Tell me more about the great Vegetable Bubble ...

Back of the envelope for 6000 mi/hr (100 x 60 mph rollercoaster) in 2 miles gives something on the order of 114 G.

Oh, I don't know if I'd go that far. 2:1 or even less I think. I once saw a polar bear rocking one of those rollagon bus things they use for bear watching expeditions in Churchill, Manitoba, trying to get at the morsels inside. If the treehugger could get the SUV stopped (maybe he could jam his head into the wheels?) I think the bear would have an excellent chance!

I believe that they *do* come with a Kensington slot. Or, at least the one setting next to me does (2009 Mini Server). It's the vertical slot above the USB ports, between the fan vent and the 1/8" microphone jack.

The escape velocity of the moon is about 2.38 km/s. I suspect that escape velocity is the important measure of an airless body rather than then absolute gravitation.

From that perspective I also orbit whenever I jump off the ground ... which is technically true I suppose.

You can't have the huge wars (WWI/WWII) of the 20th century without an industrial complex to produce the materiel required/consumed by the war. That's also why civilians (or the workers in the industrial plants if you prefer) are targets in such a war. The same applied to farmers/peasants in an earlier age when food was the primary consumable for armies.

because the large industrial nations that can economically support large dreadful wars also have nuclear weapons.

I'm not going to argue about the software patents being applied -- I agree, they certainly are! But I will take exception to the notion that my brain isn't a computing device and even if it isn't, then the pencil and paper I'm using *definitely* is. This is the fundamental problem that I have with software patents; there are many, many different ways to create a computing device and it seems like a software patent applies to all of them, including the pencil and paper. Otherwise, avoiding the software patent would be trivial since it would have to enumerate all the exact computing devices to which it applies. There are *many*, *many* different computing devices -- pencil & paper, mechanical, optical, electrical, chemical maybe quantum etc. And those are very, very broad strokes! Is a stack architecture different than a register-to-register? What about MIPs vs Alpha (RIP)? Where do you draw the line?

A usually reliable source informs me that Tarkin was holding Vaders leash -- it's not really surprising that he wouldn't object. A sharp yank on the leash always gets *my* attention. There was no mention of leash length, however.

But wait! That spinning flywheel is a potentially deadly concentration of energy. If the bearings fail then the flywheel could run riot, crushing and destroying everything in it's path. Or, more likely, it would just explode. The only way to be safe would be to build a large, extremely strong, prestressed concrete containment facility. Maybe it would be shaped like a big dome.

All joking aside, the problem with any energy containment system is that to be effective & economic they have to have a high density. That makes them hazardous.