You mean Agile development, like the free market, isn't the answer to the world's problems? How can that be? Just wait until I bring that up at today's standup. The scrum master will be aghast...

Yes, I'm still trying to figure out if it would be better to cover my roof with solar cells, or to just paint it white.

If Microsoft decides to ping BofA to determine if the internet is alive, that'd be just about right.

If American tech companies DON'T put effective encryption on their devices, we'll all be buying tech products from foreign companies that do. GET USED TO IT.

Yes, and note that when you have excess, likely your neighbor has too, and when you need backup, likely so will your neighbor, so getting the excesses to those who need it is going to require some long distance distribution.

Off grid systems are significantly more expensive than grid-tied systems. And off-grid systems will have to have sufficient battery to run for days in bad weather if there's no grid to rely on. And even worse in areas where bad weather is more common. Your "viable, cost-wise" comment is just blowing smoke, possibly true in some parts of the country, but certainly not universal.

Salesmen have been traversing my neighborhood with a grid-tied system that has no batteries pitched to be the same cost as my current power bill. It's a scam, but there may be people who are falling for it, and I don't think it's illegal, they can provide what they say they can at least until the power companies decide it's not working on their end. The power company can't afford to be the battery for everyone, at some point the economics for them breaks down. And when will the power companies decide to stop giving you credit for your excess power they can't use (and can't store)? The whole grid-tied credit bit only works when there aren't too many people using it...

Except that a large number of these solar electric plans are grid-tied systems that attempt to use the power company as its battery. I recently was offered a system where they would simply collect my electric bill payment instead of the power company, and in exchange they would install a grid-tied solar system that would provide my power. Such systems are scams in my opinion, as the economics don't work long term for the power companies which remain in the equation. These scamsters can't afford to make the same deal for off-grid systems because the batteries eat up their profits. Not only are the power companies mad at these deals, they have a right to be and in fact, I'm mad about them as well because they're attempting to profit off a disruptive technology at both the power company's and my expense-- my expense because I would remain dependent on the power company, just differently while the scamsters skim off the profits-- when the power company can't make it work anymore, I'll be one of the ones adversely affected.

What the Fed does is bail them out, instead. Now that, I would argue, is what was criminal in this case, because it transferred liabilities from the investors to the taxpayers...

You missed my point. The FBI doesn't CARE about door locks because they're easy to beat. They could very well behave differently about them if they were actually secure. Encryption is only an issue for the FBI if it works, backdoored encryption they're fine with. Since your door locks essentially have a back door, you'll not see them complaining about them. Mr. Comey might very well disagree with "strong" locks on houses, but since there isn't a mass movement to move to them like there is to encrypted communications, he has no reason to make an issue of it.

You are aware that the vast majority of front door locks on homes wouldn't keep out an orangutan with a toothpick, aren't you?

Bump Key Howto

He's FBI, not a lawyer, for chrissakes. What do they know about what's legal?

It's probably just theater-- they want you to think Android and iOS are secure so we all don't start buying phones with OSes from companies based outside the US where they can't, nudge-nudge, wink-wink, their way into a back door. Or just get rid of the smart phone entirely... They want you to USE it, and think that it's secure, even when it's not. Otherwise they'd actually have to start working for a living again...

What the hell did these guys do before smartphones existed? Oh yeah, that's right, WORK FOR A LIVING.

I moved to a quiet small town whose police dept doesn't have air power. That's why it's quiet. Police don't seem to have too much trouble catching the bad guys without it. And you're telling me we're going to have drones buzzing overhead? Some of the good-ol'-boys around here are gonna go skeet shootin', I betcha...