This is what my power company has to say.

the bananophone!

1. People use bulbs more than you let on. 2. 1.2 kwH = 4.32x10^6 Joules (see here) 3. The efficiences will scale to billions of fixtures, over many years. 4. The industry is actually fine with the legislation and already prepared. 5. LED lightbulbs, public transit, diesel cars and tap water are not mutually exclusive. (And I thought SF's transit was pretty decent, anyhow) 6. We have bigger fish to fry than fighting over lightbulbs. Why do people care so much?

In the US, we threw out the whole notion of titles a few hundred years ago. Of course, that doesn't stop people from reverting to their instinctual need to kow-tow to authority. Why do Americans care about the British royal wedding (but no other)? Were I ever to meet Jonathan Ive, or any of the other "knights," I would call him Mr., lest he have a higher degree (MD, PhD, etc.).

Stop giving money to the oil companies, and then maybe solar can compete. I'm not surpised at the turmoil at all.

I would like to see another column added, which would tally the market cap or net worth or some other statistic relating how much money these corporations have. What are we up against? It looks like a lot...

To contribute to the discussion, I'll share: after taking that test, my scores are

Economic Left/Right: -3.75 & Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.08

1. That's power usage during game play. 2. What year is the article posted? I can't find a date listed. The newer Xbox360 and PS3 models are more efficient than the older models.

I live in a US city that's not in the top 10. Is it big? By some standards, I guess. What does it matter? Part of my decision to live where I am revolves around transportation costs, rent, and so forth. These are supposedly "market driven." I can live elsewhere, if the cost of living or some other factor there suits me more. People who choose to live in a rural place should pay for the consequence that mail is more expensive to deliver, just like people in NYC pay high rent.

Oh, then we should make sending mail free, as a public service. Wait, that's not what you meant? Of course it's a public service, but that doesn't mean we can't use a more rational means to support it.

They can still take a few cues from business. For example, charge more for rural delivery. Why should a letter to Middle-of-Nowhere Alaska cost the same as one to New York City? To put this another way, why should peope who live in NYC subsidize mail delivery to Alaska?

Bush won because the judges said so. That's how it officially went. The votes hadn't all been tallied yet.

I could read PDFs in full-screen. 14" diagonal is about equivalent to 8.5"x11". As a scientist, half of what I do seems to be reading articles in PDF format.

Maybe we need a logarithmic moderation point system. That is, going from 1 to 2 requires 1 mod point, 2 to 3 requires 2 points, 3 to 4 requires 4 points, and 4 to 5 requires 8 points. This allows for more dynamic range in differentiating a 3 from a 5, but doesn't make the apparent value skyrocket, like it would in a linear system. A 5 would still look like a 5, but be spaced out 12 points from a 3 instead of 2 points. It also would make it harder to "bury" a post. Once thing many have noticed, myself included, is that there are more +5 posts than +4 or +3, so this system would (potentially) curtail that somewhat.

I'm sure this idea has its own flaws, but it's worth something.

I've never been to Thailand, so maybe they really are enamored with the king. However, when it's illegal to say otherwise, who won't say they love the king? This reminds me of Napoleon Bonaparte's election, where voting consisted of checking yes or no to the question "Do you vote for Napoleon? Sign here."