All those poor startups that can't build a coal plant?

I agree the ones about car dealers are ridiculous, but those come from lobbying, not in reaction to problems, so they're not the ones people complain about.

Oil pipelines are getting built all over the place - Keystone to Canada has been predicted to do nothing to help oil prices.
Coal mining is terrible for the environment and coal is unhealthy to burn.
Refineries are also very polluting and not economical in most places. I don't see any gas shortages though.

Some people might be fine with destroying our natural resources and sacrificing our health so mega-corporations can increase their profit margins slightly, but fortunately there are regulations to keep those people from doing too much harm.

Not really relevant to the thread though...

Wow! so for only $83 more I get my data safely backed up and available for 5 years!

If you buy your hard drives at the same time, then a bad batch could take them all out. If there's a bad PSU, then all the drives could die (we'll extend that to bad power if you're using a second machine). Flood and dire are pretty obvious that they'd take out everything. There's definite benefit in an off-site backup that is maintained and monitored constantly.

But a bad batch of hard drives, or a bad PSU, or flood/fire would take it out. Plus you have to keep it powered and your internet connection on. Of course those are usually used for other functions, but it should be included in the costs if you're comparing to a cloud service.

Not sure what you've tried, but I stream to a monitor connected via DVI all the time. Also have used VGA, and HDMI on both PC and Roku. You can also read kindle title using the Kindle app on your smartphone or PC.

So we're shifting the tax burden off of the businesses - are you then in favor of higher property taxes? A larger income tax? Maybe you'd like to cut programs to help poor people? Is there any evidence that shows lower taxes make the economy stronger or the country better?

Now which regulations are we going to get rid of? Typically the government adds regulations in response to abuse of the system. Maybe we should let companies pollute the rivers as long as they promise not to do it too much? How about lower the safety requirements as long as not many people get chewed up by machinery. Or maybe just let people discriminate against the handicapped.

But yeah, let's worry about getting people health care because it was working perfectly before Obama came along and ruined it for everyone.

They're not "theoretical", they already exist. At least in MA, we only have two coal plants left and they're both looking at shutting down.

The natural gas infrastructure is a bit lacking. There was a shortage this winter when everyone was warming their houses (not cooking burgers), so a lot of places needed to switch to oil which we really don't have infrastructure for. Some higher capacity pipelines would be a good addition to more renewables such as off-shore wind power without needing to rely on coal.

I guess this takes place in West Virginia? Coal isn't economical compared to natural gas in most places so there are plenty of places that would just have to ramp up a few other power plants and be just fine.

It's true that in theory, it's a conflict of interest to edit an article about one's self/company, but these are also the people most knowledgeable on the subject and have the most to contribute. I imagine the people who are large cash donors aren't trying to do it as a bribe, they're just heavy wikipedia users that wanted to help the site. Ideally they should document a conflict of interest, but that's not very clear how it should be done.

More likely it would go down (as a % of GDP) as it has the past few years.

But we shouldn't let our fear of these people stop us from trying new technologies. It's possible to take counter measures to prevent the evil hackers getting in while still enjoying the benefits of it.

I was referring to the parent post who said "deactivates and wipes EVERY PHONE", which would not be very useful. There are much softer targets already for people looking to cause mayhem, and even terrorists use cellphones.

I like how every time a new piece of technology comes up with integration into devices we have (phones, cars, toasters), the immediate response on /. is always "But what about the hackers!" as if there's a group of malicious hackers just waiting for the technology to appear so they could exploit it. There are plenty of vulnerable technologies out today (SCADA systems for one) but hackers aren't so interested in disrupting these systems because they're pure evil. Most systems get hacked because there's some profit to be made out of it or someone is trying to put a message out there. While beeping people's car horns or shutting off their cell phones might send A message, it's not sending a useful one, and unless T-Mobil or HTC is doing the hacking, there isn't a profit to be made from it.

Hell no, it would rev up the engine to 5k RPM and refuse to let me turn on the radio while it checked all the previous components had been installed properly. Only after I towed it home would it finally idle when I went to turn it off.

Apparently it was $4B in cash, $12B in stock, and $3B in vested stock.

Even if the stock tanks, I'd be happy with the $4B cash.