The math is not too bad, but it does involve propeller theory which is where the magic happens. The goal is to make a propeller and cart that requires less energy than is provided by the wind pushing against the prop thrust. The energy supplied is:

E = (wind speed * prop thrust) - (cart drag * ground speed).

So if the energy required by the prop is less than E, the system works. You use the difference between cart speed - wind speed for the velocity of the air thru the prop.

Not necessary to store energy to go faster than the wind.

The reason this works is that the propeller is able to "push off" against the tail wind. Think of it like sitting on a skateboard and pushing off from a moving wall behind you with your arm. The difficulty in making it work is that you need very little drag and a very efficient propeller. But the energy equations for traveling faster than the wind do balance and there is no violation of energy conservation.

What they've done is poison any reason to have the service and offer incentive to pirate the programming. I watch very little TV now since it's become an ad infested crapfest. Subscription TV is just as bad, if not worse than broadcast TV. I've totally quit listening to the radio for the same reason.

Fascism: When govt and corporations actively work together to the detriment of the general population.

I still have a working Amiga 2000 from the late 80's with a 24bit graphics card. Yes, it has vintage porn on it.

A company called PureSpectrum is in the process of releasing a line of CFLs with a 0.97 power factor. They are also linearly dimmable and expected to be price competitive to current CFLs on the market. Unfortunately, they still use mercury, but it's down to only 1mg instead of the typical 4mg/bulb. PureSpectrum is also making a line of ballasts which have high power factors and are also dimmable for daylight harvesting applications.

It's a shame that the 4th Amendment hadn't anticipated the rise of such technology. I can't believe that the Founding Fathers would smile on this. Technology is rendering the bill of rights obsolete with its ability to circumvent the basic protections the framers of our constitution saw as our rights.

For a country that has a reputation for socialism, this sounds a lot like fascism.

BTW, I would have thought that after the telco immunity vote, the bailouts, secret copyright treaties, and other such nonsense that the US would be familiar with corporations being entangled in govt.

I agree. The only reason they are not storing the content now is technological limitations. Once that barrier is removed, they will certainly take the next step.

Wholesale surveillance is not limited by good will, it's limited by technology.

This goes beyond just hiring an experienced lawyer. Remember that Obama is also a strong supporter of the secret copyright treaty. It's pretty obvious he's in bed with the MPAA/RIAA interests.

PureSpectrum claims their lamps can use existing dimmers and can dim down to 10% brightness in a linear manner without flashing or buzzing like many of the current 'dimmable' CFLs seem to do.

There is a new generation of CFLs about to be released next month from a company called PureSpectrum. They have a new ballast which fixes the power factor problem (it's 0.93!) and is instant-on and fully dimmable. It's expected to be priced about the same as the current generation of non-dimmable CFLs.

Looking a bit further ahead, another company called Vu1 has a novel idea for a light which uses electron stimulation against phosphor to produce light (sorta like a crt). It has no mercury and is also dimmable. It's also shaped like a regular incandescent so lamp shades will fit on it. They will be less expensive than LEDs and produce much better color rendering, but they will likely cost more than CFLs.

I was wondering if anyone was going to connect this to 2010. Maybe Jupiter has finally passed puberty.

How about we abolish the DHS altogether? What an expensive boondoggle it turned out to be. The worst part is that it got formed because the various intelligence agencies were engaged in turf wars and refusing to share info on possible threats to the US. The solution? Create another monster agency. Sigh.