So, you're arguing that water is cheaper for the fracking companies than for farmers? Or that farmers should be charged less than fracking companies? Or that both should be charged more or less than residential users?

I'm confused, since you've injected yourself into the middle of a conversation where my reply was rather self-evidently sarcastic, and the GP wanted to prioritize human consumption (see your reply's title). Nevermind that agircultrual users pay substantially less than residential users for each acre-foot of water used, even after you add in capital expense (see this CBO report.

Taken together, all the wells surveyed from January 2011 to May 2013 consumed 97 billion gallons of water, pumped under high pressure to crack rocks containing oil or natural gas.

Anyone using 'industrial' quantities of water should be charged in such a way as to discourage its use.

Hell yeah!

But not the farmers... they only use about 100-150 billion gallons per day. Says the USGS. But Willie Nelson says they're good people...

From the post:

They object to the measures we have taken to defend freedom because they see the
inconvenience of them and do not recognize (or don't care about) the need for them.

Or they believe that the "inconvenience" outweighs the need for those measures -- e.g., the inconvenience is very large or the need is not as great as Stallman believes.

Most of Stallman's post is quite balanced and reasonable. However, suggesting that another group's thought process is defective ("do not recognize" or "do not care") merely because they consider other factors and reach different conclusions than yours is a bit of a cheap shot.

After all this research, Backblaze still pick the highest failing drive.

They say: "We are willing to spend a little bit more on drives that are reliable, because it costs money to replace a drive. We are not willing to spend a lot more, though."

They also further explain: "The good pricing on Seagate drives along with the consistent, but not great, performance is why we have a lot of them."

There was a comment by Yevgeniy Pusin that included some wage and hour estimates versus the cost of buying better drives, and suggested that they would not spend more than about an extra 1% on hard drive cost to double reliability or some such metric. The comment appears to have been retracted. This is from memory.

The 3.8% AFR for the Seagate Desktop HDD.15 appears to only be slightly worse than the AFRs for the Western Digital drives, which you'll notice don't include a 4TB drive. I'm guessing that that is because the Reds and Blacks are premium priced, and they appear to dislike the newer Greens as not working well in their (comparatively) high vibration POD environment.

"Generally, a Yelp review is entitled to First Amendment protection because it is a
person's opinion about a business that they patronized. See Tharpe, 285 Va. at 481, 737 S.E.2d
at 893. But this general protection relies upon an underlying assumption of fact: that the reviewer
was a customer of the specific company and he posted his review based on his personal
experience with the business. If this underlying assumption of fact proves false, in that the
reviewer was never a customer of the business, then the review is not an opinion; instead, the
review is based on a false statement of fact -- that the reviewer is writing his review based on
personal experience. And "'there is no constitutional value in false statements of fact.'" Id.
(quoting Gertz, 418 U.S. at 340).

Here, Hadeed attached sufficient evidence to its subpoena duces tecum indicating that it
made a thorough review of its customer database to determine whether all of the Yelp reviews
were written by actual customers. After making such a review, Hadeed discovered that it could
not match the seven Doe defendants' reviews with actual customers in its database. Thus, the
evidence presented by Hadeed was sufficient to show that the reviews are or may be defamatory,
if not written by actual customers of Hadeed. Moreover, Hadeed sought the subpoena duces
tecum under the legitimate, good faith belief that the Doe defendants were not former customers,
and, therefore, their reviews were defamatory."

    -- William G. Petty, this case. 2014.

Its more of a prediction, that has mostly been on target cause of its challenging nature

No. Moore's Law is meta. Moore's Law is not in fact a law that IC transistor density will double every 18-24 months. That's Moore's observation. Moore's Law is this: Some pedant will pop up and be modded +5 insightful for stating, for the millionth time in recent memory, that Moore's observation isn't a law.

And there you have Moore's Law.

Actual example:

Tesla

I'm not going to spend unpaid time doing your research (for which I'm quite certain you don't actually want the results that you'll find) for you. Examples are legion. Deal with it.

From what the summary says, these people saw someone using the name for a US service and claimed the trademark in Europe before the US company could. This seems to me to be an exceptional example of abuse of the system.

This seems to be a perfectly ordinary example of how the system works. Especially in countries other than the United States (excepting select other Anglo/common law countries).

In most countries, trademark rights are protected through registration and awarded to the first to file to use the mark in that country. Trademark 'squatting' is as unexceptional as the sun rising in the east. Take China, for example.

The solution has been in existence for more than a century. The Madrid System allows someone who files for a trademark in their home country to also file an international application that creates, at a minimum, priority rights to the mark in each contracting country. The international application can serve as a common application for each designated member state, or can be transformed into individual trademark filings in each member state.

The Paris Convention also allows someone to file for the same trademark in almost any other country in the world within 6 months of when they first applied for the trademark elsewhere. If they do, that application will be treated as if filed on the first filing date. The downside is that you have to file individual trademark applications rather than a single international application.

Pinterest took neither route. Not only that, Pinterest didn't file an application to register its trademark anywhere before these people did. See here:.

The company Premium Interest filed the trademark PINTEREST in the European Union, 2 months before Pinterest filed its US trademark.

Whether out of desperation or sheer gall, Pinterest essentially argued that its business in the US somehow gave it prior trademark rights in Europe. See the same article:

Since the OHIM systematically rejected all the evidence as the evidence concerned the use of the mark in the US and not in the UK, Pinterest lost the opposition.

Summary for the TL;DR crowd: Disruptive internet startup presumed that it could claim worldwide trademark rights by registering a domain name and sorting out compliance with the law later. Startup was very wrong.

The Elmegreens examined 269 spirals in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field and discarded all but 41 because of factors such as an inability to discern a clear spiral structure or the lack of redshift data which gives a galaxyâ(TM)s age.

They divided these 41 spiral galaxies into five different types, based on features such as the number and clarity of arms, whether well-defined or clumpy and so on.

It sounds like they only found a few of each type, seems more like a good hypothesis than "the answer". It also makes you wonder if they cherry picked some of their data.

Imagine that you're attempting to determine when spiral structure typically arose.

1. You throw out all non-spirals: not relevant.
2. You throw out proto-spirals where there's mushy arm-sh structures: potential bias, yes but
2a. You also throw out other spirals where you cannot objectively classify them as grand (2) or multi-armed (>2) spirals or... to one of the five types -- not an inherent time bias.
3. You throw out all data where you have no redshift to determine age: potential bias, yes but
3a You're attempting to determine a relationship with age. If you have no age data, how is that cherry picking?

There is a difference between objectively screening data based on logical considerations and cherry picking. Cherry picking typically involves biased selections or the use of supposedly objective selection criteria to obtain a directed result. I say supposedly because the true objectivity depends upon how the selection criteria actually relate to the hypothesis or analytical method.

As for the rest, I don't see how the paper claims to have "the answer." You're also incorrect that it's a good hypothesis -- the hypothesis is what you test against the data, not the conclusion that your observations are consistent with the hypothesis. They have a decent conclusion of consistency. Now they could use independent confimation, hopefully with a larger population of samples.

Yes it does.

Collins English Dictionary
beg the question
      a. to evade the issue
      b. to assume the thing under examination as proved
      c. to suggest that a question needs to be asked the firm's success begs the question: why aren't more companies doing the same?

Webster's College Dictionary
Idioms:
1. beg the question,
      a. to assume the truth of the very point raised in a question.
      b. to evade the issue.
      c. to raise the question; inspire one to ask.

The English language is a living language where meaning is defined by its general users, not solely by logicians. You've already lost. Deal with it.

Conspiracy theory is the exact word that is used to draw attention away from abuses of power.

As well as to label explanations that require systemic nullification of the law, and broad membership in the conspiracy, to support unfalsifiable theories concerning horrible persecutions of unspecified others.

In the end, the IRS found no wrongdoing, Dr. Carson said, but it raised his suspicions about being singled out for his speech.

Very scary. An audit. One that found there was no wrongdoing. I believed you claimed there would be an arrest involved.

You could be arrested for the same activity in the US under the 18 USC 245...

Yep. You did.

Since you've effectively conceded that US laws on free speech are far better than the ones in the UK, and require conspiracies to circumvent them, the original point that you criticized has been proven. Thank you.

(b) Whoever, whether or not acting under color of law, by force or threat of force willfully injures, intimidates or interferes with, or attempts to injure, intimidate or interfere with ....

(2) any person because of his race, color, religion or national origin and because he is or has beenâ"

(F) enjoying the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of any inn, hotel, motel, [...] , or of any motion picture house, theater, concert hall, sports arena, stadium, or any other place of exhibition or entertainment which serves the public, or of any other establishment which serves the public and ....

shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned not more than one year, or both

Such an arrest would still be possible only if you were to ignore several inconvenient words in the statute (I can bold selected words in a statute as easily as you). Those tweets were neither force nor a threat of force. Case dismissed.

False equivalency is not equivaleny. Regardless of your other appeals to unlawful arrests, conspiracies involving the IRS, and other extra-judical punishment in your other posts, the systems are not the same. The law does not authorize such an arrest, there are organizations such as the ACLU which will defend anyone prosecuted in such circumstances, and there are other US laws which make those very extrajudicial acts -- the ones you claim make the US the same as the UK -- punishable civil rights violations.

The US has much stronger free speech protections. Full stop.

Oh really?

Collins English Dictionary
beg the question
  a. to evade the issue
  b. to assume the thing under examination as proved
  c. to suggest that a question needs to be asked the firm's success begs the question: why aren't more companies doing the same?

Webster's College Dictionary
Idioms:
1. beg the question,
  a. to assume the truth of the very point raised in a question.
  b. to evade the issue.
  c. to raise the question; inspire one to ask.

Some random luddite who believes that English should be proscriptive like French:
*sigh*

You obviously have never spent any time in jail....

You obviously have never experienced actual trauma. Grow a pair.

and really obviously have never been in a non-US jail.

Please provide an example of an international arrest warrant springing out of a finding of civil contempt.

And you've never followed an international extradition proceeding either, have you?

You've apparently never followed a proceeding in which extradition was waived because the person wanted to be delievered to the court. The premise is that the person is precluded from flying back, not that they are trying to avoid answering the subpoena.

Your "remarkably quick" proceeding rarely happens in less then two weeks...

Two days is more like it.

and if the arresting country has any issue at all with any recent US policy it can be stretched out for months.

You obviously have never attempted to serve a US subpoena internationally. Nevermind providing an example of an international arrest warrant for failing to answer a subpoena, or providing an example of a country refusing to 'extradite' a person who actually wants to respond to the subpoena. You should recall that the person is being prevented from attending by being on the 'no fly list,' not actively seeking to avoid the subpoena. Frankly, I don't care about jail, extradition, or issues with US policy. I buy ferry, bus, and/or train tickets, since those modes of transportation are covered by the list. A perfectly overcomplicated scheme to jail someone thwarted by Gre.yhound and Amtrak. Drat. Back to the drawing board.

Imagine this sequence of events:
1. A perfectly legal subpoena is issued for someone to appear as a witness, while they're a plane's flight away from home.
2. Put witness on no-fly list.
3. Cite witness for contempt of court for failing to appear.

Yeah. No.

For example: Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 45(b) requires that you serve the person with the subpoena. If you wait until they're away from home, you're going to have a much harder time finding them. Not a complete barrier to the scheme, but ask your lawyer friends how much fun it is to track down someone who cannot be found at their nominal residence or place of business. They will have stories. They will not be fun stories.

Also, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 45(d)(1) provides that:

A party or attorney responsible for issuing and serving a subpoena must take reasonable steps to avoid imposing undue burden or expense on a person subject to the subpoena. The court for the district where compliance is required must enforce this duty and impose an appropriate sanctionâ"which may include lost earnings and reasonable attorney's feesâ"on a party or attorney who fails to comply.

That rule doesn't appear to apply here because I understand that this was a party witness, not an opposition or hostile witness who you'd compel to attend using a subpoena. Instead, Judge Alsop is likely to cite "the inherent authority of the Court" (to conduct proceedings and sanction parties who unreasonably interfere with those proceedings). But if you're the government, or a party that fraudulently causes the government to put someone on the no-fly list, that Rule would apply to shennanigans involving any witness that you were compelling to attend.

Boom, you now have a tool for the intelligence community, with the help of a friendly (or blackmailed) judge to put anyone away they like, for any reason they like, at least for a little while.

No. Because contempt of court typically requires an intentional act, and typically is used as a threat by that judge to gain compliance. If you were to show up ready to testify, you very likely would not be jailed for contempt merely due to the fact that you've voluntarily showed up. If you can also show that you were actively impeded from showing up, you almost certainly would not be jailed for contempt.

At worst, you could be arrested where you were stuck, temporarily jailed, and extradited to the state/court that issued the subpoena. Slightly traumatic, but remarkably quick if you don't oppose the proceedings. Better yet, the authorities attempting to extradite you will rather quickly find out that you are on the no-fly list. Unless they're part of the 'grand conspiracy' too, that tends to work against the scheme.

Of course once you start theorizing as to "friendly (or blackmailed) judge[s]," you can come up with all sorts of whacky crap. Like a Federal judge ignoring the typical requirement that a subpoena cannot demand attendance in less some number of days (related to Rule 45(d) -- try to issue a subpoena requiring attendance the next day and see how enforcable that will be) and the laws of physics somehow preventing you from getting a train ticket, bus ticket, or rental car allowing you to return home within the typical required 'waiting period.'

Too much Hollywood. Not enough real life. Courts tend to work slowly and methodically. Judges tend not to throw away their careers on petty crap, and with the exception of a very few (Supreme Court types) remain answerable to a host of other judges. Actual long-term jailing for contempt is relatively rare and exceptional. You would do well to focus your conern on your local LEOs and prosecutors, who really can screw up your life with very little cause.