"no real benefit other than being able to run for short distances at low speeds on the battery"

Low speeds, huh? I wish I'd known that when I was blasting down the highway earlier this evening in my Volt, purely electric. Top speed: 101 MPH*

Please mod parent down, just more of the usual misinformed opinio-crap. And if you have mod points, please look for other garbage posts like this and mod them down too. Wish I had some mod points today.

In the meantime, chew on this: http://wardsauto.com/commentary/why-innovation-dying-america

* I didn't go that fast, I stayed down at a safe speed. 101 MPH is the published top speed of the Volt, regardless of which mode it's in.

... to let you know that you're playing fast and loose with differing types of braking systems. Flywheel-based KERS, electric motor+battery regen braking, different things that are the same "in principle" only if your principle is "slow down with some mechanism besides direct generation of heat".

Further, nobody is bothering to read the article, is just taking the summary here at face value. But that's par for the course here. Nevermind.

Jesus Christ, here we go again. The International Space Station only has officially support from the entire international community through 2020. We JUST came to an agreement for the 10-year run from 2010 to 2020. As we get closer to the 2020 date, you can be sure that they will work to extend those agreements. This really is a non-story, but that doesn't stop breathless reporting like this from popping up every 6 months. Somebody else in this thread probably explained this better than I have time to, and if so please mod them up, or if no such other post then please mod me up :) And please mod down all the other yahoos kicking and screaming about the deorbiting. Worry not, it ain't happening.

Precisely. Someone mod parent up please.

This thread needs a LOT more comments about CONTROLLABILTY. That thing is going to be completely unstable. 10,000 feet? Ha! It'll flip before it gets to 100 feet.

I am soo tired of the sensationalized stories surrounding Japan's "nuclear crisis." .... the containment units withstood a 9.0 quake which is many orders of magnitude greater than the design specified.

I am soo tired of sensationalized math. The reactor was designed for an 8.2 earthquake, and withstood (for the most part) a 9.0 earthquake. That isn't "many orders of magnitude" greater, that's about 6.3 times. You need to look up what "orders of magnitude" actually means -- and quit sensationalizing your math.

Holy crap, that is awesome!

I love how his first overnight stop is in Erlangen.

January 1994 actually WAS kind of early to understand the internet. I myself only caught on to it in summer 1993, with Mosaic running on Suns and Macs in the Georgia Tech computer labs. I could rock command-line FTP though.

Yes yes, some of you all had internet access / addresses well before then, and hooray for you. But in Jan 1994 it was still extremely new for average mainstream folks, like people who watch (and host) major network morning news shows.

Give the perma-snark a rest. And you kids get off my lawn!

I don't understand ... "what the vats majority of it is customers want"?

My sig is for you, sir :)

Yeah, it does matter. Cognitive speedbump.

AAAAARGH. I need mod points, because I don't have time to explain what's wrong with this story, but eventually someone here will. However it'll be buried under a bunch of yammering nonsense. Like yesterday's story about the Comcast / Level3 peering agreement story. Grrrrr.

Really? All this yacking and nobody bothers to link to the photos?

Killer high-resolution photos from Virgin Galactic:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4103/5068224405_048653fe6d_o.jpg
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4104/5068685162_c815ecf013_o.jpg
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4154/5068685178_2f4f70ba28_o.jpg
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4127/5068685118_c9dbb29905_o.jpg
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4109/5068196007_29f5b66dce_o.jpg
(that's Rutan and Branson in the last one, both recognizable by their hair)

And while I'm here, why do I have to click twice on links in Slashdot now? First click mysteriously does nothing.

Guy Ben-Ary is an artist who did a residency at the SymbioticA Research Lab at the University of Western Australia and then at the Potter Lab at Georgia Tech. During that time he created a system where a culture of rat brain neurons controlled a robotic pen controller to draw "art". Further, the two components (brain and arm) were geographically separated and communicated across the internet.

MEART: The Semi Living Artist

http://web.mit.edu/shkolnik/www/meart/

http://www.fishandchips.uwa.edu.au/

Related, here is PHD's take on "The Science News Cycle":

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1174

Yeah, there's like four jokes in that one sig. Well done, sir :)

Not to break off this delightful train of thought, but the problem is that the sun is getting cooler. A lot cooler. It's magnetic field is looking

BOOM. Full stop. Train of thought broken. That's a cognitive speedbump, and I stopped reading immediately. If you want people to actually read what you write, especially smart people, then treat the language with respect.

See the link in my sig below. Yeah, it's a sore point for me, especially around here.