I ran the article thru google translate and it is the same hydroplant I found.
The article does mention the existing weir but for some reason it doesn't say it actually uses it

The pamphlet I found is
http://www.enbw.com/content/en/group/_media/_pdf/water_is_energy.pdf
Page 26 explains what they did and page 29 has some details of the plant (esp the head of water)

I don't mind friends and family asking for help in XP, There's a good chance I already know the answer and the rest don't need that much effort.
Anything they are likely to do or want has usually already been done.

Windows 7 support usually involves explaining why they need to click OK so often (I am looking squarely at Adobe here) Yes, I want to update, Yes I give permission to Update, Yes I want to download the update, Yes I accept the terms and conditions, Yes I am happy you finished updating. Yes I want you to stop asking stupid questions.

Do you have a link to the Heidelburg hydro plant?

The only one I could find is the Karlstor hyrdoplant which is a standard run of river hydroplant
That means it relies on a head of water generated by a weir to turn the turbine.
The new Karlstor generating plant was built under water at the site of the existing weir so as to keep the existing view.
It has a 2.6 metre head and uses 140 cubic metres a second to generate 3.1MW from 2 turbines.

While the genset might be hidden, the weir is not. The is different to the GP's suggestion

Extracting energy from kinetic energy of moving water alone is nowhere near as efficient (or controllable) as using a head of water. If it were, it would already be done.
The changing political environment of GW might be enough to make something like this more attractive but I doubt it.

The article said nothing about silverlight being dropped

It said that developers are upset that it is not being used for the upcomming windows 8 desktop

Silverlight will remain for web based "Rich Interactive Applications" (as long as you run windows and use the plugin's) - just like it does now.

If developers chose silverlight in the hope it would be the new desktop app system they were mistaken and will pay the (a small) price for their decision

Until reality hits home - like rolling blackouts, then things will happen
Then it will quickly change to Burn more coal, Build more Nuclear plants etc.

Turbines in a river - not exactly a new idea
The web site you mentioned is rather bereft of details
I have done a couple of basic calcs and have come up with each generator being able to generate roughly 250 watts (1 metre turbine, 5kph river and 50% efficiency)
250 watts continuous for a whole year is a bit over 2MWh, to get 2TWh will require nearly a million of these things in rivers. No wonder the site was bereft of details

I can imagine the NIMBY arguments being rather loud when it comes to rivers littered with these things

Ahh memories
I remember seeing that photo and gasping at how much larger MIR was compared to Skylab
There were a lot of details about Skylab in the press but very little details about MIR for some strange reason.

Surely if they have broken a beta version, they would be better to wait until a few weeks after the production version is released and thus maximise it's usefulness .
Telling everyone also tells Apple where the weakness lies and beta is relatively easy to fix

Fox News? Sounds a little too much like The Republicans to me. I don't have any interest in listening to what a bunch of terrorist sympathizing talking heads have to say.

OMG, That sounded to bad to be true so I had to google it
I have never heard of that story and I wish I hadn't searched it.
Heck, I wish it went to Goatse or something

What on Earth are you on????

Have you ever seen anyone on Speed? They are maniacs
While people high on Downers might not be aggressive, they most certainly are when they are going through withdrawal.
Questing takes on a whole new meaning for people who need to get high again.

It is becoming obligatory that half the news stories have half arsed irrelevant comments from Facebook or Twitter Unfortunately I suspect our journalists will find a way around minor obstructions like the French promotion laws.

Sounds more like a stupid chain letter to me

Your lack of cynicism is awe inspiring
Which story would sell more papers "North Koreans get scholarship to study computing abroad" or "North Korean CyberWarriors being train abroad"
Only information that agrees with a predetermined position is useful (in politics anyway)
Case in point, the information from defectors that formed the Iraqi National Congress.
All the information was in complete disagreement with the UN weapons Inspections - Guess which group was denigrated?
yep the one that disagreed with the predetermined position
There are many other examples I could choose (creationism anyone)
Basically, if you don't know the underlying reason for a statement, you have no chance of determining the probability of truth
My bias is simple, I hate the term cyberwarrior
(Cyber anything = tabloid shit = don't trust)

Defector says something host country wants to hear
Who would of thought such a thing would happen? . .