Given that the market is already oversaturated with supply, suggesting that the loss of a low-yield source will necessarily create a vacuum that must be filled is a rather disingenuous argument.

Specifically, dry farming is an inherently low-yield form of agriculture (and one which has a history of leading to dust storms and erosion in the areas where it's practiced, I'll add, since it eliminates ground cover), and the US already has a massive surplus of food supply each year (which is why we waste so much of it on useless stuff like corn for ethanol). Losing a single farm will almost certainly not have any sort of significant impact on the food supply, nor will someone set up a new, irrigation-based farm to deal with the loss of supply caused by this one's closure. Demand already outstrips supply. There will be no vacuum to fill.

On the other hand, demand routinely outstrips supply when it comes to power in California, and the excess power from this solar farm will supply enough for 60,000 homes. I'm not a huge proponent of clean power, but even I have to admit that keeping that many homes from having to use coal or similar sources would be beneficial.

Umm...they're doing both. They announced a 2900-acre US-based solar farm almost two weeks ago. This announcement is following on the heels of that one and looks to be a bit larger in scale (possibly because they don't already have smaller facilities in Europe like they've had for awhile in the US?). There's no reason why they have to choose either the US or Europe when they have the resources to do both.

Texas is about 60/40 Republican/Democrat at the moment. From 1848 to 1978, Democrats won Texas in all but 4 presidential elections, and Texas even had a Democrat (Ann Richards) as it's governor up until George W. Bush was elected in the mid-1990s. Texas' population is also among the fastest growing in the nation as a result of the high number of people relocating there from other states, suggesting that its demographics are likely to change over the next few years. As it is now, almost all of the urban centers (of which there are quite a few) lean Democrat, while the sprawling suburbs (of which there are also quite a few) lean Republican.

Suggesting it's "99.999% Republican" means that you've fallen for the rhetoric one side or the other is spewing.

Part of it definitely isn't violating net neutrality, and the other part of it also isn't.

The first part is nothing more than a simple CDN. Basically, they identify popular files, cache them locally in subnets where they're popular, and then serve up the cached results in order to improve overall performance. That's a simple network optimization technique that provides data as quickly as possible without any regard for who you are or who's delivering the content. ISPs and CDNs already do this with everything from YouTube to Apple's software updates to Netflix to the DNS records for your blog. It in no way violates net neutrality.

As for the second part, it's also not a net neutrality issue, despite how it's being misrepresented to try and make it look like it is. There is no "fast lane". It's simply a method for engaging in more efficient multi-path/multi-source routing, which they already deal with on a regular basis with BGP. Basically, given multiple sources (i.e. peers) for the file that you're seeking, they'll connect you with the closest one. There's nothing contrary to net neutrality about preferentially selecting closer sources for the data you're requesting. If there was, then caching as a whole would be contrary to net neutrality, and that's clearly hogwash.

TL;DR: I read the article, and there is no "fast lane". All they're doing is caching and/or connecting you to the closest source for the data you've requested, both of which are done without regard for who you are or who is providing the content. These are common techniques already in widespread use for the last few decades. The only novel aspect of the patent is that it's "for P2P". *eyeroll*

Uhh...

A) You look like a crazy spammer with your insane formatting, massive hyperbole, and numerous comments that seem to be frothing at the mouth. It's no wonder Palant stopped responding to you.

B) I never suggested people should use AdBlock. Quite the contrary, in fact, since I already pointed out that it wasn't particularly efficient and suggested that people should use an alternative to it. I know that reading my single sentence is asking a lot of you, but you might be advised to read it a bit more carefully next time before you make multiple comments, each of which has dozens of lines of inapplicable text that look to have been written by a madman.

C) Custom hosts files complement browser addons, rather than replacing them. I use both uBlock and a custom hosts file, and I'd encourage others to do so as well, since each handles various things better or differently than the other. For instance, hosts are more efficient and can prevent the ad server from ever getting my request, which addons sometimes can't do, but it can't remove the element from the page where the ad would have showed, whereas an addon can. Hosts files are also a bit more hands-on in keeping up-to-date than addons, but they have the benefit of working across any browser or Internet service on your computer, whereas addons are easier to keep up-to-date, but only work in the browser where they are installed.

TL;DR: Read more carefully, use both, and stop posting tirades. We'll all be happier, you included.

Where do you think he's getting all of these ideas for spaceships, cars, and hyperloops? With a name like "Elon Musk", he's not even trying to fool anyone. No way that name originated on planet Earth!

Really, it's pretty obvious that he's here to soften us up in preparation for an invasion. He's used his alien technology (a "software update" to improve 0-60 performance? yeah right!) to win over thousands of Teslacolyte converts already, with more joining his religion every day. His spaceship company is poaching the top talent from NASA, who otherwise would have been our best defense against alien attack. His electric cars can be crippled via software update and, if allowed to further propagate, will eventually lead to a reduction in our current fuel infrastructure that is outside of their control. Now he's talking about making whole-home batteries, meaning he could cripple all of our homes instantly too. And stuff like his hyperloop concept? It'll be used to get us to turn on each other as we fight over whether or not to accept the aliens and their promises of technological advancement.

Hyperloop in one tentacle, and a ray gun to betray us in the other. Just you wait and see.

uBlock and AdBlock do indeed block the same stuff, but if you're going to pick one, go with uBlock, since it's significantly more efficient.

Never seen it before either, and that's exactly how I read it too. Scary that he was right about knowing what you meant.

If you think that's confounding, try reconciling it with the statements immediately before it:

I.e. 19% growth in revenue = good, 20% growth in revenue-generating activity = bad. Which is it? The author can't have it both ways!

I realized I forgot to finish my thought after I had posted it. I should have concluded it with, "For that matter, I don't want to be dealing with arcane systems or fiddling around with misbehaving technology at home either."

I've looked into Vera's products previously and have been quite impressed since they appear to have the ability to manage all of the things I've thought of so far (e.g. sprinklers, blinds, garage, etc.). That said, the last time I looked through their app catalog I noticed that there were a number of holes I'd need to fill with custom plugins I'd be writing for myself. That situation may have changed, but it kept me from jumping on that wagon. At this point, I figure I'll just wait another year or two, since I expect that most of those holes will be plugged, either by Vera's app community, or else by another vendor with a competing product.

Precisely. I've been looking for a simple way to automate various things around my home, but I've been holding off until these systems can pass the "if I sell the house tomorrow could the new owners get by like normal without an instruction manual" test.

Which is to say, the bar for entry should simply be "works like a dumb device", with any technological enhancements layered on top of that functionality so that it supplements the dumb functionality, rather than replaces it. Instead, many of them outright eliminate the dumb functionality or else make it dependent on the smart technology, meaning that they're utterly useless if the wrong link in the technological chain has a hiccup. If I move out tomorrow, I want the new owners to be able to use the place like a normal house without having to configure arcane systems, regularly maintain misbehaving technology, or worry about which OS they're running on their phone or personal computer.

Isn't it really California's failure then? Silicon Valley's rate is in line with the state's rate, but the state's rate is lower than the national average by a few points.

With scientists demonstrating math skills this poor, it's no surprise that distrustful Silicon Valley parents are abandoning vaccinations at unprecedented rates!*

*For purposes of this statement, "unprecedented" has been defined as "entirely normal".

So, you mean to say that we got exactly the results we'd expect if we took a representative sampling?

He never suggested he was talking about the average of the 12 facilities rather than the national average (you read that into what he said), but even if he had, it wouldn't make a difference. Regardless of whether we're talking about the average of the sampled group, the average of all facilities in the Silicon Valley area, the national average, or the global average, so long as the sample we take is a representative subset of the larger group, we would (in most cases) expect them to conform to the distribution of the larger group.

The only way your clarification might make a difference is if Silicon Valley is generally ahead in this area. If that were the case, these facilities would be notable for their failure to match the standard set by their nearby peers. But that doesn't seem to be the case here, since the whole summary is merely pointing out that Silicon Valley is conforming to national averages.

Whoop-dee-doo. Silicon Valley isn't special. News at 11.

That was my first thought as well, and I am shocked I had to scroll this far down before I saw someone else had posted it.

He can just get a phone intended for young children, program all of the speed dial buttons to go directly to his line (the one you linked even allows the user to program the emergency button too), and enjoy the fact that he doesn't have to spend exorbitant amounts of time or money on a custom-built solution that may not have issues he's aware of until the time comes to actually use it. Plus, he doesn't have to worry about false positives going to emergency responders, since the phone would be incapable of calling them in the first place.

Simple, cheap, easy to set up, available off the shelf, uses proven technology, and serves a need that isn't going away anytime soon, so there are plenty of options on the market.