AT&T keeps saying that Netflix, which is the company that most of their clients are paying more to get faster Internet access to, has to pay more because Netflix sends more data than they receive.

It's funny but I've never seen a single AT&T statement that they should be paying money to blackblaze, crashplan, & the other cloud backup providers. It's strangely hypocritical because AT&T is clearly sending a lopsided amount of traffic to the cloud backup providers.

So many things wrong in only a single sentence...
Space-X's Dragon is not currently ready to be used to launch astronauts, so no astronauts.
Space-X builds over 80% of the Falcon launcher in-house so no bidder & lowest cost is not the determining factor. Mission success is.
Re-use is not stupid if it brings costs down. Have you never taken a plane? Do you think that the engines are new for every flight? Do you replace your car engine before every trip? Do you throw your keyboard away after each use?

Whats the matter, did your daddy work for the Porkcircus?

The only idiot saying that a moon mission has to be done NOW with Falcon-heavy & Dragon in their actual state of development and for $150 million is you.

Give Space-X a few years & with flyback boosters, a proven dragon taking over for Soyuz for regular access to & from ISS, well yes a single Space-X moon mission without the development costs could well end up in the $150 million ballpark.

The NASA Porkcircus that was the Shuttle cost that much because it was an enormously maintenance intensive beast that needed support from thousands of people spread out over a third of the USA's states (gotta spread the pork around doncha know) to be able to fly every time.

Space-X's Falcon Heavy is none of that & as an expendable is already in the $150 Million dollar range. If they can nail down the flyback boosters & second stages, to be able to reuse them they will be able to cut that much lower.

Sorry, my initial post was when there were only a handful of posts and none of them addressed the odor issue.

So, biochar sequesters carbon for thousands of years AND is a potent soil amendment at the same time? Miraculous stuff indeed...

Sorry, you missed the sarcasm. My overly subtle point was that this solar crap cooker isn't designed for disaster relief (pun intended) because one of it's major selling points, biochar is close to irrelevant in that context. In other words, you don't sell disease prevention by selling long term fertiliser benefits. Another point being that disaster relief doesn't reliably coincide with near constant sunshine.

On motorcycle protection: Given the trauma causes in 2&3 wheel vehicle accidents, wearing a helmet is the most intelligent thing you can do. I'd personally feel more naked without a helmet & track style protective gear than with a helmet and not a stitch. Wearing one turned a minor accident into something that I walked away from instead of a fatality.

V+ as we riders in France sign off from one to another

Snort, Blackberry, the original corporate phone & the only smartphone to have made it into the white house uses crappy connectors?!? Sure sport, whatever you say, what ever you say.

I've never snapped the central post off a Samsung which is your preferred phone but there are a few in that drawer at work. Samsung is crap now too, right? Will you now turn to HTC as the source of non-crappy phones? Maybe ZTE is more your speed, though.

Aww gee, you found a badly engineered Lightning cable that might rip away on the cable side of the connector. That certainly addresses my point that micro-USB has a weakness on the terminal side with an easily snapped central post, or at least it does in your mind. Good for you. You really argued that one well... Tell me again how lightning without that fragile central post is just as fragile as micro-usb that has one? Run it through your mind. Do you see where you didn't address my point? Still no? Well there is an expression "None are so blind as those who refuse to see" that applies.

I don't know what is is with micro-USB that gives it cult status as you have refused to answer every time I asked.

Clearly you're willing to live with crap as long as Apple (hope I didn't scare you there with that name, you flinch every time I use it) doesn't control it. Except that that's not true either, a connector similar to micro-jack could fairly easily be adapted to the task, isn't controlled by you know who (let you off easy this time), but you object to that too for equally feeble reasons.

So, it is your position that BillG & co came up with this system for quick deployment in disaster zones and not as a long term solution? That explains why they push biochar as such a major benefit. After all, everyone needs biochar right after a major disaster, right?

Note that I recognise the sanitary advantages, but just doubt that unless they make is smell less than I fear, it will not be widely deployed. Health advantages are insufficient. People know that riding a motorcycle or a scooter without a helmet/gloves/jacket/adapted footwear is a major health hasard. Yet every year I see the idiots in short sleeves & flip flops tooling around.

No, once again you did not:
"So it's your position that the shorts that happen rarely and when plugging in/out are the reason why axial plugs cannot be used? We couldn't use axial plugs that would initiate connections only at low voltage and then ramp up after negotiation? It's too hard to construct a minor variant that detects when the plug is being unconnected and cuts the juice? It's also too hard to design an axial plug that only initiates digital signals once the plug is fully inserted?"

You feebly objected that shorts would rule out axial & avoided answering the rest.

You've got two connectors (axial & lightning) that do not have rotation or fragile central post issues yet you continue to push micro-USB. Why have you systematically avoided answering why you defend micro-USB when it is clearly inferior?

There are multiple reasons we pipe sewage away from where we live to be treated and public health isn't people's major motivator. It's smell.

Even in societies without piping people were digging latrines and putting outhouses way back at the other side of the garden to contain/diminish the odor.

By scorching feces to sterilize it, it is in effect gasifying it. it's self evident that this system will stink far over and beyond what an outhouse would. Thus while geeky enough to make /.'s front page on a slow Sunday, I doubt this system will see any success.

That's a problem that could happen to any connector though. My beefs with Micro-USB is that they wear out, are not reversible and above all that the central post inside the connector snaps off.

No. Micro-USB has manifest weaknesses that you refuse to address. When I confront you with them with simple questions you avoid answering the majority, cherry pick one and say that the others are "too complicated". You're clearly beyond your competency level here.

You are mistaken in stating that I forgot anything. I stated early in the this read on that negotiating power up from a low level with a function to only start once the connector was completely seated was possible. You are clearly not reading all my posts or are incapable of understanding them.

Ah, so you HAVE seen lightning. hope the admission that you have seen other than the holy Micro-USB didn't sting too much.

Now, to address clearly a point that you have repeatedly mis-characterized, the problem with micro-USB isn't with shoddy connectors. The cables and sockets in the blackberries i mentioned are top of the line, no micro-USB's problem is shoddy or at least obsolete technical conception. Without that fragile central plastic post and with an injection molded solid metal (& not hollow) connector, lightning does not have micro-USBs failures.

Do note that cheaper non-apple lightning connectors without micro-USBs failings already exist, but don't let that stop you from blindly ignoring it's advantages.

Oh, good for you. You never broke the fragile post that's in the center of the Micro-USB connector rendering the device useless.

Now consider this: That post often breaks. Maybe it never happened to you, wonderful, but just maybe a better connector that DOESNT have that weakness is superior to one that does? Supposedly, Micro-USB was designed so that this would be well nigh impossible. Well the designers did a crappy job, we have a drawer full of useless phones at work due to bad contacts, broken posts, contacts that came unglued from the post and were bent up, etc.

In all the years I've been driving, I've never wrapped a car around a tree or even had a major accident. That does not blind me to the fact that modern cars with impact absorbing engine compartments, seat belts & airbags are better than a 57 Chevy.

Lightning is a connector that, not having that central post, being reversible and much more solidly constructed, does not suffer from these problems inherent in micro-USB. You should go out and look at one. It's not like looking at one would burn you like holy water is supposed to burn vampires...

Any damage due to intermittent shorts can be designed around in order to produce a connector that is better adapted to the use people want to make of it. Say by not making the digital connections active until a good seat has been made and appropriate voltage has been negotiated.

Your position is apparently that Micro-USB needs no improvement. Why? Did you participate in designing Micro-USB and thus refuse to see any alternative?

Why don't you try answering the rest of my questions instead of cherry picking?