They are so happy to do this because they own companies that produce copyrighted content. This is not okay. In an effort to get broadband out to larger numbers of people Comcast has been granted monopolies, subsidies, easements, and other things in the public domain. They should not be able to use that public domain to make sure that they can distribute and protect their own content. As soon as they took handouts from the public they lost the right to be anything but a "dumb" connection. I can't understandy why the FCC allows Comcast to exist as it does today - with clear conflicts of interest between their obligation to fairly contribute to the public domain and their need to make as much money as they can from the production of copyrighted content (that they distribute on their infrastructure).

While your prose is pretty, your conclusion rests upon our acceptance of your face/body anthropomorphism of the government. The president isn't the face of a body. The president is the head of the excutive branch. The NSA, FBI, CIA, US Marshals, etc. all report (eventually) to him. He could stop most of this tomorrow. Sure, he wouldn't be able to stop it all immediately (some operations would linger on until discovered and dismantled), but he could appoint people to make sure it was all stopped within the year. He is the one person in the government who can make that call unilaterally. He has chosen not to do so. He's not powerless.

I'm sure there could be lots of conjecture about the limits of presidential power in the real world or "who is really pulling the strings," but that is what it is - conjecture.

To me, the buck stops at the head of the executive branch.

This is a much better idea. The three word combination has several problems. First, it is arbitrary. blue.genteal.kilowatt could be anywhere. green.angry.beaver might be right next store. You'd never know just by looking at the names. Which brings us to part two - to get any use out of the names you need access to a database maintained by a 3rd party - one that could go away at any moment and which is probably only available with internet access.

Your method allows easy-to-remember words that can be linked to things for which context is readily available (most maps and globes will do and a simple mapping program will be even better).

The one thing it doesn't account for is language differences. cat.dog.snow is probably different in English than in Inuit or Korean.

They should be using it to help provide additional cooling to the data center. So, if you have to switch over to power generated by the release of compressed air, you should be able to divert the lower temperature air to the data center to lower your cooling need and decrease the overall power draw. Of course, this all sounds good, but the actual implemention is surely fraught with issues.

I read an article on this once. Unfortunately, I'm unable to find the link, but I'm sure enough searching would turn it up if you're interested. The article referenced a study that found that people experienced an increased level of distraction when they could only hear one side of a conversation taking place around them. The writer of the study believed this was due to the fact that your brain feels the need to "fill in" the part of the conversation that it can't hear. Doing so requires a greater degree of mental resource and, thus, leads to greater distractioin.

This made me laugh out loud. A toast to you my good AC.

There's a difference between killing time while waiting for something better to come along and making a deliberate investment of time in gaming. I'd say that most mobile games qualify as the former while most console and PC games qualify as the latter. At this point, mobile games don't seem like much a threat to console games. Sure, my kids like Angry Birds as much as anyone else. They'll play it when they're riding in the car, at a family BBQ, waiting for the bus, or some other place they'd rather not be. I've never seen them dropped off by the school bus only to burst in the front door, plop down on the couch, and try to tackle the next level of Angry Birds. I've seen them try to do that many a time with games like Fallout or Bioshock. I say "try" only because I typically won't let them veg out on video games prior to completion of homework and chores.

I don't disagree at all with your point. The part that I also think is important, however, is the fact that you state that history belongs to all of us. To mea, that means its maintenance and preservation need to be paid for by all of us - not the landowner by whom it was discovered. I would expect just compensation for time, lost opportunity, or seizure of property to be appropriate. Of course, this would need to be paid for via some government fund - I suggest pulling that money from the TSA.

Other than the gaming functionality, everything else they seem to offer is already part of my living room hardware. I can watch Netflix, Hulu, Crackle, etc. on my Smart TV, my Blu-ray player, and my PS3. Oh, and I don't have to pay for Xbox Live to do any of those things either. All three can also connect to my home media server via DLNA and/or Medialink (Plex). It seems that this functionality is standard on almost any electronic device you place in your living room these days. I think I paid around $100 for my blu-ray player (with built-in wifi).

Sure, there are other features like Connect and voice command, but I find those mostly silly and useless. They are features in which I have zero interest. I'm sure some others feel differently.

In that case, it comes down to gaming. My PC (with Steam) handles that beautifully - probably better than will the Xbox One. I'll admit, though, that it isn't in my living room. I guess I could see getting this for my kids to replace their 360, but not at the day-one price point at which it will likely be introduced. I'll wait to see if it ends up being as problematic as the 360 and, if not, may pick one up when it hits $199. If not, I'll give the kids my PS3 when their 360 dies for the 4th time.

What would be the point? I can already stream live radio from a vast number of stations from all over legally and with no cost. Heck, a fair number of stations even allow you to stream recorded broadcasts for nothing.

Thank you. The more abundant something is, the more likely someone is to "discover it." Let's say that I got a large cage. On the bottom of the cage I put a piece of paper that was 60% white, 30% blue, and 10% black. I then found two blind lab rats and said that one could find black and the other could find blue. I noted that the rats would stop moving when they were on the color they were "able" to find. Ruling out external factors such as the black squares being warmer (and, as such, attracting the rats), I think we would all expect the rat that can find the color blue to have the highest success rate.

Judging from a quick google image search of groundwater maps of the US and iron ore maps of the US I think it's likely that a water dowser would be much more successful than a metal dowser.

Why are computers that store/control extremely sensitive government information and processes (plans for weapons, locations of operatives, power grid controls, etc.) accessable via the internet? It would seem that the government should have its own pipes that are used for these purposes. They could then turn all of the security they want on those pipes - leaving the broader internet alone. Sure, the pipes could still be infiltrated, but there would have to be some sort of physical breach. In addition, there would be far fewer nodes to monitor.

I understand the need to protect the data of things like systemically important financial institutions, but I think that's an entirely different type of security.

Foreclose on our country? When you are referring to 'bad paper' I assume you are talking about government bonds. Those bonds are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States. There's no collateral. There's nothing on which to foreclose. If the U.S. doesn't pay it's debt on time it will hurt our credit and make future borrowing much more expensive (if not impossible), but there really is no recourse that involves seizure of property for the holders of the debt.

You also mention boardrooms - something that makes me thing you mean private paper. Certainly China holds a lot of private debt issued by US companies as well. I suppose they could 'call' that debt, but they could only do so subject to the provisions of the bond contracts. The same goes for other debt or insurance they own with call provisions. Then, even if you grant those provisions are met, many companies would find their assets fairly well protected by bankruptcy.

So, China could make life much more difficult for our government and our companies if it chose to do so, but it couldn't just tweak its financial holdings and then hop in and take everything over.

If you put one of these in a bar and charged $.50 per face scan you'd make a fortune. At this point, this is probably all that this is good for anyhow.

He's free to say what he wants. I'm free to choose to boycott his work. His publisher is free to choose not to publish his work. His illustrator is free not to work with him. I'm sick and tired of people acting like free speech means speech without consequences. It doesn't. The government can't throw you in jail or treat you differently because of what you say (some exceptions to that rule of course), but everyone else is free to react as they see fit (within standard legal boundaries).

Now, one could argue that publishers have some sort of moral obligation to publish things regardless of controversy, but that's a different argument entirely.