Maybe this will finally shut up the people who complain that eBooks just aren't like the real thing.

True, but it seems string theory attracts more woo and people trying to claim it predicts something.

Pine FTW!

Will Apples be made of wormwood?

I'm sorry Mr. Johnson, your computer has termites.

The insurance would only kick in where the insured doesn't do their job securing the data. There is no in-between in computer security, you either implement security and it works or you don't and you take an insurance for when the inevitable happens.

The US actively taxes anything that might upset the local utilities. There are relatively few incentives to do it and more disincentive than anything.

You need a licensed contractor, electrician, insurances etc. The associated permits alone in my area would be in the neighborhood of $1500 and a yearly inspection and associated permit cost $200/y. Repairs would require a permit and re-inspection fee of another $150. The utility wouldn't buy back but charge a $15/mo meter fee.

> 6: Secure your servers so we aren't being
> attacked from letting your ads through

Dear advertisers: Start with that. I will absolutely continue to block as many ads as possible until you fix this. If you're going to annoy me, at LEAST don't potentially harm me. It's like walking through a department store and getting sprayed with perfume which might also contain anthrax.

Russia would like for us to continue gifting them with cash for 40-year-old missle motors, it's our own government that doesn't want them any longer. For good reason. That did not cause SpaceX to enter the competitive process, they want the U.S. military as a customer. But it probably did make it go faster.

Also, ULA is flying 1960 technology, stuff that Mercury astronauts used, and only recently came up with concept drawings for something new due to competitive pressure from SpaceX. So, I am sure that folks within the Air Force wished for a better vendor but had no choice.

Air is free. I've never had to pay anyone to produce it for my respiration.

Piped and treated water is not free, but water that you catch in a sufficiently clean container is free.

There are some actually free things out there. I can collect firewood on public land, if there are no applicable regulations preventing me, and it used to be that there was common areas available for pastures.

Let's not pretend that there is no such thing as free just because we're regulated and enclosed our resources. We've made a number of things unfree in the name of civilization, and that's not a terrible thing, but let's understand that this isn't an iron law of reality. "Free" exists as something that can be experienced.

And in this case, since $70K isn't actually a poverty line income, the lack of "free" is more obvious. He is a member of a class who probably *did* pay into the fund that paid for his solar panels. The difference is that he got a significantly bigger return on investment than most people do from their taxes.

Of course, I get what you are saying. It is "free to the recipient", but I think people are right to complain about the way the government hides the cost of it's giveaways by providing the illusion that reallocation of money via taxes isn't that, but rather it is a gift from the state to them.

Everyone wants free shit. And they want the government to give them free shit. Perhaps it is time people start considering that it isn't actually free, because the difference between free and reallocation in people's minds is that "free" means everyone can get the same stuff, when really they can't.

I'm not a California resident so can't speak directly about the situation out there, but I can speak for solar here in Maryland. The power we generate with solar panels is purchased by the utility company, but technically NOT at "retail prices". (That's generally a fallacy perpetuated by the folks against solar.) They DO probably pay more than they'd prefer to pay (a rate that's a bit higher than their true cost to generate the same amount of electricity themselves), but we have to pay the transmission costs for it to get carried down the wires back to the utility company.

In general, what I've observed around here is that quite a few people who are more "middle class" than "rich" are the ones with PV solar on their roofs. Most of the time, they did a solar lease or "PPA" agreement so their up-front cost to have the panels installed was as little as zero, or as much as maybe a few thousand dollars paid up front in order to secure a better deal on the terms of the lease agreement.

I'm one of the exceptions in our town who decided to buy my panels straight out, but our family couldn't really afford to do that either. I had to get a "solar loan" from a lender offering it, after scraping up about $9,000 to pay upon completion of the work. (That will come back to me as the Federal tax credit for going solar, but they pay it back in stages, at least given my own tax situation. So I have to wait until next tax year to recoup the rest of the credit.) The rest of the cost will get paid off over the next 12 years on this solar loan, at an interest rate of close to 8%. So essentially, I'm gambling here on whether or not the whole project EVER really gives me a positive return on my investment. I *think* it can, but it's really a long term projection..... They estimate the panels will last as long as 25-30 years, and I bought SunPower branded stuff (which has a little less performance drop-off over time than many other cheaper panels). The inverters will almost surely need to be replaced once or twice during that length of time ... but they're under warranty for the first 10 years. By then, you've got to think they'll have better and/or cheaper replacements available to put in their place than what's available today.

Meanwhile, what will power cost in 20 years? The same price as today or close to it? Somehow I doubt that.... and I doubt that enough to take this type of bet as insurance against higher costs on it. But in any case, my system only covers about 60-68% of our total energy usage needs. There's just not enough usable roof space facing the right direction for it to be cost effective to add more capacity. (A problem I see with MANY homes doing solar.)

I guess my point, though, is this: PV solar isn't typically going to make this massive energy savings that some people think when they see the "cool looking solar panels" all over a property. When govt. started with the subsidies on it, it was because the tech. made NO economic sense at all without that padding added to the equation and they were just trying to use our tax money to jump start the whole industry.

Today, I think it *can* make some sense, but the wealthy really won't care about the small savings we're talking about seeing with it! If they do solar, it's merely for show and to give off that "feel good, eco friendly" vibe. The upper class can easily afford to pay their electric bills as a very SMALL part of their total income.

Wait... Dogs were important in Germany if they knew about physics, rockets, nuclear reactions, or aeronautics?

You're lying. I never saw that on the History Channel.

You have obviously educated stupid brain. Four corner, 24 hr simultaneous days is truth. One-ness is demonic religion. Internet is always right, and also has four corners.

Next up, free food for "poor" people making $70K.

It's called Soylent Green, and it is what CA plans to do with the people who make less than $25K a year.

"It's the People's Food, that's why it's made with 100% People!"

That's poor for the Bay Area. I assure you, that's not the poverty line in the US. We have plenty of minimum wage workers who make nowhere near 70K a year.

Hell, I made only $26K a year in my first job and I had to cut corners to pay my school loans, but mostly I did okay. Granted that was almost 20 years ago now, but inflation hasn't been *that* bad.

It is, however, misleading. Giving stuff to poor people is fine, but the word "free" does imply that it comes from some government largess that is somehow magically separated from the actual taxes that people pay.

Of course, it's all okay, because it's the rich people who are paying for it and they have plenty of money.

Except of course, it isn't. It's mostly the middle class paying for this sort of thing because there aren't enough rich people out there to have even their higher tax assessments (when they pay them) make up for the amount you need to relieve the middle class from to assert that the rich are actually "paying" for it.