(GP here) This is what I was referring to. Several of my undergrad classes were graded on a curve, where only the top percentage of students receive "A"s. If it happens to be an easy class or there are a lot of top performers, then nit-picky things become enough to push your grade down to a B.

That said, I don't know if Intro to CS was one of those classes. It was only an assumption. So, criticism of my earlier statement might be called for.

Same thing happened to me. (Long story as a cross-over from Physics.) As a CSci senior, they made me take the Intro class - even though I knew the material inside-out and was a tutor for the class. I volunteered to take every test in one sitting and write every programming assignment the same day. Instead, I got to sit through boring lectures and steal an A from some deserving student.

"If the sea level rises even three meters most of these will be under water."

At the current rate, that will be one thousand years from now. http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/f...

No. The US population is around 319 million. Also, JP Morgan handles the food stamp credit cards, which accounts for around 45 million. Finally, I assume that not all of the breached households are in the US.

I've read that the Energy Star people admit they screwed up with CFL, but are determined to not make the same mistake with LED

In order to get the Energy Star label, a CFL bulb has to meet certain efficiency requirements. But the rating says nothing about longevity. In theory, fluorescent bulbs should last a long time. But the built-in electronics are the usual source of failure. This is particularly the case with ceiling lights and other bulbs where the electronics are on the top, and often in an area where they do not get much cooling. So, the cheap - or more importantly *Crappy* - bulbs can carry the same certification as the good ones. So, CFL got a bad name, which is also fail for the Energy Star folks.

With LED bulbs, the Energy Star people wanted to make sure that they don't make the same mistake. So, in order to get the label, a bulb has to meet the efficiency standards, plus demonstrate that they can handle the run-length requirements. And there are many different requirements, depending on the type of bulb and its intended usage. In order to get the Energy Star label, they are tested for something like 9 months.

So, the moral of the story is that if you buy an LED that carries the Energy Star label, it should not fail prematurely. But the down-side is that LED technology continues to improve, with the most recent chips putting out something like 250 Lumens/Watt. An agile manufacturer might be able to quickly get this technology to market with an excellent new bulb. But it cannot carry the Energy Star label until it has been through rigorous testing, which takes nearly a year.

Here' some info. Not a lot, but better than a picture of a couple wooden boxes. http://www.ivec.org/pawsey-sup...

I remember when Sun made the switch from SunTools to X-Windows. 1987'ish I thought they were nuts using a (slow) client-server architecture when we were fighting for graphics performance. As usual, it turned out to be another smart technical decision by Sun.

Here's a product review of a handful of small, inexpensive oscilloscopes. http://www.jameco.com/Jameco/w... They look kind of handy compared to my ancient HP.

In that case, we should be focused on pollutants rather than CO2. CO2 is a trace gas that is essential to life.

CO2 is not even listed among pollutants in the Clean Air Act. It was put into that category by EPA as an executive measure, after the Supreme Court authorized them in 2007 to do so. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M... This was done for the sole purpose of furthering the global warming agenda.

You just proved his point. "spending your day correcting other peoples grammar"

The linky points to a kernel hacking article.

Or allow people to pay more for the luxury of driving 10 mph faster. (I'm being sarcastic.)