First, make sure you know all the current needs. Are you just doing to electrical infrastructure, or ALL of it. Who else is providing input to your boss? There are certain groups that will have higher priority in the building design, such as Safety & Occupational Health, Human Factors, etc. Make sure these are covered BEFORE you start planning. You don't want safety to throw up a flag if you need a power box near an eyewash station.

Next, ask what is in the business pipeline for the near and far future. You may know some of these, but not all of them...

Check industry vendors to get an idea of where the future of CNC equipment you may be using is going. What infrastructure will be needed to support these capabilities? How will the workfloor change to accommodate these machines?

Bearing these in mind, scope up your desired infrastructure. Keep in mind:

a) Boss may not be able to afford everything. Make sure it is possible to scope back your design. Be sure to also know and communicate what risks become more likely if the scale-down is needed. There will also be compromise if multiple designers present conflicting designs.

b) Remember your *ilities. Make sure changes can be implemented, because maintenance, breakdowns, and logistics happen and the world has revolutionary changes that nobody expects.

It's a two way street.

While the cost of incrementally upgrading your equipment can be high, if you leap generation(s) you also have risk that the upgrade process will be lost amongst your staff. If that happens, then when [eventually] you do need to upgrade the process may not be as smooth, leading to extended downtime and/or extra costs (lost customers, wrong hardware, infrastructure upgrades, etc.)

The only way to know for sure is to have a cost-benefit analysis and a risk strategy tailored to your business areas.

Depends on the bike. A KLR650 is about 400lbs and gets ~50 mpg, but part of that is because it's a 1987 design with a carburetor.

The similar BWM 650 Sertao gets ~75mpg while putting out a lot more electrical power and weighing more because it's a more modern design with fuel injection. The downside is you need a lot more than duck tape and RTV silicone to fix it.

When you consider supercavitating torpedoes that are approaching or surpassing the speed of sound in water (and have active homing), things like this, and actual DE weapons (closure rate close to c) in development there are a lot of hazards out there.

Yes, each new technology can be use against you. Science is science, the will to use (and how to use) is an invention of man. However, by knowing about and having these items first, you have time to develop defenses. You also have the means to test those defenses since you have the weapon systems already. This is why we press forward with R&D in the military.

Further, there is significant political traction by saying we have these items. If that alone leads to a peaceful solution without actually having to use systems of destruction, then hasn't that weapon still paid off?

Many would say the value is in fact greater than if it was actually used, as no one ended up getting hurt as would happen in a conventional conflict. Others may have different opinions...

Spectroscopy grade [~99.9999%] water does leeches ions & salts from your blood into your throat, stomach, etc. via osmosis. This does not feel pleasant (i.e. you may puke). You won't be able to drink much

Not saying how I know this...

Because you have to know what you are doing to actively edit software code and make a positive contribution. Those who are having countless amounts of free time are typically low NCO's and enlisted, they have little college education, and have to be ready for their next mission after their buddy's truck was blown up on the last.

This DARPA grant is soliciting for a method of using those idle people to test software without those programming skills. It is not a direct outsourcing of those skills. I don't believe the published request equates crowd to the general public.

Ok, lets stop the knee jerk reactions and take a breath.

There's a lot you can do. Asymettric battles have occurred and continue to occur without one side dominating the other.

Intelligence can garner some clue about what exactly we can expect and not expect. Example: While the US enjoys air superiority most of the time, using underground fortifications and transport routes can counter that without purchasing a massive air force or developing cutting edge aerospace technologies of your own.

Economic theft of IP: See also, AIM-9 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-9_Sidewinder#Compromised_technology)
Manhatten Project / Fuchs & Rosenburgs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_spies)
and the daily list of Chinese copies of technologies from Europe, Korea, Japan, etc.

None of this is possible without knowing what's out there. Now the more speculative items...

Of course, we can probably expect advanced technology races to have a high standard of living (beyond what we have here for 1st world countries). As such, minimum pay amounts may be lavish by any standard(i.e. flipping burgers earning $150,000 by todays standards, or via bringing back near-magical devices from the alien equivalent of Walmart and fetching much higher prices on Earth.

Assuming "our own" is the United States, there are twenty according to this list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_index

DRM does help sales, to a point. I would counter that overdoing the DRM is the major issue.

If the DRM stops casual piracy (ie. the selling of $2 DVD's on street corners) while not being completely bullet proof (such that a moderately technical user can circumvent) that is the golden area. From here, a significant number of people are able to bypass but not the majority due to hassle, virus fears, or lack of know how / fear of tinkering with a computer. It balances mass piracy against privacy intrusion and playability issues.

Colonel Sandurz: Try here. Stop.
Dark Helmet: What the hell am I looking at? When does this happen in the movie?
Colonel Sandurz: Now. You're looking at now, sir. Everything that happens now, is happening now.
Dark Helmet: What happened to then?
Colonel Sandurz: We passed then.
Dark Helmet: When?
Colonel Sandurz: Just now. We're at now now.
Dark Helmet: Go back to then.
Colonel Sandurz: When?
Dark Helmet: Now.
Colonel Sandurz: Now?
Dark Helmet: Now.
Colonel Sandurz: I can't.
Dark Helmet: Why?
Colonel Sandurz: We missed it.
Dark Helmet: When?
Colonel Sandurz: Just now.
Dark Helmet: When will then be now?
Colonel Sandurz: Soon.

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094012/quotes]

It's called the shore power adapter. These go up to 430V at 400A which should be enough for anyone...

If you're looking for something home-friendly, there are 230V shore power plug types as well..

The "natives" don't have statistics. People just die in the streets from whatever, and you're not going to know why because no one can afford the autopsy necessary. Or are we going to spend another $10B on autopsies just to get some data?

I recommend taking a trip to Afghanistan and figuring out for yourself what it's actually like there. Then, I would ask you to note who is more effective in the combat situations. If spending $20B on A/C make for better fighters that can win a significant majority of the engagements they are put in, then yes it is worth while.

Also, you should look up information local customs for the amount of work accomplished in a day. Most of the people in iraq and afghan only work part of the time, and rather force others (wives, children, other villagers) to do it for them. Talk with people who have been over there. Not all people are lazy as such, however it's a larger group than the average person in the US (and that's saying something). Not sure about you, but I don't need as much A/C if I'm not going to do much of anything all day long.

Long story short, there is a LOT that goes into these spending decisions ans system design. Don't deride expenses based on rolled up statistics from a single theater of war when much of the military need extends beyond those confined boundaries.

Ok, ill bite

The average combat load in WWII was about 45lbs.
http://www.google.com/search?q=combat+load+WWII

The average modern combat load now is close to 80 lbs
http://www.military.com/forums/0,15240,106567,00.html

Further, I would wager that the troops were moving about more in North Africa since there isn't much there worth defending from an Axis or Allies viewpoint. In Iraqistan we are fighting against the population and for the population at the same time (like the Viet Kong). This requires permanent presence as opposed to obliterate and move tactics.

Also, while temperatures both reach similarly very hot, Kabul Afghanistan is at about 6000' elevation, which exposes it to more solar radiation and provides less airflow to cool everything.

The Marines have been investing hugely in solar.

What everyone seems to miss, is that there are more requirements to the military being there than sitting in an efficient house. They need to be mobile, they need to be survivable, and they need to be able to do all their OTHER jobs as well. Tents have one wall because they have to be set up and down easy, and have to take up minimal storage space when waiting for the next force deployment (all of which also have costs). That's why the military doesn't drive troops around in a Prius--they don't take IED or RPG blasts well. The HMMWV proved that.

You can only make something more efficient for a specific job to a certain point before its other requirements have to sacrifice. For instance, if you invest in solar-everything now, what happens to those systems when they are deployed in a future defense scenario near the Northwest Passage?

Why not? To quote one decorated commander:

"We won by sending wave after wave of men at the killbots until they reached their pre-programmed kill limit and shut down!"