Not all energy harvesting products are scams.

Sorry to reply twice but I have a question: When did the US ever have an open ballot?

Hypothetically, let me grant you that point. But once the country is no longer stable, can we switch back to the other voting system?

Many institutions work really well if you assume things like honesty, stability, fairness, etc. But much of the U.S. is designed under the assumption that those things aren't there, in order to protect it from ever becoming so. This is because if those assumptions are violated, there isn't some kind of fallback where the people can change back to the old way. We can't ever say "okay, the police are abusing their power again. It's time to reinstate the 4th amendment."

Surveillance is probably the best example these days. If we assume the "watchers" are not targeting anyone other than terrorists, then we should simply allow them full access to everything. This is the intention behind the phrase "There is no reason to hide if you have done nothing wrong." But even in a hypothetically "stable" country, honest law-abiding citizens may fight to keep their privacy, so that if and when the "watchers" become evil, they won't get control.

Free speech and gun control are based on similar reasoning to the secret ballot. Perhaps, one day, once we have permanently eliminated racism, greed, and jealousy then we can switch to the "stable" system. In the mean time, let us err on the side of caution.

Interesting. This must vary wildly based on the high school and the community college involved. I live in Maryland and found the opposite to be the case.

When I was in community college I was afraid that what you just described would happen to me, so I took Calculus 1 in community college even though I already had it in high school. I then realized that the high school course went further than the community college course and was more rigorous.

You are assuming that the cloud vendors are at fault, but the article doesn't really pin the blame on anyone. Everyone's knee-jerk reaction is to blame the vendor, but who really is at fault here?

The article talks about business users sharing files inappropriately, like opening them up publicly or storing files like source code on the cloud which is often in violation of the policies. It says that 15% of business users' accounts have been compromised, but it doesn't say why or how. So we don't know if the cloud vendor was the one at fault, or if it was the users' fault. Looking at the top cloud apps they are listing, they are things like Google Drive, Facebook, and YouTube. So far I don't think there have been any major compromises to these apps, so that indicates that the problem is more likely on the users' side. I wonder if the real report says that.

This entire summary is devoid of content. It's just a long ranting insult with no valuable technical information at all. It could be talking about anything. This does not belong on Slashdot. With Slashdot these days I just want to downvote entire articles, or be able to edit the summary or something. HTTP 2.0 is probably a good topic to discuss, but not with a summary like this one.

Instead, how about something more like:

Thanks, I'll look into that.

Thank you for all that information! I meant to post in the Makerbot operators Google group and get their opinions, so it was nice to get a free head-start on that.

I have a jammed extruder on my Makerbot Replicator as a result of printing in laywoo-d3. For whatever reason it stopped extruding while I wasn't watching, and when I came back I found it permanently jammed. No amount of unloading or loading will fix it. At this point I will have to resort to some of the more difficult measures such as running acetone through the extruder, or drilling it out, or something like that. The trouble is that I don't know what resin is in the laywoo-d3 so I'm not sure if acetone will work in this case or if I need something else.

I am not sure if my experience is typical or not. While everyone says that Makerbot's announcement is not a big deal, it really is important because it means they have tested and endorse the product. If you just run experimental filaments through your printer you do so at your own risk.

Also note that the failure here might not be the filament at all. Printers need to be able to detect extruder failures and stop the print before the extruder becomes permanently stuck. I think this is coming in newer models, as it is certainly on the professional products.

Lastly: The stuff really doesn't look much like wood. I tried the "cherry" color and it looks more like weak reddish-brown plastic. You can run scripts that adjust the temperature to get a gradient effect, but it just isn't very realistic. The material is very soft and I don't recommend it for most purposes.

Does that mean that the FBI could legally wiretap a public pay phone without a warrant? That seems unlikely: being in a "public place" should not override wiretapping laws.

Oh daaaammmmn boy you got me! That buuuurrns! Sheesh, I hope you don't respond like that IRL. As a glider pilot, I am well aware of the meaning of glide ratio. So, skipping the ad-hominem attack and moving on to discussion:

Yes, glide ratio is very important. But the glide ratio of the HTV is not comparable to the glide ratio of a passenger plane. It held essentially no cargo and unfortunately, these things don't scale linearly. :-( Suppose we could make something with a glide ratio of 1000:1, that could carry 10 lbs. Physics does not permit us to scale that technology to carry 10,000 lbs and retain the efficiency.

A sillier example: a bullet probably has a good L/D too, but we would not point to a bullet and draw the conclusion that passenger jets could get similar efficiencies.

Glide ratio != efficiency per passenger mile.

I don't think there was anything efficient about the HTV. It carried 0 passengers and the heat literally melted it's own skin off. Building a fast missile with a good glide ratio has very little to do with fuel efficiency of a passenger plane.

Is this maneuver easier or harder to do inside the atmosphere of Mars, as compared to Earth? It sounds like a possible plan for return trips from Mars, if the rocket is re-usable.

That's actually hilarious. While I applaud that they display the error code, it is funny that it requires a convoluted "special knock" to make it display the error code. How about just displaying the code right away? Or a button labeled "display error message?" If someone built a car that sang the error by Morse code after you opened the front passenger door 3 times would we call this good design?

I think I was in my teens before I learned it wasn't his actual birthday. Maybe even later. Maybe I should be embarrassed by that fact or something. Nobody ever corrected me, since it wasn't really a discussion topic, so I think I only discovered it through some unrelated reading. Every sermon, song, etc. said it was his birthday. I had no reason to question it since it wasn't of any theological importance. I think the same thing happens with the "3 wise men" as well. Why the heck do they put them in nativity scenes?

I just heard this on a secular radio station a few days ago: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/c/christmas_songs/born_on_christmas_day.html

Have you asked, or are you just assuming they understand it the same way as you did? Maybe it was common belief 20 years ago but not today? Or maybe children believe that but figure it out later? Or maybe I'm just dumb. :-|