I think that taking the time to write summaries and submitting stories is a waste of time. None of mine ever get accepted anyways. Its best to mooch off other people's efforts.

Is there a good reference for the lifetime issue you asked about ? How do these things actually degrade (other than just burning out) ?

That was pretty funny.

I had not thought of that. Since they are printing this stuff, they could even deposit it on a flexible display, which means you can stash it away when you are done.

Kind of like a roll away projector screen that is actually an active display, which is kind of cool. They can then flip the image in the logic board, which is pretty easy as you say.

They did not quote any temperature ranges, but it seems that their macromolecule has a transition temperature of 54C. From what I remember of my undergrad, I think that means that they can't operate above the temperature. Since their devices are working, the temperature must at least initially be lower than that. I can't seem to find anything on google about this chemical, so this must be a new molecule.

I use open source software extensively in my work. I have also contributed open source code (not all GPL, but a good fraction of it is). I like open source for many things.

However, I do not understand this expectation that software companies should help open source. Microsoft is a special case - it tried to work with hardware vendors to delay the rise of Linux, Openoffice, etc. However, when it comes to pure software competition, a company that makes its living off software (and is not interested in the pure free-software-pay-for-support model than open source encourages) cannot be expected to act against its own financial interests to earn brownie points from the open source crowd.

Sometimes those interests will mandate open source participation. Other times, they won't. Interested in getting them to support open source ? Change market conditions to make it their interest to participate in open source. Open source might be religion to some, but it is simply an instrument for most of us. Pretty good instrument in most cases, but nothing more.

F2003K is less than 5 years old in terms of implementations.

In Microsoftian terms, open source is evil. And Google has to resort to that "evil" to keep itself going.

In chemistry and many branches of engineering, Word already is more popular than LaTeX.

In mathematics, and most branches of physics, LaTeX is much more popular than Word, and with very good reason. I have no idea of what the proposed changes are for Word 2010, but I somehow doubt that the current painful way of using the equation editor is likely to be very attractive to these practitioners. LaTeX's superior fontwork also is a major advantage that Word currently cannot match.

The third issue is platform independence. Though versions of Word exist for Mac, Pages has come along very rapidly in the last 2-3 years, and will likely fragment the Mac market. Mac and Linux are both gaining market share (usually at the expense of Windows, and especially in academic settings), so unless Word addresses problems with the WYSIWYG method of entering equations (maybe steal some ideas from TeXMacs), and makes a concerted push on these two platforms (its non-existent on Linux), I do not see how it can make a dent in the traditional strongholds of LaTeX.

Most journals do not accept MS 2007 submissions (even the Word friendly publishing houses), let alone MS 2010.

I do not know if they count Egypt in Middle east or north Africa, but it is telling that there are little to no contributions from the ancient Chinese and Indian civilizations, both of whom make Europe and South America look like recent news.
Yup, there is nothing east of Mecca.

Except that the Indian currency is not fixed against the dollar.

Tesla's relationship with Mercedes is irrelevant to the economics of the electric car market beyond being inaccessible to vast majority of users who could use this right now.

I do not think that the Nano is underpowered for city driving. Unsafe ? They could always work on that (Europeans are already beginning to import enhanced Nano's that cost around $5000 with safety features added on - still beats the pants off even US/Japanese cars which are cheaper than European cars, in their respective markets).

They could have teamed up with a struggling US company (like Chrysler or Ford) or even a Japanese company which has plants and networks in the US. The fact that they chose Mercedes of all companies, shows that they are really not serious about going into mass production. Tesla is going to remain a rich man's toy car if they do not think ahead.

... when a politician opens his mouth, and says something refreshingly un-stupid. This could allow these newspapers to continue in business, and MORE importantly, improve the quality of journalism by taking extreme political activism out of journalism. No endorsements, no problem. At least not for me. I prefer to make up my own mind when it comes to voting, thank you very much.

If that is true, and Tesla's relationship with a luxury European carmaker means what it means to anyone with common sense, Tata is going to eat Tesla for lunch.

Lets get the skinny.
Is this car :
1. priced to be less than $25,000 ? If not, forget the mass market. Keep diddling your rich customers (declining market) for your kicks if you like.
2. designed with the right looks/capacity ? After looking at the pics and the trunk space, this car passes that test. Someone with real world needs can actually use this car for everyday use, instead of being a fashion statement at the Golden Globe awards.
3. designed so as to go into mass production (>60,000 cars per year in the first year, and potentially rising later) ? If not, forget it. This is related very closely to 1.
4. designed so that (battery pack cost / time to replacement) is no greater than $500 / year. If not, forget it. No one in their right mind would want even a cheap electric car that costs a few months' mortgage per year to upkeep.

See, its not so difficult to get a practical car on the road, if your priorities are straight. However, the fact that these people are teaming up with Mercedes is not a hopeful sign of any desire to go past the Hollywood set. In other words, they are setting themselves up for failure (out here in the *real* world). Had they gone with a cheap Japanese or Indian carmaker, it might have been exciting.