If it is, then we have to take drastic measures to avoid it, and that includes shutting down most fossil fuel power plants.

And this widely held belief is the reason why many people who *know that man-made climate change is real* deny it anyway.

Drastic action may or may not be a good idea, and the advantages need to be carefully weighed against the disadvantages. Modern industry *runs* on fossil fuels, and we can't just shut that off. Remember - food production at a scale that can actually feed everyone is only possible today through fossil-fuel based industrial methods.

If your plan is to develop and promote cleaner technologies, awesome. If it's to ban tractors, then you're on the wrong team.

Thanks for the link, which confirms that:

1) FCC "allows" but does not "mandate" carriers to impose an access charge. Do you know of any telcos that don't charge this, out of the goodness of their hearts?

2) If you don't pay the universal service charge directly, you'll pay it indirectly. The Tooth Fairy won't pay it for you.

If you still have POTS phone service, look at the carrier access charge, the universal service charge, etc. These are mandated by FCC (not Congress) and they only go up.

The prospect of new, ever-increasing FCC fees on your internet bill is a valid concern.

There must be some organized effort of Google fanchildren that mods down posts critical of them.

Obv. Google isn't satisfied with the amount of information they already have on you, now they want to bug your bedroom.

It ain't.

No, no, no. The $30/hr figure is not what the client will pay. It's what the low-ball recent-immigrant non-English-speaking recruiter will pay. I often receive the same job listing from 3-4 "recruiters" at different rates. Probably the client would be happy to pay $75/hr for somebody who really knows Hadoop.

Because none of these goddamn companies hire directly I have to choose the one who will pocket the least amount of my bill rate.

does that make you a Sucker?

You forgot the part about candidate-financed relocation.

1. Get swim suit made of magic fabric.
2. Swim, thereby heating the pool.
3. Say goodbye to expensive pool-heating bills!

The friction from the road generates heat, which is converted by the tire back to electricity, which runs the car!

The faster you go, the better the mileage you get! In fact, cars like these can achieve near-infinite mileage! (YMMV.)

What's not to like?

And who, exactly, would have been hurt by learning to use a slide rule to solve problems 40 years ago?

Sure, the slide rule skills themselves aren't terribly valuable - although it's not a bad tool to reach for occasionally if you have one on your desk - but the problems and solution methods haven't really changed. Math is still a pretty damn useful thing to know.

Programming has been pretty similar over the same timescale. Specific tools come and go, but the general problems and solutions have only evolved. Hell, if you had learned to program back when slide rules were still common you probably would have learned FORTRAN. FORTRAN is still valuable to this day, because the problems haven't changed and the solutions still work. At most, you'd move to something like C++ or OpenCL for those problems, which is a smaller change than moving from a slide rule to a graphing calculator or computer math package would be.

Obv. you've never flown in an Airbus.

Then, the DMV. No traffic violations, car chases, or accidents. Why would anybody be required to carry a license or other ID except as a method of social control.

They want to post Snowden's photo in the hallways of the Pentagon and CIA, right next to Aldrich Ames and General Petraeus.