Others have reported that the quality of the software was such that no backdoors would be needed. I haven't examined the equipment myself, so I don't know, but don't let your paranoia lead you to make foolish decisions. The NSA having a backdoor is one thing. Every cracker who feels like it having a backdoor is something a bit worse.

I think you overestimate China's dependence on the US. Certainly China is quite willing to use us for it's benefit, but dependence means that we produce something they need, and the only such thing is dollars, of which they already have more than they can expect to use.

OTOH, China directly and through middle men probably owns over half of the US. It's hard to be sure. Certainly more than 30%. And I wouldn't be at all surprised if they "own" over half of the politicians at the federal level.

Given that trustworthy means "You can predict how they will react to any particular situation.", you may be right.

Do I think they do less spying? No. But they they don't pretend to be friends, either.

realnames aren't necessary, and can be a real hinderance. Handles, however, do seem to be necessary, so that one can evaluate their trustworthiness. And slashdot id#s are useful, as they let one easily gague how long a particular handle has been in use (in case you don't recognize it), but dates might be better.

P.S.: What's your handle? OK, your realname? Don't want to say?

He doesn't need to worry as long as fuel cells require a platinum catalyst. He's right about the "expensive" part. OTOH, his other points aren't very convincing, and I've heard reports that a lab has an iron based catalyst that splits out hydrogen. It may not be practical, but then again it may. And I'm not real thrilled by large batteries. (I'd been hoping that supercondensers would have seemed more promissing by now...but the development seems to have stagnated, so they may have run into significant problems.)

Why shouldn't they?

It's true they do have other venues, but often experts like to share their expertise and interest with others. But if you make it difficult to publish, then they'll only publish where they get significant benefits. That frequently means paywalls. If you want it to be without paywalls, then don't make them fight a bunch of ignorant assholes to publish, because they'll only try a couple of times, and then not only will they quit, but they'll tell their associates not to bother.

The specialists I heard of (in this case mathematics) say that their articles and edits are rejected without acceptable explanations, so they've stopped trying. Others have reported the same experience in different fields, but those I only know of from the internet.

That doesn't sound to me like they want to improve the system...though some have said it's a great source for Pokemon.

Whatever. I once contributed an article, but it's gone, and I'm not likely to waste time trying to restore it.

A part of the point was that secondary references aren't necessarily any more trustworthy than personal recollections.

I do agree that that's their policy, and it's also why I never trust them, and don't take part. They need some better policy.

The point was they have little inherent desire to implement decent security. This was highlighted by a specific example, but don't take the example as the argument.

An intersting question is "What do you think money is, except a promise made by the state?"

AFAICT, that's ALL it is, and all it has ever been. (Croesus founded money by promising that the gold with his treasury stamp was pure gold.)

You don't even need to be animate. "Observer" is just something that exchanges energy with the thing observed. A photon makes a dandy observer (and it's what they used). Personally I tend to think photons move to fast, and generally prefer electrons, but it's a matter of taste, and what you're trying to do.

P.S.: IANAQP.

P.P.S.: I am not a Quantum Physicist.

I don't like the idea of determinism, but that doesn't prove that it's wrong. And even if it's correct, Chaos theory means that you can't predict the system from within it.

And to me it seems that the statement "Colors exist in the world", intending to exclude perception of the world, doesn't make any sense. Photon energies exist in the world, but they aren't colors. Colors only exist in the context of perception.

I got a Brother InkJet, and the driver was so terrible, that it's sitting unused. Perhaps their Laser printers are better.

P.S.: Not only was the driver terrible, but I had to jump through seven hoops to even get it to install. On a Debian system. And during the installation I ran across a message saying (paraphrase:)"This deb file is substandard. Please contact the manufacturer for an improved version.", but I'd just downloaded it and there wasn't any other choice.

So I can't recommend Brother InkJets.

No. Instead:
There's a reason it is done this way, and it has nothing to do with convoluted logic like yours -- it is because in the several hundred years of common law and over two hundred years of case law in the United States, the way we do it has proven to be the one most likely to result in favoritism to those with the most wealth and power.