Re: "I think BT tower would fit in with any of our major cities."

Buy it? Hmm, might be out of my price range, but tell you what. I'm willing to trade you one of our bridges in Brooklyn for the tower. Toss in a couple jars of Marmite and you've got a deal.

Lifetime ban from Amazon (was Re: alternatively...)

Ooh, there's a threat.

I already get most of my books from non-Amazon sources (Calibre itself will find sources for you, and there are still these things called "bookstores" out in the real world). My e-reader is not a Kindle, and just in general there is no reason to yoke oneself to Amazon anyway.

Re: Weebles Wobble But Energy Has to Go Somewhere

Some of those problems were solved in the seventies -- a flywheel doesn't have to have the same stability as a hard drive, although you're right that there will be energy loss.

Indeed, even the "flexible" aspect was done in the seventies, although the designs I saw had the fibers spinning radially out from the axis, rather than wrapped around the circumference. Bearings, vacuum containers, yes, this is old technology probably re-written with modern materials.

So probably most of your questions have been dealt with. The main questions are whether, even after all that, will the energy density still be good enough to make this worthwhile.

Re: Or you could consider a simpler explanation, TRADE

Didn't read the article, did you.

"First, there are no records among the historical, archaeological, or linguistic literature of exchange among the Gilbert Islands and people in the Solomon Islands (the nearest location for C. sorrah) or Fiji (for C. obscurus). Second, the Gilbertese had a well-developed shark fishery using a variety of techniques and exploiting a variety of habitats [21], reducing the need to import a locally obtainable resource."

Re: The problem with ereaders

EPUB3 would be critical for me, but I read stuff with math formulas in it, so I may not be a typical customer.

Re: Someone doesn't know their history of astronomy

Beat me to it. Yes, this is another reason why Vulcan isn't a good choice. The book listed in the Wikipedia article, In Search of Planet Vulcan, by Richard Baum and William Sheehan, is very good, particularly in describing the expeditions to observe Vulcan's supposed transits.

Re: Could be worse

I guess none of you morons see the "Joke Alert" icon?

Yes, we saw it. It was therefore incumbent on him to follow up with an actual joke. That he tried to shoehorn yet another MS screed into an article on blackmail shows more than just insensitivity, it's perilously close to thinking it's the 1950s and rape jokes are funny.

That you were dumb enough to write one of the more idiotic responses in defense of eadon says it all about you.

Re: @ Matt Byrant

No, obviously no one is saying that. Nice try moving the goalposts though.

Re: Here say?

Prosecutors and judges do occasionally get put on trial, but it's a high bar. The presumption is that they are operating in good faith, and it's hard to prove otherwise. No one involved in the Rolando Cruz debacle (the case that started the suffered any lasting consequences.

And just to make this properly international, this is hardly an exclusively American phenomenon, e.g.:

"It is better that some innocent men remain in jail than the integrity of the English judicial system be impugned."

Lord Denning, 1988

Re: Maybe

Perfection is, after all, anything with an apple logo on it.

Well said. I am going to use this every chance I get.

Yes, ironically of course.

Re: C++ put me off programming

I used Stroustrups book to write a very simple program in 1996, and we still use it today, unmodified.

Okay, that startled me. I'm sure his writing has improved since then, but his first book was a miracle of obfuscation and a love of jargon. I suspect part of that may have stemmed from the fact that he wanted to show all the really cool stuff he'd created (multiple inheritance, for example, was not considered practical in a compiled language before C++; B.S. even said that he implemented it early because he was told he wouldn't be able to do it), but the end result was a book that was useless as a teaching tool and could only be used as a reference on a good day.

It sounds like fifteen years of experience has given him some perspective though. I'll be interested to see what his next book is like.

Re: Palm Pilot never tried to be anything more than a digital diary and contacts list.

Not to mention a limited DBA app for off-site Sybase monitoring. I owned three Palm Pilots all told, and never regretted it.

(There was also a bridge [the card game] and a rogue app, which of course I never used on company time.)

Re: Some games not mentioned that I have on my Nexus 7

Osmos HD got listed back in February (see <http://www.reghardware.com/2012/02/28/mobile_gaming_week_ten_android_games/>).

I downloaded Osmos HD, Babel Rising, and Refraction thanks to that article. I'll probably be checking out Oscura thanks to this article.

(Meanwhile I'll check out Droidfish. Thanks. Chess and chess-style games are of interest to me, and I've already got a Shogi app and a Laser Chess).

Re: It's amazing the number of problems that go away when you use Thermite.

Hmm.

Eyes the stubborn stain in the bathtub.

Thermite, eh?

Re: I DEMAND

Does a subscription to New Boffin include a complementary (and apparently child-friendly) pipe? If so, I'm in for a 3-year subscription.

Re: Most excellent!

(Movie) Jame Bond would disagree with you about cufflinks in general.

These cufflinks in particular -- I see that they're open source, with the CAD and software files hosted on github.

Just how did you miss that opportunity for ironic commentarding?

Re: Does anyone actually do this?

You've actually got multiple questions there.

1) Do I buy books even though I own an e-reader? Yes.

Personally I think the mass market paperback format is dead, but the hardcover format is still alive for me, and when I want a good edition of a book that I like, it's going to be in hardcover.

(Books that I do buy in e-format tend to be technical books that will become obsolete, or the equivalent of airplane novels.)

2) So do I buy those books in a bookstore? Yes.

Someday I'll unleash my rant on an unsuspecting world about the difference between browsing and searching, but for now, yes, a bookstore experience is still superior to the on-line experience, even with the "people who bought 'A Novel' also bought 'B Novel' suggestions.

Supporting my local bookstore over Amonopolyzon is important.

3) Does that mean I will always buy a book I see in a bookstore over the e-book format? No.

See 1) above. Not all books really need (or deserve) to be in physical format.

Re: Does It Run Linux

Snark aside, this is a question I wish the reviewers would answer more often, along with the related question "Does it run BSD?"

I realize it's not the easiest question, since I imagine you have to return the machine in more-or-less the same state that you got it, but it is a question you could start asking the manufacturers. Even a "don't know" response would be revealing.

Re: So what about those of us that got locked out?

You're pretty much S.O.L.

The previous wave of Hotmail break-ins had the side-effect of killing off community forums because the forum owner couldn't connect with his or her hotmail account. No help from Microsoft then, either.

Re: And this is a problem why?

Want to? No.

Prefer to not give special treatment to a large corporation so that it can extend its monopolist practices? Yes.

Sheesh. We need a new acronym. DMDA: Decry Microsoft, Defend Amazon.

Re: I'm happy enough using HTML but...

It was a demo by Verity Stob, who used Delphi to do the work. I've no idea why she signed her rights over to El Reg.

Re: At last someone's twigged

Not only that, but it's back looks like it would make an excellent cheese-cutting board.

3D Printed

I think you've just come up with an idea for Vulture 3.