Israel is small enough that current EVs should be able to go border-to-border on a single charge. Given that range anxiety is one of the major reasons why people don't want EVs, it seems a small country can convert much more easily.
It's amazing that they have only 100 electric cars in the entire country, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg has more EVs that that.
All you're doing is shifting the CO2 emissions from the tailpipe to the smokestack.
Think about that "all" for a bit. Also the "CO2" in front of "emissions".
You get to shift 100% of tailpipe emissions of all types, not just CO2, out of city centres and suburbs to large scale powerplants that can run at maximum efficiency with much more effective scrubbers. That's a set of major gains right there.
... and then you can swap out that set of large scale fossil fuel burning power plant for something with a much lower carbon footprint and enjoy an even large set of major gains.
They are already the IE 6 of this decade. Notice on Android phones when you switch apps from YOUTUBE you see the video playing in the background?
Well that is HTML 5.... err Google HTML 5 called Picture in Picture canvas. It is a proprietary Google CSS that web developers judge other browsers by. This is just one example well Google decides which standards are used and it makes Firefox and Edge look incompetent in comparison just like the PHB's viewed Firefox as incompetent because sites always worked in IE 6 so it must be the best browser.
Embrace, extend, and extinguish... Google is learning.
No one man defined the moral compass for the planet.If it is your room you are free to shit in the middle of it
That is freedom. Your freedoms end where others begins.
Problem being other people want their freedoms to invade your space
No you are not free to shit in your room. I used to live in a house where there was a hoarder who actually did shit on the floor in the middle of his apartment, at least judging by the smell. That and the files and the maggots crawling out from under his door and out the windows, up the walls of the house and into our apartments. It took quite a bit of doing but eventually we managed to make an intervention happen with the help of county social worker some bailiffs and the cooperation of his family. They had to bring in a professional cleaning crew that specialised in crime scene cleanups to make the place habitable again. Your freedoms are strictly limited by the amount of assholery people are willing to put up with from you. The problem with most people who harp on about limitless freedom is that they tend to think themselves entitled to more assholery, selfishness and greed than those around them think is fair and appropriate.
Literally everything you used to post that stupid, butthurt message involved the use of petroleum products.
If you don't want to be a hypocrite, you will need to go live in a cave. Just remember not to burn wood for heat...CO2 and all that ya know.
Burning wood is a carbon neutral activity as long as you plant new trees to replace the ones you burn because that is a closed cycle. Pumping up billions of tons of sequestered carbon and releasing them into the atmosphere is not a closed cycle and if you are de-sequestering carbon at a scale that is on par with the carbon release that caused the great permian extinction you have a really serious problem. As for: "Literally everything you used to post that stupid, butthurt message involved the use of petroleum products." there is only one answer to that which is: "Well DUUUUUUHHHH!". Claiming that somebody is not allowed to comment on the folly of excessive carbon fuel use because they use them for lack of an alternative is like saying that you aren't entitled to criticise the navigational skills of your captain because you happen to be a passenger on a ship that is heading straight for an iceberg. Fortunately it is beginning to look as if the problem of petroleum product use will largely solve it self by the simple mechanism of petroleum products becoming an obsolete technology that is being economically outcompeted by renewable alternatives. One is only left to hope it is not too late. Now please go back to sorting your collection of MAGA hats and let the grownups work on sovling this problem in peace.
The United States government is accelerating efforts to monitor social media to preempt major anti-government protests in the US
So basically they want to conduct mass surveillance, predict where protests are being planned and crack down on them with maximum force so his Orange Imperial Majesty's delicate little snowflake heart won't melt form the heat of all that unwanted criticism? I seem to remember having read the following in a document considered so important it is kept in a climate controlled armoured glass box flanked by armed guards:
"The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext, infringed. The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable. The people shall not be restrained from peaceably assembling and consulting for their common good; nor from applying to the Legislature by petitions, or remonstrances, for redress of their grievances."
Pay particular attention for that last part, "remonstrances" means "forceful reproachful protest" the US constitution literally guarantees the citizen's rights to protest and not be particularly polite about it. The constitution guarantees that the US citizenry's can voice its grievances without having to give a damn about the delicate sentiments of thin skinned and whiny little bitch politicians .
Because we need someone to build something now, not invest money in someones dream that may or may not bear fruit in possibly niche areas maybe 20 years hence.
We have the technology required now. The government says it has money. It is still a question of why no-one will do the work.
There are at least two LEO constellations in the works as we speak, probably more. This is not future music it has potential to upend the telco market and the US telco market is in severe need of being upended..
Those balloon constellations will require FAA approval in the USA regardless of where they are located or what they are for.
Why?
They are a potential hazard to aviation due to their elevation in the sky and their mooring cable(s).
The FAA has the power to regulate antennas that may intrude upon controlled airspace, especially if they can be considered a hazard to aviation. So those balloons had better be painted orange & white, just like any other antenna, or else.
[true story follows, I was there at the time]
I know the FAA had to review the permit for a microwave reflector that was part of a County government telecommunications network. That reflector was placed flush against the 5th or 6th story of a building (flat roofline level) used for State business; the building was that high and located on a hill about 30 feet above a major interstate.
The FAA said the building had to be painted orange & white, just like any other antenna, because it was being used as a mast for an antenna. I know, it sounds crazy, but the story is true.
This particular County happened to be where the state capital was located, so the County government people had "friends in high places" at the State, and the State people had no problems with the County people placing a reflector on the side of their building at the flat roofline level.
The County people reminded the FAA people that the building in question was a State building. The FAA people were not moved to change their mind by that comment.
The County people told the FAA that the building in question was the State's Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) headquarters. That got the attention of the FAA people.
The County people suggested to the FAA people that the FAA ought to rethink it's "paint the building" requirement. The FAA people reconsidered their suggestion and then withdrew their "paint the building" requirement.
Nobody messes around with the DMV in any State in the USA and gets away with it.
They are not balloons they are satellites, LEO == Low Earth Orbit. The last time I looked the FCC had already approved two of these satellite constellations one from Space X and the other one operated by OneWeb.
Because we need someone to build something now, not invest money in someones dream that may or may not bear fruit in possibly niche areas maybe 20 years hence.
We have the technology required now. The government says it has money. It is still a question of why no-one will do the work.
There are at least two LEO constellations in the works as we speak, probably more. This is not future music it has potential to upend the telco market and the US telco market is in severe need of being upended..
If you are going to pass out subsidies to anyone, why not the various LEO satellite internet projects going on? Starlink's network is estimated to cost $10 billion to build out fully, and would be able to cover every rural area.
Precisely, let towns, cities, counties in rural areas set up the fibre using local contractors, subsidise that along with whatever satellite up-link equipment s necessary and once there are several LEO satellite providers you have basically killed off the regional monopolies. The best way to improve services is always to break up or destroy monopolies.
Then maybe, just maybe, hand the money to somebody else? Like... I dunno, local startup companies and then pass some tough laws that kept the big boys from gouging and stepping on the little guys? Then maybe break down the existing regional Telco monopolies into smaller units. That's what they did in 'socialist' Europe.
Small guys getting bigger isn't on the US agenda.
I'm getting a kick out of this article because I live in a second-world country and I pay 30 Eurobucks/month for an individual fiber all the way to my PC, 600Mbit up/down speed (symmetrical).
(It actually delivers, too. I've never done a speedtest and got less than the full rate, usually I get a little bit more).
Yes, and there in lies the problem. Small guys getting a foot in the door is what the US is supposed to be about. Instead what the US has come to be about is the big monopolists who own congress stepping on everybody who even remotely looks like they might some day become a threat to their monopoly.
Many, starting with rural kids having a powerful tool to educate themselves. When you are, for example, trying to understand how a sorting algorithm works one you tube video showing the algorithm at work can save you hours of pouring over books and mathematical formulas. In this regard there are nothing but benefits, even for adults (...and yes, there is also porn since somebody is bound to point that out). It promotes tourism and industry in remote areas to have a proper internet connection since it makes device addicted wealthy urbainites more likely to go there, it enables farmers to process their produce into food products they can sell directly to the consumer,... the list goes on. Internet connecting rural populations has all kinds of positive effects on rural areas.
Nobody's debating that.
The problem is that the telcos were already handed hundreds of billions of $$$ to build a rural network.
They didn't deliver last time around, what's changed?
Then maybe, just maybe, hand the money to somebody else? Like... I dunno, local startup companies and then pass some tough laws that kept the big boys from gouging and stepping on the little guys? Then maybe break down the existing regional Telco monopolies into smaller units. That's what they did in 'socialist' Europe.
and if they really need it, why are they not paying full cost?
Because bringing internet to rural locations is not massively profitable and disproportionately expensive which often leads to for-profit private enterprise passing them over and giving them piss poor service. This does not, however, mean that these communities would not benefit from better internet connectivity and that they would not increase their contribution to society at large if society bit the bullet and built them an internet access even if it is a bit more expensive. This basically boil down to what people in 'flyover country' are complaining about: 'nobody gives a shit about us'... and they have a point.
why should rest of people subsidize them?
Why should we subsidise Oil companies? Coal companies? Arms companies? The Nuclear industry? Given the choice I'd rather subsidise farmers getting internet.
if there are benefits to the society at large from such subsidization, what are they?
Many, starting with rural kids having a powerful tool to educate themselves. When you are, for example, trying to understand how a sorting algorithm works one you tube video showing the algorithm at work can save you hours of pouring over books and mathematical formulas. In this regard there are nothing but benefits, even for adults (...and yes, there is also porn since somebody is bound to point that out). It promotes tourism and industry in remote areas to have a proper internet connection since it makes device addicted wealthy urbainites more likely to go there, it enables farmers to process their produce into food products they can sell directly to the consumer,... the list goes on. Internet connecting rural populations has all kinds of positive effects on rural areas.
has such benefits manifested themselves in areas, like urban areas, where they already have this? are there costs and bad results from this? are they perhaps larger than benefits?
Yes, many examples from Europe and the US, a popular one to point out is, once again, tourism. In Scandinavia, Germany for example this has led to farmers and people in small villages begin able to rent out their empty rooms, apartments and houses to tourists on booking.com, airbnb.com, etc... which lowered accommodation prices which in turn led to something of an explosion in tourism and jobs growth in places nobody used to visit. In some places this has led to depopulation being halted or even reversed.
or are the real beneficiaries not rural folk but tech corps? why should society at large subsidize them?
does anyone expect out of touch, corp beholden, corrupt elitist bureaucrats to raise, weigh, and answer, these kinds of questions honestly?
Again, why should society pay for interstate highways when there are millions of people who hardly ever use interstate highways? Why should society pay for harbours when most people hardly ever travel by sea? Why should society pay for rail networks when millions of people never travel by rail? Why should society pay for airports when millions of Americans have never taken a commercial flight in their life? The answer is that your questions simplifies the issue far too much, you can't just reduce this to a subsidy and then rage against it. Even if you don't do any of the above things you still benefit indirectly from funding interstate highways, harbours, a rail network and airports. Then there is also that nice warm glow you get when you do like the Christians and their commandments would have you do, i.e. give a damn about somebody other than yourself, like the people in flyover country
It says he uses the phones to talk to old friends, people he was in regular contact with long before he became president. So long as he's not discussing classified information (and he cant be, or there would be a much bigger fuss being made) then whats the problem?
Even if using a government supplied landline, if hes calling regular phones then it can't be encrypted end to end, it has to traverse the public telephone network at some point where it could be subject to interception.
Well, let's see... he might be discussing crooked business deals, tax cheating, election manipulations, hiring prostitutes for golden shower parties or other things that are not classified information but that would render him vulnerable to blackmail?
Android is permission-based, and the ecosystem converged to apps requiring tons of permissions (even non-Google apps) and users gladly accepting those permissions. Android wasn't originally a data-gathering platform for Google, we collectively decided that it would be.
No, Android was originally developed by another company, it became a data gathering platform the second Google bought it. I don't think that there ever was a moment when Google intended Android to be anything other than the most effective surveillance device in human history. I sometimes wonder what George Orwell would make of Google, Android and the rest of it.
yeah, it's not like iOS apps have ads or anything. wait a minute...
*minute passes*
Yes but not from Apple, and Apple gets no data from the ads. So your point was...
*waiting another minute*
So instead of the same company you've agreed to share data with (the one who runs the app store you're downloading apps from) you get a bunch of random ad companies in your apps instead, all with varying privacy policies. great, that's so much better.
Nobody is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to use free apps that have ads in them. How do you think free apps pay for their development cost? With all the good will and happy thoughts you send them for making a free app just for you?
TFA is based on the assumption that any consumer grade cell phone can be monitored at will by the Chinese and Russians.
So the NSA and FBI can't crack your calls, but the Chinese can. Sure. Whatever.
Also, even if everyone in the White House is too dumb to use auto-sync, how hard would it be to have an intern type Donald's contact list into a secure phone?
If we can pick up transmissions from probes in the outer reaches of the solar system we can presumably build satellites that hover over any place on earth we want them to and listen in on cellphone networks. If you can then crack any encryption that cellphone network might use, all you then need to do is to use network metadata find calls to and from from phones you are interested in. Throw in a a voice recognition system and you can actually search for specific individuals using burner phones you don't know about and then target those phones for signal intercepts. If the US security services are worried about Trump's phones being insecure it is because considerably greater more stable geniuses than Donald J. Trump will ever be have reached the conclusion that there is every reason to worry about his calls being intercepted.
Sure... but ordinarily I'd expect that the consequence would be dismissal, if they found out, not actually getting *sued* over it.
Unless she had received any salary or payments in advance, in which case I could see it.
Otherwise, however... Samsung shouldn't really be able to do more than fire her ass for not promoting the company as expected.
Why would you assume that? They hired and promoted her as a brand ambassador -- their damages exceed just the loss of publicity from her not using the phone in public, but also the negative press from people seeing that even someone that Samsung paid to use their phone chooses to use an iPhone.
Right and Samsung is making all that damage go away by suing her, thus drawing even more attention to what happened.... oh, never mind.
I'm much happier to watch 30 episodes of "Narcos" than two hours of "Hot Tub Time Machine 2."
Indeed. The original content is the only thing that makes Netflix worthwhile. Everything else I can watch for free on Amazon Prime.
Apart from a few of their original content shows that either get cancelled half way through for some mysterious reason or are onlyupdated at a glacial pace, Amazon Prime is a huge pile of garbage. This streaming industry fragmentation is not helping anybody, I'm not signing up for, and paying a subscription to: WarnerMedia, Disney/Fox, Apple, Google, Hulu, HBO, YouTube, half a dozen local TV channels, etc. The more this market fragments into tons of separate players who all expect you to shell out a $20, 30, 50 subscription fee for access to their streaming gateway that gets you one new original content show and a handful of movies every couple of months the more likely I am to sign up to the one that has the most interesting stuff (in my case scifi) and pirate the rest of these bozos. Mind you, I might actually subscribe to YouTube if It meant finally getting rid of the damn commercials which should concern the other streaming services if users feel they actually get more value out of watching other users unbox stuff, making their cats do tricks or show you how to paint strip antique furniture than they do signing up to the Disney/Fox streaming gateway and watching their over hyped MPAA censored movies and shows.
Are there any health implications of micro plastics in salt? That was suspiciously left out of the article for some reason.
From what I have read the smaller the plastic particles the more likely they are to get into cells and cause damage there. People tend to use 'microplastics' interchangeably with 'nanoplastics' but while neither is particularly healthy the nanoplastic particles are worse by virtue of being smaller. Microplastics are sized between ~0.05-5mm while nanoplastics are 1,000 times smaller than algae cells. For comparison the diameter of a human skin cell is about 0.03 mm.
Slashdot Mirror
Astronomers have discovered a dwarf galaxy
How do we know it's populated by dwarves?
Dwarves? Don't be silly man! ... with it being so 'strangely dim' and 'luking', this is clearly the home galaxy of THE SITH!!!
I wanted to see someone from outside the system take the reins for a while and shake things up.
How's that going? Is the swamp drained yet?
Yup, he drained it straight into his administration. One of Trump's greatest achievements.
Israel is small enough that current EVs should be able to go border-to-border on a single charge. Given that range anxiety is one of the major reasons why people don't want EVs, it seems a small country can convert much more easily.
It's amazing that they have only 100 electric cars in the entire country, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg has more EVs that that.
All you're doing is shifting the CO2 emissions from the tailpipe to the smokestack.
Think about that "all" for a bit. Also the "CO2" in front of "emissions". You get to shift 100% of tailpipe emissions of all types, not just CO2, out of city centres and suburbs to large scale powerplants that can run at maximum efficiency with much more effective scrubbers. That's a set of major gains right there.
... and then you can swap out that set of large scale fossil fuel burning power plant for something with a much lower carbon footprint and enjoy an even large set of major gains.
They are already the IE 6 of this decade. Notice on Android phones when you switch apps from YOUTUBE you see the video playing in the background?
Well that is HTML 5.... err Google HTML 5 called Picture in Picture canvas. It is a proprietary Google CSS that web developers judge other browsers by. This is just one example well Google decides which standards are used and it makes Firefox and Edge look incompetent in comparison just like the PHB's viewed Firefox as incompetent because sites always worked in IE 6 so it must be the best browser.
Embrace, extend, and extinguish ... Google is learning.
Can a Facebook user query to see what categories Facebook assigns to them? How about to their friends?
In this case? I'm guessing: Creepy, Paranoid, Incel and Loser?
Send it in to be fixed, that will be $300, thanks.
[citation needed]
Simply horse kaka
No one man defined the moral compass for the planet.If it is your room you are free to shit in the middle of it
That is freedom. Your freedoms end where others begins.
Problem being other people want their freedoms to invade your space
No you are not free to shit in your room. I used to live in a house where there was a hoarder who actually did shit on the floor in the middle of his apartment, at least judging by the smell. That and the files and the maggots crawling out from under his door and out the windows, up the walls of the house and into our apartments. It took quite a bit of doing but eventually we managed to make an intervention happen with the help of county social worker some bailiffs and the cooperation of his family. They had to bring in a professional cleaning crew that specialised in crime scene cleanups to make the place habitable again. Your freedoms are strictly limited by the amount of assholery people are willing to put up with from you. The problem with most people who harp on about limitless freedom is that they tend to think themselves entitled to more assholery, selfishness and greed than those around them think is fair and appropriate.
Literally everything you used to post that stupid, butthurt message involved the use of petroleum products.
If you don't want to be a hypocrite, you will need to go live in a cave. Just remember not to burn wood for heat...CO2 and all that ya know.
Burning wood is a carbon neutral activity as long as you plant new trees to replace the ones you burn because that is a closed cycle. Pumping up billions of tons of sequestered carbon and releasing them into the atmosphere is not a closed cycle and if you are de-sequestering carbon at a scale that is on par with the carbon release that caused the great permian extinction you have a really serious problem. As for: "Literally everything you used to post that stupid, butthurt message involved the use of petroleum products." there is only one answer to that which is: "Well DUUUUUUHHHH!". Claiming that somebody is not allowed to comment on the folly of excessive carbon fuel use because they use them for lack of an alternative is like saying that you aren't entitled to criticise the navigational skills of your captain because you happen to be a passenger on a ship that is heading straight for an iceberg. Fortunately it is beginning to look as if the problem of petroleum product use will largely solve it self by the simple mechanism of petroleum products becoming an obsolete technology that is being economically outcompeted by renewable alternatives. One is only left to hope it is not too late. Now please go back to sorting your collection of MAGA hats and let the grownups work on sovling this problem in peace.
The United States government is accelerating efforts to monitor social media to preempt major anti-government protests in the US
So basically they want to conduct mass surveillance, predict where protests are being planned and crack down on them with maximum force so his Orange Imperial Majesty's delicate little snowflake heart won't melt form the heat of all that unwanted criticism? I seem to remember having read the following in a document considered so important it is kept in a climate controlled armoured glass box flanked by armed guards:
"The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext, infringed. The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable. The people shall not be restrained from peaceably assembling and consulting for their common good; nor from applying to the Legislature by petitions, or remonstrances, for redress of their grievances."
Pay particular attention for that last part, "remonstrances" means "forceful reproachful protest" the US constitution literally guarantees the citizen's rights to protest and not be particularly polite about it. The constitution guarantees that the US citizenry's can voice its grievances without having to give a damn about the delicate sentiments of thin skinned and whiny little bitch politicians .
What kind of a luddite still has a cable TV box?
Because we need someone to build something now, not invest money in someones dream that may or may not bear fruit in possibly niche areas maybe 20 years hence. We have the technology required now. The government says it has money. It is still a question of why no-one will do the work.
There are at least two LEO constellations in the works as we speak, probably more. This is not future music it has potential to upend the telco market and the US telco market is in severe need of being upended..
Those balloon constellations will require FAA approval in the USA regardless of where they are located or what they are for.
Why?
They are a potential hazard to aviation due to their elevation in the sky and their mooring cable(s).
The FAA has the power to regulate antennas that may intrude upon controlled airspace, especially if they can be considered a hazard to aviation. So those balloons had better be painted orange & white, just like any other antenna, or else.
[true story follows, I was there at the time] I know the FAA had to review the permit for a microwave reflector that was part of a County government telecommunications network. That reflector was placed flush against the 5th or 6th story of a building (flat roofline level) used for State business; the building was that high and located on a hill about 30 feet above a major interstate.
The FAA said the building had to be painted orange & white, just like any other antenna, because it was being used as a mast for an antenna. I know, it sounds crazy, but the story is true.
This particular County happened to be where the state capital was located, so the County government people had "friends in high places" at the State, and the State people had no problems with the County people placing a reflector on the side of their building at the flat roofline level.
The County people reminded the FAA people that the building in question was a State building. The FAA people were not moved to change their mind by that comment.
The County people told the FAA that the building in question was the State's Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) headquarters. That got the attention of the FAA people.
The County people suggested to the FAA people that the FAA ought to rethink it's "paint the building" requirement. The FAA people reconsidered their suggestion and then withdrew their "paint the building" requirement.
Nobody messes around with the DMV in any State in the USA and gets away with it.
They are not balloons they are satellites, LEO == Low Earth Orbit. The last time I looked the FCC had already approved two of these satellite constellations one from Space X and the other one operated by OneWeb.
Because we need someone to build something now, not invest money in someones dream that may or may not bear fruit in possibly niche areas maybe 20 years hence. We have the technology required now. The government says it has money. It is still a question of why no-one will do the work.
There are at least two LEO constellations in the works as we speak, probably more. This is not future music it has potential to upend the telco market and the US telco market is in severe need of being upended..
If you are going to pass out subsidies to anyone, why not the various LEO satellite internet projects going on? Starlink's network is estimated to cost $10 billion to build out fully, and would be able to cover every rural area.
Precisely, let towns, cities, counties in rural areas set up the fibre using local contractors, subsidise that along with whatever satellite up-link equipment s necessary and once there are several LEO satellite providers you have basically killed off the regional monopolies. The best way to improve services is always to break up or destroy monopolies.
Then maybe, just maybe, hand the money to somebody else? Like ... I dunno, local startup companies and then pass some tough laws that kept the big boys from gouging and stepping on the little guys? Then maybe break down the existing regional Telco monopolies into smaller units. That's what they did in 'socialist' Europe.
Small guys getting bigger isn't on the US agenda.
I'm getting a kick out of this article because I live in a second-world country and I pay 30 Eurobucks/month for an individual fiber all the way to my PC, 600Mbit up/down speed (symmetrical).
(It actually delivers, too. I've never done a speedtest and got less than the full rate, usually I get a little bit more).
Yes, and there in lies the problem. Small guys getting a foot in the door is what the US is supposed to be about. Instead what the US has come to be about is the big monopolists who own congress stepping on everybody who even remotely looks like they might some day become a threat to their monopoly.
Many, starting with rural kids having a powerful tool to educate themselves. When you are, for example, trying to understand how a sorting algorithm works one you tube video showing the algorithm at work can save you hours of pouring over books and mathematical formulas. In this regard there are nothing but benefits, even for adults (...and yes, there is also porn since somebody is bound to point that out). It promotes tourism and industry in remote areas to have a proper internet connection since it makes device addicted wealthy urbainites more likely to go there, it enables farmers to process their produce into food products they can sell directly to the consumer, ... the list goes on. Internet connecting rural populations has all kinds of positive effects on rural areas.
Nobody's debating that.
The problem is that the telcos were already handed hundreds of billions of $$$ to build a rural network.
They didn't deliver last time around, what's changed?
Then maybe, just maybe, hand the money to somebody else? Like ... I dunno, local startup companies and then pass some tough laws that kept the big boys from gouging and stepping on the little guys? Then maybe break down the existing regional Telco monopolies into smaller units. That's what they did in 'socialist' Europe.
who needs it?
Rural people.
and why?
They'd like to be internet connected.
and if they really need it, why are they not paying full cost?
Because bringing internet to rural locations is not massively profitable and disproportionately expensive which often leads to for-profit private enterprise passing them over and giving them piss poor service. This does not, however, mean that these communities would not benefit from better internet connectivity and that they would not increase their contribution to society at large if society bit the bullet and built them an internet access even if it is a bit more expensive. This basically boil down to what people in 'flyover country' are complaining about: 'nobody gives a shit about us' ... and they have a point.
why should rest of people subsidize them?
Why should we subsidise Oil companies? Coal companies? Arms companies? The Nuclear industry? Given the choice I'd rather subsidise farmers getting internet.
if there are benefits to the society at large from such subsidization, what are they?
Many, starting with rural kids having a powerful tool to educate themselves. When you are, for example, trying to understand how a sorting algorithm works one you tube video showing the algorithm at work can save you hours of pouring over books and mathematical formulas. In this regard there are nothing but benefits, even for adults (...and yes, there is also porn since somebody is bound to point that out). It promotes tourism and industry in remote areas to have a proper internet connection since it makes device addicted wealthy urbainites more likely to go there, it enables farmers to process their produce into food products they can sell directly to the consumer, ... the list goes on. Internet connecting rural populations has all kinds of positive effects on rural areas.
has such benefits manifested themselves in areas, like urban areas, where they already have this? are there costs and bad results from this? are they perhaps larger than benefits?
Yes, many examples from Europe and the US, a popular one to point out is, once again, tourism. In Scandinavia, Germany for example this has led to farmers and people in small villages begin able to rent out their empty rooms, apartments and houses to tourists on booking.com, airbnb.com, etc... which lowered accommodation prices which in turn led to something of an explosion in tourism and jobs growth in places nobody used to visit. In some places this has led to depopulation being halted or even reversed.
or are the real beneficiaries not rural folk but tech corps? why should society at large subsidize them?
does anyone expect out of touch, corp beholden, corrupt elitist bureaucrats to raise, weigh, and answer, these kinds of questions honestly?
Again, why should society pay for interstate highways when there are millions of people who hardly ever use interstate highways? Why should society pay for harbours when most people hardly ever travel by sea? Why should society pay for rail networks when millions of people never travel by rail? Why should society pay for airports when millions of Americans have never taken a commercial flight in their life? The answer is that your questions simplifies the issue far too much, you can't just reduce this to a subsidy and then rage against it. Even if you don't do any of the above things you still benefit indirectly from funding interstate highways, harbours, a rail network and airports. Then there is also that nice warm glow you get when you do like the Christians and their commandments would have you do, i.e. give a damn about somebody other than yourself, like the people in flyover country
It says he uses the phones to talk to old friends, people he was in regular contact with long before he became president. So long as he's not discussing classified information (and he cant be, or there would be a much bigger fuss being made) then whats the problem?
Even if using a government supplied landline, if hes calling regular phones then it can't be encrypted end to end, it has to traverse the public telephone network at some point where it could be subject to interception.
Well, let's see ... he might be discussing crooked business deals, tax cheating, election manipulations, hiring prostitutes for golden shower parties or other things that are not classified information but that would render him vulnerable to blackmail?
Android is permission-based, and the ecosystem converged to apps requiring tons of permissions (even non-Google apps) and users gladly accepting those permissions. Android wasn't originally a data-gathering platform for Google, we collectively decided that it would be.
No, Android was originally developed by another company, it became a data gathering platform the second Google bought it. I don't think that there ever was a moment when Google intended Android to be anything other than the most effective surveillance device in human history. I sometimes wonder what George Orwell would make of Google, Android and the rest of it.
yeah, it's not like iOS apps have ads or anything. wait a minute...
*minute passes*
Yes but not from Apple, and Apple gets no data from the ads. So your point was...
*waiting another minute*
So instead of the same company you've agreed to share data with (the one who runs the app store you're downloading apps from) you get a bunch of random ad companies in your apps instead, all with varying privacy policies. great, that's so much better.
Nobody is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to use free apps that have ads in them. How do you think free apps pay for their development cost? With all the good will and happy thoughts you send them for making a free app just for you?
TFA is based on the assumption that any consumer grade cell phone can be monitored at will by the Chinese and Russians.
So the NSA and FBI can't crack your calls, but the Chinese can. Sure. Whatever.
Also, even if everyone in the White House is too dumb to use auto-sync, how hard would it be to have an intern type Donald's contact list into a secure phone?
If we can pick up transmissions from probes in the outer reaches of the solar system we can presumably build satellites that hover over any place on earth we want them to and listen in on cellphone networks. If you can then crack any encryption that cellphone network might use, all you then need to do is to use network metadata find calls to and from from phones you are interested in. Throw in a a voice recognition system and you can actually search for specific individuals using burner phones you don't know about and then target those phones for signal intercepts. If the US security services are worried about Trump's phones being insecure it is because considerably greater more stable geniuses than Donald J. Trump will ever be have reached the conclusion that there is every reason to worry about his calls being intercepted.
Sure... but ordinarily I'd expect that the consequence would be dismissal, if they found out, not actually getting *sued* over it.
Unless she had received any salary or payments in advance, in which case I could see it.
Otherwise, however... Samsung shouldn't really be able to do more than fire her ass for not promoting the company as expected.
Why would you assume that? They hired and promoted her as a brand ambassador -- their damages exceed just the loss of publicity from her not using the phone in public, but also the negative press from people seeing that even someone that Samsung paid to use their phone chooses to use an iPhone.
Right and Samsung is making all that damage go away by suing her, thus drawing even more attention to what happened .... oh, never mind.
I'm much happier to watch 30 episodes of "Narcos" than two hours of "Hot Tub Time Machine 2."
Indeed. The original content is the only thing that makes Netflix worthwhile. Everything else I can watch for free on Amazon Prime.
Apart from a few of their original content shows that either get cancelled half way through for some mysterious reason or are onlyupdated at a glacial pace, Amazon Prime is a huge pile of garbage. This streaming industry fragmentation is not helping anybody, I'm not signing up for, and paying a subscription to: WarnerMedia, Disney/Fox, Apple, Google, Hulu, HBO, YouTube, half a dozen local TV channels, etc. The more this market fragments into tons of separate players who all expect you to shell out a $20, 30, 50 subscription fee for access to their streaming gateway that gets you one new original content show and a handful of movies every couple of months the more likely I am to sign up to the one that has the most interesting stuff (in my case scifi) and pirate the rest of these bozos. Mind you, I might actually subscribe to YouTube if It meant finally getting rid of the damn commercials which should concern the other streaming services if users feel they actually get more value out of watching other users unbox stuff, making their cats do tricks or show you how to paint strip antique furniture than they do signing up to the Disney/Fox streaming gateway and watching their over hyped MPAA censored movies and shows.
Are there any health implications of micro plastics in salt? That was suspiciously left out of the article for some reason.
From what I have read the smaller the plastic particles the more likely they are to get into cells and cause damage there. People tend to use 'microplastics' interchangeably with 'nanoplastics' but while neither is particularly healthy the nanoplastic particles are worse by virtue of being smaller. Microplastics are sized between ~0.05-5mm while nanoplastics are 1,000 times smaller than algae cells. For comparison the diameter of a human skin cell is about 0.03 mm.
I'll take the research... ...with a grain of salt!
And knowing what I do about plastic pollution I'll take your skepticism with a grain of plastic.