Except you ignore that if the movie is a success then there is potential for Card to be paid for future movie endeavors. If producers/actors get hurt making this film then they will be less likely to associate with Card in the future. Your argument is pretty much along the lines of "Don't boycott food products from companies you don't like because it will hurt the grocery stores that sell them to you."

It looks like the aforementioned article does indicate that videos and music stored on another device would be streamed by that device and controlled from that device. So that answers that. I shouldn't have glossed over the first couple of paragraphs of that article.

What I gathered from the Ars Technica article is that for a lot of things, the phone just acts like a remote sending instructions on where to obtain the stream. If you pass it a YouTube video, the Chromecast will directly contact YouTube for that video and not pass through your phone. I assume it does the same thing for Netflix. I'm not quite sure what it does for video and audio stored on the phone... does it copy that video and audio to the cloud then stream it from there or does it pass it directly from the phone to the Chromecast. I would think that in the case of content already stored on the phone that it will just stream directly from the phone, but unless there are more specifications released, I'm not 100% sure.

My mistake, it's IP-address conflicts that give warnings, not MAC-address conflicts. However, the MAC address conflict would still result in unreliable service.

If they spoofs their MAC address to something on the white-list, would this really get them anywhere? If there are two devices using the same MAC address will either one get reliable service? If they are trying to be a nuisance then you're right, a MAC white-list won't help. If they are just trying to get free internet, then the poor service and warnings of conflicting MAC addresses will probably be enough to make the person move on.

If you've ever worked in power generation, bringing up a turbine when you hadn't initially planned on running it is not a 5 minute process. Likewise, shutting it down or reducing load is definitely not something you do on a whim. You may be able to redistribute an extra load with a phone call, but I guarantee you aren't getting the price you would have if you had set up a contract months in advance. Also, with a dam, if you have saved up too much water behind it, you end up having to open spillways, wasting it. Dams do not simply spin up their turbines and generate extra power on a whim to sell on interstate markets. So save the patronizing "Son" for someone else.

Keep in mind that the water is a resource of Washington State (and Oregon, if you want to consider those downstream on the Columbia). So, the electrical company is most likely required by law to offer the electricity to Washington State people and businesses first, at a regulated rate. Had they known that Microsoft wasn't going to use that electricity, they would have sold it to another State at a higher price (I doubt Washington would regulate the price for interstate sales). Also keep in mind that with a dam, you can't just change electrical generation on a whim. You have to plan well in advance on how much electricity is being consumed and compare that to the estimated amount of water that might flow down the river in to your reservoir. If you are going to sell electricity to another utility company, you need to set up a contract well in advance. You also need to know that you can deliver the energy they purchased. The electricity isn't just sent across country on a whim, it's usually done with very strict contracts made well in advance.

I'm not sure what you mean. Microsoft had a choice to burn through $70,000 of electricity (priced lower because the people of Washington are allowing their resource to be used by this electrical company) or pay a fine 3 times higher. The fine is there because the regulation doesn't artificially lower the price for interstate sales. The company could have sold it else where for a higher price, but due to regulation I suspect they are required to sell to Washington State businesses first at a regulated rate. Also, it's not like you can stock up an infinite amount of water behind a dam, so the electrical company needs to know in advance when its electricity is being used. I'm sure they have to plan months in advance for estimated water coming into the dam... contracts must be issued in advance to sell it outside of the State. Coming from Washington, I know that there are regulations like the one I stated above. However, I don't know the extent or limitations put on electrical companies for selling it out of State. So, that's why I used the word "guess" in there.

Except that the hydro-generated electricity produced in Washington does get sold to other States. The use of that electricity by Microsoft meant that some other State probably had to generate electricity by some other means, creating pollution. My guess is that this fee has something to do with the lost revenue since they could have sold that electricity to another State at a higher price if they had enough advanced notice that Microsoft wasn't going to use it. I also suspect that there are incentives for the companies generating electricity to offer it first to Washington State businesses... there are probably laws regulating that too since the rivers in Washington State are a resource of the people of Washington.

Hey donaggie, don't take what they say to heart. Some people will twist and contort some minor detail in your comment and then run with it like it must be the only way to interpret what was typed. You (and the initial AC) are absolutely correct that much can be learned from a properly set up experiment that did not produce the result the scientist was hoping for. For instance, I work in a field where the chemical reactions aren't easily predictable. I mix two precursors because the evidence I have says it will produce the material I want. However, I end up getting no reaction at all. This "Negative Result" still provides important information that I wish I could publish, but unfortunately most journals wouldn't accept it. Instead I have to keep searching for precursors that will produce the desired result and then I can sometimes include my negative results in with that. It would save a lot of time for me if I could easily find the negative results of others so that I don't repeat their procedure.

To comment on another reply concerning the "faulty cable", control experiments should be designed to find these things. Not including a control or check against a known sample is pretty bad science in my opinion. If you get extraordinary results, then it is absolutely up to the scientist to make sure that equipment is functioning properly well before you even begin to write a paper.

Finally, this constant pressure for new, positive results is as much of a byproduct of political involvement as it is scientists cutting corners to produce positive results faster for their own professional gain. I have seen in some aspects of my field that in order to accomplish proper science in the time allotted by nearly every government grant initiative that much of the "proposed" work has to already be done before you even start applying for the grant. It's my opinion (based solely on my limited personal experience) that this is a direct result of a moderate number of groups pushing out papers as fast as they can without properly checking their results... without any intention of ever running the experiment a second time. I've come across several papers (and patents) which claim that a particular set of precursors will result in a very specific product. Yet, when I perform the experiment precisely in the reported conditions, the result is absolutely no reaction. There are of course some conditions which are difficult to quantify and report in literature, but it seems hard to believe that I get absolutely no reaction rather than a slower reaction, faster reaction, or a result that's not the same stoichiometry as reported. In this case, one can always write a rebuttal. However, in the case where you perform an experiment properly without faulty equipment and get a negative result, it's difficult to get it published.

Any word on whether there was a decline in this type of tumor when CMOS x-ray imaging started being used in dentistry? Using CMOS rather than film supposedly requires less exposure time or less x-ray intensity in order to obtain an image comparable to film. I see the article does comment on the decreased intensity of x-ray source now as compared to a decade or so ago, but unless they couldn't readily identify this type of tumor back then, then I would expect to have seen a decline in this type of tumor as well.

What I saw from the proposal is that they will use the excess heat from the Zn and O2 gasses to at least assist in this (not sure if there is enough energy in 1 mole of Zn and 0.5 moles of O2 at 1750C to raise all the reactants in the 2nd process to 420C). I would also like to compare the energy lost in waste heat to that of the energy lost in the electrolysis of water. I think that there have been ideas for using solar heating at much lower temperatures where it is used to just boil water and power a turbine (presumably using a liquid that is better at absorbing solar radiation than water and then transferring the energy to the water). The electricity could then be used to split water when it is not being used to power something else. Again, that's if the energy loss is less. Something I would have assumed they looked into.

Also, sorry for the earlier comments. As a grad student I regularly did these reactions at (relatively) moderate temperatures in order to obtain ZnO crystals. I did not think to look what the products of Zn+H2O at lower temperatures produced.

I don't think this is true. Water doesn't start to decompose until roughly 2000C. So, having something that decomposes at a lower temperature as well as a material that stays put longer (ZnO stays a solid until it decomposes) is quite a bit better.

Here is a proposal posted on the National Renewable Energy Lab's website ( http://www.nrel.gov/hydrogen/pdfs/development_solar-thermal_zno.pdf ). It discusses in further detail the process by which ZnO is decomposed into Zn metal and oxygen, using the Zn metal to react with water to form ZnO and H2 gas.

Here is an article from work being done at NREL ( http://www.nrel.gov/hydrogen/pdfs/development_solar-thermal_zno.pdf ). Condensing Zn vapor from the ZnO decomposition can be done by rapidly cooling. They seem to claim that the reaction of liquid Zn metal with water gas favors the production of ZnO, not zinc hydroxide.