Thermodynamic Turtles

@AC

>Heretic! There are only 4 elephants! It's *turtles* all the way down!

One Turtle only, please. We don't need no stinking extra universes.

@Paul Buxton and @AC

The end of the world is not in September. It is in December. 12/12/2012, to be precise. As to everybody else, .999 &c. clearly is equal to 1. I have Excel open right now and it says so right there.

Send the money now!

I have calculated the largest prime, also the largest Mersenne prime: infinity. You may send me my check now.

Screwed Up from Day 1

This would have been so easy. Here's my thoughts from the time when "they" first started spouting the electronic voting idea:

1. Go into a booth.

2. Do the touch screen thing to select various candidates/issues to vote against.

3. Your ballot prints out on a laser printer

4. You look at it to confirm it's right.

5. You put it into an OCR reader.

6. Ballot pops out the other side.

7. You toss it into a lockbox and go to Waffle House.

The ballot is counted electronically twice and left on paper for audit. What could be simpler? What could be cheaper?

@Ron Enderland

GEOWORKS WAS FANTASTIC. It worked - and worked well.

Come Children - BELIEVE!

"[E]veryone who actually remembers using this operating system is long gone."

What?

I clearly remember seeing the "Windows Toy," as I liked to call it, start up on a computer I purchased when I was in college. It was an accident - I hadn't yet edited it out of autoexec.bat.

But I do remember! I do, I do, I DO remember!

Let's not to be condescending

It's SF, not sci-fi. Sheesh!

No Anti-Fuss

Well of /course/ they're letting it go through without oversight. That's what the Bush administration is /for/! Jee willikers, sometimes I just have to wonder whatever happened with WOW & Co. that el Reg doesn't have anything better to report on.... <uncontrollablesmirk>

Bottom Line

Let's step back a moment here. The most essential right of human kind is the right to be let alone. A little less cultural arrogance in the some of the comments to this story would be well taken. "We" are not "better" than "them."

@Dave

OK, fair enough, Dave, but don't forget that your son's loss of his password is final. Without the User Tools and Groups snapin that comes only with XP <strike>Standard </strike>Pro you cannot reset his password without headache or $$.

Such an offer - NOT!

Who in their right mind would want to install XP "Home" Edition on anything?!

Not Perpetual

It's not totally efficient. No problem. But shouldn't it still run so long as power is provided (i.e., hot processor) and the parts don't wear out?

That's a paddlin

The term "social engineering" - particularly without quotes - should not be used in reputable journals. Doing so imparts to this intentional criminal activity an aura of respectability which it in no wise deserves. Stop it.

El Reg?? Anybody Home?? Anybody??

So where's the link to the Java update?

Aw, Crapulence!

The hands-down best Destroyer of English (and Gluminosity) in decades. P. Anthony could not hold my interest, but book-after-book-after-book - and let's not forget Good Omens - Terry kept creating. Yes, he IS a British national treasure, and in fact a national treasure of English writing and English literature. Keep on writing, Terry!

A LITTLE HELP HERE?

Sheep in a vacuum. Big deal. What about the speed of a swallow carrying a coconut across the ocean? Now go away with your newfangled standards or I shall taunt you again.

Yawn

Great review, but it discussed everything *except* the most eagerly anticipated item for any Motorola cellular telephone: A decent contact/address book system* combined with software that (1) has even a modicum of usefulness and (2) has had its field mapping actually tested before being released to production.

*Defined as one that allows at least two telephone numbers and one email address in each contact entry, that doesn't split such entries when saving to the SIM card (as opposed to the phone), and has zero difference in application regardless of whether an entry is saved to the phone or to the SIM card.

Back to COCONUTS!

I *STILL* say we should go back to swallows, oceans, and coconuts. There is no need for all this new math! I shall be writing a very firm letter to The Times tomorrow - and I don't even live in the U.K. So there.

Kudos to all

Anonymous Coward: Speding is a strict liability offense. Intent don't enter into it.

Frank Bough: If you don't have an expert witness, you lose. The state, however, gets off scott free because *it* gets to "prove" reliability in a single state or district wide case and forever after the defense gets to prove itself innocent, or at least not guilty, while the state rakes in the cash.

Filippo Negroni: Yes, take EVERY case to court. In my experience, in Ohio you'll get out of about 20% of them if you do.

Hedley Phillips: BECAUSE THE LIMITS ARE WRITTEN TO PATRONISE THE LOCAL NEWS AND OTHER CHIKEN LITTLES, THAT'S WHY! Speed limits have nothing to do with the design of the road or the objective conditions. Your point, however, is well taken.