If it conducts electricity, it will show up on a metal detector.

Chinese, which would actually be REALLY useful in this modern world.

No, it wouldn't. It would take a massive effort to be proficient enough in Mandarin to be able to use it, and you would still not be accepted by native Chinese, because you're not one of them. You won't be able to use your rudimentary Mandarin to make any kind of business deals in China. If anything, you'd just be forced by your employer to travel to Beijing frequently and breathe in the toxic air. No thanks.

As long as the state makes it a 6% tax on everyone, I'm okay with that. Then the voters in the state can decide if they like the tax.

If its not being applied equally, I'd suggest the federal government apply a 6% increase in income tax rates to the people of Utah and see what the voters think of that.

"A better Windows than Windows" was a main selling point of OS/2 2.0. It is argued that few developed for OS/2 because the Windows compatibility was so good that there was little point in doing native applications.

Is there a risk that the same thing can happen to Meego?

The irony, of course, is that the lens flares in most of the scenes of the last one weren't inserted CGI lens flares. They were guys standing off camera with flashlights.

Its not Science Fiction, but its definitely SyFy.

Interpret that as you see fit -- for some that's a good thing, for most its a bad thing. But IMO, that's what it is.

There are more than 5000 secret patents in the US today. See Invention Secrecy Act.

a) Aggregate is not true today. One day it may be true, but the Western world today still emits more than India and China combined.
b) Per capita is really ridiculously far from being true.

It is the selfish Americans and Danes that are the problem. That is also where a lot of the goods that cause the pollution in China and India end up. The Chinese and the Indians do not get to enjoy them, they just get the pollution. Shifting blame to those who have little and can do nothing about the problems is immoral at best.

It is always a pleasure to see such well reasoned arguments, particularly from an Anonymous Coward.

If your AC is 400% efficient, your PUE is 1.25, which is nice but not ground-breaking. And that is just for the AC, on top of that you waste power on transmission losses and UPS (if you run double-conversion, that is another 10% loss) and everything else a datacenter needs.

Also, 400% is mostly a marketing number. The efficiency depends on the temperature difference. If the outside air is cooler than the temperature you need, you can get infinitely high efficiency -- in theory you can even get electricity back out by using a Stirling engine (in practice that is not possible, the temperature differences are too small). On the other hand, if you are trying to deliver air to the servers at 22C and it is 40C and humid outside, you have a problem. Your AC will not deliver 400% efficiency in those conditions.

I have the perfect solution then: Split China into 100 separate countries, then none of them will be doing a significant amount of harm on its own.

If we then split USA and Australia and Canada into states, CO2 levels must surely drop, as no country single country emits anything worth worrying about. We're all saved!

I would expect rising energy costs to be a temporary blip. Once solar hits price parity, energy costs will only go down. Until we run out of desert and have to switch to energy satellites at least.

It is not a chip, it is just firmware and/or drivers. As for definite information, try scanning money sometime, or copy it if you have a combination scanner/printer. There is a specific yellow dot pattern on currency to avoid having to teach scanners/printers about all currencies in the world. Have a look, it is not hard to see once you know it is there. If you remove the dot pattern, the counterfeit money is not detected as money by machines (not that most people could make money that even the cheapest machines would accept, dot pattern or otherwise).

If you manage to get a scan, you can print it if you enlarge or shrink the notes, then the pattern will not be recognized -- but people get suspicious when they receive double-size currency.

It would be a lot more difficult to tell the firmware not to scan/print guns. A gun does not depend on yellow dots to function.

How strange, an a nice reversal for a change :D

This film has been out on general release for 8 days already!