That's not exactly true, California places all kinds of restrictions on porn. For example, it's illegal to film bareback porn here.

But the collie fucker has a point. I don't know that age restrictions count as censorship, though in general I'm opposed to them on privacy grounds. While I don't agree with his stance on collie porn, I will defend his right to make his stance known.

Thank you.

We have a budget problem. We need to cut redundant efforts or we will have an even bigger budget problem later. I did a bit of searching the web and found that there's about a half dozen CO2 measuring satellites that will share data publicly, then another half dozen that keeps the data to themselves. While this may be "not a lot of money" in a very large federal budget it is still money spent that could be used elsewhere.

The OCO-2 mission has apparently had it's mission extended at least once already, there's simply people at NASA that want to extend it further. They claim the data OCO-2 provides is somehow unique and vital to varied national organizations but I'm not seeing it. Japan has GOSAT-1, GOSAT-2, and soon GOSAT-3. France has MicroCarb. NASA/JPL has OCO-3 and Aqua. Then there's more satellites operated by Canada, China, and others that don't share the data they collect publicly. Maybe China won't share what they have but Canada might. That's assuming there's some hole in the data from the half dozen satellite missions that share data to all.

We don't need this satellite. It's burning money that could be used elsewhere. It's original mission ended already, if the mission had not been extended then it would be at the bottom of the sea by now. This is people at NASA wanting to extend the mission longer, and using hyperbolic claims of wasted money and lost data if the mission on this satellite isn't extended further. It appears we learned just about all we can learn from this satellite so keeping it in orbit beyond the already budgeted mission into 2026 is wasted money. I don't much care if this is "not a lot of money" since if that is the excuse for keeping every redundant mission then we will only get deeper in debt.

Windmills. We get windmills by giving tax breaks to wealthy people. I thought everybody wanted more windmills. I want more windmills. Don't you want more windmills? This might free up "not a lot of money" for windmills but maybe we can keep looking around for more "not a lot of money" redundant programs to kill, then we might get a lot of money. We can try to give the tax breaks to poor people and the unincorporated for windmills but I suspect they lack the resources to make that happen, so we've been giving the wealthy and corporations money for windmills because they tend to be better at providing results.

OCO-2 doesn't track hurricanes. We have other satellites for that. This includes the ISS that can get a look of hurricane prone areas several times per day.

Did I mention that the original plan for OCO-2 was to have it on the sea floor by now? I'm having trouble finding how long they originally planned to keep it in orbit, only that the mission has been extended into 2026. Since OCO-2 was put in orbit we saw at least three more CO2 tracking systems put in orbit, OCO-3, GOSAT-2, and MicroCarb. MicroCarb is especially interesting because it is intended to be the replacement for OCO-2. So, unless something happens to MicroCarb between now and the current OCO-2 funding runs out we should de-orbit OCO-2 as planned so we aren't wasting money. Again, that is money we can give as tax breaks to wealthy people and corporations for windmills, because a lot of people want more windmills.

Maybe I am! Maybe I'm yours! Or maybe I really don't understand the anger and do sometimes care enough to worry about you.

Does the pawn shop know? They get bulletins from the police about stolen items. Did anyone tell Meta, "Flo is sending you data they shouldn't be collecting"? Hell, did Flo know it?

Was Flo a paid service or "free"? At what point should the burden be on the user to recognize that "free" = "we harvest every bit we can and sell it"?

I was listening to the radio, and one of the guys was talking about how he used some tool to see what apps were tracking what. He had an app he had installed for a music festival that just had maps, schedules, and the like. Also, dozens and dozens of trackers. Anyone out there buying data had a hook in this one stupid app.

We either need a complete legislative ban on the practices of harvesting and selling user data, or we need to update the phrase "caveat emptor". I'm open to both, knowing that each carries a boatload of other problems with it.

Yeah, Flo used tools they knew harvested data and didn't make sure they weren't handing over data they shouldn't have.

Which is why I'm baffled by the suit against Meta. They didn't do anything they don't already do legally. It just doesn't sound like they were at all at fault.

You should take your last thought further. Expand it. Why would end users think that any service provided without payment isn't mining their data for sale to advertisers?
I don't know much about Flo, but if it was "free", then people should know they are paying for it with the data they give it. TANSTAAFL.
Which now makes me think that maybe Flo didn't do anything wrong either. Let the buyer beware, especially if they're getting something for free.

But why didn't it end there? They're the ones who disclosed information they shouldn't have and did it by integrating kits they knew would harvest data. If Flo didn't have permission to do it, that's on them. Is Facebook's due diligence to include vetting the practices of a vendor? That doesn't sound right.

That isn't what happened though. To fit your analogy, it would be me filming myself and giving it to someone so they could analyze it and give me a report, but who then also went ahead and sold it.

If I filmed myself doing some stretches and sent the video to my chiropractor so he could tell me what I was doing wrong, and then he put it on YouTube, I'd be mad at him, not YouTube. How is this different?

Ad hominem attacks aren't really arguments. Did you have one?

Okay, so how would you rate eliminating the Senate filibuster in order to add more Conservative justices to the Court and add two States to the Union whose Senators would be equally Conservative, as a "war on [...] Democracy"?

And how did you rate it a couple years ago when Democrats tried to eliminate the filibuster so that they could pack the Court and create two new blue States?

No, that was an informed and reasonable post filled with facts and reasoned analysis, culminating in a call for calm until more information is available. It was far more sensible and rational than any of the responses to it.

I recognize that you don't like the President. Is that justification for abandoning reason? You spent more time venting about how you don't like Trump than you did responding to the post.

And yet he's still better at it than his predecessor.

I think you're encountering irony. We all know that there are many satellites that do that, because we have all heard of Google. We have had satellites that can read license plates from space for half a century. We have plenty of satellites that can provide photos of plants.

Isn't this a CO2 emission tracking satellite, not the weather sats that provide information useful to farmers?

Is it this satellite-based information?

They use plenty of weather data from satellites, but are they tracking CO2 emissions as if they could move their crops closer?