Also in the U.S. we do have 220 volt plugs for high-energy devices that need more energy - things like stoves or hot water tanks. They are bulky three-prong affairs.

That was my issue - common room outlets are 110 VAC and 15A (often 20A in kitchens and other high-draw areas) in in the US, but the actual household mains in a typical house here has 220 VAC in the circuit breaker panel. It's merely split in two for the branch circuits. So while 110v is the standard, nearly everyone has 220v available. If you want a 220v outlet, you get a 220v breaker that bridges both buses, and making sure you have adequate branch wiring installed, put a 220v outlet on the other end. Done and done.

Most electric clothes dryers are 220v, and most houses are built with 220v outlets in the laundry area and garage area for large appliances.

For now. But the last paragraph of the MIT article indicates newer cameras will have their own emitters.

I thought they co-wrote all their songs?

Sorry.

But that's largely because I generally get repaid like most other favors, like help with moving, or on other home projects requiring more than one person. Or I get repaid with beer/wine. Heck, a few weeks ago, I reformatted and reinstalled WinXP my wife's aunt's computer, due to a mess of viruses/spyware. But I spent 5 hours doing it because they kept my wine glass full.

A 1500W heater might work to *keep* a small room warm, but it would take quite a while to warm up a cold car with lots of single-pane windows.

Then there are wipers, lights, window defrosters, and heated seats that drivers expect in a car of that price range.

After all that, what's the efficiency of the batteries themselves when the temperature drops. Ever leave a fully charged laptop in a cold car and try to boot it? You'll find you "lost" some energy somewhere.

And who knows what summer a/c will do to the battery life...

I suspect that's the case for many people, at least in the US. It's on my company PC, which I have no control over. The scary part? I work for a gov't contractor. A big one. And the IT people have no interest whatsoever in trying something new.

Even my 11 year old laptop, which is still alive, runs FireFox on Win98. Not very quickly, mind you, but faster than it ran IE.

For reference, it's a Gateway (Gateway 2000 at the time) original Pentium 200 MHz "MMX" with 48 MB of RAM. And it only has a 10-base wired ethernet card anyway, so it's not like browser speed matters much.

Maybe your hand evolved in order to more ergonomically grip said wonderfood, it being one of the most nutritionally complete foods available...

Amazing that I see this on Slashdot... when I first started dating the woman who is now my wife, we were discussing her job at a label manufacturer. I said something about "stickers" that was almost as offensive to her as when she told me she'd never seen Star Wars, LotR or Indiana Jones. I now know way more than I ever cared to know about pressure sensitive labels and other paper adhesives. And she's way more of a geek than she'd ever thought she'd be.

Maybe that's true on the west coast of the US, but not the East Coast. Along the Boston - NYC - Philadelphia - Washington DC corridor, flying is much cheaper. At times, half the price. But still not as cheap or convenient as driving, even with high gas prices and tolls.

I live on the Connecticut shoreline, less than a mile from where the Amtrak train lines go through. They don't even stop, I have to drive at least 15 minutes to get to the nearest station. And the trains are slower because the tracks, while themselves newer, are laid down where the 150+ year old tracks were made - all along the shoreline, in prime wetlands area. The train itself is capable of higher speed, but they can't manage them on the tracks. Check out Google Maps along the Connecticut shore - they can't really improve the tracks, either, because of the sensitive environment they're located in. So the choice is either make do, or build a new rail system from scratch.

We did that in Honors Biology my freshman year in High School. I don't remember how the experiment turned out, but I *do* remember stealing the container of fruit flies and putting it in my classmate's locker along with an overripe banana just before spring vacation. Hi-larious!