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Wait, Vancouver has the highest electricity prices in North America? According to Hydro Quebec the US is way over anything in Vancouver. I know down here in the Los Angeles area, we pay a bit more than San Francisco, we'd be around 400 on that scale - about 3 times that of Vancouver (around $0.24 USD per kWhr). And property taxes are really high here as well - not to mention the other taxes we get to pay. The cost of living in San Francisco is considerably higher than Vancouver. I think it is a common error for those outside the US to think t is cheap to live here. I've lived abroad a lot (Canada, Belgium, Chile, China, Thailand) and Belgium was the only place I would say was more expensive - and thay by just a hair.

Bloodbourne won the game design award but wasn't nominated for best game.

One of my favorite poems is "Chocolate Pudding" published in the Feburary 1985 issue of Omni magazine (page 42 http://issuu.com/jerrickventures/docs/omni_1985_02)
Do you have any plans to publish more poems?

Well, you'd be naive if you believed the German's weren't spying on us in some fashion.

Given that the US Gov is collectively shitting bricks over China allegedly spying on America and is busy indicting Chinese government employees, actually you'd be naive to believe Germany is doing anything like what the NSA has been doing. Do you think if Germany had managed to tap Obama and was busy following his phone around, taping his conversations with his generals etc America would just blow it off and say "oh no problem, we knew you were doing that and we're cool with it"? Of course not.

Goddamn yanks. That's the whole problem with America summed up right there - the division of the world into only two categories, domestic and foreign, patriot and traitor. As if other countries and other people don't even exist. Then you wonder why a whopping 70% of under 30 in Europe want to give Snowden asylum i.e. they would jump at the chance to massively piss off the USA and cause a diplomatic crisis. That's what they think of America.

I'm not convinced the NSA is collecting more information about me than Google is

Then you haven't been paying attention. The NSA has been collecting everything from Google via fibre taps, and lots more in addition. So by definition they are collecting more.

Maybe is for that that NATO is now recomending the assessination of hackers, and is very easy to fall into their definition.

I stretch, then relax - and 33,665 white-collar workers leave their houses a teensy bit early for work. This means the 6,014 of them will feel dyspeptic during the journey because they've missed their second piece of toast, or bowl of Fruit 'n' Fibre. From which it followed that 2,982 of them will be testy through the morning; and therefore 312 of them will say the wrong thing, leading to dismissal; hence one of these 312 will lose the balance of his reason and commit an apparently random and motiveless murder on the way home.

Hmm. Don't think I can really explain this with one quote. The first chapter is readable here.

So far, the only thing you've done is claimed a point.

No, I posted their "advertise with us" marketing page, catering to corporate sponsors just like any other media conglomerate, and I posted the "story" that was basically nothing but an advertisement for a corporate sponsor. There are many other similar examples, but if you're just going to ignore everything, not much point in posting more links, is there?

There's no need to believe. http://issuu.com/kqed/docs/kqed_annual_report_2010 [issuu.com] The report is in an obnoxious format, but check near the graph near the end.

"obnoxious format" is putting it mildly. But, it tells nothing. They lump "contributions and membership fees" all in one big category, no telling where any of it is coming from. Besides which, that's only for a single affiliate, not for the "national treasure" we were talking about. this one is a little better, and perusing the IRS filings is quite enlightening.

If donors stop donating, public radio goes under. Donors stop donating when programs don't appeal to them. Therefore, public radio has to cater to what the donors want to hear. Especially since no public radio station can survive on ads alone. The donation comes with the string of "if you don't keep providing the content I want, I will stop donating."

That's entirely irrelevant, and, again exactly the same model as the other media outlets. Fox News will not remain on the air if people stop watching. So Fox News is full of honest integrity because they have an audience that watches them? NPR's model only asks for donations because they provide less air time for their sponsored messages. Otherwise - same - same.

Glass houses, first stones, and all that. You're the one who thinks that the group contributing 30% to an organizations bottom line has more pull than the one contributing 60%.

You keep making that claim, but, quite simply, they whatever-percent-you-claim-it's-60 that contributes is only influencing ONE thing: keep running the programming. What goes INTO the programming, they don't have a say in, are never asked, and cannot influence. Instead, that comes from the corporate sponsors, advertisers, benefactors and foundation contributors. It's really simple. Kind of like how there are millions of people voting for representatives in the US congress, AND providing small contributions to campaigns, but somehow the only ones influencing legislation are the 1% with access and BIG contributions.

My point is that NPR is compromised, and not better than any other mainstream media outlet.

So far, the only thing you've done is claimed a point. Your internal logic is contradictory, and you're lacking evidence. I'm sorry I'm neither convinced nor impressed.

Well whatever they are doing, it's apparent that NPR likes that corporate money and will do whatever a major sponsor tells them to.

[Citation Needed]. Accepting donations is not the same as work for hire.

Not sure if I believe that.

There's no need to believe. http://issuu.com/kqed/docs/kqed_annual_report_2010 The report is in an obnoxious format, but check near the graph near the end.

And in any case, it's irrelevant, because that funding comes with no strings, because all those individual donors still get NO influence in the programming, and the NPR producers DO NOT CARE about them, and ONLY listen to what their corporate sponsors want.

[Citation Needed][Logic Failure][Economics Failure]
If donors stop donating, public radio goes under. Donors stop donating when programs don't appeal to them. Therefore, public radio has to cater to what the donors want to hear. Especially since no public radio station can survive on ads alone. The donation comes with the string of "if you don't keep providing the content I want, I will stop donating."

It's not "escaping rules of capitalism", it's just that one entity with many thousands of dollars can buy whatever programming they want, but lots of people in aggregate just don't have any influence or voice whatsoever, and are left screwed out of the pittance they've donated.

And again, you're claiming that NPR is the only entity in the world that is completely impervious to the wishes of the majority of its paying customers. Plus, thousands of dollars for a radio spot is a pittance, compared to the endowments that come from the various Hewlett and Packard foundations.

There's certainly no reason for you not to understand that, and there are only two reasons why you would claim ignorance: either you are a shill for NPR, or you are stupid.

Glass houses, first stones, and all that. You're the one who thinks that the group contributing 30% to an organizations bottom line has more pull than the one contributing 60%. Not to mention I'd rather be stupid than willfully ignorant. One's a genetic flaw, the other is a character flaw.

Privacy has been encroached on for a couple of decades now.

Not really. It's an ongoing push-and-pull that isn't objectively better or worse than it's always been.

Yes, it's time for congress to address the issue of privacy for private citizens.

They have been for as long as we've had a congress.

A good visual timeline of selected privacy issues in the US, 1600-2008:
http://issuu.com/sciam/docs/extended-privacy-timeline/3?mode=embed&documentId=080905202111-362202d8bd0b48319813a4aac215b34c&layout=grey

I think you'll be surprised.

they do: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97DYuAdJtRY http://issuu.com/lizfenuta/docs/amphibious_architectures_thesis http://www.buoyantfoundation.org/

They didn't just use software - girls bought couple of thousands of dollars worth of smart meters from their... umm... sponsors? Mentors?
What do you call that when a company helps you earn a grant, which you then spend at the said company, earning further contracts to the company with a bonus of international promotion through UNICEF?

http://issuu.com/theharkerschool/docs/harker_quarterly

âoeHarkerâ(TM)s going to continue to support the philosophy of green thinking, to create buildings that have a warm and open environment, and weâ(TM)ll continue to seek out the very best products to promote the sustainability of our planet in future construction projects.â
â" Mike Bassoni

In early December. Zhuâ(TM)s application emphasized incentivizing investment in sustainable energies such as solar, wind and geothermal power, and modernizing electricity grids worldwide. âoeItâ(TM)s important to get as much information about climate change policy out there as possible, as it has a major impact now and will have an even bigger one on future generations,â said Zhu.

Priya Bhikha, Gr. 12, And a team of upper school students are preparing a segment for Harkerâ(TM)s 2010 fashion show, with clothes made out of recycled materials. Bhikha has put out a call to all three campuses to help supply her with plastic bags, soda can tabs, paper clips, coffee filters, cds, drinking straws and more to make her recycled fashions.

Shreya Indukuri and Daniela Lapidous, both Gr. 10, Took it upon themselves to apply for a grant to improve Harkerâ(TM)s energy efficiency.
The girls, with the help of Valence Energy, successfully earned a $5,500 environmental grant, allowing Valance to install smart meters, devices for monitoring energy use, at the lower school campus. They also hope to apply some of the grant money towards an organic garden and window-insulating film at the upper school, and plans are underway to install smart meters at that campus, as well. This fall the pair attended the Governorsâ(TM) Global Climate Summit in Los Angeles as two of 25 climate youth leaders; they presented their findings to the assembly and enjoyed an audience with Gov. Schwarzenegger. Unicef picked up on the girlsâ(TM) story from there, and sent a camera crew from New York in October to interview them for a documentary on youth activism.

âoeIf we donâ(TM)t do anything about [global warming] now, weâ(TM)ll really regret it in the future and history will label us as the generation who sat back and watched the world go up in flames. People will either be part of the problem or part of the solution, and it will take an extremely grueling period of effort by a lot of people to come up with even a fraction of a solution, but every contribution counts. We know the work is hard, and it does seem rather intimidating, but weâ(TM)re just taking it one baby step at a time,â said Lapidous.

A gold, green building? Students ready to effect change? A strong history of environmental awareness that will continue long into the future? Check.