Or that Bioware either couldn't or didn't adopt the AI and story-driven mechanics from that whole series of games when it was making the Galactic Strike Fighter expansion for SWTOR.

And he left out George O. Smith's "Venus Equilateral" stories, where the invention of a matter transmitter — quickly repurposed as a replicator — causes an economic collapse that is brought back to a semi-capitalistic basis (with a duplicator and a set of recordings, an individual's basic needs are met) through the…

The older and less-capable Russian anti-ship missiles, like refinements of the old Termit and Pyatyorka, are subsonic, but the Bazalt, Vulkan, and Granit can all exceed Mach 2, and they went into service back in the '70s and '80s.

The efficiency claimed for the Dvorak layout doesn't actually exist. In the 1950s, the General Services Administration commissioned a full controlled study (as opposed to the less-than-rigorous study performed in 1944 by the Navy), and found that QWERTY and Dvorak typists achieved equal speed and accuracy, and that…

If it hurt, you're probably doing it wrong. I taught myself to do it, although I generally don't bother unless I have a reason — sneezing while I'm driving is one, where keeping my eyes open means I don't miss something popping out at me. It's annoying to do, and it feels weird, but it doesn't hurt.

The question I have is, given that it's passed through contact with the bodily fluids of an infected individual, and that it's a virus, not a bacterium, how long does it remain infectious in the bodily fluids on and around a dead body? If I remember correctly, at least one of the Americans who has contracted Ebola did…

The contra-rotating stacked rotor design that the S-97 incorporates addresses the retreating blade stall problem; with the two rotors turning in opposite directions, there is one advancing and one retreating blade on each side, which keeps the lift balanced.

ikea doesn't sell houses.

What are you doing that needs so much privacy even with a legal warrant?

That the 'modern' tartan setts were associated with particular clans (and, in many cases, the setts themselves) is largely an invention of the Sobieski brothers is well-proven; the history of any organizational association with particular setts was lost during the period the Act of Proscription enforced a ban on…

The stereotype of unhorsed knights on their back and unable to get up is an artifact from late-period jousting, when it had become more stylized, and the contest ended when one competitor was unhorsed, rather than continuing on foot. Instead of being pointed for penetration, lances often had blunt or pronged heads to…

Not only that, it looks to have an annoyingly small capacity. I've got a 4-quart filter dispenser that I keep in the fridge, and I just remember to fill up a pitcher at the sink and pour it into the top now and then. That jug doesn't look as if it would be enough for the 32-ounce glasses of iced tea I make when I…

Easier than finding all the hosts under the atlassolutions.com domain and adding them as '0.0.0.0' entries in your hosts file, yes. And it gives me one more reason not to sign up for a Facebook account.

The Kottke article about changing track gauge is misleading, too; it fails to note that the Germans had the same problem in Russia; Germany and the rest of Europe used the 1,435mm standard gauge that the US did, but Russia used its own 1,520mm gauge, requiring shipments of men and materiel to be transferred from…

Oh, yes; far more realistic. When engaging enemy forces that have to close to melee range to attack, your tactics are to run up to spitball range, spray full-automatic fire wildy until one of your unit is killed, then retreat in disorder. When proceeding across country, make sure that you travel along the bottoms of…

It's a pity, then, that the "98% of scientists" factoid is based on a sample size of 77 scientists (75 of whom agreed with the premise) who had been successful in getting more than half of their papers recently accepted by peer-reviewed climate science journals, out of some 3,000 scientists who responded from the…

can remember two from high school that were particularly entertaining.

Lincoln's got enough offenses that he actually did — suspending habeus corpus, shutting down newspapers that printed editorials critical of the way he carried on the war and arresting the editors who wrote them; arresting, trying, and deporting Congressman Clement Vallandigham; ignoring US Supreme Court decisions when…

If you assume that Microsoft is buying Minecraft to boost flagging products, then you can expect it to be available for Xbox, Windows Phone, and Windows 8, with no support for Windows 7 or any other platform.

"Minecraft... Only on Xbox."