We surrendered to the moon! She truly is a harsh mistress.

It's a bit more than just that. Look at the "Not From concentrate" section of this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_juice

and you'll get a better idea of what's done, though there is more explicit information available if you're interested.

The "Flavor Packs" they use are technically "natural" since they're derived from oranges, but the whole process sounds pretty nasty to me. I'll continue to just eat in-season fresh oranges or squeeze them myself for juice, and eat different fruits when they're not in season.

For reading, in bed, lights out, lying on my side in a comfortable position, I've found nothing better than a 4.3" smartphone (NOT an e-reader) mounted in a dock, sitting on the bed next to my pillow, with the screen orientation forced into portrait: this is the EFFING HOLY GRAIL for me for reading novels in perfect physical comfort.

I used to (sometimes) read ebooks sitting in a comfy chair in front of my desktop computer with a LARGE font (so I could lean back and read) -- but it was somewhat less than ideal for extended reading sessions.

I used to think I'd never give up paper novels... until I found the aforementioned method.

I agree that terra preta is *awesome* -- and I want some in my garden -- but it's probably only about 2500 years old... Definitely should be possible to create it with charcoal and kitchen waste and a few years of experiments.

Yes, I tried GrooveIP too, but for whatever reason it didn't like my internet connection, or perhaps my (fairly old) phone, and had a significant delay (up to 0.5 sec) -- so essentially gave me a half-duplex connection, whereas for whatever reason sipdroid has only a small latency (usually 0.1 sec or less)... sipdroid does "integrate" into the android dialer, but not very well, but hey, it's cost-free!

I use GV as my "primary" cellphone #. Granted, I don't actually use my "phone" as a phone very often. I pay next to nothing for cell service, since my phone is connected to wifi most of the time. Sipdroid + GV, while probably only about 95% reliable works well enough for me -- I have had issues with texts not getting forwarded properly, though I solved that by having all texts sent to gmail. It's slightly inconvenient to have two "cell" numbers, though most people i know can deal with that. The voicemail transcription is pretty neat, works well enough, and is often hilarious. I'd pay a reasonable yearly fee for GV. It's my impression that GV mostly exists because google is interested in optimizing its voice recognition system. I sometimes "donate" accurate translations of my voicemails.

I'd pay a reasonable fee for GV, especially if there was an app that properly integrated it with the android dialer (sipdroid is really a hack).

That's true. And I guess that wold be part of the reason for the restricted access to those camera feeds, and maybe any cameras that aren't in a public fixed location need to be handled differently, or remain secured until subpoenaed or requested under FOIA.

Further: generally, I don't see the objections about people using the camera feeds for nefarious purposes. I guess it might make a criminals job easier, but it doesn't "change the game" in that it doesn't let anyone do anything they can't already do.

And, sure voyeurism is an issue, but I still think that if the cameras exist, and *someone* gets to review their output, then there needs to be a way for others to also review that output, and more importantly verify that when video is used as evidence that the whole story is being represented.

I've said this for years. I have no problem with all the public-facing cameras, so long as the output from all those cameras is available to the public, preferably directly, in realtime. The cameras then become a public asset. Law enforcement can use them, but so can the rest of us. There's already no expectation of privacy in public places, so I don't see any issues with universal access to the data.

I'd guess it might be necessary to restrict access to police dashcams and "uniform-cams" for a time, but eventually it should all be made public, with review processes in place to make sure that none of it gets "accidentally" deleted.

There's already a "smart" gun. Its called a shotgun. Handguns are dangerous, largely because it's relatively easy for the user to shoot themselves, or accidentally shoot someone else with one. When was the last time you heard about an accidental death (or even a homicide) involving a legally-obtained shotgun?

IMHO, most guns (and ammunition) other than shotguns should be stored in locally-managed, locked & guarded arms depots, perhaps adjunct to local police stations, or even better, dedicated organizations (militias), to be used for civil defense, in the event of an invasion or (god forbid) civil war. If there was such a system of militias in place, I might actually be interested in exercising my 2nd amendment rights, since it would serve a useful purpose,in that it would reduce the ability to justify the existence of a standing army (the true reason for the 2nd amendment). As it is, I have no interest in guns, and even less in the politics surrounding them.

Technically, it was applesoft basic on a Bell & Howell Apple ][ in 5th grade science class. The teacher had written a program in applesoft basic to drill simple arithmetic problems, and another to drill spelling words, both including simple animation and sound. I was enthralled (even before I saw the thing actually do anything, since it sat there for weeks for lack of an RF Modulator to connect to a TV, which the teacher eventually built from simple parts, much to my amazement). I looked at his code and immediately began writing simple games (text adventure, tic-tac-toe, pong, etc.) and even "ported" his original program to the C64 and TI/99-4a -- though I think in many ways my learning to program started much earlier, since I was always taking apart (and sometimes putting back together) various machines, appliances, electronics, what have you, from a young age, and developed a basic empirical understanding of mechanics, electricity and electronics, which translates somewhat into basic logic, and perhaps more importantly the willingness to learn from (and copy) "prior art" and to not be afraid of breaking stuff or making mistakes. There's a (potential) drawback though to empirical learning, in that it makes it more difficult to fall into academia and established theory, since unlearning is sometimes more difficult than learning, though personally, I have no regrets in that regard, since it also makes acquiring new skills much quicker. I wish I could pick up new human languages as quickly as I can pick up new programming languages.

Not refuting anything you're saying (Because I agree wholeheartedly), but the quote from 1 Timothy is:

"For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil."

Emphasis added, since I think that's the most important part of the quote. Money is just a tool. It may be a tool that we need to leave in the dustbin of history, and I'd personally like to see that happen, since there are many ways we could live without a monetary system entirely, but as a pragmatist, I don't see it happening anytime soon, at least not without a very strong catalyst.

I've been saying this for years. Sometime shortly after the 1Ghz "barrier" got broken, almost all computers became "good enough" for almost everyone.

I just recently put a built-from parts (and virtually silent) circa 2003 machine with a 1.8 Ghz AMD Barton, back into service with a modern 80+ power supply, 1.5 gigs or ram and a new(ish) drive. It may not be quite as snappy as my current main system (which is 5 years old) or my htpc (which is 7) but it's really a perfectly usable machine with a fresh install of pretty much any modern OS.

The primary reason to run current-gen hardware these days is lower power consumption, and to a certain extent modern graphics hardware (capable of hardware HD x264 decoding). If all you need is a web browser and office suite, anything that uses reasonably fast RAM from 10+ years ago will more than fit the bill.

Lots of people end up replacing perfectly good hardware just because "windows gets slow" which (sadly) few people seem to know that a reinstall will fix. That might take a few hours, and to hire a tech to do that might cost $75 or so... but that's still cheaper than a new machine.

Others have brought up good points countering your "non-story" opinion, here's (I think) another:

If banks are willing to do THIS:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/11/us-hsbc-probe-idUSBRE8BA05M20121211

For semi-anonymous international criminal syndicates, or whomever they did that for, what makes you think they wouldn't do the same thing for their actual BUDDIES who run legitimate multibillion dollar businesses? And there is (as others have pointed out) always suitcases filled with $100 bills. It's really not that long of a boat (or private jet) ride from Florida or Texas to the Caymans or Bermuda.