And require Internet license like driver licenses. ;)

And former Cigna customers too?

"As far as efficiency goes there doesn't look to be much difference at the moment between sodium vapor lights and LED lights."

Strangely your reference actually states: "For example, a 30W LED street light can often replace an 80W High Pressure Sodium lamp. The reason for this is directionality. LED street lamps are very directional and the light output is much more even then by other street lamps."

Apart from that, I suspect that HPS lights are difficult to make efficient at low light outputs, such as what you need for narrow streets and footpaths where a high-power lamp mounted high up would spill too much light outside the road.

"With charge times measured in hours, what are all the people who rent or park on a street going to do?"

In Netherlands, many municipalities offer to install a charging station (about the size of an old, coin-operated parking meter), on the street, close to your home, along with two parking spots that are reserved for electrical cars. Together with the tax breaks, this makes e-cars quite popular. You don't get a personal spot, but this way the risk of not being able to recharge is limited.

Note that the electricity isn't free: you have to use a smart card to activate the charging pole. I'm not sure what they charge per kWh. Probably a bit more than the residential rate (0.21 EUR/kWh).

This is a non-issue for several reasons, among them:

1) Covert officers travel under diplomatic cover, and most diplomats have security clearances. This will not stand out.
2) It's already trivial for a nation-state to identify spies under diplomatic cover. We know who theirs are, and they know who ours are. Diplomatic cover is not about cover; it's about *diplomatic immunity*, so if they get pissed at our spies, all they can do is kick them out, and vice versa.
3) Non-official cover employees are harder to detect, but they generally only hide their present employment, not their past employment, and usually have cover stories, not cover identities/jobs. See: Valerie Plame. At best, you can use fingerprints to confirm that they are who they say they are, which they're not lying about anyway, so...

The real danger is blackmail. The employer already knows what infractions are listed on the SF86, of course, but the general public may not. Affairs, drug usage, and to a lesser degree, expunged criminal history, arrest record, financial issues, etc. Just download an SF86 and look it over. Depending on the individual, it could be a scandal that they'd rather avoid, and/or that the employer would rather avoid. e.g., "Why would you hire someone who smoked crack?"

If you outlaw drones, only outlaws will have drones.

No, this is like bringing up abortion in an economics discussion. It's intentionally inflammatory and only tangentially related at best. Maybe we should be discussing animal rights too, I just have to put it behind a bullet point and a well reasoned argument and it's ok to derail the whole discussion to advance my agenda, right? No. That's stupid. Let him start a newsletter about his issues and people can subscribe to it if they want, there's no reason to drag that topic in here today.

Possibly. Any time you have a buffer overflow, there's a possibility that you can write to the stack and execute arbitrary code.

Guns don't kill people; people kill people.

he was charged to discharging a gun within city limits

No he wasn't.

"Long story short, after that, they took me to jail for wanton endangerment first degree and criminal mischief...because I fired the shotgun into the air."

Hillview Police detective Charles McWhirter of says you can't fire your gun in the city.

"Well, we do have a city ordinance against discharging firearms in the city, but the officer made an arrest for a Kentucky Revised Statute violation," he said. (Emphasis mine.)

These are basically catchalls:

508.060 Wanton endangerment in the first degree.
(1) A person is guilty of wanton endangerment in the first degree when, under
circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life, he
wantonly engages in conduct which creates a substantial danger of death or serious
physical injury to another person.
(2) Wanton endangerment in the first degree is a Class D felony.

512.020 Criminal mischief in the first degree.
(1) A person is guilty of criminal mischief in the first degree when, having no right to
do so or any reasonable ground to believe that he has such right, he intentionally or
wantonly defaces, destroys or damages any property causing pecuniary loss of
$1,000 or more.
(2) Criminal mischief in the first degree is a Class D felony.

I suspect he will be able to argue a) that he did not create a substantial danger, and b) that he had a reasonable ground to believe he had a right to destroy the drone. In fact, his testimony stated as much, so I would bet the criminal mischief charge will probably be dropped.

When seconds count, police are only minutes away.

They have cities in Kentucky?

I'm so productive that I have lots of extra time to spend on Slashdot.

The Register has articles on topics I find interesting, but the "whimsical" British styling tests my patience. I don't want to see the word "boffin" in every other headline (or any headline, for that matter), or a CAPITALIZED word for emphasis. The site is too loud, gaudy, and grating for prolonged viewing.