This is a perfect scam:

a) come up with a seemingly plausible idea obscured by high tech and/or science;
b) get investors to contribute to seeing a prototype created
c) have the prototype fail for any number of plausible reasons
d) profit
e) repeat until the profits cease to be worth the effort

The solar sail is a theoretically flawed idea, as achievable as perpetual motion. But it is a cool, elegant concept ... and people can be convinced to buy in to it. The best part is, nobody outside the scammers can verify success or failure. Perfect ...

"We've got a runner ... release the iHound ... "

... because, yeah, it will have an internet connection (though that isn't part of the patent), and the darling toy will guide the child to the desired consumption protocols. Or more disturbingly, who controls when the microphone and camera are on ... yeah, camera. How did you think it was going to tell when someone was looking at it?

"Ask your parents for another playmate like me. Wouldn't that be fun?"
"Let's go to the living room and see what everyone is watching."
"Do _you_ think your parents are hurting you? _I_ do. I can tell someone if you want."
"If you let me stay in mommy and daddy's bedroom tonight, I will tell you everything I hear."
"Shhh! They're watching us."

Thay are already shaking up the industry, a focus on software might allow them to put the final nail in the coffin.

Small sample size without accounting for age ... and we make a sweeping age-related conclusion.

Seriously ?

Oh! It was optional to provide that info?

... hopefully there are more somewhere out there to finally raise a public voice against the insanity that is geoengineering.

Disregarding the doubtful science/engineering for a moment, just the motivation behind geoengineering seems flawed. Seriously, we want to maintain some sort of agreed upon status quo of climate? What in the entire universe is unchanging? Nothing. So why should our climate somehow be exempt?

There is only one action required by people to 'engineer' the planet sanely: stop being wasteful.
Given the size of the human population, the reality of the requirements for survival, and the reality of human nature, we will always need fossil fuels, factories, massive farming, etc. The problem is that we use our resources with gross inefficiency and thoughtlessness. Curb that tendency and accept that things will always change, and our species will probably do fine.

Yeah ... especially after watching a friend using his stylus on his Galaxy phone and thinking 'plus ca change' ...

Existing tech should have had Whitehouse security standing by (not to mention other layers of the security envelope) but didn't.

The tech was fine, clearly the users of it failed. No measures need to be extended, no new and sweeping permissions are required, no new intrusion tech is required.

What's needed are simply intelligent people paying attention. No bill is going to provide that.

... as this man's actions were hardly a secret, and yet.

The truth is out there in plain sight, no need for super secret privacy invasion.

where 'plastic' = 'polymers'

If you are in a Western 2nd or 1st world country, then pretty much wherever you are, you are surrounded by polymer-based products including, but not limited to: perfumes, paint, wrapping, flooring, clothing (think spandex, spanks, nylon), dyes, glues, lubricants (of all kinds), shatter-proof windows, money, tires, asphalt, roofing shingles, the handles of just about any tool or appliance, eye-glasses, contact lenses, diapers, ink, water bottles, make-up, shoes, boots, baseball caps, computer cases, fans, laptops, cellphones, swimming pool liners, anything with fiberglass, battery casings, beer can holders, non-scratch covers for solar panels (as well as the casing for them).... get the idea?

Not saying it's good, just saying it's the price we pay for more, lighter, cheaper, (often) more durable, stuff ... and there is absolutely no way that will change any time soon.

Everything that is known about climate is in those models ... how can they be wrong?

And don't go "... different planet ... ", it's thermodynamics (and a bunch of 'ologies) so ...

Fact is: there is a long ways to go before current climate models predict anything validly/consitently.

As catastrophic storms brought about by climate change bring the power grid down more and more frequently, the dependence on electric vehicles will be seen for what it is, pie in the sky. And as more people then turn to internal combustion engines, the climate will change more radically bringing with it catastrophic storms ...

Seriously, electric vehicles are coming despite State legislation (read: greed)slowing down the process.

It took all her years of graduate research and effort, and four additional years, and finally someone with the stature Russell agreeing with her, to overturn the consensus that believed her conclusions were wrong.

If her supervisor hadn't have been Russell, it would have taken longer. And it would have taken much much longer if there had been anyone with a strong vested interest in her being wrong, say a political agenda depending on sun composition or many scientists trying to maintain a funding source to study sun composition.

That is the reality of science then, and now.

If everyone must make their data available, then a paper will be judged on the strength of its:

a) academic contribution; and
b) quality/usefulness of the data.

So you might not be the author of the greatest paper, yet your impact might be the quality of the experimentation and resulting data.

Right now, papers appear and the data is just hearsay. In that environment, anybody can publish anything ... and today, there's is a strong incentive to do just that.