Is topic starter some kind of troll or one of the paid shills that try to cast everything SpaceX (and so Musk's other ventures) into a bad light?

Musk is getting a lot of far-fetched critiques, lately. Somebody really hates his guts.

From another article, it's clear she won a prize to VISIT the EU parliament, probably had a go at a bit of translating, but in no way it looks like she actually works there...

http://www.firstnews.co.uk/news/blind-10-year-old-is-europes-youngest-interpreter-i4231

The summary and article are BULLSHIT.

How about knowing people that were at the event?

As I said, OLD NEWS. 58 HOURS. I HAVE THE ENTIRE DAMNED SESSION ON VIDEO.

It is worth recognizing that the major breakthrough in this work in finding the long-running Framingham Heart Study data. This database had been collected for a different purpose. If this data has been anonymized; if they had destroyed the forrns naming a friend when a new form had been completed; or had destroyed the entire database when the original study aims had been met to preserve the privicy of the individuals, then this work would not have been possible.

This is not to say that all databases are good. We have seen recently how many of our personal details are available of we fly or book a hotel. There are people in the UK who want to make a national register of all children, in the belief that the entire database won't make it out of the building on a memory stick in the first week. But there are details I do not mind contributing to the common good. I would not post my medical details, but I would not mind my medical records being transferred when I move or change doctors, and I would certainly wish people to wring any good that could be wrung from such data. No man is an island, yerknow?

Maybe I am naive and idealistic. Maybe I should be guided by all the grumpy, mean, and suspicious people that seem to fill all London some days. But then again, no - they are all going to get fat and die, aren't they? Hah! Yess!! Roll on the day!!!

Right - the bulbs last forever. Except, they DON'T!

Those CFL's that are supposed to last 5 to 10 years tend to burn out before the first year. The LED's that are supposed to last 10 to 20 years do a little better, but I've replaced them. Some have lasted as little as 2 years, others 5 years.

Keep in mind, these things weren't around 20 years ago. Maybe - oh - 12 years ago, possibly 15 I first started noticing the things on heavy trucks. Only 3 or 4 years ago, they started hitting the market bigtime in flashlights and such. They've been in computers and various displays a little longer. The wife's "Alien" computer has about six of those things in it, two are burnt out - at about 4 years of age.

If quality control were reliable, I might agree with those "cost savings". Since QC sucks, I simply do NOT see those savings everyone talks about.

One of the networks ran a thing during the news hour on those CFL's, showing that my experience is about normal.

But, but, but, this study had Facebook! And MySpace!

It's new!

I don't see the advantage of full wave rectification, except possibly to meet power regulations. A pulsed LED actually appears brighter to the human eye, and provided the average power through it is the same as a full wave rectified model then the brightness should be the same*. The only real reasons for going full wave rectified and smoothed is either where power regulations specify certain restrictions on power harmonics (imagine if every device was half wave rectified in the world, then the power supply would be loaded at some points in the cycle more than others, and you would no longer get a nice clean sine wave), or where you want a constant voltage to make design of the rest of the circuit easier (eg. digital electronics).
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* LED's can be an exception to this in certain cases, since the number of photons produced per second is not linear to the instantaneous current.

There's nothing like a screen that even remotely appears to respond to viewer interaction to get children involved. They won't tell you this, of course, but you'll know immediately by the trails of peanut butter, jelly, ketchup and various bodily emissions left as bookmarks in their favorite places on your console. Trust me on this.