I get that but it means the server now has multiple URL's to get the picture and these URL's are defined by how the client will format the GET. I'm just pushing the whole page formatting issue to the server so you pull one URL and the server decides which image to give you. Then the server side is free to have the pictures already processed on disk or process them on the fly and is in total control of the formatting on the page. It also frees up network bandwidth and processing and memory requirements for less powerful platforms.

I'm not sure how this fixes the problem.

You either need a client side (the browser decides what image to fetch and how to display it) or a server side (the server decides what image to send) solution here. I suppose you could do a combination of both, but the problem here is who's going to get the resizing work?

Personally, I think this would be better done on the server side for the most part. That implies that the GET would somehow define for the server enough information about the display available. You are going to need colors supported, user pointer integration (type, minimum size), screen resolution of the user's view both in pixels and actual size. Then the server can decide what page format and image would best fit. All this has to be *independent* of the browser vendor or host platform.

But hey, good luck getting everybody to sign on to a working interface for this... We cannot get a consistent interface between browser vendors now...

Yea, that website doesn't have a dog in this hunt now does it.. The US Department of Energy's numbers are flat wrong then? In the USA, I don't think so.

Look, you can believe what you want and come up with links to "prove" your view, but if you are choosing to ignore the data provided by the US Department of Energy, you are going to have to endure the scorn you richly deserve. I'm not saying the government data is correct in all cases, only that the department of Energy is about as close as you can get to an unbiased opinion, at least for the costs of energy production in the USA.

PV Solar is not a viable solution and another 40% cost drop is not in the future. The DOE says that PV Solar is at least 4 times more expensive. This isn't going to change all that much for various reasons, chief of which is that it will only work when the sun shines. The sun never shines at night and during the day it can be hit and miss, which contributes to a "availability factor" of about 25% (in sunny areas) or much less (in cloudy areas). Try as you might, you cannot fix that with technology. Don't start down the path to thinking that we can just store excess then use it when we need it later, that drives the "cost" of solar up by another factor of 4 (or more) due to conversion losses, and makes your position logically even worse.

Not exactly. It's only banned in ORBIT, not in space overall. The reasons for this is fairly logical. Objects in orbit tend to come back down. Having a hunk of radioactive material randomly dropping onto the earth is generally not a good idea. So, we've logically agreed not to fly such stuff where it might come back to haunt us.

Deep space and interplanetary missions though routinely fly with nuclear power. The latest Mars rover is such a mission. It is also powering the two Pioneer missions and a great number of other missions since then. The risks of doing this are limited in two ways. First, launch accidents will result in debris falling into known areas, so we can mitigate these risks by placing the launch paths over less populated areas and ocean. Second, the components of the reactor really are not that dangerous until after they have been used, so we generally don't start up the reactors until we know the craft is operating normally and not likely to return to earth.

Wind is close to viable, but still requires subsidies to get on par with Natural Gas (in the USA). Solar, hasn't a prayer of being viable in the near future. It generally runs 4 times the cost of Natural Gas (again in the USA).

You are wrong on both counts (in the USA), unless you define "viable" to mean something other than what most people think it means.. In other countries, Wind is at parity or better given the available options open to them (they lack the NG resources of the US), but this is not true in the USA yet, and I see no future scenarios where the costs of Natural Gas goes up and wind comes down enough to be at parity. Not to mention that Wind power suffers from one important problem, it only works when the wind blows, which is not all the time, so you have to build a fossil fueled plant to cover the load anyway.... Solar is so far out of the cost range it's not even funny. Even in the best conditions, solar is not a cost effective solution, even outside the USA. Solar's application is really for remote, off grid, low load use. It's not viable as a way to generate electricity on an industrial scale.

I don't always trust Wikipedia, but they have a fine article on this topic you should read. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

Since Snowden became a mouthpiece for Putin and Russia perhaps?

If WW3 breaks out, then it will matter greatly to SlashDot readers. Ever heard of the draft?

If not for this, when?

We have a treaty with Ukraine that specifically states we (NATO) would come to their defense in exactly this situation. Unless we intend to destroy NATO and pleasure ourselves with economic sanctions, we are really going to have to do something about this. But who knows what a pacifist administration with only 3 years left will really want to do? My guess is play another round or two while letting the UN blather on and on. (Or more to the point, pass the buck/blame on to the next administration if they can).

(sarcasm noted..)

It was pretty clear from the opening ceremony that conquest was Putin's aim. I strongly suspected this (and more) was coming.

Yea, and we should close all our McDonald's operations too....

Yea, the rights of the Ukrainian people to choose their government be damned, this is Russian imperialism at stake here.. (sarcasm off)

It is the tepid response given to atrocities elsewhere that has sent the message that Putin can do this with impunity. He knows he can get away with this and only risk getting Russian assets frozen world wide. That might tick off the rich guys some, but Putin isn't really elected by them anyway.

LOL.. The original post was about a patch system that works.. Sun's worked and you never got patches the broke things unexpectedly. I wasn't making comparisons over how easy they where to administer.

Bush was going down that road, but Obama reversed course. The On and Off nature of political support for this makes it impossible to actually do here in the US. The facilities that are used for this are complicated, expensive and take years to build and are dangerous for years after they are shutdown. Until the environmentalists loose control of the left, the democratic position will be "no" on reprocessing.

Still, it would have been better just to bury this stuff in Yucca mountain. Given the situation, it would be safer. Of course, my personal feelings are that we should reprocess this fuel, bury the really bad stuff in Yucca and use the rest. Lather, rinse and repeat until all the fuel is used, or just store reprocessed fuel it until nuclear becomes cost effective again.

Yucca is/was safe, questions about the data not withstanding.