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Comment Re:Subs as aircraft carriers (Score 2) 75

The purpose of a submarine like this is be able to deliver their aircraft close to the enemy without being seen, launch the attack (which will appear to have come out of nowhere, with little or no warning) and then leave again without being seen

This is exactly what is done today - Just with submarine-launched cruise missiles. Cruise missiles also have the advantage over human-piloted bombers of not needing to be recovered once the mission is complete.

Comment Re:Curse you, Entropy! (Score 2) 486

All well and good, but doesn't exactly solve the problem of greenhouse gas emissions.

Sure it does. (Not that one small pilot project solves the problem, I mean if the tech is scaled up.) It's carbon-neutral just like biofuels are, it does not add any net CO2 to the atmosphere: it only puts in what it took out to make the fuel in the first place. (I suppose your could even use it to remove CO2, to get us back to 350ppm via carbon sequestration -- make up a bunch of "blue crude" and then stick it underground, running an oil well in reverse.) The problem with greenhouse gas emissions is fossil carbon, which puts in carbon that was captured millions of years ago.

Comment Re:This never works (Score 4, Insightful) 304

the piracy the Industry fears most is that which occurs solely in the home, without the use of file sharing sites, cause it is ultimately the hardest to police.

I find this hard to believe. If I buy Big Hero 6 on DVD and then rip it so my kid can watch it on my tablet I can't imagine the industry would care that much - Certainly much less than if if I didn't buy the DVD and instead just torrented it.

Comment Re:Raise Them To Infinity! (Score 1) 309

What rational argument is there that makes it right to strip ownership from the copyright holder after a few decades? Does real estate become public domain after 100 years of ownership?

You have confused ideas with property. The only rational argument for using state force to punish people or make them pay for making a copy of a work is that doing so promotes the creation of more works. That excuse falls off rather rapidly once the author is dead.

A song is not real estate -- if I go into Bob Dylan's house it affects his life, if I sing one of his songs it doesn't -- and so your comparison makes no sense.

Comment Not about saving money (Score 3, Informative) 622

Where I live (Vancouver, Canada) the purchase of an electric car is never about savings over gas prices. Even here, where gas costs ~$1.25 CAD per liter and hydroelectric residential power costs $0.0797 CAD per kWh for first 1,350 kWh ($0.1195 CAD per kWh over the 1,350), with a car like the Nissan Leaf you'll never save enough over the life of the car in fuel costs to offset the higher price for the car.

For the people I know with Leafs and Volts it's about doing their bit to reduce pollution and CO2 output, not saving money.

Comment Re:Benjamin Franklin got it right (Score 2) 230

We trade "freedom" for "security" every day; it's called civilization

If you're trading freedom for security, you're doing it wrong. They are mutually dependent. You have both or neither, not one or the other.

What does it mean to not be free? It means you can't live your life as you want because someone -- the state, the group with a "monopoly on violence", where one exists -- will use violence to stop you. You don't have security when you are subject to state violence that restricts freedom.

And what is the reason we desire security? Because we can only live as we choose -- we can only live freely -- when others do not violently impose their will upon us. You don't have freedom when you are subject to violence that threatens your security.

The question then becomes, how do we organize to defend ourselves against violence, while at the same time not creating an organization that commits violence? The modern police state fails this challenge.

Comment Re:Define 'Terrorists' (Score 5, Insightful) 230

Israel didn't start it, Hamas did.

No. The UK started it with the Balfour Declaration, then the Zionist Organization followed by with an invasion. Arabs started to resist the invasion, and the cycle began, with many sins since then by many players. But the origin was British colonialism and Jewish millenarianism. And the recent and ongoing brutality has been primarily of Israeli origin.

Who are the terrorists? The ones launching cowardly, hidden attacks, or the ones defending themselves?

There is nothing "cowardly" about hiding. That's how you win a battle. It's why we invented camouflage. That's the same charge the British leveled against American colonial fighters, that they wouldn't stand out in the open wearing bright colors and be shot like Real Men.

And the Palestinians have been on the defensive since 1917, that's the historical fact.

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