If a science education is so important to Obama, why did he essentially cancel NASA's manned space program, which along with the premature cancellation of the Shuttle has resulted in over 1500 NASA lay-offs so far, with many 1000's more coming in the future for NASA and its contractors? Aside from stunts on TV, Obama is doing nothing to encourage a career in science and is instead sending a concrete message that ones efforts would be better spent in areas of "public service".

Of course, the intention in the former case was to prevent a detonation and the intention in the latter case was to cause one. Kinda flips that "what if" scenario around.

It's self-evident that there are GTC orders in place, and also obvious that many were triggered by this spike. So it's the other side of the argument that requires proof. Funny I don't see an "UNDO TRADE" button on my on-line brokerage account. So if you're saying that every illicit trade requires a petition of the SEC for reversal, it's guaranteed that not everyone got their losses reversed.

Proof? The uncertainty and doubt remains, but there never was any fear. And what makes you think I'm out of the market? My problem was with GTC stop-loss orders causing unwarranted sales, that's all.

The real crime here was not the market orders that were improperly executed. The real crime were all the subsequent day or GTC limit orders that were triggered by the plunge that were executed at the artificially low prices. Remember that many brokerages can fill customer orders without going to the market - they can use the current market price tick, but execute the trade from their own inventory. Thus, the price does not change due to the trade, bypassing market buy/sell corrections. This was another attack against the sucker individual stock trader. And what was the eTrade "talking baby" commercial that was running incessantly? The "smart" baby on the plane who had GTC limit orders in place, so he could "rest easy" when he was on the road. And what happened to the smart baby? His $50 stock, with a $45 GTC limit order was triggered and his $50 stock sold for $35 by the time the "market" order was placed. And by the time the smart baby got off his plane, the stock that he sold at $35 was now selling at $45. Untold $billions were lost that way.

What's it worth? Depends upon who you are referring to. Some solar users are the recipients of cash gifts from other people in the form of government subsidies. So everyone else is participating in paying a small group of other people. When assessing solar's economic viability, one should make a distinction between the actual costs vs. the subsidized costs borne by the public via government subsidies. As for multiples, there's an EPA solar calculator form that will predict the solar output in a given location. My location in the northeast has a solar multiplier of less than 3, while much of the southwest has a multiplier over 7. To me, that's a "multiple".

For decades I've been hearing about these miracle solar cells that will be available "real soon now", but they are all based on this precious technology to make them smaller and more efficient. Why the overwhelming focus on efficiency? Better to focus on manufacturability. The current cells are incredibly fragile and fussy, so they get put on the roof, which makes everything more complicated - efficiency is then inordinately important, maintenance and installation are more complicated, and nobody will be admiring that NASA hardware cluttering up the neighborhood. So let's come up with a solar cell that is 1% efficient, but that can be laid by the truckload like asphalt or cement. Imagine if we could tap solar power from our driveways, patios, and streets? Get it off the roof. Maybe make a net that can overlay a grass lawn and handle typical lawn use? Overcome the precious nature of current solar cells with a simple system that can make up for those disadvantages by being ubiquitous.

First, California is far from a typical location when it comes to solar radiation. The same setup up north would be multiples of that size, plus all you are doing is matching 100% of the load, but over a 24 hour period, you only get 30-40% of the rated output. So don't forget those batteries and the expensive inverters.

The guy at Yahoo later calculated the 10^100th digit of pi, and some guy from the marketing department came up behind him and whacked him with a 2x4.

And I've got one, too! More of a novelty than a seriously playable machine. It's got six flippers arranged in two columns of three, Here's the entry for Humpty Dumpty on the definitive pinball machine database - IPDB: http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=1254

Just download the mp4 from Youtube using a Firefox plug-in, play with VLC and use the VLC option to rotate the video.

Gottlieb electromechanical (EM) machines were #1 from the beginning of the flipper period (Humpty Dumpty - 1948), but lagged in features and complexity around the early 70's. But the latter EMs of that decade were unmatched - with classics like El Dorado. But once the games transitioned to solid state(SS) in the latter part of the 70's, Gottlieb never found their way back, and faded slowly from the scene until Barb Wire - their last pinball machine. Until the EM/SS transition, Gottlieb games had a well-deserved reputation for quality of components and reliability. This was all lost in the SS transition with the horrible System 1 platform, designed by Rockwell of all places. And even though they did bring up quality by the 90's it was too late for Gottlieb by then and they faded into obscurity.

Actually, they had to have someone walk in front of the automobile waving a flag. This UK law was repealed in 1898 with the passage of the Light Locomotives Act, which also raised the speed limit to 14 MPH http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Flag_Act

OK, I'll give it a try.

Existing disc platters are like parking in a field. Each car has to find its way to a spot that is clear of surrounding vehicles, and there is no pre-defined organization of the parking spots. So typically, extra space will be wasted in pathways for cars to get in and out, and there will be the inevitable mishaps with cars trapped in their spots or with no escape.

The new method precisely defines each parking spot, and there is an optimal amount of space provided for every car to get in and out. That means a lot more cars can park within a given area, and there's less of a chance for trapped cars or fender-benders.

And consistent with all car analogies, it is not 100% accurate...

Good thing the cell phone companies don't sell Doritos. In that case, you'd have to pre-buy the maximum number of bags of Doritos you might want to eat every month, whether you actually eat them or not. And if you eat more than you pre-paid for, they will cost $10/bag.