This is one issue on which I have to disagree, be unpopular, and say that these kinds of subsidies are necessary. If we leave everything to the cheapest and most affordable existing technology (so that the poor could afford it), we will never get out of being slaves to oil. Having energy/vehicles too cheaply is what is keeping us in all this mess.

In this sense, poor people are the problem (in the sense that most of us non-rich people use gasoline vehicles). Sometimes improving things comes with an upfront cost. And of course rich people buy new technology first. duh.

There's always complexity behind these stories, and it might be interesting for everyone to understand why this development, although a great and useful accomplishment, is not equally useful for all types of astronomy:

Much of astronomy is being pushed by the need to image deeply in the infrared. For example, to discover the most distant objects in the universe, you need to use near- and mid-infrared wavelengths (because objects that are far away are receeding rapidly, hence redshifted). And for this, mostly what you want is raw photon count, not sharpness (although that would be a "nice-to-have" someday).

Unfortunately (for astronomy), the atmosphere absorbs heavily in the infrared wavelengths (aside from a few windows, which give us our passpands), and as a result, a 1 meter telescope in space still beats an 8 meter on the ground, in almost every respect (putting cost aside for a moment...).

At least for infrared work...

I recall that some other cameras, like a Casio I've seen a friend using, also do deblurring, but rather by stacking of rapid subframes (I guess using bright reference points). If I understand correctly, this new method is operated on a single frame. I wonder if anyone has a useful comparison of the hardware requirement/image quality/useability differences between the two methods?

Then on principle, you should be objecting to the fact that child fares on airlines are typically a fraction of the cost of adult fares. How about we raise their fares so that everything is equal, so that we're not penalizing all adults for weighing more than kids?

good luck flying Southwest to London or Japan.

In case you haven't thought about it, there is a structural (as in industry structure) reason that these low cost carriers don't fly internationally.

Two points:

1. The policymakers for an issue like airline/passenger safety should not be forced to pay for their reasonable decisions afterwards. The reason our air travel is safe is because people like pilots and air traffic controllers are independently allowed to make safety calls, without threat of retribution financially or politically directly as a result of their judgments. Everyone in positions of safety administration know the stakes -- it could be much worse if they were made directly accountable for the bill later.

2. But even then, as long as the air traffic stop affected all players, I think no one should be compensated. They all suffer on an equal baseline, and as competitors, no one is unfairly hurt/unhurt by the stoppage. Everyone suffered the same setback, and will have to deal with it. If there are job losses perhaps due to the event, then let the government help through normal channels. But just outright paying for a naturally-caused suspension of operations is ridiculous -- government is about correcting inequity, and there was nothing unequal about this.

well, that's taking it a bit far. I agree they were right to stop the flights, but there definitely is a point at which you consider how much $ you are willing to spend to save a life. We do this every day in insurance decisions, safety decisions, medical decisions, etc. Absolutely we measure lives in dollars.

If it hadn't been millions, but many billions of $ per day, you bet people would be thinking differently about how safe they wanted to be or not.

Maybe they do, in general. But just wait until you have an emergency and need to get somewhere -- I'm sure you'll change your tune and wish that a reasonable solution had been worked on.

I have to add my experience with TimeWarner idiocy here.

About a year ago I called their technical support line on behalf of my aunt in NYC, who had just gotten their HD upgrade or something I don't recall, and the picture was missing the red portion of the signal. (note that your reading that last sentence, there wasn't much room for misunderstanding, was there? You can understand the situation I'm describing, right?)

The conversation began badly, and went downhill from there:

Me: "Hi, we seem to be having a problem with our HD cable signal -- the picture is missing the red channel, so everything looks a little bit blue. I've tested this by swapping out the cables from the RGB (whatever it was), reversing them, so I think it's definitely a problem with your cable box, not our cables or our TV. Can you help me with that?"

Her: "sorry sir, looking in your channel lineup, I don't see any Red Channel."

Me: @#$!%#@

Me: regathering politeness, and for the next 20 minutes: "Sorry, I must not have explained that well -- you know how the tv signal has red/green/blue parts? Well, it seems to be missing the red part, so that the color is off."

Her: "no sir, I don't understand, and please, don't fiddle with the cables, please follow my instruction to turn the unit off and reset it."

after 20 minutes:

Me: "Maam, you don't seem to have the technical knowledge to even understand the problem I'm having -- could you please transfer me to someone who does."

10 more minutes of me getting angry that she won't transfer me. Followed by my filing a complaint with a request to be called back. I get called back, the guy on the line understands the problem immediately, and sends someone out the next day.

I cannot stand incompetence that doesn't recognize itself. And that a customer service assistance unit would staff its helpline with someone of such stupidity.

The other thing I learned -- don't get frustrated with stupidity, just leave. Politely hang up (there's no sense in angering yourself, or offending the moron) and call back until you get someone who knows what they're talking about. And I'm not just talking about with cable companies, I've discovered that this applies about life in general....

can someone explain what the pot is doing? Is it acting as a focusing/collimating device? Because if that were the case, I would expect the signal to be focused in the up direction, which I doubt is where the average wireless signal is coming from. Or is it somehow providing a larger surface area for signal collection in all directions, and focusing it internally to the modem? But I don't understand how that would work. Would love to hear a cogent explanation.

on a side topic, does anyone remember the concept that a Taiwanese engineer showed a few months ago on video, where a neat trick solves the problem of station stops? What was that called?

The train decelerates a little bit coming into a station, and on a parallel track or overhead, a small module containing the new passengers gets up to speed with the train and attaches. Then the passengers can transfer in and out without the train having to slow down much. (And of course, the train dumps the similar module as it enters the station, for disembarking pax).

Does this mean that the iPhone will not be coming to Verizon?

I lived in the UK for 2 years, and let me tell you, despite a lot of things that are annoying over there, being able to transfer money easily is one thing they do well.

All you have to do is give someone your bank account and routing numbers, and they can send you money, for free. Your landlord, friend, etc. And yes, it's free. Why do we have to let Paypal make millions off of this lack of capability in the US?

For all the people in the US who worry about account security, isn't it funny, they don't seem to have problems with this system where you give your account number to someone else. Did you ever realize anyway, that every time you write someone a check, you're giving out your account numbers already? And the fact that we rely on paper checks that take days to be processed opens up way more fraud opportunities than electronic means.

The best thing was that it must have been mandated some time ago that every UK bank offer this, so every bank has to have free transfers in this way. I think it should have been required for the US banks in their bailouts -- as long as we're helping them out, they have to get rid of a system that does nothing but cost consumers fees. Think about it, if you could choose anew, would you have people transfer funds by writing pieces of paper (which by the way, cost like $0.20 cents each if you've looked at the cost of ordering checks) that you have to go the bank to deposit, take several days to clear, and might bounce? Why are we tolerating this middleman system? Why do we tolerate $35-a-pop overdraft fees as a surprise, when clearly they have the means to tell you right away if your balance is insufficient? Boo hoo, the banks will lose some profit from the decline in overdraft fees. Well, they shouldn't even be making huge profits off of those shady fees in the first place.

I read that there's one bank which lets you take a iPhone photo of checks someone gives you, and send in that image as the deposit. Or other banks that let you scan checks in at home and send them in via their website. At that point, why are we even having the checks? cmon people, let's not put up with this bullshit any more. Give us free transfer capability, honest information on our accounts, and no more idiots writing checks in supermarket lines. What, did you drive up in your horse and buggy?

sorry, this topic makes me grouchy about how behind the US is, and apologists who think it's fine and want to cut productivity-sucking banks any slack over it.

the editor completely misunderstands the point (or misuses his/her GPS). The potential clutter of the user interface/map/traffic aside, GPS is the most dramatic simplification in driving to emerge in years -- provided you just listen to the voice prompts.

When used correctly, this one amazing device outsources your mental burden of navigation, and presents it to you with a clear voice that lets you devote your effort to (hopefully) driving better, although obviously this has turned many people's attention elsewhere.

If you've ever found yourself in an unfamiliar city in fast moving, dense traffic, trying to find an address, you will be grateful that you can offload your navigational workload to the GPS, which tells you clearly and plainly when to get ready to turn, in how far a distance, potentially even making it safer as you no longer swerve across 3 lanes of traffic at the last minute while looking at a paper map.

Of course, people who use it to navigate down isolated country roads they're familiar with will never see the point, but for someone who's task-overloaded in a busy situation, listening to the GPS voice is an amazing improvement in life.