Being a cryptocurrency rather than a physical one also means that they can vanish your money with the click of a button instead of having to personally visit you.

So, tell me again, how is this different from most money these days?

Anything you have on deposit is pretty much just electrons. The vast majority of 'real' money is pretty much just as virtual these days.

With the inherent irony that you can then use that hidden data specifically to find "sensitive" areas you might not have known about

People have been using the internet to find out more about 'sensitive areas' for a long time now. ;-)

By treating it like currency and passing laws about what you can do it?

They make not be able to regulate the entire currency, but they can certainly pass laws regarding their own people and what they are required to do.

Did anybody really think that you could simply say you have a form of currency which isn't regulated and expect governments to just say "well, they've beaten us"?

That would be a neat trick.

no, it's because most of them crack their nuts with their beaks.

LOL, once again, I am going to have to invoke rule #34.

Somewhere, in a dark and nasty corner of the interwebs is the human analog to this.

Now, excuse my, I have to go apply brain bleach.

Nowhere did they say they had a battery ready for market. Moron.

No, but the GPs point remains valid -- we keep hearing about all of these breakthroughs in batteries, but they don't ever actually ever seem to materialize.

It certainly seems like all of this research never actually turns into anything you can actually buy.

So either these advances aren't trickling down to consumer stuff, or companies are doing a lousy job of telling us about it. If they're not trickling down to consumers, why?

Except, I'm pretty sure there are plenty of places which are also censored or blurred from Google maps and the like.

India is hardly the first country to do this, and there's a few US installations which are blurred out.

Governments censor data, film at 11.

Right, because no technology is good or useful until it has been perfected and extended to all possible corner cases.

Or, when you're rattling your saber over ownership of a bunch of islands, maybe you figure you need some amphibious capability?

China hasn't exactly been quiet about claiming ownership of stuff lately.

If a broadband provider were to approach one of these hyper-giants and threaten to block or degrade access to its site if it refused to pay a significant fee, such a strategy almost certainly would be self-defeating, in light of the immediately hostile reaction of consumers to such conduct

Translation: We'd do this to a small company in a heartbeat, and we're really disappointed we didn't kill net neutrality before there were enough big players to fight us on this. Unfortunately we have to make ourselves out as the victims, again.

These guys will do anything to keep their monopolies, and want to be sure they can do anything they want to milk customers.

As usual, this is lobbyists and lawyers and PR people making their clients out to be the poor downtrodden victim here.

And, of course, the FCC being totally sympathetic to the plight of these poor, downtrodden monopolies, I'll be surprised if they don't give it to them.

I find this a little creepy ... the study to tell us how much they're violating our privacy and civil rights is now a secret.

Which I'm going to have to assume they're pretty much doing everything they're not supposed to.

When government will no longer tell you what they're doing, you have to assume they're doing the worst.

I bet in Australia they wore bathing suits.

And that multi-color sun screen stuff on their noses.

I'm going to do the smart thing and give my money to that Asian guy who comes on my TV at about 2 AM every morning, and tells me that if I give him my money, he'll teach me to get as rich as he is.

I'll give you a hint and spare you the money.

You get a TV commercial, which says if people will send you money, you'll tell them how to be rich. ;-)

new homes are built from Cross Laminated Timber

Only for *some* parts, like engineered trusses.

But, if you've ever seen a 2x4, you'd realize what you're saying is wrong.

no one cuts trees down anymore just to build a house

While few people cut down a tree just to build a single house, the trees are harvested, and go into many many things. Included in them, building materials for houses.

Do you have any facts you'd like to offer, or are you content with unsubstantiated claims? Because you're 0 for 2.

The funniest part of your rants is the unfounded assumption that Lockheed is or ever was competent.

I make no such assumption, that's all you.

I'm saying I'm not willing to conclude the issue was entirely the contractors, and that the people in charge of this quite likely brought their own level of incompetence to the table.

I'm not willing to assume it was entirely the contractor, because I've seen FAR too many examples of management incompetence on these kinds of things.

We have fusion now... We can start a fusion reaction pretty much whenever we want. The problem is we cannot create a sustained fusion reaction that nets us industrial levels of energy and do it in a cost effective way.

Then, it's pretty useless as an energy solution, isn't it?

When I say "I'll believe it when I see it", I don't mean some bench prototype which doesn't deliver, I mean a real, functioning system.

And we've been "a few years away" from having that from decades now. Until proven otherwise, I will continue to assume "real soon now" will probably not happen for quite some time.