I was envisioning not so much an area illumination system, but a "holy crap, that's a bright star, and it's flashing" sort of system - which I think could lower the power requirements massively over actually trying to light up the ground.

I'm not sure about this 10W/m^2 figure. Maybe I just have a different concept to the rest of Slashdot, who seem to be imagining a system that would light up the ground and everything around you. I was imagining a really bright flashing "star". Given that you can easily see satellites with a really small telescope, and that's just using the sunlight reflecting off their panels (say, 1kW per square metre, maybe 1-10 square metres), that I think the power requirements could be way lower than discussed, and still produce an easily visible light. Granted someone in the village would have to be looking up, but I think there's a fair chance of that?

I'd dispute that. If the signal is, say, on for one second, then off for the next, does that make it less visible? You've just halved the average power requirement, and I'd argue the flashing makes it more visible if anything. I think you'd only need a very brief flash to make it visible, particularly if that flash was repeating periodically, so the average power requirement would fall correspondingly.

I had in mind a thin line, 20km long, but only 1 metre wide - one end of the strip at the beach, the other end inland (exact distance depending on gradient of coastline at that point). So that's 20,000 square metres, and I believe that 200kW is achievable with (really big) solar panels.

It's funny, in the recent "How Smart Are You" poll, only 5% of slashdotters rated themselves below average, yet there are some really fucking stupid answers to this post. Read the damn posting people (yeah, I know, this is Slashdot...).

For starters, there are those saying that it would be better to use radar than a laser. You can't see radar, the article's about using the laser for warning people, not measuring the height of the ocean surface.

Then there seem to be a ton of replies along the lines of "it would take gigawatts to illuminate the entire Earth! Sharks with friggin' lasers, etc...".

Who said this thing had to illuminate the entire damn planet in one go? Jeez, ever heard of raster scanning people?

So, it has to warn people in at-risk sections of coastline. That alone cuts the area to be illuminated by orders of magnitude. Then, it doesn't need to illuminate all of these areas simultaneously and permanently - it could sweep them repeatedly. Imagine that the laser was spread out along a line, say 20Km wide, and that then scanned the affected coastlines. So the people underneath might only see a bright flash lasting for say, 10th of a second every ten seconds. Brief, but maybe enough - better than nothing if you're out of range of a siren.

On top of that, you could limit your illumination area so that, at any one time, you're only lighting up sections of coast that are likely to be hit by the approaching tsunami within the next 3 hours, say. Obviously you needn't illuminate any areas which the tsunami has already hit - it's too late for them, sadly.

Come on slashdotters, how about actually engaging the intellect that I'm sure is actually present, and then discussing how this idea *could* be made to work (even if there are better ways), instead of idiotic "terrible idea" comments.

I fail to see why it takes Diego Maradona to free the rover, wherever it is.

I can't believe that no-one here seems to have pointed out the elephant in the room - price. The iPhone is a really nice gadget, but it costs a fortune.

The Palm Pre is also a really nice gadget, with numerous cool features (at least one of which is that it's not controlled by Apple). But, in the UK at least, it's being launched for the exact same price as the iPhone! Are Palm completely batshit insane?

I'd love a smartphone, but I'm not paying in excess of 700UKP for one. Get them under 100UKP, no contract crap, then maybe they'll take off. Maybe I'm unusual in that I don't need or want 30UKP worth of calls every month, but I doubt it.

Woah, my original rant picked up quite a number of sensible responses...

Since the same points were raised multiple times, I'm going to abuse the thread system by answering them once, here.

First off, the hollow (rolled) earth pin. I have to concede that I haven't got a good engineering point against this - it's just an instinctive "eugh" response. Some (poor) arguments against it though:
The finish at the tip is often quite poor, meaning that it has sharp edges (as with the 2 main blades) that snag on things (like inside laptop bags).
The current carrying capacity is lower than it could be. I want to be reassured that the earth pin is going to be able to handle whatever loads it's required to handle in an emergency (which should be some way above the nominal rating of the plug). I guess its capable of handling 15 amps, but it doesn't look like it has a lot of capacity to spare.

As for the blades not going cleanly into the socket, yes, I get this all the time - seems like I'm forever having to "tweak" the spacing between the blades to get them to fit properly.

Intrigued by the poster who stated that the Ozzies have tried to introduce insulation on their blades. Can't see how this would work - either the insulation would have to be really thin (and ineffective), or the socket would have to be made wider (running the risk of foreign objects getting in, since there's no shutter system).

To my mind, you're most likely to touch the half-inserted blades when withdrawing a plug, and your fingertips accidentally curl around the face of the plug. Maybe such momentary contact isn't such an issue with 110v.

But my main argument is that, if you consider the British plug, it consists of some absolutely inspired design decisions - such as the way the cables are routed inside the plug, so that if the cable is forecibly pulled out of the plug, the live is pulled out first, then neutral, then earth. If you look at the wiki page, then you can see a whole list of safety features that have been engineered in. You may think it's big and clunky, but this is a plug that's had some serious thought put into it.

Whereas the US plug gives the impression that someone, given the brief to design a plug, followed the following process:
Blade for live
Blade for neutral
Job done!
(Followed by the later addition of that nasty earth pin...)

Really? Rather than just being more accustomed to it?

The standard US connector is absolutely awful. The pins never seem to go cleanly into the socket, which isn't surprising, because the pins are actually blades, whose orientation is such that they're prone to bending together or apart.

There's no sort of insulation on the blades either, so you're quite able to touch them while the plug is only half inserted.

The earth pin is for shit - being a tube that's been pinched shut, rather than a solid pin.

I can only assume that you're stuck with it for historical reasons, rather than anyone "preferring" it. I find it hard to believe that anyone put any significant thought into actually designing it.

It is, frankly, shocking.

Flame on...

If Endeavour is all set to launch from pad 39B in the event of an emergency rescue mission, then why are they planning to move it across to 39A for the "regular" mission?