Lets say you have the best "mobile app" to do whatever, XYZ.

Oh great, govt customer wants it. They see it today. Well, thanks to procurement, it will be 18 months before they actually buy it. But, by that point, the product will have changed a good bit - well because that is what software does now a day. But, that isn't what Gov manager wanted - they want what they saw 18 months ago.

The sales cycle will chew startups up and spit them out. Not many can accommodate 18 month+ sales cycles.

And that even excludes the issues of continuing resolutions means they don't have cash to buy buy many shiny new objects.

Yeah, some kind of EULA situation, like basically outlawing for-pay Minecraft services including hosting, selling packages of items, etc. In short, making most of the best MC servers illegal. The fact that he has nothing to do with it any more suggests that he should indeed uninvolve himself.

He's still a hypocrite given his explosion of hate over Oculus Rift, especially after this statement. He deserves our derision, and he's getting it.

Historically, governments justified the "certification" requirements imposed on people wishing to pursue various professions by the consumers' inability to share the information required to make an informed choice of a service provider.

For example, arriving to a new city, you don't know, what taxi company is decent and which hires serial rapists — the city hall should issue "medallions" to the good drivers and fight attempts by the non-vetted to provide the same services without paying the authorities their due.

Uber is showing, how the consumer feedback, that's easy to provide and is immediately available to anyone with a smart phone, obviates the need for such certifications — along with the associated costs and the abuse-potential. Taxi-services is not the only market, where things can (and should!) be changed by the pervasive smart-phones. Plumbers and electricians would be next on my list of professions, which should not require certifications (though some may seek approvals from non-governmental authorities like "Angie's List", if they choose to). Then restaurateurs — patrons could report roach-sightings just as well (or better) than a city's health-inspector. Then lawyers and eventually, even veterinarians and human doctors...

Gain control? For what purpose?

For the same reason politicians become politicians (and policemen become pigs) — the feeling of control over fellow human beings gives them a high...

The way I see it, if this all bogus, we end up with cleaner air, less pollution and a better place to live.

Not obviously, actually. Tesla's wonderful batteries, for example, are a hell to make and aren't particularly easy to dispose of either. The early "green" toilets don't use enough water to do the job quite often — requiring multiple flushes, where an old one would've done with one. The mandatory recycling of this and that requires additional trucks on the road to haul the "special" refuse without clear benefits to the environment — in fact, often enough the stuff ends up in general refuse anyway after incurring all of the costs (financial and environmental) of the separate handling. The certified "green" buildings (sometimes?) use more energy, than regular structures...

You win either way.

Yeah. There is this line of thinking — Blaise Pascal, in his time, put forth the same idea on whether or not God exists.

Good to see, you aren't (any longer?) claiming it is the science, that drives your thinking about global warming... You aren't alone.

The Antarctic sea ice extent was not and is not projected to shrink in the near term.

Bzzz! False. Quoting the above-mentioned professor of "Climate Change" from Australia (emphasis mine): "Sea ice is disappearing due to climate change, but here ice is building up".

If you're not paying enough attention to the science to understand even that simple concept why should I think anything else you have to say is worth listening to.

You can keep looking for an excuse to ignore me — or just close your ears and sing "La-la-la". Truth remains — global warming was "oversold" to the general population by the usual alliance of the dishonest seeking to profit from the implementation of measures proposed to fight it and the stupid, who agreed with them.

The various dire predictions are failing to materialize — and even when they were made, none of his allies have questioned, why Al Gore himself purchased a wonderful piece of real estate on the coast rather than in the mountains somewhere.

To continue to push forward policies based on the same predictions — and the (pseudo-)scientific models that lead to them in the first place, is irresponsible if not outright criminal...

If it’s all a "liberal" conspiracy, what are they trying to gain?

All people already in government would gain increased governmental control over the citizenry's lives — the vast majority of them believe, they "know better" than their subjects — bless our little hearts — how to live. Which is why you haven't yet seen a "green" measure proposed, that reduced that control, have you?

In addition, the "green" measures cause the Capitalism to slow down — a cause dear to the Illiberals and the foreign handlers of some of them. Seriously, scratch a "green" activist, and you'll find a Che Guevara T-shirt underneath...

I can see what you get to gain by denying the problem exists

Could you be more specific? What do I get to gain? Do you suppose, I — or the KKKoch brothers — have a wonderful new planet for ourselves (or our children) to emigrate to, when Earth becomes too polluted? Some kind of Elysium being built for the 1%?

It makes no difference to the topic of dire predictions not materializing... Because it means, that other predictions made by the same people using the same methods aren't likely to materialize either — and thus any public policies based on such predictions should be scrapped.

Reverse osmosis, which uses water pressure both to push water through a plastic membrane (the osmosis part) but also to back-flush the filter. An "efficient" RO filter wastes about 10 parts of water for each 1 part filtered, but we have a well and a septic system so no harm done really.

Ummm, they're looking down and will see the hole. I think a nice beam about nose high so it hits them in the head might be more effective at getting their heads up and some poetic justice.

If you look at the picture closely you will notice that they did make the sidewalk lane closer to traffic the one for the unobservant cell phone users. I do not think that was a mistake.