> I'd love something the size of my Acer ZG5 that had a quad i7 and 8GB of ram

That's not a netbook, it's an ultrabook and it's expensive as hell:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834127833
Yeah, it's 11.6" and not 8.9" but seeing as it's the same weight I don't really see that as a major issue. (I, in fact, consider it a big win since I've always thought the 9" keyboards were basically unusable.)

> Underpowered Atom based machines with 2GB ram at nearly the price of a dual core equiped laptop.

That is the essence of a netbook: An ultra low end computer that ran a browser, an email client and maybe a text editor. They were supposed to be cheap, but pretty much started at $200 and rose to $300 when Windows butted in. A decent laptop would run about $400, and they never really made sense for (or were intended for) anything but a sort of secondary travel-ish computer.
(BTW, seeing as the Eee PC started with Linux and kept a Linux version through most of it's revisions, I don't really know why you say Microsoft defined the netbook design...)

> Who wants that? No one and I can't believe they could not figure that out.

Uh, yeah, they figured it out and that's why they aren't making them.

But people _did_ want them. Not because they were good, but because they were cheap and somewhat because they were small. People saw them as proper laptops that were cheaper because they were smaller and not because they were just altogether cheaper. They would buy one thinking they saved $100, only to realize that they wasted $300 because it was to slow to actually do what they wanted.

I don't believe it was intentional... I think they were introduced as trying to be the cheapest possible computer; about half the price of a normal one. Partly for travel, partly for people who didn't do much, partly for just having a computer you can use look up that actor in the TV show you're watching, and it didn't have to be your 'main computer'.

But it turned out to be a stunning bait and switch: If you put Windows on it, you could charge $300. People would buy it thinking they were getting a new laptop. Then they'd be back in the store spending $500 six months later when they found out they needed a real machine. I think that's why they really 'took off' and were pushed so hard. They were just printing money by dramatically shortening an upgrade cycle that had stalled because proper computers had become fast enough.

> Have they added the ability to disable N-gons yet?

Haha, this is wildly ironic considering that many have been waiting a loooooonnnng time for N-gon support and it was only added in 2.63. Moreover, N-gons are needed to actually "create proper Geometry" in many cases, so I'm going to have to figure you're trolling :).

Anyways, I'd be quite surprised if you can't convert N-gons to tris/quads using the usual tools (Mesh->Faces->???, or Alt+J, IIRC). Odds are it'll happen automatically when you export to a tri-only format like STL. If your 3D printer 'supports' a format that allows N-gons (OBJ is one) but it chokes on them, that's a stupid bug on the printer's part; triangulating N-gons is trivial.
(Disclaimer: I haven't tried Blender's N-gons yet.)

> In much smaller numbers.

Smaller numbers?
http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html

27 people will die in the time I take to type this comment.
Twice as many will be killed by lightning this year (a mere 10% of those who are stuck).
Four to Eight times as many will die of arson

This is tragic and unnecessary, but to imply that is pervasive or even, for that matter, statistically relevant is ridiculous. The numbers are already tiny. Yes, I understand completely that the numbers don't matter when you're the one affected, but if you're taking about sweeping policy reform, them you're not talking about those affected.

Is this not the site I read when I see how people decrying the latest TSA or "counter-terrorism" attack on our rights? Well guess what: The terrorists killed over 100x as many as this did, and probably more than 10x of what school shootings have done over the history of the US. I guess people here are much, much more worried about privacy than guns when to comes to loss of rights, because 9/11 is far better grounds for action than this is.

> make their scenes look more realistic at a more realistic frame rate

Whilst I do generally like higher frame rates, the above is actually the trouble... It looks _too_ realistic. For a high fantasy movie like The Hobbit sometimes putting a little 24Hz vaseline on the lens helps let your brain fill in the gaps with fantasy. That 48Hz the project fills in the gaps with reality.

It's a lot like the transition to high def... Things that are real look better easily, while things that aren't supposed to need to rework their bag of tricks in order to make the new tech a benefit rather than a hindrance. I'm definitely glad Jackson is pushing this, but it does sound like there's a ways to go yet before production really hits its stride. I'm really quite surprised that we didn't see, say, James Bond try 48fps instead, but ah well. We'll see how Cameron does with his Avatar sequels.

> The US is already the dominate military power on the planet, bar none, so I am sure they could trim the military budget by a tiny percentage

I'm not really disagreeing, but I do think there's an important point people overlook when discussing things like this: Military dominance is all about spending. It's quite like a bleeding edge computer. You spend thousands on the best of the best, and in a year's time anyone could have the same setup from a quarter the price. You're then either with the Joes or spending more to stay on top. You can't really step back and say 'okay, we spent enough'; it's literally an arms race and staying ahead is expensive.

> Its nice to think that private enterprise will provide the means to get there (for whatever values of "there") but although its happening, its not happening overnight.

I'd point out that NASA isn't exactly doing anything overnight either. As long as it's taking for private enterprise to enter the game, they seem to be moving faster once they're in it. Honestly, I wouldn't be too surprised if the next exploration mission is privately funded at this point.

No, no, you misunderstand. Remember that adage "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail"? Well, all Facebook has is privacy intrusion so of course the only way to enhance privacy is to intrude on it. Makes perfect sense when you think about it.

> Now if any state had the testicular fortitude to challenge them over their utterly unconstitutional use of the threat
> of withholding federal highway funds from states that failed to raise the drinking age to 21,

As another poster pointed out: it already happened and they lost.

The problem is simple: The federal government has the power to levy an income tax all citizens without any real accountability. Thus, they can just 'steal' tax money from a state by raising taxes and keeping the increased revenue (unless you behave). Sure, the state _could_ levy its own transportation taxes and eschew the federal money, but now its people are getting double taxed and not seeing the benefits of half of it. As a result people leave, protest, etc. The only real ability to allow states the ability to control the drinking age it to change the federal law, unfortunately. (Or maybe an amendment prohibiting redistribution of money to the states?)

Anyways, another challenge would almost certainly go down in flames: SCOTUS already hinted (IIRC) that they're okay with the 'Obamacare' no-health-insurance penalty if it's constructed as a tax, so they're probably okay with the general idea of the federal government coercing behavior with taxation. I'm looking forward to our free speech tax.

I was curious so I ran the numbers and, unless I messed something up, "a whole lot less" is an epic understatement...
Figure 1100kWh/m^2 per yr with 20% efficient panels (current market is 12-18%):

Average power/area: .2 * 1100e3 / 365 / 24
25 W/m^2
(really?!)

Area needed for 16GW:
16e9 / 25
640km^2
= 247mi^2
= 0.17% Germany
= 71.8% Berlin
= 23.6% Rhode Island (land)

And mind that's just solar flux... Realistically you'd need roads, substations, storage, bezels, etc, so figure another 10%+. Mind also that doesn't include losses for conversion to AC for transmission, so you'd probably need another 15% for that. Finally, unless you can store a crap ton of energy effectively for about 9 months (and supplement winter generation with summer), you'll probably need to increase that by another 50% to account for the decreased power during the winder months. (You still wouldn't get 16GW, but you could argue that you wont need it all in the winter due to people not using AC.)

So, yeah: that 16GW photovoltaic array would occupy more land area than Berlin

(In fairness though, 16GW of nukes wouldn't be one installation. It would probably be about 6 with 2 or 3 1GW reactors each. That would probably come to around a square mile (100acre each?) so the solar panels would only be about 300 or so times the area.)

Indeed, though mind that 5000 is high end for actual cost, but a little fairer when you factor in red tape, taxes, fuel, etc.

Most importantly, though:
http://www.ases.org/2012/07/pv-generation-potential-for-april/

For 2011, the max monthly average output in the US was 165kWh / kW rated. That means the average power of 2 kW of photovoltaic would not exceed 500W. So photovoltaics are still over twice as much by your estimate... I would be curious what a PV 'plant' would come to, once you factored in storage and over-capacity for winter, etc.

Nope.

The estimated base cost of a new AP1000 reactor is about $5000/kW on the high side (though finance and other costs can add to that). So $100 billion would buy about 20GW of nuclear capacity. (A bit less if you pile on taxes, high interest rates, side projects, etc... 16GW seems to be about the standard in the US).

I'm having trouble pinning down what the German grid capacity is, but the average consumption in 2009 appears to have been about 63GW. The cited "hundreds of billions" is specifically 446, so even with the non-aggressive real world numbers they could install about 71GW of nuclear capacity. I'd guess that would be able to replace about half of their current generators. Not bad at all.

Of course. To anyone that actually cares about this metals are fantastic. They are plentiful, they're durable enough to last as long as you want them to (and through additional applications, i.e. reuse), and when you're done, they're some of the most easily sorted and recycled materials around. (They even decay, to an extent, as pointed out by another.)

But remember that's not what 'green' is about these days. It's not _really_ about doing things in, shall we say, a responsible manner. Instead, it's really a back-to-basics/nature movement where people feel that humans are pushing too hard, lost their connection with nature, etc and it's time to use that tech to bring us full circle (if you can excuse the hyperbolic trope reference). It's why you see things like "biodegradable" spec'ed over things like 'durable and reusable'... they want to see servers that they can mulch and grow a flower on rather than ones that will last decades only to be returned to industry and not nature.

Not this.

No one was pretending that polls are some kind of random guess by someone. The thing is that polls and elections are different circumstances. When you vote, you need to travel and you can do it in secret. It also counts so maybe you change sides when push comes to shove. There's also fraud, which isn't exactly polled for either.

The ultimate question isn't whether the polls were "wrong", but whether they could accurately predict the outcome of an election, which is not the same as a poll. In a computer context, this is like using synthetic benchmarks to predict real-world performance. Sometimes with good data and a good model you can nail it. Sometimes you overlook something and are fairly off.

In reality, I'd say it's damn remarkable that the outcome was so close to the predicted value. From the perspective of fraud _alone_ this is a striking result: either the statisticians can predict fraud quite well or it's not as much of an issue as expected. (Or, maybe the shadow organization controlling the outcome of elections got lazy and decided to just follow the predictions this time around :p.)

https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2012/09/04/2012-21608/safety-standard-for-magnet-sets
"Under the proposal, if a magnet set contains a magnet that fits within the CPSC's small parts cylinder, magnets from that set would be required to have a flux index of 50 or less, or they would be prohibited."

So, yes, I do think that no one can sell spherical magnets. (Or won't be allowed to, once this has passed.)

Technically, the proposal as is only applies to sets marketed by the manufacturer primarily as a manipulative or construction desk toy for general entertainment, and they are seeking comment on what to do about magnets included in science/craft/hobby kits or sold individually. So as it stands this technically wouldn't prohibit them from being sold as industrial parts or maybe even science kits. However, mind that government 'suggestion' is all powerful... See how amazon delisted them, and ebay said they would, before this policy is even finalized. You may technically be allowed to sell these in some context, but you'll need a lot of luck to actually do so.

> These sort of laws are stupid, because they can NOT stop anyone from doing it, unless they decide to start searching everyone...

I don't like excessive laws, but there much worse things than laws that are philosophically sound but just aren't backed by heavy handed enforcement.

And even still this law is helpful: If you aren't selling your vote and are instead being coerced, you can just make a huge fanfare of taking the picture to the point that the poll worker calls you on it. "Sorry, I tried to get your proof but they saw me and threw me out." Or you can just say that they were watching you and so you didn't want to risk it but you totally voted the way you were supposed to. And so the law did its job.

> Is it really that difficult to acquire a lethal dose of a drug without doctor assistance?

Yes.
To elaborate: It's difficult to acquire a lethal dose of a drug that is easy to administer and will result in guaranteed, peaceful death without little to no chance of (partial) survival. Sure you can drink bleach or try to OD on alcohol or acetaminophen/paracetamol or any number of things. But they can be quite unpleasant and/or leave you alive but even worse off.

> Or is this aiming to legally protect doctors who are assisting patients?

Less so, I'd wager. Realistically, people rarely ask questions if someone suffering and wishing to die dies in their sleep. Doctor: "They died in their sleep last night". Family: "Ah, well their suffering is over at least". Pretty much never: "I bet you turned their morphine up you bastard!". Of course, that really requires the patient to be literally on their death bed, but either way I think the point of this is entirely a way to reduce suffering of the terminally ill and not really about doctor liability.