unfortunately, what we do about climate change is a scientific question. the predicted climate consequences of anything we decide to do needs to be known. it just happens that what we do is also an economic question. and a geopolitical question. and, well, you get the picture.

we must also ask what are the direct and indirect monetary damages and human life costs of the status quo. if you look only at the cost of implementing something new, you'll get a terribly pessimistic view of what can be accomplished and when. let's say hansen gets nothing and we continue to drill, baby, drill. what indeed is the butcher's bill? can we already count both iraq wars and all the ripple they've caused? nigerian strife? gulf coast fishing consequences of deepwater horizon? cancer alley, louisiana? it's not like "business as usual" is without its ill effects.

also, china may indeed be building a new coal plant every week. however, i believe their non-fossil-fuel energy portfolio is quite substantial (yes, citation needed, but you have google) and may even make the u.s. or u.k. blush, never mind them actually taking steps to curb population growth. your question on the issue of enforcement is, of course, valid. i just want to point out that realistically china is not the biggest bogeyman.

once again, i must disclaim that i am a directv employee. you can guess which side of the argument i'm going to be on.

much of this thread seems to say two basic things
1) scheduling and ads suck
2) prices suck

i don't really understand 1 since any dvr will get around both of these issues. there are some esoteric cases where it won't, but it's certainly not the predominant way people watch tv/video.

on 2, there are several things to consider. i think internet video (netflix, hulu, youtube, etc) is awesome and if that's the right choice for you, by all means cut the cord. the thing i hate about this argument is everyone assumes everyone else is just like them. once you start talking about millions of people, you have to cater to the 80% that do things a particular way and i get the feeling most of slashdot is the other 20%.

the reason cable/sat survives is because it is very hard to do what the cable/sat companies do. if hbo tries to go streaming only with their content, good luck to them. however, they'll realize at some point that content creation is a completely different animal than content distribution. they've had a great string of success with their programming, but do they want to start distracting themselves from those creative endeavors with technical ones? what happens when some of their programming gambles don't pay off? i'm not saying any of this is insurmountable, but hbo (and all content providers really) need to ask themselves if they really want to be distributors and it should come as no surprise that many answer "no."

internet video is definitely growing and directv at least is trying to answer the call. for my own personal job security, i hope directv does. if it does, it will be in large part thanks to all the critics providing feedback.

also remember that att often is the dsl or cable internet and they can bundle things. part of this sales pitch is saying, though not necessarily providing, an overall discount. another part is offering a microcell for free as long as you stay for 2 years. i'm sure there's more, but you get the idea.

interesting, a strict interpretation of wikipedia makes cannibalism is ok if you're an omnivore too.

Omnivores (from Latin: omni, meaning "all, everything"; vorare, "to devour") are species that eat both plants and animal material as their primary food source. omnivore

of course vegans breast-feed.

if this answer does not grok, i can only ask "do you google?"

last i checked (and it was a long time ago, so i could be wrong now), the costs of producing millions of plastic discs was a very low on the riaa expense list. most of their "waste" is in talent development, which is not what it used to be, but still requires resources. basically, if they find some talent worthy of a deal, they have to record the artist (cheaper with digital technology, but still very expensive) and promote the artist. the problem is they only make their money back on a small percentage of artists (i think roughly 10%, but like i said, it's been a while).

this is not to say the riaa doesn't do evil. many of those up-front costs are carried by the artists all the way to (in some cases) bankruptcy, so even after a new artist's single goes platinum, he/she/they may still owe the label money. and everything you said about suing their consumers is, of course, well documented. i guess all i'm saying is even if labels weren't evil, it always appears that they are wasteful and taking advantage simply because they sink so much money into artists that go nowhere (eg daniel johnston, great as he is, was a commercial flop for the label that signed him first).

umm...i live here. i live in los angeles, capital of sprawl. i've used mass transit for over 10 years to commute (normally, i don't like shameless self-promotion, but if you want proof of at least the last year and a half or so, check my blog.). i say we could use more.

you can always find places where it won't work (sorry, can't speak to whether denton and conshohoken actually fit the bill). but are we making the most of where it can work?

that's not at all what i'm arguing. actually, that's what i think you're arguing. if neither of us are actually arguing that, then let's drop it.

right. to which you replied "a diet need not be vegan to be healthy." well, he never contended the opposite or even close. he just said you CAN be vegan and perfectly healthy, not that you MUST be vegan to be healthy. from my understanding of the term "straw man" (take something someone didn't say and refute it easily), this is a perfect example.

just because he didn't call you out on it doesn't mean you didn't do it.

well, you did write "a healthy diet is important," of course, but you also pretty plainly said a vegan diet did not contribute to his health ("not this"). i'm not sure i'm the one that needs to do any reconciling here.

nice straw man. beardo's point was simply that you can be healthy as a vegan, not that you can not be healthy without being vegan. of course, maybe you're making the point that diet doesn't affect health?

it may surprise you to discover many who study medicine do not study nutrition (or it may not). these days, the medical curriculum emphasizes drugs and procedures much more heavily than nutrition. in some programs, a single, 8-week class in nutrition is all that's required to get a doctoral degree in medicine.

while gp may be going off the deep end about horrific diseases (or, again, maybe not), the statement about humans not needing to eat meat to sustain life is incontrovertibly true. it only takes one living vegetarian to prove this.

having watched lots of nat geo wild lately (yes, i know, immense qualifications indeed), i've observed that there's nothing about human teeth that would indicate predation. my guess is any aliens that would examine our teeth alongside those of the rest of the animal world would conclude we are herbivores. even the tiniest chihuahuas (chihuahuae?) and domesticated house cats have more imposing, sharper flesh-rippers than homo sapiens.

another observation is that most predators eat their meat raw. a few delicacies aside, this is not how most humans eat their meat.

in direct relation to the article, the argument that humans "evolved" to eat meat boils down to, "well, we're better at it than gorillas." perhaps you can find a more convincing source?

i'm actually shocked and disheartened by how many people consider cell phones a birthright necessary for life on earth.

i don't really know enough about rockets or telescopes to pass judgement on what you've said. however, there are numerous probes exploring our solar system (voyagers, cassini, etc). from what i understand, no level of ground-based observation could obtain the data they're collecting.

i'm not sure how we maintain a space mission that will last over a hundred years (which is what tfa says it would take to get pictures back) or how you deal with command and control with a 44-yr lag, never mind all the other stuff people have posted about. but, i imagine a probe would provide valuable scientific information that couldn't be obtained any other way.

i realize i'm a little late to this by slashdot standards, but i felt compelled to reply anyway since you seem to be one of the more rational people on slashdot who has cut the cord. but, first, a huge, giant disclaimer: i work for directv. second huge, giant disclaimer: i speak for myself and am not representing directv in any official capacity.

i think it's great that there are people like you, cutting the cord. i myself did it for 2 1/2 years. it forces the cable and satellite companies to up their game. what everyone seems to be missing, however, is that they are. this is the principal reason cable and satellite have not died and, in fact, are doing quite well. the overall price range of various packages hasn't changed in 20 years. however, dvr's are practically universal, most of the channels are hd (it's weird to me your monthly charge would have been higher because of it), even remote locations get local channels and, generally speaking, you get more channels than you used to. this simply wasn't the case 10 years ago, or even 5. additionally, the on-demand choices are expanding, movies are becoming available on or before the dvd release date and while adoption hasn't been as rapid as hd, 3d is available. further, it's all the rage to be able to get content distributed throughout your entire home and to take it with you on the go. in retrospect, this all seems like a natural progression, but it isn't. cable and satellite companies had to push for all of it and invest in it.

so, while i applaud your effort to get just what you want and you don't find any of the above compelling enough to pay for, the fact is that in large numbers, choices different than your's are being made. i would venture to guess that it's because people do feel like they're getting more for the same money.

i will blatantly plug directv now and point out that our customer satisfaction numbers are actually increasing, unlike the rest of the industry. we're the only ones with energy star compliant set-top boxes. and, now that the dvr software development is largely in-house, the boxes themselves are quite reliable. as much as i'd like to say this was solely the result of fastidiously conscientious engineering, management demanded it to minimize support costs, which is, of course, closely tied to customer satisfaction.

this is poor problem-solving though. if you force constraints upon yourself that don't exist, you may miss the optimal solution. perhaps the optimal solution in the above analogy is, "this person doesn't actually need a computer. turn it off." if you constrain yourself to "engineering" solutions, you will have missed it entirely.

maybe the right solution is simply, "stop driving and reproducing and flying and eating red (or really any) meat so damn much." such a solution involves no science except that which blames, yet if we could pull it off, we would avert an enormous amount of ecological risk.

i'm not saying stop trying to find the scientific/engineering solutions. just don't stop trying to find political solutions, even if that requires playing some blame games. i know, i know, when have politicians ever solved anything, blah, blah, blah, but we may not have a choice. in the end the scientists and engineers may not be smart enough.