Magnetic shielding?

A Faraday cage?

I imagine there are all sorts of resources where this view may hold true. But I'm not certain every resource problem can be solved this way - especially not within a desirable timeframe.

Furthermore, since we are in the realm of discussing science fiction, what about waste heat? There are authors (such as Peter Hamilton) who have envisioned that the widespread adoption of fusion and "free energy" sends global warming skyrocketing, not due to greenhouse gases but simply due to enormous amounts of waste heat.

One primary difference here is the surprise factor. Iran announced their intention to do this five years ago. Of course, many may view this goal with as much suspicion as Iran's purported peaceful reasons for pursuing nuclear power.

Iran now joins a small club (about a dozen) of nations which have demonstrated this capability.

But if we are worried about this particular country combining their nuclear ambitions and their launch capability ambitions into something rather onerous (given their proclivity towards anti-US rallies, etc.), it would seem to underscore the importance of engagement and dialogue.

Oh... and related to your sig... yes. For all practical purposes:

ls -sdh1 `find -maxdepth 1 -size +2000c `

I'll grant you we may not know the final amount of money involved if the $6 billion is just to get things started...

But what part of PER MONTH in GP's post did you not understand?

Sadly with regards to Comcast, it's because they don't consider themselves primarily an ISP.

It's not that they are an ISP and they want to be something else. It's that they are "SOMETHING ELSE" and DOCSIS came around and they looked and said "Hey. While we're at it we could charge folk a few extra bucks a month and give them Internet too." So it's very easy to understand how they wish to ensure you use THEM for your VoIP and video-on-demand needs.

Seriously. Call their help line. Listen to their canned message while you're on hold. Does it say anything remotely close to "we want to be your ISP"? Nope. It says something like "we're happy to be your ENTERTAINMENT company".

Nothing really surprises me anymore about their horribly pathetic reliability once you realize their idea of what they are.

I dunno... I'll hazard a guess.

The "scare tactics" of the RIAA are about more than just fear. It's about FUD: Fear; Uncertainty; Doubt.

By televised court proceedings, you may increase the Fear aspect (assuming they actually have a strong case), but you may significantly reduce your portion of Uncertainty and Doubt.

I imagine the industry wants very much to perpetuate the concept that Copyright Infringement equals theft. One doesn't even need to get into the debate of whether it is "as bad as" theft. All the RIAA/MPAA publicity efforts seem simply to hinge on the equivalence (I mean.. you wouldn't steal a car would you? huh WOULD YOU?)

The trouble is the Industry seems scared too. Although they seem to have been easily able to purchase legislation to their hearts content, they probably realize laws on the books won't matter a bit if the larger society as a whole shifts in their view of said laws. First, they won't get enforced. Second, eventually even if the laws don't get overturned, sooner or later Jury Nullification will take over. Or we might start seeing damages scaled way, WAY back to realistic levels.

Public perception of these folk may be souring greatly. These things can shift rather quickly. I believe this is what they fear.

Yes two politicians can often look at the same thing and walk away touting diametrically opposite viewpoints.

Indeed, in many areas where there is a fair degree of uncertainty scientists do the same.

Nonetheless, I applaud the approach towards meritocracy shown with this appointment.

One of the things I've so often been troubled by with our current administration was that in uncountable examples, they look like a small child playing chess who can see no more beyond a couple of moves. The incompetence at all levels has been staggering. The disdain for facts and science over "gut" and pet policies (and blatant corruption) has been deplorable.

An accomplished scientist need not champion the "CORRECT" solution. They would do far better than recent folk simply by doing a good job weeding out the bad solutions.

The credit crisis is a great example. Parent's understanding seems weak. The slew of people going into foreclosure was just the match struck in the shed full of explosives with tons of gas on the floor. How this catastrophe was set up can indeed be investigated and the proper folk (on both sides of the aisle politically, but primarily business) castigated. But was lacking (with few exceptions) was the foresight of how bad things could get and how quickly. Part of what blinded the "experts" was FAITH in deregulation (namely that we could simply trust the banks not to do stupid things with credit swaps) over FACTS.

If you need a pithy, simplistic summary cause of the credit crisis, I can give you a better one: the assumption that valuations would always go up. Difficulties making mortgage payments due to increased energy costs pale in comparison to what happens if your adjustable rate resets while your property value has plumetted. You gambled that you could just refinance later given increased property value (same thing with banks and credit swaps). You bet wrong.