Oregon's health website is a monstrosity. They budgeted way too much money, were way over ambitious, and involved way too many people. The opposite end of the spectrum is Kentucky, which budgeted the least amount of money, and was thus forced to implement a streamlined site with a small lean team. Kentucky's website was ready on Oct 1st, and has run since without a hitch.

We have these at my office. I love them. Health benefits aside, these are ideal for code reviews. People don't have to crouch or drag chairs into an (already too small) cube.

Other benefits include: nobody sneaks up on you, while you're standing, and it helps wake me up after lunch.

That being said though, most people use them in sit down mode and forget to raise them, most of the time. Still, it's wonderful to have the option.

Lost Coast is a graphics demo. Unless you are benchmarking your card or want to play a maybe 15 minute playable level, it's pretty useless. Calling it a game is sort of a lie.

This should be extrapolated to the classroom. In particular, to boys in elementary and middle school.

then why the recent decision ... that allowed individuals to contribute directly to *all* candidates, with no overall cap on contributions?

Because it'a a SUPREME COURT decision. We have three branches of government and only two are elected.

The supremes are appointed, for life (subject only to impeachment for high crimes, like the president). They have no re-election issues and can vote their mind without affecting their own tenure.

The court has repeatedly struck down campaign spending restrictions, because they're limits, not just on free speech, but on the POLITICAL speech that is the reason it is an enumerated right in the first place.

But it takes a while for a law to produce enough damage to give someone standing to challenge it, and to bring it to the supremes, and then they rule narrowly. Then, once a piece is struck down, Congress just turns around and does another version of it to evade the details of that decision, and the cycle starts over.

There are under 700 people that hit the max last time around, do you seriously think that decision will benefit the grass roots? Sounds to me like it's aimed squarely at giving the oligarchs more influence.

Of course it's the rich are the first who are bit and who have the resources to bring the suit. That's part of why the limits end up off the rich (like Soros) first, while they're still hobbling everybody else.

It isn't just the limits themselves that are an issue. There's all the reporting requirements, publication requirements, time limits, and maze of details that make compliance hard.

It's hard for candidates: They need a substantial political machine right off the bat. Getting dinged for campaign finance violations is costly, may involve jail time, DOES involve court time, and produces publicity that tarnishes the candidate's image and hurts his chances in future elections. This gives the professional politicians, especially incumbents with the machine in place, a massive advantage over any grass-roots upstarts trying to replace them.

And it can bring on reprisals against donors - including carreer-killing or physical retaliation. Who contributed to what political campaigns is public record and searchable online. This is an invitation to people with opposing views to exert social pressure or take revenge. (Within the last couple weeks we saw the CEO of Netscape forced to resign by just such pressure, as a result of the McCain-Feingold reporting of a past political contribution to a "politically-incorrect" campaign.)

It's the exact opposite of a secret ballot, which is secret to prevent such reprisals so the vote can be cast in safety. Why should financial support be any different? Why would publishing the amount and beneficiary of each contributor's political contributions be any less of a bias on the political system than publishing the way each voter voted?

Further, risking a job is far more of a hardship for a little guy living hand-to-mouth than a rich executive with millions in the bank and a golden parachute. So it's another force to suppress grass-roots opinion in favor of those who are independently wealthy or well-off.

There's one guy who is constantly begging on the New Jersey Transit trains in Penn Station NYC, he claims he just needs a few bucks for a ticket to get home (common scam actually, this guy is just more regular than most). Of course he's full of shit, as another guy on my car proved by offering him a ticket to where he wanted to go, and when he refused it, lit into him about how he was a pathetic loser who was making his race look bad.

Then there's the "Why Lie, I Need a Beer" guy also in Penn Station NYC. Though I think he's actually not homeless at all but a cop of some sort, he seems a bit too healthy.

And the bunches who fake some sort of deformity. They seem to have shifts worked out; maybe there's an organization who controls it. Anyway, they get in their contorted positions and hold out a cup or a sign or whatever. Then when their shift is up, they straighten up, pick up their stuff, and go.

There are several problems with your scenario:
1. Current TEs are no where close to 50% efficient. More like about 5%.
2. Pu238 is available in very limited quantities from reactor fuel reprocessing
3. You can't "turn-off" an RTG. They have to run continuously.

Where is the data that says kids can no longer grasp and stack wooden blocks, and that this hypothetically declining ability is in any way correlated with tablet use?

Without data, this is pure conjecture. Why is using a tablet to avoid spending time with your kid any worse than using a TV to avoid spending time with your kid, like they did in the good old days?

That would give you enough of a gradient to generate a micro-watt from a ton of TEs. In a perfect ideal TE, the efficiency is (1 - Th/Tc) where Th= Hot side in Kelvins, Tc = Cold side in Kelvins. Existing TEs are no where close to ideal, and the earth's heat gradient is about 0.025K/meter. A negligible amount of heat would flow through the TE, and far less than 1% of that would be converted to electricity.

A flame.

TEs are bound by the same Carnot efficiency limitations as any other heat engine. If you use low grade "waste heat" then you are going to get very little power.

Well, that is a stupid and bad plan.

If they are sufficiently efficient, they could power a car directly. An internal combustion engine is typically only about 15-20% efficient, so the bar is not too high. Using thermoelectrics directly could have several advantages: being solid state, they would be reliable and require little or no maintenance; and since the fuel is just used to create heat, it could use cheaper grades of fuel.

That doesn't work. TEs aren't powered by heat, but by heat gradients. So if everything is uniformly heated by the same amount, there is no benefit.

I am not sure if accumulating $1M over a lifetime counts as "rich". I started working 35 years ago. I immediately started regularly and automatically putting a little from each paycheck into my IRA, invested in an index fund. The monthly payroll contribution was less than my car payment. Yet, today my IRA has over $700K. Unless there is a market crash, it should be over $1M by the time I retire.