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I suspect that this is because cable and internet phone service are very high-margin, while internet service is not.

No, it's quite the opposite. Once you're making 97% margins on your Internet customers and have no competition, why in the hell would you put any money in to it? You're going to have a hard time finding any ROI.

They can't keep up with the known threats

Comparative reviews since February 2009 - February 2014

Out-maneuvered by new threat vectors

Outmaneuvered at Their Own Game, Antivirus Makers Struggle to Adapt

Conventional security software is powerless against sophisticated attacks like Flame, but alternative approaches are only just getting started.

Some of them even get it, Eugene Kaspersky admits :

The contemporary antivirus industry and its problems

SpaceX,will also achieve a spaceflight first.

After delivering cargo to the International Space Station, the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket used for the flight will fire its engines for the second time. The burn will allow the rocket to reenter the atmosphere in controlled flight, without breaking up and disintegrating on the way down as most booster rockets do.

After recovering the rocket from the water on Sunday, SpaceX engineers and technicians will study it to determine what it would take to refurbish such a rocket for reuse. SpaceX also has plans to recover and reuse the second stage rocket, but for now, it will recover only the first stage and its nine Merlin engines, which make up the bulk of the cost of the rocket.

OLPC's goal was to induce the creation of computers affordable in the third-world and usable in an environment where basic utilities are not available.

OLPC was a product of the MIT Media Lab and presented to the third world education minister as a take-it-or-leave it package deal in which the laptop hardware was only one component.

The minister was expected to buy big as an act of faith.

Tens or hundreds of thousands of units. No trial deployments, no building out slowly.

The constructivist philosophy of education of OLPC's promoters was gospel truth and not to be questioned. Here at last was a promise fulfilled ---- mass education without the need for teachers.

With 100 million first-grade-aged children worldwide having no access to schooling, the One Laptop Per Child organization is trying something new in two remote Ethiopian villages --- simply dropping off tablet computers with preloaded programs and seeing what happens.

The goal: to see if illiterate kids with no previous exposure to written words can learn how to read all by themselves, by experimenting with the tablet and its preloaded alphabet-training games, e-books, movies, cartoons, paintings, and other programs.

Given Tablets but No Teachers, Ethiopian Children Teach Themselves

[Reading deep into the comments here, these Ethiopian kids may not have been as pristinely illiterate in the use of words or images as Negroponte would like to have us think.]

Open Source or the Sugar UI was not open to question either.

The problem from the education minister's point of view becomes how to transition his kids to traditional desktop environments and programs --- particularly when the money may not be there to purchase and support computers which are usable in the primary grades only.

Solar power is about 44% stronger in space then on earth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

But I'd say its still cheaper to setup solar thermal in places like the Sahara,
and store heat overnight in molten salt like the Andasol power station does.

The Sahara alone could replace all forms of power on the planet,
best to locate in deserts in as many time zones as possible.

The extreme temperature variations on the moon would degrade the equipment
much more rapidly then what we see here on earth.

Also I think the easiest way to get power off the moon with be Helium-3
mined by robots like the rovers, sent back via rail gun with ocean landing
similar to the Apollo missions.

More on that here:

http://www.technologyreview.co...

University of Wisconsin has a running HE3 fusion reactor, just not the affordable fuel,
but the moon could provide that.

The solar wind puts the HE3 back over time.

Much cheaper to ship back one shuttle load equivalent of HE3 per year then
build a massive solar array in an extreme hostile environment.

Do you have any sources for this claim?

Every source I've been able to find estimates a 2-3x increase in Lion capacity in the last 25 years.

http://www.enevate.com/eart/ca...
http://www.technologyreview.co...

You're also very wrong about laptop battery life. The increase in laptop battery life is almost entirely due to the huge advancements made in frequency scaling, advanced idle states, and fine grained power management (ie shutting down individual cores when not in use).

You'll find that new laptops (and cell phones) will still run their batteries down very fast when actually under load, but when doing normal desktop tasks all of the advanced power saving features on the silicon are vastly cutting down laptop power consumption. Lion capacity has very little to do with it.

University of Wisconsin is pretty much there.

http://www.technologyreview.co...

Well based on the fact that the total gold discovered on earth would fit in a few Olympic size swimming pools
we don't have much to worry about. I think they are mostly going for the HE3 as we got a working HE3 fusion
reactor sitting at the University of Wisconsin that is much cheaper to build then NIF OR ITER, etc etc...

http://www.technologyreview.co...

At some point hopefully it will be robots capable of repairing the other robots, and just mag coil
launch heat shielded canisters of HE3 back toward earth for ocean pickup much like Apollo did.

Helium-3 fusion as done at the University of Wisconsin would be the cleanest,
but we'd need to mine it from the moon via robots and shoot it back here via
mag coil launchers similar to rail guns.

http://www.technologyreview.co...

This works ...."now"....we just need the fuel.

There are massive problems with the Apple store security process; I'm sure that Google's and Amazon's are no better.

"Honey Encryption" to Bamboozle Attackers with Fake Secrets

Tom Simonite writes at MIT Technology Review that security researcher Ari Juels says that trickery is the missing component from the cryptography protecting sensitive data and proposes a new encryption system with a devious streak. It gives encrypted data an additional layer of protection by serving up fake data in response to every incorrect guess of the password or encryption key. If the attacker does eventually guess correctly, the real data should be lost amongst the crowd of spoof data. The new approach could be valuable given how frequently large encrypted stashes of sensitive data fall into the hands of criminals. Some 150 million usernames and passwords were taken from Adobe servers in October 2013, for example. If an attacker uses software to make 10,000 attempts to decrypt a credit card number, for example, they would get back 10,000 different fake credit card numbers. "Each decryption is going to look plausible," says Juels. "The attacker has no way to distinguish a priori which is correct." Juels previously worked with Ron Rivest, the "R" in RSA, to develop a system called Honey Words to protect password databases by also stuffing them with false passwords. Juels says that by now enough password dumps have leaked online to make it possible to create fakes that accurately mimic collections of real passwords and is currently working on creating the fake password vault generator needed for Honey Encryption to be used to protect password managers. This generator will draw on data from a small collection of leaked password manager vaults, several large collections of leaked passwords, and a model of real-world password use built into a powerful password cracker. "Honeywords and honey-encryption represent some of the first steps toward the principled use of decoys, a time-honored and increasingly important defense in a world of frequent, sophisticated, and damaging security breaches."

But his code has been shown to fail the Monte Carlo test, or feeding it random data to see if random results come out:

http://www.technologyreview.co...

Yup, if you run 10,000 sets of random data though his code, then pick the 100 results that look most like a hockey stick (turned either way up!) you find that those 100 results look like hockey sticks.

Torture? Maybe, but who was the torturer?

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise, fear and surprise; two chief weapons, fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency! Er, among our chief weapons are: fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, and near fanatical devotion to the Pope!

But his code has been shown to fail the Monte Carlo test, or feeding it random data to see if random results come out:

http://www.technologyreview.co...

You can call that "torturing" the data I suppose, especially by a non-technical person. It certainly shows he had problems with his methods, although I would doubt it was intentional.

More likely, he wrote the code according to an algorithm he may not have understood completely, or not understood the code anyway, then while implementing it did the sort of half assed development cycle you would expect from a non-coder: run the code, if does what you want, it must be right.

  The fact that in this case it was to show global warming is really not important, it could have been any bit of code that manipulates data and gets judged by it looking "right" to the amateur coder.

Considering the Hockey Stick is the only thing discussed, I think Steyn is in the clear here.

Canadian researchers found random data fed to the code results in a hockey stick

http://www.technologyreview.co...

Now comes the real shocker. This improper normalization procedure tends to emphasize any data that do have the hockey stick shape, and to suppress all data that do not. To demonstrate this effect, McIntyre and McKitrick created some meaningless test data that had, on average, no trends. This method of generating random data is called Monte Carlo analysis, after the famous casino, and it is widely used in statistical analysis to test procedures. When McIntyre and McKitrick fed these random data into the Mann procedure, out popped a hockey stick shape!

Weren't we about to enter an ice age? That's what some news stories said lately...
Like this one: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/01/20/346654/new-mini-ice-age-may-hit-earth/
The Express wrote about it too: http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/454657/Ice-age-on-the-way-as-scientists-fear-the-Sun-is-falling-asleep

This is an article I found seems quite related as it connects global warming (doesn't deny it) and the coming ice age: http://www.technologyreview.com/article/416786/global-warming-vs-the-next-ice-age/

Why does every discussion of 3D printing seem to devolve into how it could make better weapons or armor?

It doesn't. MIT Technology Review has an article in the current issue on 3-D printing lithium-ion batteries.

Actually, many digital cameras will pick up infra-red.

A much more interesting use of the IR capability of a camera is to test the output of your green laser pointers. Green is produced by using a high power IR laser and frequency doubling it into green. The process is not 100% efficient, and if the company saves money by leaving out an IR filter you get a laser pointer that is dangerous in the IR yet invisibly so (except for the green part).

Here is a summary; This has a more complete diagram of the testing setup.

The summary implies that this technology could be used for large-scale power, but I wonder what the storage density is.

Specifically I wonder how this compares to liquid metal batteries. If everything Professor Sadoway says about the liquid metal batteries is true, those really will provide grid-level storage of power.

And if *all* the cars on the road aren't autonomous, then the autonomous ones are mostly a traffic hazard with no clear liability.

The google self-driving car has already shown itself to be insanely good at avoiding crazy human drivers. Even going as far as swerving out of the way of human drivers trying to ram it. The only way autonomous cars will be a traffic hazard to human drivers is if the production cars take a HUGE step down from the existing prototypes. That's just not going to happen.

    I little bit of that is here http://www.technologyreview.com/news/520746/data-shows-googles-robot-cars-are-smoother-safer-drivers-than-you-or-i/

I looked up some companies by name (too bad you posted as AC and didn't mention them), and here is what I found:

Intel reveals a neuromorphic chip design based on memristors and spintronics

HP and Hynix postpone memristor-based memory to avoid cannibalizing their flash business

This pearl deserves to be quoted:

"In terms of commercialization, we will have something technologically viable by the end of next year. Our partner, Hynix, is a major producer of flash memory, and memristors will cannibalize its existing business by replacing some flash memory with a different technology. So the way we time the introduction of memristors turns out to be important," said Stan Williams, Hewlett-Packard senior fellow and director of the company's cognitive systems laboratory, during a conversation at the Kavli Foundation.

SanDisk and Toshiba are testing a ReRAM (memristor memory) chip

HP working with AMD, Intel, ARM and others to release memristor-based "nanostores".

A working memristor has already been proven in the lab by HP and they are now working with AMD, Intel, ARM and others to release what they call "nanostores". A chip that combines the memristor and logic of the CPU can prove to replace all current microprocessors and memory architectures.

A startup named "Crossbar" will try to beat HP to market with memristor-based ReRAM.

How it really works

I had to dig down another layer to discover that they were creating an intelligent amplifier that used asymmetric multilevel outphasing. This is surprisingly similar to the new logic going into cruise control systems (see recent slashdot article) but applied to phasing the amplifier instead of an automotive powertrain. This thing should waste a LOT less energy when "idle" as well -- just running the chip and sensor controlling the phase level.

like the tiny new laptop chargers from finsix

I googled it for everyone:

How it looks

How it works

My brother is a aerospace structural engineer on the Dreamliner vertical stabilizer.

He despises composites.

Maybe it's his upbringing, or maybe it's the fact that problems with composites are one of the reasons he hasn't seen his family much over the past few years.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/409929/boeings-composite-problem/

I saw these items that you might find interesting.

How to Repel an Earthquake
How to prevent earthquake damage: make buildings invisible
Seismic Metamaterials Could Cloak Dams and Power Stations

I can not really think of any industry that simply resigns when it becomes difficult and just blame it on users not being smart enough. if car manufacturers could get away with that, imagine the roads...

I wish car manufacturers could do that! Tens of thousands of people in the US die because of cars every year. As I get older, I'm increasingly amazed that we consider high-speed operation of multi-ton machinery to be normal for people of all ages (above 16 years) and ability. Driverless cars can't come soon enough. Imagine the roads...

The official blog post is almost entirely content free, except for "expanding the role in OIN", not sure why this is newsworthy exactly, except for Google to make PR noises about being open while locking out FOSS from the real things like Chat, Hangouts, Docs, Android forking, and forcing Google+ on everyone etc.

How many of the thousands of Google patents are they actually pledging to OIN? 50%? 80%? 1%?

If you want to read a more interesting take on patents and Google, there is this article. http://www.technologyreview.com/news/521946/googles-growing-patent-stockpile/

Probably a good thing. Using corn or other edible crops has been linked to rising food prices that have been painful in the third world, the US, and Europe.

Record Food Prices Linked to Biofuels
How biofuels contribute to the food crisis
Biofuel rule puts turkey farmers in fret over corn costs
EU votes on crucial cap on biofuels made from food crops

There are other ways to do it.

'Biofuel from non-food crops within 15 years'
U.S. to Pay Farmers for Non-Food Crops for Biofuels, Vilsack Says
Quest for cheap, nonfood biofuel starts with a brewery

Of course it may not be popular is some states.

Not that I will necessarily agree with the AC, but you wouldn't deny that the Russians, Chinese, Iranians, Cubans, al Qaida, and others, have access to the same Top Secret American, British, Australian, and Canadian documents leaked by Snowden that have found their way either into print or onto the web, would you? So that means that they assuredly have at least some of those Top Secret documents. That is before we get to the question of the already many and growing number of businesses (many newspapers, web sites, etc.) that have those documents, and the question of have been able to provide adequate security to prevent them from falling into the hand of nation states with sophisticated intelligence agencies that don't have to follow the niceties of American or British law such as Russian or Chinese agents operating overseas. Maybe you've heard, but Russian agents have assassinated people in the UK before. A little breaking and entering or other more subtle intelligence gathering would be inconsequential to them. And that is probably all it would take for them to get the complete trove of documents. That is assuming that they would even have to do that, that they don't have moles in those papers now. I'm pretty sure that newspapers and TV stations don't conduct 10-20 year background checks of their employees similar to those for Top Secret clearances (even if they are sometimes "imperfectly" done as they were in Snowden's case).

Experts Doubt Snowden Could Keep His Leaked Documents Safe From Spies

There is reason to doubt Edward Snowden’s claim that Russian or Chinese spies have not seen the NSA files he leaked.
.
In an interview with the New York Times published yesterday, document-leaking NSA contractor Edward Snowden made a bold claim in response to allegations that other nations may have got hold of his classified haul:

“There’s a zero percent chance the Russians or Chinese have received any documents.”

Many security and surveillance experts publicly questioned that claim. Google security engineer Justin Schuh tweeted that the remark showed “Snowden is divorced from reality,”

Now we can also add to that the fact that the UK government assesses the secrets that Snowden stole to have fallen into the hands of foreign intelligence agencies. I seem to recall that NSA, or at least some of its leaders, have a similar assessment.

Snowden leaks 'worst ever loss to British intelligence'

Sir David, the former head of the UK's communications surveillance centre GCHQ, told the Times: "You have to distinguish between the original whistleblowing intent to get a debate going, which is a responsible thing to do, and the stealing of 58,000 top-secret British security documents and who knows how many American documents, which is seriously, seriously damaging.

"The assumption the experts are working on is that all that information or almost all of it will now be in the hands of Moscow and Beijing.

"It's the most catastrophic loss to British intelligence ever, much worse than Burgess and Maclean."

You can also see the Russian response.

Snowden Inspires Russia to Boost Internet Spying

Less than three months after granting asylum to National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, Russia is preparing to implement the kind of electronic surveillance that Snowden uncovered in the U.S.

And you must admit that Snowden is in contact with FSB officials. (The FSB was formerly the KGB.)

It's Now Clear That

Sometimes it pays to do a little research. Personally, I have no use for 40 watt equivalents. 60 is barely adequate.

http://led-light-bulbs-review.toptenreviews.com/
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/512346/how-to-choose-an-led-light-bulb/

.
ya need to move beyond it.

Maybe women don't like to work with ugly nerds, maybe they're not smart enough, or maybe they just don't like it. Stop blaming everything on us,

You are the problem.

So the question remains, what do you want to do to solve the problem. Technical people like to solve problems, why can't they seem to solve this one?

"But why can't high-voltage lines be run underground?"
Don't you think someone would have done it by now if it were feasible?

Glad you asked. I'm trying to convince people not only is it feasible, it is high time to get on with it.

Air isn't a very good dielectric and in wet weather it gets even worse, see this list of insulator breakdown voltages. Glass has 40-100 times the dielectric strength of air, so yes, HVDC conduits ARE possible in standard sized trenches.

You have to realize that when most of the country was spanned, suspended cable on tall pylons in their wide right-of-way corridors was the cheapest and fastest way to do it. In many areas the real estate presently used for these, some of which is very valuable, can be reclaimed as it moved below ground.

Here is one company with a design for trench-able electric pipes that could handle 15 gigawatts at 800kv. That's 2.5 times Las Vegas summer peak load. No superconductors or refrigeration, just lots of aluminum. You'll also see a sad note at the bottom, "I have so far found that US-based venture capital investors will not take an interest in the elpipe because it is "too big, too long term."

This "too big, too long term" dismissal is symptom of serious problems. Venture capital investors, some who already have great-grandchildren, are refusing to even approach infrastructure repair and re-build projects in North America. What do they think the world will be like in 50 years if these things are not done?

Another company working on HVDC circuit breaker (check that photo, looks like fun). Also check out Roger W. Faulkner [2005]: Electric Pipelines for North American Power Grid Efficiency Security for some calculations on how much aluminum we're talking about.

Although you'll see a lot of talk about HVDC helping to make wind and solar 'renewables' more practical, I don't think so, because for base load power they are too expensive at any price.

Neither wind nor solar would save us from extinction in the case of a long harsh Winter or a climate disrupting global dust cloud event. On that point alone I believe every penny spent on big wind and big solar is wasted. I want my children to survive.

For the big picture on how I believe HVDC pipelines and reliable scalable base load power is the way to go, see

My letters on energy:
To The Honorable James M. Inhofe, United States Senate
To whom it may concern, Halliburton Corporate

Another liquid battery concept for grid storage was mentioned here: http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/511081/ambris-better-grid-battery/

How appropriate your handle is blah boo boo then. Try start here, or stick to your default currency until BTC moves out of the early adopter phase and all these teething problems are either worked out, or the whole thing re-invents itself. One thing is certain: Crypto currency in one form or another is here to stay...

"Plugging in an electric vehicle is, in some cases, the equivalent of adding three houses to the grid. That has utilities in CaliforniaÃ"where the largest number of electric vehicles are soldÃ"scrambling to upgrade the grid to avoid power outages."

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/518066/could-electric-cars-threaten-the-grid/

That's a decent source, you're just quoting it out of context. It actually completely disagrees with almost everything you've been claiming... To wit:

"researchers at the U.S. Department of Energyâ(TM)s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have calculated that the grid has enough excess capacity to support over 150 million battery-powered cars, or about 75 percent of the cars, pickups, and SUVs on the road in the United States."

You argue that EVs will be charged after 8pm; and then point to solar power installations as a development to meet such an increased demand ...

Solar power installations are happening in CA, but it has NOTHING specifically to do with EVs. That's your own imagination, and/or reading comprehension failure. And YOUR OWN SOURCE SAYS SO.

So if you see a hacker hiding under your dashboard you need to worry, as NON OF THIS CAN BE DONE without physical access of the vehicle from inside.

Call me when they can hack Any car wirelessly from 300 feet away using their laptop, until then all of this is nothing but fearmongering.

What's your phone number?
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/423292/taking-control-of-cars-from-afar/

Sadly, it may not require physical access. All the entertainment system and GPS nav are connected to the bus as well. It may be possible to get in through wifi or bluetooth and hack an entertainment device to proxy you in to the CAN bus. See this.

As I understand it, the word "deniers" in this context means "anyone who questions the official 'consensus' position on CAGW".

There are some people who are just insane and believe insane things, like CO2 isn't even a greenhouse gas and the whole thing is a Government Plot. There are other people who question the final conclusion and some of the steps that lead to it; for example, disagreements over the amount of feedback caused by increased atmospheric water vapor. As far as I can tell, CAGW believers lump all their opponents into one bucket, "deniers". And I doubt it is a coincidence that "deniers" is part of the famous phrase "Holocaust Deniers"... it's a great way to tar the opposition subtly and, pardon the pun, deniably.

Since you yourself referred to "the deniers" as if they are a uniform bloc, and dismissively said "The deniers will believe whatever their masters tell them", it would appear that you are one of these people who lump the opposition together and dismiss them.

Did I say "dismiss them"? Oh, you actually said: "They need to be minimized, ignored, shoved aside."

Well, with my ground prepared, I am now ready to explain my counter-position to you. It is: Fuck you, you fucking douchebag. Science is a debate of ideas, and you just outright said that you want to crush part of the debate and not let it be heard.

If a "denier" claims that CO2 isn't a greenhouse gas, we can put some CO2 into a greenhouse and measure what happens. And we don't even need to do it because it has already been done, we can just cite an already-written study. (Like, say, a junior high-school textbook.) So we can shut up those crazies without needing to do it pre-emptively.

If a "denier" points out that the "hockey stick" computer model can take random input data and produce a hockey-stick graph, that's an important entry into the scientific debate. Would you squash that pre-emptively?

If a "denier" double-checks the CAGW predictions and points out multiple places where the predictions were WRONG, would you squash that pre-emptively?

If a crazy person orders you to verify that gravity still works, you can drop a few weights and measure what happens. If these CAGW true believer scientists are so certain of CAGW then they should have done the research and presented the data. If they are right, this additional research would bolster their position. If they are wrong, and the data points it out, then as scientists they should want the correction.

Refusing to study part of a problem because you don't like the person who requested it? That's not science.

If you had read TFA ...

I did. I also read:

Proceed with Caution toward the Self-Driving Car
Completely autonomous vehicles will remain a fantasy for years. Until they're here, we need technology that enhances human drivers' abilities rather than making those abilities increasingly obsolete
http://www.technologyreview.com/review/513531/proceed-with-caution-toward-the-self-driving-car/

and

Driverless Cars Are Further Away Than You Think
http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/520431/driverless-cars-are-further-away-than-you-think/

If you had read TFA ...

I did. I also read:

Proceed with Caution toward the Self-Driving Car
Completely autonomous vehicles will remain a fantasy for years. Until they're here, we need technology that enhances human drivers' abilities rather than making those abilities increasingly obsolete
http://www.technologyreview.com/review/513531/proceed-with-caution-toward-the-self-driving-car/

and

Driverless Cars Are Further Away Than You Think
http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/520431/driverless-cars-are-further-away-than-you-think/

Driverless Cars Are Further Away Than You Think: "Most daunting, however, are the remaining computer science and artificial-intelligence challenges. Automated driving will at first be limited to relatively simple situations, mainly highway driving, because the technology still can't respond to uncertainties posed by oncoming traffic, rotaries, and pedestrians. And drivers will also almost certainly be expected to assume some sort of supervisory role, requiring them to be ready to retake control as soon as the system gets outside its comfort zone."

Many folks don't realize that hydrogen is not the only possibility for fuel cells; there are methanol fuel cells, ammonia fuel cells, and even some fuel cells that use diesel or kerosene (e.g. Cheap Diesel-Powered Fuel Cells). I think the last two use high temperatures (250C) to break the diesel or kerosene down to smaller molecules, then use those directly in the fuel cell.

I suspect that for these types of cells, the key factors would be whether the fuel cell requires exotic or expensive metals like platinum, whether they can handle impurities in the fuel, and whether they can be used immediately or require some period of warm-up. In this case 'impurities' would be more chemistry than physical - for instance (just guessing) paraffins might be a very bad thing.

High temp diesel cells might be good for long haul trucks or other vehicles that are likely to run all day, even including occasional stops. A battery big enough to run for the first 10 minutes might handle the quick startup issue.

Of course, hydrocarbon based fuel cells don't solve the carbon dioxide issue. Perhaps there would be a way to recycle the CO2 back into a holding tank. But they would solve the noise issue!

His job description entails standing around telling the NSA to stop doing all of the things the NSA does....

Let me be the first to nominate Bruce Schneier for the position.
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/519336/bruce-schneier-nsa-spying-is-making-us-less-safe/

Ahem... Only in theory for now.

And I mean that literally. The CAGW folks are saying we must take drastic steps to prevent disaster: shut down coal plants even if it means blackouts on the Eastern Seaboard, capture all the emissions from smokestacks and pump the CO2 underground, spend and/or lose trillions of dollars on the projects. The problem with this is that people don't think the alleged threat of CAGW is worth that level of pain.

People will buy a Prius, and feel good about it. But that is a rational decision, since a Prius costs less to feed than other cars. People will not, in general, sell their cars and start bicycling to work to Save The Planet, because that's a pain and they don't take the threat seriously.

I personally am a Climate Change Denier (oh no!). I don't think the CAGW guys have proven their case to the level required for me to take it seriously.

The "hockey stick" turns out to be much less robust than originally claimed. And the "hockey stick" model can make an alarming hockey stick graph out of random input data.

There are serious questions that the CAGW folks have not adequately answered, such as "CO2 levels are higher than ever so why is the warming flat?" "CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but we have had enough for decades and additional CO2 does little, so why should additional CO2 matter?" "Where is the hot spot?"

And the ClimateGate emails showed collusion to tamper with or suppress evidence the CAGW guys didn't like, collusion to keep skeptical papers out of the peer-reviewed journals and then point at those papers and say "Hah, those were never published in the peer-reviewed journals", "Mike's Nature trick" to "hide the decline".

Worst of all, some of the top CAGW guys massaged and massaged the data, and destroyed the original data making it impossible to fact-check.

Extraordinary propositions require extraordinary proof. I don't think the CAGW idea has been proven to the level that I am comfortable with the extreme measures that have been proposed to fight it.

Fortunately, a process for removing the extra oxygen atom has been considered by others.

Now that's very interesting... It was written almost 7 years ago though, what ever happened to the tech?

Fortunately, a process for removing the extra oxygen atom has been considered by others.

Or they could get laptops that are set to speak aloud and accept speech input. Or they could be be pre-configured with shortcuts to online language learning programs, allowing literacy to spread. Or they could rely more heavily on video, which can be incredibly helpful as a learning tool for people who are barely literate but have rudimentary written language skills. Need I go on with really easy solutions?

As a real world example:
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/506466/given-tablets-but-no-teachers-ethiopian-children-teach-themselves/

But way to go; if your goal was to make me look momentarily stupid for trying to point out the possible benefits of a philanthropic program, mission accomplished.

I think that's his point: Nobody should have to choose between accessing the world's repository of knowledge and buying food. If we can give them both, maybe they can use that big pile of information to improve their lives in more meaningful, long lasting ways.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/506466/given-tablets-but-no-teachers-ethiopian-children-teach-themselves/

There have been some studies on this that show how much people can improve their lives by getting access to the knowledge we take for granted. We may not be able to do a lot with Wikipedia's article on crop rotation and fertilization techniques, but I bet a farmer in southern Nigeria could.

The solar cells cost is largely measured in the energy made to create it. Efficiency = output/cost. We just reached parity in 2010- that's pretty pathetic. And that doesn't include the costs of transportation, loss due to damage from hail, etc, and other such issues. Until this ratio becomes really large (10x), solar cells aren't much better than a battery- you put energy in and get it back out later.
There have been many promising technologies 'on the horizon' that are supposed to make solar cells cheap (made with little energy).
This is the most recent article of printable solar cells. I read one just like this 10+ years ago:
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-05/17/a3-printed-solar-cells
Then you have the "new material" of the hour:
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/517811/a-material-that-could-make-solar-power-dirt-cheap/
And all the other stuff, such as:
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/163561-the-key-to-cheap-solar-power-may-have-been-discovered-over-150-years-ago
Until something radically changes, these 'investments' in solar companies are really just there to line to pockets of political cronies, like the 33 companies that made large donations to our president and received even larger 'investments' which were paid out before the company declared bankruptcy
http://blog.heritage.org/2012/10/18/president-obamas-taxpayer-backed-green-energy-failures/

Note well, some media outlets have praised the Obama campaign for using "Big Data" tools to target voters. Do you want or expect this chief executive to hypocritically discourage business from using the same techniques? http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/508836/how-obama-used-big-data-to-rally-voters-part-1/