Strictly speaking it is not the energy "potential" that is the the problem with solar and wind power. Plenty of potential, but the land area requirements to practically collect the energy are very big so there are some very real environmental downsides.

But the real problem, as Bill Gates has properly identified is the "baseload" requirement, so if you can only rely on solar and wind 50% to 60% of the time then you need to be able to store the energy efficiently and you need a "smart grid" to distribute the unpredictable energy output. Put it all together and you really can't get to a mostly solar and wind powered grid without huge drops in efficiency through conversion and storage which further increase the deployment costs and land use requirements. Such a system would cost so much that it would have a seriously negative economic impact. Right now solar and wind can get a free ride (efficiency boost) as long as most of the grid is powered via other sources that can provide a consistent baseload

So, I'd say that the physics can be made to work at great cost, but agree that the economics can't work with current or currently foreseeable technologies.

That said, something around 20% solar, wind on the grid would be a good policy goal. But the 80% goal needs to come from nuclear and natural gas and whatever hydro-electric already exists in the US. With the other goals to reduce coal and oil as much as possible and to increase efficiency in energy usage wherever possible.

Seriously... "What followed was a race against time to solve the technical, engineering and legal challenges..."

You might want to carefully read the article yourself. This wasn't just a matter or resetting some routers and unplugging them from Tripoli and doing this while under fire from Gaddafi's mercenaries. At least some people, especially non-Libyans, had to know they were going to get paid for all this work and equipment. They basically had to set up a provisional national telecom company after setting up a national government in just a few weeks. Yes, most were probably doing so out of a sense of patriotism, but still you have to have set up some sort of corporate structure to organize this or else all you are doing is setting up unconnected "hot spots" for local calls. Yes, I think politics probably played a big role in the time it took to get this put together. That doesn't mean corruption, it just means that to put together a large communication system serving millions of people that requires a dispersed physical presence that you are going to have to work with the government, and in this case the government is just coming together itself. And I think the "contracts" part probably applies to external agreements outside of Libya, inside Libya it is whatever form of agreements with the transitional government that they could get.

Actually, I think it was somewhat disturbing that it took a month to get this communication system back online. Even with fighting going on West of Benghazi it seems that getting the infrastructure back in place would have been a huge priority for a variety of reasons and that getting towers back online even just for local communication would have taken days not weeks. I think the delay was probably due more to organizational issues of who had the authority to award contracts in the new regime and how to coordinate restoration of services than any technical or even security reasons.

It does add an interesting twist to the story to hear TG claim that Tesla engineers told them 55 miles. But that is not what they said in the episode. According to the clip I saw they portray the driver running out of charge (which didn't actually happen) and then they say that "we worked out that on our track it would run out after just 55 miles".

I think the only thing that really matters is if around 55 miles is an accurate number for its range at track speeds or not. I think it is crap that TG didn't actually run the car for 55 miles on its track on a full charge and it is also crap that Tesla doesn't just run the car around a similarly configured track and similar speeds and tell us what the range really would have been.

Actually, sorry they said "worked out" not calculated just after they portrayed the driver losing power on the track. The meaning is clear and the meaning was misleading. But like I said just run the car at its top speed and see how far it goes. Would take less time than talking about it on Slashdot.

I would expect if they said "calculated" and then showed the car running out of juice that they had actually tested the car and run out of charge at 55 miles rather than pulled a "calculation" out of their butt and then made it look like it was based on actually driving the car. I think there is a simple solution. Actually run the car at track speeds until it runs out of juice. If I were on a jury I would want to see those results. If TG was right about 55 miles, plus or minus 10 miles then they win. If Tesla is right and it is significantly over that then Tesla wins.

I agree, except I would add if someone is on the fence and simply hears about that episode then they are less likely to buy. Word of mouth and second hand information is a multiplier that marketing is very familiar with. The viewers of Top Gear are just the tip of the ice berg.

Not a bad idea, but if it is too isolated but without the ability to independently sell or market its products then you get another Xerox PARC situation where you re-invent the world and then nobody at corporate understands what you do or wants to sell something that will compete with the existing bread and butter business. Can also breed resentment with other parts of the organization that are trying to compete internally and externally but with all the corporate overhead that their micro start-up peers do not have.

So, yes spur innovation and create nimble organizational units or subsidiaries, but don't make rookie political mistakes and demoralize all the other people that you hired to build great products and grow the business.

Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, HP, Dell and EMC first.

IP theft is a real problem and I am concerned that the real effect of a first to file system is that it will reward those companies that have the best corporate spies. Being nearly impossible to prove theft of an invention if one covers their tracks, the real deterrent to this type of theft has always been the risk that the inventor would be able to show an earlier invention date. With a first to file system as long as the thief covers their tracks and creates a false paper trail then they can get away with it even if it goes to trial. I guess with a first to invent system, then it was always possible to create notebooks with false dates, but now you don't have to guess an early enough date you just have to create a believable date. Could be a subtle but important difference.

What do you mean "they" The UN is in NY City and was created primarily as a US institution to keep the peace that "we" won during WWII. We (the US) give our UN treaties lip service to the extent that we want to keep it propped up as a tool of US foreign policy.

The point was that we don't "declare war" because we have signed treaties that outlaw offensive war without security council approval. Doesn't mean we don't go to war, just means we try to say they are defensive or cite old UN resolutions when we do.

That is why weapons of mass destruction was so important in Iraq. Part of the cease fire of the Gulf War was a pledge by Saddam Hussein to give up his WMD. We couldn't get a new UN resolution through so the legal pretense for the Iraq War was in essence a violation of the cease fire agreement. We went to war with Iraq for other strategic, geopolitical, and geopersonal reasons but WMD became the headline because of the US wish to adhere to our treaties.

Not declaring war, but instead authorizing use of force is part of this dance we do with the UN.

It is a bit more complicated than just Congress being spineless.

The treaty that we have signed creating the UN and subsequent treaties basically means we can't overtly declare war in the traditional sense without violating the treaty. So Congress can declare war if they want to, but they instead have chosen to try and live within the UN system. A system that the US largely created after WWII to prevent future wars. That is how we get these use of force resolutions or "police actions" that try to work within the confines of the UN system that pretty much outlaws full fledged offensive wars. It does seem a bit weasely, because on one level war is war, but considering how many people died in WWII and how many people could die in WWIII I am willing to give the diplomats a little bit of credit for coming up with a system that at least makes the major powers think twice and try and restrain themselves militarily.

"Confidential" is actually lower and still considered "classified". My understanding, based on media reports, is that many or most of these documents are actually marked confidential and only some are marked secret.

In contrast to a historical reference like the leaking of the Pentagon Papers which was in fact "top secret" at the time it was leaked and published by the New York Times.

The ends do justify the means when considered holistically.

The prosecution will undoubtedly preface everything by saying that protecting secrets while maintaining an orderly process of declassification is important to the functioning of government and to national security. That is an end which they are seeking through the punishment of Bradley Manning.

To the contrary and an equally valid an argument is that the outcome has been on balance positive in that once it was revealed how US diplomats evaluated foreign leaders it showed to the people of these countries that their governments not only were not respected but were rather the laughing stock of the world.

But it is also fair to say that people have died because of these leaks. Perhaps fighting for a good cause, but still dying. In which case the outcome very much matters. Dying (and killing) for a good cause is better than dying for a failed one.

Also consider the morality of betraying a confidence placed in you. That is an outcome also.

So perhaps one particular end does not justify the act, but a more perfect justice would consider all the ripples from this act and judge and punish accordingly. If I had to call it based on an admittedly incomplete set of information. He is probably guilty of mishandling classified information and should receive some minimal punishment.

I do believe that law and order and national security are important enough to justify some secrets and that people must weigh some serious consequence when deciding to leak. 6 months or 1 year in jail (including time served) and dishonorable discharge would cover it in my mind. And it would wisely balance both the actual and potential harm and the benefits of his alleged act.

I agree. It could work and it might be nice to do. But what is the objective? To do it just because we can?

Effectively and efficiently harnessing and utilizing energy and raw materials in space and on other planets is key to further space exploration. Focusing on robotic exploration and automated mining and manufacturing would give us the type of infrastructure we need in space to build the ships and space stations that people might actually be able to live in self sustainably. And by the time that infrastructure is in place, our robotic explorers will have been continuing to explore the solar system and beyond.

These one-off very expensive missions don't scale well. But some of the types of technologies we would develop for robotic manufacturing and exploration could also be used here on Earth.