a useful one, because there is often over 100 candidates for the senate.

You can choose not to use the shortcut, and number alllllll the boxes below the line. You might just get finished before the count is done.

They are trying to hit an earth-sun lagrange point. If they do so, the object leaves its solar orbit and enters an unstable earth orbit. They then need to give it another few burns to stabilize the orbit (and keep it away from the lagrange point, which would allow it to leave earth orbit and resume orbiting the sun) . If they miss, then it travels on, on a different orbit, with roughly the same chance of hitting the earth as it ever did.

The FAA almost never comes out with flat 'pilot error' as a cause. They always go as far as they can to answer the next why - Why did the pilot make this decision, and why did the craft respond so poorly to the sub-optimal inputs. And then why those issues happened, etc. They will often start the process at the human error and try to find the design and corporate failures that caused it.

This is so very easy to deal with. Rip at least 3 copies and diff them. The minor tweaks will stand out a mile, and you then have a clean copy you can (and, if they start pulling tricks like this, Should!) distribute widely.

Testing for cancers in a population at this time is all about establishing exactly what cancers existed before the problem. so you can accurately determine what effect the plant's failure will cause.

As the numbers seem slightly high, I suspect regression toward the mean will cause a drop in the number. That will cause confusion in the masses!

The story is quite simple. The propeller pushes against the air, its positive effect is affected by the difference in speed between the craft and the air. The propeller is driven by the wheels, so its negative effect on the craft is due the the difference in speed between the craft and the ground.

If you have a wind, the craft-to-ground speed is different from the craft-to-air speed. The vehicle can extract energy from this difference - like any sailboat, really - and pull ahead of the wind.

1. Force equations? The force backwards on the wheels is proportional to the groundspeed, the force forwards on the propeller is proportional to the airspeed. If groundspeed exceeds airspeed, as it does travelling downwind, there is an unbalanced force. If losses could be eliminated, the craft could travel at infinite speed (until relativism takes effect!)
2. If you give it a shove, without wind, airspeed == groundspeed, so there is no unbalanced force. Losses are all there is, so it slows down.

Of course, if you are like me you begin to think about the speed rating of the tyres and bearings, but that is beyond the scope of the stupid question.

A treadmill is motion is no different to a still surface being affected by a wind. The ground is moving relative to the air, and vice versa. The movement of the treadmill would drive the wheels, the wheels would drive the propeller, and it would move forward relative to the air.

Rolling out new copper in this day and age would be madness. But the decision to rely on wireless as anything other than a short-term emergency measure is wrong. They should, of course, be rolling out new fiber as a matter of urgency.