Well, at least they've reduced the frequency of blue shells, and added a megaphone that destroys all nearby items, including blue shells hovering over you before they drop.

On the flipside, they doubled the amount of items being flung around, so if you get stuck in losers pack of 6th to 12th place, you'll be endlessly barraging each other with items and nobody can escape the cloud of shell death.

You can get a standalone version without the Google Update installer...

http://www.google.com/chrome/eula.html?standalone=1

Not sure how Google does it but running Chrome gives that feeling of when you get a new computer and all of your old apps seem lighting quick and responsive compared to before.

Pretty simple: Each tab is a process.

Close Tab == Close Process == Release all memory for that process.

Uhh, you may want to check out Google Docs. :P

...or was it really August 26th, 1991?

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.minix/browse_thread/thread/76536d1fb451ac60/b813d52cbc5a044b?lnk=gst&q=&rnum=32#b813d52cbc5a044b

Hello everybody out there using minix -

I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons) among other things).

I've currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40), and things seem to work. This implies that I'll get something practical within a few months, and I'd like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions are welcome, but I won't promise I'll implement them :-)

Linus (torva...@kruuna.helsinki.fi)
PS. Yes - it's free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs. It is NOT protable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that's all I have :-(.

Although, I guess the birthday really is the day it was released. August was more around the time "mommy got knocked up" rather than popped a baby out.

Hydrogen peroxide powered rocket packs fly for around 30 seconds, because they have a specific impulse of around 125, meaning that one pound of propellant can make 125 pound-seconds of thrust, meaning that it takes about two pounds of propellant for every second you are in the air. Mass ratios are low for anything strapped to a human, so the exponential nature of the rocket equation can be safely ignored.

A pretty hot (both literally and figuratively) bipropellant rocket could manage about twice the specific impulse, and you could carry somewhat heavier tanks, but two minutes of flight on a rocket pack is probably about the upper limit with conventional propellants.

However, an actual jet pack that used atmospheric oxygen could have an Isp ten times higher, allowing theoretical flights of fifteen minutes or so. Here, it really is a matter of technical development, since jet engines have thrust to weight ratios too low to make it practical. There is movement on this technical front, but it will still take a while.

John Carmack