meow

That was my reaction too. I mean, no one likes to die but if we look at it objectively - death is one of the very effective ways in which society changes from old ideas to new ideas. In a hypothetical scenario where every generation lives till 120, I would assume that current US congress will probably continue with the same members for so long (if you notice, most of them keep getting re-elected so many times). And that would mean no infusion of new ideas. It would also means abolishing of social prejudices like slavery, child marriages etc would have taken a lot longer.

I second this opinion. Since you are seeing a lot of friction in finishing up a sale, you should make sure that closing one results in maximum benefit. Regarding pricing, I don't think a single price is such a good idea for the same reason that enterprise software sales men give different quotes to different clients - it takes a lot of time and effort to close deals and different clients see different level of value in your product.

ahem... won't we be doing media lobby's work for them :)..

I think this is an awesome idea. This article needs more traction.

A pre-production move checklist would be very helpful :)

It will be gr8 if you can add OAuth signing support to hurl. Testing urls that need to be signed with OAuth is a major pain point.

It's wrong if they fired her because she is pregnant (and about to take the maternity leave I presume). Its almost the equivalent of firing a male employee who accrued a lot of leaves (by not using any) and about to use them.

Theoretically, will the balloon be able to escape the atmosphere if it is provided with a valve to control the pressure based on altitude ? does it always have to burst at some point ?

A 50W solar panel isn't all that costly (150-200$). This model is just a way to 'loan' these devices for consumers who can't afford even those. You will be surprised by how much utility these small capacity solar panels might provide even for those Indian consumers connected to grid (if they provide 2 lamps/ 1 fan as mentioned). This is because in rural areas, power cuts of around 8 hours/per day are very common.

Oh, when ever I get the longing for the last one, I go on a revision of my favorite parts in previous books.. Thank fully I started this in August and haven't heard of it before.. Now just one more year to go till the last book.. :)

I still wonder how BS is going to cover all loose ends in one book!

I read "Wheel of time" series by Robert Jordan this year. The books in this series are just so addictive.. wasn't able to stop till I read all thirteen books :)

I think he is seriously missing out on one thing both the rich and poor need - "a goal". Without that, people tend to go around in circles.

It's a case of one wealthy indian vs many empowered indians. And from the financial model of this guy (selling his machines through rural women) he obviously prefers latter.

That's much less of a worry in developing world. No manufacturer wants to link "selfish" word with its name in news head lines. And that is how its gonna look if they sue.

When there are so many worries in the present, many people would not really care about problems that might come in the future. You can call it a kind of de-sensitivity to worries due to over exposure to them.

direct link: http://www.aakashtablet.com/

Thanks to recent rule for telemarketers in India, we get almost zero telemarketing calls/sms if we register for do not call service. My phone was surprisingly silent from the day this rule came into effect. Ironically, this whole thing was proposed and pushed through by government because our finance minister got a telemarketing call offering a personal loan when he was debating about some thing in parliament :D

Even now (after the long distance call cost has drastically come down), when ever I receive a call from my parents, I instinctively cut it (making it a missed call for them) and call them back :). In last two years increased competition among telecom players pushed down costs so low that in a few years missed calls may not mean much...

"well meaning"

I don't think we can assume that any more. Not with every amendment being shot down with glee and contempt.

Ironically, Ford fought tooth and nail against an overly generic patent for automobile (similar to a design patent because the guy who owns it is a lawyer and never built an actual model before getting the patent) and won.

http://www.bpmlegal.com/wselden.html

Considering that US is an important market in terms of ad revenues, that might be as good as shutting down youtube.

Unfortunately, there are not many companies building these engines commercially (at least at these power outputs). Most of the engines I have seen are built by hobbyists (either too tiny or crude :( ). That's changing in recent years with increased focus on solar power.

It depends on what your power requirement is. For a 200C difference, you should be able to get around 500W to 600W with a properly built stirling engine.

One particular design that I'm very interested in is a quasiturbine based stirling engine. It seem to have a lot better power/volume ratio than other stirling designs. Unfortunately, I haven't seen even a single running model yet :(

aah, that's very interesting.. though I'm skeptical a pencil sized one will be able to output that much of power :). The problem with Stirling engines is that power output is kind of low when compared with a similar sized IC engine.

It will be kind of heavy though. For simple charging of appliances, other projects are very interesting:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ryochijiiwa/bootstrapsol...

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/davefoster/lilypad-using...

Unlike other engines, a Stirling engine (like other external combustion engines) is more suited for using alternative power sources like solar energy. You can heat the end using a Fresnel lens or a solar concentrator (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Spain). But more importantly, with a $100 price tag, it will be an affordable engine to experiment for hobbyists.

As much credit as we owe to thieves, for pointing out weaknesses in security of a house.

Steal the money - doesn't it bother anyone that if we equate earning money in business (in what ever way) with stealing, we have to equate what most of the oil companies, most of the investment banks, most of the media companies, most of pharma companies do as nothing but stealing.. The only difference is that there is no apparent 'master mind' to attack.

Is anyone naive enough to believe that if bill gates didn't end up crushing the competition as he did during Microsoft's rise, some one else would not have done so ? Sure, we may/may not have Microsoft as powerful, but there would have been some other draconian-soft to fill the void.

And though we should probably not pull Jobs in to this, if we are to imagine Jobs at the head of Microsoft when it is in a position to crush competition, I can't imagine Jobs (and many other business leaders) deciding otherwise (going by the current set of apple law suits). It's just like the lord of the rings - doesn't matter who wears the ring. The heady power of the monopoly is just like the ring (the governmental laws for fair competition should be such a way that they never form). If monopolies do form, there is no point blaming individuals for that.

Considering that individual governments are already in a position to screw with internet using legislation (e-parasite, sopa, protect-ip bills), this may not be such a bad idea. When a council of countries are involved, may be governments wont resolve to such unilateral acts.