When the WSJ was sold the bias of the paper shifted not-so-subtly to the right. It may be a top-tier newspaper, but its bias clearly indicates it is a tool of the Murdoch empire.

Comparing the WSJ to the Washington Post probably is appropriate since the Washington Post shares the right wing bias.

The bottom line is that he owns way too many media outlets which tends to drown out other voices. The argument that any of his media outlets are truly independent is really a joke. They publish what he wants them to publish through direct, indirect, or implied influence. That is why the hate.

Great questions. I'm all for putting a microprocessor in a device if that makes it work better, but does my toaster really need to send me a text when my toast is toasted? Do I really need to be able to program my thermostat from The Bahamas? Most people don't even know how to program their thermostat at home, because it isn't all that important to them. You turn it up when you are cold, down if you are hot, and mostly it has to do with your activity level, not some kind of programmable schedule. And if you are in The Bahamas you don't even think of your furnace at home, in fact thinking about the furnace is the last thing you'd want to think about. Oh sure, you might like to know if the furnace died before your pipes froze, but how often does that actually happen?

It really is a solution in search of a problem. If we really try, we can imagine scenarios where you might want a text from your toaster, but who is going to spend the time to program a smart toaster? OK, I know this is slashdot, so that probably is a stupid question. Because you can.

I go camping to get away from that shit.

The US is on its way to becoming a third world country. Its mobile phone network just the tip of the iceberg.

You are mis-informed. Redding has an annual rainfall of 35 inches. Some coastal areas have more rain, and some areas have less, but 60 inches of rain isn't even close as an average for Northern California.

Second, if you assume this water is just surplus, you would be wrong again. The water is already allocated, and the courts that you refer to are there to protect those water rights, not to help Southern California steal them.

California often has drought, but this one is different. California has numerous large reservoirs that are nearly drained after three plus years of drought. Groundwater is being rapidly depleted. The state started out with lots of water, but the persistent drought has nearly exhausted the reserves. If the situation doesn't change this winter, the problems we see now will seem trivial. Resilience works up to a point, and then it snaps when certain limits are exceeded. California's water supplies are stretched to the limit right now.

In my need for fairness I went to all the sites in the top twenty of my bookmarks and looked for ads that might escape the adblockers. Wired had some promotions for Wired that probably couldn't be blocked. Spaceweather had some unobtrusive ads on the side that I never noticed before. Otherwise, nada. Slashdot never shows ads, of course. Yahoo news had none. Google news had none. I followed a couple links from G-News. Time, New York Times, and CNET had no ads. Nothing to bitch about, really.

I'm with you. I didn't realize there were ads on the internet. OK, I actually do realize it, but I haven't seen an ad on my computer screen for years. Why on earth would anyone bitch about it though. If you don't like it, just block it. No need to complain. I would never click on one of the ads, so why would I want to look at them.

While I agree that this thing is almost useless, I have to disagree with one thing. I can walk pretty fast, but can't sustain anything over 6k/h without looking like an idiot. This device claims 10k/h. So, I'd have to say it might be useful if you need to make time in a walking environment. I'm sure you can imagine a situation where 10k/h is better than 6k/h.

Second that. In many instances a plane on VFR (visual flight rules) will be sharing airspace with a plane under IFR (instrument flight rules) If the IFR pilot isn't looking out the window and hits the VFR plane, the IFR pilot could be at fault (depending on some other factors). The flight controller may, or may not, be aware of the VFR plane, and therefore might not vector the IFR plane around the VFR plane. Both planes have obligations designed to avoid a collision but in no case is any pilot forbidden to look out the window.

She will want a kickback. I'm sure she deserves it.

Exactly right. The wilderness on either side of the bridge is vast. It is vast because it is really hard to build roads over permafrost, particularly if the permafrost starts to melt whenever you build a road on it. Roads on permafrost pretty much need to be rebuilt every year. The bridge is a big effort, but the roads to reach it might be a bigger project. It would be the bridge to nowhere, from nowhere.

Almost any aircraft would change altitude or course to avoid unfavorable winds or find favorable winds. You are nit-picking something that would be totally stupid to NOT DO. When an aircraft has a cruising speed comparable to a motor bike, every tiny bit of wind has a huge effect. You don't get any extra credit for setting a distance record against the wind.

Electric cars aren't for everyone, yet. As your only car it might not make sense if you make more than the occasional road trip, but for a couple it might make perfect sense to have one electric, and use your gas car for your road trips. Some city folks rarely leave the city, so an electric makes sense for them. It really boils down to how you use your vehicle. For some they make total sense. For others, not so much.

I don't have an electric because it doesn't fit my lifestyle at all. I travel a lot, and it is always in a motor vehicle, usually way out in the boondocks where recharging isn't even possible. I almost always have a car full of camping gear that wouldn't fit in most electrics. I travel on remote dirt roads that often require 4WD. To the best of my knowledge there aren't any genuine 4WD vehicles. (all wheel drive isn't the same thing)

Records are almost always broken due to advances in technology, or at least knowledge. Better equipment or better training are consequences of improved knowledge. But it still counts. Even track records are due to better shoes, and new knowledge of how to train the human machine. The four minute mile was once the holy grail of track, now it is routinely run under 4 minutes. Technology plus knowledge.