The tail provides stability during forward motion. A helicopter without one would need constant corrections to maintain its orientation during forward flight.

Classic shell http://www.classicshell.net/ is a free, open-source fix for Windows 8. It brings back the proper windows 7 or windows xp start button and menu. It allows you to boot straight to the desktop so you never see the metro interface, and it can disable all the 'hot-corners' mouse-over elements that might bring you back to the metro stuff. Essentially it allows you to get all the benefits of Windows 8 (faster bootup, great task-manager and improved desktop UI) without any of Microsoft's botched experiments.

I recently bought a Dell touchscreen all-in-one PC, which you'd think would be the ideal platform to use the Metro UI, but in fact I've completely disabled it, firstly because many other people use the computer and I don't want to have to explain to them how to use Windows, but also because the Windows App Store where you buy/download Metro apps is completely useless. I tried to install QQ messenger by clicking the link on the QQ website, and instead of opening the store at that app, it opens on the front page. Searching in the store for QQ brings up no useful results. I was almost tempted to install the Metro version of Skype instead of the desktop one, but the pages and pages of one star reviews convinced me otherwise.

I feel sorry for anyone who bought one of the budget Surface tablets that can only run the Metro UI. Windows 8 is great, once you turn off Metro and the giant start menu.

An under-ice rover isn't likely in the near future, as estimates of the ice thickness range from 30km to at least a few kilometers.

Osmos by Hemisphere Games http://www.hemispheregames.com/osmos gives players an intuitive understanding of Newton's laws of motion and orbital mechanics. It's a great, non-mathematical introduction to physics.

Both you and the article authors are making the assumption that they want to return the ore to earth, which is ridiculous as there's already plenty of iron ore on earth. The fact that one of the team members is NASA's Mars mission planner should be a clue. Mining an asteroid with robots and sending the ore to Mars is the cheapest way to get concentrated iron ore in one spot on Mars. It's more efficient than sending it from earth or mining it on Mars.

This iron could then be used for the construction of a large Mars base. These guys are planning a lot further ahead that you give them credit for.

If these are allowed, and it turns out they do in fact provide a significant advantage over biological legs, coaches will start putting pressure on professional runners to amputate their legs and have blades fitted in the interest of their careers.

Yes. This wouldn't change my opinion of Wikipedia, rather this would make me think that a lot of slashdot posters have an over-inflated view of their own writing abilities.

Except for me, of course. [citation needed]

I feel like going through all the slashdot comments like this that basically say "I made a great edit and it was reverted for no reason" and adding [citation needed] to them, because not a single one of you has provided a link to your allegedly great edit. Maybe you're just not as good an author as you think you are? Please prove me wrong with a link.

Indeed - but a reductio ad absurdam is most effective when the initial premise (in this case that more heat is good) is false. I'm not disputing that life could exist on Venus though since it also has usable temperature gradients, as evidenced by its weather. However we're better off looking for life on a planet or moon that doesn't destroy spacecraft within an hour of their landing on the surface, which Venus does.

I assume then that the interior of the sun would be a good place to look for life, because of all the heat?

You don't need a high temperature to drive the chemistry of life - you need a temperature gradient so that work can be done by transferring heat energy from one location to another. Titan has this due to internal heating from tidal forces, as has Europa. Life may operate at a slower pace in a cold environment, but the right catalysts could improve this.

Gamers 4 Croydon are running a candidate against Michael Atkinson in the next election for the Croydon seat. Vote for them if you really want to see an R18+ rating in Australia.

Perhaps Conroy will bring a copy of the official list with him, to prove that this leaked list isn't the same. To any Australians reading - the solution to this problem is simple. Do not vote Labor! And tell all your Aussie friends to not vote Labor too.

Harpooned is the world's finest cetacean research simulator. It's free, runs on low spec machines and I made it.