True forward anonymity is a useful thing and it served the myriad dissidents escaping opression which is good. Being involved in it also meant facilitating the use of others involved in slavery, abuse of minors, and so on. On balance I decided that I could not justify facilitating the downside, no matter how important the upside was. There has to be a better way than dancing with the devil. If you dance with the devil, you will pay his fee.

Your having been to space is no guarantee that you're not crap-on-the-floor looney.

I would have thought that we've learned better than to pay too much attention to former astronauts. They might well be right about the asteroids, but I still think we should go ahead and get a second opinion on this.

ecosystem

You use words the way hillbillies use corn cobs.

Are you certain that you know what's happening in Ukraine and why?

Seriously, wtf is up with people thinking that they should get everything they want all the time?

That's what we call 'entitlement'. It's the confusion of cause and effect when applied to societal systems.

That U.S. crotch you're cheerfully kicking might not be able to bail out your "actual civilized" buttocks from the next war.

I'm pretty sure Europeans are more worried about the US starting the next war.

The thing Europeans like best about the US military is all the coin we drop having bases there. Unless you count Serbia, where the US military is about as welcome as a bladder infection.

Can boken be overdone? Sure. A 1mm think depth of field is overdoing it, but so is shooting at f/16 everywhere. But even a thin DoF and the right can result in some magical results

Just because you know what you're talking about, and we're among friends:

It's bokeh, with an 'h'. And it refers to the character of the blur, not the blur itself. If you've got an image, say f/3.4, a hipster might say "nice bokeh" to you, but he means that you have a good lens, not that you've selected a good aperture. And then he might also suggest you make a "glisse" print. ;)

And, of course, shallow depth of field is a huge fad, and there's an entire generation of kids who won't ever be able to tell where they were in any of their childhood pictures. *That* will seem very "early 21st century" in a couple decades.

If you care about good beer you should be making your own. Thanks to Jimmy Carter you can do that since 1978.

OK I will give you that. Still a damn fine keyboard though.

Show me the government or corporation willing to invest into seed ships they don't control the fate of, and I'll start caring about the technical side of it. Technical feasability doesn't mean much, the problem is, as always, people.

Cue the rabid

So far it's just you talking... that's such a weird pattern, this fantasizing about opponents who never show up... your motives may be pure, but your equipment is kinda broken.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/04/reverse_heartbl.html

Fixed that for ya.

"These propaganda sessions for Putin" is a false are decidedly pre-staged propaganda comment typical of mass media PR=B$, sounds like it means something until you stop to think about it, something that propagandists never want you to do.

Let's look at the reality. Ask yourself should you be given the opportunity to publicly question Putin publicly live on TV would you say yes or no, obviously a person of Snowden's courage is not going to say no to that challenge. Now Putin knows full well that being challenged by Snowden publicly will work well for him, if Putin is capable of articulating himself well against the challenge, for a political representative it demonstrates confidence, skill and self control to the electorate, all vote winners.

So the interview occurs, the reality only an election show piece if the politicians is not an empty talking suit reading off a Teleprompter. Now how many US politicians would be willing to stand up to potential detractors on live TV, would Uncle Tom Obama the choom gang coward puppet of the corporations stand up to Snowden, nope, reality Snowden is permanently barred from returning to the US under the threat of sexual humiliation, torture, extended imprisonment and murder, they are that afraid of him.

The biggest tools in the shed have always been politicians owned by outside interests and what makes Putin more interesting is that he is definitely not owned by outside interests and is not just a puppet reading off a teleprompter like so, so, many US politicians (remember puppets will always have difficulty taking on public challenges because it give no opportunity for their masters PR agents to provide the answers).