One of the greatest European epics, the Chanson de Roland, is about a lost battle. Then there are the Greek tragedies. The Titanic story is a pure tragedy because the builders and the operators of the ship were brought low by hubris and by tempting Fate. That is why it has cultural resonance.

In one of the ironies of history, the Titanic was equipped with wireless but the operator was too busy sending the important messages of the VIP travellers to make distress calls. It was the early 20th century equivalent of people making Facebook status updates "Ship is sinking, lol" rather than dialling 911.

Given what happened to the R101, travelling by airship could literally be a unique experience for the last lot of passengers. And indeed, their last ever experience.

Face it, balloons either use an irreplaceable resource far too important to waste on vanity projects (helium), or they are insanely dangerous by modern standards.

...or indeed with the iceberg detection. The problem was with the owners and the officers, and they aren't around any more.

Here's a hint: there were other ships in the area and none of them sank due to icebergs.

The press release specifically mentions Google Drive.

I have a Blackberry Playbook with exactly the same screen resolution and it is perfectly usable. The simple fact is that on a 7 inch screen anything over about 1000 by 600, for most people over 30, is just marketing boasting. Of course Slashdot is infested with people who have golden eyes, like the "audiophile" golden ears, but really 1000 by 600 on a 7 inch screen is at least as good perceptually as 1280 by 768 on a 10 inch.

The problem for HP, as for RIM, is that being technically right does not help to sell what for many people is a fashion item.

In the manufacture of Diesel engine pistons, which are cast, a soluble ring of high melting point salts has long been used to form the internal oil gallery. And I am sure that this technique did not originate with pistons. The problem is that the patent office now allows inventions to be "something A which already exists + something B which already exists", without any actual inventive step.

As an example, I am a little sorry for Trevor Bayliss who never really made any money out of his wind up radio, but given hand cranked magneto telephones had been around for many years, the idea of a hand cranked magneto radio set really should not be patentable. It is just another communications device with a hand charger.

So the far-Right, conservative, Mafia-riddled Catholic South of Italy is more successful than the Communist-leaning North?

I remember another Ducati owner commenting to me once that "I prefer my bikes to be made by Communists, they want things to work in this world but Catholics don't care if you end up in the next one."

I encourage spiders. They keep the flies under control without pesticides. The most right wing person I ever encountered was terrified even of quite small spiders. It was just as well his wife wouldn't let him keep guns, he'd have tried to take a money spider out with a 12-bore.

And SF is one of the most prosperous places on Earth. (The New England states are more prosperous but they have also had a lot longer to develop.) It seems that being run like a circus and being full of lazy people works. That, or your generalisations weren't worth the bother of writing down because they are just lazy Conservative stigmatising of anything new.

It cost as much as gathering together a sheaf of prior usage examples, preferably original documents or photocopies of dead tree press, details of registration of any companies using the mark, a few letters from organisations already legitimately using the mark, sticking them in a big envelope along with a letter saying which application you are objecting to and why, and sending it to the right place. The last time I did this, it was free. You don't even need a lawyer: IT people can usually figure out forms pretty well.

Yes, why are they not simply filing an objection? That's what you do. Someone applies, you object. You do not write to the EU Council of Ministers, you write to the European Trademarks and Patents Office.

Just like you do in the US. It isn't hard. Someone tries to file a trademark using your established name, you send them a batch of stuff, application gets rejected.

You do know 'nubile' means marriageable? You must work for the Department of Redundancy Department.

I was given some civet coffee. It is better than the cheap stuff. It just isn't 40 times better.

You are missing the whole point of the derivation from mare. The word 'ship' does not necessarily imply sea going - cf airship and spaceship - but the marine bit most certainly does.