The encouragement of NIMBYism to block projects such as nuclear power has only created blowback that basically blocks everything, including projects vital to wind power. Let's take the example of Europe and powerlines:

Many projects can't make any headway because numerous citizens' initiatives are blocking things like high-voltage transmission lines ... "It took over 30 years before a power line between France and Spain could be built," recalls an expert on the EU Commission ... In Germany there are also protests against virtually every major project of the Energiewende

The article offers a ray of hope that Europe might establish a process where permits are granted in three and a half years with only one court about to stop the process:

The EU has also taken a brash course on this front: The proposal would make it possible for the 200 top projects in Europe to receive a construction permit within three and a half years -- with only one court that would hear the objections of project opponents.

Of course imagine the outrage if this short-circuiting of the right of protest and judicial review were granted for other types of energy projects ...

When I think of the Sun and science, I can't help but think of the James Bond movie Moonraker where the opposing teams of astronauts / space marines are killing each other in Earth orbit with space lasers, one guy gets hit, and he starts to fall into the Sun.

So Sailfish / Jolla supports all baseband chips that can be found on all Android devices in China? In addition to ST-Ericsson, Qualcomm, Huawei, Samsung, MediaTek, etc.?

Obviously the station is on a fishing boat as in the James Bond movie For Your Eyes Only

Major portions of the Caltrain track from San Francisco to San Jose are simply IMPOSSIBLE to "upgrade." The track is rolling right through rich small cities with not much room on either side. What is the upgrade, putting everything on massive concrete and steel supports or burying it? The first option would never be allowed because it would a horrendous eyesore and stupendously expensive, the second option would simply be impossibly expensive.

BART was the only chance, and when it wasn't extended many decades ago to encircle the Bay, the situation became irreparable.

Parts of the United States tried similar ideas to reduce the future numbers of poor people. These attempts are now considered to be an atrocity.

It's surprising to me that geeks have missed the golden opportunity to drive home one consistent message: Western tech companies need to grow up and invest in hardware and stop saying it's too hard and expensive. Qualcomm's CEO earned a Ph.D. in EECS from Cal-Berkeley, and Qualcomm has bought ATI's Mobile Graphics division and developed its own ARM SoC. Apple bought Palo Alto Semiconductor and developed their own ARM SoC. Samsung spends billions on up-to-date fabs, has their own ARM SoC, and their own LTE baseband chipset. Apple and Samsung are basically stuck with each other partnering on financing next-generation fabs to stay even with Intel. Meanwhile all the struggling companies have in common they don't do hard hardware but have to buy it from someone else.

Here's the proof it is known what are the angles best for knowledgeable fans to see the game. They just don't want to show them for live events. This example is for the NFL. Ask oneself, for any sport, hockey, soccer, baseball, are the angles one sees on broadcast television the ones the coaches analyze when they look at film? Of course not.

I'm fairly sure TV coverage deliberately sabotages viewing angles to maximize the draw of live attendance. TV screens have increased, resolution continues to increase, yet views of action are no wider than when the picture on over-the-air coverage could barely be distinguishable from snow. Take hockey on US TV for example. The way the coverage is presented, the action is essentially random. Shots are never wide enough to see long passes or the maneuvering of either the recipients of the passes or the defense to impede them. The same goes for soccer. Soccer coverage is particularly disassociated from the target audience because that audience increasingly is interested in the game for the beauty of the passing not the infrequent scoring. I see all over the area common people who are kicking around soccer balls never to shoot the ball but merely for the sheer joy of passing.

Indeed, 30 by 30 kilometres is already 900 km^2, 1/3 of 2700 km^2. Should I be all that concerned about any 30 x 30 km^2 area in a wilderness? I'm not so sure.

It's too bad in some sense that the Bundesliga is so famous it would be prohibitively expensive for PBS to bring back "Soccer Made in Germany."

The difference is night and day in the summaries at least. Reading the summary of the first story, one would conclude that progress is as much dependent on a group of companies funding ASML, that the cost is a major factor forcing companies to pool their efforts, and that as a result the number of major players at the leading edge is likely to stay small but stable. It is also highly unlikely one company alone can leapfrog the others for a major length of time, although say Intel can spend a lot of money to get a couple of years advantage. The second summary mentions TSMC and Intel but carefully leaves out the other company that has made the news with a major investment in ASML, Samsung. But emphasizing that Samsung is going to stay at the cutting edge of fab technology, especially with its rumored deal with Apple to be the fab for Apple's next generation of chips starting in 2015, would call into question just how important is the patent battle between Apple and Samsung, when in reality Apple and Samsung are stuck in this marriage funding the next generation of fabs.

Who else is stuck using a derivative of Firefox 17 other than Debian users of Iceweasel?

It's surprising to me that tech forums aren't praising Qualcomm to the skies for actually having management that understands tech. How many other major American companies have a CEO who earned a Ph.D. in EECS from Cal-Berkeley ? I think Qualcomm's CEO as an example is especially important considering the utter disaster Dr. Hector Ruiz was at AMD.

You're right, Nokia made a bad choice. YEARS before Elop got there. As the New York Times assessed when Nokia sold off their wireless modem business: "As handset manufacturing has evolved, wireless modems are increasingly being included in larger, multifunction chipsets along with the phone engine, applications processor, power manager and software."

Nokia's mistake was to not invest resources to expand their platform, to do what other companies were doing in acquiring the expertise and business relationships to product integrated chipset solutions. This was especially critical as they were about to lose their fab partner Texas Instruments.