Generator-powered factories producing generators would suddenly be very very valuable.

The real question we should be asking is; why doesn't NASA have the authority to order a nationwide grid shutdown in the event that one of their several satellites dedicated strictly to predicting and identifying solar disruptions actually works and warns us before it happens? We have spent billions on this already, why not put that to use instead of fear mongering about how long it would take to manufacture a bunch of high voltage transformers?

The other key information is this: The SSA has 65,000 employees and is in charge of a staggering $736B per year (as of 2011, and it continues to rise). And we are here having a pissing match about all the reasons that $300M is too much to spend on the system that is supposed to make sense of over 300 million "customers" (1 dollar per customer?) One half of one percent of their annual budget is too much to get this right? Most corps spend upwards of 10% of their annual revenue on IT, and surely the SSA is not most corps but the scope of what they do is really impossible to underestimate so a project in the hundreds of millions shouldn't make anyone flinch.

The real missing key information is exactly why this kind of story is surprising, on any level, to anyone? My gut says it's the fake shock of someone who would protest anything that came out of the SSA.

Something tells me that with girlsgonewild.com, the "interaction" is mostly "client-side" so the, er, "workload" is actually minimal. And the use case count, I believe, still stands at 1, and they are at best appealing to exactly half of the US population. It's a bit different than a place like the Social Security Administration, an org that has taken on the unenviable task of managing retirement and disability insurance for *every goddamn american* which is a pretty ludicrous scope. If raw horsepower were the issue, yes bring in outside help. The real problem (or at least one of them) is that of all 65,000 employees, many of them have a specific task since the aforementioned scope is so grand. Try finding a way to economize when you are basically building a system for a small clerical office, and then doing it about 15,000 times with each iteration just different enough from the last to require constant rewrites.

"What was the experience of riding a bicycle has become the equivalent of traveling by jumbo jet; replete with the delays, inspections, limitations on personal choices, and sudden, unexplained cancellations — all at a significantly higher cost."

You can't exactly get everywhere you need to go via bicycle these days. Blame globalization.

Here is the form you were looking for: "are you or have you ever posted to Slashdot as Anonymous Coward? Ok next question: Are you or have you ever browsed slashdot at -1?"

we have a subversive on our hands!!!

And wind up with *super*smallpox? Good fucking plan, Einstein!

Actually, good fucking plan. Let's do it.

Where do you think Samsung and LG stick all the junior devs and QAs? And then pull them off the moment they start making better design choices, to go work on more lucrative projects? Yep, the shitphones. The only choice with the bottom of the barrel phones is to go directly to stock android (which is pretty easy if you have an hour or so to kill and can follow basic instructions) so for Bennett to spend so much time wondering out loud why cheap phones are cheap is the weird part. How about an article on the cheapest phone you can turn into an AOSP/Cyanogen handset with good results? Nah, why bother; that would't start a flamewar!

FWIW the last flighttrack data showed a speed of 490 kts (564mph), altitude of 33,000 feet (a common cruising alt if there is turbulence at 35k+) Lat 48.088 Lon 38.6359.

Its actually more nuanced, only 2/3rd (65%) of all murder cases nationally see a single *arrest* which is to say that they have a decent suspect in mind. Not every arrest turns into a conviction, naturally, so the actual "solved" rate is much lower, below 50% for a lot of places. Here's a recent stat to help you plan your next murder: "In 2008, police solved 35 percent of the homicides in Chicago, 22 percent in New Orleans and 21 percent in Detroit. Yet authorities solved 75 percent of the killings in Philadelphia, 92 percent in Denver and 94 percent in San Diego." As you might expect, areas with lower murder rates overall saw a higher solve rate.

You hit on the solution to the very problem. To operate in passenger-less mode simply require that the car be reciving destination instructions from an approved souce (such as some big, audit-able company) who would be a fair bit less likely to greenlight rolling-bomb commands on their cars.

Clearly, it's the part about the dome... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt00...

Don't forget that the solar panels only over-produce for the household at times when they *don't need lights*. This impacts your environmental summarization because in order to shift that electricity from solar hours (when the sun is up) to non-solar hours (when the sun is down and you need more indoor lighting) you need to use additional expensive (economic and environmental) techniques like battery storage or borrowing electricity from a nearby coal fired plant.

I just tested the two and had the exact opposite experience (with a pretty nice leviton digital dimmer, too). The 9.5w/60w equiv Cree bulbs worked fantastic, no flicker at any light level. The Philips bulbs (10.5w/60w equiv dimmable, according to the package) flickered like crazy and wouldnt even turn off all the way, they just slowed to a 1Hz flicker.

Statistics aside there are two more pressing questions: 1, are patients with MCI more likely to convert (10% or greater) in subsequent years? 2, is there a preventative process that can be used by those that test positive, that is safe for the general population? In other words, do we get to narrow our treatment focus with these results, even a little bit? We can piss and moan about statistics but at the end of the day, who really gives a fuck if you were right about the onset of someone's dementia, unless you can do something about it?

In the US the poles are installed at/past the sidewalk line opposite the roadway, in other words when you are standing to cross you cannot see the pole on your side because it is behind you. So, either you would have to get people to stand behind the pole, or have them turn around and look at the number before crossing (taking attention away from watching turning traffic, which a pedestrian must be very careful for).