I don't know the details of the case, but I suspect the farmer had a property off the grid...and bragged about how he did it. Community members often can include those from the local utility. It's likely he argued about rights and it escalated to litigation.
Not ready? Most electric clothes dryers, heaters, and air conditioners already use 4500 watts each. I'm sure the grid may notice an increase, the utilities will charge for the extra consumption, and upgrade accordingly. The common 200 ampere service in homes should handle another 30 amps...
A 4500W clothes dryer or heater seems like a stretch, and besides, most people don't run those with a 100% duty cycle for hours. Saying that "utilities will upgrade accordingly" hides a lot of complexity under a simple statement.
That's how reading their positions becomes easy. They coin a weasel word term and dance with it. I prefer the langauge EFF is using, which appears fairly reasonable.
I would assume the voltage drop per square inch is effectively minimal. Over the span of the body, it adds up. The catch is, the fish isn't contorting its posture to shock itself.
You mean the biting claim in an 8th grade fight and a fight with his sister (who appeared in court in his defense for this current infraction) for which the Police were called (so, a domestic incident in other words). Yes, quite the terrorist - off to Gitmo with him! :-|
This is the way the law works and should not be a surprise. He has an established documented history of harming people and the court failed to see a legitimate artistic merit of his case. Fortunately, he can take these arguments to the appellate court.
I found facebook cannot beat google+ if focused on tech personalities. Facebook is great for my old world of interaction, but google+ appears to be better optimized for the scientific world. Both stimulate my mind, but I'm starting to spend more time on google+. Facebook development seems to have long been down the path to the cash cow.
Lead based batteries often have a usable life of 3-5 years. Chances are, the others of that vintage are already dry and have already failed. Then they will rupture, often with smoke as their series connected brothers try to push electrons.
I have seen plenty of UPS batteries swell up so big they can't be removed without disassembly. The only indication was the failed self test. OP did say it was the UPS in the rack next to his production DB.
Don't forget Capacitor Plague. I still see it regularly.
I have a difficult time believing that. As someone who made a living repairing appliances, the microwave is one of the most simple. Often you will find a complete instruction guide for the repair inside, provided by the manufacturer. Components are easily removable and replaceable.
The original "reason" for the Raspberry Pi was just to be a super cheap computer that kids could pick up and learn to code for like they did with the old BBC (or VIC20/Commodore 64/Apple II/TRS-80/Atari 8bits/etc). At least, that's what the Raspberry Pi foundation was pushing as the reason.
The GPIO pins and the fairly fast gpu for video rendering were secondary things.
The Raspberry Pi somehow or other really caught the zeitgeist at the right time. It isn't the only kid on the block doing what it is doing, even when you consider price, but it is by far the most widely known and thus there are huge network effects that make it a good device to be tinkering with.
This situation is quite similar to smaller microcontrollers where in the minds of many people that whole segment has become nearly synonymous with the Arduino despite the fact that there are many other options, some of them just as capable but far cheaper (eg. TI's MSP430 which you can buy for less than 5 bucks) and some about the same price but far more powerful.
Of course, once all the software, tutorials and/or hardware "shields" crop up for the mind-share winner, that platform certainly becomes the most convenient to hack on and then that popularity feeds on itself. In both cases hopefully the entry device serves as a gateway for the interested hacker, but not their final destination.
