http://www.osalt.com/wikidpad http://www.osalt.com/zim I can't vouch for their quality or usefulness, but there's a non-zero chance this post will help you, so...

Clearly you've never been to Singapore.

Hell, run for office, if you don't see any candidates you like. Bring up issues like IRV, copyright reform, whatever you believe in that doesn't get addressed.

Make noise.

I'm running an intensely rational campaign, so I very much hope you're wrong about that last part. If you want to see this sort of campaign succeed, get in touch with me, and we'll see what we can do.

Unknown slashdot poster: 1
Massively influential Chinese writer: 0

I would mod you up if I could. There are simple things the government could do to significant reduce the cost of health care in the US, including prescription drug patent reform, malpractice tort reform, and forbidding doctors from being compensated on a per-procedure or per-patient basis, which is a clear conflict of interest. Those factors alone account for half of the cost difference between US health care and other comparable countries, and fixing them wouldn't cost the taxpayer one dime.

But of course, nobody's talking about that, because our representatives aren't actually interested in fixing problems. That's why I'm running.

Well, I'm running for US Congress with their endorsement, so we'll just see about that next November. :-)

That all depends on his personal victory conditions. Maybe for him, "win" is "get this information to the public regardless of personal cost". If that's the case, he's already won.

I won't debate your numbers, they look fine at a glance. However, supercapacitors are quite common, actually. You'll likely find a small one in any cellphone with a camera flashbulb. They're a relatively mature technology, as well, and not unreasonably expensive for what they do. On a larger scale, a single 48V 165F Maxwell costs on the order of $1-$2k, if memory serves. That's for a capacitor that has an ESR of around 5 milliohms, and which can deliver several thousand amps instantaneously, repeatedly, with no significant negative impact. Try doing that with batteries. My company uses these things on a regular basis, probably on the order of hundreds per year, integrating them into a number of projects on a variety of scales. I just finished designing a portable unit to charge and discharge 500V 130V capacitors, measuring their capacitance and ESR in the process. Of course, I can imagine a different approach to the ice problem. Instead of melting all the ice over the entire road, they could melt paths in the ice instead, breaking it into smaller chunks which are easier to deal with and melt faster. Also, I'm wondering if there would be a significant difference between the amount of energy necessary to actually melt that layer of ice, and the amount of energy necessary to prevent it from forming in the first place. Neither of those would make orders of magnitude difference, probably. The fact that ice might not form or stick the same on a glass road as it does on asphalt might though...

Surprisingly? I've been wanting that feature since Windows '98, and wondering why something so obviously useful hadn't been implemented! Yay for it finally being done in Vista, but boo for it being left out for so long.

And yet you're sitting here posting? Get up off'a that thang!

If you're in my district, vote for me. If you're not, tell others to vote for me, and run in your district. I've gotten fed up enough to actually do something. How about you?

Literally? That doesn't sound very sanitary.

If I'm elected I'll do everything in my power to make sure it expires within the next decade. Check the sig, spread the word, and vote for me if you're in my district.