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Boy, remind me not to get on their bad side! They may pray me to death with their eerie powers...

No, like this.

I knew a correctional officer who frequently used stun guns on rowdy inmates. They called it "The funky Chicken" because of the inmates' jerks and spasms which were often so severe that they would shit and piss on themselves.

Stun guns != tasers, but keep that in mind the next time you mess with authority.

It still beats the amount of coal you have to dig up by a couple orders of magnitude.

There's 6,150 kWh/ton of energy in coal, you generally get 2,460 kWh/ton of electricity - actual results depends on plant efficiency and grade of coal.

Uranium, on the other hand, gives you 360,000 kWh per Kilogram, Or 327 Million kWh per ton of Uranium(actual generation). Given that each ton of fuel provides 133k times the power, that you need to refine the stuff tends to become background noise.

And 100 tons of refined fuel isn't necessary for a reactor - A gigawatt plant will produce ~ 7.8 Billion kwh in a year. This will consume 21,900 kilograms of fuel, or 24 short tons.

For the 100k to 1 ratio:
The Economics of nuclear energy: In order to obtain(after refining) 150 tonnes of natural uranium, the requirement would involve mining, at most, some 300 000 tonnes of ore[5].

That's a 2,000 to 1 ratio - not a 100,000 to 1. Worst case. Some Uranium 'mining' techniques utilize leaching to essentially dissolve the uranium in the mine and collect the liquid Uranium at the bottom, without extensive extraction of ore.

It also says: Such a quantity of natural uranium burnt in a reactor for one year would generate as much electricity as would a coal-fired station burning over two million tonnes of coal.

Don't forget that construction costs for an equivalent amount of wind/solar stations is even higher for the nuclear fission plant, and they aren't maintenance free.

There is good article on howstuffworks.com on turbo chargers. The basic principle is to take the exhaust run it through a fan which is then used to push more air into the motor for more power.

http://www.howstuffworks.com/turbo.htm

ASAIF, Harley simply trademarked the design of the engine that produces that sound. http://auto.howstuffworks.com/harley3.htm Basically, the pistons don't fire evenly. I'm sure other slashdotters know much more about the design than I do, though.

1. may be particulate agglomerations that aren't solid enough to have something push at them,
2. are likely to be spinning, so that you would first need to stop their spin, otherwise see this
3. are likely to be of irregular shape and mass distribution that would make it difficult to push them efficiently in the direction you want without getting unwanted spin resulting.

Sure you could solve each of these problems individually, but a gravity tug bypasses them all at once, at the expense of needing either

1. more time to operate
2. a larger attractive mass requiring more energy to move both it and the target object

Probably the cheapest solution would be to refine a good sized nickel-iron asteroid into a compact solid metal mass and then attach a solar sail for thrust. Bonus points for compressing the metal mass into neutronium compressed by a diamond shell.

If this were happening in a "desert" location, it would probably be insignificant. Unfortunately it's not. It's happening where currents naturally draw things together. Things like food.

But it's exactly that - a desert.

First of all, Gyres are not caused by ocean currents (at least not this one) - they are caused by air currents.

Secondly, there really was not much there anyway - from How Stuff Works:

The area is an oceanic desert, filled with tiny phytoplankton but few big fish or mammals.

So as you see, you have it exactly right - it is happening in a desert, which is why it may not matter as much as they are making out. In fact the ocean is doing a damn good job of collecting crap which would otherwise be all over the place, and concentrating it exactly where it can do the least harm.

A counter might be it gets into the food chain through the tiniest organisms - but if the plastic all ends up here without escaping, how would the organisms? At least in any great quantity....

We should probably try to figure out how to clean it up, but it's not as bad as the hype is trying to lead you to believe.

HDSPA network (And everything after NMT900) is all digital unlike your old landline. The DSP to convert audio to/from acceptable codec for network is usually integrated with the digital modem.
I'm not knowledgeable enough of everything involved to explain the whole stack, but just trust me, there is no other magical "phone"-component aside the modem to make the calls in your cell phone.

Please stop trying to sound like a smart ass when replying if you want intelligent answers.

Comments like "This must be some new tech I never heard of before." in sarcastic tone look silly. Yes, apparently it is some new tech from 1991 you have never heard of before. (Google for first GSM network)

This is surprisingly good read.

The primary complaint will all of you arguments, mind you, is the expense of moving material in to orbit, and to the ground, safely.

We've already got the technology to do that; we've just stepped away from it. Project ORION is achievable using current technology, can move *vast* amount of material into space, and back onto the planet, and would release no more radiation that the various open-air nuclear tests of the previous century, and most likely a good deal less than the various coal burning power plants we have.

Estimates of the value of even a small number of space asteroids in terms of precious metals (techy ones, too) exceed hundreds of billions of dollars .

Low gravity for manufacturing? Okay. What exactly are we going to manufacture that will justify the cost required to ship it up and down the well?

I'd suggest that the combination of low gravity and virtually no prohibition against utilization of huge amounts of energy, and no risks of spreading contamination? One could possibly build some interesting things; a manufacturing plant on the dark side of the moon, using energy beamed down from solar satellites, as one would have to release a truly magnificent amount of radiation before it would negatively affect the earth.

2-3 asteroids might be sufficient to cover the development cost of a Project Orion powered mining program, while simultaneously flooding the world market with technologically useful minerals. New golden age? Who knows.

100+ asteroids, mined over a 30-50 year period, would be incalculable wealth to mankind.

Before flight, there were a great deal of naysayers who sounded a lot like you. Before deep-ocean capable vessels were developed, the entirety of the western world thought that venturing into the Atlantic was pure idiocy. When the Arabs first discovered oil beneath their sands, they couldn't think of what to do with it.

That being said, however, I agree with you, as long as we, the Human race, are restricting ourselves to chemical rockets there really isn't any reason for us to be exploring space, or wasting money on "Space Taxis". Chemical rockets will not be useful for anything but unmanned probes and communication satellites.

I would have thought smoking would bring on mental problems in the first place rather than be a palliative.

Nicotine improves brain function even in non-schizophrenics, because it binds to acetylcholine receptors. Of course, the most common delivery methods have one or two negative side effects.

The problem for me isn't censoring the internet per se, but rather that censorship often branches into the realms of legal (but not necessarily attractive to the majority of people - think fetish sites for example) activity and can crush freedom of speech.

All too true, I'm afraid. Not that I'd cry over a few blocked fetish sites in particular but if I want to learn how to make a hydrogen fuel cell, or hell, how to make a bomb, I want that info to be online and as easily accessible as any cookie recipe. Yes, bombs are bad. Does that mean that all us geeky MacGyver fans are terrorists who should be surveilled and controlled?

So, what do you want? A lawless place with its inherent risks and joys, or a gated community that forces you to leave the toilet seat down, always say please and thankyou, and kicks you out if you walk on the grass? Give me the lawless any day.

Slashdotters seem to be under the impression that it's one or the other, dictatorship or anarchy. Well it's not! Speeding or driving while intoxicated is hardly more legal than watching child porn and yet we don't have special tire-slashing patrols ensuring that no drunk driving or speeding can happen. Ok, car-related analogy (or whatever that was) done. My point is, rules can be enforced in cyberspace as much as in meatspace (yes, I know we all hate that word). In meatspace though, there are strict rules on how rules can and should be enforced. The law doesn't allow cops to go around giving people preemptive beatings to remind us they are there. Similarly, howstuffworks.com, textfiles.com, freakforum.nu (norwegian, retarded), /. and other such pages should never be blocked because I might find info there that I might use to build a bomb.

If I do, however, build a bomb and blow up a school and the police make a lawful arrest and get a by-the-book, fair warrant for my computer gear (and logs, where possible).. Sure, my computer can count as evidence (if I'm dumb enough to leave traces on it) every bit as much as if I had planned the attack with pen-and-paper and the cops found that. What they absolutely can't do is regulate and moderate the entire net so I can't find info that isn't in itself illegal but might help me make something that actually is. That would be like out-lawing toothbrushes because one could use them to make a shiv.

It's not JUST the belt, no. There are other factors. That's why I went based on BTU's instead of trying to compute how efficient car AC systems really are.

... the system can be counted on to draw significantly more power than you think, probably twice as much. I wasn't really trying to do ALL the math over again, ....

tl;dr version: Car AC's are about 10,000 BTU/h, and a 10,000 BTU/h air conditioner is about 1 kW.

The sun is powered by nuclear fusion in it's core.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/sun2.htm

"Still, this is a simple solution. Kids don't need class."

There, fixed that for you.
    http://people.howstuffworks.com/homeschool.htm
    http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
    http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.htm
    http://www.school-survival.net/
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_school

[Needs Citation]

Here you go.

Calling someone a liar makes you the asshole. Just so you know.

So if by "rubber" you mean "made from the sap of a rubber tree or a similar hydrocarbon synthetic designed primarily for flexibility and resilience", then no, it doesn't burn rubber. The fuel is designed primarily for high specific impulse, with the rubbery characteristics design in secondarily.

You are wrong, the engine burns rubber (at least synthetic rubber). From http://science.howstuffworks.com/spaceshipone5.htm

"To cut down on both cost and risk, SpaceShipOne is propelled by a mixture of hydroxy-terminated polybutadiene (tire rubber) and nitrous oxide (laughing gas). The rubber acts as the fuel and the laughing gas as the oxidizer."

Yes and no, it burns hydroxy-terminated polybutadiene (tire rubber) according to this article

Where exactly is the code stored, that survives reboots?

Start here. For more info, you can read the Wiki article.

Alternatively, try opening your computer and actually looking at what's inside. ;-)

Not to burst your bubble, but "our habitat", of large mammals in general becomes actually much better (esp. much larger, but also easier to farm) at a higher global temperature. Lush forests in greenland house a hell of a lot more creatures, and humans, than ice valleys and gletsjers.

There are probably disasters that global warming causes, if it indeed happens in any significant way (ie. not like it's currently happening), but there are many good things too. The last "globally warmed" climate saw a rich civilization in Greenland, with huge orchards and wineries, lush forests, rich wildlife, etc. The same goes for a sizeable part of Siberia. With but a few degrees temperature gain, life there (and it's a fucking huge place) will become much, much easier.

The same goes for quite a few spots on the southern hemisphere. There is also the little tidbit that global warming stops desertification, and makes e.g. the sahara lose ground. The advantages of that can hardly be overstated.

But, of course, coastal cities might be in for a world of hurt (although given that holland has an average elevation of -2 meter, whereas the worst US coastal city has an average elevation of +3 meter, and something like New York has over 5, the absolute worst case sea level rise of 95 centimeters by 2100 should not be a problem for any US coastal city, or for Holland for that matter. A more problematic city is Venice, but whether or not the sea level rises, we will have to move Venice or give it to the sea in less than 150 years anyway).

We are warmblooded mammals. The reason we beat the dinosaurs was the fact that dinosaurs don't do well at all in colder climates. Mammals on the other hand, can live in temperatures as low as -40 degrees celcius on average. At current global temperature, most reptiles are limited to tropical climates. The larger reptiles are even limited to warmer-than-their-surroundings rivers in very warm climates. Not that a 6 degree rise will allow crocodiles to live in Europe, but they might colonize the mediterranean coast and a few other rivers than the nile.

I guess this stuff is different from the transparent aluminum I've been hearing about for years.

[citation_needed]

http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/chevrolet-citation-3.jpg

Making it colder than normal refrigeration temperature doesn't mean you have to freeze it, there's some leeway there, just keep it above freezing.

A refrigerator is supposed to always be just above freezing. http://home.howstuffworks.com/question121.htm

The fridge? Not if you dont want you food to spoil. Heating/Cooling. Not if you want to be in your house while you are awake.

Try using just a little bit of thought.

A fridge that is aware of peak/off-peak could easily be designed in a way that super-chilled part of itself during off-peak time and used that to cool the fridge during peak hours.
Air conditioners that do that already exist.

The Space Shuttle external tanks ... make it to orbit with the Shuttle.

The external tank (ET) does not make it into orbit. It is dropped beforehand. The two orbital maneuvering systems' (OMS) engines, located in pods on either side of the tail, place the shuttle into final orbit.

Try percent body fat instead.

I agree. Healthy person's Low-Density Lipoprotein aka LDL is less than 160.

I do that anyway.

Because:
1) I don't trust either IE or Firefox to be secure enough.
2) I don't use AV software for my machines - AV software is getting crappier nowadays, it's getting harder to tell whether a machine is infected by malware or crappy AV software.

e.g. Lots of things running slower? System instability? Weird/dubious shit happening[1]? Hard to uninstall the crap? All of the previous?

BTW both Symantec and McAfee recently agreed to settle charges that they automatically charged customers software subscription renewal fees without their permission.

From a _technical_ viewpoint Linux is just as insecure as Windows, if not more so.

See the zero-day exploit for Firefox here: http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/34235

Even though it was exploited on windows there's NOTHING technically preventing it from being exploited on Linux. And keep in mind Firefox is not normally part of the default install of windows but it's in the default install for most Desktop Linux distros.

At least Vista and Windows 7 have IE sandboxed out of the box. Neither ubuntu nor opensuse have firefox sandboxed by default yet. I have made some suggestions to both Ubuntu and Opensuse on how to improve their stuff, maybe they'll get to them in 5 years time. Maybe never.

FWIW, I use Windows, Linux and FreeBSD at home.

[1] http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/10/139229
http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/2009/03/10/what-is-piftsexe/
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/03/symantec_users_complain_of_mys.html

Ok, here is the point you are missing.

Nothing has to be all this way or all that way. In the past, there was this term called working together in order to achieve the best possible outcome. Now this is important because the oil drilling is just an energy security issue, it can be ignored in the context of GHG's. Now the Nuclear options, mandates on emissions, changes to existing laws that allow plume stacks to receive incremental upgrades to industry or government standards instead of having to redo everything all at once, creating prizes for open tech that everyone can use royalty free and so on can all replace GHG emissions just as effectivly as a cap and trade.

But here is the catch.. You can take the best of both world, create a bill that isn't disproportionately harsh of those who can least afford to deal with it, come to the same ends and not have the massive expansion of government. Hell, part of the republican plan involves investing 7% chunks of the energy budget (not just 7% but 7% for each program) into programs designed to be carbon neutral.

While I was at a republican coffee social in my area recently, we got into conversations about using an AC FOX reclamation systems for sewage treatment and using the power generated from it to power some low speed steam turbines to power the city street lights and buildings. There are literally hundreds of ideas floating around that can be used if the goal wasn't to limit what free people can do by creating massive taxes and government encroachment.

http://health.howstuffworks.com/human-nature/emotions/happiness/science/smiling-happy1.htm Happy people are more productive. Kind of a neat idea that would be difficult to implement in a company that wasn't service oriented.

Adding to the water thing, drink ice water if you can get it. The colder the water, the better. Your body has to expend energy to raise the water to body temperature, in fact, the definition of calorie (little c) is the amount of energy required to raise one ml of water by one degree celsius. Granted, you're trying to burn Calories (big C, 1000 little c's), but every little bit helps. If you drank a gallon of ice water a day, you could burn more than 200 Calories from that alone. Explanation and mathematics here.

The US used to have a lot of small businesses which have been closed due to price competition from business like Walmart.

And Amazon's affiliates aren't businesses? Maybe not all right I bet some are run just like that, as businesses. Amazon also uses other businesses too for goods. I wouldn't be surprised if there were more businesses now than just 10 years ago.

The US used to have a large and vibrant small family farm / produce sales.

Oh I agree but that's not because of Amazon. That is because large agribusinesses receive billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies. Archer Daniels Midland, ADM, and Cargill alone each receive billions. Amazon does not receive subsidies. Here's a list of subsidies Cargill gets from Belgium, and Cargill is one of the largest private US corporations. Fact is is small farmers are not the main beneficiary of farm subsidies. And I have railed against farm subsides for years.

Now the family farm is a myth, and Americans consume industrialized food products manufactured by large transnational corporations and shipped around the world.

No, small family farms still exist. I am a member of two member owned co-ops and they both support both organic and local farms. All over the US both community supported agriculture or CSA which both of my co-ops sell shares in, and farmers markets are booming. Farmers markets are even blooming at hospitals.

The government is just people. If you have a problem with them, I would suggest that you not vote for parties who think the government is bad and want to "strangle it in a bath tub". They've long since proven disastrously incapable of governance.

I vote, yes I vote, for people not parties. For each position I look at what position each candidate takes then vote for the one that comes closest to my beliefs no matter what party they are from. I have voted for Democrats, Libertarians, Republicans, and Reform Party candidates.

The huge variations of state & local tax codes is, again, not a problem of the Federal Government

Can youn show me where I said it was a problem of the federal government? Or is this FUD?

If you don't like that, don't vote for people who are strongly in favor of states' rights.

Ah but I do favor states' rights, that is one of the issues I look at. However requiring Amazon or any other business that sells online to collect sales taxes in a state they are not located in is not a state right, it directly contravenes the commerce clause of the Constitution of the USA.

Finally I don't buy into your 3 exclamation point hysteria.

You're part of the problem of this country, someone who will let politicians do whatever they want instead of holding up the Constitution of the USA. Requiring out of state businesses to collect sales tax for that state is unconstitutional.

Falcon

At this moment in time, Electricity equivalent to the energy contained in a gallon of Gasoline is literally pennies compared to an actual gallon of Gasoline, and that's with Coal.

I don't think I'd say "literally pennies" -- based on my calculations, it's dollars. Specifically, it looks like ~$2.155 per gallon is about the cheapest you can expect (based on the electricity costs in Wyoming), up to ~6.43 per gallon (based on the electricity costs in Connecticut). Compared to the current cost of gasoline per gallon, which is around $2.70 in my area, that has potential, but isn't as much a slam-dunk as you seem to think -- remember that we have to account for the fact that these numbers assume a 100% efficient storage of energy into gasoline, where in reality there will be some loss. Now, we could likely throw a few optimizations into the mix, so I'll believe it could work economically at some point (get cheaper electricity, only run the gasoline producing reaction during off-peak times when electricity is cheaper, take advantage of the fact (?) that some power plants have to produce a certain minimum load and thus waste some power, etc.), but we're not quite there yet.

My numbers were based on the fact that "a gallon of gasoline contains about 132x106 joules of energy, which is equivalent to 125,000 BTU or 36,650 watt-hours", and this electricity rate comparison by state. [Note: I excluded Hawaii, which actually has the highest cost per kilowatt-hour of any US state, on the assumption that gasoline is significantly more expensive there as well, and thus isn't a very good comparison.]:

    You really need to read up on the control surfaces.

    Here's a site with a decent diagram.

    By fully deploying both sides, it slows it down. By partially deploying one side, it yaws. I've seen photos with the top and bottom deployed seperately on the most outboard portion, so I suspect it can be used for pitch and roll also, but all the design diagrams I've seen have the outboard portion noted for yaw and spoiler.

    For the most part, pilots aren't turning their aircraft with the rudder. Turns are a banking maneuver, unless you have all day to do it in. :) Typically, turns are using all three motions (roll, pitch, and yaw) simultaneously to effect a smooth transition, so you can keep your cup of coffee from spilling, and so you don't cause unnecessary stress on the airframe.

    I was flying a full motion simulator with a retired fighter pilot, and of course I had lots of questions to ask him. He said the rudder is barely ever used. I don't imagine they do a lot of flight altering with changing thrust, since their engines are so close to center line. Outboard engines would do a lot better for turning an aircraft, although slowly.

...would be bloody terminal.

Actually buildings and cats kill many more birds than wind turbines do. The wind genies that killed a lot of birds are the old ones that spun fast, spun at high rpms. Modern genies spin slow and are safer.

Falcon

DNS isn't a single centralized database. It's many, many databases, organized hierarchically. Granted, if the Internet keeps growing, I suppose there could still be some scalability issues.

See this article for an explanation of how the DNS 'database' is broken up into pieces which are handled by different servers.

Agree in principle that the Recording Industry (Saleable Copyright model) is not working, but the "pay for creative work up-front" seems to have major drawbacks - principly that you have no idea if a creative person is any good until they've delivered the goods, creating chicken and egg.

I think you're missing a trick though: live performances.

I've read up on the subject as a former MP3.com artist myself, from talking to upcoming bands like Silverman and from the widespread public writings of established artists. All say that recording artists rarely make any money from sales though their record company; in fact they normally end up heavily in debt (the famous record label "tab").

Let me say that again: most artists do not profit from music sales. Only the record labels (and industry quangos like the RIAA) profit from music sales. Instead, most current artists make their money from live gigs, merchandise, appearance fees, etc - the good old fashioned "goods/services for cash" model.

As soon as you appreciate this, you realise you can ditch the record label altogether, "open source" your music (allow to be freely distributed on a non-profit basis, with distribution channels allowed to charge a small fee to cover their costs if they wish) and make money from gigs, etc, instead as your popularity grows.

This is not a new idea: numerous bug names in music are advocating the idea. Here's a quote from an excellent 2007 Wired feature by former label boss David Byrne:

"What is called the music business today, however, is not the business of producing music. At some point it became the business of selling CDs in plastic cases, and that business will soon be over. But that's not bad news for music, and it's certainly not bad news for musicians. Indeed, with all the ways to reach an audience, there have never been more opportunities for artists."

"The fact that Radiohead debuted its latest album online and Madonna defected from Warner Bros. to Live Nation, a concert promoter, is held to signal the end of the music business as we know it. Actually, these are just two examples of how musicians are increasingly able to work outside of the traditional label relationship. There is no one single way of doing business these days. There are, in fact, six viable models by my count. That variety is good for artists; it gives them more ways to get paid and make a living. And it's good for audiences, too, who will have more - and more interesting - music to listen to. Let's step back and get some perspective."

Wise words. Full article (well worth a read):

    http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/16-01/ff_byrne

If that's not enough for you, plenty of similar reading at:

    http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/record-label.htm/printable
    http://www.sourban.net/The-Future-Of-Music-How-Real-Artists-Will-Save-Music-From-The-Music-Industry
    http://www.magnatune.com/info/musicians
    http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/16-01/ff_yorke
    http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=music+artists+make+money+live+performances+record+label

Cheers, Ben

Automakers do this as well, actually. Ever hear of a certified pre-owned car? Of course the economics are different for used cars vs used games, so that won't work for the publishers.

Or just run a network over the phone lines .

True, but the invisibility cloak, at least, exists. If you moved your 'painting' around on the wall and it acted as a window into a larger scene, it would indeed be like this cloak.

As for the black hole thing, I presume that the red matter has to be heated to a certain temperature in order to 'detonate'. The fact that the planet's core is probably no hotter than the capsule would become on impact is a mere technicality and the big drill was cool, ok? :P

(Did anyone else see the mysterious 'red matter' and instantly think of the 'allotropic iron' from the Lensman series? This was also a red liquid which could be used as a near-infinite power source.)

Well, it actually is an AWD vehicle. It's just one of the wheels that doesn't respond anymore...

Yeah, most of the was still using the older style dialing, but touch-tone was becoming the norm in the US by the time 911 was rolled out, so it wasn't as much of a concern.

I don't think so, a quick google produces how stuff works which says 911 service started in the late 1960s. I don't think the US had tone dial anywhere near that early.

don't confuse "considered and rejected as laughably incorrect" with closed mind my friend. don't confuse "considered and rejected as laughably incorrect" with closed mind my friend.

The generally consensus, supported by real world data, that i have seen has said the laffer curve is only valid somewhere above 60% marginal max tax rate

So, where is this agreement among economists on what ranges are appropriate for the Laffer Curve? I googled economics "laffer curve" agreement ranges and checked a bunch of results and not one said there any agreement of the validity of a range of the Laffer Curve.

The generally consensus, supported by real world data, that i have seen has said the laffer curve is only valid somewhere above 60% marginal max tax rate,

One of the pages I found has this scenario:
"By June, you've already made a million dollars, and the progressive tax system promised to tax that income 50 percent. However, anything you make over a million will be taxed 90 percent. Why work the rest of the year when you know you can only keep 10 percent of your income? You'd probably take your half a million and retire to your beach house until next year. At this point, the taxes are discouraging work and tax revenue."

If you let your top marginal tax rate fall below a certain level you then start to perform wealth redistribution from the poor to the rich as the rich gain more benefit per tax dollar than the poor.

If you drop the marginal tax rate the wealthy will keep more money. And they will spend it and or invest it. More spending helps the economy grow, as does more investments. Where money is redistributed by government giving subsidies. Vary few poor people will see any of that whereas the already wealthy will get those subsidies. Cargill, one of the world's largest privately owned corporations, has been called a corporate welfare queen due to the massive subsidies it gets. Government is taking money out of poor workers and giving it to a hugh private business.

Falcon

The vapor that I long for most
The duke, the wolf*
And the Starcraft: Ghost

They saw their code build
So they'd boast

The day
Their sche-----dule died.

* http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/best-games-never-made1.htm - ""Werewolf: The Apocalypse" was going to be a PC game based on White Wolf's tabletop RPG [...]"

Correction, it wasn't a 1 gig device, it was a 500 meg device. Here's a link to one of the early hypes about it: http://www.howstuffworks.com/ces20012.htm . This device will be just as popular as the Data Play disc has become. And no one will care that the sconomy of scale has not kicked in because no one will use it.

Those kinds of thermostats hook up to your home HVAC system, not to an air conditioner.

wind turbines are rated by thier output under ideal wind conditions.

According to howstuffworks "At 33 mph, most large turbines generate their rated power capacity". In places it is windier than that. The Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States details by region wind potential.

Also relying on wind puts your grid at the mercy of whether the wind blows or not.

Ah, the use of solar and geothermal can help. I once heard that when the wind doesn't blow it's usually sunny. I'd add that solar and wind energy can be harvested at the same tyme during the day. And geothermal can be used as a baseload.

Falcon

Missing linky from previous post: http://science.howstuffworks.com/wind-turbine-kill-birds.htm/printable

For two weeks last spring, hackers wormed their way inside a computer system that plays a key role in moving electrical power where it is needed around the state. The computers belong to the California Independent Service Operator, an agency that oversees much of the state's electricity transmission grid--including the massive complex of power plants and transmission lines. Cal-ISO patched the flaw that allowed hackers to roam through portions of its network before power supplies were affected. But the episode sent shock waves throughout the energy industry.
The crux of the issue is that the system is vulnerable - recall 2003 when a single tree branch killed power across several states for a week? That is not indicative of a healthy and robust grid system. And if the system is that vulnerable to an accident what would happen if somebody with malice aforethought (and a degree in EE) decided to spice things up a bit?
Unless the utility companies make explicit plans to correct things a macro-catastrophe is inevitable. Personally I think that a solar storm is more likely than a terrorist attack but it *WILL* happen and tens of millions of people will lose their grid indefinitely (probably several years to restore full access). (I further predict that the system will be rebuilt to the old specs because it will be cheaper and easier to do it that way, flushing an opportunity to build a hardened grid).
This is your transformer. (note that this company claims to be able to repair your transformer in less than 30 weeks - that means that)
This is your transformer after a solar storm. Yes, the sun did this.
This is the transformer with which most geeks are more familiar.

If all the ice in the world were to melt, and the odds of this happening are virtually 0, then we're looking at a 200+ft rise in ocean levels. However, the higher probability estimates are for a 24 inch rise by 2100. Not a great source in itself but the references are not bad: http://science.howstuffworks.com/question473.htm

At least we don't have to deal with that moronic 'OMG ponies' theme this year.

You're right... OMG KITTENZ is much better as I'm sure everyone can agree.

Actually, it's interesting to note that the Smart Car, which is driven in the US (just saw one at work yesterday in the parking lot) is smaller than the Tata Nano (in fact considerably smaller - about 2 feet shorter!) :

Tana Nano

L 3.29m = 10.79'
W 1.58m = 5.18'
H 1.6m = 5.24'

Smart Car

L 8' 2.5"
W 5'
H 5'

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/smart-car.htm

Of course the Smart Car costs about 10x the price of the Nano and has considerably worse gas comsumption, so there's less reason for Auto/Oil industry lobbyists to try to regulate it to death.