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Comment To come this far & then bow out? (Score 4, Insightful) 225

Seems a little odd to have gone this far and then bow out. And spread over the decade or more this project goes on, the cost is very minor considering there might be some good takebacks from the project and most importantly the good will it will generate with our European friends who's public has just learned the U.S. is unrepentantly spying on all their citizens all the time (the good will might be worth it alone).

Little quibble: "According to this story from April, the U.S. share of the ITER budget has jumped to "$3.9 billion — roughly four times as much as originally estimated." (That's a pretty big chunk; compare it, say, to NASA's entire annual budget.) "

$3.9 billion is alot compared to NASA's annual budget (which is ~$17 billion) - but that $3.9 billion would be payed over more than a decade right? So for an apples to apples comparison its what the Administration was going to spend on ITER for this budget ($150 million) compared to NASA's budget (~$17 billion).

Comment Good to keep in mind... (Score 1) 216

The oil industry likes fuel cells (have run advertising showing off their benefits in the past) - i.e. big money wants this to keep fuel cells going and happen.

Unsubsidized hydrogen is more expensive than gasoline (to go an equivalent distance in a fuel cell vehicle) at this point.

Electricity out of the plug, for a battery electric vehicle, in the U.S. averages $1.25 per gallon in gasoline equivalency (sometimes much less at night).

Comment Re:"Can't trust Google cuz they're NSA buds" = sil (Score 2) 128

Actually this isn't silly. Intel has compromised CPU instruction set due to NSA influence (whether that was via a secret order or just because they bend over when asked is unknown). Just look at what this Google engineer said:

https://plus.google.com/+Theod...

So given the option of getting a back door inserted in the SSL protocol used by a huge chunk of the world - the NSA will try to corrupt it.

If served with a secret order, from a secret court on the desire of the NSA for "national security" reasons with orders to, of course keep it secret, Google would have no choice but to comply. The fact that it'll be open source would allow for the possibility of it getting caught (but only the possibility), and I doubt that would keep the NSA from trying to corrupt all 3 SSL protocols as they are being reworked currently. JMHO...

Comment NSA has had Intel compromise chip instruction set (Score 2) 340

After the Snowden revelations it is now assumed that Intel compromised their CPU's extra instruction sets that are useful for encryption (making things much faster for encrypting things if used). The NSA then has Co's etc. pushed to use this capability via outside experts and "experts" from college's.

Although many are too old to remember, we had this debate in the 90's over the clipper chip (allowed encryption via a chip with a NSA back door) and it was roundly rejected by the American Public - in the end the NSA has put that capability into our chips in Secret and urged industry to use those compromised capabilities of those chips through "experts" the industry depends on for good advice.

Here's a great quote from a discussion on encryption software - "Remember how an intel employee was pressuring Theodore Tso to only use CPU hardware random, but he couldn't explain why entropy mixing was worse? Funny how that happens.... https://plus.google.com/+Theod..."

This is quite reasonable of Russia (and basically any government that doesn't want the U.S. to have access to their secrets), they should consider all current generation Intel and AMD CPU's to be shot through with U.S. Govt/NSA required exploits and weaknesses. But they should also consider that all the supporting chips used are compromised as well (particularly the ones handling IP communication - if designed by U.S. corps or companies friendly to the U.S.). This is a tall order, but one that needs to happen (saying that as a U.S. citizen who doesn't want to live in a total surveillance world in perpetuity) - not that I'd trust the Russian version, either.

Comment Change is coming for car dealers (Score 4, Insightful) 455

Not specifically Tesla, but electric cars don't have alot of things that car dealers make money with (oil changes, engine work, transmission work and on and on). Alot of dealerships make much of their profits from such things, so what Tesla represents is scary change - of course that change is coming whether driven by Tesla or someone else.

So the dealers have alot of money, alot of friends and will do what they can to gum up the works for (or kill) Tesla and what it represents if they can. JMHO...

Comment Great to see, eh? (Score 4, Insightful) 112

Just awesome to see the Canadian legal system still has its eyes open. Now the political/intelligence system has been in lockstep with the U.S. on the surveillance of everything/everyone program - but maybe there's hope up in the great north. I wish our (U.S.) legal system was so clear sighted on these issues.

Comment Sorta plausible (Score 5, Interesting) 346

The only fly in the ointment of this possiblity, is that it was the Obama Administration that suspended Snowden's passport on his flight to South America that connected through Moscow (while in flight from Hong Kong to Moscow), stranding him in Russia (obviously with intent to politically smear him - which has worked with alot of not informed people).

The shortsighted political decisions of the Obama Administration to do this (locking someone like Snowden in the home of the former KGB) for political gain seems like one of the premier examples of cutting off your nose to spite your face. Obviously the Obama Administration made the political calculation (up at the executive level) that it was worth stranding someone with all his knowledge there. Seems ridiculously shortsighted.

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