I have a very small PV for nearly 20 years now (10 panels). In that time it provided nearly 1/3 of our electricity consumption (small house) and did not need repairs. So I do believe PV is able to make a dent in our energy needs. I would expect when we would completely cover our roof we could provide our whole consumption, at least in numbers. But then you probably should have some battery storage (which we have not). The PV/battery combination certainly wouldn't provide enough power at any given time, but it can smooth out times of high production or high consumption. Probably even more if you can use your electric car as an additional battery, not only for storage, but also to provide power when needed. I believe, that a smart control system could take a lot of pressure from our current grid. Depending on the weather at your place, there are also other smart possibilities for temporarily storing power like using surplus power to heat a water reservoir. As for the cost, buying a PV certainly is not cheap, but a German research center in 2021 calculated the price to produce 1kWh in southern Germany as between 5,81 and 8,04 Euro Cent (https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/de/documents/publications/studies/DE2021_ISE_Studie_Stromgestehungskosten_Erneuerbare_Energien.pdf in German). Even if the price doubled since then, it is still much cheaper than having to buy electricity, at least here in Germany. Therefore I believe, we actually should use more PV and when people don't do it themselves and there is enough sunshine in the area, for me a mandate seems to be not so bad.

According to https://www.vice.com/en/articl..., there is a cracked firmware for John Deere gear, which is also used by American farmers. But it comes from Ukraine.

I'm not really a frequent visitor to the U.S., but I've been there a couple of times as a tourist and I can say, my personal experiences aren't that bad. The unfriendliest welcome was when I was entering by car from Canada about 20 years ago but even that wasn't so bad, just a little annoying. The last times I entered through Houston and Washington D.C. and the custom officers were friendly as have been most Americans we met (if not all).

About the Olympics, Chicago would probably be a great city for Olympics, but I wouldn't believe custom procedures to be a major factor in the decision. I rather believe it's about the first games in South America.

Taking a picture of a paper check really sounds like state of the art in electronic banking :-).

Living in Europe, the last time I used a check was maybe 10 years ago.

The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) has a Top 10 list, which lists the most serious web application vulnerabilities, discusses how to protect against them, and provides links to more information (http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Category:OWASP_Top_Ten_Project). This might be a good start.

I believe (or at least I hope) that the future of operating systems does not lie in fancier user interfaces, but in making the computer more responsive.

Do you know that today's computers are really fast? I mean, those GHz processors are incredibly fast, it is unbelievable what they are able to do in a second. But you might not know it from just using a computer.

In my daily work I often receive very slow responses from both Windows and Linux machines. I often have to wait seconds for things that should (and could) be instant. I mean after the screen saver on my desktop machine locks the screen, the next user request invariably will be to unlock it. The OS should know that. And it should sit there waiting for any sign that its master wants to work again and then it should instantly present the password dialog.

Or what about those apps where I have to look for seconds at animated splash screens saying that they load this or that module or plugin. Why can't the OS provide means for loading pre-initialized applications (some folks might remember the undump utility).

There are possible performance improvements all over the place, which could be achieved by using techniques like caching or using database technology or being able to hint to the operating system which ressources might be needed next. Together with maybe a little more RAM this could create a really reactive user experience.

I often wonder how you can spend so much money for creating software and come up with such bad and slow design :-).