CO2 scrubbers in every airconditioner

Now what about the methane from 50 years of farts?

In the long dark storm that is most of human history there have been few clear days of sunshine. I like to think that the American experiment is one of them — or has been. There is a kind of sad inevitability to the creep of technical totalitarianism. We were appalled when we read 1984 and the downtrodden people had cameras and microphones in in their homes put there by the Big Brother government. Now we gleefully install them ourselves. (Not I it should be pointed out.) And the government certainly has the capability to eavesdrop on most of these data (read: surveillance) channels whenever it wishes.

What is going on in China is a real case in point. Not to mention Russia's new great Internet firewall. Whatever little liberty the Chinese or Russian people had based on a little personal obscurity is rapidly disappearing. And it's happening all over the world.

And here in America all of the traps of tyranny are sharpened and oiled as our own personal obscurity disappears into a greedy corporate maw. The cell phone providers have been selling location data to the highest bidder — in defiance of the law it should be noted. My guess is that they have also been giving that data freely to government actors upon request. Everything we look up and everything we buy and everywhere we go and everyone to whom we speak etc. etc. can be known — that is unless we take pains to avoid this self-imposed surveillance. And few of us bother to get off the grid completely — even if we do manage to take a few precautions in the interest of personal privacy . The convenience of credit over cash and the economics of inexpensive online purchases and the lure of social media and so on are too tempting for most of us to resist. Myself included.

The potential trap has been cocked and the trigger set. And it is we who have done so. The storm clouds of tyranny are clearly visible on the horizon — as they always are frankly. Because really tyranny is the natural state of human affairs. Anyone who thinks that having a few assault rifles in their gun case to protect their freedom from a government that commands the firepower of a deity of old should have their head examined. The only protections we have are political and historical. We still have somewhat free and fair elections and constitutional protections. So it is up to us not to trade our liberty for a little security. We need to elect leaders who will aggressively use the majestic sovereign power of the state to protect us — not from imaginary enemies — but from themselves. Time will tell. Wait! Is that thunder I hear?

You made me Google myself.

The AC who wrote "What kind of dick are you?" was clearly being sarcastic. This as evidenced by the wry use of hyperbole vis a vis the ridiculous reference to a compiler inspection. No, safe to say you are not a corporate shill for installing proprietary video drivers in GNU/LINUX. At this point you facepalm.

FYI I was not the AC. I just hated to see you take a poke in the ribs as a slap in the face since you seem to be making sense.

This makes sense to me personally as well as scientifically. Personally I could never study with music or television on. And I really couldn't understand how others could. But certainly when I was in high school I had many friends who seemed to be able to do it. Not I. My mind always drifted over to the music — especially if it was catchy or there were vocals. But even Mozart or Bach would occasionally capture my attention. And, given this study, it makes sense that even when I was focused on what I was doing part of me was still engaged with the music. These days I am studying Mongolian language (don't ask) and sometimes when I am doing flashcards I put on ambient spa music. It is so insipid it does not distract me and seems to make a tedious task a bit more pleasant.

Okay scientifically. So there is only so much processing power in the organism. And if the brain is even partly engaged in listening to something then it is practically axiomatic that it is not focused completely on the task at hand. Even listening to the radio while driving seems to pull a small amount of my attention away from the road. For example I always find myself driving a little faster if there is hard rock pumping out of the speakers.

"Sorry, officer... I was listening to Meatloaf and didn't see you in the rearview mirror."

Yes. It is hell to be right. But together we can fix this. Cheers. d:-b ruce

az-saguaro I appreciate your courteous and considered response. Let me rejoin. You wrote: "A truly righteous non-greedy company should be proud of what it does, and continue to do so for the same righteous reasons."

This may have been true at one time in the health field, but big pharma especially has lost all moral compass -- not to mention insurers and HMOs. Regulation and an institutional paradigm shift are what is needed to fix this debacle. The recent anti trust action involving generic makers is but one case in point. Up and down the line from suppliers to providers the naked greed and savage levels of exploitation and conflict of interest is nauseating to watch. Doctors themselves are not immune from the depredations of Big Health.

There is a bright moral line between a business like automobile manufacturing and medicine. A person can live without a car but not without chemo if they have cancer. It is conceded that the profit motive must have a place in healthcare innovation -- capitalism works after all. But powerful social institutions must be engaged to mitigate the worst impulses of corporate actors -- especially when it involves life or death. The current system in the US particularly is out of balance and we all know it. Corrupt lawmakers beholden to special health interests are much to blame. We simply need to vote them out. And we are on our way to doing so. The Affordable Care Act can be much improved if the will is there. IMHO a single-payer system will do a better job of giving everyone the healthcare that is a human right. And for people with money there is always the option for private insurance and private care. The UK has the NHS for all, but if you got the dough re mi you can head to Harley Street for a consult or over to Princess Grace Hospital for some rock-star care along with the sheikhs of Arabia or the princes and princesses of Thailand. Top-quality care does not disappear in the face of single payer systems. After all ... Senator Rand Paul just went to a private clinic in single-payer Canada for his hernia operation. I rest my case.

Drillem, Billum, Killem and Chillum. Seriously, there is a whole class of human endeavor that is not made better by the profit motive. Healthcare certainly belongs in it. It is something that should be pursued by practitioners and institutions to improve the public good not to get filthy rich. Charging large sums of money to prolong life is essentially extortion. Most developed societies recognize this by having long ago instituted single-payer systems. It is expensive, but demonstrably such a system vastly improves the society's productivity and quality of life from the bottom up -- a measurable plus economically. And, besides, it is just the decent way to run things.

And besides that Mr. tree 'wants' you to eat that apple and deposit the seeds somewhere else in your manure. I personally eat meat because in my view everything eats every other damned thing in this cruel old world. But I think vegans remain morally safe eating plants. Janes, an Indian sect, are known to wait under trees until fruit falls. You are welcome.

How about a listener sponsored human curated eclectic internet radio station? So, if I make my own playlist on Spotify I am limited sort of by what I know and already like. Algorithm-driven streams like Pandora also wind up feeding you what you already like in a way. I do subscribe to a paid streaming service and that is great when I know what I want. But I love to turn on Radio Paradise and let the expert DJs choose stuff that is sometimes new to me and often familiar as well. It is eclectic in taste, but so am I, from jazz to rock to classical one might get any cut.

The new web player has a main stream, a rock stream, a mellow stream and a groovy (more ambient and psychedelic) stream. There is a smartphone app that lets you capture up to five hours on your phone for offline listening. Listener-sponsored so free unless you decide to kick in something. The DJs don't nag either. And they have forgotten more music than I have ever listened to. Let's not forget a song-relevant slideshow option.

FYI I have no connection to this operation except that I like it and am a modest supporter. And am known to talk it up from time to time.

Figures are rounded off. Current price of gasoline in Paris is 1.50 Euro per liter. So 3.8 liters in a gallon. 3.8 * 1.50 = 5.7 Euros per gallon. So 5.7 Euros = 6.50 USD . Is gas in SF really 6.50/gal? Seems too pricey -- even for SF. Let's check.....GIYF -- SF has the highest gas prices in the US at $3.80 per gallon. $6.50 -$3.80 = $2.70. So Paris is $2.70 more expensive than SF. I leave it to you to check diesel prices.

Went to them for a 25/5 deal. It was a promo package two years at like 49/mo. The rep said that adding basic cable would be 10 bucks or so more. The closer was that one premium channel was included. I chose HBO. So got my local broadcast channels, bunch of cruft and HBO. I chose to use my own modem/router to save like 10/mo. The tech rep gave me the log in credentials over the phone and we were on line in like ten minutes.

I put the bill on auto pay. I had an equipment headache with the first TV decoder. When I took it in they gave me an upgraded model beyond what I was entitled to get. After two years and change I got posted overseas again. So all service at promo rate with one month at normal rate, which admittedly was a bit steep but was also no surprise. I can recall one outage after a massive`thunder storm. They were too cool when I cancelled my service and brought in my equipment. I know they have`a terrible rep, but my guess was the cord cutting is being felt. They practically gave me the TV bundle. I'll have been away for more than two years so when I re-up I may well qualify for another promo. Woot.

Because yes I am your God, man.

Improper handling of ungrounded components really can mess them up. They work but are defective. Take a look at some micrographs of ESD damage sometime.. ESD does not always kill a part it maims -- sometimes only slightly. Anti-static mats and wrist straps are no laughing matter, Okay. They are. But use them anyway.

d:-b