This is similar to the premise of the Gregory Benford novel Artifact. In it a pair of particles exist which have more complex than dipole fields. IIRC, the idea was that most field equations are normally solved with the simplest substitutions which gives dipole fields, but you can use higher order substitutions and that gives higher order field shapes. The 'artifact' is a particle that has these higher order fields. It's a good read if you like your sci-fi with a lot of sci in it.

There is no war in BiÃOÃSe.

Did no one actually read Neuromancer?

This article is about the North American launch of the phone--it launched in China a while back. Maybe look for the European launch for a model that works better for you?

Strikes has two conflicting meanings. You can strike a deal--which I assume is the meaning here--which means to make a deal. You can also strike an item from a list--meaning to remove it. That could also have applied here which would mean they canceled an existing deal.

So help me, if this is a rounding error, I'm going to die laughing.

My (now ex) optomitrist tried pushing vitamins that were supposed to help repair retinal damage from blue light. I looked into them. They based their claims on a study done on mice which lacked the gene for macular repair. They exposed the mice to an intensity of blue light you'd expect to get if we had a blue sun and we lived on the sun facing surface of Mercury. Some of the mice showed macular damage with time. No kidding.

The U2 worked quite well over Russia and China as well--until it didn't.

To avoid being shot down? This device used a different defense "I'm just a civilian weather balloon, nothing to see here..."

It's just scams all the way down.

Has Lego been running camps and competitions recently? All I ever see are VEX IQ. It's what all the schools around here use.

It's been a long time since we've seen a site get slashdotted.

I donated. I've never done that for them before, so it was long overdue. I was hoping there would be a way to attach a note to the donation so I could tell them why and maybe someone there would get a chuckle, but there wasn't.

But the important part was that it will help them further their projects.

Hmm, all of a sudden I feel like donating $40 to the LibreOffice people.

You buy a house in a NIMBY area and are shocked to find that it lacks things in your back yard? Shocked!