The bizarre thing is I'm actually an optimist, I just don't get bothered by all the stuff I know.

It was very useful when I did counter-terrorism - a lot of people get ultra cynical after that.

Look, everyone tries to freak you out. The engineer part of me always hears them say "choose A or B" and I choose to realize there are mixtures of choices between A and B and besides A and B, some of which are "better" and some of which are "worse" and that choosing something other than A "bad" is probably better than not choosing B "good".

If 1000 people in cities who drive very little and have little environmental impact due to energy etc change a lot, it may be less than 10 people in rural areas changing a small amount. Just alter time of day for watering, use less water dependent crops (rice etc), and you'll be right as rain. Pay attention to native crops and plants and animals and shift towards those and away from non-native ones.

One of the fun things about Seattle is we actually own the entire watershed here. All of it. So the suburbs basically have no water rights.

They either buy it from us at a premium to what our citizens (who own it) pay or they buy it from someone else (at a higher premium since it has to be trucked in).

Capiche?

The act of fracking, or fracturing, creates many tiny cracks.

Here's a thought experiment: Stick your head under a bucket of tightly packed soil (mostly clay) in a bottomless bucket and fill it up.

Now try the same thing after you use a spade on the soil in the bucket for a few minutes.

Get the picture?

One of the local farmers said "I expect when we run out this next decade, everyone will be very angry over the decisions we made to plant water-intensive crops in a very arid land for so many years".

It's like Global Warming.

It's coming for you whether you believe in it or not.

DevPAX, PAX East, or PAX West?

Mostly hardened traffic, but there you go.

Pretty sure it doesn't get counted in with the general Internet, since you guys run so slow, and we have 100 GB/sec ports at most major research universities and military installations, and 40 GB/sec ports within 1-2 mile radius of those.

It carries a lot more data, but no spam.

As you age, you'll realize why they sell bifocals and how come people who never had glasses buy reading glasses when they get old.

Choose one of the below:

1. Waiting in line for three hours for a badly mixed movie I could have watched next week
2. Dressing up as a Superhero without realizing how overweight I was until I saw it on the news
3. Becoming a Furry. What goes on in Furry rooms, stays in Furry rooms.
4. Comics. Because, duh!
5. Cloning Wil Wheaton.

I presumed they meant video. I listen to lots of podcasts, including some that probably had been streamed, but were saved as higher quality files for offline consumption.

So, although technically Spotify is, I don't include it. I do count Comcast OnDemand and stuff like Netflix, or if I watch a Sounders game they streamed live.

Sometimes I just use my giant HDTV to watch stuff live and watch streamed stuff on twitter or some other app on a cell phone (that runs over cable wireless) or tablet. Mostly have removed stuff - getting rid of all the apps now.

If you're not seeing the Matrix raw, you're doing it wrong, and they're lying to you.

Yep, that's exactly what I do. I know exactly what's going on with my data, and if its insecure, I know its my own dang fault.

There are specific holes designed into all iPhones and iPads that show up in iOS allowing them to bypass any locking.

They're not "published" per se, but they're there and many suppliers of law enforcement software provide them, which work either over wireless or the data/power connection ports.

What warrants? They're already quartering troops in your pocket and purse.

I mention the iPhone and iPad angle, since more than 60 percent of all adult US citizens use those. You'd think Droids would be more popular, but that's not showing up in the government metrics.

Happened this summer, mostly May and June. Details in Vancouver Sun and Vancouver Province and Georgia Straight, and Globe and Mail.

Comrade Harper had to "suspend" the TFWP because it meant his Conservative Party was not going to be reelected, and was going to lose half it's seats.

That's a sop to allow corporations to bring in H1-B to fill our community colleges.

Probably about half of the students in my math classes in Seattle Central are not American. Or Canadian.

Nothing wrong with that, but it's not helping with retraining when you outsource the jobs overseas.

They said that they needed Temporary Foreign Workers and it would lead to full time jobs in Canada too.

And then the media got off their butts and figured out that it was really being used to provide cheap labour in Canadian restaurants instead of hiring local teens.

H1-B is a giant sucking sound of jobs being outsourced to India, and I don't mean native tribal lands here in North America.