And these pictures show the phenomena on a larger scale... sometimes it's interesting to look at the forest as well as the trees.

Yes, but this isn't an issue for the his laptop unless he's planning to exploit unfinished Windows 7 hotspot features.

TFL: Tube for London, aka the subway.

Actually Transport for London, which includes bus, bike, foot, boat, and other options for getting around the London area. The TFL Journey Planner is a fantastic resource.

It has been mentioned elsewhere, but I'll repeat the advice: get an Oyster card when you arrive. It's faster and cheaper than other ways to pay.

If you opt for time of day metering, the kWh you sell during the day is priced higher than the kWh you buy in the evening, at least here in Southern California.

Taking advantage of that difference is a big part of how solar installers make a financial case for installing photovoltaics. Of course that trick doesn't work as well for those of us who work at home during the day.

Southern California Edison breaks the bill for each kWh into two components, generation and delivery. In the case of a house that is generating during sunlight hours and consuming during dark hours, it seems only fair that delivery charges should reflect the power carried in either direction.

The flash on the product page includes a demo. Click on "oculis in action" and move the mouse over the text.

The big cursor is rather distracting though.

Rather than weighting by fuel consumption, why not introduce a multiplier based on vehicle weight?

The heavier vehicle puts more wear on the road, so it should pay more.

More like a buffer overload

Big sheets of PV are wonderful when you have big open expanses, but real world roof surfaces have vents, pipes, drains and the like. Rather than play tetris with rigid panels, or even with flexible panels, I'd love to be able to cut an opening in the PV material for each opening and get maximal use of the roof surface.

Is anyone working on that?

The launch vehicle's name is Ariane 5. The 'e' at the end makes a bit of a difference.

4- His first words were slightly xenaphobic.

Of course many of us geeks are intimidated by Lucy Lawless.

My neighbor put 28 south-facing panels (5kw) on her $600k tract house in OC last year.