I've not gone into the details of this ..

.. but I'd *guess* the patent is for the control of an application by gesture on a touchscreen NOT for the software to implement that. After all it could be by an ASIC or some other means.

Still thin-end of the wedge-ish

In the first Foundation novel (~1951)..

Hari Seldon's (?) new recruit, Gaal Dornick, wasn't offered the use of Seldon's 'calcPAD' or something similar to do a quick bit of psychohistory prediction.

It doesn't record if it was a calculator-like device or more like a tablet

x86

Sure, my workflow would be twin Xeon Linux workstation, if need more grunt x86 Linux farm (1024 nodes), finally supercomputer somewhere.

Sounds very high to me too.

It'd be costing ~~£150/year

Coming from the other direction I worked out ~180kg coal (~~equivalent to 630kg CO2) spread over the year would generate ~~30W which still seems high

Plenty of people are thinking about ...

Fuel cells (although AFAIK not chocolate powered ones)

Seriously it's just a device to show how poor the energy density of batteries is compared with (say) the equivalent weight of hydrocarbon. It's only the same as electric car range 50 miles/ diesel car 600 miles

The scientific community

are most likely to use Linux workstations, Linux farms or supers running Linux.

Chocolate

Assuming that chocolate is ~100% fat & completely oxidized

1g = ~37kJ

So the chocolate equivalent of my 300g laptop battery would be ~~11MJ

That should keep it going a while !

Reminds me about the time ..

I wrote a 6802 assembler in 6809 BASIC. Took ~2 hrs to assemble ~ 500 bytes

OpenSUSE 11.0-11.4

I've got 6 machines running various version - very different hardware from dual-core atom to dual core AMD to mCeleron. All have installed/run flawlessly.

"but space is curved by the various optics"

This is nonsense !

"Because there's just no scope of abuse there is there?"

It's only like ANY other legislation

Eh?

From LibreOffice help

"If you decide to enter a number directly as a text string, enter an apostrophe (') first. For example, for years in column headings, you can enter '1999, '2000 and '2001. The apostrophe is not visible in the cell, it only indicates that the entry is to be recognised as text and not as a number."

and it works for me !

Re : Why control key

Thanks, I 'd just read it as though it was necessary for SSH.

"wanting to ssh into Linux systems"

Am I missing something ? - I SSH into my Linux systems all the time without a control key.

Just asking.

"between tinkering with the engine and driving to the shops."

Trivial beyond belief !

Having spent YEARS protein modeling, designing PCBs and writing software then all I can say is that internet access is a great addition but NOT the only use for my computers.

Not all will be sacked ....

for how can any business manage without HR ( now to be renamed Robot Resources) ?

By the way..

the greenhouse effect increases HEAT retention but heat != temperature. For example the same amount of energy might raise a cubic meter of air by x degrees or a cubic meter of water by y degrees depending on the Specific Heat of the materials involved. The more telling example is that ice at 0C will not change in temperature until sufficient heat has been added to melt the ice.

It just shows how complicated a picture it all is. It looks like it is difficult to calculate the balance of heat in v. heat out. Approximating the resultant temperature change must be a nightmare.

Certainly..

years ago I had £50000 transfered into my account ( this is when £50000 would have bought a nice 4-bed detached house in good area), unfortunately a few days later it left just as quickly.

Re : Patented salt?

One patents a use : the actual chemical compound is an example that is suitable for the use.

Well-known salts like sodium chloride can be included in a patent if a new use is found.

What !

It keeps plain text passwords in memory - good grief !

There's nothing in Relativity..

that denies FTL velocity. The only restriction is that an object with mass can't accelerate to c without infinite energy. On the other hand anything traveling FTL can't DECELERATE to c without an infinite energy.

So a sort of

Great Program Counter in the Sky ?

Or for the hyperspace believers just use a JMP instruction

"how does gravity operate..."

From General Relativity mass/energy bends spacetime - anything moving in spacetime follows the bend.

It was the first test of General Relativity.

The more mundane one happens everyday as GPS clocks are set to correct for various time mangling effects due to velocity/gravity

"scifi writers came up with the concept.."

I think you'll find relativitists came up with the concept of wormholes

4-velocity

Light moving at c in vacuo doesn't experience the passage of time at all as far as I'm aware all it's motion is in space.

Google 4-velocity or 4-vector for an explanation

"but by the 13th century, ..."

Quite a lot of people would have thought it was flat, or more like not thought about it at all. They were more concerned with witches, demons and such.

Any sailor who had left the sight of land and returned and anyone who had observed them would have a fairly good idea that it wasn't flat, as would many well-read people.

"Any decent scientist will tell you that Einsteins theory of relativity...."

Any decent scientist will tell you that every theory is provisional and any hard negative evidence is likely to be its death-knell.

However Relativity isn't at that point - all tests show agreement. No rival theory matches it for the depth or quality of its experimental verification

Load of tosh

There's always been science and technology - the only difference now is the rate of progress and coordination of information combined with formal education

We'd never have become a more 'advanced' society without it.

Re : A skeptical dreamer

So all those Androids and iPads are waiting for a Windows to run on them to become usable ?

"Carbon dioxide is essential to life on the planet."

Low level are necessary but high levels are lethal - the argument is about the middle ground.and it's possible consequences.

It's rather like saying iron is a good thing full stop but not mentioning that swords, guns and tanks are built from it

Re : Prior Art

It doesn't stop prior art invalidating a patent.

"Invented first" is a pain

It means having to document everything you do AND get someone else outside your immediate project to witness that you've done it AND that they understand what you've done. In drug research it can mean someone signing and understanding EVERY page of a lab notebook.

talent upset you

IGNORANCE is pure bliss (in your case) !

If you are scientifically trained..

you will know that although many areas of science have unknowns and therefore contain possibilities other areas are more constrained by extensive experimental evidence.

So Special Relativity gives the kinetic energy of an object moving at high speed which for the sort of velocity necessary for even a forty year trip to the nearest star is absolutely colossal and that's per tonne. Plasma drive or not that energy is needed and the mass of fuel/engine also needs colossal energy to accelerate it.

Any conjecture about FTL/warp rightly is in the realms of SF as there isn't a jot of evidence and only highly dubious theories.

SF is great, the moon landings were great (I was 18 at the time ) but too many people seem to think ANYTHING is possible. It isn't !

If you want to grow plants

just release it to the atmosphere.

It's not that CO2 doesn't get converted to carbohydrates in plants it's the RATE of CO2 production that's the problem with the current use of fossil fuels. Not enough growing area to absorb it all. Putting it into a greenhouse only helps a little if at all and you need to make the glass.

This is rubbish..

Absolute rubbish.

Don't believe all you see on the Internet and esp. youtube

Trouble is ..

The vulcans already have a patent.

"Old physics will do "

And you are going to stop at the other end how precisely ?

But

0.99C is ~14000 1000MW power stations for a year for 1TONNE at 100% efficiency.

Everything else is (WILD) speculation

You need to calculate the energy

At 0.99C the relativistic kinetic energy is ~5E20 J PER TONNE - that's a staggering amount of energy. So you need (at least) that to accelerate to 0.99C and then again to decelerate.

All this assumes a propulsion system that is efficient and isn't totally burdened by it's own mass

From "Hitchhikers..."

"In Relativity, Matter tells Space how to curve, and Space tells Matter how to move.

The Heart of Gold told space to get knotted, and parked itself neatly within the inner steel perimeter of the Argabuthon Chamber of Law"

"if you have a powerful enough engine."

That's the first requirement even if all the other problems can be overcome. To get to the nearest stars in a 'reasonable' time (~40 years say) the energy requirements are truly awesome.

I calculate for 1 tonne moving at 0.1C ( ~40 years) the kinetic energy is ~4.5E17 J . That's equivalent to 14 1000MW power stations for 1 year.

You'd definitely need a BIG power source which would add it's own weight.

Solving the big energy question is a necessary step. (unless there really is some new physics as yet undiscovered)

Incest

With enough inbreeding you get genetically very similar people who are then all susceptible to the same environmental challenges ( infectious diseases for example )

"just why the planet is 70% water covered."

Well call me presumptious but I'd assumed it was down to the amount of water on the planet and the topography + some feedback connection with above sea-level ice.