The OpenBSD project is headquartered in Calgary, Alberta. The electrical grid is provincially regulated but owned and operated primarily by a number of different investor owned corporations.

Alberta residents can choose from multiple distribution companies-in Calgary Enmax is most common. Further to that you can lock in on a contract rate where the price per kwh is constant throughout, or you can avoid a commitment and pay a spot price called the "regulated rate option".

If you pick R.R.O. then it is really no choice since all Providers offer about the same price. Contract rates vary more between Providers but often the lowest contract rate at a given time can be more expensive due to long contract terms and bigger exit penalties.

Overall though the choices do not significantly reduce energy cost. The more effective solution is to reduce consumption. If the bill is too large upgrade to more efficient modern hardware where possible and do load shedding of sorts, powering off certain architecture machines and scheduling builds of different architectures on alternating days and off peak hours.

20k seems steep to me but maybe not if it is residential rates...the picture looks like it might be in Theo's basement...

Yes, fire him but not because of incompetence in his surveillance ability. He is right that he needs metadata to do his spying, but the solution he proposes--to work with big tech to figure out how to spy with less metadata--is wrong.

The solution is to do less spying period. Put intelligence back into intelligence and target resources better, starting specific and expanding scope instead of casting the biggest net and picking through that.

Fire him and replace him with a director that does intelligence not merely surveillance. Same goes with people who handle air travel security.

Yes Sony and MSFT could do exactly that...not likely directly but I could see subsidiaries of each doing that. It has happened before. Atari made games for coleco and vice versa and Mattel ported some of their intellivision games to atari and vice versa in the 1980s at the height of their business. It could happen again through game publishing subsidiaries easily and in fact is a very likely future scenario.

...in high tech. That is the simplest explanation.

MSFT already makes more from android through its patent racketeering operation than from the sale of lumias. Nokia would have an advantage using android as it would not have to pay that protection money to a third party. MSFT can embrace and extend android like anyone else and it is a hedge against any possibility of failure for windows phone though I think the chances of winphone failing are diminishing over time.

This is just how business works. Apple made the II using a CPU from MOS which was a subsidiary of arch rival Commodore. Today the vast majority of android handhelds use ARM architecture which comes from a company who's largest shareholder is Apple and Apples biggest enemy has been its biggest component supplier in mobile devices over the years.

It is that simple. High tech companies are like the local yokels from Deliverance.

FAIRNESS matters.

The oil inudstry where I am kills less birds than the wind farms in the area, and the amount killed by wind farms is already quite small, yet the oil industry is required by law to be fully liable for all bird deaths and must, at their own expense, install countermeadures to drive birds away from hazardous areas (scarecrows, air cannons, supersonic noise makers, etc). Even if only a few dozen birds die in a year, and even though none are endangered they are rightly held fully accountable in that respect, as are all industrial operations in my juristiction.

So, tell me why being "carbon neutral" gives a wind farm a free pass to kill animals and destroy habitat?

...you just need to be aware of the bias. All articles have bias to some degree; writing completely without bias cannot effectively convey ideas--lack of bias reduces an article of writing to nothing but an enumeration of facts. Bias is required to support arguments and formulate ideas, or else you are just making the worlds most boring encyclopaedia.

Thus, it is best to actively seek out and focus on biased articles and apply critical thinking--and look at articles biased on BOTH sides. So, don't b!tch about the bias in an article being against your personal views, go out and seek another article biased towards the opposite side of the argument and evaluate each argument on its merits.

How many birds are killed by coal pollution might be part of a valid counter-argument but it does not invalidate the fact that wind tubines kill eagles and other birds, nor the fact that the government is giving the industry preferrential treatment. Where I live Oil Sands is a major source of energy, and upgrader plants (particularly the oldest ones) have tailings ponds. When countermeasures fail and several dozen birds land on the toxic tailings and die the incident is widely reported and the oil companies are held to account, paying thousands per bird found. If they are held fully liable and are subject to mandated full disclosure of all animal fatalities resulting from their operations then how come wind farms get a free pass?

Wind makes no CO2 and is renewable and that is good, but killing wildlife and destroying habitat is bad no matter who does it, and everyone who does it should be responsible for it. We don't give drivers of hybrid cars a free pass if they are at fault in an accident or let them pour their used oil into a storm drain because their cars have a smaller carbon footprint--that would be asinine! Just because an energy source is renewable doesn't mean it has no impact on the environment (just look at how devestating renewable hydroelectric power has been to the environment in China as an example). ALL energy development must be done sustainably throughout the lifecycle. You could never get a nuclear plant built adjacent to a residential neigbourhood, you couldn't get Keystone XL bulit across an aquifer and you wouldn't give BP a break on the cleanup costs of Deepwater Horizon. You shouldn't give a wind farm of hundreds of turbines covering hundreds of acres a free pass on killing birds, destroying habitats and affecting the health of nearby residents just because it is "carbon free".

...for about five desktop computers.

Hey, wise men have said dumber things...

Its not like Apple is a very good corporate citizen either...they've done their own affair share of stealing ideas too.

...in the Athabasca region where the Canadian oil sands are...literally the only people not employed there are not employable due to disability or other personal issues...indeed many workers live all over Canada and fly in for their shifts and stay in company work camps

Automating these trucks would free up workers for other much needed labour elsewhere plus make operations safer and more efficient.

We should do k to EUROPE?

Yeah, those big governments in places like Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal have been stellar examples of responsible and capable government. Perhaps you should take your own advice about the news.

Big intrusive government that actually works well in Europe has been the exception not the rule.

Yeah...it is almost Aztec ugly.

....the hybrid equivalent to the Cadillac Cimmaron for the 21st century.

Looks are a matter of taste. I for one do not care for a half acre if gaudy chrome grille, nor the headlights that appear to have melted and slid up onto the fenders. It makes even the new Cherokee look pretty.

Inside looks nice but 5000 dollar nice? Too many buttons. Just like Tesla and many others I am annoyed by the aversion towards nice big easy to use dials for climate control. Both have gimmicky interiors.

Not sure where the 10 year lifespan comes from...not seen any evidence that the Tesla could not last longer or that replacing batteries would not be cost effective. Concern about charge time is valid...but again that can be addressed in less expensive ways than the hybrid caddy.

Your comments about company longevity are totally baseless as well. GM is technically no older than Tesla...the original GM went bankrupt and folded in the recession. Its viable assets were bought up by a new legal entity back by government billions...they are no better than Tesla in that respect...probably worse for all the billions spent to keep some form of GM in existence. Trsls is established enough already that even if they went under someone would back/support the vehicles.

I use Gimp maybe one every other month. I use LibreOffice several hours a day 5 to 6 days a week, since it the standard issue office suite in my workplace.

Why port apps to android that already work in other supported Linux operating systems? Android uses a Linux kernel so why not virtualised instance of android within a full Linux OS instead? Just put a dalvik VM and whatnot in there and run android apps within a window side by side with LibreOffice or other native apps?

Then you don't need to reboot or have dual mode operation.

...though in France their national police have a wider mandate and are involved in activities similar to state troopers. They are NOT the same as US military police at all.

The RCMP in Canada is a much better comparison to what France has. They are involved in both FBI type activities as well as things like traffic enforcement outside urban centres in provinces that do not have their own police forces.