I know of two instances of Vaseline being used to prevent people from doing things. In once instance a home owner coated his external TV antenna to keep kids from climbing it. Also a town with a outdoor Christmas tree had kids stealing light bulbs, so they smeared those as well. In both cases, it A) Makes whatever it is you are trying to do more difficult, and B) pretty disgusting.
For bonus points add a localized smell. For extra credit, add a trace agent, so that under UV light or whatever it is easy to detect and hard to wash off, so you can find out who has been messing with stuff...
Also you could just electrify it... it doesn't have to be lethal, just enough to be very unpleasant if continued for any period of time. Otherwise I would go with bowmen and walls, they are good for defense.
Heck they don't even follow what little regulation that does exist. The fines look large, but when compared to profits, the term "cost of doing business" comes to mind...
Put a bathroom in the cockpit, and neither pilot nor co-pilot are allowed to leave cabin while in flight. Seems pretty obvious to me.
One of course could murder the other I suppose, but then I guess you at least get a fighting chance... (presuming both have same restrictions of no weapons etc...)
True. However I think that is more about the gambling laws in Ontario being antiquated more than anything else (Though that is not always a bad thing). Plenty of other provinces have easier restrictions, VLT in the east coast for example, which I would use as a bad example of policy. They are a scourge. Most bars have a room for them, and it is a sad room.
However many "reasonable" things are technically illegal in Ontario, but not enforced really. I like many, am in a annual hockey pool. Technically it *is* illegal. However the police have better things to do than go after some buds in a 50$ hockey pool. Heck, they are likely in one themselves! Bars that run trivia or bingo with rewards is another... Most get around it by calling it something else and offering gift certificates or in house prizes (i.e. not cash). Again, typically ignored. Small time stuff that is tolerated.
So yeah, Ontario could be more progressive, however seeing the results of some other places, I would say that careful thought needs to be taken when considering gambling policy.
This is about gambling in Ontario not Quebec, but it is related none the less. I thought it funny and someone sad and ironic when watching TV the other day. There is a new TV commercial that is pretty well done involving the metaphor of boxing and keeping getting up after taking a beating and coming back for more, saying in essence you are not going to win, you will just hurt yourself more in regards to gambling addiction. This was bought and paid for by government. The commercial that IMMEDIATELY followed it was one made by the OLG, Ontario Lottory and Gambling corporation, announcing the now easy access to internet gambling, and fun fun fun! Which is also more less paid for by government. Pretty brutal.
I have friends that work for the OLG and they will be quick to point out that people with gambling addictions will seek out gambling no matter what, at least with them the proceeds go to government and some gambling addiction programs and the like. Still, it is the enabling and ease of access...
Security isn't really a technological question anymore. It is a legal and political one. Unless your enterprise and blackberry is immune to political interference as well it isn't really all that secure. Perhaps, "more secure" from some bum to picks up your tablet from the train seat or something.
Blackberry being located in Canada is a pretty good plus, as privacy laws are pretty good. However even Canada has gotten dinged about participation with the whole US electronic surveillance thing. Blackberry had a story a few years ago where India require them to "unsecure" their service and hand them the keys.
If they make it truly secure, they might be really limiting the market they will be allowed to sell it or operate in...
Two men enter, one man leaves! Added entertainment bonus.
Seriously, look to what other countries have done. I bullet, and a bill to the family. Of course that puts you in the China and Iraq (Hussian) category.
Realistically morality aside, the only real reason a society might have capitol punishment, is a cost saving measure and to prevent victims from paying for incarceration. However in reality, in modern society with any sort of legal process, the cost to do so is many fold for that of just locking someone up forever.
So just stop the practice really.
There are still issues however. Recently in Canada a guy was released from mandated mental care which caused a stir. Some people argue that being found not criminally responsible due to mental condition deserves a second chance. Perhaps in some cases. Part of me however would argue that if you kill someone and decapitate them, in full view of everyone, that no you shouldn't have a second chance. You don't come back from that. You exit society forever.
Considering the deepest we've been able to bore a hole on earth with all the resources available (like air, gravity, equipment, people, etc...) was just over 12.2km deep they have a way to go...
I was trying to come up with an analogy of something impossibly far away, more so than boring a 330km hole, on a frozen moon, on another planet, and failed.
How is homeopathy any different from traditional medicine in that regard? Yet people still use it, and on their kids. I immediately thought if this recent news story up here in Canada... sad.
I have a mSSD slot on mine which is nice, as is ITX builds it saves even more space...
However most ITX cases I have seen thus far don't support removable back plates... which means if I ever have to remove or replace the thing, I will have to basically disassemble everything to get at it which kind of sucks (as on most MB the slot is on the back of the board)...:(
I don't know if USB-C is backward compatible, but I presume it is. I can't see the specifications, so I don't know if there are additional USB slots if it isn't (but presumably there would be unless they are stupid).
So buy the 64GB version and use that as your system drive. Buy an external USB HD in whatever capacity you want and just plug it in the USB slot. Problem solved.
Anyone of any competence is going to build a system like that anyway, an SSD system drive with another traditional HD as your media drive. Having your media drive attached VIA USB (particularly presumably faster USB-C, though I am uncertain of compatible HD availability), will have no appreciable performance issues when using it to play media and the like, which is all you will be using it for if you need 1TB+ capacity. You will have an additional thing you will need to throw into your laptop bag, and plug in, should you decide to use it.
It appears copyright is a double edged sword for artists, whom I doubt anyone has any sympathy for at this point. The association that they pay into (RIAA) has been instrumental (pardon the pun HA!) in lobbying for stronger and longer copyright laws. So they basically are paying a group to make it harder to produce original works by which to make a living without getting sued.
To quote Justin Timberlake "Cry me a river!" (please don't sue me Justin!)
I can't be bothered to read a word. A study comes out, which after about 5 seconds of research tells me that the GTM is "Green Tech Media" who partnered with the Solar industry association, to produce a study about how positive solar power is... news at 11.
It might be true, but you couldn't get your news from a more biased source if you tried.
I'm sure if the Coal industry association hired mining tech media group to do a study about the benefits of coal usage, it would be just as positive.
That's because they look at each contract "for months at a time" as individual jobs. So what you might call 1 "job", can be classified at say as 10 "jobs" over a period of 5 years with 6 month contracts...
I wish I was kidding.
There was an asshat politician that tried to say he was going to create a million jobs on Ontario the last election. To say that he played a bit loose and fast with the numbers in his plan was an understatement. However it wouldn't have been the first time a politician has done this nor the last. At least in that particular case he lost the election.
You could probably get even more battery time out of it if you clocked it down to 800Mhz...
I guess it depends on how it works. Does it have enough power? How well and how long will a 1.2Ghz M CPU be good for? Same question goes for the integrated graphic setup with a supposed 4k (if only 11" in size?) resolution... Anyway I have my doubts.
If all you are using it for it itunes, web, and YouTube, I am sure it is just fine... though you can do all those things on something that costs 1000$ less than that. Apple seems to be trying to be playing the status card with this release... (10k gold watch, really?)
Were I a student I would be thinking 1000$ pays for a lot of beer. 600 Beers to be exact. That's 75 beers per month (given a 8 month school year). If looking at TCO on a 4 year honors degree, that's 150 Beer a year or about 20 Beer a month for the length of your scholastic endeavors. Just sayin'...
There has been a number of news articles about various scams in Canada run over the phone mostly by Indian companies. This one is about windows computers, but it is everything under the sun really. They mostly prey on the elderly.
If the Indian government doesn't want to enforce international law, then Canada should simply cut off India from all phone communications. We'll see how quickly India reacts then when living in a black box, particularly hurtful to all that off shoring of jobs. If a Canadian company does legitimate business with an Indian company, then they can petition the Canadian government to allow a specific phone connection.
Anyway Canada would never do it, or even anything remotely useful for fear of being seen to interfering in business and jobs (though in reality it would be probably saving Canadian jobs), and the Corporate kings would pull their strings and watch Harper dance, dance, dance.
Not really. Many of his main protagonists shared a lot of the same "values" as those romanticized in Ayn Rand's books. Of course his isn't alone in that regard, Ben Bova had a few as well... Though Heinlein had more, though in part because he actually recycled the exact same persons several times... The whole anti-establishment libertarian rugged industrialist that using his common sense and good judgement is able to succeed despite the authorities trying to keep him down... He also makes them pretty sexual as well. Including the Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and all the books featuring Lazarus Long, etc... After awhile it becomes a bit tiresome. Anyone who has read "all" of Heinlein's stuff would know that. If he is trying to do more storytelling versus a message, he is doing a poor job of it, as it is pretty clear he has a message he is trying to sell.
Looking at the cold war defectors, or even domestic whistle blowers in US history there is precedent.
I think he understands that given time, his actions will be vindicated, not only by the people but by the US government (eventually). However it is too recent and raw to expect anything meaningful to happen anytime soon. The calculation he is doing is if he can swing a deal to stay in minimum security Club Fed for 10-20 years or Russia, after which cooler heads will eventually prevail (not to mention that the advance of technology might hasten it by making what he exposed a moot point), and the US will issue a grand apology, pardon, and call him a hero ( or at at least not vilify him as a traitor anymore), allowing him to live out the rest of his life in relative normalcy using his time to write a book about his experiences, and do a modest book tour and perhaps talk show circuit.
I think this is one where he has history on his side (future history really), however recognizing that it isn't going to happen over night, and a lot of time will probably need to pass (and certain people retire) before anything positive is likely to happen in his favor.
I think it is likely to work also. He probably recognizes that he is already in a prison of sorts, with little hope for the immediate future. However he is free enough and Russia wants to snub the US enough, that he is more of a thorn than anything. They would like nothing more to throw him in jail for *something* and forget about him for an extended period of time. He has made a big enough a deal, that disappearing him or convenient accidents really aren't much of an option anymore. The real question will be if the US really wants to open up a full fledged court case over the mess and the possible political fallout that might create depending on the outcome. Having him come home, and a conditional plead to some trivial crime that puts him away for the time being is probably his best bet, and is probably what he is negotiating for.
I'm usually not one to defend this, however as you more or less say, the devil is really in the details. The Courts really rely on wording such as "Knowingly" and "Reasonable" and "For the Purposes of". I don't know the details, but there are plenty of excuses of commercial enterprises that are really illegal operations with a thin veneer of legality.
The crux is if they can prove that they knowingly did anything illegal, and if it was reasonable for them not to know, and if the services provided were for the purposes of... All of which can be pretty difficult to prove, unless they got some pretty damning evidence (which they may have given their actions). They may also have decided that while they con't win, they can at least shut it down or cause disruption or it may lead to other leads etc...
One of my favorite examples of this from my college days, are houses having "Keg Parties". Some idiot would always make the "legal argument" that they were not selling beer, but glasses, and the beer was free. That is utter bullshit, and wouldn't hold up for 5 seconds (Not that they ever bother to change people for this really). Same thing with Secure Encrypted Storage Service. You may say that you are simply offering a service, and what people use it for is not your concern, or that it is being used for business purposes etc... However if your site name is PedoStor and 95% of your users use the service for illegally storing that kind of material, a case could be made regarding the fact that everyone knows about it, and the purposes of the service are actually illegal, etc... Or they may have insiders, or documents, or emails, communication to that effect, etc...
Anyway the summary has lots of stats, but little in the way of actual details, which in a case like this are what really matters. They even mention Megaupload... Can you honestly tell me that most of the stuff on there isn't illegal, what it's actual purpose is and used for, and if you can't, you might want to check in on Kim Dotcom and see how he is doing lately if you think this is unreasonable...
Tidal Lagoon seems just another way to say Barrage Tidal Generation. There are a handful in the world (Three I think, Canada, Russia, and France). There is a reason why there are so few.
1) Like most Hydro projects, there is limited geography that is suitable for the purposes, and usually there are environmental repercussions. In the case of the ones above they are all at the mouth of a river exiting into the sea. 2) Seawater. Maintenance is a bitch, and construction costly. You need to dam up the area first, construct your facility, then take down the dam. Seawater likes to destroy metal and moving parts, which is what turbines are generally made from. People will point out the fact that ship screws and the like have been doing it for years, however ships are required to be taken out for servicing every few years, not so easy with a tidal dam... 3) Low return of investment. Generally speaking the amount of MW generated as a ratio to how much it costs to build and maintain isn't all that great compared to other methods. That said, most of the ones in existence are proof or concept or experimental stations, so are likely smaller in scope. There might be savings on a larger scale...
That said, they are truly renewable, and less subject to variation. You don't need wind to blow or sun to shine. Also unlike a traditional hydro project, you are not going to be subject to drought or low water either (if you are, you gots bigger problems than lack of electricity).
Also from a fiscal perspective, I am fairly certain that all those millions of information requests that get sent to ISP's from police services that they get paid per request. So not only are you paying police services to spy on your private information unnecessarily (i.e. unimportant enough not to require a warrant), that your tax dollars are also being funneled into ISP's to provide the information in the first place.
At one point once upon a time when the Feds were looking at expanding the practice (the Bill got shot down eventually after some embarrassment about personal information on Ministers, it was called something like the Save the Children Terrorism Act or something), it was to be so widespread that the ISP's got together and said if you want to do it on such a level, we need a better information management system to track it all and we're not paying for it, the tax payers would need to, and the cost of that was to be 30-40 million dollars.
Anyway sufficient legal practices are available (i.e. get a damn warrant if you really need the information), they should not have a carte blanche to everything whenever whimsy takes them. If you do not have enough evidence that a Judge would not allow for a warrant, then perhaps the invasion of privacy isn't warranted in the first place (pardon pun).
STTNG: Wesley Crusher. Q was a bit silly mostly. Voyager: Nelix. Janeway was super captain, over compensating a bit for female role. Over usage of the holodeck bit. DS9: Nog/Jake. Sisko's over acting. The whole wormhole aliens religious arc. Enterprise: Was a bit actiony for a show about exploration. Lacked some depth.
Honorable mention: Both doctors on Voyager and Enterprise, seemed to start off rocky but sort of grew on you over time. All of them with perhaps the exception of Enterprise seemed to require 1) a comic relief person, and 2) some youth for younger viewers I guess. By Enterprise I guess they figured we're all grown up now and don't require it anymore. Even when younger I found the two aspects annoying. Also STTNG had a few episodes where there writers basically phoned it in and ran re-runs.
All that said, I've watched all the episodes several times over each, and would welcome another Star Trek. There is not enough science fiction big production tv shows out there anymore. The last really being BSG which was years ago now.
Slashdot Mirror
You forgot Slippery.
I know of two instances of Vaseline being used to prevent people from doing things. In once instance a home owner coated his external TV antenna to keep kids from climbing it. Also a town with a outdoor Christmas tree had kids stealing light bulbs, so they smeared those as well. In both cases, it A) Makes whatever it is you are trying to do more difficult, and B) pretty disgusting.
For bonus points add a localized smell. For extra credit, add a trace agent, so that under UV light or whatever it is easy to detect and hard to wash off, so you can find out who has been messing with stuff...
Also you could just electrify it... it doesn't have to be lethal, just enough to be very unpleasant if continued for any period of time. Otherwise I would go with bowmen and walls, they are good for defense.
http://www.businessinsider.com...
Heck they don't even follow what little regulation that does exist. The fines look large, but when compared to profits, the term "cost of doing business" comes to mind...
Put a bathroom in the cockpit, and neither pilot nor co-pilot are allowed to leave cabin while in flight. Seems pretty obvious to me.
One of course could murder the other I suppose, but then I guess you at least get a fighting chance... (presuming both have same restrictions of no weapons etc...)
True. However I think that is more about the gambling laws in Ontario being antiquated more than anything else (Though that is not always a bad thing). Plenty of other provinces have easier restrictions, VLT in the east coast for example, which I would use as a bad example of policy. They are a scourge. Most bars have a room for them, and it is a sad room.
However many "reasonable" things are technically illegal in Ontario, but not enforced really. I like many, am in a annual hockey pool. Technically it *is* illegal. However the police have better things to do than go after some buds in a 50$ hockey pool. Heck, they are likely in one themselves! Bars that run trivia or bingo with rewards is another... Most get around it by calling it something else and offering gift certificates or in house prizes (i.e. not cash). Again, typically ignored. Small time stuff that is tolerated.
So yeah, Ontario could be more progressive, however seeing the results of some other places, I would say that careful thought needs to be taken when considering gambling policy.
This is about gambling in Ontario not Quebec, but it is related none the less. I thought it funny and someone sad and ironic when watching TV the other day. There is a new TV commercial that is pretty well done involving the metaphor of boxing and keeping getting up after taking a beating and coming back for more, saying in essence you are not going to win, you will just hurt yourself more in regards to gambling addiction. This was bought and paid for by government. The commercial that IMMEDIATELY followed it was one made by the OLG, Ontario Lottory and Gambling corporation, announcing the now easy access to internet gambling, and fun fun fun! Which is also more less paid for by government. Pretty brutal.
I have friends that work for the OLG and they will be quick to point out that people with gambling addictions will seek out gambling no matter what, at least with them the proceeds go to government and some gambling addiction programs and the like. Still, it is the enabling and ease of access...
Security isn't really a technological question anymore. It is a legal and political one. Unless your enterprise and blackberry is immune to political interference as well it isn't really all that secure. Perhaps, "more secure" from some bum to picks up your tablet from the train seat or something.
Blackberry being located in Canada is a pretty good plus, as privacy laws are pretty good. However even Canada has gotten dinged about participation with the whole US electronic surveillance thing. Blackberry had a story a few years ago where India require them to "unsecure" their service and hand them the keys.
If they make it truly secure, they might be really limiting the market they will be allowed to sell it or operate in...
Two men enter, one man leaves! Added entertainment bonus.
Seriously, look to what other countries have done. I bullet, and a bill to the family. Of course that puts you in the China and Iraq (Hussian) category.
Realistically morality aside, the only real reason a society might have capitol punishment, is a cost saving measure and to prevent victims from paying for incarceration. However in reality, in modern society with any sort of legal process, the cost to do so is many fold for that of just locking someone up forever.
So just stop the practice really.
There are still issues however. Recently in Canada a guy was released from mandated mental care which caused a stir. Some people argue that being found not criminally responsible due to mental condition deserves a second chance. Perhaps in some cases. Part of me however would argue that if you kill someone and decapitate them, in full view of everyone, that no you shouldn't have a second chance. You don't come back from that. You exit society forever.
True. However our collective experience equals 3.7% of that value...
Also I suspect that drilling through ice may have it's own challenges, particularly when highly tectonicly active.
Never mind just trying to transport 330km of drill there...
Considering the deepest we've been able to bore a hole on earth with all the resources available (like air, gravity, equipment, people, etc...) was just over 12.2km deep they have a way to go...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K...
I was trying to come up with an analogy of something impossibly far away, more so than boring a 330km hole, on a frozen moon, on another planet, and failed.
LOL. I initially thought you were talking about teachers drinking at a high school dance...
How is homeopathy any different from traditional medicine in that regard? Yet people still use it, and on their kids. I immediately thought if this recent news story up here in Canada... sad.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/aborigi...
http://www.sciencebasedmedicin...
http://news.nationalpost.com/2...
I have a mSSD slot on mine which is nice, as is ITX builds it saves even more space...
However most ITX cases I have seen thus far don't support removable back plates... which means if I ever have to remove or replace the thing, I will have to basically disassemble everything to get at it which kind of sucks (as on most MB the slot is on the back of the board)... :(
I don't know if USB-C is backward compatible, but I presume it is. I can't see the specifications, so I don't know if there are additional USB slots if it isn't (but presumably there would be unless they are stupid).
So buy the 64GB version and use that as your system drive. Buy an external USB HD in whatever capacity you want and just plug it in the USB slot.
Problem solved.
Anyone of any competence is going to build a system like that anyway, an SSD system drive with another traditional HD as your media drive. Having your media drive attached VIA USB (particularly presumably faster USB-C, though I am uncertain of compatible HD availability), will have no appreciable performance issues when using it to play media and the like, which is all you will be using it for if you need 1TB+ capacity. You will have an additional thing you will need to throw into your laptop bag, and plug in, should you decide to use it.
It appears copyright is a double edged sword for artists, whom I doubt anyone has any sympathy for at this point. The association that they pay into (RIAA) has been instrumental (pardon the pun HA!) in lobbying for stronger and longer copyright laws. So they basically are paying a group to make it harder to produce original works by which to make a living without getting sued.
To quote Justin Timberlake "Cry me a river!"
(please don't sue me Justin!)
I can't be bothered to read a word. A study comes out, which after about 5 seconds of research tells me that the GTM is "Green Tech Media" who partnered with the Solar industry association, to produce a study about how positive solar power is... news at 11.
It might be true, but you couldn't get your news from a more biased source if you tried.
I'm sure if the Coal industry association hired mining tech media group to do a study about the benefits of coal usage, it would be just as positive.
Garbage.
That's because they look at each contract "for months at a time" as individual jobs. So what you might call 1 "job", can be classified at say as 10 "jobs" over a period of 5 years with 6 month contracts...
I wish I was kidding.
There was an asshat politician that tried to say he was going to create a million jobs on Ontario the last election. To say that he played a bit loose and fast with the numbers in his plan was an understatement. However it wouldn't have been the first time a politician has done this nor the last. At least in that particular case he lost the election.
You could probably get even more battery time out of it if you clocked it down to 800Mhz...
I guess it depends on how it works. Does it have enough power? How well and how long will a 1.2Ghz M CPU be good for? Same question goes for the integrated graphic setup with a supposed 4k (if only 11" in size?) resolution... Anyway I have my doubts.
If all you are using it for it itunes, web, and YouTube, I am sure it is just fine... though you can do all those things on something that costs 1000$ less than that. Apple seems to be trying to be playing the status card with this release... (10k gold watch, really?)
Were I a student I would be thinking 1000$ pays for a lot of beer. 600 Beers to be exact. That's 75 beers per month (given a 8 month school year). If looking at TCO on a 4 year honors degree, that's 150 Beer a year or about 20 Beer a month for the length of your scholastic endeavors. Just sayin'...
Here is another, for the rest of the scams.
There has been a number of news articles about various scams in Canada run over the phone mostly by Indian companies. This one is about windows computers, but it is everything under the sun really. They mostly prey on the elderly.
If the Indian government doesn't want to enforce international law, then Canada should simply cut off India from all phone communications. We'll see how quickly India reacts then when living in a black box, particularly hurtful to all that off shoring of jobs. If a Canadian company does legitimate business with an Indian company, then they can petition the Canadian government to allow a specific phone connection.
Anyway Canada would never do it, or even anything remotely useful for fear of being seen to interfering in business and jobs (though in reality it would be probably saving Canadian jobs), and the Corporate kings would pull their strings and watch Harper dance, dance, dance.
Considering the crazy sexual content of his work, the only way to do it right would be to have HBO do a mini-series with it...
Not really. Many of his main protagonists shared a lot of the same "values" as those romanticized in Ayn Rand's books. Of course his isn't alone in that regard, Ben Bova had a few as well... Though Heinlein had more, though in part because he actually recycled the exact same persons several times... The whole anti-establishment libertarian rugged industrialist that using his common sense and good judgement is able to succeed despite the authorities trying to keep him down... He also makes them pretty sexual as well. Including the Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and all the books featuring Lazarus Long, etc... After awhile it becomes a bit tiresome. Anyone who has read "all" of Heinlein's stuff would know that. If he is trying to do more storytelling versus a message, he is doing a poor job of it, as it is pretty clear he has a message he is trying to sell.
Looking at the cold war defectors, or even domestic whistle blowers in US history there is precedent.
I think he understands that given time, his actions will be vindicated, not only by the people but by the US government (eventually). However it is too recent and raw to expect anything meaningful to happen anytime soon. The calculation he is doing is if he can swing a deal to stay in minimum security Club Fed for 10-20 years or Russia, after which cooler heads will eventually prevail (not to mention that the advance of technology might hasten it by making what he exposed a moot point), and the US will issue a grand apology, pardon, and call him a hero ( or at at least not vilify him as a traitor anymore), allowing him to live out the rest of his life in relative normalcy using his time to write a book about his experiences, and do a modest book tour and perhaps talk show circuit.
I think this is one where he has history on his side (future history really), however recognizing that it isn't going to happen over night, and a lot of time will probably need to pass (and certain people retire) before anything positive is likely to happen in his favor.
I think it is likely to work also. He probably recognizes that he is already in a prison of sorts, with little hope for the immediate future. However he is free enough and Russia wants to snub the US enough, that he is more of a thorn than anything. They would like nothing more to throw him in jail for *something* and forget about him for an extended period of time. He has made a big enough a deal, that disappearing him or convenient accidents really aren't much of an option anymore. The real question will be if the US really wants to open up a full fledged court case over the mess and the possible political fallout that might create depending on the outcome. Having him come home, and a conditional plead to some trivial crime that puts him away for the time being is probably his best bet, and is probably what he is negotiating for.
I'm usually not one to defend this, however as you more or less say, the devil is really in the details. The Courts really rely on wording such as "Knowingly" and "Reasonable" and "For the Purposes of". I don't know the details, but there are plenty of excuses of commercial enterprises that are really illegal operations with a thin veneer of legality.
The crux is if they can prove that they knowingly did anything illegal, and if it was reasonable for them not to know, and if the services provided were for the purposes of... All of which can be pretty difficult to prove, unless they got some pretty damning evidence (which they may have given their actions). They may also have decided that while they con't win, they can at least shut it down or cause disruption or it may lead to other leads etc...
One of my favorite examples of this from my college days, are houses having "Keg Parties". Some idiot would always make the "legal argument" that they were not selling beer, but glasses, and the beer was free. That is utter bullshit, and wouldn't hold up for 5 seconds (Not that they ever bother to change people for this really). Same thing with Secure Encrypted Storage Service. You may say that you are simply offering a service, and what people use it for is not your concern, or that it is being used for business purposes etc... However if your site name is PedoStor and 95% of your users use the service for illegally storing that kind of material, a case could be made regarding the fact that everyone knows about it, and the purposes of the service are actually illegal, etc... Or they may have insiders, or documents, or emails, communication to that effect, etc...
Anyway the summary has lots of stats, but little in the way of actual details, which in a case like this are what really matters. They even mention Megaupload... Can you honestly tell me that most of the stuff on there isn't illegal, what it's actual purpose is and used for, and if you can't, you might want to check in on Kim Dotcom and see how he is doing lately if you think this is unreasonable...
Tidal Lagoon seems just another way to say Barrage Tidal Generation. There are a handful in the world (Three I think, Canada, Russia, and France). There is a reason why there are so few.
1) Like most Hydro projects, there is limited geography that is suitable for the purposes, and usually there are environmental repercussions. In the case of the ones above they are all at the mouth of a river exiting into the sea.
2) Seawater. Maintenance is a bitch, and construction costly. You need to dam up the area first, construct your facility, then take down the dam. Seawater likes to destroy metal and moving parts, which is what turbines are generally made from. People will point out the fact that ship screws and the like have been doing it for years, however ships are required to be taken out for servicing every few years, not so easy with a tidal dam...
3) Low return of investment. Generally speaking the amount of MW generated as a ratio to how much it costs to build and maintain isn't all that great compared to other methods. That said, most of the ones in existence are proof or concept or experimental stations, so are likely smaller in scope. There might be savings on a larger scale...
That said, they are truly renewable, and less subject to variation. You don't need wind to blow or sun to shine. Also unlike a traditional hydro project, you are not going to be subject to drought or low water either (if you are, you gots bigger problems than lack of electricity).
Also from a fiscal perspective, I am fairly certain that all those millions of information requests that get sent to ISP's from police services that they get paid per request. So not only are you paying police services to spy on your private information unnecessarily (i.e. unimportant enough not to require a warrant), that your tax dollars are also being funneled into ISP's to provide the information in the first place.
At one point once upon a time when the Feds were looking at expanding the practice (the Bill got shot down eventually after some embarrassment about personal information on Ministers, it was called something like the Save the Children Terrorism Act or something), it was to be so widespread that the ISP's got together and said if you want to do it on such a level, we need a better information management system to track it all and we're not paying for it, the tax payers would need to, and the cost of that was to be 30-40 million dollars.
Anyway sufficient legal practices are available (i.e. get a damn warrant if you really need the information), they should not have a carte blanche to everything whenever whimsy takes them. If you do not have enough evidence that a Judge would not allow for a warrant, then perhaps the invasion of privacy isn't warranted in the first place (pardon pun).
STTNG: Wesley Crusher. Q was a bit silly mostly.
Voyager: Nelix. Janeway was super captain, over compensating a bit for female role. Over usage of the holodeck bit.
DS9: Nog/Jake. Sisko's over acting. The whole wormhole aliens religious arc.
Enterprise: Was a bit actiony for a show about exploration. Lacked some depth.
Honorable mention: Both doctors on Voyager and Enterprise, seemed to start off rocky but sort of grew on you over time.
All of them with perhaps the exception of Enterprise seemed to require 1) a comic relief person, and 2) some youth for younger viewers I guess. By Enterprise I guess they figured we're all grown up now and don't require it anymore. Even when younger I found the two aspects annoying.
Also STTNG had a few episodes where there writers basically phoned it in and ran re-runs.
All that said, I've watched all the episodes several times over each, and would welcome another Star Trek. There is not enough science fiction big production tv shows out there anymore. The last really being BSG which was years ago now.