Mozilla Seabird – Mobile Phone Concept has been added as a related post - related requested by ChaosEngine.

No Netflix for me, and no luck on a quick search of torrents, but I'll keep my eye out for that show/series.

Many metrics to compare. Ecologically, that system sounds great for static locations with enough of an elevation gradient and reservoir areas to make it work. On the other hand it seems like the ecological damage done by constructing batteries, factories, and disposing of them is likely quite small compared to many other alternatives, particularly fossil fuels (which also have long-term scarcity concerns on top of plenty of other issues).

A major advantage of battery tech over hydro storage would be mobility. If the thing consuming energy doesn't sit in one place, hydro storage won't work. Another somewhat less significant advantage is the ability to install anywhere -- a battery farm recharged by mains and/or a solar/wind farm could be installed in places where hydro storage couldn't. And for one more item in favor of batteries, I'd wager that the land area footprint required for batteries is much smaller per kWH stored, although that might be wrong for extremely large reservoirs (ie. a hydroelectric dam, pretty much). But by the time you're getting to that large scale, the location requirements and ecological disruption are also much more extreme.

Anyway, I don't mean to pooh-pooh the idea of hydro storage -- it really does seem like a very good and ingenious idea where it would be applicable. But there's certainly room for improved battery tech, too. I don't think that we're going to get fully or even significantly weaned off of fossil fuels quite as fast as the video would have us hope for, either. Fossil fuels were the primary tool in our toolbox for a LONG time. And as the saying goes, since all we've had is that "hammer", we've started to think of everything as a nail.

They weren't making it out, they were going downhill in the same direction the water was backflowing from...

Seriously people, if you see flooding like this (and I hope you never do), if you have an 'uphill' to go to (ie. behind the white building following the red pipe), go that way. You can't get to your family in time, so ring them up on the mobile and get fucking safe. Even if you do survive by some miracle, some poor rescue worker has to come try to save you.

Your video, Aquadam-Mobile Dam Used To Save Home In Texas, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

That's a long disjointed rambling rant for an apparent comprehension mistake.
I suggest you read again, I only mentioned antifa because Bob misidentified them, not to support or defend them.
So far as I know, they were not active in this specific fiasco, the one I'm commenting on. I have no love for them, as they seem to be fighting violent fascism with violent fascism.
I've seen no footage of black hooded thugs this time, only polo shirt wearing nazis (not hyperbole, actual nazis) fighting hipsters, women, children, and elderly people.

You must be fucking kidding, Asmo. The white nationalists are clear why they are feeling safe to unify and license to mobilize, their guy won the white house and he's gonna help them take their country back and make America white....I mean great again. When Trump tried to spread the blame for the violence, they saw that as another endorsement, as did most people. It's not a reaction to antifascists, antifascists are a reaction to their resurgence imo. Which came first, the KKK, the Neo Nazis, the alt right, or Antifa?
To be crystal clear, so you aren't confused again, my mention of the antifascists here is not an endorsement of their group or methods.

Ungh - coding in DotNetFiddle on a mobile phone is nigh-on impossible. Skipped the constructor injecting the dictionary. https://dotnetfiddle.net/Ij8vY5

Rememer the talking point that 17 intelligence agencies pointed their fingers at Russia for having orchestrated the hacks during the election?

Even the NYT has finally buried that one:

The assessment was made by four intelligence agencies — the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency. The assessment was not approved by all 17 organizations in the American intelligence community.

Unix\Windows at work and home here. Android for mobile.

Nice plan - utilize the parts of American capitalism that work = find oil.

The ideals of a social democracy to create a better future = high taxes, high prices, social spending for loyal norwegians, strict moral and legal rules. Make sure to make up lots of first world problems to compensate for the awesomness.

Sell oil, buy Teslas. Have lots of mountains + rain to power Teslas.

Plus you have to already be rich to even contemplate visiting Norway, nevermind somehow get rich easy there. Tip on how to get rich in Norway? Be a tunnel builder.

Free education may mean more social mobility but it also creates a truckload of sociologists.

I like Finland. Its flat and no oil, but almost as successful. How are they doing it?

I tend to view the stigmatisation of a word to this degree as counter-productive since it shifts the focus away from the real problem - i.e. chronic inequality of income between black and white communities through poor public services that feeds a lack of opportunity for income mobility. Time spent discussing the degree to which users of the word should be shunned, whether it's said by a comedian, other black people, actual racists, is time not being spent discussing those material issues.

The base case of racism, i.e. the perpetuation of the view that black people are somehow genetically inferior or deserve to be subjugated in rights still certainly exists. What I suspect is more prevalent nowadays is discrimination founded in economic inequalities - the view that because black people are more likely to be poor, making the reflexive assumption they are more likely to resort to crime, and therefore are more dangerous and should be implicitly subject to harsher penalties. Which comes back to my main point, the best way to fix that is to actually narrow those economic inequalities.

I do....about something else.

Using a mobile, the "ignore" button and Upvote button are so close together that I often accidentally hit ignore when trying to upvote (thankfully you have it set up so one has to confirm). It would be helpful if they were farther apart. Just a thought.

Dummy https://thumbs.gfycat.com/UnknownEllipticalIndianrockpython-mobile.mp4

Many, if not most, that oppose places like Planned Parenthood, and oppose most methods of birth control, oppose it, because they think it encourages promiscuity. Sex is of course limited only to marriage in their world view, which is why heavy red states have abstinence only education... which tends to result in them having the highest teen and repeat teen pregnancy rates. And some would argue that the only function of sex is for procreation. The Bible even forbid pulling out (Gen. 38:8–10), though one could argue that was for one guy in particular. Anyhow, basically they see pregnancy as part of God's design and purpose for sex. The fact it has physical pleasures, is a gift from God for the married couple.

In the case of IUDs, they believe the old myth that the IUD causes abortions, that it lowers the chance that a fertilized egg will implant. The reality is that it doesn't at all, at least for modern, non-copper clad IUDs. Once upon a time, the old copper ones did have a very small impact on the chance a fertilized egg could implant, and even modern ones that have far less copper cladding on a wire around it, can have a very very small chance of decreasing implantation. But those ones aren't really used that often. Basically, the IUD is the most effective form of birth control, but it is opposed to stereotypes and lies. Modern IUDs work to prevent fertilization in the first place, via the hormones in them and design, if an egg is fertilized, it still has the same chance of implantation... however the chance of an egg being fertilized is very low, as sperm mobility is seriously hurt, and of course the woman's body lowers egg release too.

Plan B also doesn't stop implantation, or if it does, it is near modern copper clad wire IUDs (and more recent evidence shows it is likely even far less than that). It prevents the women's body from releasing an egg... if an egg is released already, it won't do any good. However, once again, facts don't matter to those on the right, and they promote it as a morning after abortion pill.

Of course, a healthy young woman, who's optimally fertile, only 30-40% of her fertilized eggs will implant, meaning that God Himself aborts about 60-70% of babies (since they define it as a full baby and human life at conception) in optimally fertile women. Now.. you have to add to that, natural miscarriages for other reasons... and the odds of having a baby really are against you naturally. (There are links to medical journals here: http://ask.metafilter.com/203529/What-of-fertilized-human-eggs-die and in this Healthcare Triage video about IUDs: https://videosift.com/video/IUDs-Are-Pretty-Great-So-Why-Arent-They-More-Popular)

I agree that NoScript tends to make it a hassle to get basic functionality out of the vast majority of the web. You have to play around with allowing scripts from some domains and not others, on pretty much every page you visit.

...Which is pretty scary, if you think about it. Are all of those cross-site scripts beneficial or even necessary from a user standpoint? Hell no. Users stand to gain nothing from all that crap running. From our perspective, they just increase load times and data usage, often compounded with auto-reloading. We should have control over that stuff in all circumstances, but it becomes absolutely critical in mobile internet where we generally don't have as much processing power AND the vast majority of people have data usage caps.

Basically what I'm saying is, the admitted fact that NoScript tends to make the web unusable is a symptom of a deeper problem with how the web is constructed these days.

If you like the idea of NoScript, but generally find it too high-maintenance, you might want to try Privacy Badger. It requires somewhat less user input with regards to which trackers/scripts get blocked, instead going with defaults based on "trustworthiness" as measured by algorithms from the EFF. Those defaults can be tweaked if you desire, also.

I usually run a Firefox (or Pale Moon) client that is extremely locked down. UBlock Origin, NoScript, Privacy Badger, Self-Destructing Cookies, sometimes Ghostery, etc. I use that as my default browser, and take the time to fine-tune the controls in NoScript, element hiding in uBlock, etc. for sites that I visit regularly.

But frequently, I'll find a link to some article that I want to read and notice that the page content won't load at all since it requires some nonsensical script. In those cases, if I don't want to take the time to fiddle with NoScript etc. permissions, I copy the URL and fire up Chrome in incognito mode, with only uBlock Origin.

Probably not worth the hassle for most people, but I guess I'm kicking and screaming my way into this brave new world.