I've worked in management positions and I don't really need advice on who my most valuable employees are. But I wouldn't mind having this data to show to underperformers. It's sometimes hard to convince individuals that they are not as good as they think they are.

(mini-)USB is not very good as a general consumer standard. It only provides 5v, it is a relatively expensive plug (many pins) and it is hard to plug in for older people.

There is a much better idea to have a plug with one extra pin that determines the voltage, that would cover 80% of all devices instead of just phones. It's called UniCharge and consumer electronics companies have been looking at it for years but balked at the switchover cost. Cost after switchover would be much lower because you can simply leave the adapter out of the box and sell them separately just like they do with batteries.

A bit of a push from a government might actually help here.

• USB connectors are relatively expensive, a few dimes each. In a world where a simple power supply can cost as little is $1 (whole sale factory), that is never going to compete with a 2 pin plug that costs only a few cents.
• Plus they are limited to 5V, which means you need to add conversion circuitry for anything else.
• And old people have trouble plugging them in.
• And they are not as durable as simpler designs.
• And they can't supply enough power for fast charging batteries
• And there are better alternatives (that's a subject for another post)

Although I'm a staunch believer in free markets, for basic infrastructure like payment systems perhaps a guiding role by the government wouldn't be a bad idea, just like they have a role with regular old currency.

They have been tried and convicted in a US court: the are indeed a monopoly

Almost. They re-index it every now and then, and it tends to drift upwards, so it should be a bit above 100 now. Yes, it goes up, that surprised me as well. The average IQ a century ago would have been around 80.

...27000+ officials that can issue a passport. It should be trivial to find a corrupt official in, say, Italy who will create a passport for you with the right biometrics. How is this going to make anyone safer?

I can't find the reference right now but I remember from economics class that 1% growth of gross national product corresponds to roughly 0.5% growth in energy consumption of a country. (Although it depends on how advanced a particular economy is).

So you would have to more than halve the US GDP to reduce the carbon footprint by 25%. Not a great idea, it's less painful to get the same reduction through technological innovation.

And the alternatives to CFLs are made in China as well, making the whole shipping issue moot

Yeah, I know. Browser crash made me do it (safari). Oh, well.

TFA states that he was also convicted for obscene e-mails describing sex acts with children. Anybody else find this even more worrying than the pictures?

I guess this means you can commit a felony by posting a few choice lines on slashdot?

(Posting anon since I don't want to be associated with this subject, however remotely)

Good point. If you have a chance to go to MIT they simply offer the best CS course by any standard. I would say the top 10% of US schools are better than their Euro counterparts. My guess is the the average US school is probably below their Euro counterpart. And you get a nice culture boost form attending a European school, and they are often much cheaper (local tax payers picking up the bill). So, unless you think you can get into the top 10% in the US, a european school is a good idea.

(I have a degree from both MIT and a European school - Delft University)

So is Guido van Rossum (inventor of Python). They both moved to the US though. On the other hand, Andrew S. Tanenbaum went the other way. As far as I know he's still teaching at Amsterdam University. And the Netherlands is pretty easy to get around without learning a foreign language. If you are considering the Netherlands, the CS program is better at Delft University of Technology though.

Two reasons, firstly the benefits are long term, the cost are short term. Adding a few dollars per device, when you sell several hundred million, seriously impacts your quarterly results. The benefits to consumers, the environment and the bottom line were clear and pretty certain. But it would take 3 to 5 years before the benefits outweighed the investment.
More importantly: firms that would not participate could essentially avoid the cost and then free ride later on. So the management said: let's try to free ride. In the end none of the consumer electronic firms involved (all the big ones) went ahead with it.

I've actually been involved in a study for a large consumer electronics firm and the benefits of standardisation are substantially larger than the profit that would be lost from no longer being able to sell chargers and related equipment. Just imagine: if chargers were as standard as batteries you could leave them out of the box giving you a huge saving on shelf space and transportation costs. Did you know that there are laws in Europe requiring consumer electronic firms to have to be able to replace power supplies for products that went out of production 7 years ago? There are warehouses with dozens of obsolete charges just lying around. Image the cost of that.