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Comment Re:Why do you want pieces of plastic (Score 1) 354

Over 70% of homes in the US have broadband access

That's the thing... I have "broadband", but it tops out at 3Mbps downstream, and is noisy enough that it often drops under 1Mbps..

I know I would never live in a home without access to non-satellite broadband [faster than 3Mbps]

I once thought so, too, but the rest of the situation is, as noted, practically perfect. That's was the gist of my post: connection speed is just one of many factors to consider in a house. To hold such an absolute hard line on it is silly, in my opinion.

The scenario you describe is a very rare one, if you are being truthful that is.

The only thing I'm not being truthful about is the implication that my housing cost is low for the area. I live in one of the least-inflated metropolitan areas in the United States, in a very old suburb. Since everything about the area is cheap, that includes taxes and the salaries needed to get good teachers. The downside, as noted, is that the buildings are old.

Comment Re:let me correct that for you. (Score 1) 619

That said, All world wars have started in Europe. So Europe is a good example that we just aren't there yet.

Two data points is not a statistically meaningful sample size.

The argument could also be made that it was the United States leading the persecution of Germany after WWI, directly causing the nationalism that triggered WWII.

Comment Re:Why do you want pieces of plastic (Score 1) 354

I wouldn't live in a place with inadequate bandwidth for a simple video stream.

Wow. You're quite picky.

I live in one of the nicest neighborhoods in my city, with good neighbors, great schools, and near one of the best fine arts districts in the world. My house is a three-story colonial, with a finished basement, which costs me around $900/month.

Now, the house is old enough that the phone company's disconnect is in the middle of that finished basement, so replacing the wiring to support a faster connection isn't really an option, there's no cable service on the little side street, and the state forest next to me interferes with satellite service.

I guess I should just give up my otherwise-perfect home and move, because I can't get that all-important bandwidth.

User Journal

Journal Journal: Morgan Freeman on Mars

As I was going through Google News this morning I ran across an item about actor Morgan Freeman talking to a couple of astronauts on the ISS at a round table discussion at JPL before an audience of what looked like two or three hundred people, all of whom were JPL employees.

He was there with the producer of his show on the Science Channel Through the Wormhole and with its writer, a physicist.

Technology

MIT Combines Carbon Foam and Graphite Flakes For Efficient Solar Steam Generati 110

rtoz (2530056) writes Researchers at MIT have developed a new spongelike material structure which can use 85% of incoming solar energy for converting water into steam. This spongelike structure has a layer of graphite flakes and an underlying carbon foam. This structure has many small pores. It can float on the water, and it will act as an insulator for preventing heat from escaping to the underlying liquid. As sunlight hits the structure, it creates a hotspot in the graphite layer, generating a pressure gradient that draws water up through the carbon foam. As water seeps into the graphite layer, the heat concentrated in the graphite turns the water into steam. This structure works much like a sponge. It is a significant improvement over recent approaches to solar-powered steam generation. And, this setup loses very little heat in the process, and can produce steam at relatively low solar intensity. If scaled up, this setup will not require complex, costly systems to highly concentrate sunlight.

Comment Re:let me correct that for you. (Score 2, Insightful) 619

If you looked at libertarian socialist societies them you'd likely find they are less likely to cheat thanks to a high degree of social trust. Also, in a capitalist society, you'll find that the rich are more likely to cheat.

[citation needed]

I'd more easily believe that the libertarians would cheat more, because they assume the rules don't prevent it, and that rich capitalists would actually cheat less, but they'd exploit every nuance of the rules to their advantage.

Comment Re:Warrants are supposed to be narrow (Score 1) 150

Let's fix it: a nosy neighbor reports you to the police for luring the underaged to your house, and so the cops get a warrant and search it.

A tip usually isn't enough for a search warrant. There's a spectrum of how much proof is required. A search requires less than an arrest, but there's still a significant threshold to pass.

So they remove all your photo albums and find the pictures of you sitting on a couch made out of bags filled with marijuana

...and that might be enough for a new search warrant to look for drug paraphernalia.

and bring you up on drug charges

...which would require an arrest warrant, with an even higher burden of proof, and a prosecutor that thinks they can make a case on more than just a few pictures of you not even taken in your house.

That's not very Scottish, either.

Comment Re:Warrants are supposed to be narrow (Score 4, Interesting) 150

It always seems like you're on the side of the government, whether it's the NSA or what have you.

Often, yes. You see, I actually understand the design of the US government. It's built to continually revise and improve, and it's been doing so for over 200 years. On the other hand, your opinions have been forming for less than a century, and since you're only a single person, you've undergone far fewer revision cycles, all of which have been from a very limited perspective.

For example:

Also, any warrant asking to just search the entire house should be rejected, too.

Is that just, though? It may appeal to your sense of privacy, but would it appeal to your sense of justice to know that any criminal could effectively conceal evidence by simply putting it in a large enough box? How would your neighbors feel about it, knowing that you could be seen kidnapping their children, and the police could do nothing because they wouldn't know what room they're being held in?

Sure, the examples are hypothetical, but the underlying issue of deciding what is right predates your consideration by quite a long while. The best we have so far is a system where certain activities are absolutely permitted, and certain activities are absolutely forbidden, and deciding which category a given situation fits into falls to a judge whose primary interest is to bring the legal precedent closer to a state that everyone considers to be fair. It's not perfect, and likely will never be perfect, but it's closer than having Random Internet Guy simply decide that privacy trumps justice, because he says so.

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