The Metroliner (now Northeast Regional) does 125 mph (and has since 1981) and the Acela does 150. The locomotives that were used for Metroliner service are now on other lines, so at least they're capable of 125mph speeds, if the track they're on is upgraded, wherever they ended up.
Amtrak trains are sidelined for any passing freight trains
Northeast Regional and Acela run on Amtrak-owned track from Boston to DC. Dunno about other lines.
Carbureted Harleys from the 90s have been running for years on E20.
A carburetor motorcycle is not a valid comparison to a fuel injected car. The Harley does not have a fuel pump. Doesn't have pressurized fuel lines.
Doesn't have banjo fittings that each contain 2 o-rings Doesn't have numerous seals inside the injectors. Doesn't have fuel injectors with o-ring seals on the fuel rail. Doesn't have a fuel pressure regulator. Doesn't have closed-loop emissions - in fact, it doesn't have any sort of emissions control.
The amount of corruption involved is staggering, and the blind push to build the line and breakneck speed has already led to deaths like the above; substandard materials, design, construction, and components (like the signal systems that failed above.)
I'll be astounded if there isn't another major crash within 6 months.
Nobody is starving because we make corn into fuel.
Pretty much anyone who doesn't live in the US and uses corn for a large part of their diet, saw their food costs skyrocket.
It became more profitable in the US to sell corn for ethanol, but there was still demand for corn for food, so import demand for corn rose, and world corn prices skyrocketed such that even people in Mexico who grow corn can't afford to eat what they're making (opportunity cost.) Same problem with south american countries since quinoa became popular in the US/Europe; people's diets changed to less-nutritious foods.
Certainly not everyone in Mexico is starving - but cost of living increases always affect the poorest people the most, because "cost of living" is a much larger portion of their budget, and is not elastic.
Yes, it destroys topsoil. But it's also food being used as fuel, and it's a net-negative-energy fuel that takes more energy to create than it yields. That is simply idiotic.
People are not starving because nobody cares. People are starving because politicians are protecting local producers and making it impossible for developing countries to sell cash crops.
Brazil has been using E20 and E25 for decades. All it requires is some small tweaks.
If by "small tweaks" you mean replacing every single component in the entire fuel system that has rubber (which means all the seals, any lines that aren't completely metal, all the fuel injectors, the fuel pump, which is often inside the fuel tank and very difficult to reach, and the fuel pressure regulator), adjusting the engine computer's timing maps (not really possible except in vehicles made after 2000 or so, which tend to have electronically-reflashable computers) *and* better-sealing the fuel system (ethanol is very hygroscopic.)...then yes, "small tweaks." You're probably looking at upwards of $1,000 in labor alone, and at least half that again in parts (fuel pump, injectors, fuel pressure regulator, and replacement lines, mostly. Seals are comparatively cheap.)
He's a poor spokesperson - unkempt and lacking in almost all social graces.
He lacks the technical skills to provide technical advice or guidance (his objections to C++ are not because it's "ugly", but because he doesn't know how to program in C++.)
He's a poor leader for an organization - incapable of seeing anything but his way.
We are about ten years overdue for someone to lead the FSF. All the successes in open source and free software have been despite RMS, not because of him.
I run smartctl and capture the registers, then run badblocks, and compare smartctl's output to the pre-bad-blocks check.
If there are any remapped blocks, the drive goes back, as the factory should have remapped the initial defects already, and that means new failed blocks in the first few hours of operation.
You're not fat because of ANYTHING except long term consumption of more calories than you burn.
Burn more calories than you consume, and you'll lose weight. One of the ways to do this is via exercise, which raises your base metabolism. The other way is via portion control, good breakfasts, and consuming low glycemic index foods.
If you are considering purchasing a 3D printer you could do well to pick a company that won't use your money to suppress competition through enforcement of bullshit patents on abstract ideas like photolithography.
You'd also do well to purchase a 3D printer from someone who has secured real financing, is producing a real product, and via a marketplace where you'll actually have rights and protection as a customer, not one where you're restricted and your rights are muddled by a third party.
Kickstarter is essentially profiteering off fraud, just like eBay and Craigslist - willfully, too, since they're hiding failed projects.
Even if it is by patent troll, I won't shed a single tear if Kickstarter dies tomorrow.
Ask anyone into cars about "group buys" and they'll probably groan and tell you at least one horror story.
Kickstarter projects fail to deliver because there's no auditing, no consumer protection, nothing. If the whole thing folds, you're FUCKED.
Don't spend anything on kickstarter that you're not completely ok with never seeing again - and view any project, even the basic idea, with extreme skepticism.
Our free market system by and large works. If you've got an amazing idea, it should be easy to attract some sort of money or you'll be driven to figure out a way to make it happen - and if you've dotted your i's and crossed your t's, you'll end up with some sort of loan or investment.
Kickstarter subverts that, and lets any asshole with a half-baked idea throw it up on the wall for the cost of an hour or two with iMovie and their iPhone.
Aside from the fact that Europeans have for centuries sized their goods smaller because their roads are smaller, yes, there are common sense exceptions. London does it by simply raising the economic cost of driving into the city center, encouraging more efficiency.
A lot of last-mile delivery is done with trikes in Paris. The biggest company in Paris has a trike they designed which can carry 600-700lb of cargo.
Even in my city in the US, one of the biggest local movers just started offering move-by-bike services. They use trailers that can haul hundreds of pounds - couches, appliances, you name it. They don't pay for parking permits, fuel, maintenance, insurance, etc on the truck - and the trailers are low to the ground and can be wheeled closer to the building.
...because the Japanese force, through fees/fines/whatnot, old cars off the road. It's done mostly to bolster the economy.
The used cars are shipped off throughout Asia. They're just exiting their warranty period, which is about how long the emissions system components are designed to last.
Modern cars run so completely clean compared to their ancestors that, if anything, deaths from car exhaust are probably at their historical low.
And you've been modded insightful for simply declaring a study wrong on personal incredulity.
However, I'll tackle your claim: yes, the very expensive, CA-emissions-compliant car in your driveway is a very clean car. However, it is not representative of what you will find in the major, growing cities of the world, and before you say "but the major cities of the world are like California", you'd best check your ethnocentrism at the door; a lot of developing countries, you'll find vehicles that are outside their warranty period and definitely not as emissions-compliant. Japan, for example, makes it incredibly difficult to hang on to an older car, mostly to drive their economy. The older cars get shipped off to the other asian countries, where they're not nearly as well maintained.
Further, the problem is that people and goods who used to get around by more efficient, lower-pollution means - bicycles, walking, etc. - are now getting around by cars, and probably they're by themselves in that car. The infrastructure can't handle it, so aside from their being many more tailpipes, they're all attached to cars sitting in jammed traffic. Pollution goes up from both. It doesn't matter how low-pollution a car is if it wouldn't have been there in the first place, and is now causing more pollution by virtue of contributing to congestion.
The smartest cities are forcing people out of their cars and trucks; Paris, for example, banned large trucks from the core of the city - and bike cargo delivery has taken off as a result. London has a congestion charge now, and it's been nothing but Win, with the money going towards public transit.
Cars are inanimate objects. DRIVERS kill _____, drivers strike _____.
There was a UK traffic study that found that police cited driver error in something like 90% of crashes. Topmost cause: failure to use due care.
People are more concerned about having a coffee, texting, changing the radio station, or just tuning out and running on autopilot because there's no consequences. Crash and your insurance pays for the damages+injuries; the most you'll get in the US, unless your conduct is completely egregious, is a civil fine and a hike in your insurance rate.
For fuck's sakes, we have insurance companies here that advertise "accident forgiveness" policies!
Until an at-fault collision involves having to appear in criminal court, people will keep right on smashing into things - other cars, stationary objects, and human beings.
Switchmode power supplies are least efficient at low power levels - sometimes shockingly so. The old pre-80PLUS supplies were sometimes 50-60% efficient.
The entire grid is synchronized. It's one of the more important applications of highly accurate timekeeping.
As the article notes, there's drift - but that's precisely what helps make the pattern unique.
In the US, we have lots of independent suppliers and networks. A recent outage on the east coast affected all of Cambridge, but none of the surrounding towns because of the peculiarities of power distribution.
You have to be the biggest fucking piece of shit to pull something like this.
Sigh, I wish Slashdot had a minimum age.
Has it occurred to you that someone who goes to kill a large number of children might be mentally ill? Spend some time reading up about insanity in the legal sense.
They should quit releasing these douchebags names as they are absolute nobodies.
His name is already out, less than 12 hours later. What's the rush, aside from vigiliantism? His family and friends will be vilified, even though they probably had absolutely nothing to do with it.
Look, clearly you're new to this whole thing, because the whole "it was unlocked" crap has been trotted around here since 1998 or so.
1)Trespass is still a crime. Further, breaking and entering requires only pushing open a closed door - it doesn't have to be locked. They're still separate crimes. If someone's front door is open but you don't belong in their house, you're still "entering" and committing trespass, which is illegal, and has been since common law times.
2)He didn't just enter the systems, he modified them, destroyed both data and functionality, and installed spying software.
"The worst" as far as the US is concerned isn't all that bad: southern states will suffer, northern states will benefit.
Nope, not really - as evidenced by the last hurricane. It's not as simple as "cold places get warmer, hot places get hotter."
The UK, for example, is royally fucked - they rely on the jetstream for warm air. If the jetstream continues to shift or is disrupted (as it will, as the arctic melts - the cool temperatures in the arctic are necessary), England will freeze.
Even worse still, there's a lot of methane trapped in permafrost, which is starting to thaw and release it. Methane's something like 20 times worse than carbon dioxide for global warming effects.
Katey Walter has been doing demonstrations for 5+ years to try and get it to sink in with people:
I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that we've long since fucked ourselves over - and the explosion of industrialization in China and India is just sealing the deal. Even if you ignore China and India, we appear to have built up so much momentum that even if we drastically curtailed our carbon and methane outputs (like from the cattle industry) instantly, we're still screwed.
In the US the situation is radically different, and not just because of the culture. There are almost as many guns as people there,
Yeah, bullshit. [citation required].
I love it when Europeans speak about our country - it doesn't take them long to open their pieholes before they show themselves to be profoundly ignorant. Like when Jeremy Clarkson gets up and talks about "fat americans" - except we have a lower obesity rate than the UK by a wide (pardon the pun) margin.
Gun ownership in our cities is extremely low because laws tend to be toughest in them, permits are hard to get ahold of, and people you share living space with, like roommates, tend to not appreciate having a gun around. Gun ownership tends to be highest in the least populated areas, and used mostly for recreation, hunting, or in some cases, protection from wild animals (bears, for example.)
Make sure you exclude military and police weapons, by the way.
The mistake is accepting the challenge to "prove them wrong."
It's a logical fallacy to claim that the burden of proof lies not with the anti-vaccers, but with us to disprove their claim. Otherwise, one could simply go claiming all sorts of ridiculous things that are constructed to be difficult or impossible to disprove.
They're shifting debate because there is no proof vaccines cause autism - what 'evidence' exists has been easily shown as falsified, misunderstood, misinterpreted, or the result of incompetence.
Don't accept the challenge. Put your foot down and say "No, it's not my responsibility to disprove your claim. It's your responsibility to prove your claim in a valid, logical, scientific fashion."
If they object, tell them that God told you the burden is on them. When they say that's nonsense, say "prove God didn't tell me."
"Only in the US. The UK and rest of the EU have sane consumer protection laws."
What was that you were saying again? Something about how I, in the US, can get to Promobay, and you, UK/EU resident, with your supposedly superior consumer protection laws, cannot? Lot of good those supposedly better consumer protection laws are doing you, given that apparently your UK/EU telco is filtering your internet connection, and my US telco isn't.
Among other things, I can tell you're ignorant on the subject of consumer protection in the US because you speak of it like it's a federal concept, when it is largely regulated at the state level. One of the things that I find common among UK/EU residents is that they arrogantly think they know everything about the US, and rarely know much of anything.
So whoever physically controls this controls the realm of our ideas and communications. And whoever is able to sit on those communications channels, can intercept entire nations,
The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.
Projects like Tor are popular in nations which are invasive in monitoring and blocking. They're not popular in countries which don't, because they're perceived as not being necessary. It won't take long for that to change if governments start stamping their boots.
Remember when Gmail and a lot of other services didn't use SSL by default (or in some cases, at all)? Now, it's practically unthinkable - in part because companies like Google and Twitter and Facebook want people to be able to use their services safely if they need to. They've recognized the power to do good that their services have.
Hell, these days you can't even detect what people are googling for by snooping on their traffic.
(sad to see that slashdot still doesn't support SSL.)
Slashdot Mirror
Amtrak top speeds is around 80mph.
The Metroliner (now Northeast Regional) does 125 mph (and has since 1981) and the Acela does 150. The locomotives that were used for Metroliner service are now on other lines, so at least they're capable of 125mph speeds, if the track they're on is upgraded, wherever they ended up.
Amtrak trains are sidelined for any passing freight trains
Northeast Regional and Acela run on Amtrak-owned track from Boston to DC. Dunno about other lines.
Carbureted Harleys from the 90s have been running for years on E20.
A carburetor motorcycle is not a valid comparison to a fuel injected car. The Harley does not have a fuel pump.
Doesn't have pressurized fuel lines.
Doesn't have banjo fittings that each contain 2 o-rings
Doesn't have numerous seals inside the injectors.
Doesn't have fuel injectors with o-ring seals on the fuel rail.
Doesn't have a fuel pressure regulator.
Doesn't have closed-loop emissions - in fact, it doesn't have any sort of emissions control.
A 186mph crash looks like this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wenzhou_train_collision
The amount of corruption involved is staggering, and the blind push to build the line and breakneck speed has already led to deaths like the above; substandard materials, design, construction, and components (like the signal systems that failed above.)
I'll be astounded if there isn't another major crash within 6 months.
Nobody is starving because we make corn into fuel.
Pretty much anyone who doesn't live in the US and uses corn for a large part of their diet, saw their food costs skyrocket.
It became more profitable in the US to sell corn for ethanol, but there was still demand for corn for food, so import demand for corn rose, and world corn prices skyrocketed such that even people in Mexico who grow corn can't afford to eat what they're making (opportunity cost.) Same problem with south american countries since quinoa became popular in the US/Europe; people's diets changed to less-nutritious foods.
Certainly not everyone in Mexico is starving - but cost of living increases always affect the poorest people the most, because "cost of living" is a much larger portion of their budget, and is not elastic.
Yes, it destroys topsoil. But it's also food being used as fuel, and it's a net-negative-energy fuel that takes more energy to create than it yields. That is simply idiotic.
People are not starving because nobody cares. People are starving because politicians are protecting local producers and making it impossible for developing countries to sell cash crops.
Brazil has been using E20 and E25 for decades. All it requires is some small tweaks.
If by "small tweaks" you mean replacing every single component in the entire fuel system that has rubber (which means all the seals, any lines that aren't completely metal, all the fuel injectors, the fuel pump, which is often inside the fuel tank and very difficult to reach, and the fuel pressure regulator), adjusting the engine computer's timing maps (not really possible except in vehicles made after 2000 or so, which tend to have electronically-reflashable computers) *and* better-sealing the fuel system (ethanol is very hygroscopic.) ...then yes, "small tweaks." You're probably looking at upwards of $1,000 in labor alone, and at least half that again in parts (fuel pump, injectors, fuel pressure regulator, and replacement lines, mostly. Seals are comparatively cheap.)
RMS is too headstrong to realize:
We are about ten years overdue for someone to lead the FSF. All the successes in open source and free software have been despite RMS, not because of him.
I run smartctl and capture the registers, then run badblocks, and compare smartctl's output to the pre-bad-blocks check.
If there are any remapped blocks, the drive goes back, as the factory should have remapped the initial defects already, and that means new failed blocks in the first few hours of operation.
You're not fat because of "genetics".
You're not fat because of bacteria in your gut.
You're not fat because of ANYTHING except long term consumption of more calories than you burn.
Burn more calories than you consume, and you'll lose weight. One of the ways to do this is via exercise, which raises your base metabolism. The other way is via portion control, good breakfasts, and consuming low glycemic index foods.
If you are considering purchasing a 3D printer you could do well to pick a company that won't use your money to suppress competition through enforcement of bullshit patents on abstract ideas like photolithography.
You'd also do well to purchase a 3D printer from someone who has secured real financing, is producing a real product, and via a marketplace where you'll actually have rights and protection as a customer, not one where you're restricted and your rights are muddled by a third party.
Kickstarter is essentially profiteering off fraud, just like eBay and Craigslist - willfully, too, since they're hiding failed projects.
Even if it is by patent troll, I won't shed a single tear if Kickstarter dies tomorrow.
Ask anyone into cars about "group buys" and they'll probably groan and tell you at least one horror story. Kickstarter projects fail to deliver because there's no auditing, no consumer protection, nothing. If the whole thing folds, you're FUCKED. Don't spend anything on kickstarter that you're not completely ok with never seeing again - and view any project, even the basic idea, with extreme skepticism. Our free market system by and large works. If you've got an amazing idea, it should be easy to attract some sort of money or you'll be driven to figure out a way to make it happen - and if you've dotted your i's and crossed your t's, you'll end up with some sort of loan or investment. Kickstarter subverts that, and lets any asshole with a half-baked idea throw it up on the wall for the cost of an hour or two with iMovie and their iPhone.
Aside from the fact that Europeans have for centuries sized their goods smaller because their roads are smaller, yes, there are common sense exceptions. London does it by simply raising the economic cost of driving into the city center, encouraging more efficiency. A lot of last-mile delivery is done with trikes in Paris. The biggest company in Paris has a trike they designed which can carry 600-700lb of cargo. Even in my city in the US, one of the biggest local movers just started offering move-by-bike services. They use trailers that can haul hundreds of pounds - couches, appliances, you name it. They don't pay for parking permits, fuel, maintenance, insurance, etc on the truck - and the trailers are low to the ground and can be wheeled closer to the building.
...because the Japanese force, through fees/fines/whatnot, old cars off the road. It's done mostly to bolster the economy.
The used cars are shipped off throughout Asia. They're just exiting their warranty period, which is about how long the emissions system components are designed to last.
Modern cars run so completely clean compared to their ancestors that, if anything, deaths from car exhaust are probably at their historical low.
And you've been modded insightful for simply declaring a study wrong on personal incredulity.
However, I'll tackle your claim: yes, the very expensive, CA-emissions-compliant car in your driveway is a very clean car. However, it is not representative of what you will find in the major, growing cities of the world, and before you say "but the major cities of the world are like California", you'd best check your ethnocentrism at the door; a lot of developing countries, you'll find vehicles that are outside their warranty period and definitely not as emissions-compliant. Japan, for example, makes it incredibly difficult to hang on to an older car, mostly to drive their economy. The older cars get shipped off to the other asian countries, where they're not nearly as well maintained.
Further, the problem is that people and goods who used to get around by more efficient, lower-pollution means - bicycles, walking, etc. - are now getting around by cars, and probably they're by themselves in that car. The infrastructure can't handle it, so aside from their being many more tailpipes, they're all attached to cars sitting in jammed traffic. Pollution goes up from both. It doesn't matter how low-pollution a car is if it wouldn't have been there in the first place, and is now causing more pollution by virtue of contributing to congestion.
The smartest cities are forcing people out of their cars and trucks; Paris, for example, banned large trucks from the core of the city - and bike cargo delivery has taken off as a result. London has a congestion charge now, and it's been nothing but Win, with the money going towards public transit.
I see this all the time:
"Cars kill ______" or "car strikes _______"
Cars are inanimate objects. DRIVERS kill _____, drivers strike _____.
There was a UK traffic study that found that police cited driver error in something like 90% of crashes. Topmost cause: failure to use due care.
People are more concerned about having a coffee, texting, changing the radio station, or just tuning out and running on autopilot because there's no consequences. Crash and your insurance pays for the damages+injuries; the most you'll get in the US, unless your conduct is completely egregious, is a civil fine and a hike in your insurance rate.
For fuck's sakes, we have insurance companies here that advertise "accident forgiveness" policies!
Until an at-fault collision involves having to appear in criminal court, people will keep right on smashing into things - other cars, stationary objects, and human beings.
It's not a valid excuse that the system is "new"; legally displaying the proper license is an especially obvious requirement.
I'm sure it was ignored in the interests of pushing the thing out the door by a certain deadline.
Switchmode power supplies are least efficient at low power levels - sometimes shockingly so. The old pre-80PLUS supplies were sometimes 50-60% efficient.
The entire grid is synchronized. It's one of the more important applications of highly accurate timekeeping.
As the article notes, there's drift - but that's precisely what helps make the pattern unique.
In the US, we have lots of independent suppliers and networks. A recent outage on the east coast affected all of Cambridge, but none of the surrounding towns because of the peculiarities of power distribution.
You have to be the biggest fucking piece of shit to pull something like this.
Sigh, I wish Slashdot had a minimum age.
Has it occurred to you that someone who goes to kill a large number of children might be mentally ill? Spend some time reading up about insanity in the legal sense.
They should quit releasing these douchebags names as they are absolute nobodies.
His name is already out, less than 12 hours later. What's the rush, aside from vigiliantism? His family and friends will be vilified, even though they probably had absolutely nothing to do with it.
Look, clearly you're new to this whole thing, because the whole "it was unlocked" crap has been trotted around here since 1998 or so. 1)Trespass is still a crime. Further, breaking and entering requires only pushing open a closed door - it doesn't have to be locked. They're still separate crimes. If someone's front door is open but you don't belong in their house, you're still "entering" and committing trespass, which is illegal, and has been since common law times. 2)He didn't just enter the systems, he modified them, destroyed both data and functionality, and installed spying software.
"The worst" as far as the US is concerned isn't all that bad: southern states will suffer, northern states will benefit.
Nope, not really - as evidenced by the last hurricane. It's not as simple as "cold places get warmer, hot places get hotter."
The UK, for example, is royally fucked - they rely on the jetstream for warm air. If the jetstream continues to shift or is disrupted (as it will, as the arctic melts - the cool temperatures in the arctic are necessary), England will freeze.
Even worse still, there's a lot of methane trapped in permafrost, which is starting to thaw and release it. Methane's something like 20 times worse than carbon dioxide for global warming effects.
Katey Walter has been doing demonstrations for 5+ years to try and get it to sink in with people:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa3M4ou3kvw
Then there are the gigatons of frozen methane caltrate which are destabilizing: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/24/14670511-climate-changing-methane-rapidly-destabilizing-off-east-coast-study-finds?lite
I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that we've long since fucked ourselves over - and the explosion of industrialization in China and India is just sealing the deal. Even if you ignore China and India, we appear to have built up so much momentum that even if we drastically curtailed our carbon and methane outputs (like from the cattle industry) instantly, we're still screwed.
Time to start planning for the worst.
In the US the situation is radically different, and not just because of the culture. There are almost as many guns as people there,
Yeah, bullshit. [citation required].
I love it when Europeans speak about our country - it doesn't take them long to open their pieholes before they show themselves to be profoundly ignorant. Like when Jeremy Clarkson gets up and talks about "fat americans" - except we have a lower obesity rate than the UK by a wide (pardon the pun) margin.
Gun ownership in our cities is extremely low because laws tend to be toughest in them, permits are hard to get ahold of, and people you share living space with, like roommates, tend to not appreciate having a gun around. Gun ownership tends to be highest in the least populated areas, and used mostly for recreation, hunting, or in some cases, protection from wild animals (bears, for example.)
Make sure you exclude military and police weapons, by the way.
The mistake is accepting the challenge to "prove them wrong."
It's a logical fallacy to claim that the burden of proof lies not with the anti-vaccers, but with us to disprove their claim. Otherwise, one could simply go claiming all sorts of ridiculous things that are constructed to be difficult or impossible to disprove.
http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/burden-of-proof
They're shifting debate because there is no proof vaccines cause autism - what 'evidence' exists has been easily shown as falsified, misunderstood, misinterpreted, or the result of incompetence.
Don't accept the challenge. Put your foot down and say "No, it's not my responsibility to disprove your claim. It's your responsibility to prove your claim in a valid, logical, scientific fashion."
If they object, tell them that God told you the burden is on them. When they say that's nonsense, say "prove God didn't tell me."
Brilliant, no? :)
"Only in the US. The UK and rest of the EU have sane consumer protection laws."
What was that you were saying again? Something about how I, in the US, can get to Promobay, and you, UK/EU resident, with your supposedly superior consumer protection laws, cannot? Lot of good those supposedly better consumer protection laws are doing you, given that apparently your UK/EU telco is filtering your internet connection, and my US telco isn't.
Among other things, I can tell you're ignorant on the subject of consumer protection in the US because you speak of it like it's a federal concept, when it is largely regulated at the state level. One of the things that I find common among UK/EU residents is that they arrogantly think they know everything about the US, and rarely know much of anything.
So whoever physically controls this controls the realm of our ideas and communications. And whoever is able to sit on those communications channels, can intercept entire nations,
The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.
Projects like Tor are popular in nations which are invasive in monitoring and blocking. They're not popular in countries which don't, because they're perceived as not being necessary. It won't take long for that to change if governments start stamping their boots.
Remember when Gmail and a lot of other services didn't use SSL by default (or in some cases, at all)? Now, it's practically unthinkable - in part because companies like Google and Twitter and Facebook want people to be able to use their services safely if they need to. They've recognized the power to do good that their services have.
Hell, these days you can't even detect what people are googling for by snooping on their traffic.
(sad to see that slashdot still doesn't support SSL.)