This looks promising:

The researchers are working on a new device that uses carbon nanotubes to store and release electrical energy in a system that could carry as much power as today’s lead or lithium batteries.

But unlike the rechargeable batteries used on today’s cellphones and laptop computers, these devices could be recharged hundreds of thousands of times before wearing out.

There are the skeptics, of course:

Andrew Burke, research engineer at the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California at Davis, said that the new capacitors would have to be many times more powerful than any previously created. “I have a lot of respect for those guys, but I have not seen any data,” Burke said. “Until I see the data, I’m inclined to be skeptical.”

Even if Schindall’s capacitors work, he doubts they’ll transform the electronics industry overnight. Companies have too much invested in today’s battery systems, and it would take years before carbon nanotube capacitors could be mass-produced.

A classic innovator’s dilemma.

I’ve never been a big battery fan. Chemical energy storage always seemed very crude to me.

A rocket belt convention. Be there, or be…on the ground.

And yes, this was a tough one to categorize.

A rocket belt convention. Be there, or be…on the ground.

And yes, this was a tough one to categorize.

A rocket belt convention. Be there, or be…on the ground.

And yes, this was a tough one to categorize.

Here’s an extensive tour of Microsoft Vista.

We bought a new telly back in February at Brandsmart USA (I never know whether the name is Brand Smart, or Brands Mart, or if the name is meant to be deliberately ambiguous that way)–our first leap into the HDTV water. It was a Samsung thirty-inch CRT.

When I first turned it on, a loud buzz emitted from it, lasting about a second. It was annoying, but once the picture came up, everything was fine. I should have taken this to be a warning.

A month or so ago, we lost stabilization on the horizontal sweep, resulting in wavy sides. Fortunately, this was one of those rare occasions on which we actually bought an extended warranty (it was past the ninety days from the manufacturer). After several days, we got a service call (about a week and a half ago, before I went to California). The serviceman took one look, and said that it was a bad power supply. He also told me that the noise at startup wasn’t normal, and was also a bad supply, or perhaps a flyback transformer. If we’d reported it initially, we would have just gotten a new teevee.

But since it was past the ninety days, he was going to have to repair it. He told me that he’d have to order a new power supply from Samsung.

I called this morning (Monday), and they still didn’t have it in, and wouldn’t be able to even tell me when they would, unless I call them again on Wednesday (with the usual waits on hold through two different departments), and which time they could tell me.

How is it, in this day and age, that a major Korean electronics manufacturer can not only not have a part delivered to a major metropolitan area within a couple days, but not even know, after a week and a half, when they will?

Who would know if we fired at the Nork missile and missed?

If we could knock it out of the sky, it would take a lot of wind out of Kim Jong (mentally) Il’s sails. But the down side would be the black eye and seeming impotence if the world knew that we tried to and couldn’t.

So does Russia have radar that would see an interceptor launch over, say Alaska? If not, does anyone else? And if not, what would we have to lose in taking a shot? If we take it down, it’s a huge coup, and if we miss, we just don’t mention that we even attempted it.

I should note that I would think the chances of failure small, since we’d presumably be sending multiple interceptors, rather than the single ones we’ve used in previous failed tests. The fact that we have had successful single-shot tests would indicate to me that chances of success for a multi-shot attempt should be pretty high.

By the way, here’s a good overview of the current missile defense situation.

I recall back in the eighties, when people were poo pooing the concept and saying that even if we could knock down some missiles, we couldn’t get them all in a massive Soviet strike. One rejoinder to that (in addition to the fact that even getting half of them would put enough doubt into a Soviet commander’s mind to perhaps preclude the attack at all) was that we needed it against rogue states. Like North Korea. This would result in scoffs by the anti-BMD folks.

“Why would they build a missile that we could shoot down when they could just smuggle the bomb into a container ship?”

I guess that Kim didn’t listen to them. Fortunately, neither did we. At least ultimately, though it’s taken much longer than it should have to deploy, as a result of years of obstruction from the port side of the political spectrum.

[Update on Wednesday at noon]

There’s a long discussion in comments to a post by Jonathan Adler over at Volokh’s.

I’ve been getting a little flurry of emails, all of which say that they’re publishing something about me somewhere (no mention of my name in the body of the email, of course), with a copy of the article and a photo supposedly attached for my approval. I also got one with a similar attachment indicating that it was a crime scene photo and they were looking for potential witnesses. No two alike yet, except for these features. I unzipped the attachment on a Linux machine, and it contains a *.exe file (presumably Windows executable). I’ve no idea what it does, but if you get one, too, my free advice is to not execute it.

Oh, wait. Now I see that Symantec has scrubbed one of them.

Here’s the culprit. Backdoor.Naninf.E

It’s a Trojan horse.

Was the world clamoring for an on-line spread sheet? What need does this serve that one can’t get from an office suite? It’s free? OK, so is this, and you don’t have to worry about net lag, and storing your data on Google’s server. Not to mention that it’s as powerful as Excel, with (at least somewhat) file compatibility. Why do they think this was a good idea?

Was the world clamoring for an on-line spread sheet? What need does this serve that one can’t get from an office suite? It’s free? OK, so is this, and you don’t have to worry about net lag, and storing your data on Google’s server. Not to mention that it’s as powerful as Excel, with (at least somewhat) file compatibility. Why do they think this was a good idea?