Communications between attorneys and clients are broadly protected from access by investigators. If your e-mail contains communications between you and your attorney, and your documents include privileged letters you composed in Word, that could make a very good reason to deny Customs access. The only folks the government would like to deal with less than angry employers are angry trial lawyers.
I oversee Web development for a living and graphic design is always where the discussion starts when management wants to improve a site. That does not mean that graphic design is the actual problem with the Web site though. I earn my money by asking questions and leading a discussion that gets to the heart of the real problems.
Graphic design is a wash on the information layout of the site. It is important for making your site look professional and easy on the eyes. But it cannot fix any underlying problems with how the site is organized or the information laid out on a page. Have a good discussion/think about what your company does and wants to accomplish with the site, then take a look and see whether the page layout, navigation, etc emphasize the right things. It's amazing how often people want to change the colors and add more pictures, then it turns out that the one thing they want their site to do isn't prominent in the nav or is barely keyworded (a ton of site traffic comes from search engines these days).
Note that graphic design is the top and final step--the polish. If you've built a crappy car (analogy), then no amount of polish is going to make it work. If you're interested in site design, I highly recommend the book by the same name:
You're taking a very simplistic approach to a very complex subject: the valuation of a company. There is more to life than current P/E, particularly for technology companies. It doesn't help that you're being incredibly condescending about the whole thing.
Compelling reason for fetal stem cell research
on
Science Debate 2008
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Fighting disease in adult humans is only one possible application of what can be learned by studying stem cells. And you're right that the possibility of creating stem cells from adult cells would be a big step in this direction.
But stem cell research was originally (and some still is) just one aspect of wide-ranging pure research into human genetics and biology. The main reason to study fetal stem cells is that it is the only way to understand the biology of how humans reproduce, and how genetic information is expressed to create a human. Some aspects of the basics of genetics can only be studied in naturally developing fetal stem cells. Artificially created stem cells skip these steps.
Unfortunately when Bush prohibited federal funding, his order covered ALL fetal stem cell research, not just the research that was aimed at fighting adult diseases. It would be like prohibiting all research involving neutrons just to fight nuclear weapons proliferation.
In terms of remains vs. resources, there is a ton of precedent for this approach to biology. Almost everything that is known about human anatomy was originally discovered by dissecting corpses. Medical students to this day dissect real human corpses in their anatomy and physiology classes. So even if we believe that embryos are essentially human, I don't think that automatically precludes their use in research.
Besides, do we really want every funding bill to come out of Congress vetoed? Vetoes are not absolute. They can be overridden with a 2/3 majority in each house. Neither Democratic nor Republican members of Congress are going to stand for things like the Defense Dept. shutting down just because President Paul feels like being a hardass.
How would they get enough votes? The same way you get things past a Senate filibuster--by buying votes with earmarks and pet projects. The more votes you need from the other party to get a bill passed, the more pork you're going to need to load onto the bill.
Anyone can sit back and vote no on everything. It is far tougher to assemble and organize a coalition of legislators that succeeds in actually changing things. McCain has done this numerous times. Paul has never, as far as I can tell from his record, even come close.
His votes tell a good story. But that's all they are. I've looked for any real change that he has captained, and I haven't seen anything substantial.
His supporters say that he has not had a good enough platform--put him in the White House and he'll use the veto to make the changes. But the fact is that a veto is only as strong as the coalition that backs it. If President Paul cannot succeed at the political maneuvering necessary to make Congressional Republicans follow his line, they'll simply make their own decisions and go around him. So far I have not seen any proof that Paul is adept at that sort of thing. What good are strong principles if he's not effective at implementing them?
1) Ideas can come in a flash, sometimes with little work beforehand. However, turning ideas into products or services--making them concrete--is very difficult, and that process is often incremental and iterative. Consider computing, where many researchers and science fiction authors imagined vast networks and tiny hardware a number of decades ago. Yet, it is only now that we are getting the actual products they imagined (invented). Read "The Mote in God's Eye" by Niven and Pournelle, and pay attention to the descriptions of the pocket computer and screens everywhere. Their capabilities are available today, but it took 20+ years for that to happen.
2) Yvon Chouinard was founder of both Black Diamond Climbing Equipment and Patagonia--two of the most innovative companies in the outdoor industry. In his book "Let My People Go Surfing" (highly recommended), he defines a difference between "invention"--the creation of something wholly new--and "innovation"--a new application of an existing invention. For example at a trade show he found a polyester fabric treatment that was invented for football jerseys. But he licensed it and created the first wicking polyester underwear--Capilene. He said that because it takes so long to go from idea to product, most businesses don't have time for real invention. He wants to innovate instead because it is faster.
Since their ad network uses an auction mechanism for pricing. If Microsoft tries to set prices lower, the market will just set them even lower on Google. This is one of the "hidden" advantages of their business model. Marketshare (aka "reach") is one of the most important metrics to advertisers, and the Google auction pricing ensures that it cannot be bought from them through a price war.
Scientists observe existing systems and couch all decisions in terms of how uncertain they are. If there's one thing a scientist is sure of, it is that they will be wrong quite a bit. They develop tools by hard trial and error, and induction.
Engineers use existing, proven tools to construct new systems to predetermined levels of correctness. In professional engineering there are licenses, certifications, and safety factors. An engineer is trained to start with known facts and deductively prove the correctness of their solution. In this way many mathematicians are more like engineers than scientists.
Engineers tend to skew libertarian because their basis for understanding the world is that problems are knowable and solvable. Personal responsibility and knowledge can lead to affirmative choices that result in a desirable society.
Scientists tend to skew liberal because their basis for understanding the world is that all knowledge is provisional and much is unknown. The best knowledge and hardest work may still produce negative results, and the state should balance and mitigate that risk if possible.
A strict as well as practical reading of the Constitution allows the president to veto spend bills. So if congress sends a bill with too much spending money he can veto it. Sure, just like he can veto the Social Security Administration funding bill if income limits are not removed, or veto the Transportation approps bill if there's not enough funding for public transportation, or veto Energy approps if ITER isn't funded, etc. Federal spending is appropriated annually, so there are plenty of opportunities for a president to wield that veto pen.
As you've pointed out, being limited to a veto does not mean that subjects like spending levels or Social Security reform are constitutionally off-limits to the President. The Constitution doesn't tell a president what to think, it just tells him which levers of power he's allowed to pull to get what he wants.
My veto stamp would get a good workout though. Then either congress could go home and get real jobs or they can try to override my vetoes. Faced with that choice, I bet they'd override your vetoes.:-)
Cheer for the rocketry not matters, not the irrelevant joyrides. Those aren't the only options though. I'd rather have either of those than C) Don't cheer for any rocketry at all, or D) Cheer against all rocketry.
I doubt that Virgin Galactic has to lose for SpaceX to win. I'd guess it's more likely the opposite--any private rocketry success lends greater credibility to all the other startups.
If you think SpaceX is more deserving of funding than Virgin Galactic, then go ahead and put your capital there. But really I don't see the point of shouting down enthusiasm for private rocketry.
I've yet to see what you've got we don't....My employer cannot read my email or monitor my Internet usage. I'm free to join my family after 8 hours of work, and cannot be penalized if I refuse to do overtime. Meanwhile Americans have corporations employing spies and using underhanded tactics to monitor their employees. Sure many Americans are "free" to walk out after 8 hours but they'd get fired for it. The difference that you're missing is that corporations are run by Americans too--rights and freedoms do not just apply to workers. In the U.S. the power of companies derives directly from the personal freedoms of the owners and management of the corporation. If they don't want to pay someone anymore, they can just fire them. If they own the computers, they can decide how they are or are not used. At the same time, workers have every right to quit or to choose not to take a job. If they want to use a computer they are free to buy their own and use it as they see fit.
The freedoms are distributed more equally between business owners and employees than in many European nations. This is one reason why it far easier for Americans to start and grow new businesses than it is in many EU nations. When Americans talk about "the land of opportunity," a big part of what they mean is the ease with which one can start a new business--which is one of the best ways to create wealth for yourself. Americans are good at starting and growing businesses. But for that to work, business owners need rights and freedoms too.
And I think you're exaggerating the problems with corporations in the U.S. Not every company spies on its workers, is draconian about computer use, and requires overtime. The vast majority of businesses in the U.S. are responsibly run and are good places to work. And one of the great things about the entrepreneurial freedoms here is that it improves competition for worker talent. If IBM treats its workers like garbage, there are hundreds of other computer companies of all sizes they can go work for.
[cue dorky serious response] Venus, despite being much farther from the Sun than Mercury, actually has higher surface temperatures. The reason is that its atmosphere is mostly CO2 and methane, which have created a very strong greenhouse effect.
If I was the President, I'd do 1 and 2. The rest of what you've suggested aren't powers allocated to the president, so he can't do them (though he can try to convince Congress to do them.)
If I was the President, I'd try to return the Executive branch back to its Constitutional roots. #2 involves funding, which originates in the House of Representatives, not the Executive Branch. A strict literal reading of the document limits to you to #1 only, I'm afraid.
Enjoy your term--you're going to have a lot of free time on your hands!:-)
Acknowledging arguments and still making a decision is a sign of intelligence. Definitely! But it's not necessarily Libertarian®.
Trying to force somebody else to make false choices, or attributing false opinions to them is stupid.. and way too bloody common. Hey, nobody forced mastershake_phd to put that in his signature. If someone's going to self-label, anyone else is free to call them on it IMO. It's not like the signature said "Intelligent Pragmatic Political Discussion Forum."
The key to terrorism is that there's no way to stop any determined person from doing a very significant amount of damage. Stop one method, and another one will replace it. It's unavoidable. This is correct, and it is exactly why U.S. security makes people remove and X-ray their shoes. We've already had a real terrorist try to blow up an airplane with a real shoe bomb.
While it's impossible to prevent every type of terrorist attack, it would be downright stupid to fail to prevent a type of attack we already know about. Removing and x-raying shoes, limiting liquids, etc, are the easiest ways to accomplish that right now.
I don't buy into the idea that since we can't prevent every attack, it is foolish to try to prevent some subset of attacks. Let's not let the perfect be the enemy of good.
One of the best things I did was to shotgun a few letters to prospective employers telling them how highly I thought of their company, and asking what I should focus on if I wanted to be hired there. The letter approach is not a bad one, but I think you can learn more in person. Try finding some folks who work in the field in which you'd like to work, and take them to lunch and pick their brain. This is often called an "information interview"--you stress up front that you're not looking to get hired, you're just hoping to gain a little insight. You might surprised how accomodating folks will be. The fact that you're young and still in school actually works FOR you in this context.
How to find folks to interview? Networking. Work your contacts. Good sources include friends of your parents, your friends' parents or their friends, people your professors might know, etc. Or, find local events or societies or clubs that attract folks from your target industry. Or just call up companies you admire. This aspect of the information interview is great training for later in life, when you really want to get a job.
If my users are going to have to download and install something new (Silverlight plugin,.Net runtime) to use my online app, I might as well just code a native client app with an HTTP data service, and have them download and install that. It would be easier to code and have higher performance. iTunes is the most well-known example of this strategy, and I'd say it's doing pretty well.
Overkill, you might say? I'd submit that if this strategy is overkill for your product, your product is a Website and probably doesn't need to be built entirely in Silverlight or Flash in the first place. HTML+CSS+Javascript is plenty powerful for anything less than a full-on application, and is automatically cross-platform.
The media is too concerned with being fair. Factual news reporting lends itself to supporting one or another ideology, because that's the way facts are--they're specific and exclusive. There are WMDs, or there are not WMDs. There was a blow job or there wasn't a blowjob. The guy either knew or he didn't. If the vaccine reduced infection rates by 83% then it is effective.
Yet, many incredibly stupid "controversies" are perpetuated by the media because journalists improperly substitute fairness for objectivity as their guiding doctrine. Consider the recent treatment of evolution and global warming. Rather than focus on the objective scientific news and controversies of these topics, much of the news media (especially broadcast) focuses on the political machinations. Thus you get a situation where a few op-ed writers and lobbyists are portrayed in the same light (remember, gotta be fair) as thousands of highly trained and knowledgable scientists, just because they disagree with them.
This is one reason the Daily Show is so popular as a source of news. Because they are a comedy show, they are not afraid to call bullshit on bullshit and speak frankly. In fact they have to, because a waffled punchline is not funny.
Particularly when he has scientists, artists, or political or military leaders on. You get a full hour of uninterrupted, expert conversation on a topic...the opposite of a soundbite.
People are not dragging canned goods across their iPhones for 7 years at a time. The iPhone screen is glass, and properly tempered glass is harder than most metals, certainly most metals likely to be in people's pockets. I have one of the original iPod Minis, which had glass screens. Since I bought it I've kept it in my messenger bag pocket with my keys, pens, loose change, Leatherman Micro, etc. Over the past several years of this abuse the aluminum has picked up a number of scratches, but the screen has only picked up one tiny scratch in one corner. It has absolutely zero effect on the visibility of the screen.
The iPhone is a 2.5G mobile device with a soldered-in battery, that is sold on a 2-year contract. Plus it is expensive and most people will try to take care of it. Thus the screen only really needs to resist scratching from occassional light contact, for 2 years. Glass is plenty hard for that application.
I'm not a physicist or electrical engineer. But from what I know about circuits and the flow of electrical currents through them, if you isolate any element of the circuit for analysis you will see a flow of electrons in one end and out the other. But don't both protons and electrons flow away from the sun in all directions? I don't know of any evidence of an electron flow toward the sun, let alone an inflow with energy equal to the huge energy of all solar phenomena (radiation + solar wind). Yet if the sun is merely an element in a galactic electric circuit, this is what would be required. Without an inflow of electrons, how would the galaxy transfer a current differential to the sun?
Because of how it uses the brand of the operating system and the word "certified." For instance iTunes can run on Windows Vista...does it have an opportunity to become "certified?" Or can only Microsoft software receive certification?
This treads pretty close to the definition of tying--after all their copy-protection system is just one of many that can run on Windows Vista, and technically it is a distinct system, separate from the core operating system.
1) The cost of solar panels will have to decrease.
2) The efficiency of our homes and offices will have to increase.
There is a lot of work being done on the technical improvements, and policy and culture are shifting to drive the kind of adoption needed to create economies of scale. Yes, it is not being used on a large scale now, but for any successful technology there was a time when that was true.
This is going to take awhile though, and in the meantime nuclear is a mature technology. But let's not mistake it for salvation--there are reasons nuclear has not supplanted other means of power production in the U.S., especially cost. And, it takes a long time to design and build nuclear plants.
Slashdot Mirror
Communications between attorneys and clients are broadly protected from access by investigators. If your e-mail contains communications between you and your attorney, and your documents include privileged letters you composed in Word, that could make a very good reason to deny Customs access. The only folks the government would like to deal with less than angry employers are angry trial lawyers.
I oversee Web development for a living and graphic design is always where the discussion starts when management wants to improve a site. That does not mean that graphic design is the actual problem with the Web site though. I earn my money by asking questions and leading a discussion that gets to the heart of the real problems.
Graphic design is a wash on the information layout of the site. It is important for making your site look professional and easy on the eyes. But it cannot fix any underlying problems with how the site is organized or the information laid out on a page. Have a good discussion/think about what your company does and wants to accomplish with the site, then take a look and see whether the page layout, navigation, etc emphasize the right things. It's amazing how often people want to change the colors and add more pictures, then it turns out that the one thing they want their site to do isn't prominent in the nav or is barely keyworded (a ton of site traffic comes from search engines these days).
Have a look at this:
http://www.jjg.net/elements/pdf/elements.pdf
Note that graphic design is the top and final step--the polish. If you've built a crappy car (analogy), then no amount of polish is going to make it work. If you're interested in site design, I highly recommend the book by the same name:
http://www.jjg.net/elements/
You're taking a very simplistic approach to a very complex subject: the valuation of a company. There is more to life than current P/E, particularly for technology companies. It doesn't help that you're being incredibly condescending about the whole thing.
Fighting disease in adult humans is only one possible application of what can be learned by studying stem cells. And you're right that the possibility of creating stem cells from adult cells would be a big step in this direction.
But stem cell research was originally (and some still is) just one aspect of wide-ranging pure research into human genetics and biology. The main reason to study fetal stem cells is that it is the only way to understand the biology of how humans reproduce, and how genetic information is expressed to create a human. Some aspects of the basics of genetics can only be studied in naturally developing fetal stem cells. Artificially created stem cells skip these steps.
Unfortunately when Bush prohibited federal funding, his order covered ALL fetal stem cell research, not just the research that was aimed at fighting adult diseases. It would be like prohibiting all research involving neutrons just to fight nuclear weapons proliferation.
In terms of remains vs. resources, there is a ton of precedent for this approach to biology. Almost everything that is known about human anatomy was originally discovered by dissecting corpses. Medical students to this day dissect real human corpses in their anatomy and physiology classes. So even if we believe that embryos are essentially human, I don't think that automatically precludes their use in research.
How would they get enough votes? The same way you get things past a Senate filibuster--by buying votes with earmarks and pet projects. The more votes you need from the other party to get a bill passed, the more pork you're going to need to load onto the bill.
Anyone can sit back and vote no on everything. It is far tougher to assemble and organize a coalition of legislators that succeeds in actually changing things. McCain has done this numerous times. Paul has never, as far as I can tell from his record, even come close.
His votes tell a good story. But that's all they are. I've looked for any real change that he has captained, and I haven't seen anything substantial.
His supporters say that he has not had a good enough platform--put him in the White House and he'll use the veto to make the changes. But the fact is that a veto is only as strong as the coalition that backs it. If President Paul cannot succeed at the political maneuvering necessary to make Congressional Republicans follow his line, they'll simply make their own decisions and go around him. So far I have not seen any proof that Paul is adept at that sort of thing. What good are strong principles if he's not effective at implementing them?
1) Ideas can come in a flash, sometimes with little work beforehand. However, turning ideas into products or services--making them concrete--is very difficult, and that process is often incremental and iterative. Consider computing, where many researchers and science fiction authors imagined vast networks and tiny hardware a number of decades ago. Yet, it is only now that we are getting the actual products they imagined (invented). Read "The Mote in God's Eye" by Niven and Pournelle, and pay attention to the descriptions of the pocket computer and screens everywhere. Their capabilities are available today, but it took 20+ years for that to happen.
2) Yvon Chouinard was founder of both Black Diamond Climbing Equipment and Patagonia--two of the most innovative companies in the outdoor industry. In his book "Let My People Go Surfing" (highly recommended), he defines a difference between "invention"--the creation of something wholly new--and "innovation"--a new application of an existing invention. For example at a trade show he found a polyester fabric treatment that was invented for football jerseys. But he licensed it and created the first wicking polyester underwear--Capilene. He said that because it takes so long to go from idea to product, most businesses don't have time for real invention. He wants to innovate instead because it is faster.
Since their ad network uses an auction mechanism for pricing. If Microsoft tries to set prices lower, the market will just set them even lower on Google. This is one of the "hidden" advantages of their business model. Marketshare (aka "reach") is one of the most important metrics to advertisers, and the Google auction pricing ensures that it cannot be bought from them through a price war.
CEO Eric Schmidt discusses this in this video
Scientists observe existing systems and couch all decisions in terms of how uncertain they are. If there's one thing a scientist is sure of, it is that they will be wrong quite a bit. They develop tools by hard trial and error, and induction.
Engineers use existing, proven tools to construct new systems to predetermined levels of correctness. In professional engineering there are licenses, certifications, and safety factors. An engineer is trained to start with known facts and deductively prove the correctness of their solution. In this way many mathematicians are more like engineers than scientists.
Engineers tend to skew libertarian because their basis for understanding the world is that problems are knowable and solvable. Personal responsibility and knowledge can lead to affirmative choices that result in a desirable society.
Scientists tend to skew liberal because their basis for understanding the world is that all knowledge is provisional and much is unknown. The best knowledge and hardest work may still produce negative results, and the state should balance and mitigate that risk if possible.
Just my $0.02.
As you've pointed out, being limited to a veto does not mean that subjects like spending levels or Social Security reform are constitutionally off-limits to the President. The Constitution doesn't tell a president what to think, it just tells him which levers of power he's allowed to pull to get what he wants. My veto stamp would get a good workout though. Then either congress could go home and get real jobs or they can try to override my vetoes. Faced with that choice, I bet they'd override your vetoes.
I doubt that Virgin Galactic has to lose for SpaceX to win. I'd guess it's more likely the opposite--any private rocketry success lends greater credibility to all the other startups.
If you think SpaceX is more deserving of funding than Virgin Galactic, then go ahead and put your capital there. But really I don't see the point of shouting down enthusiasm for private rocketry.
The freedoms are distributed more equally between business owners and employees than in many European nations. This is one reason why it far easier for Americans to start and grow new businesses than it is in many EU nations. When Americans talk about "the land of opportunity," a big part of what they mean is the ease with which one can start a new business--which is one of the best ways to create wealth for yourself. Americans are good at starting and growing businesses. But for that to work, business owners need rights and freedoms too.
And I think you're exaggerating the problems with corporations in the U.S. Not every company spies on its workers, is draconian about computer use, and requires overtime. The vast majority of businesses in the U.S. are responsibly run and are good places to work. And one of the great things about the entrepreneurial freedoms here is that it improves competition for worker talent. If IBM treats its workers like garbage, there are hundreds of other computer companies of all sizes they can go work for.
[cue dorky serious response] Venus, despite being much farther from the Sun than Mercury, actually has higher surface temperatures. The reason is that its atmosphere is mostly CO2 and methane, which have created a very strong greenhouse effect.
If I was the President, I'd try to return the Executive branch back to its Constitutional roots. #2 involves funding, which originates in the House of Representatives, not the Executive Branch. A strict literal reading of the document limits to you to #1 only, I'm afraid.
Enjoy your term--you're going to have a lot of free time on your hands!
While it's impossible to prevent every type of terrorist attack, it would be downright stupid to fail to prevent a type of attack we already know about. Removing and x-raying shoes, limiting liquids, etc, are the easiest ways to accomplish that right now.
I don't buy into the idea that since we can't prevent every attack, it is foolish to try to prevent some subset of attacks. Let's not let the perfect be the enemy of good.
How to find folks to interview? Networking. Work your contacts. Good sources include friends of your parents, your friends' parents or their friends, people your professors might know, etc. Or, find local events or societies or clubs that attract folks from your target industry. Or just call up companies you admire. This aspect of the information interview is great training for later in life, when you really want to get a job.
[Holds up hook and squints.]
If my users are going to have to download and install something new (Silverlight plugin, .Net runtime) to use my online app, I might as well just code a native client app with an HTTP data service, and have them download and install that. It would be easier to code and have higher performance. iTunes is the most well-known example of this strategy, and I'd say it's doing pretty well.
Overkill, you might say? I'd submit that if this strategy is overkill for your product, your product is a Website and probably doesn't need to be built entirely in Silverlight or Flash in the first place. HTML+CSS+Javascript is plenty powerful for anything less than a full-on application, and is automatically cross-platform.
The media is too concerned with being fair. Factual news reporting lends itself to supporting one or another ideology, because that's the way facts are--they're specific and exclusive. There are WMDs, or there are not WMDs. There was a blow job or there wasn't a blowjob. The guy either knew or he didn't. If the vaccine reduced infection rates by 83% then it is effective.
Yet, many incredibly stupid "controversies" are perpetuated by the media because journalists improperly substitute fairness for objectivity as their guiding doctrine. Consider the recent treatment of evolution and global warming. Rather than focus on the objective scientific news and controversies of these topics, much of the news media (especially broadcast) focuses on the political machinations. Thus you get a situation where a few op-ed writers and lobbyists are portrayed in the same light (remember, gotta be fair) as thousands of highly trained and knowledgable scientists, just because they disagree with them.
This is one reason the Daily Show is so popular as a source of news. Because they are a comedy show, they are not afraid to call bullshit on bullshit and speak frankly. In fact they have to, because a waffled punchline is not funny.
Particularly when he has scientists, artists, or political or military leaders on. You get a full hour of uninterrupted, expert conversation on a topic...the opposite of a soundbite.
People are not dragging canned goods across their iPhones for 7 years at a time. The iPhone screen is glass, and properly tempered glass is harder than most metals, certainly most metals likely to be in people's pockets. I have one of the original iPod Minis, which had glass screens. Since I bought it I've kept it in my messenger bag pocket with my keys, pens, loose change, Leatherman Micro, etc. Over the past several years of this abuse the aluminum has picked up a number of scratches, but the screen has only picked up one tiny scratch in one corner. It has absolutely zero effect on the visibility of the screen.
The iPhone is a 2.5G mobile device with a soldered-in battery, that is sold on a 2-year contract. Plus it is expensive and most people will try to take care of it. Thus the screen only really needs to resist scratching from occassional light contact, for 2 years. Glass is plenty hard for that application.
I'm not a physicist or electrical engineer. But from what I know about circuits and the flow of electrical currents through them, if you isolate any element of the circuit for analysis you will see a flow of electrons in one end and out the other. But don't both protons and electrons flow away from the sun in all directions? I don't know of any evidence of an electron flow toward the sun, let alone an inflow with energy equal to the huge energy of all solar phenomena (radiation + solar wind). Yet if the sun is merely an element in a galactic electric circuit, this is what would be required. Without an inflow of electrons, how would the galaxy transfer a current differential to the sun?
Because of how it uses the brand of the operating system and the word "certified." For instance iTunes can run on Windows Vista...does it have an opportunity to become "certified?" Or can only Microsoft software receive certification?
This treads pretty close to the definition of tying--after all their copy-protection system is just one of many that can run on Windows Vista, and technically it is a distinct system, separate from the core operating system.
To do so will require advances along two lines.
1) The cost of solar panels will have to decrease.
2) The efficiency of our homes and offices will have to increase.
There is a lot of work being done on the technical improvements, and policy and culture are shifting to drive the kind of adoption needed to create economies of scale. Yes, it is not being used on a large scale now, but for any successful technology there was a time when that was true.
This is going to take awhile though, and in the meantime nuclear is a mature technology. But let's not mistake it for salvation--there are reasons nuclear has not supplanted other means of power production in the U.S., especially cost. And, it takes a long time to design and build nuclear plants.