But an assembly line manned by robots? Why should that be cheaper in China? Is capital that much cheaper?

Even if wages and other costs were equal, the location advantage is substantial. It's not that it's cheaper in China, but that it's cheaper in the huge manufacturing hubs. You have suppliers and manufacturers for just about every single component you need without long-distance shipping, and a deep pool of design and manufacturing expertise working in the area.

That's not to say you can't manufacture efficiently elsewhere (we have plenty of recent examples such as the Raspberry Pi), but that the advantages has as much to do with the concentration of resources as with the cost of labour and regulations. And of course, as this inudstry becomes ever more automated, it no longer matters much for jobs where it happens any longer.

Now, now; that's a feature of humanity that's spread quite evenly throughout all societies. Yes, it's the American way, but it's also the British way and the Italian way and the Iranian way and the Chinese way and the Tahitian way and ...

Americans have no particularly valid claim on assholeness (assholicity? assholitude?). Look around yourself, and if you don't see any, it's probably because it's you.

You can use the exact same arguments against fly-by-wire technology. Yet, that is now the norm, with not a mechanical linkage in sight.

I guess reality hasn't strayed far from ridiculous Ren & Stimpy fiction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_dyOxAfEzI

From 8:25 on (though the rest is pretty hilarious).

Actually, here in the US not one person in a million can tell you anything at all about what fascism stood for. The term is now just one of a growing list of political insult terms with no actual content.

Of course, the fraction of Americans who can actually define socialism or liberalism or any other -ism isn't much larger than one in a million. Such terms are really just the modern equivalent of tribal names. You're expected to hate anyone with a label different from yours, but you're not expected to actually know the meaning of any of the labels. Once you understand this situation, American political rhetoric becomes much more comprehensible.

Ignorance is a choice, just like belief. The real problem is to get people to reject ignorance. The difficulty in that is that ignorance, like belief, is easy. Rejecting ignorance requires effort. That is why there are so many people who choose ignorance and belief over reason and fact.

Interesting belief you have there.

I believe that belief is inherent to the human mind, necessary for operation in the world. I see belief in two general categories: rigid and fluid. When rigid, a belief is maintained even in the face of evidence to its contrary. When fluid, a belief can change in nuance and substance based on life experience and information.

We all have beliefs and operate from biases that do not agree with others. I see this as natural and as it should be. Each person is their own subjective lens on reality, and no one person nor committee can determine what objective reality ultimately is. Once we think we have it, something comes along and blows away our vaunted conceptions. Life will never fully give away its secrets, we will always be left guessing. To me that's the beauty of the mystery. What we each make of it is our own journey, and we should not try too hard to fit our personal beliefs to any consensus.

If you're a pilot who's "airspace" includes a volume in which a fireworks display is scheduled, please informs us of that fact, because I don't think I'd ever want to be a passenger in a plane controlled by a pilot like you. The possibility that your plane might hit a drone would be the least of my worries. ;-)

Wait; there were jet aircraft flying through the fireworks display's volume? How did the drone miss getting a picture of that? That'd have been really fun to watch, especially when the fireworks started hitting the airplane.

(Given that there was a fireworks display going on in that airspace at the time, I'm kinda doubtful that there were any pilots in the area who weren't well aware of them. And I also sorta doubt that there were any children running around under the fireworks. That's usually strongly discouraged at fireworks displays, and this one was over water. ;-)

It's a good thing none of these industrial controls require IE 6 with an unsupported OS with updates turned off requiring a live internet connection or anything stupid. For a minute that would imply mass incompetence

Or, aleernatively... letting a few crimes go unsolved is part and parcel of an authoritarian police state.

Right now, we have on our 'unsolved docket' Lois Lerner, war crimes by US troops in Iraq, high treason by various top operatives violating their constitutional oaths and undermining the rule of law, thus aiding the enemies of the US, embezzlement by bankers who control the Fed, breach of fiduciary duty by BoA under the blackmail of Paulson that he would break the law... and now most recently high crimes by that French bank in criminal money laundering, in one is the biggest ever (9 billion) fine, but unfortunately, we can't find the criminal.

And that's just the US. I haven't hit one percent of the unsolved crimes yet.

Leaving a 'rule of law' nation sucks.

It's doubly a trap when those same companies, which have multiple backup systems on the emails, suddenly cannot recover anything following a series of six separate 'hard drive crashes' on RAID-7 systems, so that the IRS' evidence can no longer prove criminal intent by leaders of the government.

Leaving a 'rule of law' nation sucks.

Which, if this chain of thought is correct, leads to the conclusion that in those 9 cases, either police were NOT corrupt (and so could be foiled) or were corrupt, and wanted to be foiled.

I'm not sure that the chain of thought is correct. In some areas --Illinois for example, I would expect it to be.

One of the big issues with flashing lights is that they have to avoid frequencies which set off epileptic seizures. The last thing you want is for the driver of that hunk of metal behind you to have a seizure behind the wheel, stomping on the gas and jerking to the right as they collapse in a frothing fit...

hate it when it renders my information sensitive :)

I can imagine Streisand effects coming into play. If google blacklists one article, in compliance, what is to stop other articles containing the information and possibly linking to the original appearing.