That and subsidized home high voltage charger installation. You want this technology adopted quicker? Give people an incentive rather than putting roadblocks in their way.
I've been involved in manufacturing things. They're 'slathering glue everywhere' because everyone wants smaller/thinner/lighter and they don't want to hear excuses as to why not. They also want cheap, cheap, cheap, and adding actual fasteners to hold things together not only costs more money per unit on the Bill Of Materials but it costs more for assembly per unit too, so they glue things together to make it cheaper, lighter, smaller, and thinner. Then everyone buys that they make a big profit and their decisions are validated. Like I said above if people want a pocket-sized computer with radio transceivers in it to be repairable then it's going to be more expensive and may not be as small thin and light anymore. FFS look at Microsoft and their tablet, they tore one down to look at it and taking it apart was impossible without literally destroying it; that's not repairable at all, it breaks you toss it in the e-waste bin. I'd NEVER buy something like that, I'm not sure I'd even take one for FREE, given that I would have little faith in it's reliability if it's designed to be a throw-away.
Being someone who spent a number of years repairing Other People's Broken Shit (and profited intellectually thereby, believe it or not; knowing how things break and how they could be made better is of great practical use), I appreciate and agree with the sentiment behind this from the EU, but as with so many things technological, the politicians in this case don't have an appreciation for the technical problems associated with it. Many of the devices they'd like to be repairable aren't manufactured in a way that makes them easily repairable in the first place. Much surface-mount component technology itself makes it almost impossible to diagnose problems down to the component level (BGA packaged integrated circuits especially). Then there's the cost associated with diagnosis and repair of a circuit board; in many cases it might cost more to do that than a new unit would cost. Changing the way things are manufactured to facilitate repair might not be possible, at least without going backwards, having devices that are larger and bulkier, so that repairs can even be made. As-is, some devices can be 'repaired' just by replacing an entire circuit board, which while it irks my sensibilities is the most cost-effective solution; defectives can either be recycled or repaired in bulk in a factory setting for much cheaper than as a one-off. Your smartphone, on the other hand, is more-or-less one circuit board to start with, is very densely packed with components, most/all of the VLSI ICs are BGA packages, and the PCB itself might not even survive the removal/replacement process, even if you can manage to diagnose the problem; there's no real way to make them repairable short of replacing entire assemblies, which in many cases might cost more than half of what a new smartphone costs. Many other portable devices are in the same boat. Appliances, vehicles, $LARGE_THINGS? There's little reason why they can't be made repairable, it's just company policies that prevent it (I'm looking at you John Deere). I'd hope that the EU is really going to target that class of 'device' than any other.
Aside from religions theres another group that historically restricts free access to information: Dictators, authoritarian regimes, and the like. Can you guess form this how I feel about people and their religions wanting to restrict what knowledge their kids are allowed to learn?
..and you won't listen to me. At least in the state of Florida, you could potentially have an entire generation of kids who are dumb, think 'creation' is a real thing, and that 'evolution' and science in general are satanic lies intended to 'sway the faithful away from God' or somesuch bullshit. Praytell, how is shit like this going to make anyone smarter? It's not. If crap like this continues we'll be in another Dark Age where science and scientists are mocked, ridiculed, and maybe even physically attacked. I hate all religion for bullshit like this and really really wish humans would finally evolve out of whatever flaw it is in their brains that makes them want this shit.
AT&T, Comcast/Xfinity, and others need to be broken up into smaller companies. Not the first time this has been necessary and likely won't be the last, either. They're all getting too big for their britches and need to be taken down several notches. Of course that's going to be damned hard to make happen with the Trump administration around. They don't give a flying fuck about citizens, only making the rich richer, and monopolies that demand their 'customers' serve them rather than the other way around is what rich people like.
You're a really dumb troll. Have you tried lately to get a job without internet access? Of course in your case it might not matter, I'm sure the Jiffy Lube down the street wants you to come in and fill out a paper job application -- just to make sure you know how to read and write, that is. There's also the small matter of how much telephone service is VoIP these days, and not analog POTS, which companies like AT&T would like nothing better than to do away with completely. Here's a pro-tip for you: If you're going to troll, you have to have a shred of truth in it, or it's just not believable -- and what you said is so verifiably false that it doesn't pass muster at all.
All it takes is once. You really want to wait around for that 'once' to happen? So far the patterns of behavior of some drone owners, and some of the incidents that have been in the news are creating a pattern of behavior that doesn't draw a pretty picture. You can't deny that there are some people out there with drones that are making life difficult for everyone else, and that sucks but it can't be ignored either. If you don't like that or think it's grossly unfair then I understand, but don't get mad at me, get mad at the misbehaving drone owners who are helping make negative publicity, they're the ones that are creating an environment where you 'right' to fly your toy is being curtailed; I'm just and advocate for public safety and the rights of everyone else, and I'm never going to apologize for that.
Lack of evidence could very well mean that Russias operatives were top-notch and did their job well; a top-notch theif leaves no trace, and a top-notch killer leaves no forensic evidence to link him to killings; top-notch cyber-operatives would be slick enough to not leave evidence, or leave false trails to mislead investigations. It's much easier to do than if it was physical evidence. Regardless you don't just ignore the whole thing and pretend none of it happened. If anyone is messing with our elections or anything else in this country then we need to know about it and stop it.
Trump himself may not have the power to completely bugger the U.S., but his cabinet and his appointments certainly can, and most/many/all of them could be around long after he's gone -- especially any SCOTUS appointments he gets pushed through. He may not have the power himself but he certainly can help drive the processes that cause massive damage.
Agree wholeheartedly; congratulations, you Get It. Trump is just a side-effect of a longer-term game plan. Unfortunately it's about as much fun for U.S. as a colonoscopy sans anaesthetic.
If a dog has a history of being aggressive and biting, do you forget about it a minute later and let it bite you again? Russia/Putin has already taken aggressive military action in one case, and is being revealed as taking 'virtual' actions in other cases, and more are suspected. How many times do you need to get bitten before you stop trusting the dog?
Perhaps, and we certainly get along okay with S. Korea still (even though some of the things they engage in aren't all that nice so far as I'm concerned -- but nothing compared to their cousins to the north) but I'd tend to think that any goodwill we earned up to that point in the region was burned because of Vietnam, and things just kept going downhill from there.
You seem to be mis-reading me, which I'm becoming convinced is such a common error on the Internet that it's no wonder everyone screams at each other all the time. I, personally, DO think that Putin/Russia is involved in all sorts of things, NOT JUST meddling in our 2016 Presidential election. But it's kind of hard to be heard over an angry mob of 150,000,000 people who think that everything that doesn't fit neatly into their world-view is 'fake news', and who likely think that even Senate investigations into the matter are some sort of 'liberal conspiracy'.
Agreed. I think most drones should be illegal anyway. Even if 99% of drone owner/operators are using them in a reasonable, legal, non-privacy-invading, non-safety-hazard way, the 1% of assholes who use them in dangerous, illegal, and invasive ways are going to ruin it for everyone else who is playing by the rules, therefore they should make any drone larger than a childs toy illegal in the U.S. unless you're a professional drone pilot and are filing for permits for specific uses.
..and not, naturally, the asshole drone people will rip me a new one, as they stamp their feet, scream at their monitors, and destroy their keyboards by pounding on them in anger, for daring to say that they should be made accountable for their actions. TOUGH SHIT. Face it: You've ruined something cool for everyone else because you can't control yourselves and act like reasonable human beings. You could have kept your drones out the way of emergency vehicles and aircraft, but you didn't. You could have kept them out of people's faces, but you didn't. You could have got some help for your pedophilia, but you didn't. You could have resisted the urge to invade people's privacy, but you didn't. I'm not even going to talk about actual criminals using drones intentionally for criminal acts because that's a tiny minority compared to the random mentally ill jackass whose addled brain can't comprehend that what he's doing is wrong. Rage all you want, jackass drone abusers, I don't care. You're the ones who are wrong, and now you're ruining it for everyone else. I hope the rest of them find you and kick the shit out of you.
I'm not so sure that Donald Trump himself is directly a puppet, I think his strings are being pulled by person(s) in his administration, and that he's just the typical 'great white male' power-hungry jackass with delusions of grandeur that historically gets used. It might even be a cabal within the Republican party itself, conspiring with Russia to steal the election out from under Hillary Clinton -- not that Clinton would have been any better overall than Trump, it would have been just a different flavor of bad and evil. The ugly truth of the matter is, there wasn't a single candidate in the 2016 election that was really truly suitable to run this country (I almost said 'The Greatest Nation on Earth', but we haven't been that since World War 2) so it didn't really matter who got elected or how, 300,000,000 people here (and most of the rest of the free world) end up losing regardless. The only good thing that would have come out of Clinton being elected would have been that it wasn't due to foreign influence and/or hacking of our electoral process.
Even while we're picking up the pieces of the farce that was the 2016 election, and while we're investigating and uncovering the conspiracy and outside influences, and (with any luck, closing the holes that allowed it to happen), then repairing the damage the Trump 'administration' is causing to this country and it's reputation with the rest of the free world (if that's even possible in our lifetime at this point), there's a bigger concern: containing Vladimir Putin and his ambitions of empire. If it's not exceedingly clear to anyone at this point that Putin wants to build a new Russian empire, then you're either not paying attention, or you're in deep denial. The invasion of Crimea was just a proof-of-concept, to see if he would be allowed to get away with it ('achievement unlocked', apparently). The meddling and hacking of the 2016 U.S. election, and other elections in various countries, is helping lay the groundwork for further Russian military actions in the EU, by installing leadership in key NATO countries that will be more sympathetic to Putin and Russia (or just plain more easily manipulated). I'd imagine the next big-ticket item on his to-do list will be to dismantle NATO, or at least weaken it to the point where it's ineffective. Influencing/hacking the BrExit vote helps to destabilize the EU, which in turn will help destabilize NATO. France is another big piece of the puzzle, and it's unclear to me whether or not Macron would ultimately be a help or a hindrance to Russia; I'm leaning towards Macron being a hindrance. The ongoing war in Syria, and the continual stream of refugees from that country, is also a further destabilizing force in EU countries, especially Germany; does anyone actually think that Putin actually likes Assad? Assad is a butcher, plain and simple, waging a war of extermination against his own citizens; even Putin must have to hold his nose when dealing with Assad, and the Syrian conflict and Assad are just more tools for Putin to use. Daesh (so-called 'Islamic State'), for all we know, might even be getting some clandestine support from Putin, just because they've been so good at destabilizing the entire region; even I would lean away from this however because of how over-the-top, savagely, animalistically violent Daesh has been; they have NO friends anywhere. Even Al-Qaeda distanced themselves from them as 'too extreme'. More likely, Putin is using Daesh as an excuse to 'help' Syria, and is playing off the refugee crisis it's causing, as distraction for everything else going on (like the invasion of Crimea, for instance, and continual cyberattacks, which are masquerading as 'cyber crime').
Oh, and one more thing: don't blame most of the people who (actually) voted for Trump; in the parlance of the old Soviet Union, they're just 'useful idiots', whether they knew who and what they were voting for or not. The sad truth is that most U.S. voters really don't have (or can't have) a full enough grasp of the Big Picture to really kn
Your accusation is no more credible than anything anyone else has had to say, official or unofficial, and it's not like Vladamir Putin is such a saintly human being to start with that it's not plausible he and his forces are behind this and is being wrongly accused out of convenience. Of course if you have some verifiable intel on this and other recent events then please do present it here and CC it to the FBI, CIA, NSA, and the DoD, but otherwise don't expect us to take you and your random opinions any more seriously than anyone else.
Disclaimer: I am not an environmental scientist; I am just another random commentor on a pseudo-anonymous Internet news-aggregator site, like you are; not warranties implied or otherwise on anything I'm about to say.
That being out of the way.. RE: 'Hydroelectric storage of excess energy production': The only possible problem I see with using this technique to store excess produced energy, is environmental; we'd most likely be creating pairs of man-made lakes to make this work, and building new hydroelectric dams and pumping facilities. While those are mature technologies, and relatively benign, our energy needs never seem to decrease, they only ever seem to increase, so over time we'd be building more and more of the same to keep up. At that point we're changing the ecology of large tracts of land in an increasing number of locations, and I'd be a little concered we'd be throwing the ecology of those areas out of balance. Aside from that, I'd also be a little concerned about destroying the natural beauty of what would likely be some of the most spectacular places in California, too. While I think it's a viable technology, I think we need think carefully about what we're doing and what the alternatives are (of which there are several).
Then there's also the intentional response hole in Digital Audio Tape, and in MP3 compression. I don't know about AAC or AAC+, FLAC, Apple Lossless, or anything later.
There's one hit you can give pressed records, though: No DRM. Buy the record, play it once to record it in whatever format you want, then put it away until if and when you need to do it again.
If you want faceless corporate strangers to have access to your stuff that's your decision, I'll stick with keeping my own stuff. I think the chances of my house burning down is much less than corporate jerks poking around in my stuff. Plus you can get a 32GB USB flash drive for not much money and that should be enough to store everything you have that's important and you can keep it in a safe deposit box if you want. So tell me again how so-called 'cloud storage' really makes any sense at all to anyone except someone who wants to be lazy?
Pretty much. For some people hate seems to be eternal. They run out of one group to hate on, they'll find another one to take it's place. And so on. Eventually they get down to their 'own people' and start picking them apart, too. Taken to it's extreme you'd eventually get down to just one human left alive, hating in his mind on people long since dead. In this way it shows how much it's a disease.
Man, there are days I'd actually pay $16 to crash out on a real bed at lunchtime instead of snoozing in the front seats of my vehicle in the parking lot. I may fold up rather well but it doesn't mean I wouldn't like to stretch out.
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That and subsidized home high voltage charger installation. You want this technology adopted quicker? Give people an incentive rather than putting roadblocks in their way.
I've been involved in manufacturing things. They're 'slathering glue everywhere' because everyone wants smaller/thinner/lighter and they don't want to hear excuses as to why not. They also want cheap, cheap, cheap, and adding actual fasteners to hold things together not only costs more money per unit on the Bill Of Materials but it costs more for assembly per unit too, so they glue things together to make it cheaper, lighter, smaller, and thinner. Then everyone buys that they make a big profit and their decisions are validated. Like I said above if people want a pocket-sized computer with radio transceivers in it to be repairable then it's going to be more expensive and may not be as small thin and light anymore. FFS look at Microsoft and their tablet, they tore one down to look at it and taking it apart was impossible without literally destroying it; that's not repairable at all, it breaks you toss it in the e-waste bin. I'd NEVER buy something like that, I'm not sure I'd even take one for FREE, given that I would have little faith in it's reliability if it's designed to be a throw-away.
Being someone who spent a number of years repairing Other People's Broken Shit (and profited intellectually thereby, believe it or not; knowing how things break and how they could be made better is of great practical use), I appreciate and agree with the sentiment behind this from the EU, but as with so many things technological, the politicians in this case don't have an appreciation for the technical problems associated with it. Many of the devices they'd like to be repairable aren't manufactured in a way that makes them easily repairable in the first place. Much surface-mount component technology itself makes it almost impossible to diagnose problems down to the component level (BGA packaged integrated circuits especially). Then there's the cost associated with diagnosis and repair of a circuit board; in many cases it might cost more to do that than a new unit would cost. Changing the way things are manufactured to facilitate repair might not be possible, at least without going backwards, having devices that are larger and bulkier, so that repairs can even be made. As-is, some devices can be 'repaired' just by replacing an entire circuit board, which while it irks my sensibilities is the most cost-effective solution; defectives can either be recycled or repaired in bulk in a factory setting for much cheaper than as a one-off. Your smartphone, on the other hand, is more-or-less one circuit board to start with, is very densely packed with components, most/all of the VLSI ICs are BGA packages, and the PCB itself might not even survive the removal/replacement process, even if you can manage to diagnose the problem; there's no real way to make them repairable short of replacing entire assemblies, which in many cases might cost more than half of what a new smartphone costs. Many other portable devices are in the same boat. Appliances, vehicles, $LARGE_THINGS? There's little reason why they can't be made repairable, it's just company policies that prevent it (I'm looking at you John Deere). I'd hope that the EU is really going to target that class of 'device' than any other.
You're right, we ARE, and we have to fight against it as hard as we possibly can; I don't want to live in a real-life Handmaid's Tale.
Aside from religions theres another group that historically restricts free access to information: Dictators, authoritarian regimes, and the like. Can you guess form this how I feel about people and their religions wanting to restrict what knowledge their kids are allowed to learn?
And funnily, in this endevour he actually got farther than most of you yanks do when you're trying to get that lifetime payout.
..which means they're not as smart as we are, apparently.
..and you won't listen to me. At least in the state of Florida, you could potentially have an entire generation of kids who are dumb, think 'creation' is a real thing, and that 'evolution' and science in general are satanic lies intended to 'sway the faithful away from God' or somesuch bullshit. Praytell, how is shit like this going to make anyone smarter? It's not. If crap like this continues we'll be in another Dark Age where science and scientists are mocked, ridiculed, and maybe even physically attacked. I hate all religion for bullshit like this and really really wish humans would finally evolve out of whatever flaw it is in their brains that makes them want this shit.
AT&T, Comcast/Xfinity, and others need to be broken up into smaller companies. Not the first time this has been necessary and likely won't be the last, either. They're all getting too big for their britches and need to be taken down several notches. Of course that's going to be damned hard to make happen with the Trump administration around. They don't give a flying fuck about citizens, only making the rich richer, and monopolies that demand their 'customers' serve them rather than the other way around is what rich people like.
You're a really dumb troll. Have you tried lately to get a job without internet access? Of course in your case it might not matter, I'm sure the Jiffy Lube down the street wants you to come in and fill out a paper job application -- just to make sure you know how to read and write, that is. There's also the small matter of how much telephone service is VoIP these days, and not analog POTS, which companies like AT&T would like nothing better than to do away with completely. Here's a pro-tip for you: If you're going to troll, you have to have a shred of truth in it, or it's just not believable -- and what you said is so verifiably false that it doesn't pass muster at all.
All it takes is once. You really want to wait around for that 'once' to happen? So far the patterns of behavior of some drone owners, and some of the incidents that have been in the news are creating a pattern of behavior that doesn't draw a pretty picture. You can't deny that there are some people out there with drones that are making life difficult for everyone else, and that sucks but it can't be ignored either. If you don't like that or think it's grossly unfair then I understand, but don't get mad at me, get mad at the misbehaving drone owners who are helping make negative publicity, they're the ones that are creating an environment where you 'right' to fly your toy is being curtailed; I'm just and advocate for public safety and the rights of everyone else, and I'm never going to apologize for that.
Lack of evidence could very well mean that Russias operatives were top-notch and did their job well; a top-notch theif leaves no trace, and a top-notch killer leaves no forensic evidence to link him to killings; top-notch cyber-operatives would be slick enough to not leave evidence, or leave false trails to mislead investigations. It's much easier to do than if it was physical evidence. Regardless you don't just ignore the whole thing and pretend none of it happened. If anyone is messing with our elections or anything else in this country then we need to know about it and stop it.
Trump himself may not have the power to completely bugger the U.S., but his cabinet and his appointments certainly can, and most/many/all of them could be around long after he's gone -- especially any SCOTUS appointments he gets pushed through. He may not have the power himself but he certainly can help drive the processes that cause massive damage.
Agree wholeheartedly; congratulations, you Get It. Trump is just a side-effect of a longer-term game plan. Unfortunately it's about as much fun for U.S. as a colonoscopy sans anaesthetic.
If a dog has a history of being aggressive and biting, do you forget about it a minute later and let it bite you again? Russia/Putin has already taken aggressive military action in one case, and is being revealed as taking 'virtual' actions in other cases, and more are suspected. How many times do you need to get bitten before you stop trusting the dog?
Perhaps, and we certainly get along okay with S. Korea still (even though some of the things they engage in aren't all that nice so far as I'm concerned -- but nothing compared to their cousins to the north) but I'd tend to think that any goodwill we earned up to that point in the region was burned because of Vietnam, and things just kept going downhill from there.
For a country that ostensibly wants to be the preeminent world power, they sure can be dumb. Who would fall for that thing in the first place?
You seem to be mis-reading me, which I'm becoming convinced is such a common error on the Internet that it's no wonder everyone screams at each other all the time.
I, personally, DO think that Putin/Russia is involved in all sorts of things, NOT JUST meddling in our 2016 Presidential election. But it's kind of hard to be heard over an angry mob of 150,000,000 people who think that everything that doesn't fit neatly into their world-view is 'fake news', and who likely think that even Senate investigations into the matter are some sort of 'liberal conspiracy'.
Agreed. I think most drones should be illegal anyway. Even if 99% of drone owner/operators are using them in a reasonable, legal, non-privacy-invading, non-safety-hazard way, the 1% of assholes who use them in dangerous, illegal, and invasive ways are going to ruin it for everyone else who is playing by the rules, therefore they should make any drone larger than a childs toy illegal in the U.S. unless you're a professional drone pilot and are filing for permits for specific uses.
..and not, naturally, the asshole drone people will rip me a new one, as they stamp their feet, scream at their monitors, and destroy their keyboards by pounding on them in anger, for daring to say that they should be made accountable for their actions. TOUGH SHIT. Face it: You've ruined something cool for everyone else because you can't control yourselves and act like reasonable human beings. You could have kept your drones out the way of emergency vehicles and aircraft, but you didn't. You could have kept them out of people's faces, but you didn't. You could have got some help for your pedophilia, but you didn't. You could have resisted the urge to invade people's privacy, but you didn't. I'm not even going to talk about actual criminals using drones intentionally for criminal acts because that's a tiny minority compared to the random mentally ill jackass whose addled brain can't comprehend that what he's doing is wrong. Rage all you want, jackass drone abusers, I don't care. You're the ones who are wrong, and now you're ruining it for everyone else. I hope the rest of them find you and kick the shit out of you.
I'm not so sure that Donald Trump himself is directly a puppet, I think his strings are being pulled by person(s) in his administration, and that he's just the typical 'great white male' power-hungry jackass with delusions of grandeur that historically gets used. It might even be a cabal within the Republican party itself, conspiring with Russia to steal the election out from under Hillary Clinton -- not that Clinton would have been any better overall than Trump, it would have been just a different flavor of bad and evil. The ugly truth of the matter is, there wasn't a single candidate in the 2016 election that was really truly suitable to run this country (I almost said 'The Greatest Nation on Earth', but we haven't been that since World War 2) so it didn't really matter who got elected or how, 300,000,000 people here (and most of the rest of the free world) end up losing regardless. The only good thing that would have come out of Clinton being elected would have been that it wasn't due to foreign influence and/or hacking of our electoral process.
Even while we're picking up the pieces of the farce that was the 2016 election, and while we're investigating and uncovering the conspiracy and outside influences, and (with any luck, closing the holes that allowed it to happen), then repairing the damage the Trump 'administration' is causing to this country and it's reputation with the rest of the free world (if that's even possible in our lifetime at this point), there's a bigger concern: containing Vladimir Putin and his ambitions of empire. If it's not exceedingly clear to anyone at this point that Putin wants to build a new Russian empire, then you're either not paying attention, or you're in deep denial. The invasion of Crimea was just a proof-of-concept, to see if he would be allowed to get away with it ('achievement unlocked', apparently). The meddling and hacking of the 2016 U.S. election, and other elections in various countries, is helping lay the groundwork for further Russian military actions in the EU, by installing leadership in key NATO countries that will be more sympathetic to Putin and Russia (or just plain more easily manipulated). I'd imagine the next big-ticket item on his to-do list will be to dismantle NATO, or at least weaken it to the point where it's ineffective. Influencing/hacking the BrExit vote helps to destabilize the EU, which in turn will help destabilize NATO. France is another big piece of the puzzle, and it's unclear to me whether or not Macron would ultimately be a help or a hindrance to Russia; I'm leaning towards Macron being a hindrance. The ongoing war in Syria, and the continual stream of refugees from that country, is also a further destabilizing force in EU countries, especially Germany; does anyone actually think that Putin actually likes Assad? Assad is a butcher, plain and simple, waging a war of extermination against his own citizens; even Putin must have to hold his nose when dealing with Assad, and the Syrian conflict and Assad are just more tools for Putin to use. Daesh (so-called 'Islamic State'), for all we know, might even be getting some clandestine support from Putin, just because they've been so good at destabilizing the entire region; even I would lean away from this however because of how over-the-top, savagely, animalistically violent Daesh has been; they have NO friends anywhere. Even Al-Qaeda distanced themselves from them as 'too extreme'. More likely, Putin is using Daesh as an excuse to 'help' Syria, and is playing off the refugee crisis it's causing, as distraction for everything else going on (like the invasion of Crimea, for instance, and continual cyberattacks, which are masquerading as 'cyber crime').
Oh, and one more thing: don't blame most of the people who (actually) voted for Trump; in the parlance of the old Soviet Union, they're just 'useful idiots', whether they knew who and what they were voting for or not. The sad truth is that most U.S. voters really don't have (or can't have) a full enough grasp of the Big Picture to really kn
Your accusation is no more credible than anything anyone else has had to say, official or unofficial, and it's not like Vladamir Putin is such a saintly human being to start with that it's not plausible he and his forces are behind this and is being wrongly accused out of convenience. Of course if you have some verifiable intel on this and other recent events then please do present it here and CC it to the FBI, CIA, NSA, and the DoD, but otherwise don't expect us to take you and your random opinions any more seriously than anyone else.
Disclaimer: I am not an environmental scientist; I am just another random commentor on a pseudo-anonymous Internet news-aggregator site, like you are; not warranties implied or otherwise on anything I'm about to say.
That being out of the way.. RE: 'Hydroelectric storage of excess energy production': The only possible problem I see with using this technique to store excess produced energy, is environmental; we'd most likely be creating pairs of man-made lakes to make this work, and building new hydroelectric dams and pumping facilities. While those are mature technologies, and relatively benign, our energy needs never seem to decrease, they only ever seem to increase, so over time we'd be building more and more of the same to keep up. At that point we're changing the ecology of large tracts of land in an increasing number of locations, and I'd be a little concered we'd be throwing the ecology of those areas out of balance. Aside from that, I'd also be a little concerned about destroying the natural beauty of what would likely be some of the most spectacular places in California, too. While I think it's a viable technology, I think we need think carefully about what we're doing and what the alternatives are (of which there are several).
Then there's also the intentional response hole in Digital Audio Tape, and in MP3 compression. I don't know about AAC or AAC+, FLAC, Apple Lossless, or anything later.
There's one hit you can give pressed records, though: No DRM. Buy the record, play it once to record it in whatever format you want, then put it away until if and when you need to do it again.
If you want faceless corporate strangers to have access to your stuff that's your decision, I'll stick with keeping my own stuff. I think the chances of my house burning down is much less than corporate jerks poking around in my stuff. Plus you can get a 32GB USB flash drive for not much money and that should be enough to store everything you have that's important and you can keep it in a safe deposit box if you want. So tell me again how so-called 'cloud storage' really makes any sense at all to anyone except someone who wants to be lazy?
Pretty much. For some people hate seems to be eternal. They run out of one group to hate on, they'll find another one to take it's place. And so on. Eventually they get down to their 'own people' and start picking them apart, too. Taken to it's extreme you'd eventually get down to just one human left alive, hating in his mind on people long since dead. In this way it shows how much it's a disease.
Eeek. :-(
Man, there are days I'd actually pay $16 to crash out on a real bed at lunchtime instead of snoozing in the front seats of my vehicle in the parking lot. I may fold up rather well but it doesn't mean I wouldn't like to stretch out.