windmill power goes something like the 4th power of the blade speed. As a result, your maximumepower is harvested at the windmill blade tips. To increase the efficiency, you want maximum possible tip speed, but wear is a function of shaft speed. so you want high tip speed, low shaft speed. Therefore you need a large area.

Or lets put it in terms of the disk plane. Harvestable wind is a function of the area of the intersected disk. If you double the radius, you quadruple the harvestable wind. Actually, you do better than that because you reach higher (with a higher wind speed), and farther from the tower (which slows the wind). So again, you want a large radius blade.And yes, long blades under extreme torsional and bending moments, at high speed IS a recipe for blade failure.

Sorry, previous oposter lacks imagination.

Dry wave power = sand dunes,

I wonder: alternating neodynium magnets and ferrous enhanced coils, with air gaps between. As the wave comes through, and changes the interveningcore material (Air/salt-water), I'd expect a current in the coils.

probably not practical.

Option 2: porcelain and plastic rockers, with magnetics inside.

Option 3: a float, a unidirectional clutch (like a bike), a drive belt, and a shaft to an unexposed generator.

I think there have been some good wave generators out there (IIRC, Scotland comes to mind). I'm inclined to believe it is the power transmission / distribution / production companies.

For that, I think the answer is to target specific industries, and set up near them. Provide your own power lines. For example, use your power to produce fresh water and brine; dry the brine to produce sea salt, and sell the water to water-rights states.

Which regresses to the point that very few markets are actually free; most are very specific about who the priveleged are that can benefit. Fishing fleets, taxicab owners, rocket sales, X-prize contest (anyone could compete, the unfavored had to compete without fuel) also grocery store workers, teachers, medicine, and so on.

Don't forget that you don't have the right to trade your labor across 'free trade' borders; that right belongs to companies that you must pay for the privelege of having your products and services be traded.

And no, even with non-free markets, it feels lousy to be the slave who is sold.

oh, did I mention that as billionaires are unloading stocks, AND volume is at a low, company buybacks are at an all-time high?

And no, even with non-free markets, it feels terrible to be the slave who is sold.

I would suggest an offshore power backbone, tied to wave/wind/solar, and back that up with natural gas. With gas turbines, you don't need to have power 100% of the time, and the renewable energy averages out anyhow.

Perfect! Then we can wait 5 years for the first draft, 10 years for the final spec, and end up with requirements that are so complex and redundant that it'll take 3 times the memory available on most "smart" devices to implement. *LOL*

I used to be a big Logitech fan. Not any more.

I had one of their trackballs for close to 10 years. I was happy with it and loved it, so I bought a new one when it failed. The new one died in 9 months.

So I bought one of their mice, 'cause I've always had good luck with them. It died in 6 months.

Logitech makes absolute CRAP nowadays. There is no way in hell I'd trust them to keep my house working

I'm with you only I really like my Surface 2. Does everything I need when I'm on the go and has been the best travel device I've ever had.
Also, don't fear the hate. Slashdot can be a rough place for we hardy few who are here and like Windows but that's no reason to post anonymously; embrace the hate as it only makes us stronger. (Also, there's more of us here than you might think)

Scripts are event driven? Wow had no clue

Charlie Stross recently posted a very good take on this: This is a permanent change. Whatever happens during the first few years is basically irrelevant, compared to the long-term results. Did Norway separating from Sweden cause short-term economic upheaval? Does that matter at all a century later?

This is a long-term change, not a short.term one. Any voter should consider the probable situation twenty or fourty years from now, not whatever happens in a year or two.

I've seen plenty of "fear driven development" over the years, but the "fear" was usually on the part of incompetent employees who were afraid they'd be caught out as idiots and fired. They'd churn paperwork and documentation rather than touching a line of code, because if they broke something, their incompetence would become apparent.

Fear is the mind killer.

But if you're afraid to do your job, it's because you have a problem with confidence in your own skills. Blaming management for such fears just takes the incompetence you exhibit to a whole new level of blame-gaming.

I could go either way. I think though as long as it doesn't require a third party tool it's "native" just not "out-of-the-box".
It is used natively though, just not in a way you may like. When the security warning pops up and the screen dims a bit that's actually a different desktop environment.

Interesting fact but this isn't new to Windows either. Win2k and maybe even earlier had native multidesktop support. They just didn't ship a default front end for it but they've had a free tool available for years that let you set it up.

My Windows 7 laptop does everything I need for Windowsy stuff, so I won't be replacing or upgrading it unless I win the lottery.

Sadly, my 10+ year old 3.8GHz Pentium-pre-Core2 box is finally dying, so I'm in the midst of shifting my development and personal stuff over to the laptop. I've used Windows for years as a developer so it's not *too* painful, but I'm going to miss Linux. Linux just *works* without getting in my way; I can't say the same for Windows, even on trivial issues as to which widgets get auto-focused when you open them up (who is the brilliant idiot who came up with the idea that the file browser should focus on that damned library panel instead of the list of files?)