Stop reading if you would have taken the blue pill.

Fundamentally "you" is merely an illusion that is constructed from your brain processing all the data it has at its disposal, including memories, at a phenomenal speed.

I put it to you that there really is no such thing as 'you' the 'one individual entity'.

Say, if you were to be replaced for a year by 'clone you' ('you you' is kept in suspended animation), and then the clone's memories transferred back to 'you you' after one year... you go on living your life as if nothing has happened.

We instinctively feel that the "chain has been broken" somehow by being replaced by a whole new physical clone... that somehow this means that it is a different person taking over, a "fake" version of you, that the real you has died.

But how is that any different from the following hypothetical scenario... you replace yourself by a clone version, however this time you do it one bit at a time, say starting with your toes. Over say the space of a day you still eventually turn fully into a clone.

That clone.... would feel like he was you, when he's not you... surely? Is he you, or is he not you?

If he's not you...at which point exactly did 'you' end in that scenario? What if you were given a general anaesthetic during that process and woke up "fully clone".

The truth is, we may as well always be clones, we're effectively always a new version of ourselves, a software human, that has to be rebuilt continually from our memories or cease to be. We're not the one, same, individual person travelling through time, that's all just an illusion. We are millions of recreations, millions of still images blurring into the moving images that we call consciousness...

There are no atoms left in you now that were there when you were born.

Welcome to the real world...

On Voyager, Nelix was programming dishes that were non Earth native and from planets where they hadn't been, so it would be difficult to use existing ingredient building blocks.

Likewise, a pork pie wouldn't be made up with just pork, pastry etc. it is the process that is applied to the raw product that makes the end product, it wouldn't be easy to program like that. I'd think more like programming final molecule chains into the system?

How does one go about cleaning the muck in a laptop keyboard? Mini hoover? Pipe cleaner?

Wetwipes to clean the keys and compressed air to blow out the crud

If no access to compressed air then invert the laptop and use a hairdryer.

Probably not the best idea unless it's on cold mode

Or just tip it upside down and bang it

Are we still talking about laptops?

Always wanted to try this stuff

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cyber-Clean-Hom ... oard+putty

Depends on the laptop but I tend to remove the keys and then clean using a brush that I use for detailing (megs triple duty). Failing that, compressed air and the above brush.

I unplug the keyboard and use a cleaning spray, but then I have the new Apple keyboards so not like the old crumb catchers. Though I use a micro-fibre cloth for screens now.

Pancakes are as flat as a pancake, obviously. Unless you're American in which case a pancake is a drop scone.

So what do they say when something gets squished?

Pizza?

How powerful would a laser need to be to shoot down a house fly?