I used to work for A major auto maker, this story is a bit of click bait since more likely what they are talking about is liability issues with modified vehicle controllers. People would over tune there car via third party apps, then end up blowing the motor on race day. They would flash the car back to stock and make a warranty claim.

That sucks, but the answer is better technology that makes that sort of thing easier to prove, or better technology that makes it more idiot-proof (like most cellphones have separate radio and baseband processors), not outlawing hacking.

Household inverters will dump power into the grid as long as the grid is being maintained within some tolerance of voltage and frequency. This tolerance is quite wide, because otherwise inverters wouldn't work a lot of the time.

But the utility company would ideally like to be able to control the grid to whatever tolerance makes sense under current conditions, and this problem is not simplified by random (from its perspective) energy sources dotted around.

Also, the utility company has to maintain generation for the base load, and when a cloud greatly reduces the solar it has no control over, it has to quickly ramp generation up and then back down when the cloud goes away.

But while they're procrastinating on things that others would think are important, they are usually working on stuff they think is important. Procrastinating on everything is more likely a sign of something else, perhaps depression.

I wouldn't either. And I don't call ADHD a disease, but it's not what you describe. The typical ADHDer either would love French and (assuming his ADHD does not coexist alongside learning disabilities) learn it really well, or hate it and not bother.

But we can and should legislate full disclosure for practically any substance that people are selling. Why are MSDS not available for things you ingest? (The obvious answer -- that they should be perfectly safe anyway, is obviously wrong, once you find that it is entirely possible to OD on a wide range of foodstuffs, and that's even before you get into common and not-so-common allergies.)

Anyway, in a perfect world, everybody would have their own tricorder, and know exactly how to interpret the results. In this world, all we can do is try to educate ourselves and others on result interpretation, and demand that we have good factual data from the people selling us the goods.

Yes, and people are dying because we don't know how to compensate for this yet. So much for knowing what we're doing.

> you have this notion that transfer of genes between species is some weird thing humans just invented

It's obviously not, or weeds wouldn't be growing resistant to Monsanto's herbicides at what must be an alarming rate to them. Nonetheless, there's a probabilistic thing here -- the rate at which RoundupReady is spreading is obviously partly caused by the huge attempted corn monoculture, and the vast amount of glyphosate sloshing around the environment (making this gene eminently useful in the current environment). Most genes don't propagate across multicellular species anywhere near this quickly, or we probably would have noticed by now.

>agay, you have this bizarre irrational fear

I think you're responding to someone else now, but I'm sure that doesn't matter to you, because you still have this (unfortunately not bizarre) general asshole-ness and superiority complex. Work on it.

Being able to make more changes faster to a system that is not fully understood may be a terrible thing.

Being able to make more changes faster that then get propagated to unwanted species as well as anything in Jurassic Park is not only not a good idea, but ultimately self-defeating.

Being able to make changes that only exist to allow more use of glyphosate, being able to insert fish genes into plants, being able to play god in the same manner as the boy next door in Toy Story, yeah, that might ultimately be a bad thing, too.

Personally, I try to eat older foods, less sweet fruits, etc.

"because we do in the lab intelligently"

Give me a fucking break. Our understanding of biologic systems is still in its infancy.

"what we have been doing informally for thousands of years"

And slowly -- don't ever forget slowly.

" is threatening to you"

I hope it doesn't threaten anybody. But the evidence is still out. Glyphosate on wheat and gluten intolerance? Maybe.

"sign of your ignorance and science illiteracy."

Ahh, now I remember why I come to slashdot. The ability to interact with incompetent know-it-all assholes outside a work setting.