Remember, that ethanol is present as an oxygenate to prevent carbon monoxide and soot. The discontinuation of the use of MBTE (methyl tert-butyl ether) left ethanol the primary one. Methanol is even worse for engines than ethanol. Whatever the shortcomings of ethanol from an engineering basis, it is non-toxic in reasonable quantities.

Having worked with gallium, it is not the easiest metal to work with. It forms oxides easily on its surface, and when these oxides combine with the metal, the metal can stick to metals and glass quite easily. Gallium has been used to back mirrors for that reason.

For those wondering, just because it melts easily, does not mean it has any vapors. Unlike mercury, it has a very high boiling points and has essentially zero vapor pressure at temperatures that can be tolerated by people. As for non-toxic, as far as I know it is not poisonous in reasonable quantities, but neither is it generally recognized as safe (GRAS). Six-nines gallium is probably what to use (99.9999%), as Five-nines gallium (99.999%) usually has signifcant mercury levels in the remaining portion.

It supercools very nicely in plastic containers, and once melted will stay liquid at room temperature for quite a while. It expands upon freezing, like water, and often develops a distinctive cracking pattern when solidifying.

It will eat aluminum instantly. Certain stainless steels are fine for a while, but iron (not plain steel), berylium, tungsten and the like are other metals you can use with it and not have problems with dissolving part of it.

It is a blast, and you can buy small quantities of it from Amazon.

Like the building of the healthcare website, the management of the IRS non-profit review function, or lots of other government operations have great oversight either.

The politicians elected to run the government want to play politics, not actually run the government. So that is what they do.

When my alderman (probably councilman in your city) failed to deliver adequate city services, she was voted out of office. That does not happen higher than the city level.

Hansen's principal point is moving fast enough. His point is that if you are too slow, certain irreversible things will happen. Therefore you have to go with currently executable plans. The United States went dam-happy after Hoover dam, so it is not like we have hydropower waiting to happen. Nuclear is the one thing that we can execute on large scales to provide 24x7x365 power for many nations right now.

Hansen's problems are not with leading engineers. They are with politicians, activists, amatueur busy-body fearmongers and their me-too hangers on. He thinks a tipping point is coming, and that the other side of that tipping point outweighs any worry you have about nuclear power. And you can theorize all you want about your solar panels, windmills, etc. Nuclear is what has been proven to provide a substantial portion of world power without carbon load.

He is not interested in theories. He is interested in precedented engineering. Nuclear provides 20% or so of electricity in the U.S. today, around 80% in France. There is no "renewable" that provides so much power to a major country today.

The fact is that a lot of the global warming band wagoners are only on board so they can bash the same enemies they have been bashing for 40 years. When they hear they have to team up with some of their old enemies or the world is going to flood, well, they get off the bandwagon. They do not give an actual rats ass about the planet. They forgot about it 30 years ago.

The question being criticized requires the child to generalize. Whether the generalization that the child is fairly or unfairly being asked to do the task appears to be the point of disagreement here. Also, the form and length of the test comes into play.

Question #1 is not particularly different from #5 or #7 except that the number is on a drawing of a cup instead of in a drawing of a square. Are we really putting that much weight of fairness on that difference? It seems that perhaps that the particular teacher is missing the point: we can't train students to only respond to numbers in squares. They should respond to numbers in triangles, circles, and cups as well. Yes, the cup is harder. What is wrong with testing contextualizing skills as well as the number skill?

I agree the children will not be helped if teachers are not ready to deliver the lesson. The teacher's guide for following up on this test was either wanting, or unread by the principal in question. It would be nice to hear what the teacher's guide for the test actually said.

It sounds like you have control of the whole machine, which makes you the sysadmin. You don't only get to choose the programming language. You have to design a workflow. The programming language will fall out of you designing your plan of attack. You have to do so within the limitation of your advisor's budget, the assistance you can beg, etc. Take comfort in the fact that procedural languages are deep down 98% the same with different words for things, it is the libraries that get confusing. And read the library documentation like your life depends on it. It does.

The services may exist. IP enforcement against an actual brick and mortar location is quite possible. Music licensing does it year in and year out one bar and restaurant at a time. Yet, the system works because licenses are easily obtained through a central service.

Yes, but what patented objects can be just scanned in and printed? I can't really thing of any significant ones. An iPhone? A pharmaceutical? Could they print a Teddy bear? And that's not patented. And if you could (at all), could you do it at a reasonable price? One has to think that the manufacturer's cost of making it will always by X/4 or so.

Yes, an old Benjamin Franklin experiment to find the thickness of an oil particle.

http://www.avs.org/PDF/richmond.pdf

Many, many hits on google for this experiment. It actually happened unlike the kite/lightning storm thing.

Let's see. This is a molecule in pre-clinical testing. I would give this specific molecule about a 1 in 1,000 chance of actually being marketed. Those are damn good odds for a molecule at this stage. This is why you always have to take the word "potential" with a boulder of salt.

The first patent act was in 1790. The Constitution only permitted Congress to have patents. Congress had to decide to do it.

If you go to the article, you can see that this means that you can embed a stretchable wire in a plastic body. The high self-attraction of the metal for itself instead of the plastic means you have a wire that is not going to develop stress and break.

The President is ordering the IRS to not enforce the penalty for the year. The law has not changed. Even if the president changed his mind mid-stream, people will have reasonably relied upon his promise in conducting their affairs, and could have a defense in court even if the president did change his mind.

While the President took an oath to uphold the laws and Constitution of the United States, the line between legitimate prioritization of the activities of government and failure to live up to the oath is not a clear one, and is the subject of controversy from time-to-time. The prior president spent more effort on stopping white slavery and illegal (child mostly) pornography, while the current administration spends more time on civil rights and the environment. The fact is that resources are limited and the weight of enforcement activities legitimately responds to some extent with the perceived needs.

Mind you, failure to enforce a law where Congress overrode a presidentail veto is a clear case of derelication of duty. It is the law, and we get that the president did not like it, but the duties of the office are to enforce the laws the president likes and does not like, within reason.

Let's keep a few things straight here...

(1) Civil and criminal copyright infringement are two different things.
(2) To be liable for civil infringement, the copyright owner has to enforce.

I am having real difficulties figuring out why a copyright owner would complain about it if AT&T performed the method. I also have difficulty figuring out why a government would care if the copyright owner did not.

If it is merely a method to catch the stupid, well, there are plenty of stupid people so it is not pointless.

Some people have the idea that discoveries can be patented because of the U.S. Constitution. Article I, Section 8, clause 8 reads:

"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"

  So inventors can be given exclusive rights for a limited time for their discoveries. Or at least, that is what English grammar says.