That's a good point -- stored water might as well go into the ground (and be used) as into the air (which one might argue becomes rain somewhere to the east, but that does Utah no good, and Utah needs it a lot more).

In the process of moving back to Montana from SoCal, I made numerous trips along both I-15 and routes further west, and I was quite struck by how the states that scream the loudest about conservation and that do the most enforcing against common use of resources... are also in the worst shape. Utah looks the best both agriculturally and industrially -- it seems to have a great deal more local industry than any other western state, yet it looks the most pristine and green, and sports a healthy ag sector. Montana and the agricultural parts of Nevada are also in good shape, as is much of Idaho. But you can just about draw a line around CA and OR solely by the poor condition of what used to be good graze and forest land, and now looks a great deal more drought-stricken than do drier areas further inland.

>>Hallam said it best: there has never been a time when humanity has successfully and peacefully coexisted with nature.

Out of the 2,000 or so species listed on the Endangered Species Act written 40 years ago, exactly three have gone extinct. And they were already endangered to begin with.

Seems like we're doing reasonably well here in America.

This should allow you to move a phone between Verizon and one of their MVNOs. While Verizon and AT&T use different technologies, T-Mobile and AT&T use GSM and LTE. As VoLTE becomes more popular and increases, I think most cell phone providers will start to standardize on that, which will mean they're all using the same technology (if not the same bands) and moving a phone between Verizon and AT&T may be possible in a few years.

I don't work there anymore, but I've been in the security industry long enough to know a number of companies, as well as the uncomfortable squirming that follows if you ask security training providers for independent evidence supporting their claims.

It's not a problem of IT security. Fire security trainings are quite similar, except that they have evolved thanks to decades of experience - in a modern company, those responsible know that the fire drill is primarily to drain the assigned helpers and floor supervisors, not the employees.

I never said security is stupid. I am saying security awareness trainings are a waste of time, by and large. Tell me, how many people have you had in those trainings you thought before they went in that giving your password to random strangers is a good idea? 90% of the content of these trainings is either boring because everyone knows it already or boring because it's too technical and not interesting that they filter it out.

I've had the responsibility of writing or reworking existing IT security policies, and my advise has always been to make them as short and simple as possible. I've seen a multinational corporation vomit up a 300 page security policy, which was really great from an ISO 270xx POV, but aside from the guys in the security department who wrote it, I'm fairly certain I was the only other human being who actually read all of it, ever.

I love security. But I think our industries approach to users and security is fundamentally flawed and trainings are a band-aid on a broken arm - placebo treatments that don't even touch the real issues.

In March 1989 much of Quebec lost power for the same thing.

They lost power because the common-mode breakers tripped, not because their system was actually damaged.

Oh, to live in a physical world, where the laws of conservation of energy cannot be broken.

Fixed that for you.

No, it's not false. Government can force paid vacation days (or whatever) to be part of your total compensation but government cannot force anything to be added on top of your salary. Please, start thinking for yourself before continuing on this topic.

That is not the problem of your employer, that's your own problem. You should be worried about maintaining your own health, your employer shouldn't be in the picture even for this. This is what you should take into account while negotiating if you can afford to do that in the economy the way it is.

Well of-course you should be able to negotiate how you want to get your compensation, but that's the point. What if government came out with a law telling you that you absolutely cannot negotiate the terms, you cannot be paid in medical insurance but instead you have to always be compensated in government bonds?

The reason that it was a good deal for your father was because the part of the total compensation that was the medical insurance was not taxed the same way as money. Income taxes didn't apply to that part of the compensation. The other reason was all the changes that government introduced related to health care and insurance, especially (if this was the USA) in 1965, with the introduction of Medicare, the prices went up because of government money in health insurance. The last reason is of-course inflation. The government likes to pretend that there is no inflation, but the reality is quite different. Inflation is rampant, so getting the same good (as a percentage value of the total compensation package) today as 60 years ago for example means that you are able to escape the horrific effects of inflation as well.

I didn't say you shouldn't be able to be paid in vacation days or in insurance or in gallons of milk. All I am saying is that you should be able to make those choices for yourself and not have government dictate to you how to get paid.

But probably not many. Slashdot admins could run a query to see; that would be vaguely interesting, but I've seen comments from several people who say they're using the site under a newer login than their original.

Again, in a system where there is a law mandating some minimum paid vacation days your hourly wage is lower than in an equivalent system where this law doesn't exist. Your employer already took the law into account when offering your compensation package, the market has taken your minimum paid vacation days into account while discovering price for your hourly labour. You are getting paid in vacation days, that's all it means, and the government dictated to you that you have to take part of your compensation in vacation days rather than in money or whatever you might have negotiated yourself.

But of-course it matters, what it does it lowers your expected salary across the board. Sure, it's market rate on top of a government mandated minimum but that's a mandated minimum that is not supplanted by a higher wage (like the minimum wage law is irrelevant from point of view of your rate if your rate is higher than the minimum wage, though it is not irrelevant if you realise that minimum wage pushes many prices of products you buy up and thus robs you of your purchasing power all in the name of hiding inflation created by the government in the first place) but in fact the minimum mandated vacation days are actually part of your total compensation.

My point is that in a system where government sets minimum vacation days your hourly wage is lower than it would have been otherwise. If a government comes out with another law that increases the number of paid vacation days your employer will likely not reduce your salary directly right away (though I would) but instead most employers will work this out by reducing your bonuses / raises and by attrition, where the new employees would start with a lower hourly wage and/or other benefits and/or with fewer raises, etc.

Basically again, money doesn't come from nowhere, the law of conservation of energy still applies. Your productivity commands your total compensation and your government mandated vacation days are paid to you in lie of hourly wages.

Saudi? Hey! And Israel! Don't forget NSA and Israel - the most moral military on earth! They bomb hospitals under UN protection with the morality of the old testament!

No they don't. You might not realize this but a contract places obligations on both parties. I know you've probably been brought up with the one-sided "terms of service" style contracts that have "we can get out of this any time but you can't" clauses, but you might want to see how many times that "we can get out of this any time but you can't" clauses have held up in court. They can't just say "we don't like you" and kick him off the plane.

The only thing that would warrant a paying customer being denied service would be some sort of serious disruption to the other passengers or the plane itself. Speaking ill of a gate attendant doesn't affect the plane in any way, therefore they have no right to remove him from the plane.

You seem to forget about them having his money and all that.