You're assuming corporate deployments and no air-gapped ones at that. While they are in the minority, there exist plenty of rural residents in the US at least without a satisfactory answer to Internet connectivity and thus remain offline.

Want to fix global poverty issues? Transfer about 1% of defense spending to developing third-world economies. You'd have the problem licked in about a decade. Now shut up and get off my lawn.

I find it highly unlikely that Microsoft would switch solely to a subscription model. There are any number of deployment contexts where machines spend their life not connected to the Internet. Not only would offline renewal be a customer service nightmare, the expense of operating it would negate any merit. Even if connected, many (most?) consumers, as well as many businesses would be highly adverse to switching from a capital purchase to a lease of their PCs.

American society is set up to promote recidivism. If you want to do meaningful work you've got very limited options on the "clean" path. I think Hawaii actually prohibits the consideration of criminal records for hiring. Everywhere else you're forced to wear your scarlet letter in full view. Small business might be your best shot. Your call on whether or not to fess up on your past. The chance of a background check varies by the sector the business is in.

Or, you can acknowledge reality and just go shop around for a plush job doing IT for the underground. I'm told they hire some of the best and brightest while offering very respectable compensation packages. e.g. medical, dental, 401K, etc.

Prices are set by a regulating body. Electric companies are forced to petition for rate increases.

The trouble comes when misguided people lacking knowledge about a certain subject nonetheless put a voice to their baseless fears. When considerations are made, their voice is given undue audience. Regrettably in a democracy, the vote of the idiot and the savant are given equal measure. In comparison to the later, the former seems to suffer no lack of abundance.

You're right, absolutely not viable.

Yes swapping

What's the relevance? Are you a taxi driver? The average suburban/urban driver puts less than 40 miles on their car per day. I easily recoup my 40 miles from a 110v 15A outlet while I recharge (sleep).

With very few changes I doubt most urban and suburban dwellers would have issues keeping an electric vehicle sufficiently charged for their day to day. It's a mindset problem. People tend to look at an electric as if it were a petrol car. Few put more than 40 or so miles on their car per day. The reason for the long range of petrol cars is because the refueling process is "attended" and only at specific locations, you have to go to a fueling station and twiddle your thumbs for five or so minutes. If you had to do that every day, or if took more than say 10 minutes each time it'd be considered a real pain in the arse because you have to go to a certain location and stand around waiting for the refueling to complete. With an electric you just run a power cord to the car and walk off. Even if you only have access to a 110V 15A outlet where you live and/or work you'll end up with enough range to keep you going.

Maintenance of equipment, especially the compressor portion would make it a no-go. An LP holding tank is quite a different beast in terms of what can go wrong from the compressor. I also wouldn't doubt there'd be municipal zoning hurdles for the same reason.

As long as they're going to rely upon the SLS--which in its own right has a near zero probability of surviving Congress--this mission will still never get off the ground.

I think they could have come up with something. The panels were designed for only 32W. Future missions should have even less hassle.

This is why we don't have Pu-238 powering more of our probes.

I considered this but, I also see a strong and growing stronger movement of municipalities to roll their own. Among other reasons they see it as a means of attracting businesses to their towns. A paradigm shift is going to be forced upon Crapcast and co. whether they like it or not. Cable subscribers are bleeding out of these companies as consumers adopt data only services. Municipalities are now moving in and filling that role with far more attractive offers. Municipalities won't be harmed by title II, but it certainly won't be business as usual for the legacy players under it. As the saying goes "karma's a b**ch".