Quoting from the winning project's abstract:
"Optimal layering was determined using a scanning electron microscope."

Ok what? How does a high school student get access to one of those? I highly doubt most HS in this country has one of those for their students to use...

While i'm from MA, and I'm quite happy that my state is tied for first... but... 44%????? Only 44% of the kids tested passed the test, and it somehow tie for FIRST among the nation? If this was a test, then all 50 people (state) in the class (country) have failed. This is not good news :/

Well, i don't think just building a repository will be too hard. The AI doesn't have to understand it, it just has to be there stored somewhere. Maybe you can get something like reCaptcha for the analysis part?

so is that meta-first?

There was this brief clip i caught on TV years ago that made this exact point. It was something about steroids, and one of the guys that was promoting its use said "Don't worry, the stuff's all natural", to which another guy replied "So what? Heroin is all natural!"

part of me is going: wtf? Why?
and another part of me is going: that's fucking awesome.

I must have played too many video games... >_>

Did the US do similar studies? It seems like it would have been a pretty good idea to study those effects during the cold war.

Equivalent in terms of light output, not current tolerance. if you used a product outside of its design specs, and complained when it failed, no one would listen to you.

But then again, I guess the American legal system has seen sillier things...

Well... if you've got some fixtures that seems to burn through light bulbs faster than normal, then maybe it's not the light bulb's fault? And if that is any indication of an average household's (electrical) current stability, maybe the lack of a 5 year warranty is somewhat justified. Seriously, you can't fault the manufacturer of the product if you're providing bad running conditions.

Yeah this is really true. I was just thinking about when was the last time I actually watched a DVD movie on my computer... and realized... i don't remember. Netflix/youtube/torrented stuff has basically replaced DVDs for all intents and purposes. While initially this move by MS sounded a little annoying, it's actually pretty reasonable.