It's about time they fixed this. I intermittently run a Virtual Machine version of XP. A few months ago, I noticed windows update service (running under svchost) would chew up 99% of the cpu when booted up for 10 minutes. Seems the problem was windows updates check for the presence of every single IE update ever released, when they were all superseded by the latest IE cumulative updates anyway and not per-requisites for anything else. I'm not sure why they are patting themselves on the back, when they just did the equivalent of declining superceded updates in WSUS (generally done in seconds, btw).

Depends on whose estimates you're looking at, and what country. DOE claims Natural Gas is much cheaper, when you look at 30-years costs including the cost of the power plants. Solar and off-shore wind are ridiculously expensive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#US_Department_of_Energy_estimates
http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/er/electricity_generation.cfm

You do realize that DOT regulations (not laws, just guidelines which most states adopt in their vehicle code) REQUIRE light to be thrown upwards for overhead street sign illumination. The euro-spec headlights have a much sharper horizontal cutoff which while not passing US DOT standards, throw much less light above horizontal into oncoming drivers eyes.

You are correct that DOT specifies chromatic limits for "white" headlights, but that range is pretty wide. http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/rules-regulations/administration/fmcsr/fmcsrruletext.aspx?reg=571.108.

The cheap aftermarket HID retrofit kits that place an HID bulb inthe stock housing are dangerous because they have such a horrible light pattern that throws a lot of dazzling light into oncoming drivers faces. They are illegal in most of Europe. They are also illegal in most of the US states, although I've never actually heard of someone getting a ticket - just failing a safety inspection.

http://www.artsjournal.com/slippeddisc/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/266x198xboujemaa-neys-300x224.jpg.pagespeed.ic.0cUyxS4qkI.jpg
A picture of what the finished flutes (nays) looked like, and a list of what else was in the case

Had he actually declared them and they were fully dried, then probably yes. Hiding fresh bamboo cutting in your luggage and not declaring them isn't likely to get an automatic exemption when they find it though.

Apparently no-one even read the title, and immediately jumped to the assumption that TSA is at fault. TSA doesn't inspect inbound international luggage, that's the job of Customs, Border Patrol (CBP). Customs has very clear restrictions on bring in plants, timbers, etc and obviously they felt the raw flute making materials qualified under those restrictions.

http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/travel/id_visa/kbyg/prohibited_restricted.xml#PlantsandSeeds
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/plant_health/permits/index.shtml
http://www.cbp.gov/linkhandler/cgov/newsroom/fact_sheets/agriculture/olympic_ag.ctt/olympic_ag.pdf

Had he known about the restrictions and he declared them, it wouldn't have been an issue.

If you're looking to encourage reading as a hobby, simply find out their interests and recommend something appropriate. Say the kid like sci-fi, then maybe point him towards Heinlen, etc. There are lots of good suggestions above that might peak someones interest, and certainly some written in styles that would make them unapproachable or dry for most teens (Shakespeare and the Bible for example).

Once the bug for reading is planted (it might take time to grow given the generally short attention span of under 21 crowd), then maybe make suggestions or even send them the ebooks.

Aren't new years resolutions generally about improving yourself, and not about telling others how to improve themselves?

The plausible explanation is that they are simply using ez-pass as a means to assess traffic congestion, ie how long is it taking a car to traverse a section of highway. Of course I don't doubt that law enforcement wants access to track people, but generally cell phone tracking is more reliable and readily accessible. Wanna bet these are at the border as well?

Why is this NOT another example of kernel bloat, and the opposite direcion they should be heading (ie getting user stuff out of the kernel)? Seems like the primary use of D-BUS is for the desktop components, which already abuse/overuse inter-process communication. The "huge performance improvement" is only for those processes that shouldn't be abusing this anyway.

Happens all the time. Usually when the contract has bonuses for early completion, or it was a fixed-price contract. Sometimes you'll have a contracter overestimate the labor involved, because the task was poorly defined and the contractor made sure they'd still make a profit when the task turns out to be harder than originally thought. Pretty common in R&D contracts.

Now there's a marketing scam - selling long-life incandescent as heaters!

I doubt you need heat year round. The only way you don't waste energy in that scenario is if you're already using electric resistance heating which is horribly inefficient. Heat pumps are less efficient in the cold, but still outperform resistance heat down to 15*F. If you're routinely colder than that, you have gas/propane/oil backup heat or worst case electric resistance heat.

That said, there are cases where incandescent bulbs are used to provide heat, such as terrariums. For those I guess we're stuck with $4 halogens that don't last any longer instead of the 25-cent walmart specials.

Correct. First known instance of a criticality accident happened at Los Alamos in 1945. Exposure was 510 rem plus additional exposure immediately after. He was pretty sick within hours, but it took him 25 days to die. A similar accident with the same material a year later killed the scientist in 9-days.

Perhaps inaccessible meant difficult for a fiber splicing guy with his fusion splicing equipment to get to?

Seems you got modded up, despite being WRONG. UEFI booting is required for the installer, which is why UEFI Support was listed as a hardware requirement in the FAQ you looked at. The requirement is also mentioned further down in the FAQ. Also reference:

http://store.steampowered.com/steamos/buildyourown.
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamuniverse/discussions/1/648814395741989999/
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/12/valve-releases-steamos-beta-early-build-your-own-system-requirements/

One benefit to this is that people won't be trying to install this on an old piece of crap and then complaining it's slow.