Its pretty obvious that this idea is a scam being foisted on an easily duped public and hear the word biometric and instantly have this image of something that will keep them safe, which of course, is completely delusional. We know that such biometric data would be easily stolen and used by criminals, and since you cannot change it, like you can an encryption key or password, you are screwed for life. Numerical keys work well for authentication and it makes sense to randomly generate these sort of things for your own use, which gives people control over these things. You have two kinds of people who think that biometrics is a good idea, you have the low information masses who don't know what the hell they are talking about, and you have the evil people who are up to no good and know that this has nothing to do with peoples well being, and are pushing this because they actually want to deprive people of privacy, and they know biometrics would help with an invasion of privacy, they know full well that biometrics are simply a horrible means of online authentication but thats not what they want. Their trick is to make the idiots out there think that it would be good for them, but the people are pushing for this knowing its not good for people, they push it because they basically hate people and want more power for themselves.

Something like OpenID is the answer, gives people complete control and is an open platform.

Watch out, this is an trick to use the concerns over the weak passwords people use to push for monitoring and control mandates. Basically, its none of their business to force this on businesses. What kind of authentication a service offers is a private matter between users of the service and the service.

I do think, OpenID does exactly what we need here. its a single sign on system that can work in a decentralized manner between sites, and it does not require biometrics which is just a way to take away privacy. I think what has been needed is a system that makes creating and managing OpenID easy for common users. Then people can use a strong, strong password rather than a lot of weak ones.

The evidence and data on racial differences of IQ are pretty well established. In the scientific community, there is virtually no question that there are major differences in IQ between races, with Orientals and Caucasians at the high end and Negros, Mesoamericans, etc at the lower end. There are massive differences in biochemistry, physiology and neurology in almost every area between racial groups, including brain size, skeletal structure, biochemistry, genetics, eye color, skin color, and so on, for instance Caucasians are the only racial group where most adults can digest Lactose, and this is clearly due to tens of thousands of years of divergent evolution that caused some races in cold climates to develop higher IQ and larger brain capacity. A strong and compelling scientific argument has been made by many, such as J.P. Rushton, et al that racial genetics is the cause, for instance, the fact that IQ differences show up by age 3 before education has had a large effect, the MRI studies that have shown that Caucasians have a larger brain that the Negro, and as well the strong predictor that IQs are of SAT scores. Studies of black children living with adoptive white parents show that blacks still have the same IQ as black children living with black parents. The study found that even that where white children and black children were living with the same adoptive parents, the white children still scored 20% higher despite growing up with the same parents. The higher IQ of caucasians likely developed due to the cold, temperate climate of Northern Europe which required more long term planning and skilled crafts to develop technologies to survive the cold winters. The cold winters heavily selected for higher IQ, whilst the tropical environment, where the fruit hangs on the true all year, does not. SAT scores and IQ scores are accurate predictors of life outcomes a well, showing that IQs are a very accurate measurement of a persons intelligence occupational capabilities. As in the book, IQ and the Wealth of Nations, the success of countries is tightly coupled to the average IQ levels, and since IQ levels is the result of the racial makeup of the population, it reflects the racial groups. This is why you can very easily predict GDP of different countries with the racial demographics of the countries, as well a predict a vast number of other things from test scores to rates of homicides. Some have also looked at the fact that Caucasians have a larger frontal lobe than even orientals, where impulse control and creativity is based, which could explain why Caucasian majority countries have had longer lived, healthier democracies, especially the US. Orientals have excellent math skills, but seem to have a totalitarian streak. Caucasians and Orientals have been shown easily beat the average Negro in mathematical tests.

It is pretty clear that entire civilizations are nothing more than the reflection of microscopic DNA that constructs the neurological system and constructs human behaviour. Cultural interactions can share information and influences, but the more of the high IQ racial groups you have, the most of such sharing and origination occurs. The population tends to take on the characteristics of the average individual rather than the outlier. For Einstein to do his work required a country that had a well established industrial base, faciliitated by a high IQ, highly capable population that could provide the environment stable enough that things could move a bit past basic sustenance level of existance, that there was enough industrial base to provide for labatory equipment for instance. Einstien was building on previous work, of others as well, so these things do not come about as a result of the lone genius but require a country that is well populated with High IQ genetics. If Einstien had been born in Nigeria, no matter how intelligent or smart he was, he wouldnt have gotten very far for the lack of everything that he would have needed. Indeed, there is a feedback effect, the high IQ population caucasian and oriental countries are most fertile for science because of the general nature of the population being favorable, and the larger number of contributions by many.

IQ differences most visibly show up when doing math studies, and math tests and such intellectual work that requires high level computation and processing. The effects that become blatantly visible in a regular or mundane conversational interaction below an IQ of 80 or so.

Even when the IQs are corrected for the Flynn effect, large IQ gaps remain. Negros seem to have a pre-flynn IQ level of about 70 in subsaharan Africa, with an 85 post flynn IQ in the USA. Causasians seem to have an 85 pre-flynn iQ and a 105 post flynn IQ in the USA. It seems as though higher level brain functions need a little training to be used. It is quite possible that lower IQ groups have a less variable and less moveable IQ. For instance, a racial group that has a maximum potential IQ of 105, can score anywhere from 0 to 105 on an IQ test, if they wished, but, a population that has a maximum potential average IQ of 85 could score less only a very short distance before reaching a level of profound mental retardation, that is, with a maximum IQ level of 85 you have much of a shorter distance downward before reaching a level of mental retardation than the 105 maximum IQ races. An IQ of 85 is marginal intellectual functioning while 70 is the line of mental retardation. The Subsaharan African groups do score borderline metal retardation, and the general negro population in the USA scores marginal, mediocre functioning. It may be that for a racial group that has a 105 maximum IQ average, that it takes a little effort to reach that, while reaching an 85 IQ level for those races is effortless. For a negro to try to reach higher IQ levels would take vastly more effort, dozens of times more effort, if they can reach it at all. So for a Caucasian or Oriental, with a little work they an get to 105, with a Negro, it can be dozens of times more difficult or impossible.

Here is a synopsis of some evidence from the Rushton study:

"Race differences show up by 3 years of age, even after matching on maternal education and other variables," said Rushton. "Therefore they cannot be due to poor education since this has not yet begun to exert an effect. That's why Jensen and I looked at the genetic hypothesis in detail. We examined 10 categories of evidence."

        The Worldwide Pattern of IQ Scores. East Asians average higher on IQ tests than Whites, both in the U. S. and in Asia, even though IQ tests were developed for use in the Euro-American culture. Around the world, the average IQ for East Asians centers around 106; for Whites, about 100; and for Blacks about 85 in the U.S. and 70 in sub-Saharan Africa.

        Race Differences are Most Pronounced on Tests that Best Measure the General Intelligence Factor (g). Black-White differences, for example, are larger on the Backward Digit Span test than on the less g loaded Forward Digit Span test.

        The Gene-Environment Architecture of IQ is the Same in all Races, and Race Differences are Most Pronounced on More Heritable Abilities. Studies of Black, White, and East Asian twins, for example, show the heritability of IQ is 50% or higher in all races.

        Brain Size Differences. Studies using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) find a correlation of brain size with IQ of about 0.40. Larger brains contain more neurons and synapses and process information faster. Race differences in brain size are present at birth. By adulthood, East Asians average 1 cubic inch more cranial capacity than Whites who average 5 cubic inches more than Blacks.

        Trans-Racial Adoption Studies. Race differences in IQ remain following adoption by White middle class parents. East Asians grow to average higher IQs than Whites while Blacks score lower. The Minnesota Trans-Racial Adoption Study followed children to age 17 and found race differences were even greater than at age 7: White children, 106; Mixed-Race children, 99; and Black children, 89.

        Racial Admixture Studies. Black children with lighter skin, for example, average higher IQ scores. In South Africa, the IQ of the mixed-race "Colored" population averages 85, intermediate to the African 70 and White 100.

        IQ Scores of Blacks and Whites Regress toward the Averages of Their Race. Parents pass on only some exceptional genes to offspring so parents with very high IQs tend to have more average children. Black and White children with parents of IQ 115 move to different averages--Blacks toward 85 and Whites to 100.

        Race Differences in Other "Life-History" Traits. East Asians and Blacks consistently fall at two ends of a continuum with Whites intermediate on 60 measures of maturation, personality, reproduction, and social organization. For example, Black children sit, crawl, walk, and put on their clothes earlier than Whites or East Asians.

        Race Differences and the Out-of-Africa theory of Human Origins. East Asian-White-Black differences fit the theory that modern humans arose in Africa about 100,000 years ago and expanded northward. During prolonged winters there was evolutionary selection for higher IQ created by problems of raising children, gathering and storing food, gaining shelter, and making clothes.

        Do Culture-Only Theories Explain the Data? Culture-only theories do not explain the highly consistent pattern of race differences in IQ, especially the East Asian data. No interventions such as ending segregation, introducing school busing, or "Head Start" programs have reduced the gaps as culture-only theory would predict.

I don't think artificial turf is the answer. Its planting a drought resistant fiolage, some xeriscaping, etc. There are plenty of things you can plant in the yard. And why not let the weeds take over? Whats wrong with having a yard full of globesedge and matchweed. Nothing in my view.

These red tide problems have been going on for decades, long before the oil spill. The oil spill has been devastating but I dont think its causing this.

The smell from this can be horrendous and is bad for tourism. Several counties on the West coast of Florida have issued restrictions on the use of fertilizers. The fertilizers used on lawns is blamed for the red tide outbreaks by feeding the organisms, it is believed. The effect on the environment can be harmful in depleting and causing population loss of fish and other species. A large portion of the runoff of fertilizer is from entirely ornamental landscape applications, a complete waste of resources, especially considering the issue of Phosphate depletion. I would like to see a broad restrictions on such fertilizers except for production of food crops. That some people would waste the resource nd threaten the ecosystem, for the vanity of a perfect green yard is outrageous. In Florida, they often use grass species which are pretty much impossible to keep going without these massive applications, such as St. Augustine. When you stop throwing the chemicals on the yard, the St. Augustine will mostly go away.

i wonder what kind of solar technology they are talking about. There are multiple solar technologies so talking about it as a single technology is misleading. Absolutely, non concentrated photovoltaics is the worst technology, the most ineffecient, and the fact the public has been conditioned to think of this as the only solar technology is partly to blame for solar not being more widely used. I wonder how technologies such as mirror or lens concentrated PV, or a thermal concentrated solar technology, or the Solar tube lighting systems compares. Very well, I would suspect. The mirror thermal dishes uses only relatively cheap low cost parts involving mirrors, a thermal collector system, possibly a microturbine or sterling engine to convert the heat into electricity, or it can be used directly. Continuing to use flat panel unconcentrated PV solar really is a crime and makes no sense since the concentrated systems and thermal systems can work so much better.

While nuclear is a fossil alternative, it is also not renewable, uranium is not easy to come by and the stocks will run out sooner or later. The good thing about solar is it is renewable.

Complete nonsense. New upgrades have been carried out for COBOL, including COBOL 2002 which adds objects. There are several actively developed COBOL implementations. I think COBOL is more useful and available than its ever been.

For a while i suspected he would choose Puerto Rico for the extra benefit of being a little closer to the equator. How much of a difference in the cost of launching exist between these two locations?

Inferior to everything else on the market I meant to say.

It has been said by many close to these matters that part of the drain on NASA is SLS. Just throwing more money at it could continue to enable the boondoggle. Maybe the money should be contingent on funding launch platforms that can and will compete with other commercial systems to lower cost, to actually compete with Soyuz on cost. The criticisms are that it is a very poor value, and not well designed for reducing cost and efficiency. The result is a launch platform that is far too expensive. One of the core problems is developing a launch platform that is SOLELY for use by the government, this pretty much prevents the market from driving down costs, unlike other launch platforms such as the Ariane and Soyuz which service private companies and thus are incentivized as a requirement to develop better, cheaper technologies.

Maybe someone else can comment on this, but it looks like SLS will be more expensive and costly than anything else, giving us less for more money. Why even waste time developing this when we can use SpaceX, the Deltas, Atlas and so on, perhaps human rated versions of these.

SLS could not compete on price with Soyuz, which is a good sign it should be scrapped. The Soyuz so far has us beat on reliability, cost, performance. If we continue to fund white elephants which are more driven by beauracracy and pork rather than driven by technical innovations to lower cost and improve reliability, we will continue down the road of stagnation and falling behind.

It has often been said that if someone wanted to kill the US space program, the Shuttle and Space Launch System is exactly what they would do, to basically suck all of the resources dry on a far too expensive launch platform that is superior to everything else on the market, thus pulling resources away from the science and exploration missions.

It is true that SLS is a drop in the bucket compared to the F-35 and welfare programs, yet if its still more expensive than everything else for less than what you can get from other launch platforms, why waste the money? Why not go with a human rated SpaceX?

When you give your spouse one at Christmas, Debbie Downer will be there to remind you of he ecological implications. :-). Out of all seriousness, its not bad to have an interest in efficiency, but, does a phone really consume so much power that it would make much of a differece, You could save a heck of a lot more using a clothesline.

This problem seems to be easily solvable by installing electronic cut-off switches near the transformers throughout the entire system. These switches could be remotely triggered by some in-band means, at least, such as an pulsing of the electrical current. This would protect homes and businesses as well as the power company infrastructure and it would seem would be a relatively inexpensive, cheap piece of electronics that could be widely deployed throughout the grid. When a solar flare is detected that would hit, the switches would be activated through the signalling. This would throw disconnect switches on each side of the unit. The switches could be turned back on with a pole later on when the event is over. Yes, this would temporarally bring down the electrical grid, but bringing it down for a few hours or days is a heck of a lot less of a problem than it being out for months.

Yes but from what I have heard SLS isn't exactly the best bang for buck and has a lot of pork of its own, nonetheless, it is still small compared to other government waste. SLS has little credibility since basically, its repackaging of the shuttle technologies to keep the boondoggle going. SpaceX has found ways to do things much more cheaply because it can think outside of the box and is not bound into using a certain technology because it gets a congressman a kickback. They can do things based on technical merit rather than by political lockin and pork.

Wasnt Elon Musk saying that he could send people to Mars for a fraction the cost of SLS or a NASA system and that he was going to work on the problem?