The FSB is certainly getting a good ROI on their investment in Trump.

This is a horrible idea. This will just take money away from having decent public airports and reduce the incentive to provide them. We don't need more ways for the rich to separate themselves from everyone else.

As someone who has a Windows laptop with touch, I don’t have much use for touch. Even though Windows started to incorporate more touch beginning with Windows 8, many things are still mouse and keyboard driven. For example, many sites I use still rely on mouse over features or have very small control elements that are not touch friendly. With more applications becoming cloud based, it is more likely I will not use touch

You can put solar panels on roofs. I wonder if someone ever had thought about it.

AI is so smart that it can hallucinate without even having to take drugs.

If a company came out with a service that would burn your data into a crystal that you could wear as jewelry, and the crystal was reasonably durable (ideally diamond, or something similar), that would be a useful (or at least novel) way to store valuable data long-term. Assuming there was also a convenient way to read it back when required, of course.

This, however, isn't that. The whole point of git is that it distributes copies of your repository onto every client that clones it, so that the likelihood of everyone accidentally losing all copies at once is minimal.

Everyone has the right to be a political activist. That includes scientists. You want to cut the ability of scientists to speak their opinion. And that's a bad thing per se.

In jurisdiction, there is the principle: Ignorantia legis non excusat. We should apply the same principle to science. Ignorantia scientes non excusat. Being wrong about science is not an opinion. It's something you could rectify by educating yourself about science, in the same way you educate yourself about the legal situation before deciding something important. No judge will excuse you for having a "different legal opinion" about something that is clearly stated otherwise in the law. We should do the same for science. And if you don't like the way scientists are of a different opinion than you about the possible outcome of a political decision, it's not because they are activists, it's because they know something you want to ignore.

No, that is not how it works. Different jurisdictions have different copyright laws, and you have to file and win the suit for infringement separately in each jurisdiction. What the international treaties such as the Berne Convention do is give you automatic copyright in the other signatory countries. So, you publish a book in the US, you not only automatically have a US copyright on it, you also have a copyright on it in most other countries. But if you want to sue a publisher in, say, Germany, you still have to file a separate suit there.

As I recall in discovery it turned out that SCO had actually hired an expert to compare its code to Linux and he had reported that he was unable to find any overlap. The SCO claims to own Linux code were in bad faith.

There is no such thing as "plain Lithium-Ion". Lithium-Ion is a catch-all term for accumulator cells which use Lithium ions in anode, cathode and electrolyte. There are many versions of them. The oldest type is Lithium-Cobaltoxide (LiCoO2), which uses Cobalt(II)-oxide in the cathode. Then there is Lithium-Nickel-Maganese-Cobalt (LiNMC), which is often used in cars, because it allows for very dense accumulator cells. Lithium-Ironphosphate (LiFePO4), while having the same gravimetric density as LiNMC, takes up more space for the same capacity, it is a more fluffy material. We have Lithium-Nickel-Cobalt-Aluminium-Oxide (LiNCA), used in the cells Panasonic builds for Tesla. Many pedelec batteries, but also the Nissan Leaf use Lithium-Manganeseoxide (LiMO) cells.

Undoubtedly the origin of the Hobbit-steals-dragons-treasure meme.

I think you mean, "so the middle men can pocket the savings".

Transcript of Internet Caucus Panel Discussion Weldon statement. September 28, 1999

Rep. Curt Weldon : Thank you. Let me see if I can liven things up here in the last couple of minutes of the luncheon. First of all, I apologize for being late. And I thank Bob and the members of the caucus for inviting me here.
...
But the point is that when John Hamre briefed me, and gave me the three key points of this change, there are a lot of unanswered questions. He assured me that in discussions that he had had with people like Bill Gates and Gerstner from IBM that there would be, kind of a, I don't know whether it's a, unstated ability to get access to systems if we needed it., Now, I want to know if that is part of the policy, or is that just something that we are being assured of, that needs to be spoke. Because, if there is some kind of a tacit understanding, I would like to know what it is. Because that is going to be subjected to future administrations, if it is not written down in a clear policy way. I want to know more about this end use certificate. In fact, sitting on the Cox Committee as I did, I saw the fallacy of our end use certificate that we were supposedly getting for HPCs going into China, which didn't work. So, I would like to know what the policies are. So, I guess what I would say is, I am happy that there seems to be a coming together. In fact, when I first got involved with NSA and DOD and CIS, and why can't you sit down with industry, and work this out. In fact, I called Gerstner, and I said, can't you IBM people, and can't you software people get together and find the middle ground, instead of us having to do legislation.

...and wouldn't it be nice to get something in return for our tax dollars? Other than billion-dollar ballrooms and pointless wars, I mean?

Do they need cover to reject anything? In my projects, I reserve the right to reject anything, for any reason, solely on the grounds that they are my projects, and if someone doesn't like it, they can fork off (their own repository).