actually, in maine the democrats have realized IRV is important. strong independents just keep running and they finally got it. last time in state committee it was a party line vote to go to an IRV system.

what it will take to get the republicans on board, I'm not sure. it's cost them elections too. but here I think they assume the math favors them without IRV.

so now we're just waiting for a democratic majority again. if it's soon, we may even pass it next time.

the basic rule that a lower ranked vote for a candidate should never hurt your higher ranked choices makes it preferable, to me, than approval or a "true" condorcet method.

IRV is break-able... all electoral systems are. but it's much, much less breakable than 1 person 1 vote. and it allows a voter to express an actual preference.

a place to read up on this stuff is here: http://www.fairvote.org/

that's a pretty small pantry. the square footage difference isn't that large. but sure, in some cases that's a bigger deal, namely in very expensive metropolitan areas where square footage is very expensive, fair enough.

ceramic bricks are not a better storage material than water. especially not if you need water as an end result. you might be able to achieve higher densities with ceramics by jacking the temperature up higher, but you'll never achieve the level of cost effectiveness with ceramics that you can with water and insulation.

you can question my on demand assertion, but for anyone with regular DHW usage it's pretty easy math. the efficiency gain never even comes close to balancing out the increased first and maintenance costs. as your DHW increases, the efficiency differential decreases as well as jacket loss becomes a smaller and smaller percentage of the total load.

storing hot water for domestic use is a trivial engineering problem. your 25% is wrong... it's more like 10% for a standard tank... and slightly better insulation would fix even that. there are tanks now with 3" of insulation that lose very little heat. also bear in mind that 10% number is only as big as it is because the amount of energy most people use for Domestic hot water is very small, like 40-50 gallons a day. it's not objectively very much energy in any case.

on demands don't make any sense for anyone right now.

we can greatly upsize tanks and store heat for space heat too. make ice for cooling. lots of ways to store useful thermal energy exist. between those and electric cars we have the capability to increase grid storage rather massively in a relatively short period of time with technology that exists today.

Violence against people because of their choice of a phone?

Wow. Just. Wow.

It is one thing to champion a free OS... or talk about the upsides of an open ecosystem... but you are truly unbalanced to suggest open hostility towards people who don't share your views.

Also... what exactly is it that makes you like Samsung so much? They are every bit as much of an "evil corporation" as Apple... and depending on which report you're reading at the moment could be considered much worse...

I keep seeing this but I don't understand. How is it a "loss" that people can't just make copycat products?

Wouldn't that be a "win" because we want each individual company to try out innovate each other instead of just giving us "low rent" knockoffs?

I just don't get...

"the solution should be to fix the law-making process"

If only that were possible. It's simply not. Humans and human activities are too diverse to be able to make "perfect laws". The idea of a jury is to interpret the best laws we can make for the particular circumstance in the case.

If you think you can get 9 people to agree to "reverse vigilantism" then we have bigger problems in this country anyway...

Why do you want to go to "personal comments"? I don't think I said anything too inflammatory... I merely suggested that I consent to the rule of law and the right of juries to interpret that law. I don't like the idea that Americans would automatically want to overturn the will of a capable jury. Juries are the things saving us from our own laws and lawmakers...

I never said that they are perfection... and, in fact, that is the whole point of a trial "by your peers". Jury's are there to inject
reality into our legal system. Laws are drawn up in a fairly closed off environment by people typically thousands of miles away... a jury is there to interpret that law _for the people_ at the most local level possible: on a case by case basis.

We should really only question a few things about a jury. Did they properly represent "peers". Are they of sane mind. Were they tampered with?

If the answers to these questions come back ok... then the will of the jury can be said to represent the puclic's interpretation of the law in this case. And that is what matters.

This was, from my reading, a damn fine jury... it consisted of several people who work in the tech industry and a few who don't. It consisted of people with some knowledge in this area and some who don't. The fact that 9 people with this mix of backgrounds could agree that Samsung infringed... and did so _willfully_ speaks volumes.

Juries are not perfect... but neither is the law. That's why we have juries to interpret the law and apply it to each case independently.

If you have a problem with the verdict then you really have a problem with the law. Normal Americans were given facts and asked to interpret the law and this is the outcome. If you want to change the outcome in the future... then change the law.

But for now, all procedures were followed and Samsung was found to owe Apple some cash according to the current laws.

Just means they moved on from that issue _for that moment_. Never does it say they never returned to it. This is pretty normal in any group debate. You fight for a while about an issue... then you move on to try to find some common ground somewhere else... the COME BACK to the first issue much later to make a decision.

I really think these quotes are being taken out of context.

Well... for a report that is a little more balanced see this CNN article:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57500358-37/exclusive-apple-samsung-juror-speaks-out/

What is this world coming to when we want to "invalidate" the findings of a jury? What is the purpose of law and trials and jury if we're just going to "overturn" any ruling that is unpopular?

Why did it need to take _days_ for the jury to find in this case? This isn't a murder trial without a murder weapon. Nor is it some complicated manslaughter case involving cell-phone use while driving... or any other type of "grey area" type case with dire consequences of getting it wrong.

The jurors sat there for _weeks_ listening to this stuff. Do you not think that in that time they were able to form an opinion and when it came time to make a decision there was a bit of heated debate until everyone agreed and then they ruled? What exactly were they supposed to talk about for so long? The considered all the evidence (and had been considering it for weeks... this is ALL they were doing for _weeks_) and came to a conclusion.

Quit letting your own personal biases against patents and closed source / closed ecosystems get in the way of believing that a jury of, by all accounts very capable, people could rule in favor of Apple. The law is the law... this group of people think the law is in favor of Apple. That is all. Nothing more...

lol - well... I have work in the area but my wife is going with me to see some parts of the UK we haven't seen yet. I don't know that Preston would have been our first choice for going back to the UK... but the decision was made for us.

Thanks for the info on 3!

Thanks for the pointers... it's looking like 3 is the way to go. They have a £10 pay as you go plan that comes with 500MB of data. Sounds perfect for a couple of weeks and it looks like they have decent coverage where I'll be...

Anyone have specific experience with 3 in the Preston/Blackpool area?

I'm headed to England soon for vacation and need some advice on prepaid SIMs. I'm going to be mostly in the Blackpool/Preston/Manchester area... I'm going to have my first gen iPad with me which I successfully ran on a 3G prepaid SIM in Australia last year and I'd like to do that again.

Anyone have some advice on what service to go with in that area of England? I don't need anything crazy... just a couple of gigabytes total will work.

Thanks!

Very well said. This is how I feel on a daily basis. But what in the world to do about it?

I truly believe that there is just no hope.

The self-interest that has set itself into the people of this country will be our ultimate undoing. As people clamor for the government to give _them_ more everyone will turn a blind eye toward what would actually be good for the _whole country_.

50% of people don't pay taxes any more. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that this group of non-taxpaying citizens can just continue to vote themselves "more" until the whole thing collapses in on itself.

My only hope: That it doesn't happen in my lifetime....

Thanks for putting together a truly thoughtful and well written post on this subject!