My guess is, shitty hardware. I've never seen this happen unless the batteries were bad.

The UPS was brand new and from a reputable source. The computer, not so much. I wouldn't have expected the computer type to matter if it could run on line power, but apparently it did.

I have had that problem, though. I guess it depends on what hardware you have.

Why do these things always make the main page a day late? I had to search for this.

Took me almost an hour, a lot of which was trying to figure out "one way to store data".

What other sci-fi movies are there?

Wow, there's a ton, but it is hard to think of them out of the blue. A few were:

Silent Running
Galactic Quest
Real Genius
Short Circuit
Men in Black
The Last Mimzy

It makes me wonder: Do you hate science? Did your mother beat you with a stick and say this stick is science?

Good questions, actually. The interviewer was an idiot.

Considering the size of the US, most birds will never see a tall building in their entire life.

But how many windmills will they see if we generate, say, 30% of our nation's electricity from wind? I don't know if bird or bat kills will be a serious problem or not, but it should definitely be researched.

If they really wanted to be fair, they'd charge every person hooked to the grid for their share of the fixed costs, PLUS the variable cost of how many kilowatt-hours they use. But in many places this is not currently legal.

Then we need to make it legal. We also need demand pricing, which I dislike, but which will mostly help solar people. New times require new laws. It would be nice if they could accurately reflect the cost of power, but I fear politics will make that impossible.

Good thing we have trustworthy sources of medical/biology knowledge like Wikipedia!

Yes, it is.

... but they're illegal because they won't spend a fortune fitting rare-earth metal infested catalytic converters and other emissions systems ...

Rare-earths in a catalytic converter? That's the first I've heard of that. That could bring down the cost quite a bit, since rare-earths are quite a bit cheaper that the precious metals, like platinum and palladium, that I'm used to them using.

Our bodies can break down natural trans-fats, no problem.

Interesting, but Wikipedia says that is controversial.

uh, butter has 0 trans fat.

Only in the sense that it falls below the legal limit for labeling it. There is definitely some there. So, should we ban butter?

It's nice to see that the author didn't buy into the myth that it's friction ...

You've just described one way that friction works, not that it doesn't apply.

Last I heard, hard drive heads flew over the disk surface on a thin film of air. It's hard to see that working in a vacuum.

Good tip.

Half Dollar = eagle = four bits = 50 cent

An eagle is traditionally made of gold is is worth ten dollars. They went away in 1933, though, so perhaps there is a new meaning.