No, we don't.. The unemployment rate (a percentage statistic) went down because people are leaving the work force (though some jobs were added). They've given up, retired, settled on lower-paying jobs, or whatever, but this notion that it's just a little weak is nonsense. The universe of eligible employees just got smaller. People are still losing their jobs, and none of these windbags are even discussing engineering a way to fix it.

And while I wouldn't vote for Newt, at least he at one point in his life uttered the phrase ''I would rather rely on engineers than diplomats...". It's a start.

The NSF is now requiring this as part of grant applications. You have to have a data management plan that includes the public deposit of both the data and results from grant funded work. Other funding orgs are following suit.

This is a fairly major project at the university I work for, both from the in-process data management perspective (keeping field researchers from storing their only copies on thumbdrives and laptops) and from the long-term repository perspective for holding the data when the grant is completed (that's what I'm involved with).

Storage is cheap. Convincing university administrators to pay for keeping it accessible is another problem, but the NSF position is helping.

Man, I thought the smartphone-tech-heavy /. crowd would be all over recording devices. I've carried a few different digital voice recorders over the years (Olympus, Sony, now my Droid) that I use during meetings. Nothing counters a co-worker, boss, or sales person better when they're telling you that you did it wrong than having their own voice describe exactly what you implemented. My boss knows I do it, and he has learned to be a little more understanding when something isn't exactly how or when he wanted it but *IS* how he described it. It's an excellent CYA tool for anyone potentially at the other end of the 'do what I meant, not what I said' gun.

That said, you need to make sure it's A) legal in your jurisdiction to record without a consent form and B) that when you use it to counter a 'you did this wrong' argument, you do it discreetly and not embarrass anyone (including your boss) in front of the entire department (unless they totally deserve it and you can do it without getting fired).

It's a little harder to search without a transcript or good organizational metadata, but if you know approximately what you're looking for it can be a lifesaver.

Plus you can sleep or play games in meetings and not get in trouble :).

Can I see your birth certificate?
-or-
Are you a citizen or legal resident of the United States?

*ducks*

Sorry, couldn't resist (and I don't associate myself with groups of either persuasion, but thought it was funny).

I don't know about him/her, but I bought six 10W CFLs to replace the 75W incandescent bulbs in my bedroom in 1988. Having a west-facing upstairs room in Arizona during the summer is hot enough without an extra 450W of space heat from lighting (along with my 286, some tube-based HAM gear, CRTs, etc.). Changing to CFL made a huge difference.

The CFLs I bought were made by Commercial Electric, and weren't the spiral type. These had four 4" glass 'rods', 3/8" in diameter, which were connected together in such a way as to make one continuous tube. They would flicker and blink for about a second when first turned on, but once lit were at full brightness (unlike the CFLs in my current home which take 30s to warm up). The tubes were also replaceable (they unplugged from the base with 2 pins) but I never had to replace one in the 12 years I lived there. It's been a long time, but I think they were actually for commercial lighting purposes, not residential. IIRC they were about $12/ea (1988 dollars).

I guess my point is that they have been around for a long time, just not cheaply. Oh, and the store was the Home Depot1/2 mile from where I lived at the time.

That statement pretty well defines Libertarianism as it is understood by most; I'm free to do whatever I want, as long as it doesn't infringe on your freedom to do whatever you want.

I'm not trying to start a semantic flame war, and I agree that the definition of Liberalism has been warped (it seems now to mean "do what you want and someone else will pay for it"; your opinion may vary). That definition is what most people accept, however, and like most of its mirror philosophies on the right, it does not advocate individual freedom for everyone (it divides individuals into classes).

I think the word you're looking for, at least in the USA, is "Libertarianism". Both the left (hate-speech/crime laws, social justice via tax code) and right (religiosity) routinely act counter to that idea, regardless of what their ideologues might say in public.

If this is actually true, you should probably get it checked out by a licensed electrical contractor. You (or a neighbor) may have a loose or bad neutral connection that is causing the current to flow on the (usually grounded) coax lines. I've seen this before, and it can burn your house down (coax is not designed to carry house current on the shield). Electricity doesn't just take the "path of least resistance", it takes ALL paths that it can.

With regard to point #2, I (as a residential customer) already pay different rates depending on the hour here in AZ. SRP, one of our local utilities, has a time-of-use system with a digital meter they can read and program remotely. Currently it only has 2 rate schedules, but it can support up to four.

During on-peak (1pm - 8pm; M-F) power is twice what the standard rate payers pay. But it's less than half during off-peak hours and we've tried to shift most of our usage to those times. Laundry, dishes, A/C, lighting, pool pump, etc. are all timed to run during off-peak only as much as possible. All lighting is CF or LED (even the night-lights).

Granted, when it's 115F outside the A/C will run some. But we pre-cool way down before 1pm, and let it rise as much as is tolerable with ceiling fans on (between 83-85F as it's fairly dry here). The result is a power bill about half of my similarly sized neighbors. It's fairly easy to compare in tract houses where they're all the same anyway :).