So computer science, and electrical engineers should learn base 2, base 16, and maybe base 8. I would even go so far as to make everyone learn converting between base 10 and one other base so they learn the concept. 99% of people are never going to need to do base conversions, and of the remaining 1%, they are pretty damn unlikely to need to convert between base 5 and base 7. Humans work with base 10 for good reason.

Uggg. I had several teachers in college that wrote their own "textbooks" for their classes(electrical engineering). They were extraordinarily smart individuals, but their writing sucked. They were desperately in need of a technical writer and an editor. The ones that didn't completely suck were not any better than the normal books I had for my other classes.

When I added onto my house, they of course used the arc-fault breakers. About one out of every three times you shut off the vacuum cleaner when it is plugged into one of these outlets, it trips. Two different corded drills do the same thing, only they are closer to 50% of the time. I replaced the breaker with a different one. Same thing. Very annoying.

These days, I'm not even sure a paper receipt will last 4 years. I've got a bunch of them that have faded significantly in a years time.

I've switched over most of my house to CFLs. I gave up in the bathroom, as EVERY brand I have been able to get locally seem to die about twice as fast as the incandescent bulbs and they cost more. They seem to deteriorate quickly as far as warm-up time and light quality. I'd like to replace the halogens in my living room with something a bit more efficient, but I haven't found anything equivalent yet. All the CFL and LED bulbs put out a lot less lumens than the halogens.

What brand are you using in your bathroom? I've been trying to use a mix of incandencent and CFLs in my light bar. I've tried every CFL brand I could find locally and they all suck. Most of them have had a shorter lifespan the the incandencents that they are right next to. They also take forever to warm up, and their light ouput drops off after about a month.

No, not all states have vehicle inspections. North Dakota for starters, and I don't think the nearby states do either.

Farmers only using GPS assisted planting in ideal locations? I disagree. They are used all over the place, with great success. John Deere sells tons of these units for exactly this purpose every year. Other manufacturers have similar products. Farmers wouldn't spend tens of thousands of dollars on these setups if they didn't work. Also, cloud cover should not have a significant effect on GPS signal strength. The clouds are essentially transparent to the frequencies it uses.

Not necessarily. You can run the ICE->Generator at the most efficient point of the power band constantly. Depending on the efficiencies of the generator and electric motors, you may come out more efficient.

People keep saying that there are CFLs that reach full brightness almost immediately. Someone please tell me where I can get these mythical beasts. They absolutely are not available locally(city of 200,000 people). I've bought one of every brand that I could find locally, and ALL of them have noticeable output differences over the first 10-30 seconds. I still use them and they are better than the ones from a few years ago. I haven't gone so far to try and order them off the internet, but lets face it, 95% of people get what is cheap at their local retail store. If they aren't there, they don't get used, and the locally available ones are not that great.

CFLs definitely do last longer than incandescent bulbs in most cases. My experience is maybe three times longer in my best case. Maybe I have crappy power or something. The ones in the bathroom last about half as long as the incandescent bulbs, so I quit using them there.

The mercury thing doesn't really worry me that much, but the big difference is that the power plant isn't dropping the mercury on my floor when I drop a bulb.