Planning Commissions (PCs) and planning and zoning are where we wrest control from politicians who are beholding to money and developers. But PCs have to fight to use that limited power against people who make money by ignoring the science. The local planning commission should have stopped issuing permits to build or upgrade based on those old reports.

If we really start to pay for data flow then a 4Gigabit daily movie habit gets real expensive, both in infrastructure and in cost (when paying per-bit downloaded). But only Polyanna could pretend that we won't have to eventually pay for big data downloads (the same non-functioning thinkers who thought making health care cheaper for the individual would automatically make more health care available).

Maybe they want to use it for launching and landing 3/4 scale radio control toys? I mean really, there must be close to a hundred million youtubing video-kings who could create a better video of the sinking of an aircraft carrier than the Iranians would get from blowing this up. But it would make a good flyby target if you had an air force that needed to practice attacking a carrier, but again, unless it shoots back you'd be better off with a good video game. But for now, I'll watch this space.

The creationists have a valid argument IF we are talking about a Friday night beer brawl over whose football team is better. But we are not. We are talking about whether the universe is closed, open, or balanced. Is it 13.7B years old or is the current expansion 13.8B years old?

If you want to argue that the earth is 6,000 years old, go talk to the "Last Thursdians", the Hindus and all those other nonsense mythologies. Myths make great themes for movies, but I would not want my heart surgeon or bridge-designer acting on those myths. The Creationists are fundamentally different from the others because they bring their arguments to places where actions are developed, and that makes them dangerous.

Could I just suggest that there be a website where I could post a photo of an object I hoped to sell, and if no-one commented within a reasonable time then I could point at that post as a valid defense if some git wanted to do this to my tiny little business. I would suggest 2.7 minutes, but I don't like this sort of stuff. But it would be fun to argue in court that the other guy's attorneys had a "duty of care" to be monitoring this site 24x7 (at the other guys expense, I might add). Of course, the current standard duty of care is imposed in the other direction even though the supporting search process is way stoopid. Let's start to use real-time for what it's really worth.

Of course, this plan would never work because the rent-seekers among us have more money, and thereby more access to the legal system, than the rest of us. That is, the rest of us put together.

Cory Doctorow ( Pirate Cinema ), you are my new god of IP stupidity. Must read for all of us, never mind the nit-pickers among us.

Given the bandwidth and bugs I sometimes wish Firefox had an HTML1.0 only setting ... but then I read quickly and I don't have the patience to sit through long videos. Certainly don't need embedded videos and most images. But a switch that let me see HTML5 as if it were HTML3 or HTML1 would be helpful.

Do you know how a professor finds a needle in a haystack? They throw grad students at the haystack till one of them says "ouch".

Throughout my long career supporting decision makers I have always contended that "action defines truth". So, if I am on top of a tall building, the science of gravity is "settled" in that I would not step off the top expecting to hover like Wiley Coyote. In that sense, then settled is a function of the importance of the decision I am making. So, is the science of evolution settled? With respect to actions that allow bacteria to evolve yes, and I use that "settled" state to inform actions regarding overuse of antibiotics. But I seldom make decisions that need to know if Neanderthals could interbreed with Homo Sapiens Sapiens, so that science need not be considered settled. Global warming? Of course it is not "settled". But I do note, and act on, the fact that insurance companies are adjusting rates to reflect the new risks that global warming has introduced (see FL and wind insurance, see MN and house insurance rates). So it is settled in that sense. Beginning of life? Not a scientific question, this is all about where a life deserves protection at the expense of another. Because I believe in the sovereignty of the individual (don't force me to donate my spare kidney, thank you very much), there really is no scientifically answerable question. But there the "settle3d" question is removed from the table by the sovereignty question. My final point? Arguing about when scie3nce is settled in the absence of an actionable question makes as much sense as arguing about angels dancing on the head of a pin.

Better be a one-time pad that is NOT generated using any pseudo-random number algorithms or you are toast.

Not when the real outlaws show up, its like they are having a friendly little school yard fight when the B-52s show up.

Subsidies within governments. One of the ONLY reasons we form large area governments (e.g., EU, USA, USM, etc) is to facilitate the transfer of wealth from haves to have nots. A shared currency with a central taxation is the vehicle for that transfer. As soon as little subdivisions (New York(USA), South East(UK), Germany(EU)) start accounting and saying "hey, mate! We send more than we get" then they are forgetting that purpose. As we say here, and you've heard elsewhere, within my house, we are all communists (sharers and carers) but at some distance that fades to being something less sharing and caring. For some, that distance is across the street, for others, it is across the planet. When an "across the planet" type sees an "across the street" type doing well, they sometimes get jealous and send in the "boyz with bayonets" to breach that barrier. The relative homogeneity of some countries makes it easier to extend that barrier to the border, but at the same time makes it harder to push it beyond that border. The social capital benefits of homogeneity, to me, suggests that we should work to increase the perception that we are all "home boyz", rather than encouraging the Balkanization of our societies. Bottom line - don't play the "we send more than we get back card", just be glad that you are better off than those other blokes that need central help. And hope that the centrals don't get so greedy that they drive away the wealth generators. After all, the best parasite is the one that does not kill the host.

Only 90%??? I am SO proud. After all, 95% of the planet still believe in his noodlieness.

Don't believe in IP either, I'll bet.

Try reading Pirate Cinema . Absent evidence to the contrary, I think the hero in this book is a self-centered solipsistic me-firster who is more than a little representative of the type ... "finder's keepers and all that" ... yeah, right.

But then again, the evil-doers in the book are front-page news today IRL as they try to write their ownership tags on infrastructure items like the internet. Sort of as if I were to go paint a great big "This road is mine, pay toll at the stop sign", which I would back up by standing by said stop sign with a squeegee and a can of spray paint, so I could deliver the appropriate thank you to the people who deign to drive "my" highway.

Seems to me that you can either play fair games with friends or play unfair games with cheaters. Auto-aim bots make FPS games no fun at all if you are playing against a random set of players. But giving up your browser history to get a fair game? Ought to be offered as an Opt-In and be done with it.

Careful, you probably just gave Homeland Security some new research ideas.