Brady Haran is neither, but he puts actual scientists on his YouTube channels, and they talk about honest science (and occasional amusing trivia), with no CGI or celebrity required. No politics, no manufactured quotes, many Nobel prizes.

I enjoyed the first few, but the latest book was rubbish and I've entirely lost interest in the story thanks to the pace of his writing. He doesn't seem to have much in the way of original plot ideas, so it's mostly about character moments, and you have to keep that sort of writing coming for me to stay interested in those characters.

The series, however, I rather enjoy. While it's probably the first series to ever make me say "there is such a thing as too much gratuitous nudity", the pacing is vastly better than the books, the important character moments are all there, and the gaps between seasons aren't so long that I forget who everyone is.

Ah. Unpopular opinion and smidgen of fact labeled "troll".

Mazel tov!

It's the only thing that can scale, unless fusion ever stops being "just 20 years away". Think of the energy needs of 11 billion people at American consumption levels (~40 TW), which isn't at all a far-fetched projection and of course it won't stop there. Even ground-based Solar hits scaling issues there - it's one thing to shade everything that's already paved, and maybe all the salt flats, but at some point you get significant ecological effects.

Excuses, excuses. I don't want to call you a fanboy, but this is a classic fanboy tactic. Blame the technology, make out it is so badly broken it's the technology's fault and not Apple's.

The reality is that hundreds of millions of people use wifi successfully and with minimal hassle every day. Yeah, it's not perfect but 20 years ago widespread low cost networking was just a dream, and now we have thousands and thousands of devices sharing the 2.4GHz band more or less without issue. If anything it's biggest problem is that it's too popular and has saturated 2.4GHz.

To look at it another way, all other major operating systems managed to implement it in a fairly reliable way. I come home, my phone and laptop connect to wifi automatically and just work, despite the congestion and mix of standards and vendors.

Oh, sure, for now, but Solar for now can't be baseload anyhow. Orbital can. It will be a while before panels get cheap enough and enough not reliant on scarce materials to scale. It seems inevitable now, but it's still a ways off. Meanwhile, private space efforts keep making progress. In 50 years, when solar has wide adoption and we're struggling with baseload at night, and in bad climates, I think orbital will be a viable choice vs nuclear or gas.

Further proof that anyone can have a mix of crappy hardware and software cause them problems.

Can I get a loud "Well DUH!" from anyone who's life isn't consumed by rampant brand fanboyism?

Because I'm CERTAIN that it's MUCH safer to just leave storage casks sitting OUT IN THE OPEN IN A PARKING LOT at the plant. Right?
No possibility of ground water contamination there right?

The only argument for space-based is "it's a way around NIMBY". PG&E did some serious research into it, as there's just no where in Northern California they're allowed to build a new power plant, and demand keeps rising. The main reason the plan failed is still NIMBY: They'd need a 1-block receiving station for the incoming power, and could never get that approved. Fuck California.

It's also useful in Northern latitudes. In Texas, ground-based makes perfect sense: lots of land, far enough south. In Seattle, not so much - even on the 12 clear days each year, you're too far north for much efficiency.

So, a field of solar panels is more efficient. Hurray!
Lemme just stop by and get a gallon of solar!

Oh wait!

Maybe, if we had a grid and road system that supported wholesale, on-the-go electrification of cars, this would be more important.

But, with our current infrastructure, while biofuels offer less energy density, they result in a product that's appropriate for the uses required.

State governors can't exercise Federal Executive powers - such as commanding the Army, or supervising the Federal courts or the Postal Service, or... well, you get the picture.

On the other hand look at the UK. We used to have two parties (the Arseholes and the Bastards) and a small third one that never got in but always had a few people elected to parliament. Then last time around the two main ones balanced out so evenly that the smaller third one became king maker and formed a coalition with the Bastards.

Now we have another contender, the Closet Racists, who are making waves. We have an election in May and it will be interesting to see how well they do. It's entirely possible they may end up in a coalition with some power. A decade ago no-one would have dreamed of all this, now it's a reality.

Things can change, it's just not easy to engineer that change. In our case it was initially due to a very close election, and then due to grass roots support for the Closet Racists and a particularly charismatic/offensive leader. If you don't happen to be a Closet Racist don't worry, in other countries far left parties have got in too so it can go either way.

Don't give up hope, it can happen.

Actually it seems quite reasonable for the money, assuming that the battery is new (re refurbed quality replacement cells). It's no screamer but a Core 2 Duo is plenty for most desktop stuff. The 1280x800 resolution is fine for a 12" display on an ultra-portable. 8GB of RAM max, and with an SSD it should be pretty quick. Even the GPU isn't bad.

Plus you get a nice Thinkpad keyboard, still pretty hard to beat, and Thinkpad build quality. If you want a secure laptop for business or general desktop stuff I'd say it is pretty good. Where else are you going to get something even half as trustworthy? In the EU all electrical items have a minimum 2 year warranty as well.

Cyanogen isn't a start-up either, they are well established and have been providing commercially supported operating systems (e.g. for the OnePlus One) for a while now.