This is quite a piece of idolotry. Let us start at the end first. For many jobs no one requires a certified plumber or electrician or anything. There is no requirement to get such a certification. For certain jobs it is a requirement to get a permit, but that is to protect lives. OTOH I am sure you would no problem if your family died because the water heater exploded or the house caught on fire because of the work of a plumber or electrician was faulty, because, after all, she had good recommendations from people who had no expertise in critiquing the actual work. In any case, such requirements as the exists, are demanded not by government but by bankers, insurance companies, and general sane people who do not want to die because the invisible hand, or magic ratings, or whatever, was a substitute for competence. It is intersting that th.s hair brained scheme was introduced after the previous hair brained scheme, to force some Uber drivers to work at or below cost, failed. You see some of the driver took the capitalistic idea of better service leading to more profits seriously,So they only wanted to serve the high end clientele, and invested resources to do so. But Uber told them they could not limit themselves to high end customers, and said if the drivers did not pick up any customer that Uber sent, they would be out of the network. This was absolutely Uber's right to do, after all the contractors could just leave, but I think it speaks to an issue with capitalistic fantasy. At some point the people who are taking a cut of everything the workers do, will want an increasingly large cut to support their increasingly inefficient operations, and to do that they will begin to compete on price instead of service. The contractors, as individuals, can make that choice on a case by case basis. Corporate, however, seeing only a lack of funding for their cocaine habit, are only able to make drastic decisions to increase funding for said habit. In any case, the Uber drivers still had the ability to strike, so they did, and Uber relented.

When I hear the term glass I think of a fused or amorphous material rather than a crystal form. Sapphire, like many other material, is synthetically created as a single crystal as a substrate for RF and IC applications, which is different from the glass use in optical applications.

Seriously, fuck this guy. His next step since he can't get anyone to buy his product voluntarily will be to explain to some legislators over dinner (his treat) and maybe a round of golf (ditto) why it's a good idea for them to mandate it. One way or another, our boy Scotty gonna get paid.

Which shows that the word is undefined. But I would expect, whatever the actual details, "hardcore" means unsuitable for broadcast TV. I would agree that GoT might be defined as porn, but is being broadcastable automatically makes it not hardcore. My definitions would not include anything transparently consensual as hardcore, but explicit portrayal of sex is porn. But the "hard" in "hardcore" implies some level of violence or coercion.

Anyway, I introduced the word into the conversation, and what I means was the sort of non-consensual violent porn which I think would be damaging to children. Whatever the words used, there are some extreme images which are capable of damaging children. While I accept that consenting adults should be able to access such stuff via moderately protected channels on the internet or similar, they should not, as the OP suggested, be transmitted free to air on any wavelengths the transmitter chooses, including those already in use for domestic TV. There is a need for a regulator of some sort - though the rulebook for that regulator is not obvious.

Of course. But the OP was suggesting people should be free to do whatever they wanted - which would include using bandwidth wastefully and overwhelmingly (i.e. at high power). Hence the need for some form of regulator to enforce the use of efficient modes, and power levels no more than necessary, not as the OP implied at complete liberty.

I agree that modern technology makes possible a greater variety and greater number of uses of the available bandwidth. All the more reason for a good regulator to share it efficiently

No, I would not describe reasonably consensual sex of the sort required to make children as /hardcore/ porn. Hardcore porn probably requires strange ustensils, use of bodily orifices in ways that do not lead to reproduction, often blood, pain or simulated pain, obvious coercion.

Children, not having yet developed the sexual drive, do not understand the motivation for sex. However, I do not think that seeing normal consensual sex, which I would describe a porn but not hardcore porn, would be seriously damaging to children. But the violence, simulated or real, common in hardcore porn is very frightening for children who do not understand the world but know that they are weak, uninformed and defenceless. I would ezpect it to be seriously traumatising for a majority of pre-pubescent children,

I never claimed more moral authority. I claimed my right to express my opinion on /. I also suggested that I am probably in the majority. That is not a moral statement, it is a personal view. No, I think the OP is a short sighted selfish git, but I do not see it as a political statement, just an ignorant one. That, also, is a personal opinion not a claim of moral superiority,

In, I don't need evidence for "Think if the children". As a parent, I think if the children. A purely emotional response, but one that I share with most of the human race. Which is how we got here - species that don't think of their children tend to go extinct, at least at our scale (insects etc do fine on lay 'em and leave 'em). It is one of my fundamental values, along with free speech and not being eaten.

And I think expecting small children to work out what is happening and take appropriate action when Bugs Bunny is sudsenly replace by sado-masochistic sex is to have totally a unreasonable understanding of what children can and cannot do, and betrays someone who, so far as children are concerned, does not know what they are talking about.

I entirely agree one should supervise children. Children should only be watching safe channels, and adults should supervise them. But your proposal is to invade the safe channel - to replace Cartoon Network with snuff movies. This is not putting porn where the unsupervised can find it, this is forcing porn into areas where reasonable people would not expect to find it.

It is not "children might", it is "you are forcing on children". The difference between consensual sex and rape, the difference between guns in self defence and firing at random in a shopping mall.

So you want to subject children to hardcore porn?

I have no problem with adults viewing what they want, but children are different, and broadcast TV goes to children. I don't think I want to live in your world.

EM spectrum is a scarce resource, shared between all the community. If one person fills up the spectrum with high powered broadcasts, they deny others the use of that spectrum for potentially more valuable resources. You cannot buy or manufacture more electromagnetic spectrum: what we have is all there is, and more people want it than than there is space for. Would you be happy if, for example, I knocked out all WiFi and cell signals for ten miles around my house? Would you be happy if I overloaded the frequencies used by the emergency services? Would you be happy if I filled the TV frequencies with hardcore porn or a terrorist manifesto?

You have to be a sociopath not to expect there to be some sharing of limited resources.

It is pretty much free. I have some books that are post WWII, and it seems the paperbacks cost 30-50 cents. 70% discounts are even beyond the bargain bin.

As I recall on aspect of the cheap printing was the pulp book. Publisher would print and ship paper backs to stores en masse knowing that most would not sell. Those that did not would simply be returned, maybe with the cover torn off, and pulped back into paper that could be reused to make the next book. Could these book have been the equivalent of the reject rack, and selling the to army was simply a way to at least cover costs? I don't see that these books were specifically printed for the military. OTOH, if they were printed specifically for the military, it has no impact on today's economics. Many industries will sell large quantities of product at cost simply so they can stay afloat and pay the bills, knowing that profit will come in the future.

I believe what really ignited the post war reading boom was the newly educated population, created through the GI Bill, the brief existence of the housewife, whose appliances gave her much less to do and much more free time, and the willingness of publisher to print just about anything, knowing that they could charge enough so the many failures would be covered by the few successes.

What might be applicable from this story to the modern day is that publishers still have to pay for printing presses. No matter how cheap it may be to print books, if the books are not selling, and the printing press costs are fixed, then fewer books are paying for the overhead. E-Books may not need the printing press, but the printing press is still part of the fixed costs.

The idea of regarding graves as automatically for ever is relatively recent.While the wealthy might have impressive, and supposedly permanent tombstones, in medieval times people would be buried only for a few years, and then the grave dug up, the bones transferred to an ossuary, and the grave reused for another person. hence the gravedigger scene in Hamlet - the digger is recycling Yorick's grave for another occupant. So I see no problem in digging up a grave site sufficiently old that we don't know who is buried in it. The question is, as with all archaeological digs, how much to dig up now and how much to leave for later, better equipped, archaeologists.

Cars are really expensive to maintain. In parts of the US and other developed countries, a large number of people have the funds. There will always be a need for mass transportation, both for those who cannot afford personal transport and for the regions that cannot support all individuals driving around.

In the US we cannot afford to lower taxes on cars. We are already in trouble because of very low gas tax and an increase in fuel efficiency over the past 20 years. In fact we really need to change the way we tax cars so that cars pay a small fee for each mile driven adjusted for the weight of the car, instead of a gas tax. So for instance a person driving 10,000 miles a year in their Tesla would pay $100 extra registration fee, while a Highlander might have to cough up $150 for the same. We have no money to fix our roads, and will have to get it somehow.

A more real compromise here is to accept that this is advertisement and not take it at face value. While electric vehicles may be the winner in the consumer market, especially the second car consumer market, it is probably not the best choice for fleet vehicles. Something like fuel cells or the like will be a better choice. Proffesional fleet staff can handle the refueling that might a challenge for the consumer. The range is more reasonable, in the 200 mile range, and refueling is quicker.

I can't, the summary reads like a bunch of propaganda tripe written by some cult. I am a person who wonders if sending your real time medical information to Google or Apple is really a good idea.

Some people seem to be only concerned with living forever in relatively good condition, or keeping a young person alive even if the quality of life is dismal. They will give up whatever privacy, dignity, or wealth to accomplish this task. We have had some success. The average lifespan is increasing, and more importantly more people are healthy at older age. I am sure that artificial organs will play a huge part of this. I am sure that people will cut whatever deal to make it happen. I am sure that when their heart gets hacked they will sue, just like all those boys who grow breasts, even though it is common sense that selling drugs to kids, or allowing remote access to a heart, is not the wisest thing to do.

Here is what scares me. We do not seem to be doing much to keep the brain healthy into very old age. I have seen active, intellectually stimulated, well read, educated people fall into senility even though they have kept their mind active and engaged. It seems there is a limit to how long a brain can be very healthy. Do we want to be 125 years old and not be able to accomplish basic tasks? Do we want a world where a huge percentage of the adult population cannot care for themselves.