I grew up in a cult of wacko child molesters who tried to teach us about some place outside of this universe where winged creatures lived and where you supposedly were transported to when you died, unless you went to the other dimension where there was a big fire. All sounds so foolish now.

F: A wacko long ago came up with an unprovable theory that something might exist outside our universe, and that other people might have had the same untestable, unprovable idea later.

My thoughts exactly. Some scumbag with one or more patents on something, often something that they never even built, will try to sue everyone even extremely remotely connected to any similar invention or device. Some people will just pay up the extortion, figuring it is cheaper than fighting, even though they know they are in the right. Such scumbags would now seem to be able to go to the lower courts and argue, when they lose frivolous cases, that they should not be held accountable for the expenses they caused because what they did to that client wasn't 'exceptional', it was what they and the rest of the trolls do to businesses every day.

No they don't. The cable companies have a monopoly in each area. Comcast will simply sell off some minor operations in some locations to a new owner. That new owner will then focus of how to get back over $5200 per subscriber that just bought, as well as dealing with an infrastructure that Comcast knew they were getting rid of and might have stopped investing in. Guess where that money comes from.

The choice those subscribers have is to stay and pay, go "free-air" and have access to a lot less programming and even be treated like shit by the free-air networks if the try to watch anything on-line, or to go with Satellite, who will offer you a "deal" for the first year as long as you sign a two year contract and get gouged the second year and all further years that you stay with them.

In some areas you might find an alternate wired service, such as AT%T Uverse. But amazingly, even though customers are worth over $5200 each, there won't be much competition to get your business and no one offering you a fair deal. This is purely coincidence, as it would be illegal for these providers to have any back room deals to keep inflating prices.

If you were sold to someone for over $5200, don't you think that they would be thinking about how to get paid back for that "investment"? Where do you think that money is going to end up coming from?. This is a bad deal for everyone who has cable, and indeed a bad deal for everyone who watches TV. It will only serve to drive up cable prices for everyone, and even serve as another incentive to further discriminate against the "free air" viewers.

Look at the argument: "... some sort of lamentation about how tech-savvy criminals will be able to cover up or destroy evidence contained on their phones before the police can crack open these new-fangled address books and copy everything..."

Clearly we must give the government any and every power that they want to snoop into our lives. After all, it's not like they could just put the phones that they steal in a simple shielded Faraday box while they wait for a warrant, and then do their snooping in a Faraday cage. No, it is far better to give every scumbag that wants to snoop into your life completely free unrestricted access than to even make them go through the sham of having a warrant first, after all, they have implied that somehow tech-savvy criminals might wipe their phones.

In short you do not know how things are connected, and could be combined with other things that you don't expect.

I don't know how things are connected, but I do know how things should be connected. That is, for any such organization, their public website should be hosted remotely on a hosting provider somewhere. It shouldn't be a door directly into the hospital. the patient records, drug delivery control software, or even the computerized toilets. Hosting the website locally is a big red lag that someone doesn't know what they are doing and puts patients at risk.

Attacks to a website could impact patient care? If there is any truth at all to this (which I really doubt) then people should be made aware of it immediately. Thanks Anonymous, I really want to know if I'm going to get patient care at a hospital where that care could be compromised just by a problem on their website.

They claim that ethanol has 3% less energy than gasoline. But I have measured that I get AT LEAST 10% less millage in my 2013 Mazda on gasoline diluted with alcohol than I do with pure gasoline. What that means for me is that I effectively get ZERO energy from the alcohol mixed with my gas. I would be better off just buying the 90% gas and letting them keep the 10% alcohol, at least that way I wouldn't have to haul around the useless alcohol and/or I would have more space for gas in the tank. When I can find it I sometimes buy pure gas at a premium price, but it isn't available close to my home, isn't easy to buy when on the road, and usually costs more that the difference in the mileage justifies.

Some jobs are just to dangerous for robots to do.

If someone confesses to a crime they should be treated as a criminal, not as an "informant".

How dare you let facts get in the way of left-wing "science. I'm just glad that there seems to be some recent global warming (as indicated by our awful record low winters) to help keep the next ice age that we were due for at bay.

'Unless you have the I.D. in hand when (not if) I stop you,' says one cop, 'no love will be shown.'

It is a shame that they didn't name that cop. This is pretty much confirmation that everything accused is going on. Goes on in other states too, often with metal "Sheriff's Association Donor" badges that are attached to cars. What a shock that there is little respect for law enforcement any more.

I believe her. I fell that Kate is totally capable of being tricked into making a movie with such claims. I'm not sure that she has much of an argument though. She was paid to do something really really stupid and she did something really really stupid, and likely something that she even believed at the time until someone else explained it to her. By her argument she seems to be claiming that she shouldn't be permitted to make any films (which I completely support). If she finds out that there really isn't any "Starfleet" will she go after the Trek franchise too?

mmmm Bacon