plastic can be made of corn and sugar. that does not make 'plastic' a viable food. however we have been requiring biodegradable plastics for decades now, they don't degrade in landfills but they do in the wild. also recycling has been vastly improved and that means less plastic in landfills and in the wild. scientists thought they'd see more plastic but people have suggested this is based on the amount of plastic produced, without even considering possible reasons like more recycling. also some pretty bright people have figured out where in the ocean to place nets that capture all the floating garbage, without having to use ships to 'drag' all across the ocean. perhaps that information is old, perhaps someone has been harvesting ocean plastic to recycle it.

"The difficulty with anonymous cowards is knowing when one is the same person. The coward to which Chrisq was responding was appeal to Descartes. The problem with Descartes is that you can only prove your own existence to yourself. In the event of some higher power deceiving you, the only proof you have is of your own existence. So even though you and others say that there's no evidence that I'm existing in a dream or simulation there's no way for me to verify their existence."

while i can't prove that i exist to you, surely i can reference data that suggests that corporations will do almost anything to raise the bottom line, and that includes lying, cheating, and stealing.

red dwarf mocked virtual reality in it's 5th season(1993), yet it took the japanese 2 years later to build a mono-chromatic(red lcd) despite red dwarf mocking full immersion which i think there are finally ps4 vr headsets as well as the oculus rift.

technically flat screens are old tech was it in 1989 was my first handheld with a lcd was a gameboy, and my first laptop in 1997 came with a color lcd screen and technically there was no barrier to an oculus rift after lcds became reliable. other than bandwidth related to high definition signaling.

now we 'see' these bluetooth smart watches when people said we'd never have a radio watch that could be used to call people even if it's radio range is literally measured in feet.

what does all this prove? it proves that companies are greedy and have screwed people over time and time again with garbage tech designed to last fewer years.

i can also prove that laserprinters are still using 1994 processors to handle the buffers of the print queue. when a watch has a chip that can drive a low def screen and digital radio transmission 'proven' 1994 tech is still preferred over energy saving modern chips.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3
486 computers had 'mp3' codecs and they were around in 1991 and was standardized in 1994. standardized means many people had access to working code by then.

"What he means, I think, is that most computer companies make "consumer grade" machines and "commercial grade" machines. I've not has an Asus or Lenovo, but I've had Toshiba, HP, and Dell. With respect to Dell, I've had both consumer and commercial grade machines, built to higher specifications."

i have owned and used packard bell, HP, dell, compaq(before hp bought em), and a lenovo. the first computer i bought with my own income was a packardbell 80486 dx2 75mhz. that was built like a tank, and was about as useful as a paperweight. it took the thing about 40 minutes to encode a 4 minute song to mp3. and yes i did that on that machine. anyways that was the most reliable piece of hardware i ever owned. it spent 4 years as a desktop and about 11 years as a server, though the hdds failed on it 3 times in the same timeframe. my laptop a compaq pentium 120, ran for 13 years until i hid it in a dumpster, but it had the F00F bug so was never reliable. from there on all my parts lasted less long, the quality went down. my first dell laptop lasted about 5 years less than the pentium120 and my recent alienware rig had a motherboard failure in 3 weeks and a psu issue another month later. that makes it qualify as my least reliable pc ever. alienware laptops aren't even designed by the main fab producers for dell, and still a bad MB. anyways consumer and commercial grade isn't real at dell, and i doubt it is real elsewhere. if you research parts you can build a desktop that is fast and will last a decade, and for only a little more than the 'fast enough for windows8/debianwheezy' laptop. seriously the default WM for debian wheezy is slower than windows 8 i timed them. on the same computer.

" Most recently I purchased a Dell Latitude 5000 series laptop--in Dell's explanation of this computer in comparison to the 7000 series, it gave the 5000 series a build quality of 3 out of 4 stars, it gave the 3000 series 2 out of 4 stars (still Latitude--which implies the consumer grade stuff is 1 out of 4 stars for build quality). The consumer grade machines seem to be designed to last about 2 years or less. The commercial grade machines are designed to last more like 4 years."

i have a laptop that was built like trash grade and it has been more reliable than alienware. of course its running linux with a lighter wm than the default one in wheezy... but it is going to last me another 6 years, as all it does is internet when main rig is in install/update/backup discs mode, and is used as a second layer of virus detection and removal for windows machines not all of which belong to me, and i have no say as to the os on those windows machines.

"The problem is, you have to pay a premium for the commercial grade machines."

there was a day when a computer was $5,000 and was a calculator at massive size. remember the dx2 75mhz? it was about 100 times faster than the $5000 machine i am thinking of and can't recall the specs or useful links right now.

"With Apple, there is no "consumer grade" and "commercial grade"--they're all made to high specifications."

apple products are all one grade of materials. however, they are not any more immune to faulty boards caps etc. their parts are notorious for being high profit, http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/09/24/iphone-5s-5c-teardowns-suggest-199-183-build-costs-for-apple they buy $183 worth of parts sell it for $1,000 $600 of which the cell phone has you pay over 12 months roughly. the mac lineup is in a similar situation and really if apple gets the chips for that price i doubt samsung pays higher ditto with dell. apple gets by on reputation. they wouldn't have that reputation if they hadn't been in schools or have numerous graphics stuff like photoshop, and the new ipad commercial where they make a whole symphony from one ipad. windows can't buy that reputation. they are the 'buggy, but just works and can game too even if the people you game with are hacking you' reputation that windows has earned, as well as 'benivolent dictator' cause there can be only one survivor of the os wars according to gates philosophy. glad he is gone maybe their recent attempts to be 'apple did it so we can too, almost but without the same apps, so no really its not the same we just had to follow marekting which said copy apple' kind of aura.

then there is gnu. smart people know that free software (though not necisarily $0 'free') is the only way to avoid vendor lockin, and a slew of other problems that closed source software can't address. there is a lot of interesting things going on with open hardware and open source software and custom fabs and xray verification of chips adhering to doing what they were built to look like etc. really knowing what the compiler is doing is as important as using free open knowledge to make the world a better more secure and fun place. someday soon they are going to announce the first 3d printed microchip, and from there hobbiests can build a 3d printer from the 3d printer that is capable of printing itself and all the hardware for an advanced computer, and hobby x-ray gear and a nice hardcopy of the specs for the processor and you can then in theory have a 3d printer where one person knows all the code and can audit it for making a chip in their basement or garage. all the open hardware and open software and new 3d printers make it all possible. to geniunely know that there are 0 backdoors in both the hardware and the software you are using. and still be fast enough to protect the 'rest' of your less secure equipment.

tar sands produce a vile sludge that can literally be used like agent orange.

methanol and ethanol production from municipal waste is taking trash out of the 'too dry to rot too much gas to oxidize' landfill and instead produce useful chemical some of which can be safely used to operate machinery like cars, and produce fewer noxious fumes.

if the world was run by clones in thought of you, there wouldnt be a living being on this planet for at least half a million years -- assuming that the colapse of organic life including human life by using pestacides that kill bees (after which humans would live another 4 years) and all the carbon heating the planet from all the pricks driving cars using up the worlds 200 year supply of fossile fuels at the consumption and production levels predicted for humans, based on your view that making a city 0 impact on the environment is some how wrong, and that consuming every molecule of carbon in fire until the skys rain acid like they do on venus, is the 'right thing to do' well we would never survive the consumption of all the fossil fuels, as bees would die first.

yes hydrothermal life can resist an autoclave but... "However, Strain 121 is non-infectious because it cannot grow at temperatures near 37 ÂC.[citation needed]"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strain_121
also flame throwers are considerably hotter than an autoclave, but they might be able to grow again after being flame thrown we won't know til someone tests it out.

i believe the information is here https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/ and yes i realize it's just a 'plan comparison' page, and that only 2 of the 4 tiers include a phone plan

"Do you know any large system where this works? The big gotcha is that of all the programs you run, you can only code a tiny % of them. And you canâ(TM)t audit everything else."

if you can't audit 7mb of code you're retarded. who has a 7 mb of code to audit it? try openbsd http://www.openbsd.org/ftp.html

even for the full iso is only 230MB. plop it on open hardware and you can audit the hardware and the software. someday get a 3d printer and an x-ray camera and you can audit the hardware to see if it followed specs or not. have a password generated to be impossible to remember and requires a hardware decrypter to reform the password but can do so in multiple ways with only the one true way remembered by you, and you're golden against attacks on your setup, which then allows you to run fast computers that maybe have backdoors that are completely blocked by your secure machine, which you know is secure because you did it yourself.

i have had the same experiences as you though not for as long, i also haven't given up fruit. the science is pretty clear and this is why some people burn the 'wheat' they get from first world countries in emergency situations because they don't trust wheat, based on the science against it. the science behind the food charts in the usa is page for page how to fatten beasts for the slaughter. now i don't eat human meat but why are so many people trying to make us more fatty and marbled in texture like cows? even shills like dr oz recommends a wheatless Wednesday. kids are getting sick too it's not just adults. food allergies are higher than ever and we eat more and more stuff that humans and other omnivores never ate. they even want to make an artificial food... http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/07/beyond_meat_fake_chicken_that_tastes_so_real_it_will_freak_you_out_.html http://beyondmeat.com/ it is plant derived, but some are working to make fake food from mined substances. unlike the plant based fake meat the tech for mined food isn't quite there yet.

" There are asshats who will do this for a thrill, or to get back at a neighbour for a real or perceived slight."

welcome to the real world. there have been many films documenting how bad people are. have you ever heard of tom green? what about jackass? hell why not watch 'telling lies in America' or maybe 'stand by me' the internet is no more immune to asshats than real life is. or are we all supposed to do nothing wrong? get real, people are not morally pure. the bible to mention one popular source says that no man has ever been good. http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/ec/7.html#20 the bible conflicts itself on the matter, but it is in there.

"Where did they find them?"

after the teenage burst, its really easy to quit porn. when i was a teen porn there was no such thing as too much porn, but the older i got the less interested in it i was. i think my record is 3 years no porn and of course no masturbation. but then again i am not typical and haven't even had sex, despite being 36 years old. and yes i am still living in my parents basement. but i pay rent to them they needed the extra income and they are getting older and it is good to see them once in a while.

without going into details i have been thinking about the same problem since i was 6-7 years old, never quite thinking things through right, and forcing people around me to (including on irc) deal with a prick who had serious issues just trying to figure out who i am and what i am good at. all to realize i was below average at the things i thought i was good at, which was mainly easy video games... and putting people through hell just to be 'friends' with me. after losing about 300 or so friends online i still haven't quite put the last nail in the coffin of who i was in the past.

lucky me i am disabled because there is no way i could ever support myself with my screwed up brain. oh yeah and i really really am bad at maintaining computers despite it being my hobby.

the sad part is there is a huge market for pv and concentrated solar thermal, and we don't need to build pyramids to do it.
'solar roadways' are far fetched yet they exist and we can turn broken beer bottles into them. but more interesting is a omnidirectional solar concentrator that channels all the solar and moon light with a magnification of up to 10,000 times the concentartion of available light. which then makes solar thermal and solar photovotaics that run in moon light and on cloudy days.
in fact there are so many solar concentrator tech available i don't know which one to link to, perhaps the solar roadways also use a concentrator i don't know, but if we can build 10 billion cars why can't we build all the solar concentrators and pv to power our cities and electric vehicles?
i know this doesn't fix a lot of problems with our society, but having energy that doesn't require the production of greenhouse gasses is something every society needs, reguardless of if they are ready for it or not.

" Whereas most families (at least the ones that matter) have 2 or more PCs - one for mom, one for dad, one for the kids, etc. And that model will change to probably one for everyone to use when they need it - e.g., school work."

real life doesn't work that way. i am the tech person for my family there are three people here, and here is what works. 1 office desktop with printer, one game/altcoin miner desktop, 4 laptops one of which is dedicated linux to scan and wipe windows flash memory etc., 1 smartphone 'because it costs too much with Verizon..' 2 dumb cells, 1 ps3, 1 ds and 1 tablet (which i use for mp3 because it sucks and i want to get some use out of it)

that is 12 devices. for 3 people. i person owns 7 of them and the other 2 own 5. i didn't count wifi routers. or broken computers. and while i covered dumbphones i didn't count smart/lcd tvs.