I wonder if it could be used to help insomniacs. Sleep isn't exactly unconsciousness but still...

If the TSA worked for us, they'd have a power supply at the checkpoint so you can prove that your device works even if the battery is dead.

That's because the employee protection laws are too weak. People end up having to sue to avoid being screwed over. If the laws were in place there would be less need as everyone would know where they stood and companies would just do the right thing by default most of the time.

I think this has already happened. Most "creative" movies, TV shows and advertising are so derivative and trite that they could have been written by a hacked up Eliza bot.

Protectionism doesn't work. What you need is to make sure that immigrants are paid the same as local workers, so the playing field is level. That way immigrants become productive members of society and contribute back to it, rather than just earning barely enough to live.

They don't want to sell at "American" prices, they want to compete with developing nations directly. For American companies it's a race to the bottom.

The irony is that for everyone else it's a race to the top. Developing nations want to improve quality so they can charge more. Countries like Germany already produce top notch stuff and can charge a premium for it, while remaining reasonably priced.

Efficacy and safety are often the same thing. If you have cancer and I tell you I have a miracle cure that only cost half as much as proper medical procedures and you decide to take it, you will die of cancer. If I tell you I have a miracle diet pill that lets you eat as much as you like, you will get fat.

The summary is misleading. They can't smell the pornography, only the flash memory/hard drive. The idea is that if someone hides a memory device somewhere the dog can help them find it, regardless of what it on it.

Even so it seems a bit unlikely. Being able to separate a solid state memory device from any other random plastic/silicon electronic device is a stretch.

I'm not a democrat, but as an anti-USA-nuclear liberal I also don't disregard science. Instead, I believe that the pro-nuclear lobby is blatantly ignoring human nature. Maybe it's just American nature, I don't know. I simply don't trust my country to safely operate, maintain, and deal with the waste from nuclear reactors. That doesn't mean I think nobody should do nuclear. It means I'm opposed to it here.

There are at least three separate arguments here. One is whether it's wrong to spy on anyone. The next is whether it's wrong to spy on your own citizens. The third is whether you ever have an excuse to violate the highest law of the land (the constitution, of course) in order to uphold lesser laws.

It's not hypocritical to believe that the answers are no, yes, and no, respectively. It's douchey, but not hypocritical. Hypocritical would be ignoring the fact that every nation with the funding has an espionage program.

What's the cost of not reducing emissions?

Developing countries are going to have to not only choose renewables, but also encourage the rest of us to use them, or we will all suffer. It doesn't matter what the cost is, does it? The cost of not doing it is far higher.

Give up 99% of it, still be insanely rich and make a name for yourself in history as the guy who fixed the world?

Look at Bill Gates. Used to be a complete dick in business, totally ruthless. Eventually had more money than he could ever spend and decided to do something interesting and good with it. Doing so did not really impact his quality of life, maybe even made it better as people are less hostile to him now in light of his charitable work.

The real problem is corporations. Individuals can do that kind of thing, but a group of people in a corporation can't.

It would be more like what is happening in Germany. Massive investment in wind, solar, wave and geothermal, but crucially also a massive investment in a new smarter grid to support it all.

I have no doubt that it will happen in Europe, but the US is going to find it hard. Things like subsidising residential solar are seen as un-American and socialist, even though it's fine to heavily subsidise companies building fossil fuel or nuclear plants. The grid is a money-making privately owned infrastructure, not something that is supposed to work for the public's benefit. In other words, the problems are all cultural.