I especially like that minimalist house beat, with someone playing the spoons for extra pzazz. Slashdot is clearly on top of the latest IDM.

Citation needed.

Mr. T. Boone (not to be confused with Slim) may be out of the game for now, but he gets big bonus points with me for being a pioneer and trying to lead the way. It won't be that many years before people like him will be belatedly lauded for clearsightedness and wisdom in the face of our $600Ba oil deficits.

In the meantime, there's plenty of other wind action happening across the US (not to mention China, which is trying to corner the manufacturing market). There's SO much wind energy being wasted in the Midwest that T. Boone might want to invest instead in some of those 15MW monsters the Spanish are building.

To hell with selling products ... it ought to be illegal to sell images that make me physically ill !!

I can understand how many people might not know about such things. Those of us who back farther than early 'word processors' are more familiar with text files.

Many/most files created by 'word processor' and spreadsheet programs can be opened by any decent text editor. Once you've typed in a paragraph or two, save the file and have a look at it with something like TextWrangler (Mac) or Notepad++ (Windows). Much of the file may be unreadable, but very often identifying information can be found 'in the clear' somewhere.

I first discovered this when exploring the output of early versions of MS Word about 15 years ago. It's a good idea to have a look inside any file that you plan to distribute to the 'outside world' because of such 'helpful' inclusions.

And why not - it's a time-honored tradition to make code run anywhere you can. Those who owned C64s (especially those who read Transactor) will recall that for a while there, programming the 1541 floppy-drive CPU was just about as cool as could be.

Nowadays systems are so complex, and tools to study them / keep an eye on them are so relatively clueless, there could be^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H are dozens of things going on in our PCs that we are blissfully unaware of. Very unfortunate ... making things simple enough / safe enough for grandma has diminished / lulled many of us into blissful ignorance.

People used to "do stuff" to C64's at the store, and to PC's at the store for years. While I spose it's annoying to the staff after a while, I have to laugh at people who take this sort of thing soooooo seriously. Some of you people need to check yourself for a Calvinist eartag.

I don't expect to find classical on the net any more than at most record stores. The demand's too small, and if they have any at all, it's usually by crappy little eastern Europe orchestras at bargain prices.

If you're anywhere near a big city, public libraries often have tastefully chosen recordings; often they show little wear. There are also quite a few classical stations listed in iTunes; many of them have PD's who know their music. MN Public Radio has long had an excellent station.

Once I hear something on there I know I'll be appreciating for a lifetime, I'll go buy it. Else the day will come when those recordings are only available used.

Does that 0.06 USD/kWh include the costs of mining & associated health costs, disposal of waste & associated health costs, cost of security to protect plants from terrorists? Point being: unless one can scrutinize the details, there's no way to trust such numbers.

The French people have come to terms with nuclear energy, which apparently has worked well enough for them there. US results have been less spectacular; many unplanned excursions resulted in lies and coverups that make it difficult for millions of Americans to accept claims for nuclear. The cost of new plants has skyrocketed into the $10-20 billion range. They remain uninsurable. Many make claims for new nuclear technologies, but there are few if any working demonstrations.

The costs of solar may be based on online technology, rather than one of the dozens of technologies in the pipeline. See for example this one: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/august/new-solar-method-080210.html

Storage is not a problem, there are many ways of doing storage. Britain for example has a huge facility that pumps water uphill into a lake 2000 feet above during the day; it is capable of powering a city for hours and can come online within a few minutes at any time. Nuclear is currently pumping the water; it could just as easily be solar thermal or wind. As someone else has pointed out: fossil-fuel energy saved during the day can be used at night. And, in the US, there is still a lot of waste that can be ameliorated by conservation measures, further reducing energy needs.

With wind energy quickly becoming a clear win around the world, and growing cheaper all the time (already competitive with the French rates your quoting) it's quite clear that the time for nuclear plants is drawing to an end. The dangers of nuclear proliferation are never far away so long as nuclear power continues to be acceptable. For cost, safety, and obsolescence reasons, it would be a poor idea to invest in such plants.