I shared this story a few weeks ago on my Facebook page. Here were some of the responses from "typical" americans:

- "I'm sure there's more to this story than you are hearing. My friend is a soldier and he's a good person, as are his commanders."

- "You are too nuts for me. The government can be trusted."

- "I'm okay with this. Government needs to be able to root-out the terrorists inside our country."

And so on.
I am saddened.

>>>most of these will be unbelievably terrible
>>>Sci-fi is very, very difficult to translate to the screen.

Precisely. A magazine (Analog?) recently published their top 20 movies based on solid science.

They only came-up with 11:
Destination Moon (1950). This movie was made with the involvement of the space community of the day and Robert Heinlein who wrote the story it was based on.
Predator (1987)
The Abyss (1989)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Credit Arthur C. Clarke and Kubrik
2010 (1984)
Contact (1997). Credit Carl Sagan
Deep Impact (1998)
Gattaca (1998)
Red Planet (2000)
Minority Report (2002)
Primer (2004)

As for the movies of Summer 2011, only "now" and "rise of the apes" looks like "true" science fiction. Although it's hard to say until I actually see it.

>>>Why would an AI care?

It's the Zeroth Law - "...not harm humanity, not by inaction allow humanity to be harmed." Haven't you seen the Will Smith Robot movie, or read Asimov's Foundation & Earth?

Of course one of the problems with the Zeroth Law, according to Asimov, was that the robot can never be sure if he is making the correct choice, due to the inability to predict the future. Psychohistory provides a solution, albeit an imperfect one (it can be derailed by the unexpected).

QUOTE: "The law restricts access to most electronic communications by government officials, allows state agencies to charge higher costs to answer records requests, and places the burden of proof about whether a record is public on the person asking to see the record.

"The cards are stacked against citizens so badly that almost everything can be kept private," Cuillier said. "They can say no to every request and there's nothing that can be done."

I would argue that the government is taxpayer-supported, therefore all the information belongs to the Utah citizens, free of charge. Charging people outside the state might be reasonable, but charging your own citizens makes no sense. Perhaps it's time Utah dissolve its government and create a new one.

>>>A right, by definition, does not require action on the part of another.

Well said.
People just have to learn that what they publish, just like a newspaper, becomes a permanent part of the record. (Or at least until the paper or server dies.) Some servers like Google groups let you erase old messages but most, like slashdot, do not. (Which is why I post under aliases.)

- Google (and other corporations) need to be investigated at every opportunity, and their licenses revoked (or broken-apart like ATT) if found guilty. The semi-equivalent of a prison sentence.

And no I don't consider google a "good" corporation. I don't understand people who do?

My house is dark (to save energy).

The real issue is not the amount of radiation but where it is FOCUSED on the body - i.e. on the skin.

If we continue using these things, there will be a rash of skin cancer outbreaks among weekly travelers. Also sterilization of men's sperm too.

>>>>>- Government owns cables that are 50-optics bundled together..... companies like MSN or AOL or Apple or Comcast or Verizon then lease those lines. That way customers would have upto 50 different companies to choose from --- a true free market.
>>
>>Monticello got their asses sued off by TDS when they tried it.

Who? What?
More info please.

'I spent so many years battling with Linux and something new is broken every time

Precisely.
Linux is GREAT when it works, but can be a real PITA when it doesn't. For example my brother's Ubuntu 9.1 laptop still doesn't play flash videos (except youtube), and I can't figure out why. It also doesn't handle Atari Stella emulator very well (half the ROMs don't work) or connection to Netscape Dialup.

So I decided that I'll use Windows as my base (since it's free with the computer), and open source for everything else (OpenOffice, Firefox, WinAmp, etc).

>>>We are a representative democracy

No.
A Democracy is run by a simple 51% majority.. i.e. no laws but simple 51-49 votes by the legislature..... which means there are no laws to protect your individual rights. (If you're still not understanding, see Ancient Athens and how the Demos killed Socrates, because he exercised free speech, and they didn't like his opinion, so the majority voted to kill him.)

>>>or a democratic republic

Correct.
.

I've read about this guy in the Economist.

Basically he started selling his book at $2.99, dropped it to 99 cents when it started sliding to the bottom of the Best selling chart, raised it to $2.99 when it peaked, dropped it to 99 when it moved to the bottom, and repeat.

So his total earnings are a combination of 0.99 and 2.99 mixed together, as he played with the price to maximize his profits. He's a very good businessman.

"If I knew how to do computer, I would help You so you should help me." Well my brother did help me move from my parents' house to my apartment --- ten years ago.

Meanwhile the computer service continues onward year-after-year-after-year.

And I wouldn't mind if he actually LEARNED something, but he's still stuck at the "how do I make firefox fill the whole screen" or "I have firefox open - how do I get back to desktop?" stage (try minimize and maximize like I taught you back in 1999). He never learns.

They are being selfish keeping this all to themselves! (just kidding)

300+ MPG - http://www.volkswagen.co.uk/volkswagen-world/news/282/volkswagen-unveils-the-xl1-super-efficient-vehicle-in-qatar
250 MPG - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_1-litre_car
88 MPG 5-seater - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Lupo#Lupo_3L

I'm one of those who doesn't do updates. Mainly because I've read too many horror stories of updates making computers unbootable, or breaking the software, or whatever.

Instead I wait a month-or-so until I'm sure there's no negative outcomes being reported by the press.