The cotton isn't a [semi]conductor, the coatings are. Still novel, though.

Yeah, nothing to see here (coming from someone who essentially designed an ARM Linux system-on-board with similar performance for an entirely unrelated application)...ordinary and almost reminiscent of reference designs. The CraneBoard is much more complex.

The Cray-1 was ECL. The Altair 8800 was TTL. We're now CMOS, but I wouldn't mind an ECL i7, despite the fluorinert waterfall... (My real point is that there were very serious differences between the Altair 8800 and the Cray-1 despite the obvious which lend to significant differences in power dissipation...and speed.)

Additionally, the other thing this article doesn't take into account is the preponderance of battery-powered modern devices -- before, power consumption wasn't really much of any consideration (plus, now it's marketing!)

(playing smarterass) Some of us still love five nines...

Doubtful. Highly doubtful. 3d printers are faster than their traditional manufacturing coutnerparts in some applications, but they don't allow you to manufacture anything you couldn't before. Other than that, the idea (while fittingly /. tinfoil-hatty) seems absurd.

Agreed, quite remarkable

I find it hilarious that Apple still has that myth going for it -- there are NO advantages to a creative professional under an Apple environment compared to a Windows environment, especially after FCP took a turn for the worse...

Ethernet's just as analog as dial-up!

So you install a constant-velocity motor generator set and...

well, if you were a military installation protecting something important, then it'd be a bit different. Yes, it's very wrong to sell it to a commercial entity, but it's not wrong at all to collect it. You're buying power from these people -- it would be like asking your water company to stop using their AMR equipment. Or gas -- oh no, they know when my water heater cycles and I use the stove. It's strange, I feel that people are diverging on privacy. On the one hand, they don't care about privacy of their personal lives and relationships (re: Facebook) but now they care that someone knows how much electricity they're using? Enlighten me if you disagree with my opinion that this is all a bit silly (remembering that I am not saying that commercial sale of this data is OK)

The pingers have long been dead. They have a battery life on the order of days.

As an electrical engineer, I would point out something rather funny: even European electronics (in majority) are still specified in thousandths of an inch as the primary dimensioning measure, as almost all surfacemount (and PTH) footprints are still in thousandths of an inch. Is this what we get for inventing it?

Read the Constitution. Where do you see JUDICIAL REVIEW? Seriously, you guys.

The Constitution is an ancient and generally deprecated document in light of far more informed and recent documents as the constitutions of Europe. We would be in a similar situation if we looked upon the Framers as fallible men as ourselves and it as a fallible (and correctable) living document. If the Constitution was properly cared for over its lifetime, we could be moving forward, not backward.
I am saddened by your confusion of opinion with fact. Look at statistics and you will discover that your statements are antidemocratic -- and arguably anti-American. It would be easy to say that I'm 'just reading the statistics to support me', but that false counterargument has gotten really old.
Judicial review isn't constitutional. Are you questioning it? In fact, much of the Supreme Court itself is extraconstitutional, and the Senate so skews representation per populace in this country that little (red, uninfluential, &tc) states can influence the ways of the country disproportionately. States do not deserve representation -- they are geopolitical units. People do.
And yet, where are women in our government, for example? And besides, I can't see why so few can learn addition -- cutting taxes gets us nowhere, almost as nowhere as attrition measures. Raise taxes already! Reduce rampant income inequality in this country and we might get somewhere.

Also: don't argue for States Rights. I don't need to tell you why.

tl;dr: Read the Constitution.
Learn more about the constitution.
Come up with your own words.

Really long reading:
Bartels, Larry M. Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age
Norris, Pippa. Driving Democracy: Do Power-Sharing Institutions Work?
Marion Young, Iris. Inclusion and Democracy
Dahl, Robert A. How Democratic is the American Constitution?

The equipment cost is on-par with most computers Slashdotters probably use, and the cost of the exam is trivial ($14). The exams aren't particularly difficult, either, and most people teach themselves. Not trying to be snide, but I would like to point out that it's not really all that difficult to get into.