Seeing this and pondering about this problem, I suddenly came up with a terrific idea, for which I'll file a patent as soon as possible.

The basic idea, without revealing too much detail, would be to store some sort of very large sheet of tissue, or some other strong fabric, inside a pack or something. The sheet -- which could be duplicated as needed, to improve safety, let's say three of them -- would be neatly folded in order: 1/ to be stored efficiently and 2/ to deploy quickly and as widely as possible.
At some point in the reentry, let's say a few miles above the landing spot, the sheets would deploy thanks to a system of sorts -- let's say an altimeter -- and, by the magic of fluid mechanics and the Archimedes principle, would slow the rocket enough for it to land safely.

Now that I think of it, that system could be extended to people, who could jump from an airplane, just for fun or for military operations. Hmmm...

Yep -- this way, at least one of the resolutions will come true.

Just sayin'

(I assume your comment was ironic, but I'll reply anyway)
> Is there a maximum speed?

There is : c, speed of light.

> Is there a minimum size?

There is : the Planck length.

> Is there a limit as to determining an object's position and momentum?

There is : the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

So...

Thanks ! It's a bit clearer now.

Please explain for the layman that I am, how can these neutrinos be so energetic ? I thought neutrinos were very elusive particles that don't interact much with matter, and that's why they're so difficult to detect. With that much energy, these neutrinos should interact with matter and do heavy 'damage', à la cosmic particles, no ?

Obviously you did not follow recent events where the French government forced Google to pay $81 million, or where the Free ips threatened Google by blocking every ad on their internet service. And after all, France is in Europe, you know, the union that fined Microsoft $672 million.

... Says the guy writing behind the 'Anonymous Coward' placeholder name.

And to think that guy had an I.Q. estimated at 180 - 187...

Thanks a lot for clarifying my point. It's much clearer as you stated it (no sarcasm).

Ok, how about this one :

World's five most dangerous cities. In the top five, four are, in your words, 'the likes of Bogota', which I understand would be from emerging countries, and, guess what ? New Orleans. Are the USA an emerging country ?

The dark side of Europe's suburbs.
In under one minute of Google search. Please.

Ok.

In this list of US urban areas, Miami comes as 4th. Not major enough ?
Please read again my statement. Where did I say it was normal ? I just wanted to express my opinion to the OP that it was not a France-related problem, but was, alas !, a global problem, not uncommon.

The fact that you seem to make bold claims without taking care to read the others' posts is troubling too.

If you're talking about Mohammed Merah, you dumb fuck, he was 'was shot in the head by a police sniper' (Wikipedia link). The RAID (equivalent of SWAT) assaulted him and neutralized him. How is that for 'dare not touch' ?

While it is true that there are suburban areas in France where cops cannot do much, because they are outnumbered (and outgunned !) by the residents -- but like every major city in the world, tell me it's different in New York or Miami -- the french police never, ever let a killer on the loose, especially when he kills kids.

I say 'Good riddance'. I was a digg user for a few years, but the constant french-bashing, europe-bashing (even on unrelated topics) drove me away. Nothing as informative as /., or say, Engadget on tech news, and political discussions were more like a Quake IV arena than articulated, educated exchanges of opinions.