No idea.

Putting aside feasible vs reasonable, etc., I think you've made your case quite well, as well as anyone could have. Based on my prior research, I was under the impression that photovoltaic simply wouldn't, couldn't ever happen other than special situations like a research station in the middle of nowhere, or some very low power applications. You've changed my view somewhat, which means something after all the research I've done. It appears street prices in 2014 are significantly lower than "national average" prices reported in studies from 2012. Thanks for the information.

Thanks also for your intellectual honesty. You started by saying I was full of shit about pumped storage, then when I "showed my work" you acknowledged that perhaps I was right. Few people have the intellectual honesty, or intellectual integrity, to do that. I admire and appreciate that.

So lets say that's your unavoidable future. Do you want air conditioning in the desert, or no? Let's say you'll spend the next 5 years cleaning toilets - do you prefer they be the kind where you can flush the toilet paper, or the kind where you make the used toilet paper the maid's problem?

Incremental improvements remain better than no improvements. Do you know much about working and living conditions during the American industrial revolution? Living in 7-story walk-ups, heavy industry with child labor and no thought to safety at all, company stores, etc? And still people flocked to those jobs because it was better than rural America for most. It gets better, one increment at a time.

Fuck you very much sir troll; fuck you very much.

It's worth noting that the more we depend on income taxes on high earners, the more federal revenue will suffer in bad economic times (the very times when the left would argue we need to spend most). Changes to the sum total of income of the bottom 95% in bad times are pretty small: maybe unemployment goes from 5% to 8%, so how much does that affect the total tax base? But top-tier incomes are really unstable, they go down fast in a downturn and up fast in an upturn, so federal revenue takes it on the chin from that group during times like 2008-2011.

That's probably the dominant factor in changes federal revenue as a percentage of GOP these days, now that 1% of tax payers pay about 1/3 of all income taxes, and that noise drowns out any signal we might get from changes in top marginal rate.

I'm certain the OpenBSD guys have literally never cared a single bit. Their goal is to make a secure, clean, and open codebase that people can use and build upon. Anything beyond it simply existence is a bonus.

For one, you don't edit the news. You relay the facts as is.

They did. The relayed fact was both correct and relevant. All this noise is about choosing one fact over the other when both could not be picked.

The odd thing is that it is actually even likely that it's going to be more secure.

Once I have to turn for a communist country to get freedom I guess it's time to start drinking heavily.

Dear US: If you want to spy on yourself, more power to you. But we're not as dumb as you are.

signed, China.

Is it me or is the mere fact that they automated the takedown notices speaking volumes of how frivolous the whole matter has become? Take them all down and let God sort them out, or how is that supposed to be?

Am I the only one who thinks it's about time for some (serious) fines for frivolous takedown notices? It's not like they don't cost the media providers anything.

How about instead of trying to spin it one way or the other, try publishing the facts.

The facts of what? "Intoxicated man takes a taxi, family of four gets home safe and sound"?

Worse than that. It's like Brave New World news. The only things fit to publish are the things that keep us happy(and thus amendable to advertisements in this case). It's not trying to make on specific entity look good, it's trying to engage in actual mind control via selection bias.

Ironically, this might actually end up giving a more accurate picture of the world, because disasters and scandals tend to be big and flashy, while good news come as constant stream of small things. Overall, the stream drowns out the flames - our civilization would had never gotten off the ground otherwise - but it's the odd flame that becomes ever so more newsworthy by its very rareness.

Politics of fear are based on and enabled by this very phenomenom, and we've all seen them cause completely irrational - and often very destructive - decisions. So feel-good popular newsfeed could very well end up undermining demagogues by acting as counterpoison to fearmongering.

You could simply shoot whoever comes closer than the "stop and don't come closer or be shot" signs.

KISS, not everything needs a technical solution.

Why didn't I think of that.... penal colony for illegal immigrants involving long term imprisonment and hard labor.

Does a private prison company gaining sentience and posting on Slashdot count as AI, some kind of group mind or just a regular evil overlord?

Nature -- specifically evolution -- disagrees.

Evolution doesn't deal with life or death, it deals with the relative abundance of properties in populations. If anything, our innovation - cultural evolution - is such success precisely because it removes death from the equation. Now the main thrust is on the evolution of our various superorganisms - cultures - rather than our bodies, thus allowing adaptation at blitzkrieg speeds compared to even bacteria, much less any other complex organisms.