There's nothing in TFS (except the existance of that slide) that we didn't already know from the earlier /. story. As I understand it, earlier this month, the commission seemed not believe that BP et al. necessarily cut corners to save money. Now they seem to be more sure that risky decisions were made (mostly on shore) to save money. The slide was allegedly retracted for technical reasons, but should be part of the commission's final report.

A major part of Opera's complaint was explicitly the "Embrace, Extend and Extinguish" strategy in conjunction with bundling. It seems this argument is now often forgotten in news and discussions.

The problem is more complex than "Oh, don't be anal, what's so terrible about bundling, you gotta have bundling." Can't you remember our discussions? How a monopolist breaking standards hurts us all?

Excellent. Let me contribute the abstract for your paper: Imagine two unseen cars in a race are moving towards you. You recognise the unmistakeable sound of a Porsche, even when it's doppler-shifted. Now you can calculate what the other car must sound like when you drive beside it.

I forgot: So it's like a known plaintext attack: Detected spectrum=encrypted message, redshift=encryption algorithm, known plaintext=hydrogen spectrum in laboratory/inertial frame of reference, full spectrum in lab=plaintext

IANAP, but I guess the answer is hydrogen. You can pretty much count on it, whereever you look. You know the hydrogen spectrum, which is like fingerprint, without Doppler shift, so if you see a distorted version, you can determine the distortion, i.e. Doppler shift. When you know this, you can transform the distorted signal into undistorted information, and then recognise water and what have you.

And your understanding of chemistry and physics is such that you know for certain that no chemical and physical processes are possible that give rise to mechanisms unlike any on Earth, though we might still call them life? If you know all humans are based on DNA, which has universal rules, do you know every person on Earth?

Stanislaw Lem said it best (regarding SF). And it was something like this: When we look for alien life far away we are really looking for life similar to us, because we want to extend the boundaries of Earth. The aliens could be a little different from us, so we have something to look up to/down on, but we are only interested in what is basically our mirror. He also said truly alien life would be completely unfathomable. If someone can do a better job quoting him, feel free to correct me.

I guess there are similarities to the basic premises in real-life science you mentioned.

You might wonder why TFA calls a 100m-radio telescope 'giant'. That's because the radio telescope Effelsberg is fully steerable and was/nearly is the largest such telescope.

It's also a pretty cool sight when you drive through this quaint hilly region and suddenly come across this friggin' huge satellite dish. (Pic in German version of article gives better overview.)

Thank you. You motivated me to read the paper.

"Swapping did not happen when the touches were dissimilar."
"Increased stress was measured when threatening the foreign body with knives."

If the Washington Post had included sth. like these at the appropriate places, it would have greatly improved the article. We often lament the public's lack of basic understanding of scientific methodology, don't we? (And we lament slashdotters who post before following links, I know.)

If I understand the discussion in the paper correctly, they could trick the mind because it takes shortcuts (it uses historical information as presuppositions) when assembling the whole experience of the body image. I wonder how well the swapping works when they modify the foreign body (with longer legs, a tail, etc.), or the apparent laws/parameters of physics it is subjected to. My guess is the latter has the best chance of working.

Still, I cannot imagine the experience of body-swapping. Sounds exciting.

"developed a strong belief that the mannequin's body was actually their own", says TFA. How is that determined/measured? Was there a test that showed people could not tell the two bodies apart? Without that information, TFA is meaningless to me who is not familiar with such experiments. Can this "belief" be described, or would I have to experience it myself?

But as the GP mentioned (source Wired), he was sentenced by a German court. (I presume he appeared in court.)

IMO it does not matter where you say the crime was committed -- not according to German law. If German law defines an action as a crime, a German citizen can be held accountable by German jurisdiction no matter where on Earth he committed it (and no matter if it's a crime according to foreign law).

And since there has been talk about extradition: The German constitution does not allow a German citizen to be extradited except to a EU country or an international court of justice.

IANAL; however, if the parent is informative, then I'm an idiot. A plausible possibility, but I'd appreciate an explanation. ;-) (And sorry, I have no source in English, just German Wikipedia.)

I suspected as much; thanks for your answer.

Still, ain't it super computers can help mathematicians?

Do you really need supercomputers in all practical cases?

Insert similies where applicable.

Not sure how that helps. *shrugs* But okay.

Are you retarded like a braindead gorilla?? Of course it will be the last letter you try.. Why on earth would you keep guessing after you have got the correct character?? Then you would be like a drunken anteater!!