Leap seconds are not stupid, basing a time scale on the rotation rate of an unstable object is stupid.

In 2010 China produced 130,000 tons of neodymium. The next largest producer was India with 2700 tons and then Brazil 550 tons.

Source, USGS report: http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/rare_earths/mcs-2011-raree.pdf

China produces 97% of rare-earths and is using significant export restrictions to create artificial scarcity to drive up the price and gain political power: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/concern-as-china-clamps-down-on-rare-earth-exports-1855387.html

Rare-earths (which are not particularly rare) must be extracted from, e.g., Bastnäsite by leeching with acid (e.g. hydrochloric is used in the USA productions but in China they just cook it in sulfuric acid) followed by a solvent extraction and various other steps. The Bastnäsite contains a mix of various rare-earths including thorium, which is radioactive. Thats not necessarily a problem but it does need to be managed. EPA shut down the Molycorp mine at Mountain Pass due to accidental discharge of radioactive waste.

The current designs for wind-turbines and electric cars rely heavily on neodymium magnets, without which they would operate at a fraction of the efficiency. Neodymium extraction is extremely toxic, and for the past decade or more nearly all of it is done in China where the environmental side effects and worker safety issues are largely ignored.

We need to develop methods of neodymium extraction that are safe and inexpensive to compete with China. Or, to develop new types of generators and motors that don't need permanent magnets, e.g., switched reluctance motors (which are very non-linear and difficult to control but it is possible).

Green tech is also not necessarily helping our economy (in the US at least), solar panel installation is a growing industry but not solar panel production. China dominates the market in green technology manufacturing, in part due to their forward-looking strategies such as subsidies for domestic polysilicon production and the export restrictions on rare-earth materials.

There are already "tool lending libraries" in many cities (well at least they are in several cities near where I live), they are managed by the library system and allow residents to check out all sorts of things including drills, nailguns, post-hole diggers, etc. There are a great many tools that a person might benefit from using but would be wasteful to outright buy.

A 3D printer, shopbot or CNC milling machine would be the equivalent of a reference section in the tool library--big tools you can use on site but can't take home. Its a fairly logical extension, although in practice the amount of skill required to use these tools properly and successfully isn't trivial and it remains to be seen how much benefit they could actually provide to the general public. Makerspaces tend to be frequented by rather geeky folk.

Depends what you mean by "cheap" and what you mean by "taxpayer". Where I live red-light camera tickets are about $500 and 90% of them are issued for rolling on a right turn (which was made into policy because they were not making enough money issuing tickets otherwise)

Using a bike or walking won't be anonymous for long either, as they are now rolling out face recognition and gait recognition software as well. These are already commercially available for security systems and undoubtedly already in use on the street in some places.

Since local government can't get their act together to raise taxes by legitimate means they have increasingly turned to devices such as these to raise revenue for the city (and for the corporations that run them).

The mandate of the FDA (as well as whatever the EU equivalent) is to mitigate risk to public health by regulating certain marketing statements. They compute risk using this formula:

total risk to public health = (impact of the medical condition indicated by the product if not treated) + (impact of the product if misused).

Obviously water has a pretty low impact if misused in general. However, dehydration (the clinical condition) is extremely serious if not treated, and the impact of misuse of water to treat dehydration is significant. Moreover, for over-the-counter products, claims are generally restricted to indications for "self-limiting" conditions (those which would go away on their own without treatment such as a cold or a rash), dehydration isn't necessarily a self-limiting condition.

So, the bottled water companies tried to weasel around this by claiming that water is good for preventing "development of dehydration" (rather than for treating dehydration, which they *knew* would never get approved). However its also the case that factors leading to development of dehydration are not necessarily self-limiting, and are not necessarily treatable with consumption of water.

For example, I actually know someone who developed hypotonic dehydration after consuming significant amounts of water (in an effort to prevent dehydration, which he was at risk of due to other factors). Anyways, the water didn't help (it was retained in the body but not in the blood), and a number of rather serious medical complications resulted. If it were not for medical intervention he would have died.

The FDA doesn't prevent people from self-diagnosing and self-medicating, and they don't restrict medical information in general, but they do prevent companies from making marketing statements that would contribute to an increase in risk associated with self-medicating.

According to NCCAM (a division of the NIH), "Homeopathic remedies are prepared according to the guidelines of the Homeopathic Pharmacopeia of the United States (HPUS), which was written into law in the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act in 1938. Homeopathic remedies are regulated in the same manner as nonprescription, over-the-counter (OTC) drugs. However, because homeopathic products contain little or no active ingredients, they do not have to undergo the same safety and efficacy testing as prescription and new OTC drugs.... Only products for self-limiting conditions (minor health problems like a cold or headache that go away on their own) can be sold without a prescription."

Note: "do not have to undergo the same safety and efficacy testing". Any substance containing a non-trival quantity of active ingredient would not be considered homeopathic and therefore must be reviewed by the normal process.

FDA only gets involved when the product poses a possible risk, e.g. as in the Zicam case which has an unusual delivery mechanism, or when the manufacturing process is introducing some contamination to the product (e.g. heavy metals), or when the manufacturers violate the labeling restrictions, e.g. a homeopathic remedy for "cancer" cannot be sold OTC, but it can be sold as prescription. Obviously there isn't much money to be made selling a homeopathic "cancer cure" via legit means because no doctor in their right mind would ever prescribe such a thing, which is why the quacks try to sell their stuff on the internet and end up in jail.

The FDA has limited resources, they can't evaluate every substance and claim. One of their criteria is possible danger to the public, for example all invasive devices and drugs must be reviewed. The greater the potential danger, the more extensive the review process.

Homeopathics were "grandfathered in" to the FDA system which gives them their (limited) claim rights.They don't have to prove anything. Since homeopathics pose no danger to the public (as well as arguably no benefit), the fact that the claims are basically false advertising isn't an important enough consequence to the state of public health that the FDA will get involved.

In the case of the claim about water, its actually false and potentially dangerous from a medical point of view. Drinking water can only prevent the onset of some types of dehydration, since its not electrolyte balanced. For example if your kid is vomiting a lot from the flu, which is definitely a case where they are at risk of developing dehydration, they should be administered something like Pedialyte (under medical supervision).

It seems that they actually convened a panel of medical experts and determined that the statement was false.

Dehydration (the clinical, medical term), has multiple forms (e.g. hypertonic, hypotonic, isotonic). Dehydration is caused by factors such as burns, vomiting, diarrhea, methamphetamine use, diseases such as cholera, yellow fever, diabetes. Some of those conditions are rather serious--if a doctor thinks a patient is at risk of developing dehydration due to a medical complication, they don't simply give them water to drink, they administer the proper balance of water to electrolytes depending on the condition.

If the bottled water manufacturers had requested a more accurate statement, it would have been so full of technical jargon that they wouldn't be useful as a marketing tag line.

For example Pedialyte is a product consisting of bottled water plus electrolytes, and it is advertised as follows "Use Pedialyte oral electrolyte solution under medical supervision for the dietary management of dehydration due to diarrhea and vomiting."

It seems that they actually convened a panel of scientists and determined that the statement was false.

Dehydration (the clinical, medical term), has multiple forms (e.g. hypertonic, hypotonic, isotonic). Dehydration is caused by factors such as burns, vomiting, diarrhea, methamphetamine use, diseases such as cholera, yellow fever, diabetes. Some of those conditions are rather serious--if a doctor thinks a patient is at risk of developing dehydration due to a medical complication, they don't simply give them water to drink, they administer the proper balance of water to electrolytes depending on the condition.

If the bottled water manufacturers had requested a more accurate statement, it would have been so full of technical jargon that they wouldn't be useful as a marketing tag line.

For example Pedialyte is basically just bottled water plus electrolytes, and it is advertised as follows "Use Pedialyte oral electrolyte solution under medical supervision for the dietary management of dehydration due to diarrhea and vomiting."

If you didn't commit any crimes then you won't mind if the police search your house, right? Since you don't cheat on your taxes then you won't mind if the IRS conducts an audit of the last 5 years of bank activity, right? Since you only made a bunch of generic yet strangely geeky purchases on your credit card, you won't mind if we share that information with advertisers, right?

What could possibly go wrong?

Firstly, the exception to due process during a traffic stop is based on the argument of a necessary expediency--that is, by the time the officer could obtain a warrant for the search, the car and/or illegal items will have been removed. The records of the calls and texts are stored permanently at the wireless carrier, so expediency doesn't apply (though the court seems to think otherwise about this at least in some cases).

Furthermore, the due process standards of a warrantless search are identical to those of a warranted search. In particular, the scope of a search is limited to its basis in probable cause. For example if an officer suspects a stolen cow in the back of a truck this does not provide a basis to search the glove box, or a locked suitcase found in the back, etc, although such searches can and often do uncover additional evidence in plain sight that form the basis to extend the search to new areas and containers. The same is true for a warranted search, again if searching for a cow in the back yard this does not provide basis to search a cabinet under the sink (or whatever).

In order to search a phone without a warrant the officer would need to have probable cause, i.e., evidence that suggests a possible link between the phone and the crime, for example if a witness testified that the suspect was seen using the phone during the act. Mere suspicion is not probable cause.

A patent is only valid within its jurisdiction, generally a particular nation state (except for the EU which is a block). For example, a patent granted by the USPTO has no jurisdiction in China nor the EU, etc, although it is possible to get an injunction to prevent the import of infringing products. The patent cooperation treaty provides the same priority date in all member nations with 30 months to file the complete application, but the application still must be filed and prosecuted in every jurisdiction (a rather expensive endeavor).

Shippers won't stop using tracking systems, not losing things and keeping the operation efficient is their life-blood.

However Google could practice this invention by building a master package tracking system that spanned multiple shipping vendors, this could be integrated for example into the google apps platform and/or an android app. Integrated services are essentially the life-blood of google (actually, adwords, but the integration is what drives users to their service).

In some organizations there are people who literally spend all day tracking packages on FedEx, FedEx has an app just for doing that built on Adobe AIR. However I for one find the FedEx software design to be atrocious.

So yeah, probably not worthless after all...