Wow, wow, your average GPS is nowhere near 1 cm accuracy it is infact around the range that the paper suggests. (It can be much less or much more depending on conditions.)

The only way this technology gets to 1cm accuracy is through a number of techniques built on to the GPS technology. WAAS can get it way down, RTK is by far the best and probably what that receiver youve mentioned works on. However, neither of these technologies are perfect nor can we be certain what technology specifically was being used on this experiment and if we assume they are using top level stuff (Which is a pretty safe bet) I am not sure what effect the ground based improvements to distance accuracy would have on the experiment timings. (Perhaps someone can elaborate on the technology and clear this up for me.)

I do still think it would be surprising if they hadnt taken in to account relativistic effects like those mentioned in the paper but it is still an important possibility to be ruled out and contrary to what multiple /. 'experts' in GPS suggest it isnt immediately ruled out by our current use of the tech. Thats not directed specifically at this post but there are an awful lot of /. posts saying 'My tomtom works fine this guys gotta be an idiot.'

(Note, no I am not an expert either but arguing the point of being ignorant gives me the edge, and I do know enough to be quite sure the accuracy of GPS can get complicated.)

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41f4b8rM4KL._SS400_.jpg Nuff said.

Anyone who doesnt want to bounce on a glorified space-hopper all day is no friend of mine.

While its true the start menu gets cluttered its not actually MS that determines what a piece of software shoves in there.

MS cant mandate all companies use the name of their software in the start menu and not their company name its just not possible to do that. They can tell you whats best for the user and they probably already do but if a company says screw that then there isnt anything they can do. (Except remove the functionality entirely...)

Theyre the only ones who can get the bombs working...

Hang on, initial detection rates have nothing to do with the actual quantities you could later harvest. Though that can usually be extrapolated, which it has in the admittedly optimistic paper on the extraction. They measure extraction in micrograms a year depending on the body being harvested and also use the collected material in conjunction with other methods to power any project.

Now I doubt it would ever become a fuel source, Im sure other means will be ready long before we could scoop up that material, but its a fascinating idea to be considered and clearly more viable than trying to fuel something off a handful of particles every year.

Incidentally, someone suggested trying Jupiter for more material, the paper also goes in to that (If only there was some kind of acronym thats constantly posted telling us to read these things.) Turns out Saturn will have a better supply which is interesting in and of itself because it obviously doesnt have the larger magnetic field, its all a bit more complicated than that.

My story is kind of opposite to most posts here. In second year of university I had a particularly hard time with a key module. I clocked up hours of lab time, went to every lecture, put in a lot of work, but the module wasnt sticking. My grade for that module was ultimately terrible despite my best efforts, but where others got similar grades and werent seen to be working, my lecturer was around for a lot of the time I clocked up and he basically let me pass based on that fact.

It was the _wrong_ thing to do and I shouldnt have accepted that decision, I should have re-sat the year like many many others had (It was a tough year, the course was restructured during us going through it and failure rates were very high.) Ill always regret that decision, and I failed a third year where I was completely out of my depth. It was only on the third attempt at that third year I finally passed with a shoddy mark for the degree. I wasnt nearly so hard working by then and somewhat bitter at seeing everyone else in my old year catchup and surpass me.

There were certainly other factors to all this but when I chose to take the wrong decision no matter how well-meant it was it had a pretty dramatic effect on the rest of my education and likely the rest of my life.

Did anyone actually read the article? because everybody seems intent on trashing it for saying this is like MS antitrust when the mainstay of the article is about googles whining that 'bogus' patents are being drawn up against it. Now are apple and MS patent trolling? Who knows! Google certainly havent gone in to detail about it so it has to go to the courts. This isnt some small startup getting picked on by big corporations this is a _massive_ company with the majority of the market share and they are acting like they are being picked on! Whats more they are getting huge support over this when, should google genuinely be infringing on patents, they have the power to immediately destroy any potential for profit on the ideas by distributing it immediately across a vast network. Thats the point of the article, all of that is what 95% of the text was about.

You may think its fine for google to distribute things for free patent or not, especially when the source of the features are from equally big players. Thats a different discussion. You may think the patent system is horribly broken. (well durr.) Also a different discussion. However, if you think google is the kid being bullied by the nasty profiteering giants then youve really got to get a grip, but of course you should know this because its just parroting what the article said...

The comparison to MS anti-trust was daft and the cases are very different but the sites a freakin windows super site. So many calling him a windows shill as if he doesnt pretty much advertise his allegiances... If you didnt go in to it in the knowledge that there was going to be some bias you are being painfully naive. (Incidentally that goes for _any_ site that unashamedly labels themselves after the product they support.) That doesnt mean a lot of the points made werent valid. Google arnt the underdog any more, havent been for some time.

[Note, let me pre-empt a strawman or two by pointing out that neither his post nor mine are saying MS and Apple are any better than Google in this situation.]

What an ironically snooty post...

'Essentially, he's butthurt that people actually are designing games with higher artistic (and conceptual) goals in mind than just pushing the graphical power of another FPS, and he's taking it personally that they find his games boring.' - That is _entirely_ fabricated. He never put down those aiming for originality, he never commented on them finding his games boring, youve invented your straw-man for a good beating.

'You chose your road, live with it, and let people who have other ambitions do what they do.' - Hows beating on that straw-man going for ya? Or would you like to quote the part that Carmack said other people should dump their ambitions.

'Carmack is one of those generation of game designers who were artistically unsophisticated, yet craved the credibility of "art."' Wow... do you know the guy? Were you friends for some period of time? The number of assumptions crammed in here youd have to know the guy or this would just be a really arrogant thing to say. Needless to say Carmack has never claimed to be aiming for fine art, that was pretty much a good chunk of what he was saying.

Carmack basically made one point, originality isnt the be all and end all. He didnt say people shouldnt be original, he didnt say people had to accept his games, most of his references werent even to games he made. He is just sick of the bracket of people that pooh pooh _incredibly_ successful games because each new game isnt 'creative'. Or to sum it up from the article, hes basically down on the attitude that 'if it’s popular, it’s not good'. (and NO that doesnt mean hes saying 'if it is popular, it is good' mister interpret things for vicious straw-man beatings.) You want to disagree with that fine but quit making crap up to get riled about and actually read what the man is saying.

'If you hate social networking sites, then ignore them!' - You cant without ostracizing yourself as more and more social events run through facebook pretty much exclusively. That doesnt mean they are useless or even that those people dont use them, it does mean that they will continue to complain bitterly about them though.

Strawman Number 1: 'Of course maybe you're the guy who announced that he would never again write a letter or mail a check once he got his first piece of unsolicited junk mail from Publisher's Clearinghouse.'
Or you are the guy who complains about the junk mail even today long after the practice was started, which is... well perfectly reasonable, junk mail costs us millions a year to deal with. The crap that social networks throw up shouldnt just be forgotten about because its a few years down the line. This shit _can_ and _should_ still be fixed.

'That boat sailed a long time ago.' - No, no it didnt. Not according to the law, not according to millions of people who still fight for it, not even according to half these companies who make promises about it and lose valuable PR when those promises go wrong. You have to be naive to think data you throw up will be secure, but youd have to be weak or daft to just accept it without complaint.

Strawman Number 2: 'Unless you're the guy who has refused to own a telephone for eighty years because you were pissed off about having your name and address published in the White Pages.'
Or you are the guy who has his name and address removed and wants that kept private, which is exactly what millions of people do and want.

Im not trolling, Im not trying to get a rise out of people. Just trying to point something out that I see as being quite prevalent on articles such as this.

but you are right, I didnt comment on the article itself so ill try fix that now.

Ive run larger and larger heatsinks with slower quieter larger fans to get my CPU clocking up nice and quiet and cool. The fan provides only a small amount of air movement these days but without it its still a long way off being passively cooled. Ive often wondered if there was a better way of getting that little bit of airflow and abandon the fan altogether all the better if it could reduce the size of my heatsink to smaller than your average breeze block.

This research is fascinating, its a remarkably simple concept at its heart. (That has some complex issues of course.) The idea never dawned on me and seems to solve a lot of issues; those are my favorite kind of discoveries. For the same power Im putting in to my fan at the moment I could have a much smaller quieter setup if this technology works and thats just in my daft desktop PC. Perhaps hes being optimistic with his estimates of how it will improve efficiency across the board but cooling systems are a huge expense and if it can do even a fraction of what is claimed itll be a heck of a boon. (Which, to go back to my previous point, is why if it has to be written-off by people it should be those whove read all the information and built a solid argument against it.)