NASA uses RTGs which are HORRID when it comes to efficiency. BUT they are extremely simple, reliable, and have a very long very predictable lifespan and usability. Also do to it being on another world they don't have to worry about it's interaction with people or even the environment.

RTG's are the exact opposite to any power problem on this little world.

if he can show that the decision was made completely as an investor and zero input from his job at the company then sure.

Thats going to be hard to prove with him being CEO and all.

we were both thinking along the same lines

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c82z_bxy60E

funny you say that, i'm currently wearing one that is a little over 40 years old.. never have to bother with it, always works..

I want my watch to tell me the time, that is what a watch is for, if i wanted it to be something else, it would be something else.

Actually this is a simple math problem.

Two options:
Replace all at once
Replace as they burn out

Either way i have to physically replace each bulb.

It is more cost efficient to replace them all at once in a sequential pattern, rather than one at a time randomly, Thats because the cost to replace is the same, but i'm minimizing my travel distance & times as i'm going dispatch->pole->pole->dispatch rather than dispatch->pole-dispatch->pole->dispatch. You would be surprised but travel times are normally the highest impacting item when it comes to wrench time measurements. Also to add to it, if i wait and replace as they fail i'm paying X for electricity over that time, where if i replace it now i pay Y which is lower than X. The power savings is a fringe benefit compared to labor, but non the less it is factored in.

The biggest question that comes to mind for this type of decision is the time value of money. I can spend X now or X+1 from Now till then. which one is lower cost overall between now and then isn't always a straightforward answer.

The is a big difference between Traffic lights and street lights.. the one they are talking about "street lights" are the ones facing downward towards the road, if there is enough snow to block the out, i doubt anyone will care at that point that they don't have a functioning street light.

I always heard the USAF referred to as "white mans welfare" by the people i knew in it.. Always have a job, only the officers are in harms way, and you get retirement too.

If you don't nurture them then yes they don't grow. You don't have to force things on them but rather encourage their natural want to learn.

Now having a child (3 years old at the moment) i'm amazed at how quick they can learn, and feel sorry for children who's Parents don't interact with them and teach them. Too many parents want the schools to do everything for them, yet it is what they do outside of school which has the greatest impact to what they learn.

We are lucky, we don't say "Damn, I wasn't that dumb when I was that age!" instead my wife and I both go "Damn, he is smart, smarter than either of us at that age." and as long as we keep constantly feed him new ideas and information and reinforce it he will continue to be smarter than we were or are.

Again, just for the soapbox, the fact that children on average are getting "dumber" is completely the fault of their Parents.

But what if that is it's advertized and intended purpose? IS there something saying i can't sell a device that unleashes terrifying cyber-demons?

I see this as just plain discrimination. Won't someone think of all the cyber-demons sitting around looking for work? Please people let them work, in turn they will create more work for SysAdmins and therefor will be a job creator, please people think of the jobs!

Not really, there are a lot of animals out there that do this. Dolphins have Sex for fun, and a lot of smaller groups have passive systems that make them fertile only when their living conditions can support offspring (which is better than what we have now as humans).

Apple uses the charge port/connection for handling all of the accessories and controlling what goes on the market for their phones while also getting a nice chunk of change in licensing fees.

If they are forced to comply with the European regulators, my bet is they will just add a micro USB-B port to the side of the device that is only connected for charging period while keeping their proprietary connector for everything it does now. I predict it will also be in an inconvenient location say the right side of the phone. And it may only be done for phones intended for orginal sale in Europe (although that is more dependant on sales volume their vs. supply chain cost/impact).

Either way they are going to do their best to comply with the letter of the law, and keep every bit of their business model and revenue streams intact.

I'd actually be willing to put money on this one,

For a first release out of nowhere, and available to the public not just a demo, its not bad. Give intel 2 years then lets revisit their efforts, if they haven't changed then yes it s a "what the hell" situation. But time shows that when intel puts forth effort on something very few can beat them at it.

Yea, a truly low margin business

Which just makes it worse. For each advertiser/customer there is a fixed minimum admin/overhead cost.

the fact that they cut from 120 to 70 people and didn't die, tells me at a minimum they focused on streamlining the overhead.

Still would be curious to see real numbers.

All i can say is, thank you, you just gave me this awesome idea to use in an upcoming SR game when my char goes batshit crazy.