But that's not the assertion the report makes. The report does not say that there are no programs and people working on the problem. The report is saying that the current efforts and projected efforts will not be enough to meet the 90% goal by 2020 given that only 10% of the estimated target asteroids have been found.

Funding is one aspect; however, the report also asserts that even if the budget were increased significantly the current program's structure will probably not be efficient enough to take advantage of increases and recommends a change in management structure.

The problem is not who is developing the software or how effective it is. The problem is the SST will be in Australia's hands and no agreement is in place for time on the telescope. While the future administrators might be friendly to the NEO program, there are no guaranteed time allocation (in writing). The criticism is that NASA should not have granted the money without some sort of formal agreement or plan for after the transfer. Just like any contract: get it in writing.

Which makes it even more important that NASA get some sort of agreement about how much time the NEO program will get. It's not like powerful telescopes are easily obtained at your local grocery store.

That's not what the authors are saying. They are not saying the money should not have been spent. They are saying that NASA made a terrible deal because they essentially gave money away with little assurances that they get anything in return. It's not like NASA is just swimming in excess money. NASA's budget is always under pressure to do more with less.

No we have an inspector general doing their job: oversight.

The problem with Windows 8 wasn't that it didn't work well for a tablet. The problem was it was a terrible interface for a desktop.

I see. A man who moves overseas for a job gives up his nationality and heritage in your eyes. So is David Beckham not English? Is then Sir Patrick Stewart only half a tosser as he spends part of the year on Broadway with his American wife and part of the year in England.

So a man who was born in and lived in England until he was 27 (2005) is as English as George Bush. I see. So what makes you English and not him?

Well as an American guy I have to say that's not a good analogy. As much as the rest of the US thinks Florida is backwards, Florida was not another country rich with their own traditions when the US acquired it. Texas would be a better analogy. Also an English guy, I don't think you understand that you've not exactly treated Scotland very well and that's one of the reasons it wants to leave. Another reason is that much of oil England is harvesting is Scottish and they do not get what they think is a proportional amount from it.

Here's another view from another Englishman, John Oliver.

The frontend is not the entirety of gcc. For example, if Oracle puts out a lot of enhancements to Java, they still have to get the Gnu project to modify gcc components like the parsers and back-end. Now Oracle or Apple could merely accept that performance for compilation and execution under gcc would be slower without optimization. That's where the stagnation was coming. Sure gcc could compile Objective-C but it was never optimized. It was never going to be optimized. So Apple created their own compiler. Oracle also maintains their own Java compiler.

Er what? The Gnu Project has always been the maintainer of gcc. Apple is the maintainer of their version of Objective-C. gcc compiles C++, Objective-C, Fortran, Ada, Java, etc. However, just because someone enhances a language that can be compiled in gcc does not mean the gcc compiler takes advantage of any changes. This is because Apple is not the Gnu project. In the same way, Oracle (or Sun at the time) making changes to Java does not mean the gcc compiler would work well with the changes or optimize the compiler. Objective-C development on gcc was pretty stagnant whereas C++ development was busy. So Apple had 2 real choices: 1) build their own compiler or 2) re-write everything in C++

So when Apple rewrote the engine in WebKit2, it was over "maintenance issues"? That's a little bit of revisionist history. When Apple forked KHTML it was for one reason: control. Apple wanted to make a lot of changes (which they did) and take it in a new direction. They could have stayed with KHTML; however, that meant they would have to rely on KHTML developers to approve and upstream changes. So they forked it which they are allowed to do.

No Apple is interested in getting things to work. If that means open source, that's what they'll do. The positive-sum is not for them but for us.

For Objective-C it was. So Apple either had to switch to C++ or go on their own which is what they did. Now Clangs work on other languages but Apple's focus was always on Objective-C.

Apple prides itself on an integrated system. That does not always mean closed. For example, their music is AAC which is the successor to MP3. This is not a format of their design.

And by adopted do you mean made it the de facto engine for many different web browsers? When Apple forked KHTML, it was not used by Google or Opera etc. If you want to ignore that they created OpenCL, LLVM, Bonjour, etc.

Apple has created a language. And you feel they are not helping the OSS community by giving it to them, right now? That's some sense of entitlement.

No they wanted to stop using GCC because it's GPL v3. Apple generally prefers BSD type licenses and GPL v2 licenses. Add to that the GNU Project wasn't devoting much time or resources to Objective-C.

MS was so desperate to get onto the wagon that they agreed to demands by the copyright holders to cripple squirting. Squirting wasn't a bad idea but needlessly crippled. Add to that, MS does not execute very well.

I think both the Amazon and Zune are examples of good but not good enough. The Zune wasn't a bad MP3 player. It could have been better if all the squirting worked like consumers wanted. But both entered a market way too late. Apple had moved on to the iPhone and the iPod Touch and left the Zune in the dust. The Fire has to compete with Android and Apple.

First of all when is production lowest when consumption is highest? I'm not sure where you get this. Peak hours is normally during 9-5 business day. For solar, that is also peak production. With wind, it is more more variable but the turbines are placed where there is some constant wind. Geothermal is pretty constant as well as hydro.

Maybe but the OP has specifically stated that the plant is likely grid-connected so it will produce power when it can and draw power from the grid when it cannot.

Why would you even think this? Most car manufacturers make cars for their own internal use for factories like cargo vans and pickup trucks. These vehicles are sold to the general public as used after the manufacturer retires them. They are not sold to the public as new. The car manufacturer also sells brand new vehicles to the public of the same model.