Then this ain't necessarily the best solution for big cities.

Big cities usually have at least the beginnings of electrical distribution infrastructure; the solution in a big city is to improve the transmission infrastructure, and the generation infrastructure. An investment in these two things will give benefit to a relatively high number of people for each (say) coal fired plant you turn into a reliable generating station, or whatever your source of power is. The centralisation that defines the big city helps here.

But where there aren't any wires around for miles, then this is a low-cost way of starting to get around the problems of lack of lighting after dark.

Nah, you just whack on bigger lights.

And if they're not enough, BIGGER ONES!!!

(and a second alternator :> )

And an additional useful side effect: the other cars on the road, which are far more dangerous than the pedestrians and animals that might be out there, will also know you're there, from a *very long* way away.

Which is quite useful, really.

Sorry?

1 x 100 mbps ethernet (Alix)
                        vs.
5 x 1000 mbps ethernet (Asus), on a router

      = comparison FAIL.

Seriously, it's a router. Without decent network I/O, what use is it?

I've just bought one of these, and it's brilliantly quick.

I understand your point (and agree with it).

But in the longer term, there are two good reasons to add high speed rail to the system:

1) a train station can be built in many, many more places than an airport can
2) Oil will eventually be a problem. You can't electrify an airplane.

Come to Australia, mate. Here our biggest (and ex-government-owned) telco, Telstra, has two sorts of plans:

- Those that are "unlimited", i.e. standard allowance + speed limiting beyond the allowance;
- and plans that have a data allowance, and then they charge you 15 cents *per megabyte*. Yep, that's $150 per gig. So you pay (say) $39.95 per month for 2 gb allowance, then if you use 3 gb, your bill is $189.95 for that month :>

Oh! One concession though... Telstra thoughtfully adds to their T's & C's that "excess usage charges for the Turbo 2GB and Elite 2GB plans are capped at $300 per bill cycle". How generous of them!

Insane. I mean, I love a sunburnt country, but Telstra is just rubbish.

Eh? Are you serious?

A tooth bud, made from adult stem cells - do you have any idea how hard it is to harvest adult stem cells, then wind them back into seedable stem cells?

And then ultrasonically stimulate them. Using certain frequencies and powers of ultrasound (disclaimer: I'm a sonographer). For certain duty cycles.

Do you really think all this stuff is obvious, to *anyone*? Whatever you might spout out, the stuff you're casually mentioning *is* pretty close to rocket science. If you don't believe me, go off and do the procedure yourself, on your own. Sheesh!

I agree regarding the likelihood of there being intelligent life on other planets.

The way I look at it, there's a fantastically small chance - as near as may as well be zero, dammit - of there being another planet with life out there. And every planet we find that *doesn't* have life simply decreases the odds of "life on another planet" by 1/(n+1). :>

(Assuming you mean wh, not mwh).

That assumption only holds up for the 8-10 hours per day that the machines would be normally active. What about the 14 hours per day, after hours and at night, when they'd be merely idling (or off)? For those 14 hours, the extra power usage would be closer to that order-of-magnitude you mentioned.

True enough. If you wander out on a hypothetical limb, though...

With all the recent R&D going into wireless power, wireless device charging, etc., and a couple of companies claiming things like 80 cm charging ranges - and this for a consumer device, which requires a lot more juice (most likely) than the passive implant activation circuitry - might it not be conceivable that at least this second point of your argument will eventually be worked around?

Scary thought, that. Modified wireless power equipment, and a dodgy employee at a medical devices company willing to sell comms protocol documentation, and you might be able to affect implants from (maybe) 2-3 metres away. That's something I could believe is possible with time.

Ugh... I can't help it:

I think you probably meant 1 IU (1 unit). 1 ml (100 IU) would wipe out most horses.

True, some may think I'm nitpicking, but I figure I'll get slack because I've had Type 1 for 21 years myself. Not on a pump yet, though... psychological factors mean I'm really not happy about the idea of being attached to a permanent infusion pump. And I work at a hospital too, so pumps aren't exactly an alien thing!

People are funny, eh? :>

Ugh, ugh, ugh... please disregard my post. Sorry, Golddess!

It's *my* brain that's turned off this morning :(

Would *you* marry a woman who had been lying to you for 8 years? And defrauding money from you?

How does that thought process work?

"Yeah, ok, so I've been lied to and scammed for 8 years now. I know, let's get married to the conwoman, and she can *continue* to lie to me forever after! Hmm, she'll probably start having an affair on the side... and now she is entitled to half (or more) of all my stuff, too! Yeah, great idea!"

Seriously mate, turn ON brain before posting.