Also, in some countries it's illegal to harvest power from ambient electromagnetic radiation, like GB as it says in the comments section here, in order to prevent people from leeching power off of power lines, antennas of radio stations and what have you. While that doesn't stop you from charging your AA batteries for free, you might have a hard time selling gear that relies on harvested power in these countries.

While you are right, what puzzles me here is that they name corruption as the cause of problems. Usually, even if you identify corruption as a problem, you do not call it corruption, nowhere and never (and it's not as if Russia is the only country where corruption is rampant). While I wonder what exactly hides behind this news tidbit -- and we all know that the message itself is likely very far from communicating what is actually happening or intended -- I assume that even bringing up corruption in this context might be a message in itself. Then again, what do I know ... someone enlighten us (Edja Snegskowsky, help us out!).

... or with a renewable energy sector that is among the most innovative and successful worldwide according to Wikipedia.

In the country where they are doing this, renewables are taken off the grid on a regular basis because of overproduction and power is regularly sold for extremely low or even negative prices (I kid you not) to European neighbors. So, instead of not producing power by stopping wind turbines on windy days or losing money selling / giving away excess power, it could be put to good use even if you chose to "burn" it in a not very efficient conversion process. Some interesting numbers here. That said, I'm off to RTFA.

I really do like the nerdiness of your comment attacking the anonymous messenger along with your reluctance to discuss the message. Anti-Americanism an histrionics aside, it is by now a sane business decision to avoid US products and services in certain markets -- as long as you are willing to accept the fact that the US is not the world.

I was wondering about this from the first time the drone delivery thing came up. People will steal everything that is unprotected, and sometimes even things that are heavily protected. Why do Amazon et. al. think it will be any different with delivery drones? Once those drones are ubiquitous, shooting them down just to hunt down some nice surprise presents will become a new sport.

let the market squabble it out for an extended period of time

Thing is, the definition of 'market' has changed considerably since the time I was taught what a market is ("The market is the place where supply and demand meet"). Go check for yourself and apply the 'old' definition to whatever markets you are most familiar with, and you'll probably find they rarely work that way anymore, and many don't mess much with supply and demand, but are -- as you state -- playing for time.

Curiously enough, the page's fortune tells me: "'Free markets select for winning solutions.' -- Eric S. Raymond" They certainly used to, but do they still -- or rather: how free are they?

At least, it gives a whole new meaning to the term "old news" -- and to "dupe" as well, FWIW.

by following turkey's authoritarian freedom crushing instructions that would otherwise get facebook banned, facebook remains influential in turkey in a positive way, in more subtle ways

Not a very nuanced view, and even complex matters can be surprisingly simple if you have values. -- "by following turkey's authoritarian freedom crushing instructions that would otherwise get facebook banned," facebook remains in business there. This and nothing else matters to corporations. Please don't pretend that FBs mission is to propagate free speech, because that would be ... well, a blockheaded black-or-white kinda view. FB censors when it fits its business model (see the " pictures of breasts" argument). FB is accepting and taking part in what you call turkey's authoritarian freedom crushing instructions. Because they don't have values, as Zuckerberg likes to suggest, but business interests. Once Turkey blocks FB (Twitter etc.), people who value free speech will circumvent those blocks, as they have always done, but it would hurt FBs business.

Departure of global temperature from average for 2014 (NOAA)

Earth's departure in temperature from the 20th century average during the period 1880 - 2014, according to NOAA.

global departure of temperature from average from 1965 - 2014 (scepticalscience.com)

Article: 2014: Hottest Year in Recorded Human History, Dr. Jeff Masters' blog entry at wunderground.com.

The simple fact is MOST people will ignore limits that re too low

I'm not sure if this is true or if it applies to MOST. I don't know where you live, but I am quite certain that where I live it doesn't work that way (fines ... few, not most can ignore those). Nonetheless, by raising the upper limit of speed, you'd further spread the difference of speeds of individual cars, i.e. those who go beyond limits and those who adhere, so I doubt you have a point here. Never mind, though, limits are and will remain arbitrary, and people will drive as fast as they see fit. People will die in traffic, no matter what we do. IMHO, raising speed limits will kill more people, but I might be wrong. Physics -- along with common sense -- saved my life quite a few times so far, so that might be something we both can agree to.

Avoiding accidents involves way more than simply braking.

Sure, but that wasn't my point. It is actually all about the time it takes the human body to react to stimuli. The average best case response time seems to vary from 215 milliseconds (humanbenchmark.com) to 166 ms (sprinters at the Beijing Olympics as of Wikipedias Mental chronometry entry). My point was: the faster you go, the more can happen within those ~180ms that you cannot respond to. We're not even talking about the forces involved at the respective velocities, or worst case response times of distracted drivers etc.

Comparing German accident rates to U.S. rates with very different driving situations makes no sense

In that case, physics might make sense. Just compare how many yards you make in a second at 55 mph vs. 85 mph. Also, compare stopping distances. Driving faster is more dangerous unless you bend the laws of physics.

+1

Also, there's nothing controversial about geo and climate engineering, it's just a dumb idea, since we don't actually understand climate yet, or even just the weather. Let 'em write papers, but make sure they keep their hands off of actual "engineering" for a few more decades. We'll be busy coping with our most recent climate engineering attempt and its results, the release of several hundred million years' worth of carbon.

I want people to get off this planet.

Why?

It's the updated version of get off my lawn.

Um, no: Orban publicly announced that he plans to eliminate liberal democracy in his country and turn Hungary into an 'illiberal state,' modeled after China or Russia. Pretty much no other country does that, which shows that Orban's Fidesz is not like any other authoritarian regime IMO.