Yes, I realize my initial comment was a stretch, and may come off as insensitive.

Though I'm not getting my information from TV. I worked with an otherwise very smart software engineer from Kentucky, who happened to also believe that global warming is a lie and evolution isn't a real thing. He was literally taught that in public school. Granted, he didn't grow up in Louisville with fast internet access, so there's that. ;-)

I recognize it's a double-edged sword. The same internet that keep peoples in political bubbles with their racist 4chan and Gab friends can also offer much more to those with an open mind.

This move by Google harms the entire country, not just the city of Louisville.

I understand that In Kentucky, public schools often don't teach evolution. It's "just a theory". What if pervasive internet access could provide better education, and better opportunities to the people?

I think that without fast internet access, Kentucky's economy will continue to struggle to reach the 21st century, and its people will continue to be subject to the tensions of inequality that are driving authoritarian populism.

You can do better than this, Google.

Is there a certain point at which the price of a BTC drops enough that no one is motivated to continue mining? (I suppose it would take a significant, prolonged downturn - as long as it's speculated to bounce back higher, people will continue to mine...)

Obviously driving has environmental impacts. This is not news. Bringing this up reminds me of this essay:

http://www.abstractconcretewor...

But when comparing the two classes of vehicles, the entire supply chain needs to be considered. You can use existing electrical infrastructure (and possibly renewable energy) to charge an electric vehicle. For a traditionally-fueled vehicle, you need to consider exploration, extraction, refinery, transportation, and disaster mitigation.

I think the lesser of two evils is clear.

They don't need to build it. They'll be able to analyze it for security issues and keep the 0-day exploits they find to themselves. And they'll get notified in advance when Microsoft spots the same issue, so they'll have time to switch tactics.

I'm going with old news from decades ago.

I'm thinking something like a pre-commit hook, only integrated into Microsoft Office. ;-)

It would be one thing to encrypt all traffic end-to-end with a Diffie-Hellman exchange per TCP connection. But it would be quite another thing to prevent active attacks from three-letter agencies. You'd need a way to establish and ensure trust as well. If they can't decrypt the connection itself, they can use an active attack to intercept it and decrypt it. Even if the target is using SSL with PFS, they could always national-security-letter a signed certificate out of a CA in their jurisdiction. It doesn't really matter what security is employed; there will always be a way to defeat it. All we can do is make it harder.

I can easily imagine a situation where he calls up someone with access to classified info, and says something like, "this is Snowden from IT; we're having problems restoring the backup of your encrypted data files on such-and-such server; can you loan me your login information so we can properly validate the checksums? You can change your password right afterward."

It has everything to do with those decisions. You make the point about the SSD, which is a good one (though to Apple's credit, the SSD looks like it's actually proprietary, but able to be replaced); you have to pay $100 for 16 more lousy gigabytes of flash memory in an iPhone because of decisions like these.

The point of making that statement wasn't to imply that Apple is wrong because every other manufacturer uses modular components. Obviously that isn't the case. We all know manufacturers have to balance quality, cost, and time when bringing products to market. The point is, it's irresponsible to bring products to market that will not be supportable long-term. Part of supportability is using modular, repairable components that are built to last. As iFixit would say, repair is freedom. Modular components are a large part of repairability. Here's a counter-example: at a LUG a couple years ago I met one of the ZaReason guys, who partially disassembled one of their laptops. I don't remember exactly which components were modular, but it was quite modular for a laptop! Here's another counter-example. Modular designs can happen. It is a choice not to do it.

The fact that you won't be able to find a replacement battery 3 years from now illustrates this point. This is wrong and irresponsible and should not be tolerated. There are significant cost externalities in terms of waste products that the world is paying for due to these decisions. Companies make products that are difficult or impossible to service, and/or utilize planned obsolescence to ensure out-of-warranty replacement, because they know it will lead to more future sales when those components fail. The only difference with Apple is that their products cost more.