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Comment Re:Surprised? (Score 1) 651

The important fact that needs to be noted here is that this decision was made in Canada where under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, all rights and freedoms are subject to reasonable limits that are prescribed by law (http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/charter/1.html#anchorbo-ga:l_I-gb:s_1). This essentially allows the government to limits rights and freedoms provided they are deemed reasonable and justifiable in a free and democratic society. This differs from the US Constitution where the First Amendment prevents Congress from infringing upon the freedom of speech (among other freedoms).

Comment Re:Not completely outrageous (Score 1) 367

Concerning the natural gas monthly connection fee during summer months, unless you have an electric water heater what do you think is being used to heat the water tank to provide you with hot water? I have to question why Xcel is choosing to charge the fee only for users who install solar panels after April 2010? To make it completely fair it should be applied to all subscribers. From TFA, if any surplus electricity is directed back to the system to be used by other subscribers, I wonder they're getting reimbursed for this?
Education

How Ancient Mechanics Thought About Machines 76

friedo writes "The NYTimes has an interesting piece about Prof. Mark Schiefsky, a Harvard classicist with an interest in the history of science. Schiefsky pores over ancient texts in Greek, Latin, and Arabic to decipher the origin of knowledge that's been taken for granted for millennia. For example, a Greek treatise published a generation before Archimedes' proofs of the lever laws explains why, if you were a galley slave, you'd want to work the oars near the center of the ship instead of closer to the hull."

Feed Nintendo considering Wii keyboard? (engadget.com)

Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

Further shortening the list of possible Wii peripherals, Game Informer is now saying that Nintendo is considering a keyboard for the console, supposedly to make online surfing a bit easier. Unfortunately, they don't have much more info than that tantalizing tidbit to provide, with the entirety of the report encapsulated in the shot above courtesy of our pals at Wii Fanboy. Given Microsoft's recent move on the QWERTY front, however, it certainly doesn't seem to be too outlandish a rumor. Let's just hope Nintendo doesn't decide to extend the Wiimote's motion sensing capabilities to it -- there's no telling what sort of damage a flying keyboard could wreak.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!


Feed MIT researchers tout "practical" holographic video (engadget.com)

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

A team of researchers at MIT seem to think they've finally come up with a way to make holographic video a bit more practical for everyday use, touting the new system they've developed as a possible display for PCs and video game consoles, Technology Review reports. According to the researchers, the display will be small enough to fit in an entertainment center when finished, boast a resolution as good as a standard analog television, and only cost a "couple of hundred dollars." Much of that increased practicality comes from the fact that this latest version, dubbed the Mark III, simply relies on a standard graphics processor instead of specialized hardware. The researchers also managed to streamline some of the other optical hardware, which they say made the previous incarnations as big as a dining-room table. It apparently still has a few drawbacks, however, with it currently only able to display monochromatic holograms in a space about the size of a Rubik's Cube. They insist that's only a temporary problem though, and promise that the next model will be comparable in size to a desktop monitor and boast a full range of color. No word if there'll also be a port of everybody's favorite quasi-holographic arcade game, Time Traveler, to go along with it, but we can hope.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!


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