After the discovery that all galaxies had a super massive black holes at their cores, it was obvious that black holes had an upper size limit, since there are no universe spanning super galaxies.

The discovery is about the mechanism of this fact, not the fact itself.

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

Statically typed? WTF man. If Chuck Norris decides a string is a Date, then _IT'S A FUCKING DATE_. Also, exceptions are not just thrown, they are kicked and punched also. This makes the language pretty safe alone.

Can't have a poll about hot sauce without the West Indian original. Yet another case of /. US bias.... :/