I bet the companies that provide millimeter-wave scanners to the US government (i.e. the thingies that electronically strip-search folk) are popping champagne and thanking their good fortunes. Since this ding-dong of a terrorist allegedly hid his 'cargo' in his underwear, there was no way to detect it, short of strip-searching him. I expect lots of false-positive for everyone under 60 who has to wear adult diapers in the future... Once 'on-body' smuggling becomes difficult I expect to see greater focus on 'in-body' smuggling in conjunction with carry-on smuggling. The X-Ray machines in use today are perhaps a step up from the old black-and-white models in years past, but the human operator remains a very weak spot. Not every pattern will be recognizable, especially if someone with ill intentions positions the item/carry-on optimally to avoid detection.
Anyway, the usual security theater aside, what irks me more than anything is that US airport infrastructure has not kept up with the expanding space requirements to host said theater. For example, the millimeter scanners I have seen in operation are slow and take up a lot of room. So, to process the same number of passengers, far more millimeter scanners are needed than the walk-through magnetic detectors they replace. Yet, no additional space is provided to create more parallel paths into the 'secure' area of the airport. Anywhere...
It's simply amazing that with all the stimulus funds being spent left and right on infrastructure that no one can be bothered to redesign airports around bigger screening areas that can actually handle expected flows of traffic. Naturally, a better response would be to scale back the theater and simply acknowledge that the government cannot protect every citizen from every crime and live with the consequences - but I'll limit that fantasy to the rational place where it belongs as opposed to the irrational place the TSA is creating for the traveling public.
As for the question of how the TSA will react to the latest bombing plot, I simply point to past responses. The folk who run this organization appear to be very reactive as opposed to pro-active. Furthermore, I doubt that the appointees by the Obama administration have even begun to to steer the mish-mash of a federal bureaucracy that they have inherited. Given how long it takes for federal rules to get proposed, reviewed, signed-off, etc. I doubt we will see real 'Obama' policy at the TSA in effect until sometime next year. In the meantime, the remaining Bush-era rules are getting discussed, pushed through, etc.
First of all, the article is a very nice summary of the issues involved with setting up a cloud to crack passwords - the nuts and bolts, if you will. I liked that the authors took the time to look into the economics of trying to crack passwords, how much money it would cost vs. how long it would take. Password cracking is one example of massively scalable computing, which is presumably why the NSA allegedly has had to keep upgrading the electrical infrastructure at their headquarters. Elcomsoft certainly made a splash with their PGP-cracking software and managing to harness the power of cheap GPU cards (which are set up for parallel processing) was a bit of genius. That said, even massive horsepower runs into a brick wall once the passphrases become long and the encryption algorithm is good.
On page 2 of the article, the authors nicely summarize the cost of cracking longer and longer passwords. Once passwords start incorporating special characters (per SPEC), the cost shoots sky high even for relatively short passwords (i.e. $10MM+ for a 9 character password, $1BN for a 10-character password, the US national debt for a 12-character password). The article so clearly lays out why the various law enforcement agencies have been focusing on being able to force folk to disclose their encryption keys. The cost of cracking a well-executed encryption scheme combined with a good password is simply too high. So, go ahead and use those special characters, upper and lowercase, etc. to make life interesting for would-be snoops. But realize that unless trends in privacy rights swing the other way, law enforcement will simply compel key disclosure, as they have for years in the UK, for example.
Lastly, the article underscores the value of keychain-type schemes that allow many long passphrases to be stored in a accessible format. Make it easy to have long, complex passphrases and it becomes more likely that people will actually use them.
Thank you for the information, it makes perfect sense. Clearly, there can be a multitude of reasons why the AT&T or any other ceullar network may fail to get a call through. That said, I would prefer it if networks would be required to inform the caller that their network is overloaded and that the call cannot go through at the moment rather than going through the charade of pretending to ring the cell phone. Call it truth in calling. But I can clearly see why networks would prefer to pretend to make the connection rather than admitting that their infrastructure (or that of their roaming partner) is not up to snuff.
Multitudes of industries use similar tactics (airline flight delays come to mind) and unfortunately the only way to keep them in line is either vigorous competition combined with low switching costs to consumers (which exists in few markets) or better regulation (i.e. fraud detection that works most of the time and which is financially painful to the fraudster).
Every time I deal with AT&T I am amazed that anything works at all over there. My phone almost always shows five bars at home, yet frequently calls don't cause the phone to ring - they go to voicemail after pretending to ring. The jaded amongst us could suspect a deliberate misconfiguration of phones and signal strength monitoring. Similarly, it would not surprise me if AT&T data networks weren't about as reliable as the signal strength indicator on my phone. The recent alleged blurb from an Apple "genius" in NYC that 1/3 of all iPhone calls get dropped seems to point in that direction.
That a cell-phone won't work everywhere and perfectly every time is a given. However, wouldn't it be nice if the companies that stood behind these networks would actually be held accountable for some of the advertising statements they make? What it comes down to is that we're dealing with an oligopolistic market, where only a few carriers can achieve the scale and the coverage to satisfy most mobile customers most of the time. On the flipside, that also means that said carriers can be truly dismal when it comes to customer service, back-end efficiency, etc. since consumers don't have many choices. Considering the ongoing consolidation in the industry, the only way out seems to be a trust-busting activity on the part of the DoJ to regulate the industry.
Not sure that is the better alternative... nor what the best structure for a regulated market would be.
IIRC, Ms. Drew, family, and an employee went to elaborate lengths to ensnare a susceptible and troubled teenager in a web of lies, followed by making very pointed suggestions for the teenager to commit suicide. What legal basis to prosecute her under is one question... but if the allegations are true, there is certainly a moral basis for ostracizing her, which is apparently what happened in her community.
... perhaps such offenders doing serious community service (i.e. years of it) rather than going to jail for all the monetary damage that they have caused is a better punishment.
It's less costly to society (i.e. they continue to live with their parents)
something useful might come out of their work
deterrence might be better (i.e. potential offenders can get a visual reminder of potential consequences)
by the third or fourth year, offenders might grow out of committing more 'pranks'
by the tenth year, they'll be experts at picking up trash, removing graffiti, and other marketable skills.
...to see how these fine folk reacted once they were outed by TSG. Props to the folk who got the job done.
Tariq Malik calling the cops on reporters standing in a public way outside your flat after having posted numerous episodes of taking advantage of gullible people on youtube has to be the epitome of chutzpah. If the allegations against him and his cohorts are true (and the evidence they collected against themselves seems to back those allegations up), I hope they get to pay restitution to all the folk they tricked and spend a considerable time making up their 'pranks' to society.
Documenting your own crimes and posting them to the internet in the hope of glory seems a bit backwards to me, but hey, to each his/her own.
... then the OP is describing a working environment that borders on the intolerable. Words like rapacious, incompetent, etc. come to mind. That said, getting into competition with these folk is not as easy as one might think. I have to believe that the fat profit margins being described are being siphoned off to various bank accounts and that a competent ISP with growing market share might find itself suddenly shut down unless similar protection payments are made. If that sounds cynical, I apologize, but graft continues to be an endemic (with few exceptions) problem in Africa per various organizations that measure graft.
All isotope based dating techniques are based on natural decay... whether something is painted or not, I doubt the paint will have any effect on the amount of Carbon-14 you'll find inside it... According to howstuffworks (for what that is worth), carbon-14 is made by cosmic rays, and the ratio of carbon14 to carbon-12 was traditionally pretty stable. Since carbon 14 has a half life of 5,700 years, you can look at the ratio of the two to determine how old something is (well, for the last 60,000 years or so). That's because once there is no more carbon-14 uptake from the atmosphere, the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon 12 will decline (i.e. the plant/animal died)... which brings up another good point, i.e. what pigments were used, what they were derived from.
Also of interest is how carbon-dating in the future will become more difficult due to the advent of atmospheric atom bomb tests and other nuke industry emissions.
Lastly, whether the map of Vinland is authentic or not is for someone else to decide. However, I doubt anyone quibbles with the idea that plenty of humans inhabited the Americas well before other folk documented shorelines, etc. when they "discovered" the North and South American continents. For me, too many of these document-authenticity quests take on a quasi-nationalistic tint, i.e. "my grandpa was braver/wiser/better than your grandpa". Cheers.
It reminds me of a problem my mum told me about in the art world: Verifying the authenticity of ancient scrolls has become virtually impossible due to the discovery of large quantities of paint supplies (dried ink especially) and paper in monasteries. Armed with "old materials", forgers only have to focus on getting the technique, etc. right since there is no means to catch them technologically; for example, carbon dating and similar techniques will give the "right" results. Thus, art historians and dealers in that field allegedly have to rely more and more on their eyes to spot bad technique...
It would not surprise me if the Vinland map could have been constructed under similar circumstances (if that is what someone intended to do). I'm sure someone somewhere could have scared up some old ink and a hide to paint it on. It is or this reason that I guess so many folk are skeptical of the repeated maps from around the world that have come out "discovering" the Americas...
One issue is whether Apple did the right thing or the wrong thing in modifying its software. One can have differing views, interpretations of what Apple should and should not support. I can certainly see why Apple would not want non-Apple iPods masquerading as such, especially if they have published an API that allows non-Apple devices to maintain pretty much the same functionality as an iPod in iTunes.
No, the bigger issue is that Palm has neglected the desktop, handheld, and smartphone aspects of its products for so long that folk have been abandoning their hardware in droves. So Palm finally brings out a shiny new smartphone OS that may work as advertised. Yet, Palm actually had to adopt windows CE on some of its devices because the Palm OS was such a hopelessly decrepit pile of yesterdays junk. While I think the hardware and software of the Pre is interesting, it's more of the too little too late, IMO. It's next best competitor (Android) has a lead start, no lock-in at the hardware level, and many other advantages. Multi-tasking by itself is not reason enough to jump to a new hardware platform, especially if you limit yourself to Sprint, a has-been phone network.
Recognize that what Apple has done is to create a "seamless experience" from connecting the device to calenders, etc. being synced up and ready to go. Palm dropped the ball by concentrating solely on integrating with iTunes instead of bringing out a similarly "revolutionary" desktop application to complement it's many Pre functionalities. By allowing another vendor to dictate the terms under which its device can be interfaced, Palm has capitulated the desktop side of the business and by extension a prime means of differentiating its product from those of Apple.
I still can't believe that Palm can't bring out a better, up-to-date version of its used-to-be-great Palm desktop application, for example that allows users a entourage-like (but hopefully better!) experience. By comparison, the Apple reliance on multiple apps to get the same job done (i.e. iCal, Addressbook, etc.) is inelegant not nearly as intuitive. There are plenty of ways to write better software and make better hardware than Apple. However, if you want your product to stand out, you better do a better job than Apple does at creating a "user experience" that is intuitive and which differentiates Apple products enough for folk to be willing to spend a premium buying them...
Nevermind bringing out a smartphone that actually runs on most of the worlds networks instead of having a 6 month exclusive with a CDMA-based carrier. Sometime at the end of this year the exclusive will end, Palm will release a GSM-based Pre and I doubt anything much will happen. If Palm had actually focused on bringing out innovative phones and desktop applications in the last 5 years, perhaps they wouldn't be playing 4th fiddle to Apple, Rim, Windows, and Android. A pity, considering what an innovative company Palm appeared to be at one point.
For one, I don't know why I'd ever hand a piece of computer equipment with a hard drive in it to the folk at Best Buy, etc. after all the exposes re: naughty technicians surfing the hard drive for porn and other things of interest. There are lots of guides out there on how to do common tasks like hard drive replacement yourself, I'd only hand over a machine with a clean drive, if that.
Secondly, one has to consider the possibility that the images stored on the computer were not deposited there by the person who owns it. Any technician in the store could have used the computer to do some surfing, there is no chain of custody. Next, the images may have been deposited by malware, yet another possibility that I imagine the defense will bring up. Lastly, the images may have been deposited by a previous laptop owner, roommate, etc. - issues for the courts to mull over.
While I agree that the terms that most Intellectual Property Offices (IPOs) offer are rapacious, the benefits of having someone else invest $300K to secure worldwide patent rights also have to be considered. Particularly, if that institution has big pockets and hence some bloodthirsty lawyes only too happy to sue a big multinational for patent infringement. On the other hand, if you are a little company, a large company might just ignore your patent because patent litigation tends to be a civil affair, which means it'll cost you a lot of money to defend. Money you may not have, forcing you to settle. Never mind the many ways in which the process can get perverted by lawyers.
I think a bigger issue for most IPOs is that they are run as cost centers. Thus, the terms tend to be rapacious by design (i.e. kill what you can today rather than take a longer-term view by taking just an equity stake). However, that state of affairs is unlikely to change since Universities appear to have become addicted to licensing fees and up-front charges generated by their IPOs just as cities have become dependent on "traffic enforcement" revenues. At the end of the day, it simply means that smart students will be much more circumspect in terms of what they disclose to the university. However, I imagine that industry is also sponsoring less and less research since they'd have to share patents/licensing fees/etc.
So, in the end, this obsession with licensing fees and patents will reduce innovation, not enhance it. Never mind the many mechanics involved in pacing an idea through the IPO...
While I agree with some of your points, please allow me to disagree with your Mertz analogy.
IMO, the suitability of a CFL for a given application is directly tied to the construction and quality of the CFL and its electronics versus the application it is being used in. Some applications will never be good candidates for CFLs, I'll get to that in a bit.
The biggest issue with CFLs as I see it right now is that a lot of junk is being imported with nary a focus on issues that affect consumer utility. Instead, the focus is solely on the lumens/watt, which is but one aspect of how people benefit from a light. For example, most lamp manufacturers do not publish how long it takes their bulbs to come up to temperature, what ambient temperature effects are, nor the color temperature, nor the variability in color temperature, etc.
In other words, other aspects of the light not tied to the lumens being emitted are completely ignored and the cheaper the bulb, the worse the above issues tend to be. For example, I tried buying some CFLs for my in-laws at Home Depot and I was amazed how slow they were to come up to temperature, how nonuniform the light temperatures were, and so on. One bulb would be a dim yellow, the other more orange, etc. and none would have the same luminosity either. In other words, the QC in that factory on that run was completely and utterly off.
Then again, having bought them at Home Depot, I should have known better!
In my own home, I have used CFLs throughout, with a few exceptions. The only areas where CFLs are not used is one hallway that uses a combined light/movement sensor (CFL power supplies hate that due to the method which the light sensor uses) and then there are maybe 5 old sconces with exposed light bulbs where we prefer skinny traditional bulbs. Other than that, everything is CFL, including bathrooms, hallways, outdoor overhead lights, etc. None of these bulbs have needed replacement in over three years of use.
The brands I have had good luck with are TCP and Panasonic. The Panasonic gen IV bulbs we have are perfect replacements for globes, etc. even in antique light fixtures since they have the same approximate shapes as standard light bulbs. They are somewhat slow to warm up to full brightness (maybe 10 seconds - it's our version of a fancy dimmer effect) but we have had great luck using them even in applications that some bulbs are not rated for (i.e. ceiling cans, for example). The TCP springlamps have also been super, offering a wide range of almost instant-on CFLs in many color temperatures with even results. I've not worked for either company, not affiliated, your mileage may vary, etc.
Last but not least, the technology of LEDs will advance just as that for CFL has for the last 20+ years. At some point, manufacturers of CFLs will perhaps get together and come up with a industry standard for electronic dimmer wall switches to talk to CFL ballasts so that CFLs can successfully enter that application also. Unless such interoperability is assured, that is one application where CFLs are unlikely to have a lot of success. Being tied into a single-vendor solution (like the Leviton series of electronic ballast and switch combinations for overhead flourescent lights) is not a solution! And CFLs that can work around ancient rheostat, etc. technology are expensive and not very reliable.
... many years ago, it was illegal per AT&T to attach anything but AT&T-approved equipment at home or in a business alike to their network. Eventually, the anti-trust folk, PBX equipment vendors, etc. broke up that racket, IIRC. At the time, AT&T made dire predictions about network reliability, etc. if "non-approved" devices were attached to it. In the end, it was clearly a rear-guard action designed to maximize the lease-money that AT&T was deriving from equipment rentals. This Comcast rethoric is no different, they want to lease a $30 cable box for $4 month ad infinitum.
So, I would very much welcome a requirement to open up the the consumer choices with regard to cable boxes. Ideally, someone at the FCC will have the foresight to look to the EU or other places that have already gone through the trouble of designing a secure option and require an "open" standard instead of allowing content providers to reinvent the wheel yet again to create a NA-only product. While cable-boxes are definitely not as portable as let's say cell-phones (and hence will not derive as much value from being interoperable), economies of scale definitely apply in this business and the more competition, the better for the consumer.
Plus, interoperable product ensures that if cable content providers ever get competition, that cable boxes don't get discarded simply because provider X has a different encryption scheme than vendor Y. Besides the unnecessary lock-in at the set-box level, I would also like to see a requirement by the Feds to allow consumers and content providers to chose their packages à la carte (i.e. disallow bundling requirements). This is the only means of breaking the oligopoly of the content providers and to restore some semblance of consumer choice to the market.
As a fellow Mac user it also surprises me to see how many common software packages used in the OS trail the open source releases by long shots. Perhaps the folk at Apple need a lot of time to ensure that all the OSS packages will play nice with each other. On the other hand, whenever there are drastic issues, the Cupertino folk tend to release a fix in days, not months. That, combined with a easy-to-use update control panel, better user privilege control, and a paranoid firewall make it harder to infect Mac OS systems w/o the user helping along (i.e. running a trojan horse, visiting a bad site, etc.)
However, many of the infections that sweep the web could be reduced drastically if users were forced to use a router whenever they have a high-speed connection. This would reduce threats significantly, since you'd now depend on users to do a bad thing, rather than the Windows machine inviting an open attack. Also, I wish that routers were easier to use, so that people don't resort to DMZ'ing machines on their network to play with MMPORGs/iTunes/etc.
The last hole big enough to drive several trucks through is e-mail, IM, and other communications means that allow vast quantities to flow between machines. I wish that IE and other browsers would be written with a greater nod towards security. That is, a sandbox for Java that keeps all the toys inside, no way to open a "picture" and execute a program instead, no ActiveX or Visual Basic routines allowed, etc. Better, transparent, security here would be a big boon to everyone.
At the end of the day, it's all about user education and making people understand the implications of having their machines on the internet 24/7. Those users that "don't get it" or who don't care ought to have their connection privileges pulled by their ISPs for the greater good.
... we do not know whether he did or did not record the crime occuring. He claims he did not.
... the watergate breakin is comparable because no one but the reporters had an inkling of what was going on and what was behind the breakin until they and their confidential source had done a lot of detective work. Blowing the story at an early stage would have compromised some of the henchmen (perhaps) but it would have left Nixon and the rest of the puppeteers in office.
Similarly, if we force every news media outlet to submit all tapes, interviews, and other source material for any reason to any state organization that suspects that the media have collected data on a crime, then the media becomes a glorified version of the East German STASI. In particular, no investigations of government crimes will be possible at that point since the state will be simply able to supoena it all and make it disappear.
Some of the warrantless searches (sneak and peak, wiretapping) are clearly a step in that direction and ought to be fought at every possible junction. Otherwise, the descent down the slippery slope of eroding civil liberties in the name of law and order is all too easy. There is a price to pay for a free society, and the absence of "law and order" at every opportunity for trouble is one of them. I prefer it that way.
Don't get me wrong, I do not condone vandalism either. However, the police in particular have to work within the framework of the law, and in this case I feel the law has been willfully abused by the prosecution to fabricate a federal crime where there was none. If the state wants to ask for film footage, it may do so. But demanding it is a whole other matter.
Shield laws serve a very important purpose, and that is exposing corrupt officials to the populace so that we the voters can get rid of them, either through impeachment or by voting the bums out. Time and time again, states around the world have proven that giving them absolute power led to absolute corruption. The judiciary and to a lesser extent a free press can help counteract such tendencies, but ultimately it depends on us to steer the state.
Take watergate as an example. Here you had two young reporters that, with the help of a FBI informant, started to dismantle the lies, etc. surrounding the watergate breakin. Could they have divulged more info than they did? Of course... yet protecting the source was arguably more important than the evidence that could have been gleaned from exposing him. Ditto for the Pentagon Papers, another source of controversy in the 1970's.
For one, the feds have no proof that he captured the folk setting the car on fire.
Secondly, claiming that its a federal crime on the basis of some federal anti-terrorism funding to the local PD is stretching the rubber band beyond the breaking point. No matter where the funding comes from, if it's not an item with a federal property ID stamp/sticker on it, it doesn't belong to the feds. That's like claiming that a gift I received from someone else is still their property. Such arguments do not hold up in non-kangaroo courts.
And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the biggest danger to our democracy... the partisanization of the judiciary via political appointees/hacks that toe the party line and their belief system instead of applying constitutional law, precedent, and common sense to resolving conflicts. This is a creeping process and will only accelerate as past successes embolden political hacks to continue to skew the judicial process/counterweight.
... though presumably unintentionally and ironically in his own family.
One could argue that living out his socialist dream in London exile was one way to test whether his utopia could hold together. However, in the process of sharing everything with everyone, the money that his wife's family sent to support them was squandered, and several of their children died of hunger, malnutrition, and preventable diseases. After all, he had no steady income and thus had to leech of his wife's family.... this at least according to reliable family sources who knew Karl and the wife's family very well.
As always, it depends on your local conditions on how well the utility company can cope with peaky demand. I seem to recall a graph of gas usage by the hour which showed a "hump" in the morning due to gas water heaters that was several hours long - the low recovery rate of most gas water heaters combined with differing times that people get up and shower. If the demand starts to become more and more concentrated due to instantaneous water heaters, you may see many older urban area gas networks cry uncle.
Ditto for electrical networks... a SETS instantaneous water heater can consume upwards of 20kW, which is 80A at 240VAC for 1.5GPM of flow in the colder parts of the country. I imagine trying one of these in a 100A-service home might be iffy, at best. And you might need multiples of that to cover all your showers. Now imagine what that'll do to electrical demand, especially considering that the AC and other large loads inside the home are independent and may come on at the same time...
My area of the world is notorious for it's older infrastructure. Much of the town is still being serviced by the same sewers that were installed 120 years ago. Similarly, the gas/electrical network has evolved from just providing city gas or electricity for lighting to heating the neighborhood, powering all sorts of doohickey's etc. Yet, depending on the season (i.e. does the cold drive up the demand due to heating), the local gas supply conditions (i.e. do they have the NG on hand), and the local network conditions (i.e. are the pipes big enough), the gas company has resorted to all sorts of things to keep the system going. Ditto for the electrical folk, with brownouts and other byproducts of trying to cover peak demand (usually driven by AC in the summer).
For example, it is not unusual to hear of all sorts of interesting gas mixtures being pumped into the gas network as the utility struggles to meet demand. They have the right to do so, though it can do bad things to your combustion appliance if they get it wrong (which they shouldn't, but that's another story). For example, natural gas usually gets metered by the therm/ccf, each of which should contain about 100kBTU of energy. I have spoken to a teach at a equipment manufacturer who has evidence of gas mixtures out there that range from 60-160kBTU/ccf! Imagine setting up a combustion appliance at one end of that spectrum, then having it swing over... CO, equipment damage, etc. may result.
You're right, gas storage/compression systems already exist in the realm of CNG automobiles. IIRC, the device costs thousands of dollars, though mass production and competition would hopefully bring the prices closer to earth. That would be an interesting concept to consider, i.e. drawing gas at off-peak hours for local storage... perhaps the bigger customers already do that.
...I would much prefer people to consider innovative ways to reduce their energy footprint. One device that I decided to install my my home is a GFX Heat exchanger from GFX Technology. It preheats the water coming into the water heater with the wastewater coming down the drain. Perfect for showers and other water uses where the make-up water is flowing into the home as the waste water is flowing out (i.e. not much help with bath-tubs).
Solar DWH also makes a lot of sense in warmer areas of the country since they have ample insolation and external storage tanks are not as problematic as in the cold North. The Chinese have allegedly figured this out a while ago with 75+% of the worlds solar DHW installation going on in that country (as of 2002, IIRC).
Another great way to improve the efficiency of an AC while harvesting "free" energy is to install a desuperator like the Aquefier from Trevor Martin or AC OEMs. Use it as a pre-heater with an indirect water heater if you already have a regular water heater.
I have no affiliation with any of the manufacturers I have listed, other than being a very happy customer of GFX's.
I think you ought to research your claims before posting here. Instantaneous electric water heaters have been around for years. My mother uses a SETS instantaneous electric water heater to supply water to her entire home. Other examples of tankless electric units include remote washrooms to save on the piping, etc.
Please note that I didn't claim that electric water heaters were 99.9% efficient, I just claimed that 99.9% of the energy consumed by one would actually end up inside it. Obviously, any water heater that incorporates a buffer tank will have some standby losses. Please also note that some instantaneous water heaters have standby losses due to their use of standing gas pilots (common on older systems).
Most significantly, I urge you to research the minimum flow requirements that all instant units impose. If you have a whole house instantaneous water heater, it may be very beneficial to have a small buffer tank to cover low loads like a single faucet being cracked open enough to cause flow, but not enough to allow the water heater to fire.
What you're also missing is that the energy distribution companies are gearing up to disincentivize instantaneous gas and electric water heaters, whereever they are attached to their networks (i.e. methane and electric, LP is a different animal). That's because many distribution networks (gas or electric) cannot handle huge spikes in demand, and instantaneous water heating units do exactly that, creating predictable spikes in the morning and in the evening. How will they kill instantaneous units? Simple, peak demand metering.
Utilities and their distributors prefer the slow,steady demand that a low-recovery, buffer-tank water heater imposes on their systems. As meters get upgraded (and ours just did), the utility company not only knows how much you consume, but when you consume it. Demand metering is already standard practice in the Commercial arena (with VERY heavy-handed penalities) and it's only a matter of time before the distribution companies will try to impose the same kind of demand-control on the residential side of the business.
This "article" is a press release being marketed as news by the Globe and Mail. Here is my letter to the editor.
Reprinting press releases and announcing them as news in your publication is a pretty sad state of affairs. Your "article" fails to analyze the technology even in a rudimentary fashion. For example, if the reporter had turned on a crticial thinking cell, perhaps he/she would have inquired how a micro-wave based tankless water heater was going to be more efficient than a resistance-based one?
You cannot get around the Physics that it takes 1 BTU to heat a pound of water by 1 degree Farenheit. Tankless electric water heaters have existed for years and are 99.9% efficient at turning electrical energy into heat... just like this microwave technology. So no efficiency gain there, and never mind answering the question where the electrical power comes from in the first place and the conversion efficiency at that end.
How about comparing the efficiency and energy consumption of a tankless electric water heater (of any kind) to a tank-based water heater that uses a heat pump, a desuperator from a geothermal heating system, or perhaps even an indirect water heater fired with a condensing gas boiler? That probably never occured to your reporter because he/she was under orders to secure advertising from Pulsar Advanced Technologies.
Yet, heat pump water heaters have been shown to consume a lot less net energy than their electric competition because they harvest "free" energy from the basement or the ground, even if you account for standby losses. Every kWh put into such a heater produces several kWh of heat. See this press release at ORNL for more information.
And, lest we forget, even regular gas fired water heaters achieve a higher thermal gain per net unit energy put in at the front end than any electric unit... as a typical energy plant is 35% efficient. Most of the energy going into that process escapes as waste heat, and I'm not sure that being dependent on the electrical utilities is any more beneficial than relying on the gas utilities.
Hybrids are great at dealing with stop-and-go traffic. If you're driving a lot in such conditions (Taxi, delivery service, commute, etc.) then hybrid technology can do great things to reduce the inherent inefficiency of an internal combustion engine when it tries to get a stationary object going (No Torque at 0 RPM, etc.). And, regenerative braking does a lot to recapture some kinetic energy during braking and storing it for later use.
Whether the high price point currently can be justified really depends on a number of factors. For one, I wouldn't trust the EPA MPG numbers one bit - I'm not a highway hooligan, yet my milage doesn't come close to the published numbers. In an ideal world, you'd rent/borrow your hybrid of choice, commute/use the thing for a week, then tally the fuel savings. At least then you'd have a fighting chance to calculate the NPV of going with a hybrid vs. a regular vehicle under those circumstances... For those who mainly cover long distances with their vehicles, hybrids are likely to be negative in payback.
Lest we forget though, cars are fashion statements as much as they are transportation... otherwise we wouldn't have the huge number of different vehicles and amenities to choose from. Hybrids are simply another way for manufacturers to differentiate their wares from the competition. Note the new Acura Hybrid for example, which uses hybrid technology not really to save fuel, but to allow it to accelerate faster.. the fuel savings is less than 5% over the regular model.
An article in Scientific American covered hybrids/hydrogen cars last year concluded that with todays technology the combination of efficient, small diesel power plants and hybrids had the highest potential payoff. As hybrid technology becomes commoditized, I expect the marginal cost to decrease and the options to increase. For example, a car manufacturer could end up offering battery packs with a range of capacities for those that want to recharge their car from the home electrical socket, not the local gas station.
Thus, todays purchasors of Toyota Prius' are making as much a fashion statement as they're showing the EU and US car manufacturers that there is a demand for 'cool' cars that are fuel efficient. Note the much lower demand for the insight... Perhaps the Civic can regain some of the lost ground for Honda. In the meantime, Ford and others have had to license the very technology that was originally dreamed up in the US... just like the scroll compressor and other innovative technologies that the Japanese were first to recognize as revolutionary in their respective industries.
... I had no idea that connections via a localhost tunnel behave differently from an outside connection attempt, so I learned something today.
Furthermore, I didn't want to imply that you didn't know what you were doing. You obviously do...
However, I still marvel at the number of ISP's, webhosters, etc. that have their customers login with non-secure connections on networks that are known to be compromised with sniffers, etc. Until the day comes that SSL/SSH connections are mandatory for e-mail, uploads, etc. it'll be far too easy not to exploit these obvious loopholes. If it were up to me, ports 25, 110, etc. would be retired and replaced with authenticated connections.
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I bet the companies that provide millimeter-wave scanners to the US government (i.e. the thingies that electronically strip-search folk) are popping champagne and thanking their good fortunes. Since this ding-dong of a terrorist allegedly hid his 'cargo' in his underwear, there was no way to detect it, short of strip-searching him. I expect lots of false-positive for everyone under 60 who has to wear adult diapers in the future... Once 'on-body' smuggling becomes difficult I expect to see greater focus on 'in-body' smuggling in conjunction with carry-on smuggling. The X-Ray machines in use today are perhaps a step up from the old black-and-white models in years past, but the human operator remains a very weak spot. Not every pattern will be recognizable, especially if someone with ill intentions positions the item/carry-on optimally to avoid detection.
Anyway, the usual security theater aside, what irks me more than anything is that US airport infrastructure has not kept up with the expanding space requirements to host said theater. For example, the millimeter scanners I have seen in operation are slow and take up a lot of room. So, to process the same number of passengers, far more millimeter scanners are needed than the walk-through magnetic detectors they replace. Yet, no additional space is provided to create more parallel paths into the 'secure' area of the airport. Anywhere...
It's simply amazing that with all the stimulus funds being spent left and right on infrastructure that no one can be bothered to redesign airports around bigger screening areas that can actually handle expected flows of traffic. Naturally, a better response would be to scale back the theater and simply acknowledge that the government cannot protect every citizen from every crime and live with the consequences - but I'll limit that fantasy to the rational place where it belongs as opposed to the irrational place the TSA is creating for the traveling public.
As for the question of how the TSA will react to the latest bombing plot, I simply point to past responses. The folk who run this organization appear to be very reactive as opposed to pro-active. Furthermore, I doubt that the appointees by the Obama administration have even begun to to steer the mish-mash of a federal bureaucracy that they have inherited. Given how long it takes for federal rules to get proposed, reviewed, signed-off, etc. I doubt we will see real 'Obama' policy at the TSA in effect until sometime next year. In the meantime, the remaining Bush-era rules are getting discussed, pushed through, etc.
First of all, the article is a very nice summary of the issues involved with setting up a cloud to crack passwords - the nuts and bolts, if you will. I liked that the authors took the time to look into the economics of trying to crack passwords, how much money it would cost vs. how long it would take. Password cracking is one example of massively scalable computing, which is presumably why the NSA allegedly has had to keep upgrading the electrical infrastructure at their headquarters. Elcomsoft certainly made a splash with their PGP-cracking software and managing to harness the power of cheap GPU cards (which are set up for parallel processing) was a bit of genius. That said, even massive horsepower runs into a brick wall once the passphrases become long and the encryption algorithm is good.
On page 2 of the article, the authors nicely summarize the cost of cracking longer and longer passwords. Once passwords start incorporating special characters (per SPEC), the cost shoots sky high even for relatively short passwords (i.e. $10MM+ for a 9 character password, $1BN for a 10-character password, the US national debt for a 12-character password). The article so clearly lays out why the various law enforcement agencies have been focusing on being able to force folk to disclose their encryption keys. The cost of cracking a well-executed encryption scheme combined with a good password is simply too high. So, go ahead and use those special characters, upper and lowercase, etc. to make life interesting for would-be snoops. But realize that unless trends in privacy rights swing the other way, law enforcement will simply compel key disclosure, as they have for years in the UK, for example.
Lastly, the article underscores the value of keychain-type schemes that allow many long passphrases to be stored in a accessible format. Make it easy to have long, complex passphrases and it becomes more likely that people will actually use them.
Thank you for the information, it makes perfect sense. Clearly, there can be a multitude of reasons why the AT&T or any other ceullar network may fail to get a call through. That said, I would prefer it if networks would be required to inform the caller that their network is overloaded and that the call cannot go through at the moment rather than going through the charade of pretending to ring the cell phone. Call it truth in calling. But I can clearly see why networks would prefer to pretend to make the connection rather than admitting that their infrastructure (or that of their roaming partner) is not up to snuff.
Multitudes of industries use similar tactics (airline flight delays come to mind) and unfortunately the only way to keep them in line is either vigorous competition combined with low switching costs to consumers (which exists in few markets) or better regulation (i.e. fraud detection that works most of the time and which is financially painful to the fraudster).
Every time I deal with AT&T I am amazed that anything works at all over there. My phone almost always shows five bars at home, yet frequently calls don't cause the phone to ring - they go to voicemail after pretending to ring. The jaded amongst us could suspect a deliberate misconfiguration of phones and signal strength monitoring. Similarly, it would not surprise me if AT&T data networks weren't about as reliable as the signal strength indicator on my phone. The recent alleged blurb from an Apple "genius" in NYC that 1/3 of all iPhone calls get dropped seems to point in that direction.
That a cell-phone won't work everywhere and perfectly every time is a given. However, wouldn't it be nice if the companies that stood behind these networks would actually be held accountable for some of the advertising statements they make? What it comes down to is that we're dealing with an oligopolistic market, where only a few carriers can achieve the scale and the coverage to satisfy most mobile customers most of the time. On the flipside, that also means that said carriers can be truly dismal when it comes to customer service, back-end efficiency, etc. since consumers don't have many choices. Considering the ongoing consolidation in the industry, the only way out seems to be a trust-busting activity on the part of the DoJ to regulate the industry.
Not sure that is the better alternative... nor what the best structure for a regulated market would be.
IIRC, Ms. Drew, family, and an employee went to elaborate lengths to ensnare a susceptible and troubled teenager in a web of lies, followed by making very pointed suggestions for the teenager to commit suicide. What legal basis to prosecute her under is one question... but if the allegations are true, there is certainly a moral basis for ostracizing her, which is apparently what happened in her community.
...to see how these fine folk reacted once they were outed by TSG. Props to the folk who got the job done.
Tariq Malik calling the cops on reporters standing in a public way outside your flat after having posted numerous episodes of taking advantage of gullible people on youtube has to be the epitome of chutzpah. If the allegations against him and his cohorts are true (and the evidence they collected against themselves seems to back those allegations up), I hope they get to pay restitution to all the folk they tricked and spend a considerable time making up their 'pranks' to society.
Documenting your own crimes and posting them to the internet in the hope of glory seems a bit backwards to me, but hey, to each his/her own.
... then the OP is describing a working environment that borders on the intolerable. Words like rapacious, incompetent, etc. come to mind. That said, getting into competition with these folk is not as easy as one might think. I have to believe that the fat profit margins being described are being siphoned off to various bank accounts and that a competent ISP with growing market share might find itself suddenly shut down unless similar protection payments are made. If that sounds cynical, I apologize, but graft continues to be an endemic (with few exceptions) problem in Africa per various organizations that measure graft.
All isotope based dating techniques are based on natural decay... whether something is painted or not, I doubt the paint will have any effect on the amount of Carbon-14 you'll find inside it... According to howstuffworks (for what that is worth), carbon-14 is made by cosmic rays, and the ratio of carbon14 to carbon-12 was traditionally pretty stable. Since carbon 14 has a half life of 5,700 years, you can look at the ratio of the two to determine how old something is (well, for the last 60,000 years or so). That's because once there is no more carbon-14 uptake from the atmosphere, the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon 12 will decline (i.e. the plant/animal died)... which brings up another good point, i.e. what pigments were used, what they were derived from.
Also of interest is how carbon-dating in the future will become more difficult due to the advent of atmospheric atom bomb tests and other nuke industry emissions.
Lastly, whether the map of Vinland is authentic or not is for someone else to decide. However, I doubt anyone quibbles with the idea that plenty of humans inhabited the Americas well before other folk documented shorelines, etc. when they "discovered" the North and South American continents. For me, too many of these document-authenticity quests take on a quasi-nationalistic tint, i.e. "my grandpa was braver/wiser/better than your grandpa". Cheers.
It reminds me of a problem my mum told me about in the art world: Verifying the authenticity of ancient scrolls has become virtually impossible due to the discovery of large quantities of paint supplies (dried ink especially) and paper in monasteries. Armed with "old materials", forgers only have to focus on getting the technique, etc. right since there is no means to catch them technologically; for example, carbon dating and similar techniques will give the "right" results. Thus, art historians and dealers in that field allegedly have to rely more and more on their eyes to spot bad technique...
It would not surprise me if the Vinland map could have been constructed under similar circumstances (if that is what someone intended to do). I'm sure someone somewhere could have scared up some old ink and a hide to paint it on. It is or this reason that I guess so many folk are skeptical of the repeated maps from around the world that have come out "discovering" the Americas...
One issue is whether Apple did the right thing or the wrong thing in modifying its software. One can have differing views, interpretations of what Apple should and should not support. I can certainly see why Apple would not want non-Apple iPods masquerading as such, especially if they have published an API that allows non-Apple devices to maintain pretty much the same functionality as an iPod in iTunes.
No, the bigger issue is that Palm has neglected the desktop, handheld, and smartphone aspects of its products for so long that folk have been abandoning their hardware in droves. So Palm finally brings out a shiny new smartphone OS that may work as advertised. Yet, Palm actually had to adopt windows CE on some of its devices because the Palm OS was such a hopelessly decrepit pile of yesterdays junk. While I think the hardware and software of the Pre is interesting, it's more of the too little too late, IMO. It's next best competitor (Android) has a lead start, no lock-in at the hardware level, and many other advantages. Multi-tasking by itself is not reason enough to jump to a new hardware platform, especially if you limit yourself to Sprint, a has-been phone network.
Recognize that what Apple has done is to create a "seamless experience" from connecting the device to calenders, etc. being synced up and ready to go. Palm dropped the ball by concentrating solely on integrating with iTunes instead of bringing out a similarly "revolutionary" desktop application to complement it's many Pre functionalities. By allowing another vendor to dictate the terms under which its device can be interfaced, Palm has capitulated the desktop side of the business and by extension a prime means of differentiating its product from those of Apple.
I still can't believe that Palm can't bring out a better, up-to-date version of its used-to-be-great Palm desktop application, for example that allows users a entourage-like (but hopefully better!) experience. By comparison, the Apple reliance on multiple apps to get the same job done (i.e. iCal, Addressbook, etc.) is inelegant not nearly as intuitive. There are plenty of ways to write better software and make better hardware than Apple. However, if you want your product to stand out, you better do a better job than Apple does at creating a "user experience" that is intuitive and which differentiates Apple products enough for folk to be willing to spend a premium buying them...
Nevermind bringing out a smartphone that actually runs on most of the worlds networks instead of having a 6 month exclusive with a CDMA-based carrier. Sometime at the end of this year the exclusive will end, Palm will release a GSM-based Pre and I doubt anything much will happen. If Palm had actually focused on bringing out innovative phones and desktop applications in the last 5 years, perhaps they wouldn't be playing 4th fiddle to Apple, Rim, Windows, and Android. A pity, considering what an innovative company Palm appeared to be at one point.
For one, I don't know why I'd ever hand a piece of computer equipment with a hard drive in it to the folk at Best Buy, etc. after all the exposes re: naughty technicians surfing the hard drive for porn and other things of interest. There are lots of guides out there on how to do common tasks like hard drive replacement yourself, I'd only hand over a machine with a clean drive, if that.
Secondly, one has to consider the possibility that the images stored on the computer were not deposited there by the person who owns it. Any technician in the store could have used the computer to do some surfing, there is no chain of custody. Next, the images may have been deposited by malware, yet another possibility that I imagine the defense will bring up. Lastly, the images may have been deposited by a previous laptop owner, roommate, etc. - issues for the courts to mull over.
Not that easy...
While I agree that the terms that most Intellectual Property Offices (IPOs) offer are rapacious, the benefits of having someone else invest $300K to secure worldwide patent rights also have to be considered. Particularly, if that institution has big pockets and hence some bloodthirsty lawyes only too happy to sue a big multinational for patent infringement. On the other hand, if you are a little company, a large company might just ignore your patent because patent litigation tends to be a civil affair, which means it'll cost you a lot of money to defend. Money you may not have, forcing you to settle. Never mind the many ways in which the process can get perverted by lawyers.
I think a bigger issue for most IPOs is that they are run as cost centers. Thus, the terms tend to be rapacious by design (i.e. kill what you can today rather than take a longer-term view by taking just an equity stake). However, that state of affairs is unlikely to change since Universities appear to have become addicted to licensing fees and up-front charges generated by their IPOs just as cities have become dependent on "traffic enforcement" revenues. At the end of the day, it simply means that smart students will be much more circumspect in terms of what they disclose to the university. However, I imagine that industry is also sponsoring less and less research since they'd have to share patents/licensing fees/etc.
So, in the end, this obsession with licensing fees and patents will reduce innovation, not enhance it. Never mind the many mechanics involved in pacing an idea through the IPO...
While I agree with some of your points, please allow me to disagree with your Mertz analogy.
IMO, the suitability of a CFL for a given application is directly tied to the construction and quality of the CFL and its electronics versus the application it is being used in. Some applications will never be good candidates for CFLs, I'll get to that in a bit.
The biggest issue with CFLs as I see it right now is that a lot of junk is being imported with nary a focus on issues that affect consumer utility. Instead, the focus is solely on the lumens/watt, which is but one aspect of how people benefit from a light. For example, most lamp manufacturers do not publish how long it takes their bulbs to come up to temperature, what ambient temperature effects are, nor the color temperature, nor the variability in color temperature, etc.
In other words, other aspects of the light not tied to the lumens being emitted are completely ignored and the cheaper the bulb, the worse the above issues tend to be. For example, I tried buying some CFLs for my in-laws at Home Depot and I was amazed how slow they were to come up to temperature, how nonuniform the light temperatures were, and so on. One bulb would be a dim yellow, the other more orange, etc. and none would have the same luminosity either. In other words, the QC in that factory on that run was completely and utterly off.
Then again, having bought them at Home Depot, I should have known better!
In my own home, I have used CFLs throughout, with a few exceptions. The only areas where CFLs are not used is one hallway that uses a combined light/movement sensor (CFL power supplies hate that due to the method which the light sensor uses) and then there are maybe 5 old sconces with exposed light bulbs where we prefer skinny traditional bulbs. Other than that, everything is CFL, including bathrooms, hallways, outdoor overhead lights, etc. None of these bulbs have needed replacement in over three years of use.
The brands I have had good luck with are TCP and Panasonic. The Panasonic gen IV bulbs we have are perfect replacements for globes, etc. even in antique light fixtures since they have the same approximate shapes as standard light bulbs. They are somewhat slow to warm up to full brightness (maybe 10 seconds - it's our version of a fancy dimmer effect) but we have had great luck using them even in applications that some bulbs are not rated for (i.e. ceiling cans, for example). The TCP springlamps have also been super, offering a wide range of almost instant-on CFLs in many color temperatures with even results. I've not worked for either company, not affiliated, your mileage may vary, etc.
Last but not least, the technology of LEDs will advance just as that for CFL has for the last 20+ years. At some point, manufacturers of CFLs will perhaps get together and come up with a industry standard for electronic dimmer wall switches to talk to CFL ballasts so that CFLs can successfully enter that application also. Unless such interoperability is assured, that is one application where CFLs are unlikely to have a lot of success. Being tied into a single-vendor solution (like the Leviton series of electronic ballast and switch combinations for overhead flourescent lights) is not a solution! And CFLs that can work around ancient rheostat, etc. technology are expensive and not very reliable.
... many years ago, it was illegal per AT&T to attach anything but AT&T-approved equipment at home or in a business alike to their network. Eventually, the anti-trust folk, PBX equipment vendors, etc. broke up that racket, IIRC. At the time, AT&T made dire predictions about network reliability, etc. if "non-approved" devices were attached to it. In the end, it was clearly a rear-guard action designed to maximize the lease-money that AT&T was deriving from equipment rentals. This Comcast rethoric is no different, they want to lease a $30 cable box for $4 month ad infinitum.
So, I would very much welcome a requirement to open up the the consumer choices with regard to cable boxes. Ideally, someone at the FCC will have the foresight to look to the EU or other places that have already gone through the trouble of designing a secure option and require an "open" standard instead of allowing content providers to reinvent the wheel yet again to create a NA-only product. While cable-boxes are definitely not as portable as let's say cell-phones (and hence will not derive as much value from being interoperable), economies of scale definitely apply in this business and the more competition, the better for the consumer.
Plus, interoperable product ensures that if cable content providers ever get competition, that cable boxes don't get discarded simply because provider X has a different encryption scheme than vendor Y. Besides the unnecessary lock-in at the set-box level, I would also like to see a requirement by the Feds to allow consumers and content providers to chose their packages à la carte (i.e. disallow bundling requirements). This is the only means of breaking the oligopoly of the content providers and to restore some semblance of consumer choice to the market.
As a fellow Mac user it also surprises me to see how many common software packages used in the OS trail the open source releases by long shots. Perhaps the folk at Apple need a lot of time to ensure that all the OSS packages will play nice with each other. On the other hand, whenever there are drastic issues, the Cupertino folk tend to release a fix in days, not months. That, combined with a easy-to-use update control panel, better user privilege control, and a paranoid firewall make it harder to infect Mac OS systems w/o the user helping along (i.e. running a trojan horse, visiting a bad site, etc.)
However, many of the infections that sweep the web could be reduced drastically if users were forced to use a router whenever they have a high-speed connection. This would reduce threats significantly, since you'd now depend on users to do a bad thing, rather than the Windows machine inviting an open attack. Also, I wish that routers were easier to use, so that people don't resort to DMZ'ing machines on their network to play with MMPORGs/iTunes/etc.
The last hole big enough to drive several trucks through is e-mail, IM, and other communications means that allow vast quantities to flow between machines. I wish that IE and other browsers would be written with a greater nod towards security. That is, a sandbox for Java that keeps all the toys inside, no way to open a "picture" and execute a program instead, no ActiveX or Visual Basic routines allowed, etc. Better, transparent, security here would be a big boon to everyone.
At the end of the day, it's all about user education and making people understand the implications of having their machines on the internet 24/7. Those users that "don't get it" or who don't care ought to have their connection privileges pulled by their ISPs for the greater good.
... we do not know whether he did or did not record the crime occuring. He claims he did not.
... the watergate breakin is comparable because no one but the reporters had an inkling of what was going on and what was behind the breakin until they and their confidential source had done a lot of detective work. Blowing the story at an early stage would have compromised some of the henchmen (perhaps) but it would have left Nixon and the rest of the puppeteers in office.
Similarly, if we force every news media outlet to submit all tapes, interviews, and other source material for any reason to any state organization that suspects that the media have collected data on a crime, then the media becomes a glorified version of the East German STASI. In particular, no investigations of government crimes will be possible at that point since the state will be simply able to supoena it all and make it disappear.
Some of the warrantless searches (sneak and peak, wiretapping) are clearly a step in that direction and ought to be fought at every possible junction. Otherwise, the descent down the slippery slope of eroding civil liberties in the name of law and order is all too easy. There is a price to pay for a free society, and the absence of "law and order" at every opportunity for trouble is one of them. I prefer it that way.
Don't get me wrong, I do not condone vandalism either. However, the police in particular have to work within the framework of the law, and in this case I feel the law has been willfully abused by the prosecution to fabricate a federal crime where there was none. If the state wants to ask for film footage, it may do so. But demanding it is a whole other matter.
Shield laws serve a very important purpose, and that is exposing corrupt officials to the populace so that we the voters can get rid of them, either through impeachment or by voting the bums out. Time and time again, states around the world have proven that giving them absolute power led to absolute corruption. The judiciary and to a lesser extent a free press can help counteract such tendencies, but ultimately it depends on us to steer the state.
Take watergate as an example. Here you had two young reporters that, with the help of a FBI informant, started to dismantle the lies, etc. surrounding the watergate breakin. Could they have divulged more info than they did? Of course... yet protecting the source was arguably more important than the evidence that could have been gleaned from exposing him. Ditto for the Pentagon Papers, another source of controversy in the 1970's.
For one, the feds have no proof that he captured the folk setting the car on fire.
Secondly, claiming that its a federal crime on the basis of some federal anti-terrorism funding to the local PD is stretching the rubber band beyond the breaking point. No matter where the funding comes from, if it's not an item with a federal property ID stamp/sticker on it, it doesn't belong to the feds. That's like claiming that a gift I received from someone else is still their property. Such arguments do not hold up in non-kangaroo courts.
And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the biggest danger to our democracy... the partisanization of the judiciary via political appointees/hacks that toe the party line and their belief system instead of applying constitutional law, precedent, and common sense to resolving conflicts. This is a creeping process and will only accelerate as past successes embolden political hacks to continue to skew the judicial process/counterweight.
... though presumably unintentionally and ironically in his own family.
... this at least according to reliable family sources who knew Karl and the wife's family very well.
One could argue that living out his socialist dream in London exile was one way to test whether his utopia could hold together. However, in the process of sharing everything with everyone, the money that his wife's family sent to support them was squandered, and several of their children died of hunger, malnutrition, and preventable diseases. After all, he had no steady income and thus had to leech of his wife's family.
As always, it depends on your local conditions on how well the utility company can cope with peaky demand. I seem to recall a graph of gas usage by the hour which showed a "hump" in the morning due to gas water heaters that was several hours long - the low recovery rate of most gas water heaters combined with differing times that people get up and shower. If the demand starts to become more and more concentrated due to instantaneous water heaters, you may see many older urban area gas networks cry uncle.
Ditto for electrical networks... a SETS instantaneous water heater can consume upwards of 20kW, which is 80A at 240VAC for 1.5GPM of flow in the colder parts of the country. I imagine trying one of these in a 100A-service home might be iffy, at best. And you might need multiples of that to cover all your showers. Now imagine what that'll do to electrical demand, especially considering that the AC and other large loads inside the home are independent and may come on at the same time...
My area of the world is notorious for it's older infrastructure. Much of the town is still being serviced by the same sewers that were installed 120 years ago. Similarly, the gas/electrical network has evolved from just providing city gas or electricity for lighting to heating the neighborhood, powering all sorts of doohickey's etc. Yet, depending on the season (i.e. does the cold drive up the demand due to heating), the local gas supply conditions (i.e. do they have the NG on hand), and the local network conditions (i.e. are the pipes big enough), the gas company has resorted to all sorts of things to keep the system going. Ditto for the electrical folk, with brownouts and other byproducts of trying to cover peak demand (usually driven by AC in the summer).
For example, it is not unusual to hear of all sorts of interesting gas mixtures being pumped into the gas network as the utility struggles to meet demand. They have the right to do so, though it can do bad things to your combustion appliance if they get it wrong (which they shouldn't, but that's another story). For example, natural gas usually gets metered by the therm/ccf, each of which should contain about 100kBTU of energy. I have spoken to a teach at a equipment manufacturer who has evidence of gas mixtures out there that range from 60-160kBTU/ccf! Imagine setting up a combustion appliance at one end of that spectrum, then having it swing over... CO, equipment damage, etc. may result.
You're right, gas storage/compression systems already exist in the realm of CNG automobiles. IIRC, the device costs thousands of dollars, though mass production and competition would hopefully bring the prices closer to earth. That would be an interesting concept to consider, i.e. drawing gas at off-peak hours for local storage... perhaps the bigger customers already do that.
...I would much prefer people to consider innovative ways to reduce their energy footprint. One device that I decided to install my my home is a GFX Heat exchanger from GFX Technology. It preheats the water coming into the water heater with the wastewater coming down the drain. Perfect for showers and other water uses where the make-up water is flowing into the home as the waste water is flowing out (i.e. not much help with bath-tubs).
Solar DWH also makes a lot of sense in warmer areas of the country since they have ample insolation and external storage tanks are not as problematic as in the cold North. The Chinese have allegedly figured this out a while ago with 75+% of the worlds solar DHW installation going on in that country (as of 2002, IIRC).
Another great way to improve the efficiency of an AC while harvesting "free" energy is to install a desuperator like the Aquefier from Trevor Martin or AC OEMs. Use it as a pre-heater with an indirect water heater if you already have a regular water heater.
I have no affiliation with any of the manufacturers I have listed, other than being a very happy customer of GFX's.
I think you ought to research your claims before posting here. Instantaneous electric water heaters have been around for years. My mother uses a SETS instantaneous electric water heater to supply water to her entire home. Other examples of tankless electric units include remote washrooms to save on the piping, etc.
Please note that I didn't claim that electric water heaters were 99.9% efficient, I just claimed that 99.9% of the energy consumed by one would actually end up inside it. Obviously, any water heater that incorporates a buffer tank will have some standby losses. Please also note that some instantaneous water heaters have standby losses due to their use of standing gas pilots (common on older systems).
Most significantly, I urge you to research the minimum flow requirements that all instant units impose. If you have a whole house instantaneous water heater, it may be very beneficial to have a small buffer tank to cover low loads like a single faucet being cracked open enough to cause flow, but not enough to allow the water heater to fire.
What you're also missing is that the energy distribution companies are gearing up to disincentivize instantaneous gas and electric water heaters, whereever they are attached to their networks (i.e. methane and electric, LP is a different animal). That's because many distribution networks (gas or electric) cannot handle huge spikes in demand, and instantaneous water heating units do exactly that, creating predictable spikes in the morning and in the evening. How will they kill instantaneous units? Simple, peak demand metering.
Utilities and their distributors prefer the slow,steady demand that a low-recovery, buffer-tank water heater imposes on their systems. As meters get upgraded (and ours just did), the utility company not only knows how much you consume, but when you consume it. Demand metering is already standard practice in the Commercial arena (with VERY heavy-handed penalities) and it's only a matter of time before the distribution companies will try to impose the same kind of demand-control on the residential side of the business.
This "article" is a press release being marketed as news by the Globe and Mail. Here is my letter to the editor.
Hybrids are great at dealing with stop-and-go traffic. If you're driving a lot in such conditions (Taxi, delivery service, commute, etc.) then hybrid technology can do great things to reduce the inherent inefficiency of an internal combustion engine when it tries to get a stationary object going (No Torque at 0 RPM, etc.). And, regenerative braking does a lot to recapture some kinetic energy during braking and storing it for later use.
Whether the high price point currently can be justified really depends on a number of factors. For one, I wouldn't trust the EPA MPG numbers one bit - I'm not a highway hooligan, yet my milage doesn't come close to the published numbers. In an ideal world, you'd rent/borrow your hybrid of choice, commute/use the thing for a week, then tally the fuel savings. At least then you'd have a fighting chance to calculate the NPV of going with a hybrid vs. a regular vehicle under those circumstances... For those who mainly cover long distances with their vehicles, hybrids are likely to be negative in payback.
Lest we forget though, cars are fashion statements as much as they are transportation... otherwise we wouldn't have the huge number of different vehicles and amenities to choose from. Hybrids are simply another way for manufacturers to differentiate their wares from the competition. Note the new Acura Hybrid for example, which uses hybrid technology not really to save fuel, but to allow it to accelerate faster.. the fuel savings is less than 5% over the regular model.
An article in Scientific American covered hybrids/hydrogen cars last year concluded that with todays technology the combination of efficient, small diesel power plants and hybrids had the highest potential payoff. As hybrid technology becomes commoditized, I expect the marginal cost to decrease and the options to increase. For example, a car manufacturer could end up offering battery packs with a range of capacities for those that want to recharge their car from the home electrical socket, not the local gas station.
Thus, todays purchasors of Toyota Prius' are making as much a fashion statement as they're showing the EU and US car manufacturers that there is a demand for 'cool' cars that are fuel efficient. Note the much lower demand for the insight... Perhaps the Civic can regain some of the lost ground for Honda. In the meantime, Ford and others have had to license the very technology that was originally dreamed up in the US... just like the scroll compressor and other innovative technologies that the Japanese were first to recognize as revolutionary in their respective industries.
... I had no idea that connections via a localhost tunnel behave differently from an outside connection attempt, so I learned something today.
Furthermore, I didn't want to imply that you didn't know what you were doing. You obviously do...
However, I still marvel at the number of ISP's, webhosters, etc. that have their customers login with non-secure connections on networks that are known to be compromised with sniffers, etc. Until the day comes that SSL/SSH connections are mandatory for e-mail, uploads, etc. it'll be far too easy not to exploit these obvious loopholes. If it were up to me, ports 25, 110, etc. would be retired and replaced with authenticated connections.