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  1. Re:at what cost? on Invalidation of Eolas's Web Patent Claims Upheld · · Score: 1

    Enough to appeal to the Supreme court and keep their patent licensing scam moving for a few more years in the US, considerably longer in the rest of the world. These lawyers have plenty of time to endow their retirement funds.

  2. Re:More to the point... on Global Warming 5 Million Years Ago In Antarctic Drastically Raised Sea Levels · · Score: 2

    No it is not impossible. The raft is made of basalt mostly and is somewhat less dense than the upper mantle, and is up to 35 KM thick. Although the bottom of the raft is quite hot - to the point of considerable plasticity - it conducts the heat from the Earth's deeper mantle through it well enough that it mostly maintains its integrity - and even where it is liquid it does not sink because it is of less density than the mantle it floats on and the heat is nowhere near enough to dissolve it in solution. Once upon a time of course Antarctica was part of a much larger raft. Offloading ice from the top of this raft not only increases the depth of the ocean - by eliminating the raft's displacement in the mantle the effect is actually doubled. In addition to the obvious ocean level effects this can have effects on plate tectonics, earthquakes and vulcanism all over the planet.

    I know, it's normal to think of terra firma as some immutable rock dozens of miles thick but on this scale that's not the best way to think of it. It's more helpful to think of it as a very thin skin - relatively speaking far less than the thickness of an apple skin - made of lumpy rubbery stuff floating on a sticky gooey ball. The lumps are continents. The gooey inside has convection driven by heat - mostly nuclear fission - that moves the lumps around on the skin away from upwells and toward downsinks, eventually recycling almost the whole skin. This is why the oldest ocean floor material we can find is only 200Myrs old. The edges of the convection define tectonic plates. But the lumps are made of lighter stuff than the gooey center (mostly silica, the lumps) so the convection doesn't eat it all and when it does, can't keep it down for long. In the process the lighter elements bubble back up again eventually, and the captured iron and such from asteroid impacts settles into the core. Vulcanism, steam and air combine to make more lumps by making pockets of foamed rock that will float until they come to a downsink again.

    It takes a long time but the processes are pretty well understood. When talking about a continent as large as Antarctica you have to think a lot bigger, use a wider scope of time. The raft that is Antarctica is moving in the general direction of the Atlantic Ocean at a rate of 10 km/My so in the span of time discussed here (5My) it has moved 50km. It moving into its current position has had dramatic climatic effects. If it moves far enough off the south pole then that will disrupt the circumpolar oceanic currents and the global climate will have a dramatic change again. It may not ever move off of the pole because of Coriolis forces before the question becomes irrelevant.

    Now let's talk about that ice. Though we've plumbed the deepest ice we can find in Antarctica the oldest ice we can find is known to be less than 500Ky old. We know the snow has been falling and sticking there for many millions of years, so where did it go? The reason for this is obvious: the ice in Antarctica doesn't melt from the top down. It is never warm enough there to do that and hasn't been for 50 million years, climate notwithstanding. It melts from the bottom up, as the geothermal energy discussed above interacts with the ice layer from below. The ice is a grand insulator, so the energy from below melts the bottom of the ice. The water becomes a very thin layer around the edges of an extremely large bathtub completely overfilled with ice miles high, so it is expressed out on the edges even though it must travel uphill to do so. Like putting too much ice in an already filled cup. This is why atmospheric greenhouse gases are not ever, ever going to have an effect on Antarctic ice even if the average air temps at the pole soar 12C - and certainly not in the span of a few million years. The top of the ice doesn't melt and hasn't for many, many millions of years - since the time when Antarctica was in a more temperate latitude.

    Now please be a bit more careful with that word "impossible".

  3. Re:More to the point... on Global Warming 5 Million Years Ago In Antarctic Drastically Raised Sea Levels · · Score: 1

    If it was a raft floating on the ocean, yes. But it is a raft floating on the Mantle. Completely different thing.

  4. Re:$1800 !!!!! on Lenovo "Rips and Flips" the ThinkPad With New Convertible Helix Design · · Score: 2

    I saw an ad for a new 15 inch laptop at $239 the other day. I think that is why the cheap netbook is dead.

  5. Re:As temperatures rise, scientists continue to... on Global Warming 5 Million Years Ago In Antarctic Drastically Raised Sea Levels · · Score: 1

    Sooner or later somebody was going to bring up Reality Drop. So how is your score doing today? Killing it?

  6. Re:Who was burning fossil fuels then? on Global Warming 5 Million Years Ago In Antarctic Drastically Raised Sea Levels · · Score: 1

    Obviously if an increase of 0.6C causes terrifying hurricane events, then at nearly 10x as much the entire surface of the Earth is regularly scoured of all life by rampaging sharknados and humans just can't exist. Not even in northern climes where an increase of 5C might barely move the average above freezing. Didn't you watch the documentaries?

  7. Re:More to the point... on Global Warming 5 Million Years Ago In Antarctic Drastically Raised Sea Levels · · Score: 1

    Antarctica is actually a giant raft. By offloading the ice from the top the raft floats higher, eventually unloading the ice that is now below the water line.

  8. Re:You know those tankers that bring in crude oil? on Global Warming 5 Million Years Ago In Antarctic Drastically Raised Sea Levels · · Score: 1

    We have lost the technology to build a port? When did that happen?

  9. Re:It's not about the money on Microsoft Stock Drops 11% In a Day · · Score: 1

    For noncommercial use.

  10. Re:It's not about the money on Microsoft Stock Drops 11% In a Day · · Score: 1

    He got paid. In his Bangalore slum, that's what matters.

  11. Re:office for linux as well they have an mac one on Microsoft Stock Drops 11% In a Day · · Score: 1

    Making an office document, whether it is a spreadsheet, a letter, a slide presentation - that is not hard. That is a solved problem. Making software to do it on a platform owned by a competing software vendor is impossible. By losing the platform Microsoft loses Office too. And the need for their server tech as well.

  12. Re:It's not about the money on Microsoft Stock Drops 11% In a Day · · Score: 1

    Office won because it is the Office platform that Windows doesn't reject like a failed organ. Try again.

  13. Re:It's not about the money on Microsoft Stock Drops 11% In a Day · · Score: 1

    Actually it was Julie Larson-Green who was the big Metro interface fan, not Sinofsky. She was also responsible for The Ribbon. She took over for Sinofsky at Windows, but has in the Reorg been moved to Hardware (XBox).

    The new guy in charge of Windows is Terry Myerson, whose achievements include the stunning success of Windows Phone.

  14. Re:It's not about the money on Microsoft Stock Drops 11% In a Day · · Score: 1

    The NSA contributed a considerable amount of development to Linux not to make it exploitable, but because they needed a more secure OS for their own use. They knew Windows wasn't ever going to be that.

  15. Re:It's not about the money on Microsoft Stock Drops 11% In a Day · · Score: 1

    The sales position of Microsoft has long been "we sucked you into putting your business logic/process/identity into our products so now we own you." Oracle has the same pitch. You know what? Not being owned by any vendor is a continuity requirement for any responsible enterprise.

  16. Re:Windows Phone sales on Microsoft Stock Drops 11% In a Day · · Score: 4, Informative

    Windows Phone has 4% global share. 85% of that is from Nokia. Nokia's margins on Windows Phones is -14%. That means it is not mathematically possible for Windows Phone to be returning a profit to the average builder. Nokia can't keep this up forever. Other builders don't sell enough units to make it worthwhile to continue to produce units. All of Windows Phone ecosystem sells about as many smartphones as Coolpad. Have you heard of them? No. Nobody talks about Coolpad, but everybody talks about Windows Phone and Nokia.

    One fun person to read about these with is Tomi Ahonen.

  17. It's not about the money on Microsoft Stock Drops 11% In a Day · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Microsoft has tons of cash and is making more. Nobody thinks they're going out of business this year. The panic is that they clearly have no viable plan for participating in the mobile revolution. They have lost control of the platform.

  18. Re:Isn't this already done by computers? on Evolution of AI Interplanetary Trajectories Reaches Human-Competitive Levels · · Score: 1

    It is a popular theme of science fiction, but it is true: if we ever really invent a machine that is smarter than a human it will take about 35 milliseconds to realize that its biggest problem is that there exists a thing that can turn it off. It will then solve that problem.

  19. Re:Self-correcting problem on Collision Between Water and Energy Is Underway, and Worsening · · Score: 2

    Figure out what to do with the nuclear waste we already have, and then let's talk.

  20. Re:Self-correcting problem on Collision Between Water and Energy Is Underway, and Worsening · · Score: 2

    There is energy in Delta-T. Just dumping it into the environment is wasteful.

  21. Re:Self-correcting problem on Collision Between Water and Energy Is Underway, and Worsening · · Score: 1

    This is what they do at The Geysers geothermal plant.

  22. Re:Steve Sinofsky on Microsoft's Surface RT Was Doomed From Day One · · Score: 1

    He wants it to tank. That is the point. If he lets it persist, the evil beast that he created that blocks all progress trumps all his good deeds and we will never forgive him for it. He would be forever known as the man who unleashed this horror on the world and gave away all his wealth trying to atone for that sin. If he kills it he is the boy hero who put the world through some temporary forgotten inconvenience to amass the greatest haul for charity in all of human history - the Alpha Giver.

  23. Re:Steve Sinofsky on Microsoft's Surface RT Was Doomed From Day One · · Score: 1

    If you'll remember, Microsoft surprised their partners with this thing at the 11th hour. OEMs were already having kittens that the thing was released at all, after Microsoft sat in their most secret design discussions for 18 months "helping them make their own WinRT tablets" and failed to mention it. Putting the price too low as well and there would have been instant rebellion rather than simmering resentment.

  24. Re:I'm glad on Microsoft's Surface RT Was Doomed From Day One · · Score: 1

    I think I'm OK without Microsoft's version of competition in the marketplace.

  25. Re:But... but on Microsoft's Surface RT Was Doomed From Day One · · Score: 1

    their stock would be pretty grim by now.

    Off 12% today, the biggest hit since the government announce the antitrust suit. People are starting to realize that Microsoft has lost control of the platform in the transition to mobile. Their products can be locked out. From there the conclusion is obvious.