My kids' tablets have AppLock installed on it. This locks out features that I don't want them to have access to such as the Google Play and Amazon app stores. If they want a new app installed, they need to give it to me so I can type in the PIN and install it. Could they guess the PIN and get in? Sure, but it's another level of protection against "kid playing game, gets prompt, clicks 'yes', and incurs $$$ in-app purchase charge."
Exactly. This is the content owners at work. (You'll likely never see a Netflix Original in one market and not in another one.) The problem is that the content owners think they are "protecting" their works, but in reality everyone gets hurt. Viewers get hurt by not being able to see content (or by needing to resort to VPN or piracy to get it). Netflix gets hurt by not having their maximum library available everywhere. Finally, content owners get hurt because Netflix reduces piracy. When people can't get to the content via Netflix, they are likely to either pirate or do without - both of which bring in $0. Better to license it to Netflix worldwide and bring in some cash then lose money* due to content restrictions.
* To clarify, I don't mean "lose money" as in so-called "lost sales" but as in "they could have gotten money from Netflix in these other markets but decided not to."
Of course there is a point. The benefits of having location independence and "cloud" storage are the same whether the software is open source or not, or whether I share the information with others or not.
To give an example, I'm working on a story using Google Docs as my primary word processor. Yes, I could use LibreOffice - and if I had it as a local file that would be my preference - but Google Docs means I can edit it from my browser, leave the house, and then edit it more with my phone. If I'm waiting somewhere for a half hour, I can open my story and write a couple hundred words on my phone. If I get a great idea for a future story direction, I can make a note of it right in the document. If I want to read it to my son (he loves hearing the story I'm writing and reading it to him forces me to proof-read it), I can do this from anywhere as long as I have my phone with me. (I also use the commenting system in Google Docs to record where my son and I have read up to.)
If I had this as a local computer file, I wouldn't be able to add to my story as often and I wouldn't be as far into the story as I am now (32,000 words and counting). Yes, when it comes time to look into publishing it, I'll likely import it into LibreOffice for better formatting options, but Google Docs gives me an ease of use that locally installed programs don't.
I was talking to one of my managers about this sort of thing recently. It wasn't too many years ago that you would get a bill for "paper/toner/etc." You didn't actually buy these products from this company, but they would send out tons of bills and a percentage of companies blindly paid them. It was enough to keep the scammer in business sending out more and more letters.
On the IT side, we used to get notices from Domain Registry of America to "renew" our domains for the low, low price of $45 a year! Of course, we didn't register our domains with them, their "low price" was over 3 times what we paid for our registration, and reading the fine print showed that this was a domain transfer to them and NOT a renewal. We were lucky that the managers who got these notices just forwarded them on to me to take care of. (My method of "taking care of them" involved ripping and tossing into the trash.)
These are the script kiddies of extortionists. They like to call themselves by the cool sounding name ("hacker" or "extortionist") but don't really have the skills needed to pull off what actual hackers/extortionists do. So they bluff their way through and fake some grand schemes in the hopes of gaining everyone's fear/respect for elite skills that they clearly don't have.
Let's suppose that, tomorrow, the government declares "All encryption needs to have Government Only Backdoors." Let's also assume that everyone - through some weird quirk of fate - goes along with it instead of sparking the years-long lawsuits/protests that would actually happen. So now the government can listen in on anyone at any time. Terrorists beaten, right?
Wrong. Strong encryption is already available and can be used by anyone (yes, including terrorists) now. So they'll just use that. Or they'll use no encryption - which is how they operated in some previous attacks.
Furthermore, "Government Only Backdoors" means that the encryption has a weakness. Even if we could trust the US government not to abuse it (a HUGE assumption but let's allow it for now), how long until foreign governments got access to it (either via some official channel or by hacking their way in)? How long until various hacker groups got control of it?
Finally, there's the question of risk. Being injured/killed in a terrorist attack is an extremely low-risk event. Sure, it makes for great news and is used near-daily by politicians to scare us into supporting whatever they want, but it's not an actual thing that your average person in the US needs to worry about. On the other hand, something like Identity Theft or credit card fraud *are* something that normal people need to worry about.
Tell you what, I'll explain to the families of the next victims of the terror attacks (probably a dozen or less) why we supported encryption if you explain to the victims (likely millions) of identity theft/credit card fraud why you wanted to ban strong encryption and thus let any hacker in the world listen in on their transactions.
This also doesn't help the case of "My wife is driving and I'm texting from the passenger seat to let X know we're running late." This use of texting isn't distracting to the driver (any more than normal conversation is and you can't ban talking to passengers while driving) but my phone would register "hit driving speed, shut down SMS."
Perhaps have a warning message pop up "Phone has detected that you are moving at X mph. This means you are likely in a motor vehicle. If you are the driver, please do not text and drive as this can cause a fatal accident. Press this button to verify that you are a passenger and not the driver." Then, have a button they can press to confirm. Make the phone record this action and, if an accident occurs because the driver confirmed it falsely, this would immediately be cause for license suspension (in addition to any other charges).
And as a cyclist AND a motorcyclist, you are deluding yourself to think you have total 100% control over all situations. If someone flies around a corner from behind and hits you from behind, there are times where there is absolutely nothing you can do to influence the outcome.
Car driver here, but I completely agree. A few years ago, I was driving my wife, mother-in-law, and then-toddler son in our mini-van to a local computer store. As we passed through an intersection (which was green for us), I spotted a car turning from the other direction that was going to hit us. It was one of those "time slowing down" moments - I could see that the impact was going to happen, but had no options for preventing it. The guy hit us, our mini-van went careening across four lanes of (thankfully light) traffic on two wheels. We wound up facing the other way on the other side of the road. Somehow, we didn't hit into anyone else, flip over, or suffer any major injuries.
Nothing I could have done would have prevented this accident. The guy was turning illegally (he was in the wrong lane and had a red light for turning at the time) and simply didn't pay attention to where he was or who was coming in the other lane. I couldn't have avoided him and his careless actions could have resulted in me or my family suffering serious injuries or worse. When someone texts and drives, they are distracted from the road. Some people think "oh, it's only a second", but all it takes is one or two seconds of not looking at the road to cause a major accident. If a text is that important, find somewhere to stop and answer it. If it's not important enough to stop over, then it can wait until later.
Right now, for us, the answer to "Why use a Keurig at all" is "We won it a few years ago and it's still working." Our options right now are: Get a new coffee maker (not really worth it until the Keurig dies), use the Keurig pods (not worth the money), or use the reusable cups. We're using the reusable cups until the Keurig dies. At that point, we'll find another way to make single cups of coffee. (We need to make single cups because my wife's the only one who drinks coffee.)
In developing countries, you needed to have a lot of children because infant mortality and other factors meant that only 4 of your 8 kids would live to become adults. Plus, you needed the help working to bring in enough to survive.
As standard of living rises, people don't need to have 8+ kids and so have fewer children. Add in that empowering women means that they don't have to bear babies just because some guy tells them to - they can hold jobs themselves and decide when/if they have children. All of this means that the birth rate in more developed nations drops steeply - sometimes the population levels even decline.
Of course, there can be some momentum. Religious beliefs about having many kids made sense when only one or two kids would survive their childhood years, but those beliefs can keep people having 10+ babies even after the reason behind the belief is outdated. Still, if we could cut off the reason for having large numbers of children (infant mortality, disease, war, poverty) and increase the rights of women in developing nations, we could stabilize world populations quicker.
The worst part is the Schroeder's competence that has to take place here. NASA have to be crazy-dedicated and funded in order to successfully cover up something as obvious as alien spacecraft whizzing around within visual range of the ISS, but also dumb enough to let it get exposed so trivially and easily as a public camera with the world watching.
I love that term: Schroeder's competence. That's pretty standard in any conspiracy theory. The Conspiracy is a vast network with near-infinite resources and the ability to stage/cover up a complex scheme. At the same time, they are so incompetent that The Hero (usually some guy in his basement posting to YouTube) can easily expose everything they do. It's a power fantasy. "I feel completely helpless in my life so I'll imagine there's a uber-competent group controlling X and then will expose them, making myself smarter than this powerful group and all the 'sheeple' who fell for their ploy."
As I said in my comment, we won the Keurig. We wouldn't have bought one otherwise. She initially liked the pod options, but quickly realized how expensive and wasteful it was to buy coffee that way. That's why we moved to the reusable pod and bulk coffee that she refills the pod with (and enjoys more than the pre-filled pods). When this Keurig breaks, we'll look into a different machine (not a Keurig). So far, it's lasted about 5 years so that's not bad for something we didn't pay for.
Awhile back, someone installed some sensors on his friend's bed after the friend was married. The sensors detected "movement," measured the length and intensity of said movement and then automatically tweeted about it. At no point was the friend or his bride a) notified or b) identified. This went on for awhile until the guy started realizing that eventually his friend would find out and likely wouldn't take kindly to it. He shut down the twitter account. I'm not sure if he was able to remove the sensors or if his friend/friend's wife ever found out.
I was just about to post this but then found the Twitter page: newlywedsontjob. Sample tweet: They’re off the job! #14 – Action concluded at 22.34GMT. Duration: 12m.41 s. Frenzy Index: 8 (scary). Judge’s Comment: "GADZOOKS!"
Back in college, I was a member of a club whose purpose was to throw tons of parties. (I didn't actually like going to parties, but I was purposefully trying to push myself out of my comfort zone.) Our office was always a mess. Except sometimes the table was clean. On one of my first days there I was warned that you do NOT want to eat off the table if it was clean. (They also told us that the broken couch had tons of stories to tell - and they mentioned this while we were sitting on said couch.)
2. no messing with grinding, measuring, filling grounds, and cleaning them up. Just pop it in, brew, and chuck it out when done. This feature goes away if you refill or manually fill.
My wife uses a reusable pod with her Keurig. She cleans out the old grounds, measures new ones in, and pops the pod back into the Keurig. The total time for this is about half a minute. Spending that extra time saves us a lot of money, results in less trash, and gives my wife a better cup of coffee.
Of course, Keurig isn't looking to make a pod that you can use a hundred times and refill every time with any bulk-purchased grounds. They're looking for one that they can only be used with Keurig-licensed grounds and which will be used a few times but then will require you to buy another pod (so they an still get repeat sales).
This is what my wife does. She won a Keurig and began using (and tossing away) a ton of those pods. Then, she realized she could buy a reusable pod (2 actually since they came together), buy the coffee she likes in bulk, and make it just the way she likes it. It takes slightly longer (cleaning out the pod and filling it up takes a minute at most) but the result is coffee that she likes more, which is less expensive, and which results in less waste clogging up our landfills. It's a win all around (except for the profits for the companies that sell one-time-then-trash-it pods).
You're right that my "not acceptable" isn't the same as "not legal." Facebook could announce tomorrow that any post that mentioned Trump in a positive manner* would be erased from everyone's feeds. There wouldn't be anything that anyone could do about it. (I'm sure Trump would threaten to sue but whether he'd have any real chance of winning the lawsuit is another story.) However, Facebook isn't in an unshakable position. They've done a lot of shady things and many people don't like them (often griping while they use the service**). Someone else could easily come along and turn Facebook into another MySpace.
* I personally don't like Trump but I wouldn't want to see his supporters' comments hidden simply because they praised Trump. ** I technically have a Facebook account (opened because it was used to backup a game I was playing) but I don't use it and gave Facebook the minimum amount of information possible.
To pick up the DVDs, I do have to leave the house, but my library has a website and app that I can use to request DVDs. When they arrive, my library will notify me so I can pick them up. Then, when they're due, I can renew them via the website/app to keep them for longer. Our library is close enough that we can incorporate it into pretty much any outing. And my boys love going in to pick out new books to read or just to grab a random movie to watch.
If I had two opinions on a scientific matter given to me, one by an engineer (BS in mechanical engineering) and one by a politician (bachelor's degree in communication), and I had to weigh their merits based on the educational background of these people alone, I would go with the engineer. (Yes, I realize this is edging close to the Appeal to Authority fallacy, but Palin did make their "non-scientist" standing an issue so I think this is a valid comparison to make.)
In my experience, if someone says "Because God" to justify why some public policy must be done, it's best to back away slowly. (And I say this as someone who is somewhat religious but who would never think to impose my beliefs on others.) Sadly, there are people in positions of power who would say "We're going to do X and not do Y because God." You can't back away from these people because they have the power to enact their "because God" policies. You can try to vote them out, but they tend to have a lot of "Because God" followers who will vote for them simply because the politician has them convinced that he's acting out God's orders.
There are times when I'm amazed at how far we've come and then other days when I question whether we've made any progress at all.
Not clear what weird conspiracy applies in this case: might be aliens, or the zombie Arrhenius, or perhaps these "suppressionists" whom I assume are some shadowy government group "suppressing" the truth about CO2 - or perhaps contrails, or invisible pirates, or something.
Don't forget that the shadowy government group suppressing the truth (be it about CO2, the moon landing, or an invasion of alien Elvis impersonators) has to be both super-competent at keeping the conspiracy - thus able to keep the truth hidden from most folks for decades at a time - and horribly inept at keeping the conspiracy - thus leaving obvious clues for the "highly intelligent conspiracy theorist" to spot and point out to the sheep who don't see the evidence right in front of them.
The key is whether they're doing it during their own time (donating/campaigning/etc) or during company time (e.g. writing an algorithm that determines whether and article is pro- or anti-Trump and ranking it in a Facebook feed accordingly). The former is perfectly fine. The latter is not acceptable - regardless of what Zuckerberg says.
I know I'll get heat for this, but IMO, it's like smoking areas in restaurants and bars, especially outdoor areas. I don't feel the need to explain this further.
It depends on the implementation. Back in the "smoking section" days (NY has banned smoking in restaurants for years now), we'd be seated in the non-smoking section - two seats over from the smoking section. Smoke doesn't tend to respect imaginary boundaries and we'd still smell the horrible stench all through our meal. If you had a "texting section" which was in the same theater, you could have cell phone glare visible in the non-texting section. If you had texting showings, though, then people who wanted to take out their cell phone could do so without bothering anyone. (Or, at least, someone who got bothered about it wouldn't have cause to complain since they'd know they were going to a texting showing.)
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My kids' tablets have AppLock installed on it. This locks out features that I don't want them to have access to such as the Google Play and Amazon app stores. If they want a new app installed, they need to give it to me so I can type in the PIN and install it. Could they guess the PIN and get in? Sure, but it's another level of protection against "kid playing game, gets prompt, clicks 'yes', and incurs $$$ in-app purchase charge."
The only responsibility that copyright comes with is the responsibility to turn the work over to the public domain when the copyright ends.
Then again, this responsibility has been dodged for the longest time.
Exactly. This is the content owners at work. (You'll likely never see a Netflix Original in one market and not in another one.) The problem is that the content owners think they are "protecting" their works, but in reality everyone gets hurt. Viewers get hurt by not being able to see content (or by needing to resort to VPN or piracy to get it). Netflix gets hurt by not having their maximum library available everywhere. Finally, content owners get hurt because Netflix reduces piracy. When people can't get to the content via Netflix, they are likely to either pirate or do without - both of which bring in $0. Better to license it to Netflix worldwide and bring in some cash then lose money* due to content restrictions.
* To clarify, I don't mean "lose money" as in so-called "lost sales" but as in "they could have gotten money from Netflix in these other markets but decided not to."
To give an example, I'm working on a story using Google Docs as my primary word processor. Yes, I could use LibreOffice - and if I had it as a local file that would be my preference - but Google Docs means I can edit it from my browser, leave the house, and then edit it more with my phone. If I'm waiting somewhere for a half hour, I can open my story and write a couple hundred words on my phone. If I get a great idea for a future story direction, I can make a note of it right in the document. If I want to read it to my son (he loves hearing the story I'm writing and reading it to him forces me to proof-read it), I can do this from anywhere as long as I have my phone with me. (I also use the commenting system in Google Docs to record where my son and I have read up to.)
If I had this as a local computer file, I wouldn't be able to add to my story as often and I wouldn't be as far into the story as I am now (32,000 words and counting). Yes, when it comes time to look into publishing it, I'll likely import it into LibreOffice for better formatting options, but Google Docs gives me an ease of use that locally installed programs don't.
I was talking to one of my managers about this sort of thing recently. It wasn't too many years ago that you would get a bill for "paper/toner/etc." You didn't actually buy these products from this company, but they would send out tons of bills and a percentage of companies blindly paid them. It was enough to keep the scammer in business sending out more and more letters.
On the IT side, we used to get notices from Domain Registry of America to "renew" our domains for the low, low price of $45 a year! Of course, we didn't register our domains with them, their "low price" was over 3 times what we paid for our registration, and reading the fine print showed that this was a domain transfer to them and NOT a renewal. We were lucky that the managers who got these notices just forwarded them on to me to take care of. (My method of "taking care of them" involved ripping and tossing into the trash.)
These are the script kiddies of extortionists. They like to call themselves by the cool sounding name ("hacker" or "extortionist") but don't really have the skills needed to pull off what actual hackers/extortionists do. So they bluff their way through and fake some grand schemes in the hopes of gaining everyone's fear/respect for elite skills that they clearly don't have.
Let's suppose that, tomorrow, the government declares "All encryption needs to have Government Only Backdoors." Let's also assume that everyone - through some weird quirk of fate - goes along with it instead of sparking the years-long lawsuits/protests that would actually happen. So now the government can listen in on anyone at any time. Terrorists beaten, right?
Wrong. Strong encryption is already available and can be used by anyone (yes, including terrorists) now. So they'll just use that. Or they'll use no encryption - which is how they operated in some previous attacks.
Furthermore, "Government Only Backdoors" means that the encryption has a weakness. Even if we could trust the US government not to abuse it (a HUGE assumption but let's allow it for now), how long until foreign governments got access to it (either via some official channel or by hacking their way in)? How long until various hacker groups got control of it?
Finally, there's the question of risk. Being injured/killed in a terrorist attack is an extremely low-risk event. Sure, it makes for great news and is used near-daily by politicians to scare us into supporting whatever they want, but it's not an actual thing that your average person in the US needs to worry about. On the other hand, something like Identity Theft or credit card fraud *are* something that normal people need to worry about.
Tell you what, I'll explain to the families of the next victims of the terror attacks (probably a dozen or less) why we supported encryption if you explain to the victims (likely millions) of identity theft/credit card fraud why you wanted to ban strong encryption and thus let any hacker in the world listen in on their transactions.
This also doesn't help the case of "My wife is driving and I'm texting from the passenger seat to let X know we're running late." This use of texting isn't distracting to the driver (any more than normal conversation is and you can't ban talking to passengers while driving) but my phone would register "hit driving speed, shut down SMS."
Perhaps have a warning message pop up "Phone has detected that you are moving at X mph. This means you are likely in a motor vehicle. If you are the driver, please do not text and drive as this can cause a fatal accident. Press this button to verify that you are a passenger and not the driver." Then, have a button they can press to confirm. Make the phone record this action and, if an accident occurs because the driver confirmed it falsely, this would immediately be cause for license suspension (in addition to any other charges).
Car driver here, but I completely agree. A few years ago, I was driving my wife, mother-in-law, and then-toddler son in our mini-van to a local computer store. As we passed through an intersection (which was green for us), I spotted a car turning from the other direction that was going to hit us. It was one of those "time slowing down" moments - I could see that the impact was going to happen, but had no options for preventing it. The guy hit us, our mini-van went careening across four lanes of (thankfully light) traffic on two wheels. We wound up facing the other way on the other side of the road. Somehow, we didn't hit into anyone else, flip over, or suffer any major injuries.
Nothing I could have done would have prevented this accident. The guy was turning illegally (he was in the wrong lane and had a red light for turning at the time) and simply didn't pay attention to where he was or who was coming in the other lane. I couldn't have avoided him and his careless actions could have resulted in me or my family suffering serious injuries or worse. When someone texts and drives, they are distracted from the road. Some people think "oh, it's only a second", but all it takes is one or two seconds of not looking at the road to cause a major accident. If a text is that important, find somewhere to stop and answer it. If it's not important enough to stop over, then it can wait until later.
Right now, for us, the answer to "Why use a Keurig at all" is "We won it a few years ago and it's still working." Our options right now are: Get a new coffee maker (not really worth it until the Keurig dies), use the Keurig pods (not worth the money), or use the reusable cups. We're using the reusable cups until the Keurig dies. At that point, we'll find another way to make single cups of coffee. (We need to make single cups because my wife's the only one who drinks coffee.)
In developing countries, you needed to have a lot of children because infant mortality and other factors meant that only 4 of your 8 kids would live to become adults. Plus, you needed the help working to bring in enough to survive.
As standard of living rises, people don't need to have 8+ kids and so have fewer children. Add in that empowering women means that they don't have to bear babies just because some guy tells them to - they can hold jobs themselves and decide when/if they have children. All of this means that the birth rate in more developed nations drops steeply - sometimes the population levels even decline.
Of course, there can be some momentum. Religious beliefs about having many kids made sense when only one or two kids would survive their childhood years, but those beliefs can keep people having 10+ babies even after the reason behind the belief is outdated. Still, if we could cut off the reason for having large numbers of children (infant mortality, disease, war, poverty) and increase the rights of women in developing nations, we could stabilize world populations quicker.
I love that term: Schroeder's competence. That's pretty standard in any conspiracy theory. The Conspiracy is a vast network with near-infinite resources and the ability to stage/cover up a complex scheme. At the same time, they are so incompetent that The Hero (usually some guy in his basement posting to YouTube) can easily expose everything they do. It's a power fantasy. "I feel completely helpless in my life so I'll imagine there's a uber-competent group controlling X and then will expose them, making myself smarter than this powerful group and all the 'sheeple' who fell for their ploy."
As I said in my comment, we won the Keurig. We wouldn't have bought one otherwise. She initially liked the pod options, but quickly realized how expensive and wasteful it was to buy coffee that way. That's why we moved to the reusable pod and bulk coffee that she refills the pod with (and enjoys more than the pre-filled pods). When this Keurig breaks, we'll look into a different machine (not a Keurig). So far, it's lasted about 5 years so that's not bad for something we didn't pay for.
Awhile back, someone installed some sensors on his friend's bed after the friend was married. The sensors detected "movement," measured the length and intensity of said movement and then automatically tweeted about it. At no point was the friend or his bride a) notified or b) identified. This went on for awhile until the guy started realizing that eventually his friend would find out and likely wouldn't take kindly to it. He shut down the twitter account. I'm not sure if he was able to remove the sensors or if his friend/friend's wife ever found out.
I was just about to post this but then found the Twitter page: newlywedsontjob. Sample tweet: They’re off the job! #14 – Action concluded at 22.34GMT. Duration: 12m.41 s. Frenzy Index: 8 (scary). Judge’s Comment: "GADZOOKS!"
Back in college, I was a member of a club whose purpose was to throw tons of parties. (I didn't actually like going to parties, but I was purposefully trying to push myself out of my comfort zone.) Our office was always a mess. Except sometimes the table was clean. On one of my first days there I was warned that you do NOT want to eat off the table if it was clean. (They also told us that the broken couch had tons of stories to tell - and they mentioned this while we were sitting on said couch.)
My wife uses a reusable pod with her Keurig. She cleans out the old grounds, measures new ones in, and pops the pod back into the Keurig. The total time for this is about half a minute. Spending that extra time saves us a lot of money, results in less trash, and gives my wife a better cup of coffee.
Of course, Keurig isn't looking to make a pod that you can use a hundred times and refill every time with any bulk-purchased grounds. They're looking for one that they can only be used with Keurig-licensed grounds and which will be used a few times but then will require you to buy another pod (so they an still get repeat sales).
This is what my wife does. She won a Keurig and began using (and tossing away) a ton of those pods. Then, she realized she could buy a reusable pod (2 actually since they came together), buy the coffee she likes in bulk, and make it just the way she likes it. It takes slightly longer (cleaning out the pod and filling it up takes a minute at most) but the result is coffee that she likes more, which is less expensive, and which results in less waste clogging up our landfills. It's a win all around (except for the profits for the companies that sell one-time-then-trash-it pods).
You're right that my "not acceptable" isn't the same as "not legal." Facebook could announce tomorrow that any post that mentioned Trump in a positive manner* would be erased from everyone's feeds. There wouldn't be anything that anyone could do about it. (I'm sure Trump would threaten to sue but whether he'd have any real chance of winning the lawsuit is another story.) However, Facebook isn't in an unshakable position. They've done a lot of shady things and many people don't like them (often griping while they use the service**). Someone else could easily come along and turn Facebook into another MySpace.
* I personally don't like Trump but I wouldn't want to see his supporters' comments hidden simply because they praised Trump.
** I technically have a Facebook account (opened because it was used to backup a game I was playing) but I don't use it and gave Facebook the minimum amount of information possible.
To pick up the DVDs, I do have to leave the house, but my library has a website and app that I can use to request DVDs. When they arrive, my library will notify me so I can pick them up. Then, when they're due, I can renew them via the website/app to keep them for longer. Our library is close enough that we can incorporate it into pretty much any outing. And my boys love going in to pick out new books to read or just to grab a random movie to watch.
I see your Sarah Palin and raise you a Jenny McCarthy.
If I had two opinions on a scientific matter given to me, one by an engineer (BS in mechanical engineering) and one by a politician (bachelor's degree in communication), and I had to weigh their merits based on the educational background of these people alone, I would go with the engineer. (Yes, I realize this is edging close to the Appeal to Authority fallacy, but Palin did make their "non-scientist" standing an issue so I think this is a valid comparison to make.)
In my experience, if someone says "Because God" to justify why some public policy must be done, it's best to back away slowly. (And I say this as someone who is somewhat religious but who would never think to impose my beliefs on others.) Sadly, there are people in positions of power who would say "We're going to do X and not do Y because God." You can't back away from these people because they have the power to enact their "because God" policies. You can try to vote them out, but they tend to have a lot of "Because God" followers who will vote for them simply because the politician has them convinced that he's acting out God's orders.
There are times when I'm amazed at how far we've come and then other days when I question whether we've made any progress at all.
Don't forget that the shadowy government group suppressing the truth (be it about CO2, the moon landing, or an invasion of alien Elvis impersonators) has to be both super-competent at keeping the conspiracy - thus able to keep the truth hidden from most folks for decades at a time - and horribly inept at keeping the conspiracy - thus leaving obvious clues for the "highly intelligent conspiracy theorist" to spot and point out to the sheep who don't see the evidence right in front of them.
The key is whether they're doing it during their own time (donating/campaigning/etc) or during company time (e.g. writing an algorithm that determines whether and article is pro- or anti-Trump and ranking it in a Facebook feed accordingly). The former is perfectly fine. The latter is not acceptable - regardless of what Zuckerberg says.
It depends on the implementation. Back in the "smoking section" days (NY has banned smoking in restaurants for years now), we'd be seated in the non-smoking section - two seats over from the smoking section. Smoke doesn't tend to respect imaginary boundaries and we'd still smell the horrible stench all through our meal. If you had a "texting section" which was in the same theater, you could have cell phone glare visible in the non-texting section. If you had texting showings, though, then people who wanted to take out their cell phone could do so without bothering anyone. (Or, at least, someone who got bothered about it wouldn't have cause to complain since they'd know they were going to a texting showing.)