I agree.

I have started hearing the derisive term "lasagna code," to mean too many layers where they're not needed.

Hold up there a minute, Mr SpyMaster. I think GnuPG (open-source implementation of PGP) is German. Or at least: " g10code GmbH, the legal entity employing some of the GnuPG hackers" is German.

My company has been using GnuPG for ten years.

See https://gnupg.org/ .

Ludicrous amounts of torque, from a standing start, might be a huge selling point.

This instant torque is why locomotive designers hook up diesel engines to make electricity to power electric motors. The torque is worth the conversion losses.

So imagine a pickup truck with a "ludicrous" mode, not for acceleration, but for getting a trailer rolling.

Well, let's consider the damage from the impact of a rocky asteroid, 60m in diameter. Plug this into the excellent Earth Impact Effects program at http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects/. Assume a velocity of 17 km/s, which they say is "typical for asteroids," and an impact angle of 45 degrees.

The calculator says:

        The projectile begins to breakup at an altitude of 54000 meters = 177000 ft
        The projectile bursts into a cloud of fragments at an altitude of 4700 meters = 15400 ft
        The residual velocity of the projectile fragments after the burst is 4.77 km/s = 2.96 miles/s
        The energy of the airburst is 4.52 x 1016 Joules = 1.08 MegaTons.
        No crater is formed, although large fragments may strike the surface.

Clearly you wouldn't want to be right underneath it, but even as close as 20 km, the air blast effects seem rather anticlimactic:

        Peak Overpressure: 18900 Pa = 0.189 bars = 2.69 psi
        Max wind velocity: 41.4 m/s = 92.6 mph
        Sound Intensity: 86 dB (Loud as heavy traffic)
        Damage Description:
                Glass windows will shatter.
                About 30 percent of trees blown down; remainder have some branches and leaves blown off.

So it'd be like BOOM! But not like KA-FOOOM!

For comparison, the Chelyabinsk meteor was estimated at 17-20m, with an airburst energy of 0.4 MegaTons.

No, they defintely mean 7 meters. 500,000 kg. Which seems like a lot, if it's hitting your house at several miles per second.

But that's only 90,000 kg more than the ISS (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/isstodate.html).

On the other hand, I bet the ISS would burn up a lot better on its way towards your house.

Spanish is a good idea, but won't help in the Philippines, where they speak Tagalog (a.k.a. Filipino) and English.

Spanish will help you learn Tagalog, since there are some cognates. But none of my Pinoy friends speak any Spanish.

My favorite make-up-your-own pair, which a CSR at a bank was once forced to read to me over the phone:

Q: "You're not going out dressed like that are you?"

A: "You can't tell me what to do! You're not my real father!"

Mr. Elm:

That's a good point about the rifling. It appears that the Defcon fellows are using flare launchers, which, anecdotally, are described as smoothbore.

I dunno why flare launchers aren't rifled. Maybe the need for accuracy in shooting a flare is low: if it goes UP, instead of sideways, it's probably considered a success. The energy expended on making it spin could arguably be better spent on making it fly.

At least Slashdot has the journalistic ethics to post the follow-up. Good for them. I note that Network World is doing the same.

Yes, I said "journalistic" in the same sentence as "Slashdot." It's important.

They will simply drop you as a client if you take them to court.

That's really interesting, thanks. The main dictionary (oed.com) is $295/year. I didn't know they had a concise one for free.

And it really is concise. One (really good) definition. Not 37 links, like the Google dictionary.

Not that there's anything wrong with 37 links. But sometimes I just want to want to know the definition of the word.

I thought the same thing. Nowhere in the summary does it say that the patient is deceased.

May I suggest a clarification?

The slicing the brain of the famous amnesic patient H.M. WHO IS FRICKIN' DEAD into giant histological sections...

Who rated this a troll? It's funny.

The link doesn't work. On the other hand, there's a very nice 404 page. It's funny, friendly, and attempts to be informative.

Good error handling is something many of us don't always do well.