In my opinion a desktop that adds takes a noticeable amount of time to load is just not worth it. I don't use Gnome on Ubuntu now and I suspect I won't in the future, The fact that the Unity Shell requires 3d hardware acceleration to be usable does not fill me with an optimism in this regard.

Actually it doesn't seem to matter how old you are, but how long you have been working in the particular field. In pretty well anything it takes 10 years of concentrated practice to reach your peak. That is about the time you would expect someone to do their best work before starting a gradual decline. The crux here is not brain age but specific experience. If you don't have it you are more likely to ask the dumb questions that lead to novel answers, and if you do have it then you won't.

I went through their policies recently and really couldn't find anything I actually object to. Dropping the voting age to 16 seems to be about their most controversial policy position. And on balance I agree with it. Also talking about going back in time. The Greens want to cancel Hecs (higher Educations Contribution Scheme) Debts and make Universities Free again.

If you only need 300 then why are printer manufacturers bothering to make printers that go to 1200 and higher? The answer seems to be because most people can tell the difference between somthing printed at 300dpi and somthing printed at 1200 dpi. therefore the average person can see more then 300dpi Heck I have a book which was printed using default latex setting (yes its a Prolog book and it really was published using latex) and it is extremely hard to look at. The effect is somewhat like looking at a CRT monitor with too low a refresh rate seriously it gives me the same kind of headache.

I spent ages a while back looking for an 8bit computer kit. Something I could get and assemble myself and mess about with a little. Regretably no such thing exists in this day and age. It would have been a little fun.

Its a standard Limits thing where as the speed of motion approaches zero some of the components of the mathematics can be ignored as they are so close to zero (or 1 , I forget which) that they make no noticeable difference.

At another level the theories are radically different. In Newtonian physics Mass is an intrinsic property that does not vary. every particle has a set mass and that's it.

In Relativistic theory Mass varies with speed (they increase together). Hence you end up with ideas like rest mass (the mass something has if it is standing still). I believe that this is why only photons can travel at the speed of light (they have a zero rest mass) anything else ends up having infinite mass if accelerated to this speed, which takes infinite energy and is hence impossible.

These two concepts of mass are radically different from each other from a philosophical standpoint. That the maths of one can be derived from the maths of the other is somewhat deceptive.

Actually it has changed. Neither you or I would have much luck getting a model T Ford moving. Yes it has a steering wheel but the entire transmission and breaking system was completely different. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Model_T#Transmission_and_drivetrain note the lack on an accelerator. Your only speed control in the thing was slow and fast!

A school here in Oz made it to the news last year when they tried to ban cartwheels and handstands in the playground. The stated reason was fear of litigation if a child hurt themselves doing a cartwheel.

I'd hate to see what one of those things can do (to the user) if the sensors malfunction. Lets hope that the joints are desgined to not have a larger range of motion then the human wearing them.

Yes granted being from Sydney I don't have much experience of streets being laid out with any through or planning at all. I think their must have been period where suggesting that streets should run parallel to each other was a hanging offence in Sydney.

Other then slowly loosing your ability to walk I don't see what the problem is. Most parking meters in Sydney work in exactly this fashion. I've actually never seen the old style meter per car system used anywhere. About the only parking meter system that has annoyed me was a numbered bay system where you have to walk up to the machine and tell it which pay you are in and then pay the fee. And if you accidentally pay for the wrong bay, well then it sucks to be you.

The whole point is that when you lean to touch type you end up learning how to type words mechanically. Instead of the being remembered as a sequence of letters you start remembering it as a sequence of muscle movements. As I type this I am not looking down at the keyboard. And yet I don't actually consciously remember where the letters are. Well OK. I know querty, and asdf but I can't off the top of my head tell you what the last three letters in the third row of the keyboard are, or where exactly the 'v' is. Yet I am still able to type vision without having to look down. So yes touch typing is a different kind of memory and I could see how the ability to spell on the keyboard would not transfer to the ability to spell when writing, or trying to explicitly spell words by saying the letters.

in Newspeak spelling is perfectly regular. Mistakes are impossible.

Its simple enough. Eventually we will find the biological basis of every opinion you hold. Then we will find how to correct any abnormalities. Once we have done that their will be an end to crime, an end to decent. Oh yes elections won't be necessary either as the clinical records of your last brain scan will clearly indicate who your preferred candidate is. And if you don't like it we will change your mind : )

for an estimated 40 femtoseconds. Their is also the whole nearly invisible to extreme ultra violet radiation, which is not exactly in the visible spectrum.