Westinghouse Electric Company was bought in 2005 for $5 billion by the Japanese company TOSHIBA,
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westinghouse_Electric_Company

And the U.S. has the British company BP drilling much of the U.S. oil.
Why is the U.S. excited about its self-sufficiency?
Why does the U.S. push foreign company energy projects more than its own projects?
With China producing 30 percent of the world's engineers, Russia 7 percent, and the U.S. only 3 percent (see this week's Science article); and
with 8 out of 9 of China's political leaders engineers;
what part of the world's engineering curve does the U.S. think it sits?

In the past 6 months, USDA has made available past agriculture censuses,
now back to 1925.
      http://agcensus.mannlib.cornell.edu/AgCensus/homepage.do
However, while these are searcheable pdf's,
there appears to be no quality control so errors appear not in the image but in the underlying searcheable data.
In some sense, the searcheability is a mere bonus of the scanning software used;
although for such pdf's, your own OCR software could create this searcheability.
Since you can't import these into statistical or spreadsheet software,
such pdf's merely amount to putting a library's paper document on your desk.

With some Perl programming, they could be made into unusual csv (comma separated) files,
though those underlying errors would remain.
At least each such csv files could be created the same way for all 50 states,
and used in statistical software the same way for all 50 states.

I went to purchase socks today from
      http://socksappeal.com/
but its registrar,
      GoDaddy
failed to associate an IP address (failed to perform DNS service)
although SocksAppeal has paid for its domain into March, 2012.
I purchased from GoDaddy's customer SocksAppeal just 5 months ago,
and now GoDaddy might (other possible reasons) cause a commercial business to fail.

Two variables deceive us, but our simple minds handle one variable

Simpsons Paradox,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson's_paradox
shows how women (Class1) can be admitted (Class2) to every academic department at a higher rate
[essentially a percent, not a straight count] than men,
yet overall departments admit men at a higher rate (one large department accepts women at a higher rate but more men apply).

So too, Slashdot's problem perplexes the human with its two variables: day of week and male/female in flat-land.
Remove day-of-week, as one response mentioned,
then simple human intuition works in line-land.

For 15 years I bought slacks from stores like Lands End for prices like $45.
But the keys and pen in my pocket often wore through the pockets over 4 months.
I decided slacks get designed for the delicate look, resulting in un-delicate wear.
For 2 years now, I instead wear twill slack-like workers pants to my dress-in-a-tie office.

I searched internet for something like "automotive" and "pants",
from which I started purchasing Red Kap and Dickies pants.
I now largely buy Red Kap pants which sometimes have a button rather than clasp closure.
The Red Kap models that have satisfied me are
      PT10
      PT62
      PZ20 -- I started wearing to see if they pill less
      PT60 -- I started wearing to see if they pill less
These pants cost $15 to $18, which made me wary since I was comfortable with Lands End pants costing $45.
These inexpensive pants are not "cheap" pants,
as I have never worn a hole in Red Kap pockets and (unlike Lands End) I have had no seams rip.

While I have bought Red Kap from a few companies,
I now buy from
      http://www.automotiveworkwear.com

So, find who needs durable pants (mechanics) and buy the pants they buy.

If our laws allow all forms of energy generation,
the method should be determined by economics.
Economics would account for externalities: pollution from coal, long-term storage from nuclear, noise from windmills, ...
No matter what your political affiliation,
you probably must stretch reason to conclude that
government should subsidize nuclear power plants
or any power plants.

Build any power plants, fine;
but why must taxpayers fund their creation?
The response: because the risks are high.
Hmmm. High risks for capitalists
are also high risks for government.
If the risks are so high that capitalists would rather fund wind energy generation or coal energy generation,
why would government build nuclear power plants?

Can't government say "yea, nuclear power plants",
rather than
"yea, nuclear power plants, and here's $6 billion".

When government pays for (guarantees loans on) 90% of a nuclear power plant, any of us would gladly put up a negligible 10%.
This is not private enterprise, this is government enterprise.
Any of us would gladly run a company funded by government dollars -- what a deal.

A couple days before the final scores, Team California was first.
Their house remains far better looking than Team Germany's or UIUC, which was a box whose white outside on barn wood looked like a chapped child who spent too much time outdoors.
See
http://www.solardecathlon.org/scoring/
where Team California has a much better architecture (it was beautiful, comfortable, spacious), which is the main observation one sees onsite. UIUC won only on the two ratings of "comfort zone" and "net metering", which we tourists didn't notice onsite.
I found the engineers of UIUC more talkative than those of Team California. For example, UUIC asked if two miles of wiring in the German house was a reasonable approach to a long-term robust house.
And they mentioned that there is an industry that converts old barns to wood for new buildings.

We have all heard how UIUC excels in many fields.
I wouldn't consider Team California's Santa Clara University a top tier school; nonetheless, they produced a more beautiful and architecturally intricate solar house.
UIUC was an engineer's house;
Team California's was a house regular folks would want.

I viewed these houses over four different days, from construction to display.
Among the top contenders, some equipment was obviously German,
Bosch Dishwashers and German refrigerators for most every top contender.
Others viewing these solar houses often asked where to get some equipment on the top houses.
Solar cells: Germany
Heat exchanger: Germany
Kitchen equipment: Germay
. . .: Germany
While some contest categories like architecture couldn't rely on German equipment,
this solar house contest seemed like the post WWII race for the best space program
-- who had the better German scientists, USSR or US with Werner von Braun.
Amongst these houses, who had the better German solar, heating, kitchen, ... equipment.

A couple years ago, Germany produced half the world's solar power.
While one can laud Germany, one must take note that the U.S. has bowed out of much science, technology, and the education of them (except biology, medicine, computers, and military equipment).
All the women and men on the German Team prodded the audience
and answered questions like engineers
-- a half Carribean, half German woman answered questions in contrasts
that signaled her engineering mind.
In contrast, the Virginia Tech team seemed lackadaisical
lounging around, ignorant about many aspects of their own house
-- was the Virginia Tech team just there to party?
In front of their TVs and computers, in their cars and trains,
with four times the population of Germany,
half the U.S. badmouths science and the striving for its knowledge (elitism).

Still, from wherever energy generation and usage technology comes, we are thankful.
The German house used phase-changing materials to dampen energy fluctuations,
a couple types of solar cells including some for shaded areas,
and was the only house with a second livable level.
Another house could electrically dim its windows.
The University of Illinois Urbana Champaign house sealed its doors like a commercial freezer.
One house changed one wall's colors according to cool or warm temperatures.
Thank you, scientists.

From a changelog on Debian packages,
http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/x/xtv/xtv_1.1-10/changelog
comes the following for an early release of xtv,
    xtv (1.1-1) unstable; urgency=low
      * Initial Release.
      -- Jay Kominek Tue, 16 Sep 1997 17:14:36 -0400

I remember using xtv to view (and interact, as I recall) with others' X11 displays.
We probably installed this open source software from a third party's 8mm tape.