I'm not really sure, either. However, I can say that in some Google Fiber markets, Comcast is trying to compete with Gb downloads (still crappy 35 Mb/s uploads). I saw the same thing when FIOS came to my neighborhood and my local cable provider began offering faster service. It's a hell of a lot of capital investment, and I'm sure that Google sees an endgame in it. I would be surprised if it involved spewing ads that other ISP's wouldn't, but then again - if enough of us use Google services, I'm sure that they'll turn a buck on it.

That is a good question. How does a fair and open internet benefit Google? Let's not forget that residential ISP's have been forcing content providers (e.g. Netflix) to purchase exclusive internet connectivity to their backbones rather than upgrading their backhauls at intermediary providers...effectively double-dipping with their customers. They're trying to go after YouTube (a Google company) as well, and I assume that if Google Play takes off, they'll go after that too.

Also, due to Verizon and AT&T mobile's metering, Netflix is downgrading video bandwidth for these customers. If Google is able to make end roads into these markets, their competition may force other providers into line, making a better experience for Google customers as well as avoiding nasty double-dipping fees from providers.

At least, that's just my guess if the original hypothesis is correct. Who knows, maybe Google is trying to turn a buck on building regional ISP's. I just find that harder to believe than the idea that I proposed.

An interesting perspective, but it might just be that competing with the likes of AT&T and Verizon is exactly what Google wants to do. It's been speculated that one of the intended purposes of Google Fiber is "...to keep vendors, distributors and regulators on their feet." Mobile providers sell fairly expensive metered bandwidth, and their many of their policies haven't always been customer-friendly. Introducing unmetered wireless gigabit internet might just be a way to keep the mobile providers in check. Besides, wireless infrastructure would likely be far less expensive than FTTP.

I like seeing stories like this here because occasionally, there is good discussion and analysis on Slashdot. If you don't want to see this story here, move along to the next story.

Not only are you incorrect, but this incorrect assertion confuses correlation with causation.

Because all labeling does is slap a label onto a product that says "GMO". It says nothing about the genes modified (for example, whether if a plant is Roundup Ready or vitamin A enriched). It does not educate consumers, as just being GE does not tell the whole story. GMO labeling for the claimed purpose of informing consumers is as disingenuous as requiring voter ID in order to stop non-existent voter fraud. I feel that it is being used as a tool for several other purposes, including furthering fears generated by junk science (that has been outright fraudulent, in some cases). This is not to say that I don't have problems with the business practices of a certain seed company, but I don't believe that generic GMO labeling laws are an appropriate way to handle what I believe are patent abuses.

Besides, there are already federal rules for organic food labeling, and this already means no GMO ingredients.

This dormant cyber pathogen must be some sort of neo-Asherah virus from the terrorists! They will control our minds! Apple must write a nam-shub so that the FBI can protect us!

Your tax dollars at work, folks. Anyone else want to send this DA some of Stephenson's early work to save him the trouble of having to reinvent the wheel?

That does make sense. If the courts act reasonably and back down, the DoJ may have been successful in appealing to the public's sense of emotion/outrage and push Congress to pass the legislature that they want.

Sort of...the FBI didn't do it for publicity. They did it to set precedent, and this case was chosen very carefully by the DoJ in order to achieve this (by tugging at heart strings and a sense of panic in the wake of terrorism). There are plenty of other investigations that they could have made similar demands under. If Apple cooperated with the FBI and it was done under seal, then it could not be used as precedent to use the courts to force Apple to do the same in future cases.

I think that you're not looking at the analogy from a relative perspective, rather, it appears that you may be looking at that term from a point of absolute good and bad. The Rosa Parks moment, in historical context, was an inflection point for the civil rights movement. DoJ is trying to use this as an inflection point in their fight against encryption (hence the use of the term "Rosa Parks moment"). It's not necessarily a good thing for all of us, but a good thing for DoJ, as an appeal to emotion/outrage and an inflection point in the encryption/surveillance debate. I can't speak for the GPP, but I believe that this is where he's coming from. Are you with me now?

It's probably easier to just compromise the endpoints. Strong crypto is already out there. It's open, it's documented, and it's in the wild. There is no way that the American government can put that toothpaste back in the tube, short of declaring anyone with strong crypto a criminal (very unlikely). GPG can already do the trick for secure communications - but the built-in device stuff is a low-hanging fruit that is easy to chase after-the-fact. The easier and most likely route of attack is compromising the endpoints. If the endpoint is compromised, encryption can be circumvented rendered useless in several different ways (hopefully, unbeknownst to the users). Military, intelligence and law enforcement already know this. I would be very surprised if they didn't have their own hackers to hit high-value targets with endpoint attacks to circumvent encryption.

This is more about the low-hanging fruit stuff that gets into the hands of ordinary consumers. Local police departments with more limited resources also have a keen interest in the Apple case.

THIS! I wish that I had mod points. You are correct, the case is entirely political. The Guardian has an article that explains in depth what you very succinctly stated. The big takeaway is that the actual data in this case doesn't really matter. However, the feds were fishing for the perfect inflammatory case to establish legal precedent (NPR had a great story on it earlier this week with a legal analyst who said that the Justice Department knew exactly what they were doing when they chose this case). Tim Cook is spot on in fighting this as a precedent matter more than anything else.

Verizon is still using 4G LTE, which does not always qualify as true 4G spec.

It sounds like you're talking about two different things, but are then combining them into the same argument. My post is only about NOx emissions. Your post is about diesel particulate emissions, which you appear to have lumped this into the VW diesel scandal. The diesel VW scandal is only about NOx emissions (and I would still consider linking specific deaths to this a pretty far-reaching stretch, and will be nearly impossible to prove in specific cases). To the best of my knowledge, the diesel VW scandal has nothing to do with diesel particulate emissions, only NOx.

The actual levels are posted here.

Here's the long and short of it:

Jetta (LNT system):
EPA Limit: 0.043 g/km
EPA Dyno Test (cheat number): 0.022 g/km
WVU Test (actual number): 0.61-1.5 g/km

Passat (SCR/Urea-based system):
EPA Limit: 0.043 g/km
EPA Dyno Test (cheat number): 0.016 g/km
WVU Test (actual number): 0.34-0.67 g/km

These emissions levels are in g/km, which is pollutants over distance (which can probably be converted to time, if you dig around the actual study to find average speeds attained, but I'm supposed to be working right now...so you can try to dig that up on your own :). However, I do not believe that these numbers can be converted into actual pollutant volume (e.g. PPM/PPB/PPT). Perhaps you can scavenge that from the WVU study's raw data. I'd be interested in what you find.

I am also interested in finding is a trend in the NOx regulation in the US. I've dug around a bit, but have not yet found it. E.g. - did the actual NOx levels meet previous standards? Are the current standards that VW had to cheat to get around unrealistic? Beyond this, the wiki article does cite some projections regarding the number of deaths that have been/will be caused by the cheat, but I'd like to have a better perspective than that.