You mean to tell me there are roughly 70 000 people on Earth who have figured out how to avoid the physical laws?

What is this cult called and how can I join?

An expensive gimmick...

As for heat, not terribly sure if that would be effective as you would have to heat up then cool down the device so it can be touched. All that in less than 90 sec? Put your oven to 100 C then stick a metal object in it for 90 sec, then take out and touch it with bare hands.... Not to mention some would survive.

UV remains the most viable killing method in this day and age, other than employing some sort of Star-Trek like tech....

But you know what, I can see private hospitals buying into this big time. There are no issues with money and if they can show their clients the level of commitment this shows to the layman, im sure they can pass on the cost quite easily while making a profit.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4757181.stm

I can come up with more, but I'm lazy and its Saturday.

As for "The right thing to do". It was, but that was not the reason the US Government at the time (not the people so much as always) had gone to war.

"It is a popular misconception among Americans that the US voluntarily entered WW2, at least against the Germans. In fact, the US didn't. The US entered the general war as a result of the attack on Pearl Harbor. But the US entered against Japan and did not, repeat not, declare war on Germany." http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_did_the_US_become_involved_in_World_War_2

That was my "quick Google" attempt.

Don't get me wrong, Americans are a good people in my book, but they blow their own trumpet a bit too much. All governments on earth are screwed up to some degree, America is one of the better ones.

I agree with you that US only entered WW2 due to pearl harbour, but I'm curious, would you prefer a Russian or German Europe to what it is now? And if anything Japan showed US that it is not untouchable.

US profited big time from WW2 in various ways, I'd say that European countries (UK included) have more than paid their debt to the US by now.

What I'm trying to say is that the world of politics is a little bit more complicated than "I helped you, be grateful". There are a lot of fingers in the same pie, I'm absolutely sure than the US gets more than their fair share.

I'd also be careful what you wish for. Despite appearances, European economy is a lot larger than US Economy. US needs Europe more than Europe needs US. And we all need China and Russia more than most people realise.

So how about we all try and get along without bickering about who helped who 70 years ago. It's starting to sound almost as bad as complaining about the crusade.

Did you actually look up the keyboard or do you think its back-lit with UV???

As per the article you linked, "significantly higher" could just mean x2 or x3 more than a regular cell which is designed to cope with little to no UV at all. The article you mentioned a maximum sample height of 41km, which is still inside the ozone layer (right about at the point UV-C is absorbed) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_layer . I think 2 lamps designed to pump out UV-C is going to beat our sun at that height within the atmosphere (I could be wrong).

Also, life evolving to survive in such hazardous conditions rarely does anything other than survive. Meaning if it is put in a different environment it dies. These colonies may actually need some ozone within the cells to survive and reproduce (after all, they swim in the stuff), something that does not naturally occur in hospitals.

I suppose that 66% is automated, after every user.

As opposed to the user having to remember to throw the disposable top away after use. You may as well make nurses type in latex gloves that are binned every time you walk away from the computer. That's even cheaper, but few will do it, making it less than 66% effective in the end...

However I see you point about the expense, but from a different angle. Now that the keyboard is 66% "safer" should they be investing electrical appliance switches that are bathed in UV after every press? Or door handles? Or anything else that a nurse will touch after/before using the computer.... The keyboard is not the only thing different people constantly touch.

I suppose you have to fight it somehow, but I don't see how you can 'win'.

Heh, that made me chuckle.

But if you think UK is bad, go try another county (and not just for holiday)...

Still no excuse though...

Not fit for purpose.

The application here is designed to kill MRSA type bugs within 90 seconds and be ready for use.

The lights it comes with will make you blind very quickly, hence the enclosure.

If this is meant for bacteria free environments why not use a touchscreen to type and wipe/flash it with UV afterwards?

You could make a grooved one (a little pit for every key) to make it easier to touch type on.

And only UV-A reaches earth and gives you sun burn.

The Earth's ozone layer blocks 99% UV. Of that, 99% is UVA.

Its the UV-B (0.001% of UV that hits earth and reaches the surface) that causes damage on a molecular level. This is bad for big molecules like DNA.

Cells already evolved a repair mechanism for dealing with UV-B to deal with the meagre levels that does reach the surface.

UV-C is even more nasty than UV-B and none of that reaches the Earth's surface at all

These lamps are pumping out UV-C and UV-B to disinfect. So the cells ability to repair is completely overwhelmed... A bit like having a fire extinguisher to fight a pyroclastic flow...

So, no we don't have to worry about cells evolving, but not because the human-produced lamps are 'meager'.

Fearing things we don't understand is how we managed to avoid extinction up until now. Why would that be irrational?

The management making the choices is usually (at least in energy industry) completely clueless about IT and/or software design. However that can all still be circumvented by hiring a manager that knows their stuff.

The main difference is the legal wrapper. If shit hits the fan and you outsourced you can always blame the vendor to limit your own liability. This cannot be done to the same degree if the 'vendor' is an internal team.

That alone drives the majority of choices and "gut" feelings of my management (not IT) to either purchase or develop. Some times we do both in parallel and 'sell' the idea to our preferred software house for integration with the main product. The the general preference is "buy off the shelf" because "we are not a software house".

As a side note, the corporate management (goes all the way up to the CEOs) will not approve hiring of developers here, we have to hire people as administrators with "programming language skills a plus" in the job notice. Key being you support a vendor app while coding something to make it work...

I don't know enough to be able to say definitively whether that's a good business decision or not in our case (sure the users might hate it, but if the company saves money thats all the management cares about). So yes, upper management is an issue.

Now completely departing from the topic: There is a constant struggle in the engineering business. Core of the issue being the difference between project/plan and construct/maintain phases of a job. Project people spend less than 1% of the plant life (from design to decommission) on the job, but any delay or mistakes cost millions in the later phases, however, there is a constant pressure to deliver this 1% phase on-time and under budget.

So you see, us developing or getting developed efficient software to save time is counter productive to the company making money. Sounds odd? Problem is, the way we earn money... Each person on the job is paid extra and the company keeps the difference. Less people, less pay. More efficient software requires less people to run.

Sure it saves billions in the long run for the client (likes of BP, Shell etc.), but the company making those decisions ultimately makes less (because BP, Shell etc. come and say "you can do it for less now"). Yes you can bid a job and say, "pay us more so that we develop very efficient work-flows for you and deliver ahead of schedule with more added value", but a competitor will come in, say the same, bid less then not deliver what they promised and get away with it. On top of that the bidding people have no clue about the latest IT infrastructure. A project manager gets hired after the fact and told "you have £10 and 1 year to deliver the golden goose".

As a result rate of efficiency increase is very slow and our management has that much more incentive to get someone else to do the software and get ripped off, so that they can do the ripping off with a 10% margin themselves, have their ass legally covered and not have to lay off a bunch of devs after the job is done.

Had it for about a month now in UK.

Large screen is very comfortable, it also smudges a lot less than the N1.
I got the unlocked version for £530 and have a £17.5/m plan (1 month rolling) so the phone should pay for itself in 16 months.

A couple of things you may want to know about the GN:
Lack of menu button is not an issue as it does appear for most apps. The only one that takes a little getting used to is the stock browser app that for some unknown reason accesses the menu via a different mechanic (make sure to go to Labs and turn on Quick controls, makes life much easier).
The software buttons at the bottom of the phone move to the top when the phone is rotated clockwise, makes for a much nicer experience IMO.
Camera MP is not an issue at all, you really cant see the difference between S2 and GN in terms of quality (white balance/iso choice will differ for the same composition due to different software).
The phone does not feel plastic at all. There is zero flexing or bending and the main chassis feels metal due to the paint used. My only gripe is the back cover, which sort of 'sticks' on and is very fragile looking once off. However, since the phone has no internal SDcard slot the need to take the cover off is greatly diminished.
There is no Flash support, yet. Adobe has not updated their mobile app, but its on the way.
Some apps have not updated to ICS (no Swype for instance).
The phone is a lot more responsive than N1, whether thats due to ICS i dont know.
Orientation changes are very slow (maybe slower than N1) which really gets up my nose, but some people think thats normal. You can read more here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1389748

Lack of expandable memory is an issue, but not a big one. The advantage is you can download ALL your apps without making a dent. I can see add-on docks coming out soon that will let you plug something in at the bottom for extra space.

Customers who don't bargain happened.

Let me re-phrase: Using an internal team to develop a product on average carries more quantified risk, vs using an external company to develop a product.

A lot of risk analysis is done with the above too.

My definition of "gut" is doing an ad-hoc risk analysis in your head and going with it. All things being equal (quality of information etc.) all its down to is skill of the analyser vs experience of the "gut" feeler.

I am not stating that some random person off the street will be better at making decisions than a skilled analyser.