ability to scale 5 orders of magnitude in physical dimension is no smelly feet

There, fixed that for you

Indeed. Standing on the shoulders of a giant and all that.

I think what TFA refers to by "true invention" is a big enough, or sudden enough iterative innovation.

In this day and age, all scientists and innovators talk to each other all the time, and are aware of each other's work. There is no guy working for years in secrecy in his shed anymore. Hence the perceived - but false - lack of "true invention".

Television or the internet. They'll have great footage made by professional astronomers, along with commentaries from said astronomers. As opposed to you sitting in your garden with a pair of binos, seeing nothing at all and freezing your balls off while your wife screams at you because you're late for dinner.

In BE, it ought to be "The nuclear safety watchdog demands that such critical buildings should be capable of..." Regardless of whether it's BE or AE, using the indicative is just wrong in that sentence - or sloppy, more likely.

The nuclear safety watchdog demands that such critical buildings are capable of

I demand that people who write articles in newspapers be capable of writing proper English before getting their degree in journalism, let alone being hired by said newspapers.

Well, presented with the 2 percentages, they chose to pay 1% taxes.

As much as I hate to admit it, I find Google search's autocomplete very useful in two cases:

- To check someone's exact name. For instance, if I hear "this song is called "Baby I wawawawa" written by "Jim Wawawawa" on the radio, without catching the song's title or author completely, I can type "baby I Jim" and usually Google finds the answer before I type enter.

- To check spelling.

This said, I've also experienced the effect of having something stick to my name in the Google autocomplete. Fortunately it was a long time ago, and my rigorous personal rule of staying strictly anonymous on the internet seems to be paying off, as Google seems to slowly forget about me. The autocomplete has been replaced by something that's happened to a guy who bears the same name as me, so it's all good for me.

So essentially, I find Google to be a constant, looming danger to my own privacy, but it's great to find out about others and other things. Of course...

Too bad this isn't on Europa, *and* there isn't a single black monoliths in sight, *and* Jupiter (well, Saturn, Jupiter is nowhere in sight either) isn't collapsing in on itself and isn't turning into a second sun, *and* there isn't a human crewed spacecraft there, *and* we're not receiving an ominous warning not to land there, *and* neither a psychotic computer nor Roy Scheider are involved, or you would be able to make a 2001/2010 reference.

So you only want to hear about research that turns into actual products do you? You're not very curious... Me, I want to know about every new thing out there.

Blah blah blah I'm Bruce Perens and I'm so wonderful. I get such a kick out of submitting my own worthless shit to the front page.

The AC got modded down to oblivion for this comment, and given how it was written and how fast some mods pull the trigger, I'm not surprised.

However, you've got to admit that a Slashdot submission that reads "xxx writes: a 24-page FCC created by xxx proposes that..." make xxx appear insufferably conceited and self-obsessed, be xxx Bruce Perens or anybody else.

Don't feel forced to use gadgetry. There's something called "life" that doesn't require much of it to be enjoyed.

When I was younger, I used to enjoy immersing myself in the latest and greatest toys, back in the 80s and 90s. Many things were new and fun. Nowadays the things of the future presented at shows like CES seem more like evolutions of existing concepts. Nothing really earth-shatteringly new.

As a result, I must admit I've pretty much lost interest, and the fog of high-tech addiction has cleared so to speak. I've realized that a simpler life is more enjoyable and less stressful. Not to mention, non-early-adopters tend to waste a lot less money than those who can't wait to buy the latest semi-working banana product doodah.

The days of gouging the US public for Internet connectivity may soon be coming to an end.

Not as long as internet connectivity is in the hands of monopolies they won't. Monopolies don't give a toss about what the public demands.

With every breath, people exhale a plume of chemicals

Finally something good about halitosis.That's bad news for Listerine...

Isn't that sad? A state-of-the-art piece of technology is only a clunker because its handicapped.

Tell me about it...
-- Stephen Hawking

Who wants Ubuntu full-stop? They've ruined a perfectly good PC distro, and now they're about to release a useless cellphone OS nobody wants.

Canonical seems dedicated on making themselves undesirable.