So here's the cool part, and you might wish to look at my "user #" (17400) to see how long I've been around these parts aka on Slashdot. To quote the OP: "During the initial tests, only subreddit moderators will be able to initiate a Talk, and Talk hosts will have the ability to invite, mute, and remove speakers. While only mods can kick off Talks in the beginning, anyone on iOS and Android can listen to one. Moderation has been an issue for Clubhouse, so it's notable that Reddit is starting small and giving access only to moderators first. At some point in the future, mods will be able to bring on trusted community members as co-hosts."

Hello? /. moderation started with Rob Malda and a select few, then opened up to around 400 users as moderators, they each got a certain number of moderation points, etc. etc. Then a system where "meta moderators" basically graded the moderators as to whether folks agreed or disagreed. Trolls and script-kiddies, etc. would get enough "bad karma" that if you set your filter level one point higher you never see the crap posts at all. So most of the trolls, flameball throwers, etc. "left for easier targets". Folks who posted good comments developed good or even excellent karma... aka a bit of standing with other users and so you'd be more likely to see and trust what they write, or at least have a good discussion with us.

But my main point is still.... INVENTED ON SLASHDOT... and that is still just cool.

This is an uncontested point: health officials can close businesses for any number of properly legislated reasons. A restaurant can be closed for unsanitary conditions, any building can be closed if it is deemed unsafe due to flaws in construction, maintenance, etc. Companies are legally shuttered when they engage in criminal conduct, go bankrupt, etc. -- all legally mandated under agreed-upon and well litigated/defended legal code.

There is no freedom without consequences, and in the case of public health, the remedy is closure, penalties, and quarantines that can land a violator in jail. So I answer "depends". So the best versions of what we call the lockdowns don't put chains over the doors (pre-emption), they say proscriptively "at this point in time, there are extra regulations in force for the public good, and you can and will be held civilly liable and punishable if you violate them." Governors, mayors, and public health officials have reasonably-wide discretion to set those limits, but not ENACT them. The difference is small but significant. Some places are getting the balance right; some are screwing it up terribly. Same thing for some groups.

So here's the deal: those codes and powers do not implicitly allow for non-legislative bodies such as in the federal, judiciary, state, or municipalities to contravene a group's constitutionally and legislatively written civil rights on a pre-emptive, selective basis. My best examples would be a bar or restaurant -- can be cited and penalized for violating even temporary rulings, and in the case of preventing public disease spread, those who have been to that bar or restaurant can be legally quarantined. A building deemed unsafe can be shuttered. The same thing about penalties, etc. applies to church gatherings, religious events such as weddings, etc.... once violations have taken place. Where I go to worship, the building capacity is around 1500 people; in the main meeting space probably 900. With six foot spacing, that might equate to 300 people in the building for any services. But it would be difficult if not impossible to maintain spacing, mask use, etc. in all of the building's classrooms, facilities, etc. -- so our local leaders agreed to suspend worship meetings on a voluntary basis in order to follow those guidelines. Ergo they do not risk penalties and the municipality avoids a First Amendment lawsuit and bad press. Melting pot & compromise -- an American solution that works for all our good because of choice, not by compulsion.

Contrast that with either targeted extreme orders which the Supreme Court has now rejected, or for businesses and other profit-oriented entities and/or religious congregations who deliberately flout the temporary regulations but demand exemption from the legal consequence as "necessary to maintain their civil rights."

Ergo: Depends. What think y'all?

Assume the following premise: if I, Senator (fill in the blank) come from a state where M$ has a large presence and/or I receive a large PAC or other donation traceable to M$ or M$ dominated interests, I will of course want to investigate all of the other nasty players in the software industry who are of course trying to become (presumably) evil monopolies. If I, Senator (fill in the blank) come from California, etc. where Google, et. al is strong and Apple is strong, I of course will want to investigate all of the other nasty players ________ who aren't buying my influence..... (?)

Now does anyone wonder why a Senator from Utah is so up in arms that he wants unpaid unelected bureaucrats to get nasty with Google, et. al?

Not sure how valid this test suite is, whether or not Google came up with it or Mozilla is currently hosting it. The main page for the test states that it is still a test suite in development, and in my book multiple iterations revealing the same error is likelymore of a suite problem than a code problem: if every following routine calls a buggy earlier routine, etc. the fail count escalates. For example, in the 10.0a2 build of Firefox (Aurora 7 errors out of 160 were different. The remaining 153 were all "object create" related and failed in one main batch. So the question is: which is valid, the error result or the test?

Yes, I recognize that MS can abuse UEFI. Given that my work machines are WinXXXXX I don't have a choice about that, and I would assume that at some point there will be mobos that aren't controlled by M$.

My question is ten times simpler: If this thing is flashable memory, etc., doesn't it open the doors to way more cracking by folks I'd really rather avoid, that is, identity thieves et. al? How is going away from silicon going to affect this?

For every thousand people wringing their hands about all of the "coulda shoulda woulda(s)", there seems to be only a voice or two that really comprehends the size of either the quake or the Tsunami. Yes, TEPCO and the government regulators should have paid attention to what other researchers were saying about the likelihood of a big tsunami hitting the Tokai plain, including the area where Fukushima Daiichi, etc. were located.

I lived in three of the areas hardest hit: Ishinomaki, Northeast Sendai, and Fukushima. Damages further north and south on the coast are equally indescribable. To put it in perspective though..... Let's say California got pitched the same distance to the west that Japan did in the mega quake. There would now be an eight foot moat around anything west of the fault line. Any building lower than about 30 feet (the highest tsunami readings were nearly double that) not made of pretty much stone, brick, or cement would be gone. Assume you'd built a ten meter sea wall -- and then not only does the seawall get smacked by the quake, but the quake takes out all the backup systems designed to shut your big old project down safely -- and the roads required to get new backup equipment in place. In fact, pretty much all you can do is spray water on a hot spot.

You'd have as much luck avoiding a disastrous ending as you would n putting out a forest fire with the results of that 32 oz big gulp soda you drank an hour before the fire broke loose.

Any questions?

This would be NEWS.... or is news, but not technology -- yet. Nearly the last sentence in the article states that it worked: at higher frequencies than are likely to be found and therefore useful at the vibrations available where MEMS devices normally would be used. In other words useful news that matters -- "once the lab techies make it work for real world conditions."

Thought that was supposed to be well established by DNA research.... and now we are being told that they can't get the count below 10,000? Make up your minds, science folks.

There are aspects of the law that are good-- strengthening the reporting requirements, etc. to make sure an abuse case can't be suppressed by the school administration, et. al. The problem is quite profound in terms of our current legal system in fact. A comparable case is that "it is legal in the United States to buy certain types of high explosives, but not to make them", as the buying can be regulated so that not just anyone can go out and buy TNT at the local "five and dime let's make a bomb shop". But because of the Bill of Rights, nearly anyone (felons excluded) can own just about any type of "arms" (weapons) because we have the right to keep and bear arms. And that right is strongly protected.

Even though we all agree that teachers coercing or molesting students is a bad thing, it's not a preventable by destroying an aspect of the bill of rights thing. They call it the slippery slope and it's the same kind of thing with free speech. You are free to yell "fire" at the top of your lungs --but not in a public place --unless there is actually a fire. So the laws designed to protect students can't just say who can talk to whom and how as a method of preventing child abuse, they have to be crafted so dang specifically that they fit existing crime statutes, for example, it's illegal to engage in speech "soliciting" or "coercing" behaviors such as sex with minors, prostitution, etc., but not to call and talk to a student about an activity or grade. And a parent monitoring a child's FB account would have the right to raise holy hell for any teacher risking that kind of speech, etc. online anyway.

So the likelihood of the freedom of speech issue surviving a court challenge as written is probably nil.

(EFF ==> Electronic Freedom Foundation, btw).