You enhance the video and zoom in on the reflections in the pupils of someone's eye, you know, like on CSI. Duh!

I am reminded of the Thagomizer.

As dangerous as hunting large prey was, I imagine it did not take long to go from attaching a sharp rock to the end of a long stick, to throwing the long stick. When facing "the Thagomizer" the mental leap probably occurred in about a minute :-)

A lot of global warming is probably man-made. I won't argue against that. But this particular statistic (97.1% of papers) is meaningless. I sincerely doubt that all 12,000 papers are primary research. Most likely a lot of them simply reference each other. It's the equivalent to Idiocracy's, "it has electrolytes".

He may be thinking about the use of such weapons in Northern Ireland, for instance.

I've been wondering when something like this would become available. All the tech pieces to put it together have been around for quite some time. The scariest part about such a weapon is that there are only a couple of simple pieces to add to it to make it remotely controlled. Imagine how handy such a thing would be for an assassin. Set up the shot ahead of time, then make the kill at the appropriate time, in safety, perhaps even with an alibi.

This weapon is a security professional's nightmare.

Back in the early 80's I got the opportunity to hear Grace Hopper speak. One of the stories she used to like to tell at her talks was about the time that she was having trouble visualizing a nanosecond. Eventually she sent a memo to her engineers which said, "Please send up one nanosecond." She waited, curious as to how they would respond. After a couple of days a response came back in the form of a metal rod 11-3/4 inches in length with the note attached, "One Nanosecond", and no other explanation. After puzzling over the metal rod she called down to the engineering department and asked, "I give up, what is it"? "That's the distance light travels in a nanosecond", was the response. Later, she sent another memo to the engineers with the request, "Please send up one picosecond." The engineers immediately responded with a memo instructing her to, "put the nanosecond in a pepper grinder and you can make picoseconds all over your desk."

Grace Hopper's humorous anecdote underlines the serious problems faced by researchers when they push the boundaries. In her case, it was a real concern over how far a bit can travel at the speed of light. I have no idea if that has any bearing on the exascale problem, but it might illustrate the kinds of problems they might be running into.

Not if you're these guys.

Here is an example of a fishing URL.

Not according to Merriam-Webster.

A friend shared this story recently.

The new global zeitgeist of sans souci. "Ah, well. It doesn't affect me. Let's have another Coke", and don't forget to toss the empty cup out the window.

Neil deGrasse Tyson will be an excellent show host. I'm looking forward to it, although it will be hard to beat The Elegant Universe series offered on PBS.

I'll throw my two cents out into the "noise". I've noticed a depressing trend in recent years. People tossing trash out of their cars. Invariably it is the leftovers of some fast food meal, choked down in the car, and tossed out the window for someone else to pick up -- or not. The streets in my neighborhood are festooned with such litter. Originally, I blamed the problem on one particular ethnic group below a certain age. But in time I've noticed people of all colors doing the same thing, and of an age when they really should know better.

What does this have to do with CO2 levels? My point is, how can we expect people to care about the larger problems, if they won't even deposit their trash in a proper receptacle? I would like to start improving the planet in ways that pretty much everyone can agree upon. Let us begin taking care of the trash. Then maybe we can start working on the bigger problems.

This really had me scratching my head because the legislation is about 20 years too late. Then I realized that it's John McCain, and his constituency are probably seniors who still watch a lot of cable. I'm not exactly young, but even I just download or stream something if I really want to watch it.

Like a lot of you, I'm sure, I'm one of those people that non-technical people come to for advice on computers. The trend I've noticed is this: when people ask me about getting a Chromebook, most of the time their first question is, "Can it run Word/Excel?" When I say no, that's it. They're not interested in it beyond that point. There are just so many people who cannot get away from the "security blanket" they have with Word/Excel.

Personally, I think Chromebooks are great for what they are. I got one for my daughter last year and she absolutely loves it. Of course she has never developed an attachment to Word/Excel, and mostly just wants an internet-access device. I loved the fact that the Chromebook was half the cost of an iPad.

I see, so you're sure it's a contest? And not just a show that appears to be a contest?