If you really want to confuse the average person with correct terminology; "Disc Brakes" have rotors, pads, and hydraulic compression cylinders with some having pad return springs as well. And, if you try to order "brake discs" from the parts counter you have volunteered for an attempted up-sell to something you only need if you are building a car for dirt track racing.
Or coming at it from the other direction... Star Trek is what you have after a social eugenics movement sterilized and re-educated everyone who didn't like the most popular flavor of kool-aid. Star Wars is what you get with a diaspora of diverging cultural preferences which conflict.
Just like they broke DVR functionality in the Xbox360. I bought the Xbox mainly for the broadcast DVR ability. Then, three weeks after I bought it, they did a forced patch that basically broke the ability to play third party media.
When Skype was its own company; it was much more reliable. As to the interface; the one from ten years ago was much more functional. These days they want the application to look like your desktop computer is a giant phone screen taking over all the screen real estate to emphasize the lack of functionality. Windoes needs to consider putting the windows back in their OS.
I guess you have never paid attention to big city realpolitik before. This is Naw'lins we're tawlkin' 'bout heeya. Get you a coffee and beignet before you have apoplexy.
States differ. This is something most Washington government wonks forget if they ever knew it. Louisiana entered the union not as a Crown Colony but a separate treaty and payment moving French colonies to being U.S. territories. Louisiana state law is based on the Code Napoleon and not British Common law as most of the original founding colonies were. Yes, it makes a difference.
It has been a few years since I had legal dealings in Louisiana. But in the early 2000s; it was still common that the fine for a speeding ticket went half to the jurisdiction and the other half divided up between the judge and ticketing officer... at least in one of the rural parishes.
Every state has its own legal quirks designed to bilk as much from the constituents as the bureaucrats can. NOLA is just a bit more up front and blatant than average.
Expressing nationalist or patriotic speech is considered "extremist" speech by many these days. Who sets the bar on "extreme" speech? Once you start restricting things like speech, history shows an organization will only tighten in restrictions.
Want to see IT cringe? Let them know you have to implement kiosk computers that have a generic password and only run a specific software package. Or, need a generic password for anyone at all to access a database. These are real world issues.
When they put all the Material Safety Data Sheets online; IT forgot that you have to have them available for temp. contractors that otherwise have NO computer access, Wanting temp. workers to "stop the job" and proceed to a house employee supervisor to get a printed copy of the MSDS for the chemicals they are using gets to a study in total insanity when you have over a thousand temp workers for a project. Generic "MSDS password" and it is a non-problem.
Automation is a good thing but scares network security personnel. The automatic flow path,.,.,. worker scans his badge, scans his work package number, scans is legal record dosimeter, inserts an electronic dosimeter on the proximity programmer, Once prompted by the software; he picks up his dosimeter and proceeds to do a nuclear job package. Imagine what it was like when a new "Head of Information Security" mandated that everyone has to have a unique identifying password. Yup, watch the shit show trying to process a couple of hundred workers into a controlled zone when each and every one has to log in and log out. 48 hours later, we had generic passwords for the kiosk log in computers.
Local cache of commonly used login profiles would solve the problem of needing validation servers. Log in once with net access on the computer then your card will get you in thereafter. This is an often used technique for company issue laptop computers. Log in once while connected to the corp. network then you can access that laptop while traveling until the password expires. (Last time I drew one for a field job; the password authentication was good for 90 days. The expiry date could be whatever I suppose.)
RFID chips are a wonderful tech to replace passwords, Couple the RFID with some biometrics and you prevent stolen or borrowed card use. Wave the proximity card over the pad and insert hand in the reader... the door unlocks and records who went in at what time. For computer terminals, insert card in ready and scan a thumb print. If the card is withdrawn; the terminal logs you off and goes to sleep mode.
The biggest bugbear with this system is the "power failure" and "network outage" protocols. You need backup keys to critical doors and someone in charge to open the key box in an emergency. It would probably be best to leave the key to the emergency box in the custody of a senior nurse for a floor. Physicians don't have the mindset to be enabling others to do their job in an emergency.
This stuff was cutting edge in the 1990s and is proven technology for the nuclear industry since then. In 2003 there was a multi million dollar grant to study the feasibility of such tech which was "turnkey" in industry already. By 2014 you saw a limited use roll out of rfid id cards in, of all places, the Veterans Administration. It has been too long since I was active duty but the new military ID cards sure look like they contain a rfid and a smart chip.
Well, it depends on how you look at it. The Chinese own most of our debt. The revolutionary war was funded by a consortium of European bankers and we are still indebted to them. (Consider why we give a shit about the International Monetary Fund)
Putting the tinfoil hat aside; the government is supposed to belong to the people. At the moment; it seems to have been sold off piecemeal. On one side you have the old money plutocrats that fund and control the Democratic party and the nuevo riche corporate interests on the Republican side. The average Joe gets to try and get a piece of their leavings.
Use of rifles for deer hunting is often proscribed due to the long range deadliness of missed rounds. The 5.56 (.223) round is discouraged and proscribed in many places for large game hunting as it is not effective at killing. The 5.56mm round is an effective varmint round but was really designed to wound instead of kill man sized targets. The philosophy that the Pentagon bought into when they adopted the light weight M16 was that a wounded soldier took three people out of combat instead of one if they were killed instantly. The AR=15 is a wimped down version of the AR-10 that uses a proper hunting caliber.
When you are hunting; you don't want to have to track game that is slowly bleeding out. So, you want something more powerful than a.22 on steroids that is the 5.56 NATO round. Personally, if I shoot something I'd rather it fall down and not get up..30 caliber, 7.62 NATO, 7.62x39 (AK-47 ammo),.30-.06, or even 8mm Mauser are all close enough ballistically to do the job.
Apple has always embraced a proprietary exclusion of third party providers. Even the Apple II was designed to require a proprietary ePROM integrated in their floppy drives. This forced Apple users to pay over $500 for a floppy drive when everyone else could pop in one for $100.
Apple has always seemed to be trying to work by the discredited "Kodak Model" where a purchase is of the use of their equipment buy in no way implies ownership and control of the equipment.
Reactive ear plugs have been around since the 1980s in a niche market for competitive target shooters. They react to sudden high decibel levels in a microsecond saving your ears from concussive sound. The pricier ones have a frequency notch filter that only allows human vice frequencies through.
The price has reduced over the decades and I guess someone is budgeting for general issue of an item that is long overdue in the field.
Difference in charge potential between cathode and anode. A triggering event allows electrons to migrate giving a current flow. A simple dynode has a cathode, an anode, and a median plate. The electrical potential between the cathode and anode is just below the potential that would allow a current flow (electrons shooting out and crossing the vacuum gap). When a voltage is applied to the median plate; the sum potential is enough to allow electron migration (current flow). If the median plate has voltage being modulated by a microphone you get a conversion of sound to current flow. Run the current flow through a tube set up with cascading plates to multiply the current flow and feed that to an electromagnet attached to a cone shaped diaphragm to modulate the air.
A bit simplistic but that is how a tube circuit is done for an amplifier. I'm enough of an old fart that my first training in electronics was dealing with tube circuits. (mid 1970s) There are still things today that call for vacuum tubes over solid state circuits. Photomultiplier tubes for scintillation detectors and detector tubes for Geiger counters are a couple that pop to mind.
Sidebar: The paper that Einstein won the Nobel prize for was on Photoelectric Effect not relativity. Personally, I'd say that both vacuum tube circuits and solid state circuits work on differing facets of quantum physics.
... humming that song from the musical "On Broadway" while ruminating on the history of technology.
Back in the 1950s Bell Labs had the transistor as the latest and greatest new thing. General Electric was also working on miniaturized electronic devices with arrayed vacuum tubes. The G.E. idea was to build miniature vacuum tube circuits in a sealed housing that would be pumped to a vacuum to work. For repair or to modify circuits you would break the vacuum, open the housing, and work on it with jeweler's tools. After repair you seal the housing and pump it back to a vacuum. Bell labs won the contract for government money and the vacuum board technology dropped by the wayside in favor of solid state electronics. (anecdotal tale from the 1970s. A manufacturing jeweler my company did business with said that he had learned his trade working for G.E. on miniature vacuum circuits decades before.)
I've wondered if miniature vacuum tube circuits might not provide longer functional lifespans for satellites. Semi-conductors degrade in high radiation fields lowering the effective lifetime of equipment. (A ccd camera that would last years normally has a lifespan of only a few months in a >5 Rad/hr field)
Operating a radio transmitter without a license is a violation of federal law and international treaty. Certain frequency bands are opened to the general public by licenses, with power restrictions, to the manufacturers who must demonstrate their products comply with FCC specifications.
Common low power devices which have a manufacturer's license and require no personal license: CB radios Wireless computer hubs Radio controlled toys (drones, planes, etc) RF key fobs RF remote controls RFID readers
Modifying a low power device to have a higher power transmitter than the manufacturer was licensed for violates FCC regulations and can get you fines and prosecution under federal law. You will find that most consumer RF devices are limited, by law, to no more than 5 watt transmitters.
Point of order; it is NOT illegal for citizens to own fully automatic weapons or armor piercing ammunition. To own them you must pay for a special transfer permission which is prohibitively expensive for the average person. Taxing the crap out of machine gun ownership permits is legal but outright prohibiting is against the 2nd amendment.
Go check www.atf.gov and look for "Class 3" firearms license. You will get links to downloadable PDF files with forms and requirements for Class 3 dealers and owners.
You are confusing wifi and cellular signals. Wifi is 2.4 GHz or 5.3 Ghz band low power transmission for computer data. With the power kept low, no FCC license is required.
Cellular uses several different radio frequencies from wife and are licensed to the cellular carriers. Completely different type of radio from "wifi". It is unlawful to interfere with licensed transmission frequencies. So, NO, you can't jam cell frequencies. Wifi, on the other hand, is on a limited power no license required permit to the manufacturer. If your wifi is being interfered with; you probably have no legal recourse unless you can show it is an intrusion attempt.
The acoustic modems maxed out at 300 baud. The ones that had encryption capability came in their own separate 18lb briefcase. 110 baud was the spec for the original telex and teletype terminals. It was considered a wonder in 1974 that you could type on a terminal and it would come out on hundreds of terminals around the world. (Original AP and Reuters method of wire service news dissemination)
In the 70s; mobile communications was carting a dumb terminal (VT-100s were common) with an acoustic modem. You then dialed in to a mainframe to type things in. Think of having your monitor (an old CRT monitor) and your keyboard connected to your computer over phone lines at 110 baud.
By the late 70s small computers became actually functional things a business could afford. 8 inch floppies became common. Trust me, training people on Datapoint computers was a pain. And, support was expected to be done by coming to the office not by a phone center. After four instances in one week of people putting their main operating system master disk (A special 8 inch floppy you only used to make a copy of for installing user software to) in a "safe place" by putting it behind the filing cabinet with a refrigerator magnet; I joined the military to get away from customer support.
By the early 80s, 8 inch floppies (1.2 meg) were the standard for small business computers and 5-1/4 floppies (180K SSDD) were standard for home computers. I actually think that IBM partnered with Microsoft entering the desktop computing market in 1984 set back desktop computing a decade at least. There were much better systems out there before big corporate leverage changed all to IBM-PC standard running a re-branded QDOS. (The original Microsoft Disk Operating System was obtained not by coding but purchasing QDOS "Quick and Dirty Operating System" and re-branding it.)
Anyway, the PGP running mini mainframes with 8 inch floppies are children of the 1980s. That was when ARPANET was under development and the systems for certain classified things were first being computerized. Upgrading, literally, takes an act of Congress... Computer literate old fart here.
Too bad Fujitsu America decided to quit marketing their desktop replacement line of laptops. But, shucks, they were making tablet computers in the WinXP days. I'm still using a Fujitsu UMPC as a GPS and email on the road platform.
Hydrogen fuel cells have been around so long it is surprising it took so long to get into the commercial market. Practical hydrogen fuel cells were developed by NASA in the 1960s to power spacecraft.
By 1973, there was a company in San Diego that had a Natural gas - compressed air fuel cell the size of two four drawer filing cabinets that could power a 14 unit apartment complex. I heard about them when I wrote for information for a science fair project. Humorously enough, the tech was bought up by a large utility company and they sat on the design until they trotted it out in 2003 to compete for DOE money as a "new technology". (In our litigious society; large corporate names intentionally left out. Yep, this is a personal anecdotal paragraph.)
What is needed is an inexpensive fuel cell that will run on air and LPG or LNG. But, all the research money seems to be going for hydrogen fuel cells. The storage problem for hydrogen is horrendous. H2 leaks out slowly between the molecules of steel in a pressure cylinder. The focus on hydrogen is nifty but wrong headed if you are talking consumer friendly uses of a fuel cell.
If you visit Charleston, South Carolina you can tour the NS Savannah which was the first nuclear powered cargo ship. The problem with commercial cargo ship operation was the shipping company was not willing to pay the rates needed to get experienced nuclear plant operators and most of the major shipping ports refused to let the Savannah dock due to paranoia about being nuclear powered.
Slashdot Mirror
If you really want to confuse the average person with correct terminology; "Disc Brakes" have rotors, pads, and hydraulic compression cylinders with some having pad return springs as well. And, if you try to order "brake discs" from the parts counter you have volunteered for an attempted up-sell to something you only need if you are building a car for dirt track racing.
Or coming at it from the other direction... Star Trek is what you have after a social eugenics movement sterilized and re-educated everyone who didn't like the most popular flavor of kool-aid. Star Wars is what you get with a diaspora of diverging cultural preferences which conflict.
Just like they broke DVR functionality in the Xbox360. I bought the Xbox mainly for the broadcast DVR ability. Then, three weeks after I bought it, they did a forced patch that basically broke the ability to play third party media.
When Skype was its own company; it was much more reliable. As to the interface; the one from ten years ago was much more functional. These days they want the application to look like your desktop computer is a giant phone screen taking over all the screen real estate to emphasize the lack of functionality. Windoes needs to consider putting the windows back in their OS.
I guess you have never paid attention to big city realpolitik before. This is Naw'lins we're tawlkin' 'bout heeya. Get you a coffee and beignet before you have apoplexy.
States differ. This is something most Washington government wonks forget if they ever knew it. Louisiana entered the union not as a Crown Colony but a separate treaty and payment moving French colonies to being U.S. territories. Louisiana state law is based on the Code Napoleon and not British Common law as most of the original founding colonies were. Yes, it makes a difference.
It has been a few years since I had legal dealings in Louisiana. But in the early 2000s; it was still common that the fine for a speeding ticket went half to the jurisdiction and the other half divided up between the judge and ticketing officer... at least in one of the rural parishes.
Every state has its own legal quirks designed to bilk as much from the constituents as the bureaucrats can. NOLA is just a bit more up front and blatant than average.
Expressing nationalist or patriotic speech is considered "extremist" speech by many these days. Who sets the bar on "extreme" speech? Once you start restricting things like speech, history shows an organization will only tighten in restrictions.
Crushing with connotations of Kaiju stepping on everything.
As a visual example of the concept; I give you Bambi meets Godzilla
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-wUdetAAlY
Want to see IT cringe? Let them know you have to implement kiosk computers that have a generic password and only run a specific software package. Or, need a generic password for anyone at all to access a database. These are real world issues.
When they put all the Material Safety Data Sheets online; IT forgot that you have to have them available for temp. contractors that otherwise have NO computer access, Wanting temp. workers to "stop the job" and proceed to a house employee supervisor to get a printed copy of the MSDS for the chemicals they are using gets to a study in total insanity when you have over a thousand temp workers for a project. Generic "MSDS password" and it is a non-problem.
Automation is a good thing but scares network security personnel. The automatic flow path,.,.,. worker scans his badge, scans his work package number, scans is legal record dosimeter, inserts an electronic dosimeter on the proximity programmer, Once prompted by the software; he picks up his dosimeter and proceeds to do a nuclear job package. Imagine what it was like when a new "Head of Information Security" mandated that everyone has to have a unique identifying password. Yup, watch the shit show trying to process a couple of hundred workers into a controlled zone when each and every one has to log in and log out. 48 hours later, we had generic passwords for the kiosk log in computers.
Local cache of commonly used login profiles would solve the problem of needing validation servers. Log in once with net access on the computer then your card will get you in thereafter. This is an often used technique for company issue laptop computers. Log in once while connected to the corp. network then you can access that laptop while traveling until the password expires. (Last time I drew one for a field job; the password authentication was good for 90 days. The expiry date could be whatever I suppose.)
RFID chips are a wonderful tech to replace passwords, Couple the RFID with some biometrics and you prevent stolen or borrowed card use. Wave the proximity card over the pad and insert hand in the reader... the door unlocks and records who went in at what time. For computer terminals, insert card in ready and scan a thumb print. If the card is withdrawn; the terminal logs you off and goes to sleep mode.
The biggest bugbear with this system is the "power failure" and "network outage" protocols. You need backup keys to critical doors and someone in charge to open the key box in an emergency. It would probably be best to leave the key to the emergency box in the custody of a senior nurse for a floor. Physicians don't have the mindset to be enabling others to do their job in an emergency.
This stuff was cutting edge in the 1990s and is proven technology for the nuclear industry since then. In 2003 there was a multi million dollar grant to study the feasibility of such tech which was "turnkey" in industry already. By 2014 you saw a limited use roll out of rfid id cards in, of all places, the Veterans Administration. It has been too long since I was active duty but the new military ID cards sure look like they contain a rfid and a smart chip.
Well, it depends on how you look at it. The Chinese own most of our debt. The revolutionary war was funded by a consortium of European bankers and we are still indebted to them. (Consider why we give a shit about the International Monetary Fund)
Putting the tinfoil hat aside; the government is supposed to belong to the people. At the moment; it seems to have been sold off piecemeal. On one side you have the old money plutocrats that fund and control the Democratic party and the nuevo riche corporate interests on the Republican side. The average Joe gets to try and get a piece of their leavings.
Use of rifles for deer hunting is often proscribed due to the long range deadliness of missed rounds. The 5.56 (.223) round is discouraged and proscribed in many places for large game hunting as it is not effective at killing. The 5.56mm round is an effective varmint round but was really designed to wound instead of kill man sized targets. The philosophy that the Pentagon bought into when they adopted the light weight M16 was that a wounded soldier took three people out of combat instead of one if they were killed instantly. The AR=15 is a wimped down version of the AR-10 that uses a proper hunting caliber. .22 on steroids that is the 5.56 NATO round. Personally, if I shoot something I'd rather it fall down and not get up. .30 caliber, 7.62 NATO, 7.62x39 (AK-47 ammo), .30-.06, or even 8mm Mauser are all close enough ballistically to do the job.
When you are hunting; you don't want to have to track game that is slowly bleeding out. So, you want something more powerful than a
http://www.m4carbine.net/showthread.php?139475-The-Secret-History-of-Eugene-Stoner-and-the-M16
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M16_rifle
Apple has always embraced a proprietary exclusion of third party providers. Even the Apple II was designed to require a proprietary ePROM integrated in their floppy drives. This forced Apple users to pay over $500 for a floppy drive when everyone else could pop in one for $100.
Apple has always seemed to be trying to work by the discredited "Kodak Model" where a purchase is of the use of their equipment buy in no way implies ownership and control of the equipment.
Reactive ear plugs have been around since the 1980s in a niche market for competitive target shooters. They react to sudden high decibel levels in a microsecond saving your ears from concussive sound. The pricier ones have a frequency notch filter that only allows human vice frequencies through.
The price has reduced over the decades and I guess someone is budgeting for general issue of an item that is long overdue in the field.
Difference in charge potential between cathode and anode. A triggering event allows electrons to migrate giving a current flow. A simple dynode has a cathode, an anode, and a median plate. The electrical potential between the cathode and anode is just below the potential that would allow a current flow (electrons shooting out and crossing the vacuum gap). When a voltage is applied to the median plate; the sum potential is enough to allow electron migration (current flow). If the median plate has voltage being modulated by a microphone you get a conversion of sound to current flow. Run the current flow through a tube set up with cascading plates to multiply the current flow and feed that to an electromagnet attached to a cone shaped diaphragm to modulate the air.
A bit simplistic but that is how a tube circuit is done for an amplifier. I'm enough of an old fart that my first training in electronics was dealing with tube circuits. (mid 1970s) There are still things today that call for vacuum tubes over solid state circuits. Photomultiplier tubes for scintillation detectors and detector tubes for Geiger counters are a couple that pop to mind.
Sidebar: The paper that Einstein won the Nobel prize for was on Photoelectric Effect not relativity. Personally, I'd say that both vacuum tube circuits and solid state circuits work on differing facets of quantum physics.
... humming that song from the musical "On Broadway" while ruminating on the history of technology.
Back in the 1950s Bell Labs had the transistor as the latest and greatest new thing. General Electric was also working on miniaturized electronic devices with arrayed vacuum tubes. The G.E. idea was to build miniature vacuum tube circuits in a sealed housing that would be pumped to a vacuum to work. For repair or to modify circuits you would break the vacuum, open the housing, and work on it with jeweler's tools. After repair you seal the housing and pump it back to a vacuum. Bell labs won the contract for government money and the vacuum board technology dropped by the wayside in favor of solid state electronics. (anecdotal tale from the 1970s. A manufacturing jeweler my company did business with said that he had learned his trade working for G.E. on miniature vacuum circuits decades before.)
I've wondered if miniature vacuum tube circuits might not provide longer functional lifespans for satellites. Semi-conductors degrade in high radiation fields lowering the effective lifetime of equipment. (A ccd camera that would last years normally has a lifespan of only a few months in a >5 Rad/hr field)
Operating a radio transmitter without a license is a violation of federal law and international treaty. Certain frequency bands are opened to the general public by licenses, with power restrictions, to the manufacturers who must demonstrate their products comply with FCC specifications.
Common low power devices which have a manufacturer's license and require no personal license:
CB radios
Wireless computer hubs
Radio controlled toys (drones, planes, etc)
RF key fobs
RF remote controls
RFID readers
Modifying a low power device to have a higher power transmitter than the manufacturer was licensed for violates FCC regulations and can get you fines and prosecution under federal law. You will find that most consumer RF devices are limited, by law, to no more than 5 watt transmitters.
Point of order; it is NOT illegal for citizens to own fully automatic weapons or armor piercing ammunition. To own them you must pay for a special transfer permission which is prohibitively expensive for the average person. Taxing the crap out of machine gun ownership permits is legal but outright prohibiting is against the 2nd amendment.
Go check www.atf.gov and look for "Class 3" firearms license. You will get links to downloadable PDF files with forms and requirements for Class 3 dealers and owners.
You are confusing wifi and cellular signals.
Wifi is 2.4 GHz or 5.3 Ghz band low power transmission for computer data. With the power kept low, no FCC license is required.
Cellular uses several different radio frequencies from wife and are licensed to the cellular carriers. Completely different type of radio from "wifi". It is unlawful to interfere with licensed transmission frequencies. So, NO, you can't jam cell frequencies. Wifi, on the other hand, is on a limited power no license required permit to the manufacturer. If your wifi is being interfered with; you probably have no legal recourse unless you can show it is an intrusion attempt.
http://www.ospmag.com/issue/article/022012-Stoffels
Nigger is a demonstration of redneck ignorance by mispronouncing "negro" which is simply Spanish (or Latin) for "black".
At least that was my grandfather's take on the subject back in 1960s Mississippi.
The acoustic modems maxed out at 300 baud. The ones that had encryption capability came in their own separate 18lb briefcase. 110 baud was the spec for the original telex and teletype terminals. It was considered a wonder in 1974 that you could type on a terminal and it would come out on hundreds of terminals around the world. (Original AP and Reuters method of wire service news dissemination)
In the 70s; mobile communications was carting a dumb terminal (VT-100s were common) with an acoustic modem. You then dialed in to a mainframe to type things in. Think of having your monitor (an old CRT monitor) and your keyboard connected to your computer over phone lines at 110 baud.
By the late 70s small computers became actually functional things a business could afford. 8 inch floppies became common. Trust me, training people on Datapoint computers was a pain. And, support was expected to be done by coming to the office not by a phone center. After four instances in one week of people putting their main operating system master disk (A special 8 inch floppy you only used to make a copy of for installing user software to) in a "safe place" by putting it behind the filing cabinet with a refrigerator magnet; I joined the military to get away from customer support.
By the early 80s, 8 inch floppies (1.2 meg) were the standard for small business computers and 5-1/4 floppies (180K SSDD) were standard for home computers. I actually think that IBM partnered with Microsoft entering the desktop computing market in 1984 set back desktop computing a decade at least. There were much better systems out there before big corporate leverage changed all to IBM-PC standard running a re-branded QDOS. (The original Microsoft Disk Operating System was obtained not by coding but purchasing QDOS "Quick and Dirty Operating System" and re-branding it.)
Anyway, the PGP running mini mainframes with 8 inch floppies are children of the 1980s. That was when ARPANET was under development and the systems for certain classified things were first being computerized. Upgrading, literally, takes an act of Congress. .. Computer literate old fart here.
Too bad Fujitsu America decided to quit marketing their desktop replacement line of laptops. But, shucks, they were making tablet computers in the WinXP days. I'm still using a Fujitsu UMPC as a GPS and email on the road platform.
After they flat out abandoned owners of windows mobile phones a few years ago; why would anyone trust them to maintain their new OS?
Hydrogen fuel cells have been around so long it is surprising it took so long to get into the commercial market. Practical hydrogen fuel cells were developed by NASA in the 1960s to power spacecraft.
By 1973, there was a company in San Diego that had a Natural gas - compressed air fuel cell the size of two four drawer filing cabinets that could power a 14 unit apartment complex. I heard about them when I wrote for information for a science fair project. Humorously enough, the tech was bought up by a large utility company and they sat on the design until they trotted it out in 2003 to compete for DOE money as a "new technology". (In our litigious society; large corporate names intentionally left out. Yep, this is a personal anecdotal paragraph.)
What is needed is an inexpensive fuel cell that will run on air and LPG or LNG. But, all the research money seems to be going for hydrogen fuel cells. The storage problem for hydrogen is horrendous. H2 leaks out slowly between the molecules of steel in a pressure cylinder. The focus on hydrogen is nifty but wrong headed if you are talking consumer friendly uses of a fuel cell.
If you visit Charleston, South Carolina you can tour the NS Savannah which was the first nuclear powered cargo ship. The problem with commercial cargo ship operation was the shipping company was not willing to pay the rates needed to get experienced nuclear plant operators and most of the major shipping ports refused to let the Savannah dock due to paranoia about being nuclear powered.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Savannah
http://www.nssavannah.net/