I do wonder how randomized the shutting down of lights were in that study. Did those towns shut off every light? Or, did they only shut off lights in low risk areas? And, does the study differentiate between dimmed lights and lights shut off completely? The argument put forward by the Automobile Association is to not shut off the lights on roads where the speed limit is greater than 40 mph since the stopping distance for cars is much longer at high rates of speed and that lighting helps prevents deaths in those situations. This makes sense to me - shut off your lights based on risk analysis rather than a blanket shut them all off.

I find it rather strange that they would have only offered to send him to another hotel. If he truly did have a bed bug infestation, then likely his clothing, personal belongings, and even luggage were infested as well. Sending him to another hotel could have spread the infestation. My understanding is that many hotels, when confronted with this issue, offer to dry clean all of the guest's clothing, buy them new luggage, and then move them to another room/hotel. Worst case for the guest is that they bring the infestation home with them. Bed bugs can be very difficult to eradicate.

Actually, this is different. In the EU and US, names of food is controlled as trademarks. You can still produce sparking wine in the Napa Valley, but you can't claim it came from the Champagne region. What Malaysia is claiming is that they own the "copyright" to these food and that no one else is allowed to even produce it elsewhere. Of course, the US and EU fight over their trademarks - the US considers "champagne" (little "c") to be a semi-generic term, thus "California champagne" is o.k. Same with terms like Cheddar. And, the EU failed to recognize US designations, such as Idaho potatoes or Vidalia onions until they lost a WTO case in 2004.

Actually, what you get to see is what other travelers are doing with their computers. In my experience, you don't see too many locals in the internet cafes, especially if you're in some backpackers' ghetto. I also don't agree that "seedy" = "character."

Of course they could do a removable battery. The point they made in the keynote was that a removable battery takes up a bunch of space. By making the battery non-removable, they gained 40% more room for a bigger, longer-lasting battery. The design trade off here was removable battery for more battery life. The market will decide whether that was a good trade.

My AP Calculus teacher took this further. We had a quiz every day. On one day, he would teach a concept and give homework on that concept. The next day, we would review the homework in class; and, then he would move on to a new concept. The day after, first thing we did was take a quiz on what we were supposed to have learned on the previous two days (lecture plus homework). We leap frogged through the whole year this way. There would be major tests along the way at milestones, but since these tests were based on the quizzes, if you did well on the quizzes, you should do well on the tests. You had constant feedback in the form of the homework and quizzes as to how well you were keeping up. So, you couldn't slack for most of the quarter and then be surprised when you had to take a test you were completely unprepared for. You knew you were unprepared and so did the teacher. If you fell really far behind, you had to consider whether AP Calculus was the right class for you and if you might be better off in a lower level class. With metrics that tell you where you are in learning the material at any given point, you are better prepared to take corrective action earlier.