Truth. I work in a very flexible office, and my boss asked me why I don't work from home more often. I told him because it's full of kids.

It's amazing. I haven't been to this website in YEARS. I saw a link to this story on Twitter, clicked on it... and I'm right in the middle of a "Why would you use Windows when you can use Linux" argument from 2002. Did I go through a wormhole or has nothing changed here in a decade and a half?

It is probably _much_ cheaper. The estimated cost of a 100 MW, 100 MWh battery is AU$25M, which is a pittance compared with the cost of building a new power station!

The root of a word is not necessarily its current meaning.

I "understand" your comment, but I am not standing beneath it looking up at its workings!

Further to this, Japan is known for its tight regulatory systems. If this can happen there, then how long until it is repeated in other nuclear plants in countries with weaker regulation? To me, this that nuclear is economically infeasable -- I don't know much Fukushima has cost, but if it's $100B like you say, how many years' investment in renewables does this represent? Perhaps it suggests that we're not putting our money and effort in an optimal place?

The proof is in the pudding -- did this catastrophe happen before or after the system was deregulated and the second engineer was removed? It's nice to talk about the "real world" -- perhaps we should base real-world discussions on, I don't know, the real world?

lol. I once heard it said that science was inevitably described as either "obvious" or "stupid/wrong" -- still true ;-)

I'm not so sure about this.
From "The Information", by Gleik:
Her exposition took the form of notes lettered A through G, extending to nearly three times the length of Menabrea’s essay. They offered a vision of the future more general and more prescient than any expressed by Babbage himself. How general? The engine did not just calculate; it performed operations, she said, defining an operation as “any process which alters the mutual relation of two or more things,” and declaring: “This is the most general definition, and would include all subjects in the universe.” The science of operations, as she conceived it,
"is a science of itself, and has its own abstract truth and value; just as logic has its own peculiar truth and value, independently of the subjects to which we may apply its reasonings and processes. One main reason why the separate nature of the science of operations has been little felt, and in general little dwelt on, is the shifting meaning of many of the symbols used."

Symbols and meaning: she was emphatically not speaking of mathematics alone. The engine “might act upon other things besides number.” Babbage had inscribed numerals on those thousands of dials, but their working could represent symbols more abstractly. The engine might process any meaningful relationships. It might manipulate language. It might create music. “Supposing, for instance, that the fundamental relations of pitched sounds in the science of harmony and of musical composition were susceptible of such expression and adaptations, the engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent.”

It had been an engine of numbers; now it became an engine of information. A.A.L. perceived that more distinctly and more imaginatively than Babbage himself. She explained his prospective, notional, virtual creation as though it already existed:
"The Analytical Engine does not occupy common ground with mere 'calculating machines'. It holds a position wholly its own. A new, a vast, and a powerful language is developed in which to wield its truths so that these may become of more speedy and accurate practical application for the purposes of mankind than the means hitherto in our possession have rendered possible. Thus not only the mental and the material, but the theoretical and the practical in the mathematical world, are brought into more intimate and effective connexion with each other."

I essentially agree with what you're saying, but would just like to observe that it highlights the limits of "the market" to solve all problems. From a laissez-faire perspective, there's nothing wrong with what they're doing and costco have no right to restrict sale to them.

"the next Brad Manning may find him/herself swinging from the gallows." ... and compared with what has happened to Manning, it might be a kindness.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs calls them that too. Shocking.

Pregnant women, especially older pregnant women, are generally screened for potential fetal disabilities. And it's done early enough that the parents can choose to abort the pregnancy.

So you can stop with the OMG NAZIS handwaving.

Furthermore if they simply sold raw feeds of every single event they could make a TON of money from people picking and choosing what to watch.

No kidding. I love the Mountain Biking and BMX events, but they're never actually on television. Instead, it's three hours of Shot Put!

I stand corrected. My father worked at Kodak, and still had one of the Polaroid knockoffs when the lawsuit was settled; I could have sworn they were called Instamatics. My mistake.

So, after a lifetime of watching older members of the science and engineering community get outsourced, downsized, run ragged, and generally mistreated by their employers, young people don't want to sign up for the same thing?

Good for them. Maybe the kids today are smarter than we thought.

--saint