Actually the food that you eat is a bigger problem (with regards to greenhouse gasses) than your tailpipe. See the UN Food and Agriculture Organization report titled Livestock's Long Shadow. When looking at all the greenhouse gasses and land use changes involved, animal agriculture was contributing more greenhouse gasses than the entire transport sector combined.

Good find. If you type that into google you'll find the information you're looking for in the first result *thanks for the auto-cite slashdot

That page even goes further to explain that the 47 african swallows are among 74 worldwide species of swallow.

For wolfram alpha to be successful they will need to develop their natural language parsing abilities, it's not easy to do, each question may require individual interpretation. At this point using google is better for understanding more abstract concepts.

I've used wolfram alpha to help with my linear algebra homework for the past few days. Good info for checking my work. Matrix example

The best part is using it on a phone, it's made my G1 a more powerful calculator than my good ol TI-92.

Good timing on this article. I'm supposed to be studying for finals and here I am reading and writing on slashdot. I don't think this device would help me out now.

I can relate to losing lots of study time to getting up for something trivial. A light snack when I wasn't even really hungry, a quick post to slashdot, I just wanted a diversion. It takes a good chunk of time to get back to where I was at in studying. Avoiding these delays would indeed give me more free time after, perhaps to cook a nice meal.

Better than a ball and chain is having a study buddy who can help you through problems and help you understand the material better by helping them out. And importantly, keeping the focus on the work.

I drove a Jetta TDI for a few years, yeah 42mpg with 99% biodiesel was nice. I think they've even improved the diesel emissions since then with the filters you piss in. Algae biodiesel could someday make a good fuel for cars. Current biodiesel is the next best thing, being practically carbon neutral, although we're a bit tight on land right now. I heard cows are gobbling up the amazon.

Hybrids have done a nice job of advancing battery, generation and electric motor tech. It's a small step to all electric cars, which could be the ideal choice for a car.

Lately though I take my bike and bus/trolley/train most places. Biking is the thing to do for health, environment, and cost. It takes more time, especially if you bike through trails and get stopped by moments of beauty in the canyons, but you can always farm gold later.

Thanks to evolving meat alternatives you can now enjoy steaks of similar texture and taste without the guilt of environmental destruction, animal suffering, world hunger, acceleration of drought, and looming heart disease. It may not look or taste exactly the same, but with an open mind and a sense of ethics one can overcome these prejudices and enjoy these healthy alternatives to animal flesh.

The cows will be reduced in number as markets shift away from the resource hungry and environmentally destructive sources of food. They may still live out their lives in some marginal lands, but no more rainforests will need to be leveled to grow all the soy and corn it takes to feed these miserable animals.

Change is a concept whose time has come.

This kind of lighthearted fun and appreciation for knowledge in government is effective in getting young and old interested in civics and education. Not everything done in congress needs to be drab economics! The eclectic approach will produce results, and with measured feedback we can continue to promote what works. Don't shoot down new ideas before they've had their chance to shine.

Ok I'll join in,

What if dvorak (optimized for efficiency) were the dominant keyboard layout instead of qwerty (optimized for slowing typists so typewriters wouldn't jam)? Less carpal tunnel lawsuits maybe.

What if Steve Jobs played his game as smartly as Bill Gates? Maybe we'd be living in a fruitopia.

What if the Nintendo virtual boy had taken off? We'd probably have VR sex by now. It's time to bring back the virtual boy! er-virtual girl? virtual ds?

Your time spent imagineering alternate universes clearly shows that you have too much time on your hands.

The question excluded cell phone service charges. An unlocked G1 can be had for about $400 with no contract or service charges, and it can be used as a wifi device without a sim card (I just tested this on mine). I can browse the web, use email, download apps from the market, download music, use maps, skype I'm assuming.

It's a bit high in the price range at $400, but the size and keyboard are nice and the app library is great and growing. G1 is usually $180 with a contract (min. $55/mo for 2 years)

This is why we have different categories of planets.

Earth is the only Class M planet in the solar system.

Of course, with terraforming, Mars might join us in that someday.

Looking through: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_M_planet

It seems like pluto should be a class K, or possibly a class D.

I recently had my first physics class as a college sophomore, calculus-based mechanics. It was very fun and useful, as a computer programmer. This was my first lab class since high school and I was certainly inspired by each of the ~3 hour labs. The most fun was using a spring cannon to shoot a rubber ball through a ring, using kinematics equations my group of 3 was able to launch the ball precisely through the ring on the first attempt (we were scored by number of attempts).

We spent a total of about 30 hours on 10 labs throughout the semester. I found these to be a good length for keeping our attention and teaching each concept. It was nice to have access to a fairly new lab with laptops which we used to record and analyze sensor data. This all takes place in a very affordable California community college.

I know I haven't answered the question yet, just providing info on my experience for whatever it's worth.

Other interesting labs were: landing a ball in a small cup after rolling off a slope on top of a table. using a car with a fan attached to measure acceleration and velocity. colliding cars of different masses to measure impulse. calculating mass by measuring the velocity of a car being pulled by a mass on a string which was pulled down by gravity.

This class covered only mechanics. I imagine that labs in the fields of electromagnetism, waves and optics must be exciting in different ways. This first physics class left me wanting more, but those will have to wait, as they aren't required in my computer game design major.

One experiment could involve some rockets and landing a delicate payload safely. It has obvious applications. Other useful applications of physics should be sources of inspiration. A student should feel inspired by doing something useful with physics, something that they would use as a professional physicist, something to form the basis for novel applications of physics.

Something involving optics like capturing images of comets using a handmade telescope could be fun.

With the green energy revolution upon us, there could be some home made wind, tidal, and solar energy capture and storage systems to build.

It sounds cool to do all these space missions and build giant solar arrays to beam power to Earth, but I think it's more practical and cheaper just to throw some solar panels on rooftops and windmills by houses and across the midwest.

Home based power is reliable and available now, with no transmission losses. With the right loans, marketing, and government investment, people could just swap their electric bill for the loan on their personal power plant and voila, clean power to the people at virtually no cost. It would also create jobs as solar and wind plants spring up to fill the demand.

Stop building dirty coal and oil plants and start investing in solar and wind.

well if they had some space age, heat resistant pipes to shove down there into the magma, then run some liquid through the pipes to transmit the heat to a steamer, we'd have delicious vegetables in no time. i mean geothermal power. large scale geothermal.

it'd be pricey to make the first one, but it could be a big player in renewable energy. and unlike solar panels and wind mills which are like socialized energy because everyone controls the production, this could be a major central project for a greedy corporation.

then before you know it they drill to deep and there's a balrog running the streets.

Similarly, Logo can be a great way to educate programming skills, as well as artistic and problem solving skills. Logo can make spirograph-type art, and puzzles such as mazes can be navigated. I'm not sure if Logo has been developed as far as having AI, but it seems possible.

Logo may be more appropriate for younger audiences. Something with a similar artistic/programming approach for teens would be interesting. Maybe sodaplay or processing, although these maybe a bit too difficult.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language)