jsmcgd

A road surface would be useful.

I assume this has been considered, but what is the reason for not using giant solar stills? All countries that desalinate water have a coastline and have hot climates so why isn't using solar energy directly in sea-based solar stills economical?

If you use encryption to tell someone to kill, you have executed a crime using encryption.

> What can an average person do?

Don't incorporate in the UK.

In real terms they haven't lowered their prices. If they had charged the same in dollars, after the dollar had appreciated, they would have in effect been charging their customers more as the dollar is now worth more. By lowering the dollar price, they keep their actual price the same as the dollar is now worth more.

"An Incredibly Detailed Map of the Roman Empire At Its Height in 211AD" http://brilliantmaps.com/roman-empire-211/

Direct link: https://i.imgur.com/lHoCQtt.jpg

Edit: this is not as detailed, but more responsive.

Unfortunately by closing these channels it seems we have lost an opportunity for dissenting voices to reach ISIS supporters. If I was involved in the soft war against ISIS I don't think I would have wanted this to happen. The more they are driven underground the less influence moderate positions will have.

Edit: to be clear, I'm not expecting any miracles, that everyone could be talked off the ledge but some fraction definitely could. Perforating their echo chamber at least provides an opportunity to inject FUD into their discussions, undermine other's authority, play people off against each other, gives an opportunity to try and identify culprits, gives insights into what they are currently thinking, possibly targets that have been discussed, what the common recruitment strategies are etc. There are a lot of amateurs in their ranks (however dangerous) and these channels are probably a rich source of intelligence.

0. We should try to counter the radical ideology by allowing everyone to air their grievances in public without condemning or shouting down those we disagree with. Debate should be welcomed and encouraged not stifled and stigmatised otherwise those with extremist views will still be able to seek out the impressionable and monopolise the narrative they hear.

As I see it this is the most important solution. Trying to catch people just as they are about to commit an atrocity doesn't go anywhere to help solving the root problem. Extremists have been using secure lines of communication for a while and will continue to do so regardless of whether is is decreed legal or illegal and this is to say nothing of offline communication.

You may prevent some fraction of the attempts, but many will be successful and all we will be doing is treating the symptoms whilst probably severely aggravating the cause. No one has their privacy routinely violated and feels more sympathetic to those violating those rights.

We have been involved in a battle of ideas and we need to start formulating a response on this front. Everything else is secondary.

I'm only making this point in reference to conflicts that involve insurgencies.

> IIRC the right to bear arms was intended so that the people can overthrow the government if need be; small chance of that now, with the military and police forces as advanced and militarised as they are now.

However it seems that most low tech insurgencies fighting against the advanced conventional militaries of the West always seem to win, from Vietnam right up to Afghanistan / Iraq.

Due to Benford's Law perhaps the 6 key should be located on the right as you're left hand will, on average, type more digits anyway.

Personally I would argue that the purpose of language is communication without any particular prominence placed on manipulation. The laws expressly forbids deception so I would also argue that manipulation is at the core of fraudulent behaviour and that mutual benefit is at the core of a free market.

I agree that this is an issue. However saying that 'everybody wins' in the scenario you just pointed out, glosses over the fact that many of theses people will lose their jobs. Considering that the vast majority of these workers work voluntarily, you have consider why they do and what they will be returning to when they've lost these jobs. For many people it will be destitution or starvation. There aren't any magic wands to be waved here.

That chart is missing 2014. The latest I've heard is that Saudi keeps increasing supplies:

http://arabianindustry.com/petrochemicals/news/2014/dec/14/s...

I don't think the US increased oil production to decrease oil prices. It has had a very successful increase in shale gas production due to new technologies. This has affected the oil prices, and Saudi Arabia in turn isn't liking the competition, so it has massively increased its oil production as a matter of policy. This will eliminate a lot of new, marginally profitable energy producers, across the globe, including Russia. Once they've collapsed, expect the taps to close again. I think the current situation is more of a happy accident for US Foreign Policy. A lot of American producers will be burnt by the current price of oil as well.

I think most westerners do like Russians and Russia, but don't like Putin and his growing anti-democratic tendencies.

Aluminium isn't susceptible.

Violent crime is decreasing across the western world which suggests that factors that are only relevant to one country/culture are unlikely to be the main driving force of this phenomenon.

Are you suggesting there is an increasing trend in pick pocketing and that's why the police no longer act on it and/or vice versa?

I just did this. I encourage everyone else who can to do the same. It may not have any effect now however it will let our representatives know that their actions are not going unnoticed and that we're unhappy.

If the engines are auto-pressurized, I am assuming that they don't produce anywhere near the same pressure as turbo pumps would. Does that mean the pressure in the combustion chamber has to be relatively low?

> A Dog is not an Animal that includes Barkable and PeeOnHydrantable, and a SpaceShuttle is not a descendant of Airplane

I think there is probably a lot of room for debate on this.

(Edited to make it less pithy and therefore probably much less irksome)

This is a valid concern but it needs to be balanced against the existing noise, visual and chemical pollution caused by shopping trips in cars and delivery trucks.

Hominids have been using tools for a very long time. Hypothesis: facial adaptations provide some protection from blunt weapons like wooden sticks. EDIT: and rocks.

Well said. There are some exceptionally hateful things openly said by those in power (especially in the US) that face no repercussions. It isn't a stretch to imagine similar people working within the intelligence community. Perhaps they don't work there today but there's nothing stopping them working there tomorrow. Again the US has a history of abusive surveillance, the FBI has a very checkered past to say the least. I especially don't like what I'm hearing about the relationship between the DEA and the Mexican drug cartels. We really must not be complacent about abuses by these organizations. By the time it is indisputable that they have been subverted, it will probably be too late to change them.

As far as I am aware no information has been revealed that is specific to a national security target only information that targets millions of innocent civilians. I would hope and expect that the intelligence community has much more invasive and targeted tools they deploy against genuine national security threats than what has been revealed so far.

Edit: To clarify, I'm sure Al-Qaeda already knew not to trust any computer, or cell phone that they used because they were probably completely compromised. So nothing that has been revealed by ES would change their behaviour.

Edit 2: Also, it doesn't matter. The most important thing for our civilization is not personal or national security but our democracy. A 'security state' is never democratic. Its people are never free.

I don't understand Marc's position. He says that foreign governments knew about the spying but that Edward Snowden is a traitor for telling them what they already knew? So what damage is ES supposed to have done exactly? It is public record that terrorist organizations knew about intelligence services surveillance against them, which I suspect everyone on the planet would guess would be happening. So how has ES acted against the interests of the American people?

It was a shock to many people including myself that the intelligence community would explicity violating the US constitution by conducting wholesale surveillance against all American citizens. Marc would probably say either that it wasn't a violation or that it isn't surprising. I don't think this is a credible position given that the actions of the NSA and others were shocking to the people that worked at these organizations. Unless Marc has a past I'm unaware of, to say that is ridiculous.

I'm deeply disappointed :(

As jcooper said you can lose two engines from the same pair. The pairs of engines are in a rectangle configuration not a square. This asymmetry allows you to compensate for a missing pair by using some combination of the the other 3 pairs.

The gap in average earnings between those who complete college and those who don't is pretty terrifying, given that it is possible to have no degree but all of the associated debt. If accruing all this debt guaranteed a college degree then yes, college is worth it. But it doesn't.

So I think the article suffers from selection bias. It focuses on a subgroup, that people won't know they will be a part of when asking themselves the question, is college worth it?

One could add Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia to the list. Also most of South America.