Probably not on the satellites. Trace paths are pretty short, so induced currents are less of a problem than you'd expect. Still, I'd rather we not test it.

There's also a chance that the earths oceans will suddenly turn into gold.

How about something less weasel-worded? I suggest:

"If you get in a car wreck in the next 20 thousand years, maybe it was because the Earth's magnetic poles were in the process of reversing."

I eagerly await your proposed failure mechanism which could possibly lead to a week long power outage across the entire nation of the United States.

Actually, not. Trace paths are much, MUCH shorter than they used to be. Although I can't recall the last phone I owned which had a 200km long antenna. Which is how long a wire you'd likely need to see any effect from a solar storm (Pro tip: this means being plugged in to the wall socket at the time, so keep that in mind ).

Spacecraft live different lives than ground based gear, so your GPS/satellite calls may fail. But your phone will be fine, as will anything else not plugged in to the wall.

"Especially once fully filled the IOPS performance drops from ~3000 IOPS like a brick to ~1000 IOPS which a small set of hard drives can fulfill so the only good thing it's left for is latency."

Does your environment support trim natively? Just curious.

My environment does not, and after a week or two I start to notice performance going south and remember to run the 'optimization' utility intel offers. This on an X-25M, G2.

As an aside, I've noticed that your average Dell workstation cannot support two X-25's. End up with I/O deadlocks. It is very sad. Pathetic even.

tax rate on profits of 100%*( 1/(hours since purchase) ). Instadeath to sub-millisecond automated trading.

that tiny circuit board == electronic ballast.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_ballast

Except for that damned hum. WHY - for the love of $deity!!! - can humanity not seem to develop a SILENT ballast that contractors will BUY.

Oh, yeah. Because contractors have to be cheap bastards.

I don't think he was referring to EMF; I think more the headaches caused by ballasts that don't properly suppress the 60Hz flicker. So, *really* cheap ballasts, or really old ones. Or building maintenance which doesn't change bulbs on a schedule, but waits until a bulb 'burns out' (which is long after those four and 8 foot tubes should actually be replaced).

meh. It would be nice if you did research *with your eyes and mind open* instead of reading only that which conforms to your preconceived notions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well

-- The mercury is not insignificant. There are milligrams to tens of milligrams of Hg per CFL. Cheap CFLs contain up to four times as much as high-quality ones. On a *household* scale, it is not HUGELY significant. But as mercury leaves the system at a tiny fraction of the rate at which it accumulates, it's something you really should consider when handling the bulbs. If you break a bulb you ABSOLUTELY should open the windows and exit the room if pregnant. Let the room air out and return to clean it up *after* the already-evaporated mercury has dissipated.

Where the mercury *IS* hugely significant is landfills. And transport. And mining. And some of the supposed 'recycling' centers.

-- The lights, they are crap, they take too long to turn on. I've owned some rather spendy ones from local hardware stores, as well as the 'cheap' versions. They all sucked for 'quick' use fixtures ( e.g. bathrooms ). Fine for lights that stay on for a while. Color has certainly improved. Perhaps you know where to buy really nice CFLs: next time, say where. Personally, I think that you are just more forgiving than I am.

-- Also on heating: heating the ceiling is rarely helpful even in winter time. Although here, again, you fail to do any reasoning and choose simply to debate through insult. Turns out that if you bother to do even a little math you find that, in some climates *it does NOT make sense to buy CFL bulbs*. Funny thing: winter has shorter days, and the further North, the greater the difference between long summer days and short, short winter days. Makes all the difference. Of course, fuel prices have gone up, and CFL prices down since 2003, when I actually bothered to do the math for Chicago - but all that means is that the break-even line has moved North. As for heating the ceiling: fans are cheap. You should use ceiling fans regardless of your source of heat if you live in a cold climate.

-- CFL's give people headaches because the ballasts induce a 60Hz harmonic to the lights. This gets *very subtly* worse as the cheap ballasts age. Even some of the more expensive ones have the problem. The oscillation is easily noticed with the motion-sensitive portions of the eye (your peripheral vision) if you happen to be young/have good eyes. If not, you wonder why the hell you get headaches, but only with florescent lighting. Same reason heavy computer users got headaches back in the day, when 60Hz was the default refresh rate on big fat CRT monitors.

I also encourage everyone to do their own research. And please: read even those articles were the first paragraph makes you uncomfortable.

Interesting. I wish I had time to look into this further. I haven't had to strip down a newer car engine, so I don't have the first hand knowledge I would like. Visual inspection of a few newer cars, combined with the 'dear god, low-hanging fruit for fuel economy' aspect had me convinced that the direct control of airflow was long since past.

I completely agree, of course; if you physically control the air intake, it most certainly isn't drive by wire.

I had unstrapped and opened the door by the time I'd fully crossed the yellow line. I had enough motive power to coast about a car-length past the intersection, very slight incline - power stopped before the front of the car had made it to the middle of the 2-lane highway.

Believe me, I was _absolutely_ not intending to stick around to witness a T-bone collision from the inside. But it was a timing thing. Closing speed at 65mph ( average *actual* speed on that road ) is disconcertingly fast.

Not sure about that manual control over the engine/transmission coupling: I've had automatics where it took a real force of will to shift from '2nd' into drive or vice-versa. Trying it when the engine is actually revved would have probably taken a sledge hammer. A manual, of course, you just push in the clutch and let the engine blow up.

Having had a throttle cable break on a car leaving me to drift powerless across rural highway, I respectfully disagree. Had I chosen to gun it to cross in front of someone, I'd likely be dead. Had *anyone* been approaching from the East of this particular (nearly blind) intersection, I would likely be dead.

I know how both systems work, in general, from pedal to engine. Give me drive by wire any day. But for the love of #&(*# make sure that there is a kill switch in BOTH software and hardware. E.g. full application of brakes physically grounds the throttle input - beyond the controller, *all* modern cars are drive by wire, as the fuel injection system determines how much fuel to add. Long past are the days that a cable rotated the air intake baffle on the carburetor.

Way better to be arrested for spinning cookies on the highway than get a speeding ticket. ;~)

You are right in all of your points. Every last one. ESPECIALLY the 'this should be the default state of things'.

However, you missed one small aspect: I represent JRandomCorporations(0 through 10000). And I have decided that I am going to publish all abandoned works online. But feel free to e-mail or post me a letter if I accidentally publish your non-abandoned work.

The letter you send to 're-up' your copyright should go to the copyright office. Every 10 years sounds fine with me. If you don't re-up, THEN the work is considered abandoned, and becomes public domain.

And funny thing. This used to be the case here in the US. Alas. Lawyers.

"Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

The small and medium sized unions that don't have 'monopoly power' over a particular industry tend to have a very positive effect for *everyone*. Up and down the line - companies that employ these unionized employees know the rules, and the members of the union know the rules.

The large unions that do exert 'monopoly power' over a particular industry are so bad as to be disgusting. Not just for the employers, but for the members as well. How many GM employees get their pension? Yeah. The total amount of money promised to union employees nation wide for pensions will, at an educated guess, bankrupt the country if actually paid out as promised. And some of the promises are so absurd as to be comical! What business could *possibly* hope to pay for 40 years of retirement pensions for an employee who works for 30, in some cases 20 years?

As already pointed out, the Longshoreman's union is just a big 'guaranteed employment' racket. And the country pays for it in goods prices. Perhaps we should be paying more, to keep the money in the country. But I want the extra money *I* spend on local goods to go to people who have a drive to innovate. NOT somebody who is willing to work day in and day out at a job a robot has been able to do for a decade.

I think many, possibly most programmers, want to see (or at least wouldn't be against) stricter nationwide *laws* regarding salaried employees, comp time etc. But most devs are acutely aware of the dangers of unions.

Personally, I *despise* the *NEED* for unions. And there is need. I look at the restaurant industry where I live and just shudder at the phenomenal instability the average server lives with, on wages that are nowhere *near* high enough to allow planning for downturns. My field may have instability, but my skills demand a salary sufficient to allow for significant savings, in spite of my more expensive 'lifestyle'. And if restaurant servers haven't unionized yet, why would one expect well paid developers to do so?