Why not just run it in a VM? I've been doing this for quite a while with: WinXP, Vista, and now Win7; all running as VMware VMs on a Linux base. I just snapshot the Windows VM after the initial install.and again after it's fully configured. If (when) the image gets itself honked up, I just restore one of the snapshots and I'm back to a known good image.

Wow, you're right. In binary I can count to 1023 on my fingers and 1,048,575 if I use my toes...

I think the wider application for this technology will be in the workplace... to track when/if employees are actually sitting at their desks.

Are you sure someone actually designed the walkways?

When the University I attended built a new extension or building, they would intentionally NOT install pavement walkways between the new building and anything around it. Instead they installed grass and waited ~six months for the students/professors to collectively define the necessary paths to and from the building. The University would then install the pavement, routing them to match the paths worn into the grass. This yielded some interesting walkways but they always seemed to make sense.

I think we're talking about better up-time than that for Skype. If we believe the outage numbers presented on their Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype, they've had a total of 72 hours down time since the initial release in 2003--and assuming a 100% outage in all cases (which was not the case here)--their up-time minutes work out to something like:

          99.9988%

Seven years and 72 hours of total down-tine... It might not be five nines, but does seem a pretty respectable up-time percentage.

This thread might be a bit off topic, but my guess is that the Verizon employees reckon that finding a Microsoft bug is far easier than locating your cell phone transmission even when its being directed straight into one of their towers.

I can imagine the scientists and technocrats from: China, the EU, India, Japan, Korea, Russia, and the USA, sitting in a room pondering the question of where to put this new fusion reactor--the biggest and baddest one ever built.

China: "India is the best place..."
India: "Heck no, we reckon Russia is better..."
Russia: "Nyet... How about Texas..."
(room grows silent)
In unison: Lets put it in "France"

France (EU): "Thank you, this quite the compliment..."

An invisibility cloak eh... right then; I'll believe it when I see it.

Why can't I enjoy both types of films?

But when they want "unprecedented levels of realism" in a training scenario against real people, why not use real people? Outside of the odd practice with live ammo it doesn't like there's even good reason to simply invent a better non-lethal training weapon. It's probably cheaper and suffers none of a robot's shortcomings with terrain... ...like, say, Daleks and their pre-2009 arch nemesis: stairs.

Unless there's a reason where you wouldn't simply want more soldiers/police/etc. practicing as the other faction?

-Matt

Been there. Done that. Once was enough.

"Plus metric measurements are generally too small (cm) or too big (m) to be practical for day to day uses."

Furthermore imperial measurements are generally too large (inch) or too small (yard) to be practical for day to day users. The fact that the mile exists also creates confusion because every old nations used to have it's own "mile" which either a lot bigger or a lot smaller than the English "mile".

Also multiplication by a number that is not equal to the numberbase(10) is annoying to use.

Out of the top of my head

1000mm=100cm=100dm=1m=0,1Dm=0,01hm=0,001km=0,000001Mm

Try to do that with the imperial system which randomly swaps between 6,2,12 and whatever they feel like.