This seems to be another "Johny come lately" attempt by Microsoft to catch up to Apple and Google. "Innovation" may be a big catchword these days by the large companies, but by making a competing project "job one urgency", it just underscore the fact that Microsoft is just trying to play a me-too game.

I don't mind if Microsoft does well or not, but why do they actively choose not to actually innovate? Do they not understand that the success of search engines, phones, tablets, and everything else that they've been late to the market on is because...well, because they're late to the market.

I simply don't understand why Microsoft doesn't get it. Innovating requires *new* ideas. Otherwise, they might as well be another Chinese second rate copy.

That's 27 gallons / 100 liters. I don't know how the water recycling works on the IIS, but I find it interesting that they send up a seemingly small amount...

Did I miss something?

How exactly are we going to get to Mars (or anywhere else in space) when Obama has been draining the lifeblood out of every avenue of manned exploration from NASA's budget?

I remember seeing one on display at the Huntsville space center in Alabama a few years ago. Is it no longer there?

Sure, but the American people paid for those satellites- it's an easy argument that Americans benefit directly from it, even if another manufacturer makes the devices.

This doesn't really matter, since the US is paying for the satellites anyway, but isn't it a little odd that the UK is looking to profit from the use of US satellites?

Does the US receive funding from other countries for GPS?

A quick look at the other censuses brought up the 1860 census form ( http://www.ancestry.com/save/charts/1860.pdf?cj=1&o_xid=0002530104&o_lid=0002530104 ).

Note the last column. It's too bad that they dropped the "# of Idiotic" people from the form. Maybe the numbers were approaching 100%...

Reminds me of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUFkb0d1kbU

Of course. Live in Europe for a few years, and you'll see this.

The systems are different for sure. Due to timing, initial adoption speed, geographical differences, political differences, and far too many other factors to list, there will always be differences between industrialized countries and how they operate. But both will have advances that the other does not. It's simply the nature of the beast. Again, go live in a different place for a while and you'll see for yourself.

The grass is always greener on the other side of the pond....

And it seems that she's not alone. This was the most disturbing comment that I saw on the original page:

"“Freedom of speech” is most frequently used by racists and criminals to deceive others. It’s an outmoded concept and it needs to go. There is no reason in today’s civilized world why anyone should need to say anything that isn’t supported by the majority of the public and the body of science. We have passed the point where legitimate thinking is suppressed without understanding, so the only thinking that would be suppressed is broken criminal thinking that should be suppressed. The Constitution is no longer a model for a “more perfect union” - We have the More Perfect Union right here - right now - and the Constitution is now just a hindrance. People do not need the right to own murder weapons or spout racist nonsense. It needs to go."

Unbelievable. I had to respond (post 15)...

"So why change it? According to Mohd Abubakr from Microsoft Research in Hyderabad"

So... why is Microsoft interested in something like this? I can understand MS doing research in a number of fields for the sake of research itself, but paying some guy to come up with yet another periodic table?

Actually, the typical American house has 220V service from the step-down transformer. One transformer will serve several houses, and typically each house is wired for 400 or 200 amps total capacity.

However, even though most houses have 200 or 400amps available, most only have a circuit breaker designed for about half that, just because it's cheaper and 99% of people don't need more.

So... Most Americans have 220v/100-200amp available at their house, with some additional electrical work to make it available to a car charger.

It's worthwhile to note that carpel-tunnel syndrome (CTS) predominately shows up in women. It used to be commonly held that CTS was a result of endless typing or other repetitive wrist motion, but studies in the past couple years have shown that women simply have a higher disposition to get CTS than men, and there were/are more women in pure typing roles (secretary, etc).

References:

http://www.rsi-relief.com/2008/05/carpal-tunnel-syndrome-and-women/

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS102819+08-Apr-2009+BW20090408

Take a look at the wikipedia article on flagellum, used by bacteria and sperm, among others, for locomotion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellum

"The bacterial flagellum is driven by a rotary engine made up of protein (Mot complex), located at the flagellum's anchor point on the inner cell membrane. The engine is powered by proton motive force, i.e., by the flow of protons (hydrogen ions) across the bacterial cell membrane due to a concentration gradient set up by the cell's metabolism (in Vibrio species there are two kinds of flagella, lateral and polar, and some are driven by a sodium ion pump rather than a proton pump[17]). The rotor transports protons across the membrane, and is turned in the process. The rotor alone can operate at 6,000 to 17,000 rpm, but with the flagellar filament attached usually only reaches 200 to 1000 rpm."

While still a stretch from a helicopter, the ability to rotate does exist in the biological world, and at speeds that would be required. The design is even similar to current motor designs.

I worked on a project that had similar deployment requirements, and we could that using Microsoft Message Queuing (MSMQ) as the transport mechanism took care of all these issues.

MSMQ itself only provides the transport mechanism, and there's no front end interface to send files- you'd have to code something up. However, it's the best "guaranteed delivery" system that I've seen on the Microsoft platform. Persistent across reboots, security controlled, FIFO queuing, very robust.

You may not be looking to code something up, but if you are, have a look at that.