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That wasn't snow, more like ice or at the very least compacted snow. We have lot of "Danger Falling Ice" signs around the cities of Canada. Russia has the same issue, its just that they don't warn anyone... surprise! you have a concussion now!

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Because Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and the rest... "CO2 is good for the Earth, it helps plants" (ignoring that most plants are absorbing about as much CO2 as they can already, and ignoring the bigger problem that very little of the Earth is green, and no walls or ceilings to keep the CO2 where plants are), "compact fluorescent bulbs are stupid, they have mercury in them!" (ignoring that the mercury in them and the mercury put into the air by the power plant is less than the mercury put into the air by the power plant to power regular bulbs). And the news media paints it as a debate, having one climate change scientist debate one climate change denier (though the media still refuses to call them deniers and paints them as skeptics) and this isn't just the right wing media, almost all the media in the US presents it as a debate. They don't present the fact that a 97% consensus exists.

Then there is religion. They talk how insane it is to assume that humans, made of God could destroy God's work. That we can't damage the Earth as God made it... of course they take the idea of destruction literal, and not in the way people actually mean when they say it's destroying the Earth. They also don't care about the repercussions of future generations as "Jesus is coming soon, well before any of this will matter"... more or less an actual quote. They believe also that God has granted mankind all authority over the Earth and not that it was stewardship over the Earth, so we can and should do whatever we want.

There's also ignorance. The media, especially the right wing media, portray the idea of climate change as presented is being presented as being only 100% caused by humans, they claim that the pro climate change scientists won't acknowledge any part of it might be natural. The media is playing it as an all or nothing scenario, either humans caused it all, or caused none of it. This isn't what any scientists are saying. They are just pointing out the natural uptick vs the uptick we are seeing is explained by human burning of fossil fuels, and that's what the 97% consensus is about, the uptick we are observing vs what would be expected naturally. But not understanding, and thinking science is ignoring all possible natural causes, they deny the whole thing.

Heck, just look at the media uproar over the supposed mini ice age that is coming in 2030 or so. Of course the actual paper never mentions an ice age or climate at all, and neither did the presentation. The problem was the press release for presentation mentioned the Maunder Minimum and linked to the Wikipedia article about it, and from there the media assumed that would mean a new mini ice age, even though the mini ice age during that time was started before the Maunder Minimum. Nobody in the climate change community is really calling for a mini ice age (just like it was never widely thought in the 70s that we were heading for global cooling, it was understood even then it was warming, the cooling thing came from an article in Time if I recall correctly, not exactly a peer reviewed science journal) come the 2030's, at best we may get a very small slow down of the warming, but CO2 levels are 40% higher than during the Maunder Minimum. Anyhow the media tends to mislead the public with things that wasn't actually said. The right wing media machines especially know that their audience won't vet their sources or information and will trust them and talk about conspiracies to hide the truth. Heck most of the media never even cleared the air over climategate emails, so most of the deniers still cite the climategate emails as a valid thing, even though in context and with scientific understanding none of the climategate claims are valid, and in fact still point to global warming... (http://www.iflscience.com/environment/mini-ice-age-hoopla-giant-failure-science-communication)

There's also the change from "global warming" to "climate change" which they don't understand to be an escalation of the term, and think instead it's toning it down.

Well, yeah, magnets don't repel against anything except magnets.

Unless there's some physics-shattering discovery some day, there will never be something compact that just repels against the surface of random ground. And no matter how much power you have, it definitely won't be able to repel against water.

At most, perhaps some day after our grandkids are dead there could be super powerful little jets that can force enough air downward in a tiny space to support the weight of a person, but human extinction will probably occur first, and static levitation is impossible.

(They use gigantic machines to generate a magnetic force to levitate a tiny frog, but that kind of force will never be compact nor support any meaningful mass.)

http://videosift.com/video/Diamagnetic-Levitation

I was thinking the same thing. We had a good deal of choice of what classes to take. I didn't take Lit, but I did do the basic English classes, where we read some Shakespeare and the like, but not to the degree the Lit students did. I didn't do any complex math classes either, I did Algebra. But then I also did Applied Business, or whatever it was called. I did Civics with the base History classes. I did Home Economics in 9th grade, not a required class, but an elective. Woodshop was another example of an elective class. Have they removed electives from schools? If not then it's this dude's own fault for not choosing the proper electives. If they are gone and all that is taught is the core, then there may be too much core.

I got to disagree with the video's premise that Math, History and the cores aren't needed. Do you need Calculus, no but you should graduate with a strong understanding of basic Algebra. History is important to, though I'm not sure the methods used are effective, route memorization of facts and dates for tests, rather than a general understanding of history and how to avoid the same mistakes. Teaching for tests period is a problem... Lit isn't important and should remain an elective, but having read some of the "classics" is important too, even if it is just a quick Cliff Notes sort of version of it (do they still have Cliff Notes?) Actually a Cliff Notes rundown of lots of the "classics" would probably be better than what most English classes do, while encouraging students to read more modern what they want fare for reports and the like. I didn't take Biology, but basic Science understanding is important, problem is it's politicized and rather than stick with the facts, too many people want to introduce at the very least doubt about the facts if not introduce ideological ideas that contradict the facts and are based on a misunderstanding of what the facts actually say... due to a messed up literal reading (well when it's convenient to take literal, other times things are dismissed as "literary" or "poetic" be it about the Earth not moving or bats being birds and on and on) of one particular bronze age book.

Also you can't teach people who to vote for... you gain understanding of the issues in History and Civics... so...

How to move away from testing is a tricky thing. You need to prove you have an understanding of how to form an Algebraic formula and to solve one. You need to prove you understand the issue(s) of the Civil War and the basic era (I'm not convinced you need to remember exact dates, know it was the 1860s), same with the other wars. What was one's nation's involvement in the World Wars and what caused those wars in the first place, and again basic era, if you don't know the exact year of the bombing of Pearl Harbor or D-Day or the dropping of the atomic bombs, okay, but a basic close approximation of the years. For English you need to prove you can write and read, and a basic understanding of literature, not details of classic books, but narrative structure etc. There should perhaps be more time spent on critical thinking and how to vet sources. You need to have a basic enough understanding of science not to dismiss things as "just a theory" which proves you don't know what theory means in science, and don't ask ridiculous questions like "if we came from monkeys why are there still monkeys" instead you should be able to answer that. You should be able to answer properly if somebody notes that CO2 is good for plants or that compact fluorescent have mercury in them so they aren't better for the environment than older bulbs.

How does one prove these things without tests? That's the question. And it needs to be Federally standardized to a degree to ensure that you don't have lose districts teaching that the Civil War wasn't about slavery nearly at all, rather than the fact it was the primary reason, or that Evolution is "just a theory", or deny the slaughter of the Native Americans or interment of Japanese Americans. You need to insure that all students are getting the same basics, and insure they have a good range of choices for electives. It's the basics though that basically need tested for, and I personally can't figure out a way to prove a student knows say what caused the Civil War or that they know what Evolution actually is, or how to form an Algebraic formula to solve a real life problem without a test.

Here's the camera: http://www.nikonusa.com/en/Nikon-Products/Product/Compact-Digital-Cameras/COOLPIX-P900.html

I've played airsoft like this for a few years now off an on so feel well enough qualified to comment.

It's largely a matter of range. Most sites allow up to 500fps on snipers (and some american ones go up to 800 or so I believe), but they have a minimum engagement range (usually about 25 meters, presumably more for the silly american ones).

Basically, non automatic sniper rifles are allowed to be significantly more powerful than the 330fps (400 in some countries) other weapons are limited to, but as a result can't be used at short range (that's what pistols and compact SMG's are for!).

If you are close to the minimum range limit and it hits unprotected skin, they sting really badly, enough to draw a little blood sometimes. It's not entirely dissimilar to being whipped by a wet towel, excruciating for about half a second then it tails off to just stinging and swearing.

If it hits your vest, glasses, hat etc. then it wont really hurt at all (but you still felt it you cheating bastards! ), likewise if you are out beyond 50meters or so as the power drops off with range as you'd expect. (My brother can sometimes make shots out to 70-80meters with a VSR but you can barely feel it)

Shoot at point blank and your target can be forgiven for walking over and punching you in the face....right after they stop swearing and get up off the ground. (entirely possible to penetrate exposed skin at that range)

In practice though, trying to storm a building/room vs automatic rifles etc. tends to be far more painful an experience than being sniped. Unless that is someone snipes the inside of your nose sideways on (it hurt as much as you imagine it did).

We also once had a guy knocked clean out by a grenade launcher to the face at point blank . But it was a Co2 powered thing and I believe they aren't allowed inside buildings any more (can't think why).

Re: paintballs, in my much more limited experience, they are waaaaay worse than BB's if they are full power and reasonably close range. Concussions, broken bones and broken skin are all entirely possible (though not likely), but bruises and welts are basically standard issue.

I believe some sites run compressed air guns (rather than Co2) at much lower power levels, so I imagine they are a lot more tolerable.
Paintballers tend to be more on the extreme sports side of things (wheras airsoft tends to be more biased towards military geeks/gamers), and so many sites have a bit of a "pain is weakness leaving the body" attitude to power levels.

In the UK at least the velocity limit for paintballs at competition level is 300fps, for most airsoft sites the limit is 330fps. You only have to look at a BB vs a paintball to see what a discrepancy in energy that equates to!!!

My assumption is that whenever possible you'd want the main chute to deploy because the emergency chute is just that: for emergencies.

Kind of like how it's better to use a full-sized tire instead of a compact spare (on your car, not as a parachute).

I love film, and always did, but even the cameras in high end modern phones will beat the old compact 35mm cameras every time for image quality. This doesn't mean I won't take out my compact 35mm camera (Olympus mju II btw) and use it occasionally, but for a quick snapshot I'll cheerfully use my phone.

Phone cameras are not quite ready to take on 6x6 rollfilm cameras (I love my tlr too ) but digital cameras do exist which can.

A final thought - sometimes the best camera is the one you have with you

A rotary (Wankel) engine has a triangular device that acts as the piston, which rotates in a chamber close to a figure 8 shape. Each side of the triangle acts as it's own piston as it rotates, first intake through a port (no valve) then compression, detonation, expansion, and finally exhaust through another port (still no valve).
Radial engines (what I think you meant) are relatively normal piston driven engines where the pistons are arranged in a circle around the crank at a 90 deg angle from the cranks rotation. These are usually used in prop driven airplanes.
This motor arranges the pistons in the same orientation as the cranks rotation...a 90 deg difference from radial engines. This makes it far more compact, but also puts the pistons in a single, rotating, revolver like arrangement of cylinders. It's a bit of a combination of rotary and radial engine features.

I'm not sure how much credence I can give the wiki page...I note it claims things that are obviously wrong, like "the design does not have a long lifespan when compared to other engine designs due to large numbers of moving parts" while in fact this motor has far fewer moving parts than normal motors. It did make some good points, like the first one that occurred to me about friction, but also made some bad points such as claiming 'mechanical complexity' as a drawback, while in fact it seems far more simple than normal motors.
"extra complicated machined parts" also exist in normal motors, and can be made fairly cheaply and easily in bulk.
Excess use of oil is an issue, but one they should be able to solve with proper machining and materials. Low RPM is fine for many applications, like a generator, so long as it's efficient it's fine and might even be better. Since you get high torque at low RPM with this design, low RPM seems to be ideal.
They claimed it had comparable horsepower to the same displacement normal motors in the prototype...if true, that point is moot.
Actually, there seems to be less moving mass in this motor, consider the mass of the crank shaft and counterbalances, connecting rods and pistons, the camshaft, rods, lifters, rockers, and valves. This motor only had a compact 'crank' and the connecting rods and pistons, and the output shaft. That's less actually moving to my eye.
The 'potential for explosion' was claimed on Wiki to be a design flaw of the case thickness around the 'crank', which could easily be thickened if it doesn't have to fit inside a torpedo....potential removed.
I'm not saying it's perfect, or necessarily even feasible, but it does seem to have more going for it than you give it credit for and is worth following it's progress to me.

Schuko all the way, best plug on the planet (at the moment). Ground always attaches first, the socket forms a protective casing and pins can not be touched long before contact happens, is protected from elements better, latched inlets (both pins need to push on them to allow the plug thru), can be plugged in two orientations.. Seems counterintuitive that it would be the safest to have neutral and live be allowed to switch places but it prevents highly dangerous practice of connecting earth and neutral inside the appliance, 50% of the time that would short and trip the fuses. Appliance manufacturers HAS to follow basic safety quidelines. Also means onnecting a plug is easy, just breen-yellow to ground, rest is up to you which way you want them. In fact, most of use can't remembers which color is neutral and which is live as they are BOTH treated as live.

Also they don't have fuses in the plug. Again, seems counterintuitive but the fuse is meant to protect individual parts of the circuit. The fuse in the appliances them selves protect the appliance, not it's cord. The fuses on the wall sockets have to be built to protect all cabling, both in and out of the wall.

Small details but it forces buildings to be built with higher standards, less shortcuts can be made.

One feature on Schuko is that when pulled from the cable, the plug leaves the socket first. In UK plugs, you can have a situation where someone trips on a wire and the wire will leave the plug, plug stays in the wall (or wall socket is damaged too) Making the weak point the plug-socket connection, the wire will stay firmly screwed inside the plug, socket and plug will be undamaged. There are L shape plugs too with Shcuko so this is not always the case but most often, those are incased and molded: your appliance will take the hit instead and fly off the desk. Also stops dangerous cable pulling with long cables with extensions for ex in construction sites. You have to actually go and move it yourself. Safer, more work but safer (yes, there are few cases where we knot the wires to stop it happening but when done by a professional, we know how to knot them so that the force is not pulling or bending the plugs at all, otherwise they can disconnect by them selves, often modus operandi when rigging lights)

Also, the pins are round, making bent pins something that just wont happen unless you drive a truck over them. Damaged, bent pins will be destroyed in the process, preventing someone to just bend them back in shape: the tube will not be round again.. It's a genius design.

Only thing that it is horrible at is transformers, small PSUs that takes up sometimes three sockets as Shcuko is more compact, the extensions are smaller then too.. So sometimes two wall sockets can take one PSU and we end up with lots of extensions chained with half of the sockets filled (i got 600 led lights in my living room, takes 4 extensions to get them all running, half of the sockets are used....)

That's not a motorcycle, it's a 2 wheeled compact car.

Assume A=1m^2 of t=5cm thick glass, thermal conductivity k=1W/(m*K), glass to be kept at a constant 5°C with an average ambient temperature (averaged over the whole winter season day and night) of 0°C => temperature difference DT=5°C (also no salt to help, original promo video claimed that as an advantage of these things), you'll need roughly

A*k*DT/t = 100W of constant power (day and night for the entire winter!) to keep the tiles at 5C (i.e. 100W/m^2 of tile).

There's NO WAY you'll produce that much power per square meter on average (day and night!) in the northern winter (!), meaning the tiles would soon be covered by that thin hard layer of compacted snow that you get, rendering them basically worthless in the winter.

There's also a negative feedback mechanism: if you don't produce enough power to melt all the snow or ice, some of the area gets blocked, which reduces power output even further.

Where I lived, in northern MI, these tiles would be useless for about 9 months of the year