...I agree with the reasoning behind it (seems like a lot of handwaving - especially the "wifi is scary and will kill your children while you sleep" bit) but frankly I'm glad. In my experience Smart Meters are little more than a money grab by the utility/landlord and have a negligible effect on actual consumption. When I was renting an apartment a few years ago they offered to install one in my apartment. "Stop paying for your neighbors electricity and pay for your own" they told me. Although I wasn't actually paying for the electricity (utilities were covered as part of the rent) I decided to go to their little information session. They spent an hour and a half extolling the virtues of the smart meters few of which were actually virtuous at all. Of course they neglected to mention the fact that there was no concievable way for most of the residents to greatly impact their power consumption. Laundry was in the basement as was the hot water heater and the major power sucking appliances (heat, A/C, fridge and stove) were all building own and not replaceable. Sure, I could save a bit by turning down the A/C or the heat (except for the fact that my A/C at the very least couldn't even be set to lower the room to room temperature) but what really would've saved me money was not forcing the air exchanged by the unit outside to heat/cool the bedroom. Or insulating the windows and doors better (when the wind was a certain way the apartment could be very drafty). But did they offer any of this?

Nope. They offered a small rebate on my monthly rent. Which was less than the average of the sample bills they showed me from other buildings the company owned (when I pointed this out to them they eagerly pointed out the lone bill that was less than the discount they were offering).

Sorry - you want me to save electricity? Come up with a better way than nickle and diming me for everything. Entice me by making some of the more radical home adjustments afforable (solar panels are out - not enough sun in this neck of the woods - but I think a nice little wind turbine on my roof might do well). But don't put lipstick on a pig and expect me to kiss it.

While we're on the topic of fun punching bags lets bring back leaded gasoline and paint. I mean since we're inhaling so many toxins from diesel fumes, what's the point?

Oh right. The point is "just because other things are bad for you doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to eliminate smoking". To say nothing of the fact that at least diesel fumes are the result of something positive happening in our society. Your smoking, on the other hand, contributes jack and squat. Sometimes it's not practical to not stand near you. Especially given how some smokers, when foul weather hits, seem to think its their god given right to blockade the entrances and exits to building so that they can light up. Same with bus shelters and crowded streets.

I'm sorry - I'm a general supporter of smoker's rights. Health care shold not cost the smoker more and the smoker should not be treated any different than the non-smoker when it comes to treatment. When practical smokers should have a designated area with shelter where they can smoke to their little hearts content in bad weather. And on/in your own property? Be my guest. Even if there's a kid in the car. Yes - even if it affects a kid. Why? Because some parents do a lot worse to their children than smoke near them.

But in situations where your impinging on my rights and making my life difficult simply because you are addicted to cigarettes? Nope. Sorry. Doesn't work that way. You're the one that's doing harm. You need to be the one to move on.

Again the difference is in the production. Universities, colleges and research labs still produce things. IV does not. They file patents based on "ideas' (as opposed to something they've developed - which makes me wonder if every patent they file shouldn't violate the whole "you can't patent obvious things" rule) and sit on patents they've purchased. No original research and development goes on there - they are lawyers, not creators.

As for your questions - yes, companies that develop something and choose not to pursue the technology have to eat the cost of R&D. Alternatively they can attempt to sell it to another company which will use it to defray the costs, but they key test, in my mind, should be active usage of the patent. If you patent something which is completely useless but which someone takes and makes obscenely useful and profitable ten years down the road I have no moral objection to saying nuts to you. Same goes for bankrupt companies. If someone purchases it with the intent of using it within the next - lets say five years - then that's fine. But to purchase and sit on it until someone else makes a killing off it? Nope - sorry, you had your chance. Now its someone else's turn.

Bingo and then some. If you listen closely EA is not saying "single player games are dead". What they're saying is "we have to work harder to produce a profitable single player product, therefore we are killing it."

I'm not sure there's a really good way to respond to this. I was just adding to the great grandparent's comment that infinity gets weird as hell with my own example of infinite weirdness (actually, the counter-intuative nature of infinity).

If, after reading my post, your first problem is that "it'd take infinitely long just to find the ball numbered "1" in the one that you’re attacking in an orderly fashion" then we're going to have a problem no matter where we go with the discussion. If only because you're real question should be "where the hell did you get infinitely many ping pong balls - let alone two lots of them and a container to hold them?". It's a thought problem rather than one of real world application - much like the great grandparent's thought problem about the ball.

As for using "full" as an adjective - I'll cop to that. It's easier to type that "contains infinitely many ping pong balls" and has a meaning a meaning similar enough for the purposes of my example. My apologies.

It has to do with infinity being a proper subset of infinity. The 1:1 mapping doesn't matter so much - technically you might empty the second container (if you're pulling ping pong balls out at random you could very well pull 1, 2, 3 and so on in order) but it's unlikely.

If you need further convincing - think about it this way. In the second container you take an ordered, but incomplete approach. In the first period you remove the ball numbered 10. In the second period you remove the ball 20 and so on. The end result is the same - infinite balls in the dump container and infinite balls in the start container.

To further confuse things, picture a third container. In this container we place an infinite number of balls and remove them one by one. But instead of starting at number one we start at number two. How many balls are left at the end of the madness? One.

Oh, infinity gets more fun than that.

My favorite misadventure at the edge of rationality goes like this:

Suppose you have two containers. Each contains an infinite number of ping pong balls (okay, so they're containers of holding or some such) which are all individually number (1, 2, 3 and so on). No suppose you take a minute to sort out these balls. From one container you take them out in a nice, orderly manner (going 1, 2, 3) while in the other you just pull them out from the top. Now, we're dealing with a lot of ping pong balls here, so you have to be pretty quick about it. So first off get another couple of containers to put the with drawn ping pong balls in. Now get ready. In half the time (30 seconds) you have remove the first ping pong ball. In half the time left over after that remove another ping pong ball. Continue until your minute is up. Look what you've done!

The container where you tackled the job in an ordered manner is empty! The other container - despite having had the exact same number of balls removed - is full. Furthermore both of the other containers are also full.

At which point it's time to go grab a beer or other mind altering beverage, because things just don't make sense any more. And your arms are tired from lifting all those ping pong balls...

Well no.

You see the legal definition of B&E has nothing to do with "breaking" anything. Nor does it have anything to do with keys. Although exact definitions vary from state to state (and from country to country) B&E can be generally (and broadly) defined as any act of trespass upon property at night with the intent to commit a felony therein.

In your world, if my idiot son/brother/daughter/sister/husband/wife left the door unlocked anyone who wanted to rob me blind could simply open the door and be shielded from B&E laws. This is simply not true. The door can even be left wide open - as long as you don't have an invitation to be there it is breaking and entering (now public places are a little bit different, but we'll leave them aside for now). You can even let someone into your house and say "stay out of the kitchen" and if they enter the kitchen with the intent to commit a felony they've committed B&E.

Just to add to the crowds already responding to this, but my real questions "why"?

Now you'll have to pardon me, because I'm not a physicist. I won't pretend to know all that much about string theory. For that matter I don't know all that much about quantum mechanics or general relativity either. Enough to keep my geek card valid, but that's about it. But I don't think my ignorance of the topic invalidates my question, as it's more of a question of methodolgy than actual science.

As I understand it (and as you have presented it) physicists have (at least) two models of the universe. QM handles really tiny things. GR handles really massive things. But neither is a perfect model - the so-called "Theory of Everything" or what have you. They each break down as they approach the domain of the other.

Now obviously, if we want to truly understand the universe we must reconcile these two conflicting theories. String theory does it nicely (or not so nicely, depending on your point of view) but in all honesty why do we have a theory for explaining the behavior of something we can't observe? At this point you're just throwing some numbers around - which is fine if you're a mathematician, but not so fine if you're a physicist.

Before the math folks in the audience get up in arms - I love you guys, I really do. And I'm sure the work that you're doing with category theory or whatever will benefit the world greatly one day. But, in the world of science you're the tool-makers. Or, since this is Slashdot, you're the auto-makers. You don't actually drive around in one of those nice, expensive Italian sports cars (well, maybe some of those cryptographers who work for the government) but none of us would be driving at all if you weren't doing your very important work.

Back on topic. You're a physicist. It's your chosen task in life to unlock the deepest secrets of the universe. Hell, you're ultimate goal is so much more than just unlocking the secrets. You should be looking at creating your own, new universe. And you do that by understand the rules and laws that govern our universe.

But string theory doesn't do that. String theory is a universal law looking for a universe to impose itself upon. We think - well, you think (you being all physicists) - that this theory will work, that it will fit two pieces of the puzzle together. But, at least as far as I understand it, it's bad science to run around looking to prove a theory you just came up with. Theory should be based on observation, not obscure eldritch maths. And since we haven't observed anything yet, we shouldn't have anything beyond a basic, testable, hypothesis. Otherwise we're in danger of limiting our vision. What if string theory continues to fail every test it is subjected to? When do we say "hmm... this isn't working - maybe it's time for a new theory". We tend to put blinders on when we get attached to something.

Maybe it's time we set string theory aside until it's concievable to observe such things. Otherwise we may come to regret it.

For giving rise to one of the leaders of the Third Servile War?

Actually, if I am not mistaken, said remote fail safe is not a requirement for drilling in the USA. That goes back to BP and a few of her large cousins in that oil and drilling industry (the remote fail safe is not required because they lobbied against it, suggesting it was unnecessary) but there's plenty of blame to go around on this one. In the end it will be BP that catches the most hell, and (depending on how you view it), rightly so - but it's important to note that there were a large number of screw-ups from top to bottom that created this situation.

http://xkcd.com/556/

And very often you get what you pay for. But here's my two cents worth anyway.

Two things. The first is always be friendly. I don't know what you will be doing in your internship, but IT usually only gets called when something is not working. That means you're dealing with people who can't get their work done (and consequently are usually high stress). If you are a friendly person who has a personality that can lower bp by a few points with a smile and a joke, you'll make those people (and your encounters with them) happier. This also gives you some credit when things get rough - if you are normally a fairly easy going guy but today the bosses laptop crapped out and the Exchange server is on the fritz, when you tell them to (please) sit and be patient because their inability to watch youtube videos is low on the priority list, they'll usually let it slide.

The second is to remember your work has value. This is hard, because very often in IT you will be called in to work long hours or late hours or both. But sometimes you've got to say "no". I'm not suggesting you ignore a crisis to play Xbox but if there's something non-critical hurting and you have something important (and where you draw theses lines is up to you to gauge) be willing to say "it'll wait". The worst thing you can do is always be there when something goes wrong. It gets people to assume you have no life other than your job, and then they'll expect you to be there the one time you can't make it. Your work, and your time, has value. I'm not saying you ask for overtime, I'm saying you let them know every now and again.

Cheers!