Evolution is a cast-iron bitch sometimes. Dino's didn't adapt to the big grenade. Lots of other critters did.

(And yes, fossil fuels are composed of relatively few actual dinosaurs, it's mostly ex-plant life.)

Go back to 4chan?

Connecting all four points?

Because the Alaska Permanent Fund takes a small amount of revenue from the oil recovery fees and puts it in a managed fund whose interest is dispersed to the couple of hundred thousand humans left in this mosquito infested swamp. It has a total capitalization of about 45 billion dollars, roughly the same as the spectrum sales.

However, Alaska's population is roughly 735,000, the US 316,000,000. Assuming the same long term returns, the average US citizen would get about $1.80 per year. On a good year.

Disbursement of government money to the masses doesn't really do much. It is arguably different in Alaska since outside the 'big' cities, a significant fraction of the population is at a subsistence level and the close to $1000 we get each year makes a big difference. But many people have argued that the fund would do better if it were more intelligently managed. Of course, that term is defined differently by different people,

Now, this is completely off topic but reminds me of a funny paragraph in a recent Atlantic article about writer Jeff VanderMeer.

With a shameless plug for his recent Southern Reach trilogy (as is the whole article).

But you have to wonder about coffee shop regulars. This might explain some of their behavior.

You sir, are an idiot. The Aleutian Islands encompass some of the most productive fisheries in the world. You want you King Crab to glow in the dark? Your salmon to grow flippers?

Sea water causes things to corrode. Unless you vitrify the waste (and the vitrification works), it will leak into the ecosystem. There is a reason water is called the 'Universal Solvent'.

You don't want to put the waste out in Alaska. You can see Russia from here!

Balmer isn't head of Microsoft anymore....

So you think that flight time costs have much all to do with the total bill for shuttling the president of the United States around?

You need to get out more often.

Planes last pretty much forever if you want them to. I'm part owner of a 1957 DeHavilland DHC-1 Beaver. It's only three years newer than I am. It's much easier to buy replacement parts for the it than me.

At my local bank you need the ATM card to get into the lobby after hours.

Or, at least, some random card with mag stripe. It doesn't appear to make any difference.

Not to mention that there must be hundreds of websites detailing construction and programming of said devices. Dozens of forums. Even advertisements. Perhaps more surprising is that there is more than one manufacturer of small, GPS control multirotored devices available from such nefarious outlets as Amazon.com. An interested person could learn themselves some valuable skills just by using the Internet and even better, contribute positively to the economy by spending money.

I guess I'll go and turn myself in now. That will cause me to spend more money on lawyers, allow the government to expand the incarceration industrial complex, contribute to generation of more laws and in general, help this great country of ours.

It's the American way.

You're hired. Or under arrest.

Things are so confusing these days.

Oops. TMA (Too Many Acronyms).

AMA = Academy of Model Aeronautics as well as the American Medical Association.

You made need additional caffeine to distinguish the two in the last couple of posts.

Actually, this model is pretty widely used. The FAA and the ARRL (American Radio Relay League - amateur radio) work closely together and the ARRL is even responsible for first line enforcement. I'm not sure the AMA is a good example at all since it really doesn't make any broad rules of conduct other than some weak ethics rules. Remember, AMA enrollment in the US is, and has been, below 50% for a very long time. The FAA works closely with a number of industry and private groups including 'hobbyist' pilots (and then goes on to ignore everyone including themselves, but we are talking about the FAA).

But various government agencies do often work with outside groups on an effective basis. Sometimes for the benefit of society, sometimes not.